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SUustrateU 


CRITICAL    AND    MISCELLANEOUS 

ESSAYS 

COLLECTED    AND    REPUBLLSHED 
(First  Time,  1839;  Final,  1869) 

BY 

THOMAS     CARLYLE 


Vol.  I. 


CHICAGO 
THE    AMERICAN    BOOKMART 

106  Wabash  Avenue 


m 

URL 

CONTENTS.         r^c:^i.o..  > 

v./ 


Paqe 

Jean  Paul  Friedeich  Richteu 3 

State  of  German  Literature 26 

Life  and  Writings  of  Werner 84^ 

Goethe's  Helena • 14;2 

Goethe .  194 

Burns 256 

The  Life  of  Heynb 315 

German  Playwrights 351 

Voltaire 390 

Signs  of  the  Tijies 462 


CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS 

ESSAYS 

COLLECTED  AND  REPUBLISHED. 

(FIRST  TIME,  1839;  FINAL,  1869.) 


CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS 

ESSAYS. 


JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.^ 

[1827.] 

Dr.  John-sox,  it  is  said,  when  he  first  heard  of  Boswell's 
intention  to  write  a  life  of  him,  announced,  with  decision 
enough,  that  if  he  thought  Boswell  really  meant  to  write  his 
life,  he  would  prevent  it  by  taking  BoswelVs !  That  great 
authors  should  actually  employ  this  preventive  against  bad 
biographers  is  a  thing  we  would  by  no  means  recommend :  but 
the  truth  is,  that,  rich  as  we  are  in  Biography,  a  well-written 
Life  is  almost  as  rare  as  a  well-spent  one ;  and  there  are  cer- 
tainly 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 
"  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 

^  Edinburgh  Review,  No.  91.  —  Jean  Paul  Friedrick  Richttr's  Lehen, 
nehst  Characleristilc  seiner  Werke ;  von  Heinrich  DSrinq.  (Jcaa  Paul  Fricdricli 
Richter's  Life,  with  a  Skotch  of  his  Works;  by  Heiurich  During. )  Gotha ; 
Heiinings,  182G.     12mo,  pp.  20S. 


4  CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

leave  his  character  as  public  property,  than  a  crowd  of  little 
men  rushes  towards  it.  There  they  are  gathered  together, 
blinking  up  to  it  with  such  vision  as  tliey  have,  scanning  it 
from  afar,  hovering  round  it  this  way  and  that,  each  cunningly 
endeavoring,  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- 
tremely small  in  size,  that  to  expect  any  true  image,  or  any  ^ 
image  Avhatever  from  it,  is  out  of  the  question. 

Hichter  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 
'IVcimar  Authors;  a  series  of  strange  little  Biographies,  be- 
ginning with  Schiller,  and  already  extending  over  Wieland 
and  Herder ;  —  now  comprehending,  probably  by  conquest, 
I^lopstock  also ;  and  lastly,  by  a  sort  of  droit  (Tauhaine,  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 
indisputable.  Doring  is  sometimes  lucky  in  this  privilege ; 
otherwise  his  manner  of  composition,  being  so  peculiar, 
miglit  occasion  difficulty  now  and  then.  Biographies,  accord- 
ing to  Doring's  method,  are  a  simple  business.  You  first  as- 
certain, from  the  Leipsic  Conversatlonslexicon,  or  Jcirdens's 
Pocticul  Lexicon,  or  Flogcl,  or  Koch,  or  other  such  Compendium 
or  Handbook,  the  date  and  place  of  the  proposed  individual's 
birth,  his  parentage,  trade,  appointments,  and  the  titles  of  his 
works  ;  the  date  of  his  death  you  already  know  from  the  news- 
papers :  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 
hiij  name  ia  it,  you  cut  it  out,  and  carry  it  away.     In  this 


JEAN   PAUL  PRIEDRICH  RICHTER.  5' 

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  ;  amorphous, 
pointing  every  way  but  to  the  zenith,  here  a  block  of  granite, 
there  a  mass  of  pipe-clay ;  till  the  whole  finishes,  when  the 
materials  are  finished;  —  and  you  leave  it  standing  to  pos- 
terity, like  some  miniature  Stonehenge,  a  perfect  architectural 
enigma. 

To  speak  without  figure,  this  mode  of  life-writing  has  its 
disadvantages.  For  one  thing,  the  composition  cannot  well 
be  what  the  critics  call  harmonious :  and,  indeed,  Herr  Do- 
ring's  transitions  are  often  abrupt  enough.  The  hero  changes 
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  of 
life  and  business,  when  instantly  some  paragraph  opens  iinder 
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  Dciring  orders  these  things  differently. 

After  all,  however,  we  have  no  pique  against  poor  Doring : 
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  Littera- 
furblatt,  which  has  commended  his  diligence,  his  fidelity,  and, 
strange  to  say,  his  method,  he  advances  with  erect  countenance 
and  firm  hoof,  and  even  recalcitrates  contemptuously  against 


6  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

such  as  do  him  offence.     Gliick  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- 
ceased himself,  partly  by  Otto,  his  oldest  friend  and  the 
appointed  Editor  of  his  Works,  being  actually  in  preparation. 
This  rouses  the  indignant  spirit  of  Doring,  and  he  stoutly 
asseverates  that,  his  documents  being  altogether  authentic, 
this  biography  is  no  pseudo-biography.  With  still  greater 
truth  he  might  have  asseverated  that  it  was  no  biography  at 
all.  Well  are  he  and  Hennings  of  Gotha  aware  that  this 
thing  of  shreds  and  patches  has  been  vamped  together  for  sale 
only.  Except  a  few  letters  to  Kunz,  the  Bamberg  Bookseller, 
which  turn  mainly  on  the  purchase  of  spectacles,  and  the  jour- 
neyings  and  freightage  of  two  boxes  that  used  to  pass  and 
repass  between  Richter  and  Kunz's  circulating  library ;  with 
tliree  or  four  notes  of  similar  importance,  and  chiefly  to  other 
booksellers,  there  are  no  biographical  documents  here,  which 
were  not  open  to  all  Europe  as  well  as  to  Ileinrich  Doring. 
Indeed,  very  nearly  one  half  of  the  Life  is  occupied  with  a 
description  of  the  funeral  and  its  appendages,  —  how  the 
"sixty  torches,  with  a  number  of  lanterns  and  pitchpans," 
were  arranged ;  how  this  Patrician  or  Professor  followed  that, 
through  Fried  rich  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  solemnize  the  memory  of 
Richter ;  among  the  rest,  one  in  the  Museum  of  Frankfort-on- 
Mayn ;  where  a  Doctor  Borne  speaks  another  long  speech,  if 
possible  in  still  more  decided  bombast.  Next  come  threnodies 
from  all  the  four  winds,  mostly  on  very  splay-footed  metre. 
The  whole  of  which  is  here  snatched  from  the  kind  oblivion 
of  the  newspapers,  and  "lives  in  Settle's  numbers  one  day 
more." 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.  7 

We  have  too  much  reverence  for  the  name  of  Richter  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 
voice  must  become  mute,  and  nothing  be  heard  in  its  stead  but 
the  whoop  of  quite  earthly  voices,  lamenting,  or  pretending  to 
lament.  Far  from  us  be  all  remembi-ance  of  Doring  and  Com- 
pany, while  we  speak  of  Richter  !  But  his  own  Works  give  us 
some  glimpses  into  his  singular  and  noble  nature ;  and  to  our 
readers  a  few  words  on  this  man,  certainly  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable 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  news- 
paper critics  :  —  "  Providence  has  given  to  the  French  the  em- 
pire 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-colored,  far-grasping,  every  way  perplexed  and  extraordi- 
nary is  his  mode  of  writing.  To  translate  him  properly  is 
next  to  impossible  ;  nay,  a  dictionary  of  his  works  has  actually 
been  in  part  published  for  the  use  of  German  readers  !  These 
things  have  restricted  his  sphere  of  action,  and  may  long  re- 
strict it,  to  his  own  country  :  but  there,  in  return,  he  is  a 
favorite  of  the  first  class  ;  studied  through  all  his  intricacies 
with  trustful  admiration,  and  a  love  which  tolerates  much. 
During  the  last  forty  years,  he  has  been  continually  before 
the  public,  in  various  capacities,  and  growing  generally  in  es- 
teem with  all  ranks  of  critics  ;  till,  at  length,  his  gainsayers 
have  either  been  silenced  or  convinced  ;  and  Jean  Paul,  at  first 
reckoned  half-mad,  has  long  ago  vindicated  his  singularities 
to  nearly  universal  satisfaction,  and  now  combines  po]iularity 
with  real  depth  of  endowment,  in   perhaps  a  greater  degree 


8  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  read- 
ers, if  it  seem  worthy  :  meanwhile,  the  history  of  his  life,  so 
far  as  outward  events  characterize  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  Gymnasium 
of  the  place,  and  was  afterwards  promoted  to  be  clergyman  at 
Schwarzbach  on  the  Saale.  Eichter's  early  education  was  of 
the  scantiest  sort ;  but  his  fine  faculties  and  unwearied  dili- 
gence supplied  every  defect.  Unable  to  purchase  books,  he 
borrowed  what  he  could  come  at,  and  transcribed  from  them, 
often  great  part  of  their  contents,  —  a  habit  of  excerpting 
which  continued  with  him  through  life,  and  influenced,  in 
more  than  one  way,  his  mode  of  writing  and  study.  To  the 
last,  he  was  an  insatiable  and  universal  reader :  so  that  his 
extracts  accumulated  on  his  hands,  "till  they  filled  whole 
chests."  In  1780,  he  went  to  the  University  of  Leipsic ;  with 
the  highest  character,  in  spite  of  the  impediments  which  he 
had  struggled  with,  for  talent  and  acquirement.  Like  his 
father,  he  was  destined  for  Theology  ;  from  which,  however, 
his  vagrant  genius  soon  diverged  into  Poetry  and  Philosophy, 
to  the  neglect,  and,  ere  long,  to  the  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  ;  —  Bto- 
graphical  Recreations  under  the  Cranium  of  a  Giantess ;  — 
Selection  from  the  Papers  of  the  Devil ;  —  and  the  like  !  In 
these  indescribable  performances,  the  splendid  faculties  of  the 
writer,  luxuriating  as  they  seem  in  utter  riot,  could  not  be 
disputed;    nor,  with  all   its   extravagance,  the  fundamental 


JEAN   PAUL   FRIEDRIGH   RICHTER.  9' 

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  humor,  sensibility,  force  and 
penetration.  His  writings  procured  him  friends  and  fame  ; 
and  at  length  a  wife  and  a  settled  provision.  With  Caroline 
Mayer,  his  good  spouse,  and  a  pension  (in  1802)  from  the  King 
of  Bavaria,  he  settled  in  Bayreuth,  the  capital  of  his  native 
province ;  where  he  lived  thenceforth,  diligent  and  celebrated 
in  many  new  departments  of  Literature  ;  and  died  on  the 
14th  of  November,  1825,  loved  as  well  as  admired  by  all  his 
countrymen,  and  most  by  those  who  had  known  him  most' 
intimately. 

A  huge,  irregular  man,  both  in  mind  and  person  (for  his 
Portrait  is  quite  a  jjhysiognomical  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 
Avas  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  reverence  and 
overflowing  tenderness.  "  Unhappy  is  the  man,"  says  he, 
"for  whom  his  own  mother  has  not  made  all  other  mothers 
venerable  ! "  And  elsewhere  :  "  0  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  Doring,  almost  the 
only  memorable  thing  he  has  written  in  this  Volume  :  — 

"  Eichter's  studying  or  sitting  apartment  offered,  about  this 
time  (1793),  a  true  and  beautiful  emblem  of  his  simple  and 


10  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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 
stove  and  dresser,  Jean  Paul  was  sitting  in  a  corner  of  the 
same  room,  at  a  simple  writing-desk,  with  few  or  no  books 
about  him,  but  merely  with  one  or  two  drawers  containing  ex- 
cerpts and  manuscripts.  The  jingle  of  the  household  operations 
seemed  not  at  all  to  disturb  him,  any  more  than  did  the  cooing 
of  the  pigeons,  which  fluttered  to  and  fro  in  the  chamber,  —  a 
place,  indeed,  of  considerable  size."  ^ 

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  attem- 
pered ;  that  so  much  vehemence  and  so  much  softness  will  go 
together. 

The  expected  Edition  of  Eichter'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-Prop het,  and  in- 
structions in  the  Art  of  Falling  Asleep.  His  chief  productions 
are  Novels  :  the  Unsichtbare  Loge  (Invisible  Lodge)  ;  Flegcl- 
jahre  (Wild-Oats);  Life  of  Fixlein ;  the  Jiibelsenior (Vavsou  in 
Jubilee)  ;  Schmelzle's  Journey  to  Flatz  ;  Katzenberger's  Journey 
to  the  Bath  ;  Life  of  Fibel ;  with  many  lighter  pieces  ;  and  two 
works  of  a  higher  order,  Hesperus  and  Titan,  the  largest  and 
the  best  of  his  Novels.  It  was  the  former  that  first  (in  1795) 
introduced  him  into  decisive  and  universal  estimation  with  his 
countrymen  :  the  latter  he  himself,  with  the  most  judicious  of 
his  critics,  regarded  as  his  masterpiece.  But  the  name  Novelist, 
as  we  in  England  must  understand  it,  would  ill  describe  so  vast 

1  Page  8. 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RTCHTER.  11 

and  discursive  a  genius :  for,  with  all  his  grotesque,  tumul- 
tuous pleasantry,  Kichter  is  a  man  of  a  truly  earnest,  nay  high 
and  solemn  character ;  and  seldom  writes  without  a  meaning 
far  beyond  the  sphere  of  common  romancers.  Hesperus  and 
Titan  themselves,  though  in  form  nothing  more  than  "  novels 
of  real  life,"  as  the  Minerva  Press  would  say,  have  solid  metal 
enough  in  them  to  furnish  whole  circulating  libraries,  were  it 
beaten  into  the  usual  filigree ;  and  much  which,  attenuate  it  as 
we  might,  no  quarterly  subscriber  could  well  carry  with  him. 
Amusement  is  often,  in  part  almost  always,  a  mean  with  Eich- 
ter ;  rarely  or  never  his  highest  end.  His  thoughts,  his  feel- 
ings, 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  endeavor  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  per- 
vades 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  Eichter  has  accomplished 
much.  His  Vorschule  der  Aesthetik  (Introduction  to  Esthet- 
ics ')  is  a  work  on  Poetic  Art,  based  on  principles  of  no  ordi- 
nary depth  and  compass,  abounding  in  noble  views,  and, 
notwithstanding  its  fi'olicsome  exuberance,  in  sound  and  subtle 
criticism  ;  esteemed  even  in  Germany,  where  criticism  has  long 
been  treated  of  as  a  science,  and  by  such  persons  as  Winkel- 
mann,  Kant,  Herder,  and  the  Schlegels.  Of  this  work  we 
could  speak  long,  did  our  limits  allow.  We  fear  it  might  as- 
tonish 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.  —  Eichter  has  also  written  on 

1  From  alffedvofiai,  to  feel.  A  word  invented  by  Banmgarten  (some  eighty- 
years  ago),  to  express  generally  the  Science  of  the  Fine  Arts;  and  now  iu  uni- 
versal use  among  the  Germans.  Perhaps  we  also  might  as  well  adopt  it ;  at 
lea«t  if  any  such  science  should  ever  arise  among  \im. 


12  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Education,  a  work  entitled  Levana ;  distinguished  by  keen 
practical  sagacity,  as  well  as  generous  sentiment,  and  a  certain" 
sober  magnificence  of  speculation  ;  the  whole  presented  in  that 
singular  style  which  characterizes  the  man.  Germany  is  rich 
in  works  on  Education ;  richer  at  present  than  any  other  coun- 
try :  it  is  there  only  that  some  echo  of  the  Lockes  and  Miltons, 
speaking  of  this  high  matter,  may  still  be  heard  ;  and  speaking 
of  it  in  the  language  of  our  own  time,  with  insight  into  the 
actual  wants,  advantages,  perils  and  prospects  of  this  age. 
Among  the  writers  on  this  subject  Richter  holds  a  high  place ; 
if  we  look  chiefly  at  his  tendency  and  aims,  perhaps  the 
highest.  —  The  Clavis  Flchtiana  is  a  ludicrous  performance, 
known  to  us  only  by  report ;  but  Eichter  is  said  to  possess  the 
merit,  while  he  laughs  at  Fichte,  of  understanding  him  ;  a  merit 
among  Eichte's  critics  which  seems  to  be  one  of  the  rarest.- 
Beport  also,  we  regret  to  say,  is  all  that  we  know  of  the  Cam- 
paner  Thai,  a  Discourse  on  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul ;  one 
of  Richter's  beloved  topics,  or  rather  the  life  of  his  whole  phi- 
losophy, glimpses  of  Avhich  look  forth  on  us  from  almost  every 
one  cf  his  writings.  He  died  while  engaged,  under  recent  and 
almost  total  blindness,  in  enlarging  and  remodelling  this  Cam- 
paner  Thai ;  the  unfinished  manuscript  was  borne  upon  his 
cofiin  to  the  burial  vault :  and  Klopstock's  hymn,  "  Auferstehen 
tolrst  du,  Thou  shalt  arise,  my  soul,"  can  seldom  have  been 
sung  with  more  appropriate  application  than  over  the  grave 
of  Jean  Paul. 

We  defy  the  most  careless  or  prejudiced  reader  to  peruse 
these  works  Avithout  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,  Eichter  would  be  speedily  enough  disposed 
of;  pronounced  a  mystic,  a  German  dreamer,  a  rash  and  pre- 
sumptouf}  innovator ;  and  so  consigned,  with  equanimity,  per- 
haps with  a  certain  jubilee,  to  the  Limbo  appointed  for  all  such 
wind-bags  and  deceiDtions.    Originality  is  a  thing  we  constantly 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTEK.  13 

clamor  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  view  ;  unhappily  scarcely  any- 
thing is  perfectly  plain,  but  what  is  also  perfectly  common. 
The  current  coin  of  the  realm  passes  into  all  hands  ;  and  be  it 
gold,  silver,  or  copper,  is  acceptable  and  of  known  value :  but 
with  new  ingots,  with  foreign  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 
Kichter.  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  gram- 
mar, 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  subsidiary 
clauses ;  invents  hundreds  of  new  words,  alters  old  ones,  or  by 
hyphen  chains  and  pairs  and  packs  them  together  into  most 
jarring  combinatiori ;  in  short,  produces  sentences  of  the  most 
heterogeneous,  lumbering,  interminable  kind.  Figures  with- 
out limit ;  indeed  the  whole  is  one  tissue  of  metaphors,  and 
similes,  and  allusions  to  all  the  provinces  of  Earth,  Sea  and 
Air;  interlaced  with  epigrammatic  breaks,  vehement  bursts, 
or  sardonic  turns,  interjections,  quips,  puns,  and  even  oaths  ! 
A  perfect  Indian  jungle  it  seems  ;  a  boundless,  unparalleled 
imbroglio  ;  nothing  on  all  sides  but  darkness,  dissonance,  con- 
fusion worse  confounded !  Then  the  style  of  the  whole  cor- 
responds, in  perplexity  and  extravagance,  with  that  of  the 
parts.  Every  work,  be  it  fiction  or  serious  treatise,  is  embaled 
in  some  fantastic  wrappage,  some  mad  narrative  accov;nting 
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  Euroj^e  in  his 
novels  ;  the  cities  of  Flachsenfingen,  Ilaarhaar,  Scheerau,  and 
so  forth,  with  their  princes,  and  privy -councillors;  and  serene 


14         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

highnesses  ;  most  of  whom,  odd  enough  fellows  every  way,  are 
Richter's  private  acquaintances,  talk  with  him  of  state  matters 
(in  the  purest  Tory  dialect),  and  often  incite  him  to  get  on 
with  his  writing.  No  story  proceeds  without  the  most  erratic 
digressions,  and  voluminous  tagrags  rolling  after  it  in  many 
a  snaky  twine.  Ever  and  anon  there  occurs  some  "Extra- 
leaf,"  with  its  satirical  petition,  program,  or  other  wonderful 
intercalation,  no  mortal  can  foresee  on  what.  It  is,  indeed, 
a  mighty  maze  ;  and  often  the  panting  reader  toils  after  him 
in  vain ;  or,  baffled  and  spent,  inaignantly  stops  short,  and 
retires,  perhaps  forever. 

All  this,  we  must  admit,  is  true  of  Richter ;  but  much  more 
.  is  true  also.  Let  us  not  turn  from  him  after  the  first  cursory 
glance,  and  imagine  we  have  settled  his  account  by  the  words 
Rhapsody  and  Affectation.  They  are  cheap  words,  and  of 
sovereign  potency ;  we  should  see,  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  "  rhap- 
sodists  "  are  men  of  science,  of  solid  learning,  of  rigorous 
study,  and  accurate,  extensive,  nay  universal  knowledge  ;  as 
he  is.  With  regard  to  affectation  also,  there  is  much  to  be 
said.  The  essence  of  affectation  is  that  it  be  assumed:  the 
character  is,  as  it  were,  forcibly  crushed  into  some  foreign 
mould,  in  the  hope  of  being  thereby  reshaped  and  beautified  ; 
the  unhappy  man  persuades  himself  that  he  has  in  truth 
become  a  new  creature,  of  the  wonderfulest  symmetry ;  and 
so  he  moves  about  with  a  conscious  air,  though  every  move- 
ment betrays  not  symmetry  but  dislocation.  This  it  is  to  be 
affected,  to  walk  in  a  vain  show.  But  the  strangeness  alone 
is  no  proof  of  the  vanity.  Many  men  that  move  smoothly 
in  the  old-established  railways  of  custom  will  be  found  to 
have  their  affectation ;  and  perhaps  here  and  there  some 
divergent  genius  be  accused  of  it  unjustly.  The  show,  though 
common,  may  not  cease  to  be  vain;  nor  become  so  for  being 
uncommon.     Before  we  censure  a  man  for  seeming  what  he 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  EICHTER.  15 

is  not,  we  should  be  sure  that  we  know  what  he  is.  As  to 
Richter  in  particular,  we  cannot  but  observe,  that,  strange  and 
tumultuous  as  he  is,  there  is  a  certain  benign  composure  visible 
in  his  writings ;  a  mercy,  a  gladness,  a  reverence,  united  in  such 
harmony  as  bespeaks  not  a  false,  but  a  genuine  state  of  mind  ; 
not  a  feverish  and  morbid,  but  a  healthy  and  robust  state. 

The  secret  of  the  matter  is,  that  Richter  requires  more 
study  than  most  readers  care  to  give  him.  As  we  approach 
more  closely,  many  things  grow  clearer.  In  the  man's  own 
sphere  there  is  consistency ;  the  farther  we  advance  into  it, 
we  see  confusion  more  and  more  unfold  itself  into  order,  till 
at  last,  viewed  from  its  proper  centre,  his  intellectual  uni- 
verse, no  longer  a  distorted  incoherent  series  of  air-landscapes, 
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  brightest  and 
kindest  sun. 

Richter  has  been  called  an  intellectual  Colossus ;  and  in 
truth  it  is  somewhat  in  this  light  that  we  view  him.  His 
faculties  are  all  of  gigantic  mould ;  cumbrous,  awkward  in 
their  movements  ;  large  and  splendid,  rather  than  harmonious 
or  beautiful ;  yet  joined  in  living  union ;  and  of  force  and 
compass  altogether  extraordinary.  He  has  an  intellect  vehe- 
ment, rugged,  irresistible  ;  crushing  in  pieces  the  hardest 
problems ;  piercing  into  the  most  hidden  combinations  of 
things,  and  grasping  the  most  distant :  an  imagination  vague, 
sombre,  splendid,  or  appalling ;  brooding  over  the  abysses  of 
Being;  wandering  through  Infinitude,  and  summoning  before 
us,  in  its  dim  religious  light,  shapes  of  brilliancy,  solemnity, 
or  terror :  a  fancy  of  exuberance  literally  unexampled ;  for  it 
pours  its  treasures  with  a  lavishness  which  knows  no  limit, 
hanging,  like  the  sun,  a  jewel  on  every  grass-blade,  and  sow- 
ing the  earth  at  large  with  orient  pearl.  But  deeper  than  all 
these  lies  Humor,  the  ruling  quality  with  Richter ;  as  it  were 
the  central  fire  that  pervades  and  vivifies  his  whole  being. 
He  is  a  humorist  from  his  inmost  soul ;  he  thinks  as  a  humor- 
ist, he  feels,  imagines,  acts  as  a  humorist:  Sport  is  the  ele- 


16  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ment  in  wliich  his  nature  lives  and  works.  A  tumilltuous 
element  for  such  a  nature,  and  wild  work  he  makes  in  it ! 
A  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, 
very  singular  doctrine ;  nay,  we  have  Time  and  Space  them- 
selves playing  fantastic  tricks :  it  is  an  infinite  masquerade ; 
all  Xature  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 
merry-andrew.  Nay,  in  spite  of  its  extravagance,  we  should 
say  that  his  humor  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  un- 
wieldy 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-entrancing, 
as  the  song  of  angels  !  Aversion  itself  with  him  is  not  hatred  ; 
he  despises  much,  but  justly,  with  tolerance  also,  with  placid- 
ity, and  even  a  sort  of  love.  Love,  in  fact,  is  the  atmosphere 
lie  breathes  in,  the  medium  through  which  he  looks.  His  is 
the  spirit  which  gives  life  and  beauty  to  whatever  it  embraces. 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.  17 

Inanimate  Nature  itself  is  no  longer  an  insensible  assemblage 
of  colors  and  perfumes,  but  a  mysterious  Presence,  with  which 
he  communes  in  unutterable  sympathies.  We  might  call  him, 
as  he  once  called  Herder,  "a  Priest  of  Nature,  a  mild  Bra- 
min,"  wandering  amid  spicy  groves,  and  under  benignant 
skies.  The  infinite  Night  with  her  solemn  aspects,  Day,  and 
the  sweet  approach  of  Even  and  Morn,  are  full  of  meaning 
for  him.  He  loves  the  green  Earth  with  her  streams  and 
forests,  her  flowery  leas  and  eternal  skies ;  loves  her  with  a 
sort  of  passion,  in  all  her  vicissitudes  of  light  and  shade ;  his 
spirit  revels  in  her  grandeur  and  charms  ;  expands  like  the 
breeze  over  wood  and  lawn,  over  glade  and  dingle,  stealing 
and  giving  odors. 

It  has  sometimes  been  made  a  wonder  that  things  so  dis- 
cordant should  go  together ;  that  men  of  humor  are  often 
likewise  men  of  sensibility.  But  the  wonder  should  rather 
be  to  see  them  divided ;  to  find  true  genial  humor  dwelling  in 
a  mind  that  was  coarse  or  callous.  The  essence  of  humor  is 
sensibility  ;  warm,  tender  fellow-feeling  with  all  forms  of  ex- 
istence. Nay,  we  may  say  that  unless  seasoned  and  purified 
by  humor,  sensibility  is  apt  to  run  wild ;  will  readily  corrupt 
into  disease,  falsehood,  or,  in  one  word,  sentimentality.  Wit- 
ness Rousseau,  Zimmermann,  in  some  points  also  St.  Pierre  : 
to  say  nothing  of  living  instances  ;  or  of  the  Kotzebues,  and 
other  pale  hosts  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  sport." 
True  humor  is  sensibility,  in  the  most  catholic  and  deepest 
sense ;  but  it  is  this  sport  of  sensibility  ;  wholesome  aud  per- 
fect therefore ;  as  it  were,  the  playful  teasing  fondness  of  a 
mother  to  her  child. 

That  faculty  of  irony,  of  caricature,  which  often  passes  by 
the  name  of  humor,  but  consists  chiefly  in  a  certain  superficial 
distortion  or  reversal  of  objects,  and  ends  at  best  in  laughter, 
bears  no  resemblance  to  the  humor  of  Eiehter.  A  shallow 
endowment  this  ;  and  often  more  a  habit  than  an  endowment. 


18  CRITICAL  i-NP  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

It  is  but  a  poor  fraction  of  humor ;  or  rather,  it  is  the  body 
to  which  the  soul  is  wanting ;  any  life  it  has  being  false,  arti- 
ficial and  irrational.  True  humor  springs  not  more  from  the 
head  than  from  the  heart;  it  is  not  contempt,  its  essence  is 
love ;  it  issues  not  in  laughter,  but  in  still  smiles,  which  lie 
far  deeper.  It  is  a  sort  of  inverse  sublimity;  exalting,  as 
it  were,  into  our  affections  what  is  below  us,  while  sublimity 
draws  down  into  our  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  har- 
mony with  itself,  reconciled  to  the  world  and  its  stintedness 
and  contradiction,  nay  finding  in  this  very  contradiction  new 
elements  of  beauty  as  well  as  goodness.  Among  our  own 
writers,  Shakspeare,  in  this  as  in  all  other  provinces,  must 
have  his  place :  yet  not  the  first ;  his  humor  is  heartfelt, 
exuberant,  warm,  but  seldom  the  tenderest  or  most  subtle. 
Swift  inclines  more  to  simple  irony:  yet  he  had  genuine 
humor  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  humor,  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 
80  ethereal  is  his  humor,  and  in  such  accordance  with  itself  and 
his  whole  noble  nature.  The  Italian  mind  is  said  to  abound 
in  humor ;  yet  their  classics  seem  to  give  us  no  right  emblem 
of  it :  except  perhaps  in  Ariosto,  there  appears  little  in  their 
current  poetry  that  reaches  the  region  of  true  humor.  In 
France,  since  the  days  of  Montaigne,  it  seems  to  be  nearly 
extinct.  Voltaire,  much  as  he  dealt  in  ridicule,  never  rises 
into  humor ;  even  with  Moliere,  it  is  far  more  an  affair  of  the 
understanding  than  of  the  character. 

That,  in  this  point,  Richter  excels  all  German  authors,  is 
saying  much  for  him,  and  may  be  said  truly.  Lessing  has 
humor, —  of  a  sharp,  rigid,  substantial,  and,  on  the  whole, 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER.  19 

genial  sort ;  yet  the  rviling  bias  of  his  mind  is  to  logic.  So 
likewise  has  Wieland,  though  much  diluted  by  the  general 
loquucity  of  his  nature,  and  impoverished  still  farther  hj  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  humor.  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  humor  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 
humor,  can  be  compared  with  Jean  Paul.  He  alone  exists  in 
humor  ;  lives,  moves  and  has  his  being  in  it.  With  him  it  is 
not  so  much  united  to  his  other  qualities,  of  intellect,  fancy, 
imagination,  moral  feeling,  as  these  are  united  to  it ;  or  rather 
unite  themselves  to  it,  and  grow  under  its  warmth,  as  in  their 
proper  temperature  and  climate.  Not  as  if  we  meant  to  assert 
that  his  humor  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  Eabelais,  and  the  best  sensibility  of  Sterne, 
with  the  earnestness,  and,  even  in  slight  portions,  the  sublim- 
ity 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 


20  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

guilty.  That  his  manner  of  writing  is  singular,  nay  in  fact  a 
wild  complicated  Arabesque,  no  one  can  deny.  But  the  true 
question  is,  How  nearly  does  this  manner  of  writing  represent 
his  real  manner  of  thinking  and  existing  ?  With  what  degree 
of  freedom  does  it  allow  this  particular  form  of  being  to  mani- 
fest itself ;  or  what  fetters  and  perversions  does  it  lay  on  such 
manifestation  ?  For  the  great  law  of  culture  is  :  Let  each  be- 
come all  that  he  was  created  capable  of  being ;  expand,  if  pos- 
sible, to  his  full  growth  ;  resisting  all  impediments,  casting  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  physical  or  spiritual 
Nature  :  all  genuine  things  are  what  they  ought  to  be.  The 
reindeer  is  good  and  beautiful,  so  Jikewise  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  splendor,  a  benign  energy,  which  persuades  us  into 
tolerance,  nay  into  love,  of  much  that  might  otherwise  offend. 
Above  all,  this  man,  alloyed  with  imperfections  as  he  may 
be,  is  consistent  and  coherent :  he  is  at  one  with  himself ;  he 
knows  his  aims,  and  pursues  them  in  sincerity  of  heart,  joy- 
fully and  with  undivided  will.     A  harmonious  development 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICETER,  21 

of  being,  the  first  and  last  object  of  all  true  culture,  has  been 
obtained ;  if  not  completely,  at  least  more  completely  than  in 
one  of  a  thousand  ordinary  men.  Nor  let  us  forget  that,  in 
such  a  nature,  it  was  not  of  easy  attainment ;  that  where  much 
Avas  to  be  developed,  some  imperfection  should  be  forgiven. 
It  is  true,  the  beaten  paths  of  Literature  lead  the  safeliest  to 
the  goal ;  and  the  talent  pleases  us  most,  which  submits  to 
shine  with  new  gracefulness  through  old  forms.  Nor  is  the 
noblest  and  most  peculiar  mind  too  noble  or  peculiar  for  work- 
ing by  prescribed  laws  :  Sophocles,  Shakspeare,  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,  however,  will  remain ; 
and  why  should  we  quarrel  with  the  high,  because  it  is  not  the 
highest  ?  Eichter's  worst  faults  are  nearly  allied  to  his  best 
merits  ;  being  chiefly  exuberance  of  good,  irregular  squander- 
ing 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 
indeed  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  Eichter  is  a  new  Planet  in 
the  intellectual  heavens,  we  dare  not  affirm ;  an  atmospheric 
Meteor  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  Eichter's  individual  Works,  of  his  opinions,  his  general 
philosophy  of  life,  we  have  no  room  left  us  to  speak.  Ee- 
garding  his  Novels,  we  may  say,  that,  except  in  some  few 
instances,  and  those  chiefly  of  the  shorter  class,  they  are  not 
what,  in  strict  language,  we  can  term  unities :  witli  much 
eallida  junctura  of  parts,  it  is  rare  that  any  of  them  leaves 
on  us  the  impression  of  a  perfect,  homogeneous,  indivisible 
whole.     A  true  work  of  art  requires  to  be  fused  in  tlie  mind 


22  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  its  creator,  and,  as  it  were,  poured  forth  (from  his  imagi- 
nation, though  not  from  his  pen)  at  one  simultaneous  gush. 
Eichter's  works  do  not  always  bear  sufficient  marks  of  having 
been  in  fusion  ;  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  humor.  In  this  latter  province  he  is  at  home  ;  a  true 
poet,  a  maker  ;  his  Siebenkds,  his  Schmehle,  even  his  Fibel  and 
Fixlein  are  living  figures.  But  in  heroic  personages,  passion- 
ate, massive,  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  uncomplaining.  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  else- 
where. In  his  Dreams  there  is  a  mystic  complexity,  a  gloom, 
and  amid  the  dim  gigantic  half-ghastly  shadows,  gleam ings 
of  a  wizard  splendor,  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. 

Eichter's  Philosophy,  a  matter  of  no  ordinary  interest  both 
as  it  agrees  with  the  common  philosophy  of  Germany  and 
disagrees  with  it,  must  not  be  touched  on  for  the  present. 
One  only  observation  we  shall  make :  it  is  not  mechanical, 
or  sceptical ;  it  springs  not  from  the  forum  or  the  laboratory, 
but  from  the  depths  of  the  human  spirit ;  and  yields  as  its 
fairest  product  a  noble  system  of  Morality,  and  the  firmest 
conviction  of  Religion.  In  this  latter  point  we  reckon  him 
peculiai-ly  worthy  of  study.  To  a  careless  reader  he  might 
seem  the  wildest  of  infidels  ;  for  nothing  can  exceed  the  free- 
dom with  which  he  bandies  to  and  fro  the  dogmas  of  religion, 


JEAN   PAUL  FRIEDRICH  KICHTER.  23 

nay,  sometimes,  the  highest  objects  of  Christian  reverence. 
There  ai'e  passages  of  this  sort,  which  will  occur  to  every 
reader  of  Richter ;  but  which,  not  to  fall  into  the  error  we 
have  already  blamed  in  Madame  de  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,  Epis- 
copal Churches,  Pagodas,  Chapels  of  Ease,  Tabernacles,  and 
Pantheons,  anything  else  but  the  Ethnic  Forecourt  of  the 
Invisible  Temple  and  its  Holy  of  Holies  ?  "  ^  Yet,  indepen- 
dently of  all  dogmas,  nay  perhaps  in  spite  of  many,  Eichter 
is,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  religious.  A  reverence, 
not  a  self-interested  fear,  but  a  noble  reverence  for  the  spirit 
of  all  goodness,  forms  the  crown  and  glory  of  his  culture. 
The  fiery  elements  of  his  nature  have  been  purified  under 
holy  influences,  and  chastened  by  a  principle  of  mercy  and 
humility  into  peace  and  well-doing.  An  intense  and  continual 
faith  in  man's  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,*  "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  per- 
fumes in  the  last  darkness." 

To  reconcile  these  seeming  contradictions,  to  explain  the 
grounds,  the  manner,  the  congruity  of  Richter's  belief,  cannot 
be  attempted  here.  We  recommend  him  to  the  study,  the 
tolerance,  and  even  the  praise,  of  all  men  who  have  inquired 
into  this  highest  of  questions  with  a  right  spirit ;  inquired 
with  the  martyr  fearlessness,  but  also  with  the  martyr  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 

^  Note  to  Schmelzles  Journey.  *  Levana,  p.  251. 


24  CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

specimen.  To  unbelievers,  unhappily,  we  have  none  of  a 
convincing  sort  to  give.  Ask  us  not  to  represent  the  Peru- 
vian forests  by  three  twigs  plucked  from  them ;  or  the  cata- 
racts of  the  Nile  by  a  handful  of  its  water  !  To  those,  mean- 
while, who  will  look  on  twigs  as  mere  dissevered  twigs,  and 
a  handful  of  water  as  only  so  many  drops,  we  present  the  fol- 
lowing. 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  val- 
leys, 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 
morning  beneath  our  feet.  White  night-butterflies  flitted, 
white  blossoms  fluttered,  white  stars  fell,  and  the  white 
snow-powder  hung  silvery  in  the  high  Shadow  of  the  Earth, 
which  reaches  beyond  the  Moon,  and  which  is  our  Night. 
Then  began  the  ^olian  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 
^lan,  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 
tlirough  little  hamlets,  and  close  by  their  outer  churchyards, 
where  crumbled  upcast  coffin-boards  were  glimmering,  while 
the  once-bright  eyes  that  had  lain  in  them  were  mouldered 
into  gray  ashes.  Cold  thought !  clutch  not  like  a  cold  spectre 
at  my  heart :  I  look  up  to  the  starry  sky,  and  an  everlasting 
chain  stretches  thither,  and  over,  and  below;  and  all  is  Life, 
ana  Warmth,  and  Light,  and  all  is  Godlike  or  God.  .  .  . 


JEAN  PAUL  FRIEDRICH  RICHTER  25 

"  Towards  morning  I  descried  thy  late  lights,  little  city  of 
my  dwelling,  wliicli  I  belong  to  on  this  side  the  grave  ;  I 
returned  to  the  Earth ;  and  in  thy  steeples,  behind  the  by- 
advauced  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  uncolored  medium,  but  in  dim  remote- 
ness, and  sketched  in  hurried  transitory  outline,  are  some  fea- 
tures of  Jean  Paul  Friedrich  Richter  and  his  Works.  Germany 
has  long  loved  him ;  to  England  also  he  must  one  day  become 
known  ;  for  a  man  of  this  magnitude  belongs  not  to  one  people, 
but  to  the  world.  What  our  countrymen  may  decide  of  him, 
still  more  what  may  be  his  fortune  with  posterity,  we  will 
not  try  to  foretell.  Time  has  a  strange  contracting  influence 
on  many  a  wide-spread  fame ;  yet  of  Richter  we  will  say,  that 
he  may  survive  much.  There  is  in  him  that  which  does  not 
die ;  that  Beauty  and  Earnestness  of  soul,  that  spirit  of  Hu- 
manity, of  Love  and  mild  Wisdom,  over  which  the  vicissitudes 
of  mode  have  no  sway.  This  is  that  excellence  of  the  inmost 
nature  which  alone  confers  immortality  on  writings ;  that 
charm  which  still,  under  every  defacement,  binds  us  to  the 
pages  of  our  own  Hookers,  and  Taylors,  and  Brownes,  when 
their  way  of  thought  has  long  ceased  to  be  ours,  and  the  most 
valued  of  their  merely  intellectual  opinions  have  passed  away, 
as  ours  too  must  do,  with  the  circumstances  and  events  in 
which  they  took  their  shape  or  rise.  To  men  of  a  right  mind 
there  may  long  be  in  Richter  much  that  has  attraction  and 
value.  In  the  moral  desert  of  vulgar  Literature,  with  its 
sandy  wastes,  and  parched,  bitter  and  too  often  poisonous 
shrubs,  the  Writings  of  this  man  will  rise  in  their  irregular 
luxuriance,  like  a  cluster  of  date-trees,  with  its  greensward 
and  well  of  water,  to  refresh  the  pilgrim,  in  the  sultry  soli- 
tude, with  nourishment  and  shade. 

1  End  of  Quintus  Fixlein. 


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  imper- 
fections, should  receive  it  with  thankfulness  and  good-will. 
Doubtless  we  might  have  wished  for  a  keener  discriminative 
and  descriptive  talent,  and  perhaps  for  a  somewhat  more  cath- 
olic 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  immova- 
ble station  that  he  can  survey  his  subject,  he  seems  heartily 
anxious  to  apply  with  candor  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. 

Let  us  not  quarrel,  however,  with  our  author ;  his  merits  as 
a  literary  historian  are  plain,  and  by  no  means  inconsiderable. 

1  Edinbergii  Review,  No.  92.  —  1.  Die  Popsie  und  Beredsamkeit  der 
Dentschev,  von  Lutliers  Zeit  his  zur  Gerjenwart.  Dargestdlt  vo7i  Franz  Horn. 
(The  Poetry  and  Oratory  of  the  Germans,  from  Luther's  Time  to  the  Present. 
Exhibited  by  Franz  Horn.)     Berlin,  1822,  '23,  '24.     3  vols.  8vo. 

2.  Umrlsse  zur  Geschichte.  und  Krilik  der  schSnen  LittercUur  Deutschlands  wuhrcnd 
der  Jahre  1790-1818.  (Outlines  for  the  History  and  Criticism  of  Polite  Litera- 
ture in  Germany,  during  the  Years  1790-1818.)  By  Franz  Horn.  Berlin, 
1819.     8vo. 


STATE   OF   GERMAN   LITERATURE.  27 

Without  rivalling  the  almost  frightful  laboriousness  of  Bouter- 
wek  or  Eiclihorn,  he  gives  creditable  proofs  of  research  and 
general  information,  and  possesses  a  lightness  in  composition, 
to  which  neither  of  these  erudite  persons  can  well  pretend. 
Undoubtedly  he  has  a  flowing  pen,  and  is  at  home  in  this 
province  ;  not  only  a  speaker  of  the  word,  indeed,  but  a  doer 
of  the  work ;  having  written,  besides  his  great  variety  of  tracts 
and  treatises,  biographical,  philosophical  and  critical,  several 
very  deserving  works  of  a  poetic  sort.  He  is  not,  it  must  be 
owned,  a  very  strong  man,  but  he  is  nimble  and  orderly,  and 
goes  through  his  work  with  a  certain  gayety  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  vigor.  His  novels,  accord- 
ingly, to  judge  from  the  few  we  have  read  of  them,  verge 
towards  the  sentimental.  In  the  present  Work,  in  like  man- 
ner, he  has  adopted  nearly  all  the  best  ideas  of  his  contempo- 
raries, but  with  something  of  an  undue  vehemence ;  and  he 
advocates  the  cause  of  religion,  integrity  and  true  poetic  taste 
with  great  heartiness  and  vivacity,  were  it  not  that  too  often 
his  zeal  outruns  his  prudence  and  insight.  Thus,  for  instance, 
he  declares  repeatedly,  in  so  many  words,  that  no  mortal  can 
be  a  poet  unless  he  is  a  Christian.  The  meaning  here  is  very 
good ;  but  why  this  phraseology  ?  Is  it  not  inviting  the 
simple-minded  (not  to  speak  of  scoffers,  whom  Horn  very 
justly  sniffs  at)  to  ask,  When  Homer  subscribed  the  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  Infinite  in  the  Finite,"  of  expressing  the 
unspeakable,  and  such  high  matters.  In  fact,  Horn's  style, 
though  extremely  readable,  has  one  great  fault ;  it  is,  to  speak 
it  in  a  single  word,  an  affected  style.  His  stream  of  meaning, 
uniformly  clear  and  wholesome  in  itself,  will  not  flow  quietly 
along  its  channel ;  but  is  ever  and  anon  spurting  itself  up  into 
epigrams  and  antithetic  jets.  Playful  he  is,  and  kindly,  and, 
we  do  believe,  honest-hearted ;  but  there  is  a  certain  snappish- 
ness  in  him,  a  frisking  abruptness  ;  and  then  his  sport  is 
more  a  perpetual  giggle,  than  any  dignified  smile,  or  even  any 


28  CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

sufficient  laugh  with  gravity  succeeding  it.  This  sentence  is 
among  the  best  we  recollect  of  him,  and  will  partly  illustrate 
what  we  mean.  We  submit  it,  for  the  sake  of  its  import  like- 
wise, 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  sacri- 
fice at  a  time,  and  practise  a  quiet  household  devotion  for  him 
without  disturbance."  In  this  style  of  "  witty  and  conceited 
mirth,"  considerable  part  of  the  book  is  written. 

But  our  chief  business  at  present  is  not  with  Franz  Horn, 
or  his  book;  of  whom,  accordingly,  recommending  his  labors 
to  all  inquisitive  students  of  German,  and  himself  to  good 
estimation  with  all  good  men,  we  must  here  take  leave.  We 
have  a  word  or  two  to  say  on  that  strange  Literature  itself ; 
concerning  which  our  readers  probably  feel  more  curious  to 
learn  what  it  is,  than  with  what  skill  it  has  been  judged  of. 

Above  a  century  ago,  the  Pere  Bouhours  propounded  to 
himself  the  pregnant  question :  Si  un  Allemand  peat  avoir  de 
V esprit?  Had  the  Pere  Bouhours  bethought  him  of  what 
country  Kepler  and  Leibnitz  were,  or  who  it  was  that  gave  to 
mankind  the  three  great  elements  of  modern  civilization,  Gun- 
powder, Printing  and  the  Protestant  Eeligion,  it  might  have 
thrown  light  on  his  inquiry.  Had  he  known  the  Nihelungen 
Lied,  and  where  Reinecke  Fuchs,  and  Fuust,  and  the  Ship  of 
Fools,  and  four-fifths  of  all  the  popular  mythology,  humor  and 
romance  to  be  found  in  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries,  took  its  rise  ;  had  he  read  a  page  or  two  of 
Ulrich  Hutten,  Opitz,  Paul  Flemming,  Logau,  or  even  Lohen- 
stein  and  Hoifmannswaldau,  all  of  whom  had  already  lived 
and  written  in  his  day ;  had  the  Pere  Bouhours  taken  this 
trouble,  — who  knows  but  he  might  have  found,  with  whatever 
amazement,  tliat  a  German  could  actually  have  a  little  esprit, 
or   perhaps  even   something   better?     No   such   trouble  was 


STATE  OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  29 

requisite  for  the  Pere  Bouhours.  Motion  in  vacuo  is  well 
known  to  be  speedier  and  surer  than  through  a  resisting 
medium,  especially  to  imponderous  bodies  ;  and  so  the  light 
Jesuit,  unimpeded  by  facts  or  principles  of  any  kind,  failed 
not  to  reach  his  conclusion;  and,  in  a  comfortable  frame  of 
mind,  to  decide,  negatively,  that  a  German  could  not  have  any 
literary  talent. 

Thus  did  the  Pere  Bouhours  evince  that  he  had  a  pleasant 
wit ;  but  in  the  end  he  has  paid  dear  for  it.  The  French, 
themselves,  have  long  since  begun  to  know  something  of  the 
Germans,  and  something  also  of  their  own  critical  Daniel; 
and  now  it  is  by  this  one  wwtimely  joke  that  the  hapless  Jesuit 
is  doomed  to  live ;  for  the  blessing  of  full  oblivion  is  denied 
him,  and  so  he  hangs,  suspended  in  his  own  noose,  over  the 
dusky  pool,  which  he  struggles  toward,  but  for  a  great  while 
will  not  reach.  Might  his  fate  but  serve  as  a  warning  to  kin- 
dred men  of  wit,  in  regard  to  this  and  so  many  other  subjects ! 
For  surely  the  pleasure  of  despising,  at  all  times  and  in  itself 
a  dangerous  luxury,  is  much  safer  after  the  toil  of  examining 
than  before  it. 

We  altogether  differ  from  the  Pere  Bouhours  in  this  matter, 
and  must  endeavor  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 
neighbors  ;  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 
colored  rays  are  springing  up  in  this  quarter  and  in  that,  which 
only  by  their  union  can  produce  pure  I'ujht.  Happily,  too, 
though  still  a  difficult,  it  is  no  longer  an  impossible  duty  ;  for 
the  commerce  in  material  things  has  paved  roads  for  commerce 
in  things  spiritual,  and  a  true  thought,  or  a  noble  creation, 
passes  lightly  to  us  from  the  remotest  countries,  provided  only 


30  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

our  minds  be  open  to  receive  it.  This,  indeed,  is  a  rigorous 
proviso,  and  a  great  obstacle  lies  in  it ;  one  which  to  many 
must  be  insurmountable,  yet  which  it  is  the  chief  glory  of 
social  culture  to  surmount.  For,  if  a  man  who  mistakes  his 
own  contracted  individuality  for  the  type  of  human  nature, 
and  deals  with  whatever  contradicts  him  as  if  it  contradicted 
this,  is  but  a  pedant,  and  without  true  wisdom,  be  he  furnished 
with  partial  equipments  as  he  may,  —  what  better  shall  we 
think  of  a  nation  that,  in  like  manner,  isolates  itself  from 
foreign  influence,  regards  its  own  modes  as  so  many  laws 
of  nature,  and  rejects  all  that  is  different  as  unworthy  even 
of  examination  ? 

Of  this  narrow  and  perverted  condition,  the  French,  down 
almost  to  our  own  times,  have  afforded  a  remarkable  and  in- 
structive example  ;  as  indeed  of  late  they  have  been  often 
enough  upbraidingly  reminded,  and  are  now  themselves,  in 
a  manlier  spirit,  beginning  to  admit.  That  our  countrymen 
have  at  any  time  erred  much  in  this  point,  cannot,  we  think, 
truly  be  alleged  against  them.  Neither  shall  we  say,  with 
some  passionate  admirers  of  Germany,  that  to  the  Germans 
in  particular  they  have  been  unjust.  It  is  true,  the  literature 
and  character  of  that  country,  which,  within  the  last  half-cen- 
tury, 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  recognize ;  that 
Kotzebue's  insanity  should  have  spread  faster,  by  some  fifty 
years,  than  Lessing's  wisdom  ;  that  Kant's  Philosophy  should 
stand  in  the  background  as  a  dreary  and  abortive  dream,  and 
Gall's  Craniology  be  held  out  to  us  from  every  booth  as  a 
reality ;  —  all  this  lay  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  That  many 
readers  should  draw  conclusions  from  imperfect  premises,  and 
by  the  imports  judge  too  hastily  of  the  stock  imported  from, 
was  likewise  natural.  No  unfair  bias,  no  unwise  indisposition, 
that  we  are  aware  of,  has  ever  been  at  work  in  the  matter ; 
perhaps,  at  worst,  a  degree  of  indolence,  a  blamable  incuriosity 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATUKE.  81 

to  all  products  of  foreign  genius  :  for  what  more  do  we  know 
of  recent  Spanish  or  Italian  literature,  than  of  German ;  of 
Grossi  and  Manzoni,  of  Campomanes  or  Jovellanos,  than  of 
Tieck  and  Eichter  ?  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  Diirer 
to  Meugs,  from  Handel  to  Weber  and  Beethoven,  we  have  wel- 
comed the  painters  and  musicians  of  Germany,  not  only  to  our 
praise,  but  to  our  affections  and  beneficence.  Nor,  if  in  their 
literature  we  have  been  more  backward,  is  the  literature  itself 
without  blame.  Two  centuries  ago,  translations  from  the 
German  were  comparatively  frequent  in  England:  Luther's 
Tahle-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,  fol- 
lowed by  the  conquests  and  conflagrations  of  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth, 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  literature,  or  was  heard 
only  in  faint  tones,  which  lived  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  but 
could  not  reach  with  any  effect  to  the  ears  of  foreigners.^    And 

'  Not  that  the  Germans  were  idle ;  or  altogether  engaged,  as  we  too  loosely 
suppose,  iu  the  work  of  commentary  and  lexicograpliy.  On  the  contrary,  tliey 
rliymed  and  romanced  with  due  vigor  as  to  quantity ;  only  the  quality  was  bad. 
Two  facts  on  this  head  may  deserve  mention  .  In  the  year  1749  tliere  were 
found  in  the  library  of  one  virtuoso  no  fewer  than  300  volumes  of  devotional 
poetry,  containing,  says  Horn,  "  a  treasure  of  33,712  German  hymns  ;  "  and, 
much  about  the  same  period,  one  of  Gottsched's  scholars  had  amassed  as  many 
as  1,500  German  novels,  all  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  hymns  we  under- 
stand to  be  much  better  than  the  novels,  or  rather,  perhaps,  the  novels  to  be 
much  worse  than  the  hymns.  Neither  was  critical  study  neglected,  nor  indeed 
honest  endeavor  on  all  hands  to  attain  improvement  •  witness  the  strange  books 
from  time  to  time  put  forth,  and  the  still  stranger  institutions  establi.'^hed  for 
this  purpose.  Among  the  former  we  have  the  "  Poetical  Funnel  "  {Poctisrhe 
Trichtfir),  manufactured  at  Niirnberir  in  1C50,  and  professing,  within  six  hours, 
to  pour  in  the  whole  essence  of  this  difficult  art  into  the  most  unfurnished 


32  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

now  that  the  genius  of  the  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  neighbors,  at  least  in  every  important  spir- 
itual respect,  an  unknown  and  misestimated  country.  Its 
towns  may  figure  on  our  maps ;  its  revenues,  population,  manu- 
factures, political  connections,  may  be  recorded  in  statistical 
books :  but  the  character  of  the  people  has  no  symbol  and  no 
voice;  we  cannot  know  them  by  speech  and  discourse,  but 
only  by  mere  sight  and  outward  observation  of  their  manners 
and  procedure.  Now,  if  both  sight  and  speech,  if  both  trav- 
ellers 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  mech- 
anism, requires  a  philosopher ;  to  delineate  it  with  truth  and 

head.  Nurnberg  also  was  the  chief  seat  of  the  famous  M'  istersanger  and  their 
Sdngerziinfte,  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  labor,  which  manufactured  so  many  tilings, 
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  Nunne- 
beck,  a  weaver.  He  was  an  adherent  of  his  great  contem|iorary  Luther,  who 
has  even  deigned  to  acknowledge  his  services  in  the  cause  of  the  Reformation. 
How  diligent  a  laborer  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  6,048  poetical  pieces,  among  which  were  208  tragedies  and 
comedies;  and  this  besides  having  all  along  kept  hou.se,  like  an  honest  Xiirn- 
berg  burgher,  by  assiduous  and  sufficient  shoemaking !  Hans  is  not  witliout 
genius,  and  a  shrewd  irony  ;  and,  above  all,  the  most  gay,  childlike,  yet  devout 
and  .solid  character.  A  man  neither  to  be  despised  nor  patronized;  but  left 
standing  on  his  own  basis,  as  a  singular  product,  and  a  still  legible  symbol  and 
clear  mirror  of  the  time  and  country  where  he  lived.  His  best  piece  known 
to  us,  and  many  are  well  worth  perusing,  is  the  Fastnachtsspiel  ( Shrovetide 
Farce)  of  the  Narrenschneideyi,  where  the  Doctor  cures  a  bloated  and  lethargic 
patient  by  cutting  out  half  a  dozen  Fools  from  his  interior! 


STATE   OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  S3 

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  indi- 
vidual 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  incompre- 
hensible, that  other  to  be  insignificant ;  much  to  be  good,  much 
to  be  bad,  and  most  of  all  indifferent ;  and  so,  with  a  few  flow- 
ing 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 
tlie  character  of  a  people  has  such  complexity  of  aspect,  that 
even  the  honest  observer  knows  not  always,  not  perhaps  after 
long  inspection,  what  to  determine  regarding  it.  From  his, 
only  accidental,  point  of  view,  the  figure  stands  before  him 
like  the  tracings  on  veined  marble,  —  a  mass  of  mere  random 
lines,  and  tints,  and  entangled  strokes,  out  of  which  a  lively 
fancy  may  shape  almost  any  image.  But  the  image  he  brings 
along  Avith  him  is  always  the  readiest ;  this  is  tried,  it  answers 
as  well  as  another ;  and  a  second  voucher  now  testifies  its  cor- 
rectness. Thus  each,  in  confident  tones,  though  it  may  be  with 
a  secret  misgiving,  repeats  his  precursor ;  the  hundred  times 
repeated  comes  in  the  end  to  be  believed ;  the  foreign  nation 
is  now  once  for  all  understood,  decided  on,  and  registered 
accordingly ;  and  dunce  the  thousandth  writes  of  it  like  dunce 
the  first. 

With  the  aid  of  literary  and  intellectual  intercourse,  much 
of  this  falsehood  may,  no  doubt,  be  corrected :  yet  even  here, 
sound  judgment  is  far  from  easy ;  and  most  national  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  mis- 
representation, nay  perhaps  have  had  more  than  the  common 
sliare  of  it,  cannot,  in  their  circumstances,  surprise  us.  From 
the  time  of  Opitz  and  Flemming,  to  those  of  Klopstock  and 
Lessing,  —  that  is,  from  tlie  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  to 
vol..  XIII.  3 


34  CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  every  way  unfortunate  externally ;  and  at  home,  the  nation, 
split  into  so  many  factions  and  petty  states,  had  lost  all  feel- 
ing of  itself  as  of  a  nation ;  and  its  energies  in  arts  as  in  arms 
were  manifested  only  in  detail,  too  often  in  collision,  and 
always  under  foreign  influence.  The  French,  at  once  their 
plunderers  and  their  scoffers,  described  them  to  the  rest  of 
Europe  as  a  semi-barbarous  people ;  which  comfortable  fact 
the  rest  of  Europe  was  willing  enough  to  take  on  their  word. 
During  the  greater  part  of  the  last  century,  the  Germans,  in 
our  intellectual  survey  of  the  world,  were  quietly  omitted ;  a 
vague  contemptuous  ignorance  prevailed  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."^  The  Germans  passed  for  apprentices  in  all 
j.rovinces  of  art ;  and  many  foreign  craftsmen  scarcely  allowed 
them  so  much, 

Madame  de  Staijl's  book  has  done  away  with  this  :  all  Europe 
is  now  aAvare  that  the  Germans  are  something ;  something 
independent  and  apart  from  others ;  nay  something  deep,  im- 
posing and,  if  not  admirable,  wonderful.  What  that  some- 
thing is,  indeed,  is  still  undecided ;  for  this  gifted  lady's  Jlle- 
inar/ne,  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  knowl- 
edge ;  and  cavillers,  excluded  from  contemptuous  negation,  have 

^  So  late  .as  the  year  1811,  we  find,  from  Pinherton's  Geofp-nph/,  the  sole 
rr^presentative  of  German  literature  to  he  Gottslied  (with  his  name  wrong 
ppelt),  "who  first  introduced  a  more  refined  style."  —  Gottsched  has  been 
dead  the  gre.ater  part  of  a  century ;  and,  for  the  last  fifty  years,  ranks  among 
the  Germans  somenliat  as  Prynne  or  Alexander  Koss  does  among  ourselves. 
A  man  of  a  cold,  rigid,  perseverant  cliaracter,  who  mistook  himself  for  a  poet 
and  the  perfection  of  critics,  and  had  skill  to  pass  current  during  the  greater 
jjart  of  his  literary  life  for  such.  On  tlie  strength  of  liis  Boiicuu  and  Battcnr, 
lie  long  reigned  supreme ;  but  it  was  like  Night,  in  rayless  majesty,  and  over 
a  slumbering  people.  They  awoke  before  his  death,  and  hurled  liim,  perhajw 
too  iiivlignantly,  into  his  native  Abyss. 


STATE   OF   GERMAN   LITERATURE.  35 

found  a  resource  in  almost  as  contemptuous  assertion.  Trans- 
lators 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  Dulness  too,  in  this  as  in  all  other  things, 
still  loves  her  joke.  The  Germans,  though  much  more  at- 
tended 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  mil- 
lions of  civilized  men,  cannot  surely  be  other  than  desirable. 
If  they  have  precious  truth  to  impart,  we  shall  receive  it  as 
the  highest  of  all  gifts ;  if  error,  we  shall  not  only  reject  it, 
but  explain  it  and  trace  out  its  origin,  and  so  help  our  breth- 
ren also  to  reject  it.  In  either  point  of  view,  and  for  all 
profitable  purposes  of  national  intercourse,  correct  knowledge 
is  tlie  first  and  indispensable  preliminary. 

Meanwhile,  errors  of  all  sorts  prevail  on  this  siibject :  even 
among  men  of  sense  and  liberality  we  have  found  so  much 
hallucination,  so  many  groundless  or  half-grounded  objections 
to  German  Literature,  that  the  tone  in  which  a  multitude 
of  other  men  speak  of  it  cannot  appear  extraordinary.  To 
mucli  of  this,  even  a  slight  knowledge  of  the  Germans  would 
furnish  a  sufficient  answer.  We  have  thought  it  might  be 
useful  were  tlie  chief  of  these  objections  marshalled  in  distinct 
order,  and  examined  Avith  what  degree  of  light  and  fairness  is 
at  our  disposal.  In  attempting  this,  we  are  vain  enough,  for 
reasons  already  stated,  to  fancy  ourselves  discharging  what  is 
in  some  sort  a  national  duty.  It  is  unworthy  of  one  great 
people  to  think  falsely  of  another;  it  is  unjust,  and  therefore 
unworthy.  Of  the  injury  it  does  to  ourselves  we  do  not  speak, 
for  that  is  an  inferior  consideration :  yet  surely  if  the  grand 
principle  of  free  intercourse  is  so  profitable  in  material  com- 
merce, much  move  must  it  be  in  the  commerce  of  the  mind,  the 


86  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  confir- 
mation, where  before  only  one  stood  solitary,  and,  on  that  sidc» 
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  un- 
soundness 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  Mijsticism.  Both  of  these, 
no  doubt,  are  partly  connected ;  and  each,  in  some  degree, 
springs  from  and  returns  into  the  other :  yet,  for  present  pur- 
poses, 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  deei>rooted  objection, 
which  assumes  many  forms,  and  extends  through  many  rami- 
fications. Among  men  of  less  acquaintance  with  the  subject 
of  German  taste,  or  of  taste  in  general,  the  spirit  of  the  accu- 
sation seems  to  be  somewhat  as  follows :  That  the  Germans, 
with  much  natural  susceptibility,  are  still  in  a  rather  coarse 
and  uncultivated  state  of  mind;  displaying,  with  the  energy 
and  other  virtues  of  a  rude  people,  many  of  their  vices  also ; 
in  particular,  a  certain  wild  and  headlong  temper,  which  seizes 
on  all  things  too  hastily  and  impetuously ;  weeps,  storms, 
loves,  hates,  too  fiercely  and  vociferously  ;  delighting  in  coarse 
excitements,  such  as  flaring  contrasts,  vulgar  horrors,  and  all 
sorts  of  showy  exaggeration.  Their  literature,  in  j)artieular, 
is  thought  to  dwell  with  peculiar  complacency  among  wizards 
and  ruined  towers,  with  mailed  knights,  secret  tribunals, 
monks,  spectres  and  banditti :  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  an 
undue  love  of  moonlight,  and  mossy  fountains,  and  the  moral 
sublime  :  then  Ave  have  descriptions  of  things  which  should 
not  be  described  ;  a  general  want  of  tact ;  nay  often  a  liollow- 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  87 

ness  and  want  of  sense.  In  short,  the  German  Muse  comports 
herself,  it  is  said,  like  a  passionate  and  rather  fascinating,  hut 
tumultuous,  uninstructed  and  but  half-civilized  Muse.  A  Idle 
sauvage  at  best,  we  can  only  love  her  with  a  sort  of  super- 
cilious tolerance ;  often  she  tears  a  passion  to  rags ;  and,  in 
her  tumid  vehemence,  struts  without  meaning,  and  to  the 
offence  of  all  literary  decorum. 

Now,  in  all  this  there  is  not  wanting  a  certain  degree  of 
truth.  If  any  man  will  insist  on  taking  Heinse's  Ardinghello 
and  Miller's  Slegwart,  and  the  works  of  Veit  Weber  the 
Younger,  and,  above  all,  the  everlasting  Kotzebue,  as  his 
specimens  of  German  literature,  he  may  establish  many  things. 
Black  Forests,  and  the  glories  of  Lubberland ;  sensuality  and 
horror,  the  spectre  nun,  and  the  charmed  moonshine,  shall  not 
be  wanting.  Boisterous  outlaws  also,  with  huge  whiskers  and 
the  most  cat-o'-mountain  aspect ;  tear-stained  sentimentalists, 
the  grimmest  man-haters,  ghosts  and  the  like  suspicious  char- 
acters, will  be  found  in  abundance.  We  are  little  read  in  this 
bowl-and-dagger  department ;  but  we  do  understand  it  to  have 
been  at  one  time  rather  diligently  cultivated  ;  though  at  present 
it  seems  to  be  mostly  relinquished  as  unproductive.  Other 
forms  of  Unreason  have  taken  its  place ;  Avhich  in  their  turn 
must  yield  to  still  other  forms;  for  it  is  the  nature  of  this 
goddess  to  descend  in  frequent  avatars  among  men.  Perhaps 
not  less  than  five  hundred  volumes  of  such  stuff  could  still  be 
collected  from  the  bookstalls  of  Germany.  By  which  truly  we 
may  learn  that  there  is  in  that  country  a  class  of  unwise  men 
and  unwise  women;  that  many  readers  there  labor  under  a 
degree  of  ignorance  and  mental  vacancy,  and  read  not  actively 
but  passively,  not  to  learn  but  to  be  amused.  Is  this  fact  so 
very  new  to  us  ?  Or  what  should  we  think  of  a  German  critic 
that  selected  his  specimens  of  British  literature  from  the 
Castle  Spectre,  Mr.  Lewis's  Monk,  or  the  Mgsteries  of  IJdolplio, 
and  Frankenstein  or  the  Modern  Prometheus  ?  Or  would  he 
judge  rightly  of  our  dramatic  taste,  if  he  took  his  extracts 
from  Mr.  Egan's  Tom  and  Jerry ;  and  told  his  readers,  as  he 
might  truly  do,  that  no  play  had  ever  enjoyed  such  currency 
on  the  English  stage  as  this  most  classic  performance  ?    We 


38  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

think,  not.  In  like  manner,  till  some  author  of  acknowledged 
merit  shall  so  write  among  the  Germans,  and  be  approved 
of  by  critics  of  acknowledged  merit  among  them,  or  at  least 
secure  for  himself  some  permanency  of  favor  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  tlie 
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  consideration  of  the 
subject.  We  have  heard  few  English  criticisms  of  such  works, 
in  which  the  first  condition  of  an  approach  to  accuracy  was 
complied  with ;  —  a  transposition  of  the  critic  into  the  author's 
point  of  vision,  a  survey  of  the  author's  means  and  objects  as 
they  lay  before  himself,  and  a  just  trial  of  these  by  rules  of 
universal  application.  Faust,  for  instance,  passes  with  many 
of  us  for  a  mere  tale  of  sorcery  and  art-magic.  It  would 
scarcely  be  more  unwise  to  consider  Hamlet  as  depending  for 
its. main  interest  on  the  ghost  that  walks  in  it,  than  to  regard 
Faust  as  a  production  of  that  sort.  For  the  present,  there- 
fore, this  objection  may  be  set  aside ;  or  at  least  may  be  con- 
sidered not  as  an  assertion,  but  an  inquiry,  the  answer  to 
which  may  turn  out  rather  that  the  German  taste  is  different 
from  ours,  than  that  it  is  worse.  Nay,  with  regard  even  to 
difference,  we  should  scarcely  reckon  it  to  be  of  great  moment. 
Two  nations  that  agree  in  estimating  Shakspeare  as  the  highest 
of  all  poets,  can  differ  in  no  essential  principle,  if  they  under- 
stood 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 
pro^jounded  to  explain  the  whole  phenomenon.     The  cause  of 


STATE   OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  S9 

this  bad  taste,  we  are  assured,  lies  in  the  condition  of  tho 
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  afilicts  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  uni- 
versal and  eternal  Beauty,  till  they  have  long  rested  on  gilt 
walls  and  costly  furniture  ?  To  the  great  body  of  mankind 
this  were  heavy  news ;  for,  of  the  thousand,  scarcely  one  is 
rich,  or  connected  with  the  rich  ;  nine  hundred  and  ninety-; 
nine  have  always  been  poor,  and  must  always  be  so.  We  take 
the  liberty  of  questioning  the  whole  postulate.  We  think 
that,  for  acquiring  true  poetic  taste,  riches,  or  association  witli 
the  rich,  are  distinctly  among  the  minor  requisites  ;  that,  in 
fact,  they  have  little  or  no  concern  with  the  matter.  This  wa 
shall  now  endeavor  to  make  probable. 

Taste,  if  it  mean  anything  but  a  paltry  connoisseurship, 
must  mean  a  general  susceptibility  to  truth  and  nobleness ;  a 
sense  to  discern,  and  a  heart  to  love  and  reverence,  all  beauty, 
order,  goodness,  wheresoever  or  in  whatsoever  forms  and 
accompaniments  they  are  to  be  seen.  This  surely  implies,  as 
its  chief  condition,  not  any  given  external  rank  or  situation, 
but  a  finely  gifted  mind,  purified  into  harmony  with  itself, 
into  keenness  and  justness  of  vision  ;  above  all,  kindled  into 
love  and  generous  admiration.  Is  culture  of  this  sort  found 
exclusively  among  the  higher  ranks  ?  We  believe  it  proceeds 
less  from  without  than  within,  in  every  rank.  The  charms  of 
Nature,  the  majesty  of  Man,  the  infinite  loveliness  of  Truth 
and  Virtue,  are  not  hidden  from  the  eye  of  the  poor;  but 
from  the  eye  of  the  vain,  the  corrupted  and  self-seeking,  be 
he  poor  or  rich.  In  old  ages,  the  humble  IMinstrel,  a  mendi- 
cant, and  lord  of  nothing  but  his  harp  and  his  own  iree  soul, 
had  intimations  of  those  glories,  while  to  the  proud  Baron  iu 


40  CllITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  accomplish- 
ment ;  nay,  if  it  be  rated  as  the  highest,  it  becomes  a  ruinous 
vice.  This  is  an  old  truth;  yet  ever  needing  new  application 
and  enforcement.  Let  us  know  what  to  love,  and  we  shall 
know  also  what  to  reject;  what  to  afhrm,  and  we  shall  know 
also  what  to  deny :  but  it  is  dangerous  to  befjin  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  hun- 
dred men  of  wisdom  to  sho\/  us  its  limits,  and  teach  us  it.« 
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  in- 
stance, is  truer  and  finer  than  Claude  Lorraine's  ?  And  was 
not  he  a  poor  color-grinder ;  outwardly  the  meanest  of  me- 
nials ?  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  tlie 
zanies,  jugglers  and  bear-wards  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  in- 
stance, with  the  taste  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  his  contem- 
poraries, men  of  rank  and  education,  and  of  fine  genius  like 
himself.  Tried  even  by  the  nice,  fastidious  and  in  great  part 
false  and  artificial  delicacy  of  modern  times,  how  stands  it 


STATE   OF   GERMAN  LITERATUKE.  41 

vritli  tlie  two  parties ;  with  the  gay  triumphant  men  of  fash- 
ion, and  the  poor  vagrant  linklxjy  ?  Does  the  latter  sin 
against,  we  shall  not  say  taste,  but  etiquette,  as  the  former 
do  ?  For  one  line,  for  one  word,  which  some  Chesterfield 
might  wish  blotted  from  the  first,  are  there  not  in  the  others 
whole  pages  and  scenes  which,  with  palpitating  heart,  he 
would  hurry  into  deepest  night  ?  This  too,  observe,  respects 
not  their  genius,  but  their  culture ;  not  their  appropriation  of 
beauties,  but  their  rejection  of  deformities,  by  supposition  the 
grand  and  peculiar  result  of  high  breeding !  Surely,  in  such 
instances,  even  that  humble  supposition  is  ill  borne  out. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  seems  to  be,  that  with  the  cul- 
ture 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  every-day  existence,  are  to 
form  themselves  into  harmony  and  wisdom,  and  show  forth 
the  same  wisdom  to  others  that  exist  along  with  them.  To 
such  a  man,  high  life,  as  it  is  called,  will  be  a  province  of 
human  life,  but  nothing  more.  He  will  study  to  deal  with 
it  as  he  deals  with  all  forms  of  mortal  being  ;  to  do  it  jus- 
tice, and  to  draw  instruction  from  it :  but  his  light  will  come 
from  a  loftier  region,  or  he  wanders  forever  in  darkness; 
dwindles  into  a  man  of  vei's  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  regu- 
lated 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. 


42  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  Mam- 
mon has  a  wide  empire ;  but  it  cannot,  and  must  not,  be 
worshipped  in  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Nay,  does  not  the  heart 
of  every  genuine  disciple  of  literature,  however  mean  his 
sphere,  instinctively  deny  this  principle,  as  applicable  either 
to  himself  or  another  ?  Is  it  not  rather  true,  as  D'Alembert 
has  said,  that  for  every  man  of  letters,  who  deserves  that 
name,  the  motto  and  the  watchword  will  be  Freedom,  Truth, 
and  even  this  same  Poverty  ;  that  if  he  fear  the  last,  the  two 
first  can  never  be  made  sure  to  him  ? 

We  have  stated  these  things,  to  bring  the  question  some- 
what nearer  its  real  basis ;  not  for  the  sake  of  the  Germans, 
who  nowise  need  the  admission  of  them.  The  German  authors 
are  not  poor  ;  neither  are  they  excluded  from  association  with 
the  wealthy  and  well-born.  On  the  contrary,  we  scruple  not 
to  say,  that  in  both  these  respects  they  are  considerably  better 
situated  than  our  own.  Their  booksellers,  it  is  true,  cannot 
pay  as  ours  do ;  yet,  there  as  here,  a  man  lives  by  his  writ- 
ings ;  and,  to  compare  Jordens  Avith  Johnson  and  JJ Israeli, 
somewhat  better  there  than  here.  No  case  like  our  own  noble 
Otway's  has  met  us  in  their  biographies ;  Boyces  and  Chatter- 
tons  are  much  rarer  in  German  than  in  English  history.  But 
farther,  and  what  is  far  more  important :  From  the  number  of 
universities,  libraries,  collections  of  art,  museums,  and  other 
literary  or  scientific  institutions  of  a  public  or  private  nature, 
we  question  whether  the  chance  which  a  meritorious  man  of 
letters  has  before  him,  of  obtaining  some  permanent  appoint- 
ment, some  independent  civic  existence,  is  not  a  hundred  to 
one  in  favor  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  rela- 
tion of  entire  dependence  on  the  merchants  of  literature  is,  at 
best,  and  liowever  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  every  way 


STATE   OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  43 

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  Godi"  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  Kovalis.  Let  us  not  be  unjust  to  this  class  of  persons. 
It  is  a  poor  error  to  figure  them  as  wrapt  up  in  ceremonial 
stateliness,  avoiding  the  most  gifted  man  of  a  lower  station ; 
and,  for  their  own  supercilious  triviality,  themselves  avoided 
by  all  truly  gifted  men.  On  the  whole,  we  should  change 
our  notion  of  the  German  nobleman  :  that  ancient,  thirsty, 
thick-headed,  sixteen-quartered  Baron,  who  still  hovers  in  our 
minds,  never  did  exist  in  such  perfection,  and  is  now  as  ex- 
tinct 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 
Avhole,  both  in  a  public  and  private  capacity,  more  honors  art 
and  literature,  and  does  more  both  in  public  and  private  to 
encourage  them.  Excluded  from  society !  What,  Ave  would 
ask,  was  Wieland's,  Schiller's,  Herder's,  Johannes  MuUer's 
society  ?  Has  not  Goethe,  by  birth  a  Frankfort  burgher, 
been,  since  his  twenty-sixth  year,  the  companion,  not  of 
nobles  but  of  princes,  and  for  half  his  life  a  minister  of 
state  ?  And  is  not  this  man,  unrivalled  in  so  many  far 
deeper  qualities,  known  also  and  felt  to  be  unrivalled  in 
nobleness  of  breeding  and  bearing ;  fit  not  to  learn  of  princes 


44  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

in  this  respect,  but  by  the  example  of  his  daily  life  to  teach 
them  ? 

AVe  hear  much  of  the  munificent  spirit  displayed  among 
the  better  classes  in  England;  their  high  estimation  of  the 
arts,  and  generous  patronage  of  the  artist.  We  rejoice  to 
hear  it ;  we  hope  it  is  true,  and  will  become  truer  and  truer. 
We  hope  that  a  great  change  has  taken  place  among  these 
classes,  since  the  time  when  Bishop  Burnet  could  write  of 
them,  "  They  are  for  the  most  part  the  worst  instructed,  and 
the  least  knowing,  of  any  of  tlieir  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  Ger- 
mans might  even  teach  us  somewhat  in  regard  to  this.  At 
all  events,  the  pity,  which  certain  of  our  aiithors  express  for 
the  civil  condition  of  their  brethren  in  that  country  is,  from 
such  a  quarter,  a  superfluous  feeling.  Nowhere,  let  us  rest 
assured,  is  genius  more  devoutly  honored  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  Em- 
pire passed  an  Act  in  favor  of  one  individual  poet:  the  Final 
Edition  of  Goethe's  Works  was  guaranteed  to  be  protected 
against  commercial  injury  in  every  State  of  Germany ;  and 
special  assurances  to  that  effect  were  sent  him,  in  the  kindest 
terms,  from  all  the  Authorities  there  assembled,  some  of  them 
the  highest  in  his  country  or  in  Europe.  Nay,  even  while 
we  write,  are  not  the  newspapers  recording  a  visit  from  the 
Sovereign  of  Bavaria  in  person  to  the  same  venerable 
man  ?  —  a  mere  ceremony  perhaps,  but  one  which  almost 
recalls  to  us  the  era  of  the  antique  Sages  and  the  Grecian 
Kings. 

This  hypothesis,  therefore,  it  would  seem,  is  not  supported 
by  facts,  and  so  returns  to  its  original  elements.  The  causes 
it  alleges  are  impossible  :  but,  what  is  still  more  fatal,  the 
effect  it  proposes  to  account  for  has,  in  reality,  no  existence. 
We  venture  to  deny  that  the  Germans  are  defective  in  taste ; 
even  as  a  nation,  as  a  public,  taking  one  thing  with  another, 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  45 

■we  imagine  they  may  stand  comparison  with  any  of  their 
neighbors ;  as  writers,  as  critics,  they  may  decidedly  court  it. 
True,  there  is  a  mass  of  dulness,  awkwardness  and  false  sus- 
ceptibility in  the  lower  regions  of  their  literature :  but  is  not 
bad  taste  eudemical  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  atra- 
bilious scowl,  which  is  to  stand  for  passionate  strength  :  now 
we  have  an  outpouring  of  tumid  fervor ;  now  a  fruitless,  asth- 
matic hunting  after  wit  and  humor.  Grave  or  gay,  enthusias- 
tic 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  con- 
tempt is  itself  a  negation ;  nothing  comes  of  it,  for  it  is 
nothing. 

To  judge  of  a  national  taste,  however,  we  must  raise  our 
view  from  its  transitory  modes  to  its  perennial  models  ;  from 
the  mass  of  vulgar  writers,  who  blaze  out  and  are  extinguished 
with  the  popular  delusion  which  they  flatter,  to  those  few  who 
are  admitted  to  shine  with  a  pure  and  lasting  lustre  ;  to  whom, 
by  coinmon  consent,  the  eyes  of  the  people  are  turned,  as  to 
its  loadstars  and  celestial  luminaries.  Among  German  writers 
of  this  stamp,  we  would  ask  any  candid  reader  of  them,  let 
him  be  of  what  country  or  creed  he  might,  whether  bad  taste 
struck  him  as  a  prevailing  characteristic.  Was  Wieland's  taste 
uncultivated  ?  Taste,  we  should  say,  and  taste  of  the  very 
species  which  a  disciple  of  the  Negative  School  would  call  the 
highest,  formed  the  great  object  of  his  life  ;  the  perfection  he 
unweariedly  endeavored  after,  and,  more  than  any  other  per- 
fection, has  attained.  The  most  fastidious  Frenchman  might 
read  him,  with  admiration  of  his  merely  French  (qualities.    And 


46  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  not  Klopstock,  with  his  clear  enthusiasm,  his  azure  purity, 
and  heavenly  if  still  somewhat  cold  and  lunar  light,  a  man  of 
taste  ?  His  Messias  reminds  us  oftener  of  no  other  poets  than 
of  Virgil  and  Kacine.  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  miscon- 
ceptions. 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,  vigor  and  precision  sets  it  forth  to  his  readers. 
He  thinks  with  the  clearness  and  piercing  sharpness  of  the 
most  expert  logician ;  but  a  genial  iire  pervades  him,  a  wit,  a 
heartiness,  a  general  richness  and  fineness  of  nature,  to  which 
most  logicians  are  strangers.  He  is  a  sceptic  in  many  tilings, 
but  the  noblest  of  sceptics  ;  a  mild,  manly,  half-careless  enthu- 
siasm 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  reck- 
oned Lessing  other  than  a  thoroughly  cultivated  writer  ;  nay, 
entitled  to  rank,  in  this  particular,  with  the  most  distinguished 
writers  of  any  existing  nation.  As  a  poet,  as  a  critic,  philoso- 
pher, or  controversialist,  his  style  will  be  found  precisely  such 
as  we  of  England  are  accustomed  to  admire  most ;  brief,  ner- 
vous, vivid ;  yet  quiet,  without  glitter  or  antithesis ;  idiomatic, 
pure  without  purism ;  transparent,  yet  full  of  cliaracter  and 
reflex  hues  of  meaning.  "  Every  sentence,"  says  Horn,  and 
justly,  "  is  like  a  phalanx ; "  not  a  word  wrong-placed,  not  a 
word  that  could  be  spared ;  and  it  forms  itself  so  calmly  and 
lightly,  and  stands  in  its  completeness,  so  gay,  yet  so  impreg- 
nable !  As  a  poet  he  contemptuously  denied  himself  all  merit ; 
but  his  readers  have  not  taken  him  at  his  word  :  here  too  a 
similar  felicity  of  style  attends  him  ;  his  plays,  his  Minna  von 
Bdrnhelm,  his  Kniille  Galotti,  his  Nathan  der   Weise,  have  a 


STATE  OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  47 

ffenuine  and  graceful  poetic  life ;  yet  no  works  known  to  us  in 
any  language  are  purer  from  exaggeration,  or  any  appearance 
of  falsehood.  They  are  pictures,  we  might  say,  painted  not  in 
colors,  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  religious  Scepticism  were  of  a  higher  mood  than  had 
yet  been  heard  in  Europe,  still  more  in  Germany :  his  Dra- 
maturgie  first  exploded  the  pretensions  of  the  French  theatre, 
and,  with  irresistible  conviction,  made  Shakspeare  known  to 
his  countrymen ;  preparing  the  way  for  a  brighter  era  in  their 
literature,  the  chief  men  of  which  still  thankfully  look  back 
to  Lessing  as  their  patriarch.  His  Laocoon,  with  its  deep 
glances  into  the  philosophy  of  Art,  his  Dialogues  of  Free- 
mason.i,  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  respect, 
nearly  every  one,  we  do  not  say  of  their  distinguished,  but  even 
of  their  tolerated  contemporaries.  The  two  Jacobis,  known 
more  or  less  in  all  countries,  are  little  known  here,  if  they  are 
accused  of  wanting  literary  taste.  These  are  men,  whether  as 
thinkers  or  poets,  to  be  regarded  and  admired  for  their  mild 
and  lofty  wisdom,  the  devoutness,  the  benignity  and  calm 
grandeur  of  their  philosophical  views.  In  such,  it  were 
strange  if  among  so  many  high  merits,  this  lower  one  of  a 
just  and  elegant  style,  which  is  indeed  their  natural  and  even 
necessary  product,  had  been  wanting.  We  recommend  the 
elder  Jacobi  no  less  for  his  clearness  than  for  his  depth  ;  of 
the  younger,  it  may  be  enough  in  this  point  of  view  to  say, 
that  the  chief  praisers  of  his  earlier  poetry  were  the  French. 
Neither  are  Hamann  and  Mendelssohn,  who  could  meditate 
deep  thoughts,  defective  in  the  power  of  littering  them  Avith 
pro})riety.  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 


48  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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,  Hage- 
dorn,  Eabener,  Gleim,  and  a  multitude  of  lesser  men,  whatever 
excellences  they  might  want,  certainly  are  not  chargeable  with 
bad  taste.  Nay,  perhaps  of  all  writers  they  are  the  least 
chargeable  with  it :  a  certain  clear,  light,  unaffected  elegance, 
of  a  higher  nature  than  French  elegance,  it  might  be,  yet  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  very  deep  or  genial  qualities,  was  the  ex- 
cellence they  strove  after,  and,  for  the  most  part,  in  a  fair 
measure  attained.  They  resemble  English  writers  of  the  same, 
or  perhaps  an  earlier  period,  more  than  any, other  foreigners  : 
apart  from  Pope,  whose  influence  is  visible  enough,  Beattie, 
Logan,  Wilkie,  Glover,  unknown  perhaps  to  any  of  them, 
might  otherwise  have  almost  seemed  their  models.  Goldsmith 
also  would  rank  among  them  ;  perhaps  in  regard  to  true  poetic 
genius,  at  their  head,  for  none  of  them  has  left  us  a  Vicar  of 
Wakefield  ;  though,  in  regard  to  judgment,  knowledge,  general 
talent,  his  place  would  scarcely  be  so  high. 

The  same  thing  holds  in  general,  and  with  fewer  drawbacks, 
of  the  somewhat  later  and  more  energetic  race,  denominated 

^  Tlie  history  of  Mendelssohn  is  interesting  in  itself,  and  full  of  encourage- 
ment to  all  lovers  of  self-iinprovement.  At  thirteen  he  was  a  wandering 
Jewish  beggar,  without  healtli,  without  home,  almost  without  a  language, — 
for  the  jargon  of  broken  Hebrew  and  provincial  German  which  he  spoke  could 
scarcely  be  called  one.  At  middle  age  he  could  write  tliis  Phcr.don ;  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  liis  life  was  to  better  the  inward  and  outward 
co:idition  of  his  own  ill-fated  peoj)le  ;  for  whom  he  actually  accomplished 
much  benefit.  He  was  a  mild,  shrewd  and  worthy  man  ;  and  might  well  love 
P'lC'l.tii  and  Socrates,  for  his  own  character  was  Socratic.  Hn  was  a  friend 
of  Lessiug's :  indeed,  a  pupil ;  for  Lessing.  having  accidoiitally  met  him  at 
chess,  recogni/.cd  the  spirit  that  lay  struggling  under  such  incumbrances,  and 
generously'  undertook  to  hel])  him.  By  teaching  the  poor  .Tew  a  little  Greek, 
he  disenchanted  him  from  the  Talmud  and  the  Rabbins.  The  two  were  after- 
wards colaborers  in  Nicolai's  Deutsche  Blbliothek,  the  first  Gorman  Heview 
of  any  character;  v.hich,  however,  in  the  hands  of  Nicolai  himself,  it  sub- 
sequently lost.  Mendelssohn's  "Works  have  mostly  been  translated  into 
I'rench. 


STATE   OF   GERMAN   LITERATURE.  49 

the  Gottingen  School ;  in  contradistinction  from  the  Saxon,  to 
which  Rabener,  Cramer  and  Gellert  directly  belonged,  and 
most  of  those  others  indirectly.  Holty,  Burger,  the  two  Stol- 
bergs,  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  compasses 
could  not  measure  without  difficulty,  or  rather  not  at  all.  To 
say  that  such  men  wrote  with  taste  of  this  sort,  were  saying 
little  ;  for  this  forms  not  the  apex,  but  the  basis,  in  their  con- 
ception of  st3^1e  ;  a  quality  not  to  be  paraded  as  an  excellence, 
but  to  be  nnderstood  as  indispensable,  as  there  by  necessity 
and  like  a  thing  of  course. 

In  truth,  for  it  must  be  spoken  out,  our  opponents  are 
widely  astray  in  this  matter ;  so  widely  that  their  views  of  it 
are  not  only  dim  and  perplexed,  but  altogether  imaginary  and 
delusive.  It  is  proposed  to  school  the  Germans  in  the  Alpha- 
bet of  taste  ;  and  the  Germans  are  already  busied  with  their 
Accidence  !  Far  from  being  behind  other  nations  in  the  prac- 
tice or  science  of  Criticism,  it  is  a  fact,  for  which  we  fearlessly 
refer  to  all  competent  judges,  that  they  are  distinctly  and  even 
considerably  in  advance.  We  state  what  is  already  known  to 
a  great  part  of  Europe  to  be  true.  Criticism  has  assumed  a 
new  form  in  Germany ;  it  proceeds  on  other  principles,  and 
l)roposes  to  itself  a  higher  aim.  The  grand  question  is  not 
now  a  question  concerning  the  qualities  of  diction,  the  cohe- 
rence of  metaphors,  the  fitness  of  sentiments,  the  general  logi- 
cal truth,  in  a  work  of  art,  as  it  was  some  half-century  ago 
among  most  critics  ;  neither  is  it  a  question  mainly  of  a  ps}- 
chological  sort,  to  be  answered  by  discovering  and  delineating 
the  peculiar  nature  of  the  poet  from  his  poetry,  as  is  usual 
with  the  best  of  our  own  critics  at  present :  but  it  is,  not  in- 
deed exclusively,  but  inclusively  of  those  two  other  questions, 
properly  and  ultinaately  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  bodtj  and  material  existence,  a  much 

VOL.    Xlll.  4 


50  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

higher  point ;  but  only  the  last  to  its  soul  and  spiritual  exist- 
ence, 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  organ- 
ized his  dramas,  and  gave  life  and  individuality  to  his  Ariel 
and  his  Hamlet.  Wherein  lies  that  life ;  how  have  they  at- 
tained that  shape  and  individuality  ?  Whence  comes  that 
empyrean  fire,  which  irradiates  their  whole  being,  and  pierces, 
at  least  in  starry  gleams,  like  a  diviner  thing,  into  all  hearts  ? 
Are  these  dramas  of  his  not  verisimilar  only,  but  true ;  nay, 
truer  than  reality  itself,  since  the  essence  of  unmixed  reality 
is  bodied  forth  in  them  under  more  expressive  symbols  ? 
What  is  this  unity  of  theirs  ;  and  can  our  deeper  inspection 
discern  it  to  be  indivisible,  and  existing  by  necessity,  because 
each  work  springs,  as  it  were,  from  the  general  elements  of  all 
Thought,  and  grows  up  therefrom,  into  form  and  expansion  by 
its  own  growth  ?  Not  only  who  was  the  poet,  and  how  did  he 
compose  ;  but  what  and  how  was  the  poem,  and  why  was  it  a 
poem  and  not  rhymed  eloquence,  creation  and  not  figured 
passion  ?  These  are  the  questions  for  the  critic.  Criticism 
stands  like  an  interpreter  between  the  inspired  and  the  unin- 
spired ;  between  the  prophet  and  those  who  hear  the  melody 
of  his  Avords,  and  catch  some  glimpse  of  their  material  mean- 
ing, but  understand  not  their  deeper  import.  She  pretends  to 
open  for  us  this  deeper  import ;  to  clear  our  sense  that  it  may 
discern  the  pure  brightness  of  this  eternal  Beauty,  and  recog- 
nize it  as  heavenly,  under  all  forms  where  it  looks  forth,  and 
reject,  as  of  the  earth  earthy,  all  forms,  be  their  material 
splendor  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  declama- 
tion clothed  in  gorgeous  mystic  phraseology  ?  By  vehement 
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 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  61 

is  rendered  clear  both  that  the  poet  is  an  extremely  great  poet, 
and  also  that  the  critic's  allotment  of  understanding,  over* 
flowed  by  these  Pythian  raptures,  has  unhappily  melted  into 
deliquium  ?  Kowise  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  re- 
gions of  Philosophy.  For  this  finer  portion  of  their  Criticism 
is  now  also  embodied  in  systems  ;  and  standing,  so  far  as  these 
reach,  coherent,  distinct  and  methodical,  no  less  than,  on  their 
much  shallower  foundation,  the  systems  of  Boileau  and  Blair. 
That  this  new  Criticism  is  a  complete,  much  more  a  certain 
science,  we  are  far  from  meaning  to  affirm :  the  cesthetic  theo- 
ries  of  Kant,  Herder,  Schiller,  Goethe,  Eichter,  vary  in  ex- 
ternal aspect,  according  to  the  varied  habits  of  the  individual ; 
and  can  at  best  only  be  regarded  as  approximations  to  the 
truth,  or  modifications  of  it ;  each  critic  representing  it,  as  it 
harmonizes  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  tliere  is  iu 
each  or  all  of  these  writers  ;  or  in  Tieck  and  the  two  Schlegels, 
who,  especially  the  latter,  have  labored  so  meritoriously  in 
reconciling  these  various  opinions ;  and  so  successfully  in  im- 
pressing and  diffusing  the  best  spirit  of  them,  first  in  their 
own  country,  and  now  also  in  several  others.  Thus  much, 
however,  we  will  say :  That  we  reckon  the  mere  circumstance 
of  such  a  science  being  in  existence,  a  ground  of  the  highest 
consideration,  and  worthy  the  best  attention  of  all  inquir- 
ing 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  con- 
dition 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  silentl}-^  fallen ;  our  increased  and  increasing  ad- 
miration, not  only  of  Shakspeare,  but  of  all  his  contemporaries, 
and  of  all  who  breathe  any  portion  of  his  spirit  j  our  coutro* 


52  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS   ESSAYS. 

versy  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  in- 
tellectual form.  But  in  Italy  too,  in  France  itself,  the  same 
thing  is  visible.  Their  grand  controversy,  so  hotly  urged,  be- 
tween the  Classicists  and  Romanticists,  in  which  the  Schlegels 
are  assumed,  much  too  loosely,  on  all  hands,  as  the  patrons 
and  generalissimos  of  the  latter,  shows  us  sufficiently  what 
spirit  is  at  work  in  that  long-stagnant  literature.  Doubtless 
this  turbid  fermentation  of  the  elements  will  at  length  settle 
into  clearness,  both  there  and  here,  as  in  Germany  it  has  al- 
ready 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  farther  exposition. 

The  authors  and  first  promulgators  of  this  new  critical  doc- 
trine were  at  one  time  contemptuously  named  the  New  School ; 
nor  was  it  till  after  a  war  of  all  the  few  good  heads  in  the 
nation  with  all  the  many  bad  ones  had  ended  as  such  wars 
must  ever  do,^  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 

'  It  began  in  Schiller's  Muscvalmnnnch  for  1797.  The  Xenien  (a  series  of 
philuso])liii-  epigrams  jointly  by  Schiller  and  Goethe)  descended  there  unex- 
pectedly, like  a  flood  of  ethereal  fire,  on  the  German  literary  world  ;  quicken- 
ing all  that  was  noble  into  new  life,  but  visiting  the  ancient  empire  of  Dnlness 
with  astonishment  and  unknown  pangs.  The  agitation  was  extreme  ;  scarcely 
since  the  age  of  Lutlier  has  there  been  such  stir  and  strife  in  the  intellect  of 
Germany;  indeed,  scarcely  since  that  age  has  there  been  a  controversy,  if  wo 
consider  its  ultimate  bearings  on  the  best  and  noblest  interests  of  mankind, 
so  important  as  this,  which,  for  the  time,  seemed  only  to  turn  on  metaphysical 
subtl  'tics,  anil  matters  of  mere  elegance.  Its  farther  apjdicalions  became 
ap])areut  by  degrees. 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  53 

by  the  Germans  ;  and  to  every  literature  they  have  studied  to 
give  due  honor.  JShakspeare  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  Story-tellers 
of  the  West.  The  wayward  mystic  gloom  of  Calderon,  the 
lurid  fire  of  Dante,  the  auroral  light  of  Tasso,  the  clear  icy 
glitter  of  Racine,  all  are  acknowledged  and  reverenced ;  nay 
in  the  celestial  forecourt  an  abode  has  been  appointed  for  the 
Gressets  and  Delilles,  that  no  spark  of  inspiration,  no  tone  of 
mental  music,  might  remain  unrecognized.  The  Germans 
study  foreign  nations  in  a  spirit  which  deserves  to  be  oftener 
imitated.  It  is  their  honest  endeavor  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  if,  but  simply  that  they  may  see  this  manner  of  existing 
as  the  nation  itself  sees  it,  and  so  participate  in  whatever 
worth  or  beauty  it  has  brought  into  being.  Of  all  literatures, 
accordingly,  the  German  has  the  best  as  well  as  the  most 
translations  ;  men  like  Goethe,  Schiller,  Wieland,  Schlegel, 
Tieck,  have  not  disdained  this  task.  Of  Shakspeare  there  are 
three  entire  versions  admitted  to  be  good  ;  and  we  know  not 
how  many  partial,  or  considered  as  bad.  In  their  criticisms 
of  hiin,  we  ourselves  have  long  ago  admitted  that  no  such  clear 
judgment  or  hearty  appreciation  of  his  merits  had  ever  been 
exhibited  by  any  critic  of  our  own. 

To  attempt  stating  in  separate  aphorisms  the  doctrines  of 
this  new  poetical  system,  would,  in  such  space  as  is  now 
allowed  us,  be  to  insure  them  of  misapprehension.  The 
science  of  Criticism,  as  the  Germans  practise  it,  is  no  study  of 
an  hour;  for  it  springs  from  the  depths  of  thought,  and  re- 
motely or  immediately  connects  itself  with  the  subtlest  prob- 
lems of  all  philosophy.  One  characteristic  of  it  we  ma}''  state, 
the  obvious  parent  of  many  others.  Poetic  beauty,  in  its  pure 
essence,  is  not,  by  this  theory,  as  by  all  our  theories,  from 
Hume's  to  Alison's,  derived  from  anything  external,  or  of 
merely  intellectual  origin ;  not  from  association,  or  any  reflex 


M  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

or  reminiscence  of  mere  sensations;  nor  from  natural  love, 
either  of  imitation,  of  similarity  in  dissimilarity,  of  excitement 
by  contrast,  or  of  seeing  difficulties  overcome.  On  the  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  un- 
corrupted  hearts,  some  effulgences  of  this  heavenly  glory  are 
here  and  there  revealed;  and.  to  apprehend  it  clearly  and 
wholly,  to  acquire  and  maintain  a  sense  and  heart  that  sees 
and  worships  it,  is  the  last  perfection  of  all  humane  culture. 
With  mere  readers  for  amusement,  therefore,  this  Criticism 
has,  and  can  have,  nothing  to  do ;  these  find  their  amusement, 
in  less  or  greater  measure,  and  the  nature  of  Poetry  remains 
forever  hidden  from  them  in  deepest  concealment.  On  all 
hands,  "there  is  no  truce  given  to  the  hypothesis,  that  the 
ultimate  object  of  the  poet  is  to  please.  Sensation,  even  of 
the  finest  and  most  rapturous  sort,  is  not  the  end,  but  the 
means.  Art  is  to  be  loved,  not  because  of  its  effects^  but 
because  of  itself ;  not  because  it  is  useful  for  spiritual  plea- 
sure, 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  rdility  of  a  God, 
or,  what  to  the  Germans  would  sound  stranger  than  it  does  to 
us,  the  utU'dij  of  Virtue  and  Religion.  —  On  these  particulars, 
the  authenticity  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,  flight  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 


STATE  OF  GEBMAN  LITERATURE.  65 

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 
l^resupposed.  Of  persons  that  are  not  so,  but  employ  their 
gift,  in  rhyme  or  otherwise,  for  brutish  or  malignant  purposes, 
it  is  understood  that  such  lie  without  the  limits  of  Criticism, 
being  subjects  not  for  the  judge  of  Art,  but  for  the  judge  of 
Police.  But  even  with  regard  to  the  fair  tradesman,  vrho  offers 
his  talent  in  open  market,  to  do  work  of  a  harmless  and  ac- 
ceptable 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  instru- 
ments, 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  a  Slave  !  "  Xay, 
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  favorite  !  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  OAvn  nature. 
Here,  from  the  pure  ether  of  his  spiritual  essence,  flows  down 
the  Fountain  of  Beauty,  uncontaminated  by  tlie  pollutions  of 
ages  and  generations,  which  roll  to  and  fro  in  their  turbid  vor- 
tex far  beneath  it.     His  matter  Caprice  can  dishonor,  as  she 


66  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

has  ennobled  it ;  but  the  chaste  form  is  withdrawn  from  her 
mutations.  The  Roman  of  the  first  century  had  long  bent  the 
knee  before  his  Caesars,  when  the  statues  of  Eome  were  still 
standing  erect ;  the  temples  continued  holy  to  the  eye,  when 
their  gods  had  long  been  a  laughing-stock ;  and  the  abomina- 
tions of  a  iSTero  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  downwards  to  his  happiness  and  his  wants.  Free 
alike  from  the  vain  activity  that  longs  to  impress  its  traces  on 
the  fleeting  instant,  and  from  the  querulous  spirit  of  enthusi- 
asm that  measures  by  the  scale  of  perfection  the  meagre  prod- 
uct of  reality,  let  him  leave  to  mere  Understanding,  which  is 
here  at  home,  the  province  of  the  actual ;  while  he  strives,  by 
uniting  the  possible  with  the  necessary,  to  produce  the  ideal. 
This  let  liim  imprint  and  express  in  fiction  and  truth  ;  imprint 
ifc  in  the  sport  of  his  imagination  and  the  earnest  of  his  actions  ; 
imprint  it  in  all  sensible  and  spiritual  forms,  and  cast  it  silently 
into  everlasting  time."  ^ 

Still  higher  are  Fichte's  notions  on  this  subject ;  or  rather, 
expressed  in  higher  terms,  for  the  central  principle  is  the  same 
both  in  the  philosopher  and  the  poet.  According  to  Fichte, 
there  is  a  "  Divine  Idea "  pervading  the  visible  Universe ; 
which  visible  Universe  is  indeed  but  its  symbol  and  sensible 
manifestation,  having  in  itself  no  meaning,  or  even  true  exist- 
ence  independent  of  it.  To  the  mass  of  men  this  Divine 
Idea  of  tlie  world  lies  hidden  :  yet  to  discern  it,  to  seize  it, 
.'tnd  live  wholly  in  it,  is  the  condition  of  all  genuine  virtue, 
knowledge,  freedom  ;  and  the  end,  therefore,  of  all  spiritual 
etTort  in  every  age.  Literary  Men  are  the  appointed  interpret- 
ers of  tliis  Divine  Idea ;  a  perpetual  priesthood,  we  might  say, 

1  ll},rr  (Up  Aesthetisclit;  Erzifhnng  des  Menschen,  —  On  the  iEsthetic  Educa- 
tirtu  of  Man. 


STATE   OF   GERMAN   LITERATURE.  67 

standing  forth,  generation  after  generation,  as  the  dispensers 
and  living  types  of  God's  everlasting  wisdom,  to  show  it  in 
their  writings  and  actions,  in  such  particular  form  as  their 
own  particular  times  require  it  in.  For  each  age,  by  the  law 
of  its  nature,  is  different  from  every  other  age,  and  demands 
a  different  representation  of  the  Divine  Idea,  the  essence  of 
which  is  the  same  in  all ;  so  that  the  literary  man  of  one 
century  is  only  by  mediation  and  reinterpretation  applicable 
to  the  wants  of  another.  But  in  every  century,  every  man 
who  labors,  be  it  in  what  province  he  may,  to  teach  others, 
must  iirst  have  possessed  himself  of  the  Divine  Idea,  or,  at 
least,  be  with  his  whole  heart  and  his  whole  soul  striving  after 
it.  If,  without  possessing  it  or  striving  after  it,  he  abide  dili- 
gently by  some  material  practical  department  of  knowledge, 
he  may  indeed  still  be  (says  Fichte,  in  his  ragged  way)  a  "  use- 
ful 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  carried  on  by  the  common  Eeality  of  things  : 
in  his  fruitless  endeavor  after  the  Idea,  he  has  neglected  to 
acquire  the  craft  of  taking  part  in  this  Reality ;  and  so  hovers 
between  two  worlds,  without  pertaining  to  either."  Elsewhere 
he  adds  :  — 

"  There  is  still,  from  another  point  of  view,  another  division 
in  our  notion  of  the  Literary  Man,  and  one  to  us  of  immediate 
application.  ]S"aniely,  either  the  Literary  Man  has  already 
laid  hold  of  the  whole  Divine  Idea,  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  com- 
prehended 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  person- 
ality :  in  that  case  he  is  a  completed  and  equipt  Literary  jMan, 
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 


C8  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  penetrate  the  whole,  entirely  clear  to  himself;  detached 
sparkles  of  light  already  spring  forth  on  him  from  all  sides, 
and  disclose  a  higher  world  before  him ;  but  they  do  not  yet 
unite  themselves  into  an  indivisible  whole  ;  they  vanish  from 
his  view  as  capriciously  as  they  came ;  he  cannot  yet  bring 
them  under  obedience  to  his  freedom  :  in  that  case  he  is  a  pro- 
gressing and  self-unfolding  literary  man,  a  Student.  That  it 
be  actually  the  Idea,  which  is  possessed  or  striven  after,  is 
common  to  both.  Should  the  striving  aim  merely  at  the  out- 
ward form,  and  the  letter  of  learned  culture,  there  is  then  pro- 
duced, when  the  circle  is  gone  round,  the  completed,  when  it 
is  not  yet  gone  round,  the  progressing.  Bungler  {Stumper). 
The  latter  is  more  tolerable  than  the  former ;  for  there  is 
fitill  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  over."  * 

From  this  bold  and  lofty  principle  the  duties  of  the  Literary 
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  misapprehended ; 
but  the  sublime  stoicism  of  his  sentiments  will  find  some  re- 
sponse in  many  a  heart.  We  must  add  the  conclusion  of  his 
first  Discourse,  as  a  farther  illustration  of  his  manner  :  — 

"  In  disquisitions  of  the  sort  like  ours  of  to-day,  which  all  the 
rest  too  must  resemble,  the  generality  are  wont  to  censure : 
First,  their  severity ;  very  often  on  the  good-natured  supposi- 
tion that  the  speaker  is  not  aware  how  much  his  rigor  must 
displease  us ;  that  we  have  but  frankly  to  let  him  know  this, 
and  then  doubtless  he  will  reconsider  himself,  and  soften  his 
statements.  Tims,  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  tlie 
style  of  those  unmerciful  expressions  by  which  philosophers 
give  such  offence.  —  Now,  looking  away  from  the  present  case, 

^  IHifr  das  H'e^fn  des  Gekhten  (On  the  Nature  of  the  Literary  Man) ;  a 
Coarse  of  Lectures  delivered  at  Erlaugeu  La  1S05. 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  53 

that  we  may  front  the  maxim  in  its  general  shape,  I  remind 
you  that  this  species  of  character,  without  decisive  force  to 
renounce  all  respect  for  Truth,  seeks  merely  to  bargain  and 
cheapen  something  out  of  her,  whereby  he  himself  on  easier 
terms  may  attain  to  some  consideration.  But  Truth,  which 
once  for  all  is  as  she  is,  and  cannot  alter  aught  of  her  nature, 
goes  on  her  way ;  and  there  remains  for  her,  in  regard  to  those 
who  desire  her  not  simply  because  she  is  true,  nothing  else  but 
to  leave  them  standing  as  if  they  had  never  addressed  her. 

"  Then  farther,  discourses  of  this  sort  are  wont  to  be  cen- 
sured as  unintelligible.  Thus  I  figure  to  myself,  —  nowise 
you.  Gentlemen,  but  some  completed  Literary  Man  of  the 
second  species,  whose  eye  the  disquisition  here  entered  upon 
chanced  to  meet,  as  coming  forward,  doubting  this  way  and 
that,  and  at  last  reflectively  exclaiming :  '  The  Idea,  the  Divine 
Idea,  that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  Appearance :  what,  pray, 
may  this  mean  ? '  Of  such  a  questioner  I  would  inquire  in 
turn :  '  What,  pray,  may  this  question  mean  ?  '  —  Investigate 
it  strictly,  it  means  in  most  cases  nothing  more  than :  *  Under 
what  other  names,  and  in  what  other  formulas,  do  I  already 
know  this  same  tiling,  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  :  '  Thou  knowest  this  thing 
not  at  all,  neither  under  this  nor  under  any  other  name ;  and 
wouldst  thou  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  it,  thou  must  even 
now  begin  at  the  beginning  to  make  study  thereof ;  —  and 
then,  most  fitly,  under  that  name  by  which  it  is  here  first  pre- 
sented to  thee  ! '  " 

With  such  a  notion  of  the  Artist,  it  were  a  strange  incon- 
sistenc}'  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  jjoetic 
worth  of  so  many  poets  and  poems  more  vividly  and  accurately 
brought  to  view.     As  an  instance  of  a  much  higher  kind,  we 


60  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

might  refer  to  Goethe's  criticism  of  Hamlet  in  his  Wllhelm 
Melster.  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  product  of 
the  poet ;  painting  to  the  intellect  what  already  lay  painted 
to  the  heart  and  the  imagination.  Nor  is  it  over  poetry 
alone  that  Criticism  watches  with  such  loving  strictness :  the 
mimic,  the  pictorial,  the  musical  arts,  all  modes  of  repre- 
senting or  addressing  the  highest  nature  of  man  are  acknowl- 
edged as  younger  sisters  of  Poetry,  and  fostered  with  like  care. 
Winkelmann's  History  of  Plastic  Art  is  known  by  repute  to  all 
readers  :  and  of  those  who  know  it  by  inspection,  many  may 
have  wondered  why  such  a  work  has  not  been  added  to  our 
OAvn  literature,  to  instruct  our  own  sculptors  and  painters.  On 
this  subject  of  the  plastic  arts,  we  cannot  withhold  the  follow- 
ing 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  riee  forest 
mountains,  and  icy  peaks  of  glaciers.  The  tone  of  coloring  in 
such  scenes  is  gay,  mirthfully  clear  ;  the  distances  as  if  over- 
flowed with  softening  vapor,  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  de- 
clivities slope  down,  luxuriantly  overgrown,  and  fresh  streams 
roll  rapidly  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. 


STATE  OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  61 

"In  the  middle-ground,  his  lively  green  tone  grows  fainter 
by  degrees  ;  and  at  last,  on  the  more  distant  mountain-tops, 
passing  into  weak  violet,  weds  itself  with  the  blue  of  the  sky. 
But  our  artist  is  above  all  happy  in  his  paintings  of  high 
Alpine  regions ;  in  seizing  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 
])asturages  with  grazing  cattle,  or  the  narrow  winding  rocky 
l)ath  with  mules  and  laden  pack-horses,  he  paints  all  with  equal 
truth  and  richness ;  still  introduced  in  the  proper  place,  and 
not  in  too  great  copiousness,  they  decorate  and  enliven  these 
scenes,  without  interrupting,  without  lessening  their  peaceful 
solitude.  The  execution  testifies  a  master's  hand ;  easy,  with 
a  few  sure  strokes,  and  yet  complete.  In  his  later  pieces,  he 
employed  glittering  English  permanent-colors  on  paper :  these 
pictures,  accordingly,  are  of  pre-eminently  blooming  tone ; 
cheerful,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  strong  and  full. 

"  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 ;  Ave  admire  the  great  effect  of  the  whole,  produced,  at  so 
little  cost,  by  a  few  expressive  strokes,  and  masses  of  local 
colors. 

'•'AMth  no  less  accuracy  of  character  can  he  represent  the 
regions  of  the  topmost  Alpine  ranges,  where  neither  tree  nor 
shrub  any  more  appears ;  but  only,  amid  the  rocky  teeth  and 
snow-summits,  a  few  sunny  spots  clothe  themselves  with  a  soft 
sward.  Beautiful,  and  balmy  and  inviting  as  he  colors  these 
sj)ots,  he  has  here  wisely  forborne  to  introduce  grazing  herds ; 
for  these  regions  give  food  only  to  the  chamois,  and  a  perilous 
employment  to  the  wild-hay-men."  ^ 

1  Tlio  i)oor  wild-hay-inaii  of  tlie  TJigibcrg, 
Wliose  trade  is,  on  tlie  brow  of  the  aliyss, 
To  mow  tTic  common  grass  from  nooks  ixuil  slielves 
To  which  the  cattle  dare  not  climli. 

Schiller's   Wuhelni  Tell. 


62  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

We  have  extracted  this  passage  from  Wilhelm  Meisters 
Wanderjahre,  Goethe's  last  Novel.  The  perusal  of  his  whole 
"Works  would  show,  among  many  other  more  important  facts, 
that  Criticism  also  is  a  science  of  which  he  is  master ;  that  if 
ever  any  man  had  studied  Art  in  all  its  branches  and  bear- 
ings, 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  defec- 
tive 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  own  time,  something 
which  associates  them,  remotely  or  nearly  we  say  not,  but 
which  does  associate  them  with  the  Masters  of  Art,  the  Saints 
of  Poetry,  long  since  departed,  and,  as  we  thought,  without 
successors,  from  the  earth,  but  canonized  in  the  hearts  of  all 
generations,  and  yet  living  to  all  by  the  memory  pi  what  they 
did  and  were.  Glances  we  do  seem  to  find  of  that  ethereal 
glory  which  looks  on  us  in  its  full  brightness  from  the  Trans- 
figuratlon  of  Raffaelle,  from  the  Tempest  of  Shakspeare ;  and, 
in  broken  but  purest  and  still  heart-piercing  beams,  struggling 
through  the  gloom  of  long  ages,  from  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles, 
and  tlie  weather-worn  sculptures  of  the  Tarthenon.  This  is 
that  heavenly  spirit  wliicli,  best  seen  in  the  aerial  embodiment 
of  poetry,  but  spreading  likewise  over  all  the  thoughts  and 
actions  of  an  age,  has  given  us  Surreys,  Sydneys,  Raleighs  in 
court  and  cam]),  Cecils  in  policy,  Hookers  in  divinity,  Bacons 
in  philosophy,  and  Shakspeares  and  Spensers  in  song.     All 


STATE  OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  63 

hearts  that  know  this,  know  it  to  be  the  highest;  and 
that,  in  poetry  or  elsewhere,  it  alone  is  true  and  imperish- 
able. 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  speci- 
men help  us  ;  for  it  is  not  in  parts,  but  in  whole  poems,  that 
the  spirit  of  a  true  poet  is  to  be  seen.  We  can,  therefore,  only 
name  such  men  as  Tieck,  Richter,  Herder,  Schiller,  and,  above 
all,  Goethe ;  and  ask  any  reader  who  has  learned  to  admire 
wisely  our  own  literature  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  age,  to  peruse 
these  writers  also ;  to  study  them  till  he  feels  that  he  has 
understood  them,  and  justly  estimated  both  their  light  and 
darkness ;  and  then  to  pronounce  whether  it  is  not,  in  some 
degree,  as  we  have  said.  Are  there  not  tones  here  of  that  old 
melody  ?  Are  there  not  glimpses  of  that  serene  soul,  that 
calm  harmouious  strength,  that  smiling  earnestness,  that  Love 
and  Faith  and  Humanity  of  nature  ?  Do  these  foreign  con- 
temporaries of  ours  still  exhibit,  in  their  characters  as  men, 
something  of  that  sterling  nobleness,  that  union  of  majesty 
with  meekness,  which  we  must  ever  venerate  in  those  our 
spiritual  fathers  ?  And  do  their  works,  in  the  new  form  of 
this  century,  show  forth  that  old  nobleness,  not  consistent  only, 
with  the  science,  the  precision,  the  scepticism  of  these  days, 
but  wedded  to  them,  incorporated  with  them,  and  shining 
through  them  like  their  life  and  soul  ?  Might  it  in  truth 
almost  seem  to  us,  in  reading  the  prose  of  Goethe,  as  if  we 
were  reading  that  of  Milton ;  and  of  Milton  writing  with  the 
culture  of  this  time  ;  combining  French  clearness  witli  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  inqxiirers  to 
answer  for  themselves ;  premising  only  tliat  the  secret  is  not 
to  be  found  on  the  surface ;  that  the  first  reply  is  likely  to  be 


64  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  remi- 
niscence, but  something  actually  present  and  before  us;  no 
looking  back  into  an  antique  Fairyland,  divided  by  impassable 
abysses  from  the  real  world  as  it  lies  about  us  and  within  us  ; 
•but  a  looking  round  upon  that  real  world  itself,  now  rendered 
holier  to  our  eyes,  and  once  more  become  a  solemn  temple, 
where  the  spirit  of  Beauty  still  dwells,  and  is  still,  under  new 
emblems,  to  be  worshipped  as  of  old.  With  Goethe,  the  my- 
thologies of  bygone  days  pass  only  for  what  they  are  :  we  have 
no  witchcraft  or  magic  in  the  common  acceptation  ;  and  spirits 
no  longer  bring  with  them  airs  from  heaven  or  blasts  from 
liell;  for  Pandemonium  and  the  steadfast  Empyrean  have 
faded  away,  since  the  opinions  which  they  symbolized  no  longer 
are.  Neither  does  he  bring  his  heroes  from  remote  Oriental 
climates,  or  periods  of  Chivalry,  or  any  section  either  of  At- 
lantis or  the  Age  of  Gold  ;  feeling  that  the  reflex  of  these 
things  is  cold  and  faint,  and  only  hangs  like  a  cloud-picture 
in  the  distance,  beautiful  but  delusive,  and  which  even  the 
simplest  know  to  be  a  delusion.  The  end  of  Poetry  is  higher  : 
she  must  dwell  in  Reality,  and  become  manifest  to  men  in  the 
forms  among  which  they  live  and  move.  And  this  is  what  we 
prize  in  Goethe,  and  more  or  less  in  Schiller  and  the  rest ;  all 
of  whom,  each  in  his  own  way,  are  writers  of  a  similar  aim. 
The  coldest  sceptic,  the  most  callous  worldling,  sees  not  the 
actual  asjjects  of  life  more  sharply  than  they  are  here  delin- 
eated :  the  Nineteenth  Century  stands  before  us,  in  all  its 
contradi(!ti(jn  and  perplexity;  barren,  mean  and  baleful,  as  we 
liave  all  known  it ;  yet  here  no  longer  mean  or  barren,  but 
enamelled  into  beauty  in  the  poet's  spirit;  for  its  secret  signifi- 
cance is  hiid  open,  and  thus,  as  it  were,  the  life-giving  fire  that 
shinibers  in  it  is  called  forth,  and  flowers  and  foliage,  as  of  old, 
are  springing  on  its  bleakest  wildernesses,  and  overmantling 
its  sternest  olilTs.  For  these  men  have  not  only  the  clear  eye, 
but  the  loving  heart.     They  have  penetrated  into  the  mystery 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  63 

of  Nature ;  after  long  trial  they  have  been  initiated ;  and  to 
unwearied  endeavor,  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  it  in 
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  interpreta- 
tion. Here  mirth  and  gravit}'  are  blended  together  ;  wit  rests 
on  deep  devout  wisdom,  as  the  greensward  with  its  flowers 
must  rest  on  the  rock,  whose  foundations  reach  do\ynward  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  endeavor  to  set  forth :  — 

"As  all  Xature's  thousand  changes 
But  one  changeless  God  proclaim, 
So  in  Art's  wide  kingdoms  ranges 
One  sole  meaning,  still  the  same  : 
This  is  Truth,  eternal  Reason, 
Which  from  Beauty  takes  its  dress. 
And,  serene  through  time  and  season, 
Stands  for  aye  in  loveliness." 

Such  indeed  is  the  end  of  Poetry  at  all  times  ;  yet  in  no  recent 
literature  known  to  us,  except  the  German,  has  it  been  so  far 
attained  ;  nay,  perhaps,  so  much  as  consciously  and  steadfastly 
attempted. 

The  reader  feels  that  if  this  our  opinion  be  in  any  measure 
true,  it  is  a  truth  of  no  ordinary  moment.  It  concerns  not 
this  writer  or  that ;  but  it  opens  to  us  new  views  on  the  for- 
tune 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  vigor  of  intellect,  and  that  in  the  cold  light  of  science 

VOL.   XIII.  5 


66  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

there  was  no  longer  room  for  faith  in  things  unseen  ?  The 
old  simplicity  of  heart  was  gone ;  earnest  emotions  must  no 
longer  be  expressed  in  earnest  symbols  ;  beauty  must  recede 
into  elegance,  devoutness  of  character  be  replaced  by  clearness 
of  thought,  and  grave  wisdom  by  shrewdness  and  persiflage. 
Such  things  we  have  heard,  but  hesitated  to  believe  them.  If 
the  poetry  of  the  Germans,  and  this  not  by  theory  but  by  ex- 
ample, have  proved,  or  even  begun  to  prove,  the  contrary,  it 
will  deserve  far  higher  encomiums  than  any  we  have  passed 
upon  it. 

In  fact,  the  past  and  present  aspect  of  German  literature 
illustrates  the  literature  of  England  in  more  than  one  way. 
Its  history  keeps  pace  with  that  of  ours  ;  for  so  closely  are  all 
European  communities  connected,  that  the  phases  of  mind  in 
any  one  country,  so  far  as  these  represent  its  general  circum- 
stances and  intellectual  position,  are  but  modified  repetitions 
of  its  phases  in  every  other.  We  hinted  above  that  the  Saxon 
School  corresponded  with  what  might  be  called  the  Scotch  : 
Cramer  Avas  not  unlike  our  Blair  ;  Von  Cronegk  might  be  com- 
pared with  Michael  Bruce  ;  and  Rabener  and  Gellert  with 
Beattie  and  Logan.  To  this  mild  and  cultivated  period,  there 
succeeded,  as  with  us,  a  partial  abandonment  of  poetry,  in  favor 
of  political  and  philosophical  Illumination.  Then  was  the 
time  when  hot  war  was  declared  against  Prejudice  of  all  sorts  ; 
Utility  was  set  up  for  the  universal  measure  of  mental  as  well 
as  material  value  ;  poetry,  except  of  an  economical  and  pre- 
ceptorial character,  was  found  to  be  the  product  of  a  rude  age ; 
and  religious  enthusiasm  was  but  derangement  in  the  biliary 
organs.  Then  did  the  Prices  and  Condorcets  of  Germany  in- 
dulge in  day-dreams  of  perfectibility ;  a  new  social  order  was 
to  bring  back  the  Saturnian  era  to  the  world ;  and  philoso- 
phers sat  on  their  sunny  Pisgah,  looking  back  over  dark  sav- 
age deserts,  and  forward  into  a  land  lluwing  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  terms  of 
contempt,  by  the  title  Anflddrerci  (lUuminationism)  ;  and  its 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  G7 

partisans,  in  subsequent  satirical  controversies,  receiv^ed  the 
nickname  of  Ph'distem  (Philistines),  which  the  few  scattered 
remnants  of  them  still  bear,  both  in  writing  and  speech.  Poe- 
try arose  again,  and  in  a  new  and  singular  shape.  The  Soi'- 
roivs  of  Werter,  Gotz  von  Berlich'mgen,  and  the  Robbers,  may 
stand  as  patriarchs  and  representatives  of  three  separate 
classes,  which,  commingled  in  various  proportions,  or  separately 
coexisting,  now  with  the  preponderance  of  this,  now  of  that, 
occupied  the  whole  popular  litei-ature  of  Germany  till  near 
the  end  of  the  last  century.  These  were  the  Sentimentalists, 
the  Chivalry-play  writers,  and  other  gorgeous  and  outrageous 
persons  ;  as  a  whole,  now  pleasantly  denominated  the  Kraft- 
tncinner,  literally,  Power-men.  They  dealt  in  sceptical  lamen- 
tation, mysterious  enthusiasm,  frenzy  and  suicide  :  they  recurred 
with  fondness  to  the  Feudal  Ages,  delineating  many  a  battle- 
mented  keep,  and  swart  buff -belted  man-at-arms ;  for  in  reflec- 
tion, 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  Stunn- 
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  vir- 
tue was  pride  ;  their  beau  ideal  of  manhood  was  some  transcript 
of  Milton's  Devil,  Often  they  inverted  Bolingbroke's  plan, 
and  instead  of  ''patronizing  Providence,"  did  directly  the  op- 
posite ;  raging  with  extreme  animation  against  Fate  in  gen- 
eral, because  it  enthralled  free  virtue ;  and  with  clenched 
hands,  or  sounding  shields,  hurling  defiance  towards  the  vault 
of  heaven. 

'  These  Power-men  are  gone  too ;  and,  with  few  exceptions, 
save  the  three  originals  above  named,  their  works  have  already 
followed  them.  The  application  of  all  this  to  our  own  litera- 
ture is  too  obvious  to  require  much  exposition.  Have  not  we 
also  had  our  Power-men  ?  And  will  not,  as  in  Germany,  to 
us  likewise  a  milder,  a  clearer,  and  a  truer  time  come  round  ? 
Our  Byron  was  in  his  youth  but  what  Schiller  and  Goethe  had 
been  in  theirs :  yet  the  author  of  Werter  wrote  Iiih'ujivuie  and 


68  CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Torquato  Tasso ;  and  he  who  began  with  the  Robbers  ended 
with  JVUhelm  Tell.  With  longer  life,  all  things  Avere  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  appointed.  But 
with  one  man  all  hope  does  not  die.  If  this  way  is  the  right 
one,  we  too  ijhall  iind  it.  The  poetry  of  Germany,  mean- 
while, we  cannot  but  regard  as  well  deserving  to  be  studied,  in 
this  as  in  other  points  of  view :  it  is  distinctly  an  advance 
beyond  any  other  known  to  us  ;  whether  on  the  right  path  or 
not,  may  be  still  uncertain ;  but  a  path  selected  by  Schillers 
and  Goethes,  and  vindicated  by  Schlegels  and  Tiecks,  is  surely 
worth  serious  examination.  For  the  rest,  need  we  add  that  it 
is  study  for  self-instruction,  nowise  for  purposes  of  imitation, 
that  we  recommend  ?  Among  the  deadliest  of  poetical  sins 
is  imitation ;  for  if  every  man  must  have  his  own  way  of 
thought,  and  his  own  way  of  expressing  it,  much  more  every 
nation.  But  of  danger  on  that  side,  in  the  country  of  Shak- 
speare  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  itseli 
so  vague  and  dim,  it  were  well  if  we  tried,  in  the  first  place, 
to  settle,  with  more  accuracy,  what  each  of  the  two  contend- 
ing parties  really  means  to  say  or  to  contradict  regarding  it. 
ilysticism  is  a  word  in  the  mouths  of  all :  yet,  of  the  hundred, 
perhaps  not  one  has  ever  asked  himself  what  this  opprobrious 
epithet  properly  signified  in  his  mind  ;  or  where  the  boundary 
between  true  science  and  this  Land  of  Chimeras  was  to  be  laid 
down.  Examined  strictly,  mystical,  in  most  cases,  will  turn 
out  to  be  merely  synonymous  Avith  not  understood.  Yet  surel}^ 
there  may  be  haste  and  oversight  here ;  for  it  is  well  known, 
that,  to  the  understanding  of  anything,  two  conditions  are 
equally  required  ;  intelUyihility  in  the  thing  itself  being  no 
whit  more  indispensable  than  mtelligence  in  the  examiner  of 
it.  "  I  am  bound  to  find  you  in  reasons,  Sir,"  said  Johnson, 
"but  not  in  brains  ;  "  a  speech  of  the  most  shocking  unpolite- 
ness,  yet  truly  enough  expressing  the  state  of  the  case. 


STATE   OF   GERMAN   LITERATURE.  69 

It  may  throw  some  light  on  this  question,  if  we  remind  our 
readers  of  the  following  fact.  In  the  field  of  human  inves- 
tigation 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 
Sv?nse  at  all  j  not  capable,  in  short,  of  being  pictured  or  imaged 
in  the  mind,  or  in  any  way  represented  by  a  shape  either  with- 
out the  mind  or  within  it.  If  any  man  shall  here  turn  upon 
us,  and  assert  tliab  there  are  no  such  invisible  objects ;  that 
whatever  cannot  be  so  pictured  or  imagined  (meaning  irnaged)  is 
nothing,  and  the  science  that  relates  to  it  nothing ;  we  shall 
regret  the  circumstance.  We  shall  request  him,  however,  to 
consider  seriously  and  deeply  within  himself,  what  he  means 
simply  by  these  two  words,  God  and  his  own  Soul  ;  and 
whether  he  finds  that  visible  shape  and  true  existence  are  liere 
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  sepa- 
rate 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  ex- 
ternally and  sensibly  existing  department,  may  represent  it  to 
his  own  mind,  and  convey  it  to  the  min-ds  of  others,  as  it  were, 
by  a  direct  diagram,  more  complex  indeed  than  a  geometrical 
diagram,  but  still  with  the  same  sort  of  precision  ;  and,  pro- 
vided his  diagram  be  complete,  and  the  same  both  to  himself 
and  his  reader,  he  may  reason  of  it,  and  discuss  it,  with  the 
learness,  and,  in  some  sort,  the  certainty  of  geometry  itself. 
If  he  do  not  so  reason  of  it,  this  must  be  for  want  of  compre- 
hension  to  image  out  the  ivhole  of  it,  or  of  distinctness  to  con- 
vey the  savie  whole  to  his  reader  :  the  diagrams  of  the  two 
are  different ;  the  conclusions  of  the  one  diverge  from  those 
of  the  other,  and  the  obscurit}'  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 


(- 


<0  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  j  ustly  regarded  as  a  man  of  imperfect  intellect ;  lie  grasps 
more  than  he  can  carry ;  he  confuses  what,  with  ordinary 
faculty,  might  be  rendered  clear ;  he  is  not  a  mystic,  but,  what 
is  much  Avorse,  a  dunce.  Another  matter  it  is,  however,  when 
the  object  to  be  treated  of  belongs  to  the  invisible  and  imma- 
terial class ;  cannot  be  pictured  out  even  by  the  writer  him- 
self, much  less,  in  ordinary  symbols,  set  before  the  reader.-^ 
In  this  case,  it  is  evident,  the  difficulties  of  comprehension 
are  increased  an  hundred-fold.  Here  it  will  require  long, 
patient  and  skilful  effort,  both  from  the  writer  and  the  reader, 
before  the  two  can  so  much  as  speak  together;  before  the 
former  can  make  known  to  the  latter,  not  how  the  matter 
stands,  but  even  what  the  matter  is,  which  they  have  to  in- 
vestigate in  concert.  He  must  devise  new  means  of  explana- 
tion, 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  co-operate 
with  him,  if  any  fruit  is  to  come  of  their  mutual  endeavor. 
Should  the  latter  take  up  his  ground  too  early,  and  affirm  to 
himself  that  now  he  has  seized  Avhat  he  still  has  not  seized  ; 
that  this  and  nothing  else  is  the  thing  aimed  at  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  provocation,  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  care- 
fully guarded  against,  in  all  minds  tempered  like  theirs.  It 
is  a  fault ;  but  one  hardly  separable  from  the  excellences  we 
admire  most  in  th(>m.  A  simple,  tender  and  devout  nature, 
seized  by  some  touch  of  divine  Truth,  and  of  this  perhaps 
under  some  rude  enough  symbol,  is  rapt  with  it  into  a  whirl- 
wind of  unutterable  thoughts  ;  wild  gleams  of  s})lendor  dart 
to  and  fro  in  the  eye  of  the  seer,  but  the  vision  will  not  abide 


STATE   OF   GERMAN   LITERATURE.  71 

•vith  him,  and  yet  he  feels  that  its  light  is  light  from  heaven, 
and  precious  to  him  beyond  all  price.  A  simple  nature,  a 
George  Fox  or  a  Jacob  Bohme,  ignorant  of  all  the  ways  of 
men,  of  the  dialect  in  which  they  speak,  or  the  forms  b}^  which 
they  think,  is  laboring  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  him- 
self, 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,  where- 
by others,  with  Avhatever  difficulty,  may  apprehend  it.  AVas 
tlieir  meaning  clear  to  themselves,  gleams  of  it  will  jet  shine 
through,  how  ignorantly  and  unconsciously  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  and  obtain  the  name  of  mystics.  To  scoif- 
ers  they  are  a  ready  and  cheap  prey  ;  but  sober  persons  under- 
stand 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  apologize  for  Bohme,  or  INrovalis,  or  the 
school  of  Theosophus  and  Flood,  that  we  have  here  under- 
taken. iSTeither  is  it  on  such  persons  that  the  charge  of 
mysticism  brought  against  the  Germans  mainly  rests.  Bohme 
is  little  known  among  us  ;  Xovalis,  much  as  he  deserves  know- 
ing, not  at  all ;  nor  is  it  understood,  that,  iu  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    Bhilosopliers,    Kant,    Fichte,    and 


72  CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  absur- 
dity, 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  bound- 
less baleful  gloom,  too  cvinningly  broken  here  and  there  by 
splendors  of  unholy  fire  ;  spectres  and  tempting  demons  people 
it,  and,  hovering  over  fathomless  abysses,  hang  gay  and  gor- 
geous air-castles,  into  which  the  hapless  traveller  is  seduced 
to  enter,  and  so  sinks  to  rise  no  more. 

If  anything  in  tlie  history  of  Philosophy  could  surprise  us, 
it  might  well  be  this.  Perhaps  among  all  the  metaphysical 
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  ;  who  in  his 
writings  generally,  on  this  and  other  subjects,  is  perhaps 
characterized  by  no  quality  so  much  as  precisely  by  the  dis- 
tinctness of  his  conceptions,  and  the  sequence  and  iron  strict- 
ness with  which  he  reasons.  To  our  own  minds,  in  the  little 
that  we  know  of  him,  he  has  more  than  once  recalled  Father 
lioscovich  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.^  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 ; 

1  We  have  heard  tliat  the  Latiu  Translation  of  his  Works  is  unintelligible, 
the  Translator  himself  not  having  understood  it;  also  that  Villers  is  no  safe 
guide  in  the  study  of  him.  Neither  Villers  nor  those  Latin  Works  arc  known 
t(i  us. 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  73 

had  not  meditated  it  with  calmness  and  deep  thought,  and 
studied  throughout  to  expound  it  with  scientitic  rigor.  Nei- 
ther, as  we  often  hear,  is  there  any  superhuman  faculty  re- 
quired to  follow  hira.  We  venture  to  assure  such  of  our 
readers  as  are  in  any  measure  used  to  metaphysical  study, 
that  the  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft  is  by  no  means  the 
hardest  task  they  have  tried.  It  is  true,  there  is  an  unknown 
and  forbidding  terminology  to  be  mastered ;  but  is  not  this 
the  case  also  witli  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  make  much  of  Newton's  Frhi- 
cipia,  or  D'Alembert's  Calculus  of  Variations  ?  He  Avill  make 
notliing  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  iu  the  fixedness  and  sim- 
plicity of  their  methods,  but  also  in  the  universal  acknowledg- 
ment of  their  claim  to  that  prior  and  continual  intensity  of 
application,  without  which  all  progress  in  any  science  is  im- 
posbible  ;  though  more  than  one  may  be  attempted  without  it ; 
and  blamed,  because  without  it  they  will  yield  no  result. 

The  truth  is,  German  Philosophy  differs  not  more  widely 
from  ours  in  the  substance  of  its  doctrines  than  in  its  manner 
of  communicating  them.  The  class  of  disquisitions  named 
Kambi-rhllosophie  (Parlor-fire  Philosophy)  in  Germany,  is 
held  in  little  estimation  there.  No  right  treatise  on  any- 
thing, 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 ;  he  must  be  alert,  and  strain  every  faculty,  or  it  profits 
nothing.  Philosophy,  with  these  men,  pretends  to  be  a  Science, 
nay  the  living  principle  and  soul  of  all  Sciences,  and  must  be 
treated  and  studied  scientifically,  or  not  studied  and  treated 
at  all.  Its  doctrines  should  be  present  with  every  cultivated 
writer;  its  spirit  should  pervade  every  piece  of  composition, 
how  slight  or  popular  soever :   but  to  treat  itself   popularly 


Ti  CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  fore- 
court, 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,  iu  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,  Pichte,  and 
Schelling  are  men  of  cool  judgment,  and  determinate  energetic 
character ;  men  of  science  and  profound  and  universal  investi- 
gation ;  nowhere  does  the  world,  in  all  its  bearings,  spiritual 
or  material,  theoretic  or  practical,  lie  pictured  in  clearer  or 
truer  colors  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  the  Heavens 
for  a  peristyle  to  the  Vision  of  the  Neio  Jerusalem.  That  this 
is  no  extravagant  comparison,  we  appeal  to  any  man  acquainted 
with  any  single  volume  of  Kant's  writings.  Neither,  though 
Schelling's  system  differs  still  more  widely  from  ours,  can  we 
reckon  Schelling  a  mystic.  He  is  a  man  evidently  of  deep 
insight  into  individual  things  ;  speaks  wisely,  and  reasons  with 
the  nicest  accuracy,  on  all  matters  where  we  understand  his 
data.  Fairer  might  it  be  in  us  to  say  that  we  had  not  yet  ap- 
preciated his  truth,  and  therefore  could  not  appreciate  his  error. 
P>nt  above  all,  the  mysticism  of  Fichte  might  astonish  us.  The 
cold,  colossal,  adamantine  spirit,  standing  erect  and  clear,  like 
a  Cato  Major  among  degenerate  men  ;  fit  to  have  been  the 
teacher  of  the  Stoa,  and  to  have  discoursed  of  Beauty  and 
Virtue  in  the  groves  of  Academe  !  Our  reader  has  seen  some 
words  of  Fichte's  :   are  these  like  words  of  a  mystic  ?     We 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  75 

state  Fichte's  character,  as  it  is  known  and  admitted  by  men 
of  all  parties  among  the  Germans,  when  we  say  that  so  robust 
an  intellect,  a  soul  so  calm,  so  lofty,  massive  and  immovable, 
has  not  mingled  in  philosophical  discussion  since  the  time  of 
Luther.  We  figure  his  motionless  look,  had  he  heard  this 
charge  of  mysticism  !  For  the  man  rises  before  us,  amid  con- 
tradiction and  debate,  like  a  granite  mountain  amid  clouds  and 
wind.  Ridicule,  of  the  best  that  could  be  commanded,  has 
been  already  tried  against  him  ;  but  it  could  not  avail.  What 
was  the  wit  of  a  thousand  wits  to  him  ?  The  cry  of  a  thou- 
sand 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  au- 
dible. Fichte's  opinions  may  be  true  or  false ;  but  his  char- 
acter, as  a  thinker,  can  be  slightly  valued  only  by  such  as  know 
it  ill ;  and  as  a  man,  approved  by  action  and  suffering,  in  his 
life  and  in  his  death,  he  ranks  with  a  class  of  men  who  were 
common  only  in  better  ages  than  ours. 

The  Critical  Philosophy  has  been  regarded  by  persons  of 
approved  judgment,  and  nowise  directly  implicated  in  the 
furthering  of  it,  as  distinctly  the  greatest  intellectual  achieve- 
ment of  the  century  in  which  it  came  to  light.  August  Wil- 
helm  Schlegel  has  stated  in  plain  terms  his  belief,  that  in 
respect  of  its  probable  influence  on  the  moral  culture  of  Eu- 
rope, it  stands  on  a  line  with  the  Reformation.  We  mention 
Schlegel  as  a  man  whose  opinion  has  a  known  value  among 
ourselves.  But  the  worth  of  Kant's  philosophy  is  not  to  be 
gathered  from  votes  alone.  The  noble  system  of  morality, 
the  purer  theology,  the  lofty  views  of  man's  nature  derived 
from  it,  nay  perhaps  the  very  discussion  of  such  matters,  to 
which  it  gave  so  strong  an  impetus,  have  told  with  remarkable 
and  beneficial  influence  on  the  whole  spiritual  character  of 
Germany.  No  writer  of  any  importance  in  that  countr}-,  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  with- 
out eifect  in  any  literature  or  in  any  century :  but  if  one  cir- 
cumstance more  than  another  has  contributed  to  forward  their 


76  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

endeavors,  and  introduce  that  higher  tone  into  the  literature 
of  Germany,  it  has  been  this  philosophical  system ;  to  which, 
in  wisely  believing  its  results,  or  even  in  wisely  denying  them, 
all  that  was  lofty  and  pure  in  the  genius  of  poetry,  or  the 
reason  of  man,  so  readily  allied  itself. 

That  such  a  system  must,  in  the  end,  become  known  among 
ourselves,  as  it  is  already  becoming  known  in  France  and 
Italy,  and  over  all  Europe,  no  one  acquainted,  in  any  measure 
with  the  character  of  this  matter,  and  the  character  of  Eng- 
land, will  hesitate  to  predict.  Doubtless  it  will  be  studied 
here,  and  by  heads  adequate  to  do  it  justice  ;  it  will  be  inves- 
tigated duly  and  thoroughly ;  and  settled  in  our  minds  on  the 
footing  which  belongs  to  it,  and  v/here  thenceforth  it  must 
continue.  Respecting  the  degrees  of  truth  and  error  which 
Avill  then  be  found  to  exist  in  Kant's  system,  or  in  the  modifi- 
cations it  has  since  received,  and  is  still  receiving,  we  desire 
to  be  understood  as  making  no  estimate,  and  little  qualified  to 
make  any.  We  would  have  it  studied  and  known,  on  general 
gi-ounds  ;  because  even  the  errors  of  such  men  are  instructive  ; 
and  becavise,  without  a  large  admixture  of  truth,  no  error  can 
exist  under  such  combinations,  and  become  diffused  so  widely. 
To  judge  of  it  we  pretend  not :  we  are  still  inquirers  in  the 
mere  outskirts  of  the  matter ;  and  it  is  but  inquiry  that  we 
Avish  to  see  promoted, 

^Meanwhile,  as  an  advance  or  first  step  towards  this,  we  may 
state  something  of  what  has  most  struck  ourselves  as  charac- 
terizing Kant's  system ;  as  distinguishing  it  from  every  other 
known  to  us ;  and  chielly  from  the  Metaphysical  Philosophy 
which  is  tauglit  in  Britain,  or  rather  which  icas  taught ;  for, 
on  looking  round,  we  see  not  that  there  is  any  such  I'hilosophy 
in  existence  at  the  present  day.-^     The  Kantist,  in  direct  con- 

'  The  name  of  Dugald  Stewart  is  a  name  venerable  to  all  Europe,  and  to 
none  more  dear  and  venerable  tlian  to  ourselves.  Ncvertiieless  his  writings 
are  not  a  Pliilosophy,  l>ut  a  making  ready  for  one.  He  does  not  enter  on  the 
field  to  till  it ;  he  only  encon)])asses  it  with  fences,  invites  cultivators,  and 
drives  away  intruders:  often  (fallen  on  evil  days)  he  is  reduced  to  long  argu- 
ments with  tlie  ]iassers-hy,  to  prove  that  it  is  a  field,  that  this  so  highly 
jiri/.ccl  domain  of  liis  is,  in  truth,  .soil  and  suhstance,  not  clouds  and  shadow. 
We  regard  his  di.scussions  ou  the  nature  of  Philosophic  Language,  and  his 


STATE   OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  77 

tradiction  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,  endeavoring  to  pro- 
ceed inwards.  The  ultimate  aim  of  all  Philosophy  must  be  to 
interpret  appearances,  —  from  the  given  symbol  to  ascertain 
the  thing.  Isow  the  first  step  towards  this,  the  aim  of  what 
may  be  called  Primary  or  Critical  Philosophy,  must  be  to  find 
some  indubitable  principle  ;  to  fix  ourselves  on  some  unchange- 
able basis;  to  discover  what  the  Germans  call  the  Urwahr, 
the  Primitive  Truth,  the  necessarily,  absolutely  and  eternally 
True.  This  necessarily  Time,  this  absolute  basis  of  Truth, 
Locke  silently,  and  Keid  and  his  followers  with  more  tumult, 
find  in  a  certain  modified  Experience,  and  evidence  of  Sense, 
in  the  universal  and  natural  persuasion  of  all  men.  Not  so 
the  Germans :  they  deny  that  there  is  here  any  absolute  Truth, 
or  that  any  Philosophy  whatever  can  be  built  on  such  a  basis ; 
nay  they  go  to  the  length  of  asserting,  that  such  an  appeal 
even  to  the  universal  persuasions  of  mankind,  gather  them 
with  what  precautions  you  may,  amounts  to  a  total  abdication 
of  Philosophy,  strictly  so  called,  and  renders  not  only  its  far- 
ther progress,  but  its  very  existence,  impossible.  What,  they 
would  say,  have  the  persuasions,  or  instinctive  beliefs,  or 
whatever  they  are  called,  of  men,  to  do  in  this  matter  ?  Is  it 
not  the  object  of  Philosopliy  to  enlighten,  and  rectify,  and 
many  times  directly  contradict  these  very  beliefs  ?     Take,  for 

unwearied  efforts  to  set  forth  and  guard  against  its  fallacies,  as  worthy  of  all 
acknowledgment ;  as  indeed  forming  the  greatest,  perhaps  the  only  true  im- 
provement, wiiich  Philosophy  has  received  among  us  in  our  age.  It  is  only 
to  a  superficial  observer  that  the  import  of  these  discussions  can  seem  trivial; 
riglitly  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  wo 
may  riglitly  call  it,  by  wliich,  in  all  times,  the  true  Worship,  that  of  the  In- 
visible, lias  been  polluted  and  withstood.  Mr.  Stewart  has  written  warmly 
against  Kant ;  but  it  would  surprise  him  to  find  liow  much  of  a  Kantist  ho 
himself  essentially  is.  lias  not  the  whole  scope  of  his  labors  been  to  reconcile 
what  a  Kantist  would  call  his  Understanding  witii  his  Reason ;  a  noble,  but 
still  too  fruitless  effort  to  overarch  the  chasm  which,  for  all  minds  but  his 
own,  separates  his  Science  from  his  Religion  ?  We  regard  the  assiduous 
•tudy  of  his  Works  as  the  best  preparation  for  studying  those  of  Kaut. 


'78  CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  persuasion 
more  universal,  any  belief  more  instinctive  ?  And  yet  the 
Sun  moves  no  hair's-breadth ;  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  incon- 
trovertible. British  Philosophy,  since  the  time  of  Hume,  ap- 
pears to  them  nothing  more  than  a  "  laborious  and  unsuccessful 
striving  to  build  dike  after  dike  in  front  of  our  Churches  and 
Judgraent-halls,  and  so  turn  back  from  them  the  deluge  of 
Scepticism,  with  which  that  extraordinary  writer  overliowed 
us,  and  still  threatens  to  destroy  whatever  we  value  most." 
This  is  August  Wilhelm  Schlegel's  verdict;  given  in  words 
equivalent  to  these. 

The  Germans  take  up  the  matter  differently,  and  would 
assail  Hume,  not  in  his  outworks,  but  in  the  centre  of  his 
citadel.  They  deny  his  first  principle,  that  Sense  is  the  only 
inlet  of  Knowledge,  that  Experience  is  the  primary  ground  of 
Belief.  Their  Primitive  Truth,  however,  they  seek,  not  his- 
torically 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  char- 
actws,  within  our  inmost  being ;  and  themselves  first  afford- 
ing any  certainty  and  clear  meaning  to  that  very  world  of 
Sense,  by  which  we  endeavor  to  demonstrate  them.  God  is, 
nay  alone  h,  for  with  like  emphasis  we  cannot  say  that  any- 
thing else  is.  Tliis  is  the  Absolute,  the  Primitively  True, 
which  the  philosopher  seeks.     Endeavoring,  by  logical  argu- 


STATE  OF   GERMAN   LITERATURE.  79 

ment,  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  tliis  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  Veriiunft).  To  most  of 
our  readers  this  may  seem  a  distinction  without  a  difference  : 
nevertheless,  to  the  Kantists  it  is  by  no  means  such.  They 
believe  that  both  Understanding  and  Reason  are  organs,  or 
rather,  we  should  say,  modes  of  operation,  by  which  the  mind 
discovers  truth  ;  but  they  think  that  their  manner  of  proceed- 
ing is  essentially  different ;  that  their  provinces  are  separable 
and  distinguishable,  nay  that  it  is  of  the  last  importance  to 
separate  and  distinguish  them.  Reason,  the  Kantists  say,  is 
of  a  higher  nature  than  Understanding;  it  works  by  more 
subtle  methods,  on  higher  objects,  and  requires  a  far  finer 
culture  for  its  development,  indeed  in  many  men  it  is  never 
developed  at  all :  but  its  results  are  no  less  certain,  nay 
rather,  they  are  much  more  so  ;  for  Reason  discerns  Truth 
itself,  the  absolutely  and  primitively  True  ;  while  Under-  » 
standing  discerns  only  relations,  and  cannot  decide  without  if. 
The  proper  province  of  Understanding  is  all,  strictly  speak- 
ing, 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  t\\e 
strength  and  universal  implement  of  the  mind :  an  indispen- 


80  CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

sable  servant,  without  whicli,  indeed,  existence  itself  would 
be  impossible.  Let  it  not  step  beyond  this  province,  how- 
ever ;  not  usurp  the  province  of  Reason,  which  it  is  appointed 
to  obey,  and  cannot  rule  over  without  ruin  to  the  whole  spir- 
itual man.  Should  Understanding  attempt  to  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  it  ends,  if  thoroughgoing  and  consistent  with 
itself,  ill  Atheism,  or  a  faiat  possible  Theism,  which  scarcely 
differs  from  this :  should  it  speculate  of  Virtue,  it  ends  in 
UtUity,  making  Prudence  and  a  sufficiently  cunning  love  of 
Self  the  highest  good.  Consult  Understanding  about  the 
Beauty  of  Poetry,  and  it  asks.  Where  is  this  Beauty  ?  or 
discovers  it  at  length  in  rhythms  and  fitnesses,  and  male  and 
female  rhymes.  Witness  also  its  everlasting  paradoxes  on 
Necessity  and  the  Freedom  of  the  Will ;  its  ominous  silence 
on  the  end  and  meaning  of  man ;  and  the  enigma  which, 
under  such  inspection,  the  whole  purport  of  existence  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- 
zium :  Shakspeare  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  Eeason,  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. 

\\  ill  the  Kantists  forgive  us  for  the  loose  and  popular  man- 
ner in  which  we  must  here  speak  of  these  things,  to  bring 
tlunn  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 


STATE  OF  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  81 

nations  the  most  gifted  with  Understanding,  and  the  most 
destitute  of  Eeason  ;  ^  that  David  Hume  had  no  forecast  of 
this  latter;  and  that  Shakspeare  and  Luther  dwelt  peren- 
nially in  its  purest  sphere. 

Of  the  vast,  nay  in  these  days  boundless,  importance  of 
this  distinction,  could  it  be  scientifically  established,  we  need 
remind  no  thinking  man.  For  the  rest,  far  be  it  from  the 
reader  to  suppose  that  this  same  Eeason  is  but  a  new  appear- 
ance, under  another  name,  of  our  own  old  "  Wholesome  Preju- 
dice," so  well  known  to  most  of  us  !  Prejudice,  wholesome  or 
unwholesome,  is  a  personage  for  whom  the  German  Philoso- 
phers disclaim  all  shadow  of  respect ;  nor  do  the  vehement 
among  them  hide  their  deep  disdain  for  all  and  sundry  who 
fight  under  her  flag.  Truth  is  to  be  loved  purely  and  solely 
because  it  is  true.  With  moral,  political,  religious  considei-a- 
tions,  high  and  dear  as  they  may  otherwise  be,  the  Philoso- 
pher, as  such,  has  no  concern.  To  look  at  them  would  but 
perplex  him,  and  distract  his  vision  from  the  task  in  his 
hands.  Calmly  he  constructs  his  theorem,  as  the  Geometer 
does  his,  without  hope  or  fear,  save  that  he  may  or  may  not 
find  the  solution ;  and  stands  in  the  middle,  by  the  one,  it 
may  be,  accused  as  an  Infidel,  by  the  other  as  an  Enthusi- 
ast and  a  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  vmwiser  is  spoken  of  and  regarded  in 
such  manner  as  we  see.  The  profoundness,  subtlety,  extent 
of  investigation,  which  the  answer  of  these  questions  presup- 
poses, need  not  be  farther  pointed  out.  With  the  truth  or 
falsehood  of  the  system,  we  have  here,  as  already  stated,  no 
concern :  our  aim  has  been,  so  far  as  might  be  done,  to  show 
it  as  it  appeared  to  us ;  and  to  ask  such  of  our  readers  as  pur- 
sue these  studies,  whether  this  also  is  not  worthy  of  some 
study.     The  reply  we  must  now  leave  to  themselves. 

'  Sclielling  has  said  as  much  or  more  (Meihode  d/'ii  Arademisrlien  Stadium, 
pp.  105-111),  in  terms  which  we  could  wish  wo  had  space  to  transcribe. 
VOL.  xiii.  0 


82  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

As  an  appendage  to  the  charge  of  Mysticism  brought  against 
the  Germans,  there  is  often  added  the  seemingly  incongruous 
one  of  Irireligion.  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  neighboring  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  mis- 
take not,  may  in  some  degree  reward  the  deepest. 

Here,  however,  we  must  close  our  examination  or  defence. 
We  have  spoken  freely,  because  we  felt  distinctly,  and  thought 
the  matter  worthy  of  being  stated,  and  more  fully  inquired 
into.  Farther  than  this,  we  have  no  quarrel  for  the  Germans : 
we  would  have  justice  done  to  them,  as  to  all  men  and  all  things ; 
but  for  their  literature  or  character  we  profess  no  sectarian 
or  exclusive  preference.  We  think  their  recent  Poetry,  indeed, 
superior  to  the  recent  Poetry  of  any  other  nation ;  but  taken 
as  a  whole,  inferior  to  that  of  several ;  inferior  not  to  our  own 
only,  but  to  that  of  Italy,  nay  perhaps  to  that  of  Spain.  Their 
Philosophy  too  must  still  be  regarded  as  uncertain ;  at  best 
only  the  beginning  of  better  things.  But  surely  even  this  is 
not  to  be  neglected.  A  little  light  is  precious  in  great  dark- 
ness :  nor,  amid  the  myriads  of  Poetasters  and  PhUosophes, 
are  Poets  and  Pliilosophers  so  numerous  that  we  should  reject 
such,  wlien  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  coni'ess,  the  present  aspect  of  spiritual  Europe  might 
fill  a  ni('l;uicholi(!  observer  with  doubt  and  foreboding.  It  is 
mournful  to  sec  so  many  noble,  tender  and  high-aspiring  minds 


STATE  OF   GERMAN  LITERATURE.  83 

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.  Re- 
ligion, Poetry,  is  not  dead ;  it  will  never  die.  Its  dwelling  and 
birthplace  is  in  the  soul  of  man,  and  it  is  eternal  as  the  being 
of  man.  In  any  point  of  Space,  in  any  section  of  Time,  let 
there  be  a  living  Man ;  and  there  is  anr  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  of  them  present  at  all  moments  to  every  heart !  That 
there  is,  in  these  days,  no  nation  so  happy,  is  too  clear ;  but 
tliat  all  nations,  and  ourselves  in  the  van,  are,  with  more  or 
less  discernment  of  its  nature,  struggling  towards  this  happi- 
ness, is  the  hope  and  the  glory  of  our  time.  To  us,  as  to 
others,  success,  at  a  distant  or  a  nearer  day,  cannot  be  uncer- 
tain. Meanwhile,  the  first  condition  of  success  is,  that,  in 
striving  honestly  ourselves,  we  honestly  acknowledge  the 
striving  of  our  neighbor ;  that  with  a  Will  unwearied  in  seek- 
ing Truth,  we  have  a  Sense  open  for  it,  wheresoever  and  how- 
soever it  may  arise. 


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  fortune 
of  this  man  to  stand  for  a  long  period  incessantly  before  the 
world,  in  a  far  stronger  light  than  naturally  belonged  to  him, 
or  could  exhibit  him  to  advantage.  Twenty  years  ago  he  was 
a  man  of  considerable  note,  which  has  ever  since  been  degener- 
ating 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  dissipated  man,  by  suc- 
cessive indecorums,  occasioned  ;  till  at  last  the  convert  to 
Popery,  the  preaching  zealot,  came  to  figure  in  all  newspapers ; 
and  some  picture  of  him  was  required  for  all  heads  that  would 
not  sit  blank  and  mute  in  the  topic  of  every  coffee-house  and 

^  FoREiGV  Revikw,  No.  1. —  Lcbpv.i-Ahriss  Friedrich  Ludirig  Zachnrids 
Wernerx.  Von  dcm  Ileraus(ieher  von  Hoffmanns  Lelien  iind  Nachlass.  (Sketch 
of  the  Life  of  Friedrich  Liulwig  Zacharias  Weruer.  By  the  Editor  of  "  Iloff- 
iiiaiin's  Life  and  Remains.")     Pierlin,  1823. 

2.  Die.  Suhiip.  des  Tfuds.  (The  Sons  of  the  A'' alloy.)  A  Dramatic  Poem. 
Part  I.  Die  Templer  auf  Ci/pcrn.  (The  Templars  in  Cyprus.)  Part  II. 
Die  Kmiizeshrudfir.     (The  Brethren  of  the  Cross.)     Berlin,  1801,  1802. 

3.  Dtis  Krciiz  an  der  Osts'e.  (The  Cross  on  the  Baltic.)  A  Tragedy. 
Berlin,  1800. 

4.  Martin  Luther,  oder  die.  Wcihe  der  Kraft.  (Martin  Luther,  or  the  Con.se- 
cration  of  Strenf^tli.)      A  Tragedy.     Berlin,  1807. 

5.  I>ii'  Mnitir  dt-r  Mukkuiiitr.  (The  JNlother  of  the  Maccabees.)  A  Tragedy. 
Vienna,  lft::0. 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  85 

aesthetic  tea.  In  dim  heads,  that  is,  in  the  great  majority,  the 
picture  was,  of  course,  perverted  into  a  strange  bugbear,  and 
the  original  decisively  enough  condemned ;  but  even  the  few, 
who  might  see  him  in  his  true  shape,  felt  too  well  that  noth- 
ing loud  could  be  said  in  his  behalf;  that,  with  so  many 
mournful  blemishes,  if  extenuation  could  not  avail,  no  com- 
plete 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  distant 
landmarks,  but  too  weakly  in  so  rough  a  sea ;  for  the  currents 
drive  him  far  astray,  and  he  sinks  at  last  in  the  waves,  attain- 
ing little  for  himself,  and  leaving  little,  save  the  memory  of 
his  failure,  to  others.  A  glance  over  his  history  may  not  be 
\inprofitable  ;  if  the  man  himself  can  less  interest  us,  the  ocean 
of  German,  of  European  Opinion  still  rolls  in  wild  eddies  to 
and  fro ;  and  with  its  movements  and  refluxes,  indicated  in 
the  history  of  such  men,  every  one  of  us  is  concerned. 

Our  materials  for  this  survey  are  deficient,  not  so  much  in 
quantity  as  quality.  The  "  Life,"  now  known  to  be  by  Hitzig 
of  Berlin,  seems  a  very  honest,  unpresuming  performance  ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  much  too  fragmentary  and  discursive 
for  our  wants ;  the  features  of  the  man  are  nowhere  united 
into  a  portrait,  but  left  for  the  reader  to  unite  as  he  may ;  a 


86  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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 
iu  this  instance  he  had  not  done  more  and  better.  A  singular 
chance  made  him,  at  the  same  time,  companion  of  both  Hoff- 
mann and  Werner,  perhaps  the  two  most  showy,  heterogene- 
ous and  misiuterpretable  writers  of  his  day ;  nor  shall  we  deny 
that,  in  performing  a  friend's  duty  to  their  memory,  he  has 
done  truth  also  a  service.  His  Life  of  Hoffmann,'^  pretending 
to  no  artfulnesss  of  arrangement,  is  redundant,  rather  than 
defective,  in  minuteness  ;  but  there,  at  least,  the  means  of  a 
correct  judgment  are  brought  within  our  reach,  and  the  work, 
as  usual  with  Hitzig,  bears  marks  of  the  utmost  fairness ;  and 
of  an  accuracy  which  we  might  almost  call  professional :  for 
the  Author,  it  would  seem,  is  a  legal  functionary  of  long  stand- 
ing, and  now  of  respectable  rank ;  and  he  examines  and  records, 
Avith  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  drawn  from  them ; 
were  these  somewhat  chaotic  expositions  of  Werner's  char- 
acter exchanged  for  simple  particulars  of  his  walk  and  con- 
versation, the  result  would  be  much  surer,  and,  especially  to 
foreigners,  much  more  complete  and  luminous.  As  it  is,  from 
repeated  perusals  of  this  biography,  we  have  failed  to  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  coliesion  which  puts  an  end  to  doubt.  Our  view 
of  him  the  reader  will  acce],)t  as  an  approximation,  and  be 
content  to  wonder  with  us,  and  charitably  pause  where  we 
cannot  altogether  interpret. 

i  See  Appendix  I.  No.  2.  §  Hoffmann. 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS   OF  WERNER.  87 

Werner  was  born  at  Konigsberg,  in  East  Prussia,  on  the 
18th  of  !N"ovember,  1768.  His  father  was  Professor  of  History 
and  Eloquence  in  the  University  there ;  and  farther,  in  virtue 
of  this  office,  Dramatic  Censor  ;  which  latter  circumstance 
procured  young  Werner  almost  daily  opportunity  of  visiting 
the  theatre,  and  so  gave  him,  as  he  says,  a  greater  acquaint- 
ance with  the  mechanism  of  the  stage  than  even  most  players 
are  possessed  of.  A  strong  taste  for  the  drama  it  probably 
enough  gave  him  ;  but  this  skill  in  stage-mechanism  may  be 
questioned,  for  often  in  his  own  plays,  no  such  skill,  but  rather 
the  Avant  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,  higli- 
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  know- 
ing ;  for  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  these  two  singular  persons 
were  brought  up  under  the  same  roof,  though,  at  this  time,  by 
reason  of  their  difference  of  age,  Werner  being  eight  years 
older,  they  had  little  or  no  acquaintance.  "WTiat  a  nervous  and 
melancholic  parent  was,  Hoffmann,  by  another  unhappy  coin- 
cidence, had  also  full  occasion  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  painfi;l  influences,  Avhich  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. W^e  learn  only  that,  about  the  usual  age,  he  matriculated 
in  the  Konigsberg  University,  intending  to  qualify  himself  for 
the  business  of  a  lawyer ;  and  with  his  professional  studies 


88  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

united,  or  attempted  to  unite,  the  study  of  philosophy  under 
Kant.  His  college-life  is  characterized  by  a  single,  but  too 
expressive  word :  "  It  is  said,"  observes  Hitzig,  "  to  have  been 
very  dissolute."  His  progi-ess  in  metaphysics,  as  in  all 
branches  of  learning,  might  thus  be  expected  to  be  small; 
indeed,  at  no  period  of  his  life  can  he,  even  in  the  language  of 
panegyric,  be  called  a  man  of  culture  or  solid  information  on 
any  subject.  Nevertheless,  he  contrived,  in  his  twenty-first 
year,  to  publish  a  little  volume  of  "  Poems,"  apparently  in 
very  tolerable  magazine  metre  ;  and  after  some  "  roamiugs " 
over  Germany,  having  loitered  for  a  while  at  Berlin,  and 
longer  at  Dresden,  he  betook  himself  to  more  serious  business  ; 
applied  for  admittance  and  promotion  as  a  Prussian  man  of 
law ;  the  employment  which  young  jurists  look  for  in  that 
country  being  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  Government ;  consisting, 
indeed,  of  appointments  in  the  various  judicial  or  administra- 
tive Boards  by  which  the  Provinces  are  managed.  In  1793, 
Werner  accordingly  was  made  Kaminersecretdr  (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  ac- 
quainted 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  whom  he  seems  to 
have  formed  a  prompt  and  close  intimacy,  gives  us  no  full  pic- 
ture of  him  under  any  of  his  aspects  :  yet  we  can  see  that  his 
life,  as  naturally  it  might,  already  wore  somewhat  of  a  shat- 
tered appearance  in  his  own  eyes  ;  that  he  was  broken  in 
character,  in  spirit,  perhaps  in  bodily  constitution ;  and,  con- 
t(,Miting  liimself  with  the  transient  gratifications  of  so  gay  a 
city  and  so  tolerable  an  appointment,  had  renounced  all  steady 
and  rational  hope  either  of  being  happy,  or  of  deserving  to  be 
so.  Of  unsteady  and  irrational  hopes,  however,  he  had  still 
abundance.     The  fine  enthusiasm  of  his  nature,  undestroyed 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  89 

by  so  ma.ny  external  perplexities,  nay  to  which  perhaps  these 
very  perplexities  had  given  fresh  and  undue  excitement,  glowed 
forth  in  strange  many-colored  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  provincial 
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  Vol- 
ume, and  certainly  it  exhibits  a  curious  contrast  with  his  sub- 
sequent writings,  both  in  form  and  spirit.  In  form,  because, 
unlike  the  first-fruits  of  a  genius,  it  is  cold  and  correct ;  while 
liis  later  works,  without  exception,  are  fervid,  extravagant 
and  full  of  gross  blemishes.  In  spirit  no  less,  because,  treat- 
ing of  his  favorite  theme,  Religion,  it  treats  of  it  harshly  and 
sceptically ;  being,  indeed,  little  more  than  a  metrical  version 
of  common  Utilitarian  Free-thinking,  as  it  may  be  found  (with- 
out 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  wondrous  theosophic  garniture ;  his  mind 
was  full  of  visions  and  cloudy  glories,  and  no  occupation 
pleased  him  better  than  to  controvert,  in  generous  inquiring 
minds,  that  very  unbelief  which  he  appears  to  have  once  en- 
tertained in  his  own.  From  Hitzig's  account  of  the  matter, 
this  seems  to  have  formed  the  strongest  link  of  his  intercourse 
with  Werner.  The  latter  was  his  senior  by  ten  years  of  time, 
and  by  more  than  ten  years  of  unhappy  experience ;  the  grand 
questions  of  Immortality,  of  Fate,  Free-will,  Foreknowledge 
absolute,  were  in  continual  agitation  between  them ;  and  Hit- 
zig  still  remembers  with  gratitude  these  earnest  warnings 
against  irregularity  of  life,  and  so  many  ardent  and  not  inef- 
fectual endeavors  to  awaken  in  the  passionate  temperament  of 
youth  a  glow  of  purer  and  enlightening  fire. 

"Some  leagues  from  Warsaw,"  says  the  Biographer,  "en- 
chantingly  embosomed  in  a  thick  wood,  close  by  the  high  banks 
of  the  Vistula,   lies  the   Caraaldulensian  Abbey  of   Bielany, 


90  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

inhabited  by  a  class  of  monks,  who  in  strictness  of  discipline 
yield  only  to  those  of  La  Trappe.  To  this  cloistral  solitude 
Werner  was  wont  to  repair  with  his  friend,  every  fine  Satur- 
day 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  him- 
self." 

Week  after  week,  these  discussions  were  carefully  resumed 
from  the  point  where  they  had  been  left :  indeed,  to  Werner, 
it  would  seem,  this  controversy  had  unusual  attractions  ;  for 
he  was  now  busy  composing  a  Poem,  intended  principally  to 
convince  the  world  of  those  very  truths  which  he  was  striving 
to  impress  on  his  friend ;  and  to  which  the  world,  as  might  be 
expected,  was  likely  to  give  a  similar  reception.  The  char- 
acter, 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  SlJJme  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 
t(j  somewhat  more  than  800  small  octavo  pages  !  To  attempt 
any  analysis  of  such  a  work  would  but  fatigue  our  readers  to 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  91 

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 
dramatized  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  Kosicru- 
cian  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  prismatic  hues, 
but  representing  nothing,  or  at  least  not  the  subject,  but  the 
author. 

In  this  last  point  of  view,  hoAvever,  as  a  picture  of  himself, 
independently  of  other  considerations,  this  play  of  Werner's 
may  still  have  a  certain  value  for  us.  The  strange  chaotic 
nature  of  the  man  is  displayed  in  it :  his  scepticism  and 
theosophy ;  his  audacity,  j-et  intrinsic  weakness  of  character ; 
his  baffled  longings,  but  still  ardent  endeavors  after  Truth  and 
Good ;  his  search  for  them  in  far  journeyings,  not  on  the  beaten 
highways,  but  through  the  pathless  infinitudes  of  Thought. 
To  call  it  a  work  of  art  would  be  a  misapplication  of  names : 
it  is  little  more  than  a  rhapsodic  effusion  ;  the  outpouring 
of  a  passionate  and  mystic  soul,  only  half-knowing  what  it 
utters,  and  not  ruling  its  own  movements,  but  ruled  by  them. 
It  is  fair  to  add,  that  such  also,  in  a  great  measure,  was 
Werner's  own  view  of  the  matter :  most  likely  the  utterance 
of  these  things  gave  him  such  relief,  that,  crude  as  they  were, 
he  could  not  suppress  them.  For  it  ought  to  be  remembered, 
that  in  this  performance  one  condition,  at  least,  of  genuine 


92  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

inspiration  is  not  wanting:  Werner  evidently  thinks  that  in 
these  his  ultramundane  excursions  he  has  found  truth ;  he  has 
sometliing  positive  to  set  forth,  and  he  feels  himself  as  if 
bound  on  a  high  and  holy  mission  in  preaching  it  to  his 
fellow-men. 

To  explain  with  any  minuteness  the  articles  of  Werner's 
creed,  as  it  was  now  fashioned  and  is  here  exhibited,  would  be 
a  task  perhaps  too  hard  for  us,  and,  at  all  events,  unprofitable 
in  proportion  to  its  difficulty.  We  have  found  some  separable 
passages,  in  which,  under  dark  symbolical  figures,  he  has  him- 
self shadowed  forth  a  vague  likeness  of  it :  these  we  shall  now 
submit  to  the  reader,  with  such  expositions  as  we  gather  from 
the  context,  or  as  German  readers,  from  the  usual  tone  of 
speculation  in  that  country,  are  naturally  enabled  to  supply. 
This  may,  at  the  same  time,  .convey  as  fair  a  notion  of  the 
work  itself,  with  its  tawdry  splendors,^  and  tumid  grandilo- 
quence, and  mere  playhouse  thunder  and  lightning,  as  by  any 
other  plan  our  limits  would  admit. 

Let  the  reader  fancy  himself  in  the  island  of  Cyprus,  where 
the  Order  of  the  Templars  still  subsists,  though  the  heads  of  it 
are  already  summoned  before  the  French  King  and  Pope  Clem- 
ent ;  which  summons  they  are  now,  not  without  dreary  enough 
forebodings,  preparing  to  obey.  The  purport  of  this  First 
Part,  so  far  as  it  has  any  dramatic  purport,  is  to  paint  the 
situation,  outward  and  inward,  of  that  once  pious  and  heroic, 
and  still  magnificent  and  powerful  body.  It  is  entitled  The 
Templars  in  Cijprus ;  but  why  it  should  also  be  called  The 
Sons  of  the  Valley  does  not  so  well  appear ;  for  the  Brother- 
hood of  the  Valleij  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 
acticm  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 :  — 


LIFE  AND  WKITINGS  OF  WERNER.  93 

Act  V.     Scene  I. 

Midnight.  Interior  of  the  Temple  Church.  Backwards,  a  deep  perspec- 
tive of  Altars  and  Gothic  Pillars.  On  the  righthhand  side  of  the  fore- 
ground, a  little  Chapel ;  and  in  this  an  Altar  with  the  figure  of  St. 
Sebastiati.  The  scene  is  lighted  very  dimly  by  a  single  Lamp  which 
hangs  before  the  Altar. 

Adalbert  [dressed  in  white,  without  mantle  or  doublet  j   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  tliy  gentle  form, 
Lest  with  thy  paleness  thou  too  much  afi"right  me  ? 
Hide  not  thyself,  pale  shadow  of  my  Agnes, 
Thou  aff'rightest  not  thy  lover.  —  Hush  !  — 
Hark  !     Was  not  there  a  rustling  ?  —  Father  !     You  ? 

Philip  [rushing  in  with  tcild  looks]. 
Yes,  Adalbert !  —  But  time  is  precious  !  —  Come, 
My  son,  my  one  sole  Adalbert,  come  with  me  ! 

Adalbert.  Wliat  would  you,  father,  in  this  solemn  hour  ? 

Philip.  This  hour,  or  never  !  [Leading  Adalbert  to  the  Altar. 

Hither  !  —  Knowcst  thou  Jiiin  f 

Adalbert.  'T  is  Saint  Sebastian. 

PniMP.  Because  he  would  not 

Renounce  his  f;iith,  a  tjTant  had  him  murdered.      [Points  to  his  head. 
These  furrows,  too,  the  rage  of  tyrants  ph)ughed 


94  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

In  thy  old  father's  face.     My  son,  my  first-bom  child, 
In  this  great  hour  I  do  conjure  thee  1     Wilt  thou, 
Wilt  thou  obey  me  ? 

Adalbert.  Be  it  just,  I  will  I 

Phiup.  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  I 

Adalbert.  Ha  !     This  the  All-avenger  spoke  through  thee  I  — 
Yes  !     Bloody  shall  my  Agnes'  death-torch  bum 
In  Philip's  heart ;  I  swear  it ! 

Philip  [tcith  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  I 

Philip.  Then  man  thee !  — 

[Looking  up,  then  slirinking  together,  as  with  dazzled  eyes. 
Ha !  was  not  that  his  lightning  ?  —  Fare  thee  well ! 
I  hear  the  footstep  of  the  Dreaded !  —  Firm  — 
Remember  me,  remember  this  stern  midnight !  [Retires  hastily. 

Adalbert  [alone].     Yes,  Grayhead,  whom  the  beckoning  (rf  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  3Ian.     He  is  mailed  from  head  to  foot  in  black 
harness  ;  his  visor  is  closed. 
Armed  Man.  Pray  !  [Adalbert  kneels. 

Bare  thyself  I  —  [He  strips  him  to  tJie  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. 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  95 

Scene  IL 

Cemetery  of  the  Templars,  under  the  Church.  The  scene  is  lighted  only 
hy  a  Lamp  which  hangs  down  from  the  vault.  Arouiid  are  Tomb- 
stones of  deceased  Knights,  marked  with  Crosses  and  sculptured  Bones. 
In  the  background,  two  colossal  Skeletons  holdinj  between  them  a  large 
white  Book,  marked  with  a  red  Cross ;  from  the  under  end  of  the 
Book  hangs  a  long  black  curtain.  The  Book,  of  which  only  the  cover 
is  visible,  has  an  inscription  in  black  ciphers.  The  Skeleton  on  the 
right  holds  in  its  right  hand  a  naked  drawn  Sword  ;  that  on  the  left 
holds  in  its  left  hand  a  Palm  turned  downwards.  On  the  right  side 
of  the  foreground  stands  a  black  Coffin  open  ;  on  tJie  left,  a  similar 
one  ivith  the  body  of  a  Templar  in  the  full  dress  of  his  Order  ;  on  both 
Coffins  are  inscriptions  in  white  ciphers.  On  each  side,  nearer  the 
background,  are  seen  the  lowest  steps  of  the  stairs  which  lead  up  into 
the  Temple  Church  above  the  vault. 

Armed  Man  [rwt  yet  visible  ;  above  on  tlie  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  1 

[Armed  Man  with  drawn  sword  leads  Adalbert  carefully 
down  the  steps  on  the  right  hand. 

Armed  Man  [to  Adalbert]. 
Look  down  !     'T  is  on  thy  life  !  [Leads  him  to  the  open  Coffin. 

What  seest  thou  ? 

Adalbert.  An  open  empty  Coffin. 

Armed  Man.  'T  is  the  house 

Where  thou  one  day  shalt  dwell.  — Caust  read  the  inscription  ? 

Adalbert.  No. 

Armed  Man.         Hear  it,  then  :  "  Thy  wages,  Sin,  is  Death." 

[Leads  him  to  the  opposite  Coffin  wheie  the  Body  is  lying. 
Look  dfiwn  I  'T  is  on  thy  life  !  — Wliat  seest  thou  ?  [Shows  the  Coffin. 

Adalbert.  A  Coffin  with  a  Corpse. 

Armed  Man.  He  is  thy  Brother  ; 

One  day  thou  art  as  he.  —  Canst  read  th'  inscription  f 

Adalbert.  No. 

Armed  Man.  Hear  :  "  Corruption  is  the  name  of  Life." 

Now  lo()k  around  ;  go  forward,  —  move,  and  act !  — 

[He  pushes  him  towards  the  background  of  tlie  stage. 


96  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Adalbert  [observing  the  BooJc] . 
Ha !    Here  the  Book  of  Ordination !  —  Seems  [Approaching. 

As  if  th'  inscription  on  it  might  be  read.  [He  reads  iL 

"  Knock  four  times  on  the  ground, 
Thou  shalt  behold  thy  loved  one." 

0  Heavens !     And  may  I  see  thee,  sainted  Agnes  ? 
My  bosom  yearns  for  thee  !  —  [Hastening  close  to  the  Book. 

[  With  the  following  words,  he  stamps  four  times  on  the 
ground. 

One,  —  Two,  —  Three,  —  Four !  — 
[The  curtain  hanging  from  the  Booh  rolls  rapidly  up,  and  covers  it.  A 
colossal  DeviV s-he^d  appears  between  the  two  Skeletons  ;  its  form  is 
horrible  ;  it  is  gilt ;  has  a  huge  golden  Crown,  a  Heart  of  the  same 
on  its  Brow  ;  rolling  flamitig  Eyes  ;  Serpents  instead  of  Hair  ; 
golden  Chains  round  its  neck,  which  is  visible  to  the  breast;  and  a 
golden  Cross,  yet  not  a  Crucifix,  which  rises  over  its  right  shoxdder, 
as  if  crushing  it  down.  The  whole  Bust  rests  on  four  gilt  Dragon^ s- 
fcet.  At  sight  of  it,  Adalbert  starts  back  in  horror,  and  exclaims  : 
Defend  us  ! 

Armed  Man.     Dreaded  I  may  he  hear  it  ? 
Concealed  Voices.  Yea! 

Akmeu  Man  [touches  the  Curtain  tcith  his  sword;  it  roUs  down 
over  the  DeviFs-head,  concealing  it  again ;  and  above,  as 
before,  appears  the  Book,  but  now  opened,  with  white  colossal 
leaves  and  red  characters.  The  Armed  Man,  pointing  con- 
stantly to  the  Book  tcith  his  Sword,  and  therewith  turning  the 
leaves,  addresses  Adalbert,  tcho  staiids  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Book,  and  nearer  the  foreground'\. 
List  to  the  Story  of  the  Fallon  Master. 

[He  reads  the  following  from  the  Book  ;   yet  not  standing 
before  it,  but  on  one  side,  at  some  paces  distance,  and 
whilst  he  reads,  turning  the  leaves  with  his  Sword. 
"  So  now  when  the  foundation-stone  was  laid, 
The  Lord  called  fortli  the  Master,  Baffomotus, 
And  saiil  to  hhn  :   Go  and  comjdcte  my  Temple! 
But  in  his  heart  the  Master  thouglit:  What  boots  it 
Building  tliee  a  teTuple  ?  and  took  the  stones, 
And  built  him.'iolf  a  dwelling,  and  what  stones 
"Were  left  he  gave  for  filtliy  gold  and  silver. 
Ndw  after  forty  moons  the  Lord  returned, 
And  spake:   Wiiere  is  my  Temple,  Baflometus? 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF   WERNER.  97 

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,  BaflFometus  ? 
He  said :  There  were  no  stones  (hut  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,  Baifometus  ? 
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  I 
And  when  the  forty  hours  were  gone,  the  Lord 
Came  down  in  wrath  :  My  Temple,  Baifometus  ? 
Then  fell  ho  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  fortli,  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  Bafibmetus  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  Bafi"ometus'  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; 
TOL.  ini.  7 


j 

98  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.  i 

And  instead  of  back,  grew  dragon's-talons, 

Which  destroyed  aU  life  from  off  the  Earth.  j 

Then  from  the  ground  the  Lord  took  up  the  hearty  j 

Which,  as  he  touched  it,  also  grew  of  gold,  ' 

And  placed  it  on  the  brow  of  Baffometus ; 

And  of  the  other  metal  in  the  pot  ; 

He  made  for  him  a  burning  crown  of  gold,  ] 

And  crushed  it  on  his  serpent-hair,  so  that 

Even  to  the  bone  and  brain  the  circlet  scorched  him. 

And  round  the  neck  he  twisted  golden  chains, 

Which  strangled  him  and  pressed  his  breath  together. 

What  in  the  pot  remained  he  poured  upon  the  ground, 

Athwart,  along,  and  there  it  formed  a  cross  ; 

The  which  he  lifted  and  laid  upon  his  neck. 

And  bent  him  that  he  could  not  raise  his  head.  1 

Two  Deaths  moreover  he  appointed  warders  ' 

To  guard  him  :  Death  of  Life,  and  Death  of  Hope. 

The  Sword  of  the  first  he  sees  not,  but  it  smites  him; 

The  other's  Palm  he  sees,  but  it  escapes  him. 

So  languishes  the  outcast  Baffometus 

Four  thousand  years  and  four-and-forty  moons, 

Till  once  a  Saviour  rise  from  his  own  seed,  i 

Redeem  his  trespass  and  deliver  him."  [To  Adalbert.        1 

This  is  the  Story  of  the  Fallen  Master. 

[  With  his  Sword  he  touclxes  the  Curtain,  u-hich  now  as 
before  rolls  up  over  the  Book  ;  so  that  the  Head  under 
it  again  becomes  visible,  in  its  former  shape. 

Adalbert  [looking  at  the  Head]. 
Hah,  what  a  hideous  shape  ! 

Head  [ivith  a  hollow  voice] .  Deliver  me !  — 

Armed  Man.     Dreaded!  shall  the  work  begin  ? 

CoN'CEALKD  VoiCES.  Yea! 

Armed  Max  [to  Adalbert].  Take  the  neckband 

Away  !  [Pointing  to  the  Head. 

Adalbert.  T  dare  not ! 

IlEAii  [with  a  still  more  piteous  tone].  Oh,  deliver  me  1 

Adalbert  [taking  off  the  chaim].  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  fie  did 
the  chains,  on  the  ground. 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  99 

Armed  Man.  Now  take  the  golden  heart  from  off  his  brow  I 

Adalbert.  It  seems  to  bum ! 

Armed  Man.  Thou  errest :  ice  is  warmer. 

Adalbert  [taking  the  Seartfrom  the  Brow]. 
Hah  !  shivering  frost ! 

Armed  Man.  Take  from  his  back  the  Cross, 

And  throw  it  from  thee !  — 

Adalbert.  How !  The  Saviour's  token  t 

Head.  Deliver,  oh,  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,  atvd  laying  it  softly  on  the 
ground] . 
The  Cross  of  the  Good  Lord  that  died  for  me  ? 

Armed  Man.  Tliou  shalt  no  more  believe  in  one  thai  died/ 
Tliou  shalt  henceforth  believe  in  one  that  liveth 
And  never  dies  !  —  Obey,  and  question  not,  — 
Step  over  it ! 

Adalbert.  Take  pity  on  me  1 

Armed  Man  [threatening  him  with  his  Sword].  Step  I 

Adalbert.  I  do  't  with  shuddering  — 

\_Steps  over,  and  tlien  looks  up  to  the  Head,  which  raists 
itself  as  freed  from  a  had. 

How  the  figure  rises 
And  looks  in  gladness  1 

Armed  Man.  Him  whom  thou  hast  served 

Till  now,  deny ! 

Adalbert  [horror-struck]    Deny  the  Lord  my  God  ? 

Armed  Man.  Thy  God  't  is  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  tJie  Head  with  his  Sword]. 
Go  to  the  Fallen !  —  Kiss  his  lips !  — 

—  And  so  on  through  many  other  sulphurous  pages  !  How 
much  of  this  mummery  is  copied  from  the  actual  practice  of 
the  Templars  we  know  not  with  certainty ;  nor  what  precisely 
either  they  or  Werner  intended,  by  this   marvellous  "Story 


100        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  the  Fallen  Master,"  to  shadow  forth.  At  first  view,  one 
might  take  it  for  an  allegory,  couched  in  Masonic  language,  — 
and  truly  no  flattering  allegory,  —  of  the  Catholic  Church  j 
and  this  trampling  on  the  Cross,  which  is  said  to  have  been 
actually  enjoined  on  every  Templar  at  his  initiation,  to  be  a 
type  of  his  secret  behest  to  undermine  that  Institution,  an?" 
redeem  the  spirit  of  Religion  from  the  state  of  thraldom  anc 
distortion  under  which  it  was  there  held.  It  is  known  at  least 
and  was  well  known  to  Werner,  that  the  heads  of  the  Tern 
plars  entertained  views,  both  on  religion  and  politics,  which 
they  did  not  think  meet  for  communicating  to  their  age,  and 
only  imparted  by  degrees,  and  under  mysterious  adumbrations, 
to  the  wiser  of  their  own  Order.  They  had  even  publicly 
resisted,  and  succeeded  in  thwarting,  some  iniquitous  mea- 
sures of  Philippe  Auguste,  the  French  King,  in  regard  to 
his  coinage ;  and  this,  while  it  secured  them  the  love  of  the 
people,  was  one  great  cause,  perhaps  second  only  to  their 
wealth,  of  the  hatred  which  that  sovereign  bore  them,  and 
of  the  savage  doom  which  he  at  last  executed  on  the  whole 
body. 

But  on  these  secret  principles  of  theirs,  as  on  Werner's 
manner  of  conceiving  th^m,  we  are  only  enabled  to  guess; 
for  Werner,  too,  has  an  esoteric  doctrine,  which  he  does  not 
promulgate,  except  in  dark  Sibylline  enigmas,  to  the  unin- 
itiated. 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  favorite  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  re- 
verse of  Robert. 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  101 


Act  IV.  Scene  I. 

Prison ;  at  the  waU  a  Table.  Robert,  without  sword,  cap,  or  mantle, 
sits  downcast  on  one  side  of  it :  Gottfried,  who  keeps  watch  by  him, 
sitting  at  the  other. 

Gottfried.  But  how  couldst  thou  so  far  forget  thyself? 
Thou  wert  our  pride,  the  Master's  frieud  and  favorite  ! 

Robert.  I  did  it,  thou  perceiv'st ! 

Gottfried,  How  could  a  word 

Of  the  old  surly  Hugo  so  provoke  thee  ? 

Robert.  Ask  uot  —  Man's  being  is  a  spider-web : 
The  passionate  flash  o'  th'  soul  —  comes  not  of  him ; 
It  is  the  breath  of  that  dark  Genius, 
Which  whirls  invisible  along  the  threads  : 
A  servant  of  eternal  Destiny, 
It  purifies  them  from  the  vulgar  dust. 
Which  earthward  strives  to  press  the  net : 
But  Fate  gives  sign  ;  the  breath  becomes  a  whirlwind, 
And  in  a  moment  rends  to  shreds  the  thing 
We  thought  was  woven  for  Eternity. 

Gottfried.  Yet  ea«h  man  shapes  his  Destiny  himself. 

Robert.  Small  soul  1  dost  thou  too  know  it  ?     Has  the  story 
Of  Force  and  free  Volition,  that,  defying 
The  corporal  Atoms  and  Annihilation, 
Metliodic  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 !  — 
Lof)k  at  our  Order :  has  it  spared  its  thousands 
Of  noblest  lives,  the  victims  of  its  Purpose  ; 
And  has  it  gained  this  Pur|iose;  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  liis  own  great  soul ; 


102        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

It  dies  with  hiin  ;  and  one  day  shall  the  pUgrim 
Ask  where  his  dust  is  lying,  and  not  learn ! 

Gottfried  [yawning]. 
But  then  the  Christian  has  the  joy  of  Heaven 
For  recompense :  in  his  flesh  he  shall  see  God. 

Robert.  In  his  flesh  ?  —  Now  fair  befall  the  journey ! 
Wilt  stow  it  in  behind,  by  way  of  luggage, 
When  tlie  Angel  comes  to  coach  thee  into  Glory  I 
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  beliind !  — 
Ha !  self-deceiving  bipeds,  is  it  not  enough 
The  carcass  should  at  every  step  oppress. 
Imprison  you  ;  that  toothache,  headache, 
Gout,  —  who  knows  what  all,  — at  every  moment, 
Degrades  the  god  of  Earth  into  a  beast ; 
But  you  would  take  this  villanous  mingle, 
The  coarser  dross  of  all  the  elements, 
Which,  by  the  Light-beam  from  on  high  that  visits 
And  dwells  in  it,  but  baser  shows  its  baseness,  — 
Take  this,  and  all  the  freaks  which,  bubble-like, 
Spring  forth  o'  th'  blood,  and  which  by  such  fair  name* 
You  call,  —  along  with  you  into  your  Heaven  ?  — 
Well,  be  it  so  !  much  good  may  't  — 

[As  his  eye,  by  chance,  lights  on  Gottfried,  who  meanwhile 
has  fallen  asleep. 

—  Sound  already  f 
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  nar- 
cotic virtue,  is  destined  ultimately  for  a  higher  office  than  to 
rattle  his  chains  by  way  of  lullaby.  He  is  ejected  from  the 
Order ;  not,  liowevev,  with  disgrace  and  in  anger,  but  in  sad 
feeling  of  necessity,  and  with  tears  and  blessings  from  his 
brethren  ;  and  the  messenger  of  the  Vallctj,  a  strange,  ambigu- 
ous, little,  sylph-like  maiden,  gives  him  obscure  encouragement, 
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 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  103 

■well  what  to  make  of  this ;  but  sails  for  his  native  Hebrides,  in 
darkness  and  contrition,  as  one  who  can  do  no  other. 

In  the  end  of  the  Second  Part,  which  is  represented  as 
divided  from  the  First  by  an  interval  of  seven  years,  Kobert 
is  again  summoned  forth ;  and  the  whole  surprising  secret  of 
his  mission,  and  of  the  Valley  which  appoints  it  for  him,  is 
disclosed.  This  Friedenthal  (Valley  of  Peace)  it  now  appears, 
is  an  immense  secret  association,  which  has  its  chief  seat  some- 
where 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  civilized 
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 
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  favorite  minister  of  good,  has  now  degenerated  from  its 
purity,  and  come  to  mistake  its  purpose,  having  taken  up  poli- 
tics 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  admixture 
in  the  worship  of  every  people,  but  only  with  its  clear  sidereal 
lustre  in  the  recesses  of  the  Valley.     They  are  Bramins  on 


104         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

the  Ganges,  Bonzes  on  the  Hoang-ho,  Monks  on  tlie  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  froip  its  sensual  instruments,  and  behold,  without 
type  or  material  embodiment,  the  essence  of  Being.  Their  ac- 
tivity is  all-comprehending  and  unerringly  calculated :  they  rule 
over  the  world  by  the  authority  of  wisdom  over  ignorance. 

In  the  Fifth  Act  of  the  Second  Part,  we  are  at  length,  after 
many  a  hint  and  significant  note  of  preparation,  introduced 
to  the  privacies  of  this  philosophical  Santa  Hermandad.  A 
strange  Delphic  cave  this  of  theirs,  under  the  very  pavements 
of  Paris  !  There  are  brazen  folding-doors,  and  concealed  voices, 
and  sphinxes,  and  naphtha-lamps,  and  all  manner  of  wondrous 
furniture.  It  seems,  moreover,  to  be  a  sort  of  gala  evening 
with  them  ;  for  the  "  Old  Man  of  Carmel,  in  eremite  garb,  with 
a  long  beard  reaching  to  his  girdle,"  is  for  a  moment  discovered 
"  reading  in  a  deep  monotonous  voice."  The  "  Strong  Ones," 
meanwhile,  are  out  in  quest  of  Eobert  d'Heredon;  who,  by 
cunning  practices,  has  been  enticed  from  his  Hebridean  soli- 
tude, 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,  Ilobert  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  essen- 
tial preliminary,  it  would  seem,  —  till  compelled  by  the  direst 
necessity.  He  is  in  a  truly  Highland  anger,  as  is  natural :  but 
l)y  various  manipulations  and  solacements,  he  is  reduced  to 
reason  again ;  finding,  indeed,  the  fruitlessness  of  anything 
else ;  for  when  lance  and  sword  and  free  space  are  given  him, 
and  lie  makes  a  thrust  at  Adam  of  Valincourt,  the  master  of 
the  ceremonies,  it  is  to  no  purpose :  the  old  man  has  a  torpedo 
quality  in  him,  which  benumbs  the  stoutest  arm  ;  and  no  death 
issues  from  the  baffled  sword-point,  but  only  a  small  spark  of 
electric  fire.  With  his  Scottish  prudence,  Robert,  under  these 
circumstances,  cannot  but  perceive  that  quietness  is  best.  The 
people  hand  him,  in  succession,  the  "  Cup  of  Strength,"  the 


LIFE   AND  WRITINGS   OF  WERNER.  105 

"  Cup  of  Beauty,"  and  the  "  Cup  of  Wisdom ;  "  liquors  brewed, 
if  we  may  judge  from  their  effects,  with  the  highest  stretch 
of  Eosicrucian  art ;  and  which  must  have  gone  far  to  disgust 
Robert  d'Heredon  with  his  natural  usquebaugh,  however  excel- 
lent, had  that  fierce  drink  been  in  use  then.  He  rages  in  a  fine 
frenzy ;  dies  away  in  raptures ;  and  then,  at  last,  "  considers 
what  he  wanted  and  what  he  wants."  Now  is  the  time  for 
Adam  of  Valincourt  to  strike  in  with  an  interminable  exposi- 
tion of  the  "  objects  of  the  society."  To  not  unwilling  but 
still  cautious  ears  he  unbosoms  himself,  in  mystic  wise,  with 
extreme  copiousness ;  turning  aside  objections  like  a  veteran 
disputant,  and  leading  his  apt  and  courageous  pupil,  by  signs 
and  wonders,  as  well  as  by  logic,  deeper  and  deeper  into  the 
secrets  of  theosophic  and  thaumaturgic  science.  A  little 
glimpse  of  this  our  readers  may  share  with  us ;  though  we 
fear  the  allegory  will  seem  to  most  of  them  but  a  hollow  nut. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  an  allegory  —  of  its  sort ;  and  we  can  profess 
to  have  translated  with  entire  fidelity :  — 


Adam.     Thy  riddle  by  a  second  will  be  solved. 

[He  leads  him  to  the  Sphinx. 
Behold  this  Sphinx  !     Half-beast,  half-angel,  both 
Combined  in  one,  it  is  an  emblem  to  thee 
Of  th'  ancient  ISIother,  Nature,  herself  a  riddle, 
And  only  by  a  deeper  to  be  mastor'd. 
Eternal  Clearness  in  th'  eternal  Ferment : 
This  is  the  riddle  of  Existence  :  —  read  it,  — 
Propose  that  other  to  her,  and  she  serves  thee ! 

[T^e  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  dec}} 

strokes  of  a  Bell  are  heard. 

Old  Man  of  Caumel  [reading  ivith  a  loud  but  still  monotonous 

voice] .     "And  when  the  Lord  saw  Phosphorus  "  — 
RoBEUT  [interrupting  him] .  Ha  !  Again 

A  story  as  of  Baflbmetus  ? 

Adam.  Not  so. 

That  tale  of  theirs  was  but  some  poor  distortion 
Of  th'  outmost  image  of  our  Sanctuary.  — 


106         CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Keep  silence  here ;  and  see  thou  interrupt  not, 
By  too  bold  cavilling,  this  mystery. 

Old  Man  [reading]. 
"  And  when  the  Lord  saw  Phosphoros  his  pride, 
Being  wroth  thereat,  he  cast  him  forth, 
And  shut  him  in  a  prison  called  Life  ; 
And  gave  him  for  a  Garment  earth  and  water, 
And  bound  him  straitly  in  four  Azure  Chains, 
And  pour'd  for  him  the  bitter  Cup  of  Fire. 
The  Lord  moreover  spake :  Because  thou  hast  forgotten 
My  will,  I  yield  thee  to  the  Element, 
And  thou  shall  be  his  slave,  and  have  no  longer 
Remembrance  of  thy  Birthplace  or  my  Name. 
And  sithence  thou  hast  sinn'd  against  me  by 
Thy  prideful  Thought  of  being  One  and  Somewhat, 
I  leave  with  thee  that  Thought  to  be  thy  whip, 
And  this  thy  weakness  for  a  Bit  and  Bridle ; 
Till  once  a  Saviour  from  the  Waters  rise. 
Who  shall  again  baptize  thee  in  my  bosom. 
That  so  thou  mayst  be  Nought  and  All. 

"  And  when  the  Lord  had  spoken,  he  drew  back 
As  in  a  mighty  rushing ;  and  the  Element 
Rose  up  round  Phosphoros,  and  tower'd  itself 
Aloft  to  Heav'n  ;  and  he  lay  stunn'd  beneath  it. 

"But  when  his  first-bom  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 :  * 
Pity  my  Brother,  and  let  me  console  him  ! 

*'  Tlien  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, 

*  MyJitia  in  tho  old  Persian  mysteries  was  the  name  of  the  Moon;  Mythrat 
that  of  the  Sun. 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WEfiNER.  lOT 

To  save  his  youngest-bom ;  and  Mythras  went 

Up  to  the  footstool  of  the  Lord,  and  said  : 

Take  pity  on  my  Son  !  —  Then  said  the  Lord : 

Have  I  not  sent  Mylitta  that  he  may 

Behold  his  Birthplace  ?  —  Wherefore  Mythras  answer'd : 

What  profits  it?     The  Chains  she  cannot  break, 

The  bitter  Cup  of  Fire  not  take  from  him. 

So  will  I,  said  the  Lord,  the  Salt  be  given  him. 

That  so  the  bitter  Cup  of  Fire  be  softened  j 

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-bom  grandchild  lie  forever 
In  pain,  the  down-pressed  thrall  of  his  rude  Brother  f 
Then  had  the  Lord  compassion,  and  he  sent  him 
The  Herald  of  the  Saviour  from  the  Waters; 
The  Cup  of  Fluidness,  and  in  the  cup 
The  drops  of  Sadness  and  the  drops  of  Longing : 
And  then  the  Ice  was  thawed,  the'  Fire  grew  cool, 
And  Phosphoros  again  had  room  to  breathe. 
But  yet  the  earthy  Garment  cumber'd  him. 
The  Azure  Chains  still  gall'd,  and  the  Remembrance 
Of  the  Name,  the  Lord's,  which  he  had  lost,  was  wanting. 

*'  Then  the  Mother's  heart  was  mov'd  with  pity. 
She  beckoned  the  Son  to  her,  and  said : 
Thou  who  art  more  than  I,  and  yet  my  nursling, 
Put  on  this  Robe  of  Earth,  and  show  thyself 
To  fallen  Phosphoros  bound  in  the  dungeon. 
And  open  him  tliat  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  Phosphor  knew  his  Father. 
And  when  the  Word,  in  Earth,  came  to  the  Prison, 
The  Element  address'd  him  as  his  like ; 
But  Phosphoros  look'd  up  to  him,  and  said : 


108         CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  Fluiduess,  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  aU  his  Garment,  till  its  folds 

And  stiffness  vanish'd,  and  it  'gan  grow  light. 

And  when  the  Prison  Life  she  touch'd,  straightway 

It  waxed  thin  and  lucid  like  to  crystal. 

But  yet  the  Azure  Chains  she  could  not  break.  — 

Then  did  the  Word  vouchsafe  him  the  Cup  of  Faith; 

And  having  drunk  it,  Phosphoros  look'd  up, 

And  saw  the  Saviour  standing  in  the  Waters. 

Both  hands  the  Captive  stretch'd  to  grasp  that  Saviour ; 

But  he  fled. 

"  So  Phosphoros  was  griev'd  in  heart. 
But  yet  the  Word  spake  comfort,  giving  him 
The  Pillow  Patience,  there  to -lay  his  head. 
And  having  rested,  he  rais'd  his  head,  and  said : 
Wilt  thou  redeem  me  from  the  Prison  too  ? 
Then  said  the  Word :  Wait  yet  in  peace  seven  moons. 
It  may  be  nine,  until  thy  hour  shall  come. 
And  Phosphor  answer'd  :  Lord,  thy  will  be  done ! 

"  Which  when  the  mother  Isis  saw,  it  griev'd  her ; 
She  called  the  llainbow  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  thorn  the  Oil  of  Purity : 
And  this  tlie  Word  did  gather  in  a  Cup, 
And  clcans'd  with  it  tlie  Sinner's  head  and  bosom. 
Then  passing  forth  into  his  Father's  Garden, 
lie  broath'd  upon  the  ground,  and  there  arose 
A  flow'rct  out  of  it,  like  milk  and  rose-bloom; 
Which  having  wetted  with  the  dew  of  Rapture, 
lie  crown'd  therewith  the  Captive's  brow  ;  then  grasped  him 
With  l\is  right  hand,  the  Rainbow  with  the  left; 
Mylitta  likewise  with  her  Mirror  came, 
And  Phosphoros  looked  into  it,  and  saw 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  109 

Writ  on  the  Azure  of  lufinity 

The  long-forgotteu  Name,  and  the  Remembrance 

Of  HIS  Birthplace,  gleaming  as  in  light  of  gold. 

''  Then  fell  there  as  if  scales  from  Phosphor's  eyesj 
He  left  the  Thought  of  heing  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  puq)le. 
And  of  his  chains  were  fashion'd  glancing  jewels. 

"  True,  still  the  Saviour  from  the  Waters  tarried; 
Yet  came  tlie  Spirit  over  him ;  the  Lord 
Turn'd  towards  him  a  gracious  countenance, 
And  Isis  held  him  in  her  mother-arms. 

"  This  is  the  last  of  the  Evangels." 

[The  door  doses,  and  again  conceals  the  Old  Man  of 
Carmel. 

The  purport  of  this  enigma  Eobert  confesses  that  he  does 
not  "  wholly  understand ;  "  an  admission  in  which,  we  suspect, 
most  of  our  readers,  and  the  Old  Man  of  Carmel  himself,  were 
he  candid,  might  be  inclined  to  agree  with  him.  Sometimes, 
in  the  deeper  consideration  which  translators  are  bound  to 
bestow  on  such  extravagances,  we  have  fancied  we  could  dis- 
cern in  this  apologue  some  glimmerings  of  meaning,  scattered 
here  and  there  like  weak  lamps  in  the  darkness ;  not  enough 
to  interpret  the  riddle,  but  to  show  that  by  possibility  it  might 
have  an  interpretation,  —  was  a  typical  vision,  with  a  certain 
degree  of  significance  in  the  wild  mind  of  the  poet,  not  an 
inane  fever-dream.  Might  not  Phosphoros,  for  example,  indi- 
cate generally  the  spiritual  essence  of  man,  and  this  story  be 
an  emblem  of  his  history  ?  He  longs  to  be  "  One  and  Some- 
what ;  "  that  is,  he  labors  under  the  very  common  complaint 
of  egoism;  cannot,  in  the  grandeur  of  Beauty  and  Virtue, 
forget  his  own  so  beautiful  and  virtuous  Self ;  but,  amid  the 
glories  of  the  majestic  All,  is  still  haunted  and  blinded  by 
some  shadow  of  his  own  little  Me.  For  this  reason  he  is  pun- 
ished ;  imprisoned  in  the  "  Element "  (of  a  material  body), 
and  has  the  "  four  Azure  Chains  "  (the  four  principles  of  mat- 


110        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ter)  bound  round  him ;  so  that  he  can  neither  think  nor  act, 
except  in  a  foreign  medium,  and  under  conditions  that  en- 
cumber 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  Kature  ;  and, 
looking  into  her  "  Mirror,"  forms  to  himself,  under  gross  em- 
blems, a  theogony  and  sort  of  mythologic  poetry ;  in  which,  if 
he  still  cannot  behold  the  "  Name,"  and  has  forgotten  his  own 
"  Birthplace,"  both  of  which  are  blotted  out  and  hidden  by  the 
"  Element,"  he  finds  some  spiritual  solace,  and  breathes  more 
freely.  Still,  however,  the  "  Cup  of  Fire  "  tortures  him ;  till 
the  "  Salt "  (intellectual  culture  ?)  is  vouchsafed ;  which,  in- 
deed, calms  the  raging  of  that  furious  bloodthirstiness  and 
warlike  strife,  but  leaves  him,  as  mere  culture  of  the  under- 
standing may  be  supposed  to  do,  frozen  into  irreligion  and 
moral  inactivity,  and  farther  from  the  "  Name  "  and  his  "  Own 
Original "  than  ever.  Then,  is  the  *'  Cup  of  Fluidness  "  a  more 
merciful  disposition  ?  and  intended,  with  "  the  Drops  of  Sad- 
ness and  the  Drops  of  Longing,"  to  shadow  forth  that  woe- 
struck,  desolate,  yet  softer  and  devouter  state  in  which  mankind 
displayed  itself  at  the  coming  of  the  "  Word,"  at  the  first 
promulgation  of  the  Christian  religion  ?  Is  the  "  Rainbow  " 
the  modern  poetry  of  Europe,  the  Chivalry,  the  new  form  of 
Stoicism,  the  whole  romantic  feeling  of  these  later  days  ?  But 
who  or  what  the  "  Heiland  aus  den  Wassem  (Saviour  from 
the  Waters)  "  may  be,  we  need  not  hide  our  entire  ignorance ; 
this  being  apparently  a  secret  of  the  Valley,  which  Robert 
d'Heredon,  and  Werner,  and  men  of  like  gifts,  are  in  due  time 
to  show  the  world,  but  unhappily  have  not  yet  succeeded  in 
bringing  to  light.  Perhaps,  indeed,  our  whole  interpretation 
may  be  thought  little  better  than  lost  labor  ;  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  tow- 
ered together  as  if  by  Cyclopean  arms,  are  but  dyed  vapor. 

Adam  of  Valincourt  continues  his  exposition  in  the  most 
liberal  way  ;  but,  through  many  pages  of  metrical  lecturing,  he 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  Ill 

does  little  to  satisfy  us.  What  was  more  to  his  purpose,  he 
partly  succeeds  in  satisfying  Eobert  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  aus  den  Wassem 
elsewhere ;  and  thus,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  all  parties, 
the  Sons  gf  the  Valley  terminates,  "positively  for  the  last 
time." 

Our  reader  may  have  already  convinced  himself  that  in  this 
strange  phantasmagoria  there  are  not  wanting  indications  of  a 
very  high  poetic  talent.  We  see  a  mind  of  great  depth,  if  not 
of  sufficient  strength;  struggling  with  objects  which,  though 
it  cannot  master  them,  are  essentially  of  richest  significance. 
Had  the  writer  only  kept  his  piece  till  the  ninth  year ;  medi- 
tating it  with  true  diligence  and  unwearied  will !  But  the 
weak  Werner  was  not  a  man  for  such  things  :  he  must  reap 
the  harvest  on  the  morrow  after  seed-day,  and  so  stands  before 
us  at  last  as  a  man  capable  of  much,  only  not  of  bringing 
aught  to  perfection. 

Of  his  natural  dramatic  genius,  this  work,  ill-concocted  as  it 
is,  affords  no  unfavorable  specimen;  and  may,  indeed,  have 
justified  expectations  which  were  never  realized.  It  is  true, 
he  cannot  yet  give  form  and  animation  to  a  character,  in  the 
genuine  poetic  sense ;  we  do  not  see  any  of  his  dramatis  per- 
sonce,  but  only  hear  of  them  :  yet,  in  some  cases,  his  endeavor, 
though  imperfect,  is  by  no  means  abortive ;  and  here,  for  in- 
stance, Jacques  Molay,  Philip  Adalbert,  Hugo,  and  the  like, 
though  not  living  men,  have  still  as  much  life  as  many  a  buff-J 
and-scarlet  Sebastian  or  Barbarossa,  whom  Ave  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 


112        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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 
splendor ;  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  Wer- 
ner 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  para- 
bles of  Baifometus  and  Phosphoros,  our  readers  may  be  dis- 
posed 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  ; 
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  Protes- 
tantism, 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,  Ke- 
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 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  113 

ability  as  poets  and  preachers,  not  some  only,  but  every  one 
should  infinitely  outstrip  him.  ^Ve  suppose  he  had  dropped 
the  thought  of  being  "  One  and  Somewhat ;  "  and  now  wished, 
rapt  away  by  this  divine  purpose,  to  be  "  ISTought  and  All." 

On  the  Heiland  aits  den  Wassei-n  this  correspondence  throws 
no  farther  light :  what  the  new  Creed  specially  was  which 
"Werner  felt  so  eager  to  plant  and  propagate,  we  nowhere  learn 
with  any  distinctness.  Probably  he  might  himself  have  been 
rather  at  a  loss  to  explain  it  in  brief  compass.  His  theogonj', 
we  suspect,  was  still  very  much  m  posse  ;  and  perhaps  only 
the  moral  part  of  this  system  could  stand  before  him  with 
some  degree  of  clearness.  On  this  latter  point,  indeed,  he  is 
determined  enough  ;  well  assured  of  his  dogmas,  and  apparently 
•waiting  but  for  some  proper  vehicle  in  which  to  convey  them 
to  the  minds  of  men.  His  fundamental  principle  of  morals 
we  have  seen  in  part  already  :  it  does  not  exclusively  or  pri- 
marily belong  to  himself;  being  little  more  than  that  high 
tenet  of  entire  Self-forgetfulness,  that  "  merging  of  the  Me  in 
the  Idea  ;  "  a  principle  which  reigns  both  in  Stoical  and  Chris- 
tian ethics,  and  is  at  this  day  common,  in  theory,  among  all 
German  philosophers,  especially  of  the  Transcendental  class. 
Werner  has  adopted  this  principle  with  his  Vv^hole  heart  and 
his  whole  soul,  as  the  indispensable  condition  of  all  Virtue. 
He  believes  it,  we  should  say,  intensely,  and  without  compro- 
mise, 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  enjoy- 
ment, disguise  it  as  we  like  ;  a  more  complex  and  sometimes 
more  respectable  species  of  hunger,  he  would  say ;  to  be 
admitted  as  an  indestructible  element  in  human  nature,  but 
nowise  to  be  recognized  as  the  highest ;  on  the  contrary,  to 
be  resisted  and  incessantly  warred  with,  till  it  become  obe- 
dient 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  im- 
pulses ;  forming,  in  fact,  the  grand  law  of  his  being,  as 
subjection  to  it  forms  the  first  and  last  condition  of  spiritual 
health.     He  thinks  that  to  propose  a  reward  for  virtue  is  to 

VOL.    XIII.  8 


114         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

render  virtue  impossible.  He  warmly  seconds  Schleiermacher 
in  declaring  that  even  the  hope  of  Immortality  is  a  consider- 
ation unfit  to  be  introduced  into  religion,  and  tending  only 
to  pervert  it,  and  impair  its  sacredness.  Strange  as  this  may 
seem,  Werner  is  firmly  convinced  of  its  importance ;  and  has 
even  enforced  it  specifically  in  a  passage  of  his  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  between  Kobert  d'Heredon  and  Adam  ol: 
Valincourt,  in  the  cavern  of  the  Valley :  — 


Robert.  And  Death,  —  so  dawns  it  on  me,  — Death  perhaps^ 
The  doom  that  leaves  nought  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  3Ie,  so  thin 
And  pitiful,  into  Infinitude, 
That  too  must  die  f  —  This  shallow  Self  of  ours, 
We  are  not  nail'd  to  it  eternally  ? 
We  can,  we  must  be  free  of  it,  and  then 
Uucumbered  wanton  in  the  Force  of  All ! 

Adam  [calling  joy  fully  into  the  interior  of  the  Cavern], 
Brethren,  he  has  renounced  I     Himself  has  found  it ! 
Oh,  praised  be  Light !     He  sees  !     The  North  is  sav'd  I 

Concealed  Voices  of  the  Old  Men  of  the  Valley. 
Huil  and  joy  to  thee,  thou  Strong  One  : 
Force  to  thee  from  above,  and  Light  I 
Complete,  —  complete  the  work  ! 

Adam  [embracing  Robert]. 

Come  to  my  heart !  —  &c.  &c. 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  that  new  Faith,  which,  symbolized 
under  niythuses  of  Baffometus  and  Phosphoros,  and  "  Sa- 
viours from  the  Waters,"  and  "  Trinities  of  Art,  Religion  and 
Love,"  and  to  be  preached  abroad  by  the  aid  of  Schleier- 
macher, and  what  was  then  called  the  New  Poetical  School, 
"Werner  seriously  purposed,  like  another  Luther,  to  cast  forth, 
as  good  seed,  among  the  ruins  of  decayed  and  down-trodden 


LIFE  AXD  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  115 

Protestantism !  Whether  Hitzig  was  still  young  enough  to 
attempt  executing  his  commission,  and  applying  to  Schlegel 
and  Tieck  for  help  ;  and  if  so,  in  what  gestures  of  speechless 
astonishment,  or  what  peals  of  inextinguishable  laughter  they 
answered  him,  we  are  not  informed.  One  thing,  however,  is 
clear :  that  a  man  with  so  unbridled  an  imagination,  joined  to 
so  weak  an  understanding  and  so  broken  a  volition  ;  who  had 
plunged  so  deep  in  Theosophy,  and  still  hovered  so  near  the 
surface  in  all  practical  knowledge  of  men  and  their  affairs ; 
who,  shattered  and  degraded  in  his  own  private  character, 
could  meditate  such  apostolic  enterprises,  — was  a  man  likely, 
if  he  lived  long,  to  play  fantastic  tricks  in  abundance ;  and,  at 
least  in  his  religious  history,  to  set  the  world  a-wondering. 
Conversion,  not  to  Popery,  but,  if  it  so  chanced,  to  Braminism, 
was  a  thing  nowise  to  be  thought  impossible. 

Nevertheless,  let  his  missionary  zeal  have  justice  from  us. 
It  does  seem  to  have  been  grounded  on  no  wicked  or  even 
illaudable  motive :  to  all  appearance,  he  not  only  believed 
what  he  professed,  but  thought  it  of  the  highest  moment  that 
others  should  believe  it.  And  if  the  proselytizing  spirit, 
which  dwells  in  all  men,  be  allowed  exercise  even  when  it 
only  assaults  what  it  reckons  Errors,  still  more  should  this 
be  so  when  it  proclaims  what  it  reckons  Truth,  and  fancies 
itself  not  taking  from  us  what  in  our  eyes  may  be  good,  but 
adding  thereto  what  is  better. 

Meanwhile,  Werner  was  not  so  absorbed  in  spiritual  schemes, 
that  he  altogether  overlooked  his  own  merely  temporal  com- 
fort. In  contempt  of  former  failures,  he  was  now  courting 
for  himself  a  third  wife,  "  a  young  Poless  of  the  highest  per- 
sonal 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.  Xevertheless,  nothing  daunted  by  this 
circumstance,  na}'  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  ardor,  tliat  lie 
quite  gained  the  fair  mute ;  wedded  her  in  1801 ;  and  soon 
after,  in  her  company,  quitted  ^^'arsaw  for  Konigsberg,  where 


116        CRITICAL  AND   MISCELX.ANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

the  helpless  state  of  his  mother  required  immediate  attention. 
It  is  from  Konigsberg  that  most  of  his  missionary  epistles  to 
llitzig  are  written ;  the  latter,  as  we  have  hinted  before,  being 
now  stationed,  by  his  official  appointment,  in  Berlin.  The  sad 
duty  of  watching  over  his  crazed,  forsaken  and  dying  mother, 
Werner  appears  to  have  discharged  with  true  lilial  assiduity  : 
for  three  years  she  lingered  in  the  most  painful  state,  under 
his  nursing ;  and  her  death,  in  1804,  seems  notwithstanding 
to  have  filled  him  with  the  deepest  sorrow.  This  is  an  extract 
of  his  letter  to  Hitzig  on  that  mournful  occasion :  — 

"  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  aud  long- 
suffering.  I  wish  I  had  words  to  paint  how  inexpressibly 
pitiful  my  Sohne  des  Thais  appeared  to  me  in  that  hour,  when, 
after  eighteen  years  of  neglect,  I  again  went  to  partake  in  the 
Communion  !  This  death  of  my  mother  —  the  pure  royal  poet- 
and-martyr  spirit,  who  for  eight  years  had  lain  continually 
on  a  sick-bed,  and  suffered  unspeakable  things  —  affected  me 
(much  as,  for  her  sake  aud  my  own,  I  could  not  but  wish  it) 
with  altogether  agonizing  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  aud  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,  whore,  amid  so  much 
that  is  dark  autl  desolate,  one  feels  it  pleasant  to  linger.    Here 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  11 T 

was  at  least  one  duty,  perhaps  indeed  the  only  one,  which,  in 
a  wayward  wasted  life,  he  discharged  with  hdelity  ;  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 
Z^ature  ;  but  unwisely  squandering  its  riches,  and  attaining  to 
a  pure  union  only  with  this  one  heart ;  for  it  seems  doubtful 
whether  he  ever  loved  another !  His  poor  mother,  while  alive, 
was  the  haven  of  all  his  earthly  voyagings  ;  and,  in  after 
years,  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  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  pro- 
ductions. Die  Viei^und-zwanziyste  Fehruar  (The  Twenty-fourth 
of  February). 

After  this  event,  which  left  him  in  possession  of  a  small 
but  competent  fortune,  Werner  returned  with  his  wife  to  his 
post  at  Warsaw.  By  this  time,  Hitzig  too  had  been  sent  back, 
and  to  a  higher  post :  he  was  now  married  likewise  ;  and  the 
two  wives,  he  says,  soon  became  as  intimate  as  their  husbands. 
In  a  little  while  Hoffmann  joined  them  ;  a  colleague  in  Hitzig's 
oifice,  and  by  him  ere  long  introduced  to  Werner,  and  the 
other  circle  of  Prussian  men  of  law  ;  who,  in  this  foreign  cap- 
ital, formed  each  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 

^  See,  for  example,  the  Preface  to  his  Mutter  der  Makkahaer,  ■written  at 
Vienna,  in  1819.  The  tone  of  still  but  deep  and  heartfelt  sadness  which  runs 
through  the  whole  of  this  piece  cannot  be  communicated  in  extracts.  We 
quote  only  a  half  stanza,  which,  except  in  prose,  we  shall  not  venture  to 

translate :  — 

"  Ich,  rlem  der  Liebe  Koaen 
Und  alle  Freudenrosen 
Beym  eisten  Schaufeltosen 
Am  Muttergrab'  entflohn. 

I,  for  ■whom  the  caresses  of  love  and  all  roses  of  joy  withered  away  as  the 
first  shovel  with  its  mould  sounded  on  the  coffin  of  mv  mother." 


118       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  his  quick  eye,  and  more  rigid  fastidious  feeling,  the  lofty 
theory  and  low  selfish  practice,  the  general  diffuseness,  nay 
incoherence  of  character,  the  pedantry  and  solemn  affectation, 
too  visible  in  the  man,  could  nowise  be  hidden.  Nevertheless, 
he  feels  and  acknowledges  the  frequent  charm  of  his  conver- 
sation :  for  "Werner  many  times  could  be  frank  and  simple  ; 
and  the  true  humor  and  abandonment  with  which  he  often 
launched  forth  into  bland  satire  on  his  friends,  and  still  oftener 
on  himself,  atoned  for  many  of  his  whims  and  weaknesses. 
Probably  the  two  could  not  have  lived  together  by  themselves : 
but  in  a  circle  of  common  men,  where  these  touchy  elements 
were  attempered  by  a  fair  addition  of  wholesome  insensibili- 
ties 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.-^ 

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 

^  Hitzig  has  thus  described  the  first  aspect  it  presented  to  Hoffmann : 
"  Streets  of  stately  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  in  strange  union  with 
Greenland  squalor.  An  ever-moving  population,  forming  the  sharpest  con- 
trasts, 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  brightest  colors,  talking  and  promenading  over  broad  squares. 
The  venerable  ancient  Polish  noble,  with  moustaches,  caftan,  girdle,  sabre, 
and  red  or  yellow  boots  ;  the  new  generation  equipt  to  the  utmost  pitch  as 
Parisian  Incioi/ab!es ;  with  Turks,  Greeks,  Russians,  Italians,  Frenclimen,  in 
ever-changing  throng.  Add  to  this  a  police  of  inconceivable  tolerance,  dis- 
turbing 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. 
Fartiier,  a  theatre  in  the  national  language ;  a  good  French  company  ;  an 
Italian  opera;  German  players  of  at  least  a  very  passable  sort  ;  masked  balls 
on  a  quite  original  but  highly  entertaining  plan  ;  places  for  pleasure-excursions 
all  round  the  city,"  &c.  &c.  —  Hoffmann's  Leben  und  Nachlass,  b.  i.  s.  287. 


LIFE   AND  WRITINGS   OP   WERNER.  119 

added  perhaps  still  higher  attainments  both  as  a  musician  and 
a  painter,  composed  the  accompaniment.  He  complains  that 
in  this  matter  Werner  was  very  ill  to  please.  A  ridiculous 
scene,  at  the  first  reading  of  the  piece,  the  same  shrewd  wag 
has  recorded  in  his  Serapions-Bruder :  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  Kreiiz  an  der  Ostsee,  of  which  they  already 
knew  some  fragments  that  had  raised  their  expectations  to 
the  highest  stretch.  Planted,  as  usual,  in  the  middle  of  the 
circle,  at  a  little  miniature  table,  on  which  two  clear  lights, 
stuck  in  high  candlesticks,  were  burning,  sat  the  Poet :  he 
had  drawn  the  manuscript  from  his  breast ;  the  huge  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  unparal- 
leled, ever-memorable,  altogether  indescribable  faces  you  have 
seen  in  him,  and  begins.  —  Now  you  recollect,  at  the  rising  of 
the  curtain,  the  Prussians  are  assembled  on  the  coast  of  the 
Baltic,  fishing  amber,  and  commence  by  calling  on  the  god  who 
presides  over  this  vocation.  —  So  begins  : 

'  Bangputtis  !  Bangputtis !  Bangputtis ! ' 

—  Brief  pause  !  Incipient  stare  in  the  audience  !  —  and  from  a 
fellow  in  the  corner  comes  a  small  clear  voice  :  '  My  dearest, 
most  valued  friend  !  ray  best  of  poets  !  if  thy  whole  dear  opera 
is  written  in  that  cursed  language,  no  soul  of  us  knows  a  syl- 
lable of  it ;  and  I  beg,  in  the  Devil's  name,  thou  wouldst  have 
the  goodness  to  translate  it  first ! '  "  ^ 

Of  this  KrcAiz  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 

^  HofEmanu's  Serapions-Bruder,  b.  iv.  s.  240. 


120         CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 

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,  harmonize  more 
than  usually  with  the  spirit  of  the  whole.  It  is  a  wild  subject, 
and  this  helps  to  give  it  a  corresponding  wildness  of  locality. 
The  first  planting  of  Christianity  among  the  Prussians  by  the 
Teutonic  Knights  leads  us  back  of  itself  into  dim  ages  of 
antiquity,  of  superstitious  barbarism,  and  stern  apostolic  zeal : 
it  is  a  scene  hanging,  as  it  were,  in  half-ghastly  chiaroscuro,  on 
a  ground  of  primeval  Night :  where  the  Cross  and  St.  Adalbert 
come  in  contact  with  the  Sacred  Oak  and  the  Idols  of  Romova, 
we  are  not  surprised  that  spectral  shapes  peer  forth  on  us  from 
the  gloom. 

In  constructing  and  depicting  of  characters,  Werner,  indeed, 
is  still  little  better  than  a  mannerist :  his  persons,  differing  in 
external  figure,  differ  too  slightly  in  inward  nature;  and  no 
one  of  them  comes  forward  on  us  with  a  rightly  visible  or 
living  air.  Yet,  in  scenes  and  incidents,  in  what  may  be 
called  the  general  costume  of  his  subject,  he  has  here  attained 
a  really  superior  excellence.  The  savage  Prussians,  with  their 
amber-fishing,  their  bear-hunting,  their  bloody  idolatry  and 
stormful  untutored  energy,  are  brought  vividly  into  view  ;  no 
less  so  the  Polish  Court  of  Plozk,  and  the  German  Crusaders, 
in  their  bridal-feasts  and  battles,  as  they  live  and  move,  here 
placed  on  the  verge  of  Heathendom,  as  it  were,  the  vanguard 
of  Light  m  conflict  with  the  kingdom  of  Darkness.  The  noc- 
turnal assault  on  Plozk  by  the  Prussians,  where  the  handful 
of  Teutonic  Knights  is  overpowered,  but  the  citj^  saved  from 
ruin  by  the  miraculous  interposition  of  the  "  Harper,"  who 
now  proves  to  be  the  Spirit  of  St.  Adalbei't ;  this,  with  the 
scene  which  follows  it,  on  the  Island  of  the  Vistula,  where  the 
dawn  slowly  breaks  over  doings  of  woe  and  horrid  cruelty, 
but  of  woe  and  cruelty  atoned  for  by  immortal  hope,  — belong 
iimloubtedly  to  Werner's  most  successful  efforts.  With  much 
that  is  questionable,  much  that  is  merely  common,  there  are 
intermingled  touches  from  tlio  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 


LIFE   AND   WRITINGS   OF   WERNER.  121 

something  which  at  least  resembles  poetic  harmony.  We  give 
this  drama  a  high  praise,  when  we  say  that  more  than  once  it 
has  reminded  us  of  Calderon. 

The  "  Cross  on  the  Baltic  "  had  been  bespoken  by  Iffland  for 
the  Berlin  theatre;  but  the  complex  machinery  of  the  piece, 
the  "  little  flames  "  springing,  at  intervals,  from  the  heads  of 
certain  characters,  and  the  other  supernatural  ware  with  which 
it  is  replenished,  were  found  to  transcend  the  capabilities  of 
any  merely  terrestrial  stage.  Iffland,  the  best  actor  in  Ger- 
many, 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.  Hoffmann  chuckles  in 
secret  over  the  perplexities  in  which  the  shrewd  prosaic  man- 
ager and  playwright  must  have  found  himself,  when  he  came 
to  the  "  little  flame."  Nothing  remained  but  to  write  back  a 
refusal,  full  of  admiration  and  expostulation  :  and  Iffland  wrote 
one  which,  says  Hoffmann,  "  passes  for  a  masterpiece  of  the- 
atrical diplomacy." 

In  this  one  respect,  at  least,  Werner's  next  play  was  happier, 
for  it  actually  crossed  the  "Stygian  marsh"  of  green-room 
hesitations,  and  reached,  though  in  a  maimed  state,  the  Ely- 
sium of  the  boards ;  and  this  to  the  great  joy,  as  it  proved, 
both  of  Iffland  and  all  other  parties  interested.  We  allude  to 
the  Marfin  LutJter,  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  acted, 
it  would  seem,  even  in  Vienna,  to  overflowing  and  delighted 
audiences. 

If  instant  acceptance,  therefore,  were  a  measure  of  dramatic 
merit,  this  play  should  rank  high  among  that  class  of  works. 
Nevertheless,  to  judge  from  our  own  impressions,  the  sober 
reader  of  Martin  Luther  will  be  far  from  finding  in  it  such 
excellence.  It  cannot  be  named  among  the  best  dramas :  it 
is  not  even  the  best  of  Werner's.  There  is,  indeed,  much 
scenic  exhibition,  many  a  "  fervid  sentiment,"  as  the  news- 
papers have  it;  nay,  with  all  its  mixture  of  coarseness,  here 
and  there  a  glimpse  of  genuine  dramatic  inspiration :  but,  as 


122         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  in- 
terest, perhaps  of  no  trivial  sort,  awakened  in  the  First  Act ; 
but,  unhappily,  it  goes  on  declining,  till,  in  the  Fifth,  an  ill- 
natured  critic  might  almost  say,  it  expires.  The  story  is  too 
wide  for  Werner's  dramatic  lens  to  gather  into  a  focus ;  be- 
sides, the  reader  brings  with  him  an  image  of  it,  too  fixed  for 
being  so  boldly  metamorphosed,  and  too  high  and  august  for 
being  ornamented  with  tinsel  and  gilt  pasteboard.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Diet  of  Worms,  plentifully  furnished  as  it  is  with 
sceptres  and  armorial  shields,  continues  a  much  grander  scene 
in  History  than  it  is  here  in  Fiction.  Neither,  with  regard  to 
the  persons  of  the  play,  excepting  those  of  Luther  and  Cath- 
arine, the  Nun  whom  he  weds,  can  we  find  much  scope  for 
praise.  Nay,  our  praise  even  of  these  two  must  have  many 
limitations.  Catharine,  though  carefully  enough  depicted,  is, 
in  fact,  little  more  than  a  common  tragedy-queen,  with  the 
storminess,  the  love,  and  other  stage-heroism,  which  belong 
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 
himself  ?  Is  not  this  Luther,  with  his  too  assiduous  flute- 
playing,  his  trances  of  three  days,  his  visions  of  the  Devil 
(at  whom,  to  the  sorrow  of  the  housemaid,  he  resolutely 
throws  his  huge  inkbottle),  by  much  too  spasmodic  and  brain- 
sick 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  Hu- 
mane Society  ?  —  Seriously,  we  cannot  but  regret  that  these 


LIFE   AND   WRITINGS   OF  WERNER.  123 

and  other  such  blemishes  had  not  been  avoided,  and  the  char- 
acter, 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, 
indeed,  as  the  counterpoise  of  Luther, — we  may  say,  with- 
out hesitation,  that  he  is  a  failure.  An  empty  Gascon  this ; 
bragging  of  his  power,  and  honor  and  the  like,  in  a  style 
which  Charles,  even  in  his  nineteenth  year,  could  never  have 
used.  "  One  God,  one  Charles,"  is  no  speech  for  an  emperor  ; 
and,  besides,  is  borrowed  from  some  panegyrist  of  a  Spanish 
opera-singer.  Xeither  can  we  fall  in  with  Charles,  when  he 
tells  us  that  ''he  fears  nothing,  —  not  even  God."  We  humbly 
think  he  must  be  mistaken.  With  the  old  Miners,  again,  with 
Hans  Luther  and  his  Wife,  the  Reformer's  parents,  there  is 
more  reason  to  be  satisfied :  yet  in  Werner's  hands  simplicity 
is  always  apt,  in  such  cases,  to  become  too  simple ;  and  these 
honest  peasants,  like  the  honest  Hugo  in  the  "  Sons  of  the 
Valley,"  are  very  garrulous. 

The  drama  of  MaHin  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  epithalamiums 
over  unsound  sleepers :  we  cannot  see  how  aught  of  this  is  to 


124         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLA^^EOUS  ESSAYS. 

"  consecrate  strength ; "  or,  indeed,  what  such  jack-o'-lantern 
personages  have  in  the  least  to  do  with  so  grave  a  business. 
If  the  author  intended  by  such  machinery  to  elevate  his  sub- 
ject from  the  Common,  and  unite  it  with  the  higher  region  of 
the  Infinite  and  the  Invisible,  we  cannot .  think  that  his  con- 
trivance has  succeeded,  or  was  worthy  to  succeed.  These 
half-allegorical,  half-corporeal  beings  yield  no  contentment 
anywhere :  Abstract  Ideas,  however  they  may  put  on  fleshly 
garments,  are  a  class  of  characters  whom  we  cannot  sym- 
pathize with  or  delight  in.  Besides,  how  can  this  mere  em- 
bodiment 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 
viargin:  it  is  not  performing  the  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,  perhaps,  a 
green  and  rather  pretty  weed ;  yet  here  superfluous,  and,  like 
any  other  weed,  deserving  only  to  be  altogether  cut  away. 

Our  general  opinion  of  Martin  Luther,  it  would  seem,  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, 
sluiU  we  ourselves  deny  that,  in  the  lov/er  sphere  of  a  popu- 
lar spectacle^  its  attractions  are  manifold.  AVe  find  it,  what, 
more  or  less,  we  find  all  Werner's  pieces  to  be,  a  splendid, 
sparkling  mass ;  yet  not  of  pure  metal,  but  of  many-colored 
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-glcavi,  glancing  from  it,  had 
shown  that  the  process  was  complete. 

Werner's  dramatic  popularity  could  not  remain  without 
influence  on  him,  more  es2)ecially  as  he  was  now  in  the  very 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  125 

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  Schroter,  one  of  the  state- 
ministers,  a  man  harmonizing  with  Werner  in  his  "  zeal  both 
for  religion  and  freemasonry,"  had  been  persuaded  by  some 
friends  to  appoint  him  his  secretary.  Werner  naturally  re- 
joiced 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  influential  world  with  his  own  eyes :  but  to  draw 
future  instruction  from  it,  or  even  to  guide  himself  in  its 
present  complexities,  he  was  little  qualified.  He  took  a  shorter 
method  :  "  he  plunged  into  the  vortex  of  society,"  says  Hitzig, 
with  brief  expressiveness  ;  became  acquainted,  indeed,  with 
Fichte,  Johannes  Miiller,  and  other  excellent  men,  but  united . 
himself  also,  and  with  closer  partiality,  to  players,  play-lovers, 
and  a  long  list  of  jovial,  admiring,  but  highly  unprofitable 
companions.  His  religious  schemes,  perhaps  rebutted  by  col- 
lision with  actual  life,  lay  dormant  for  the  time,  or  mingled 
in  strange  union  with  wine-vapors,  and  the  "  feast  of  reason 
and  the  flow  of  soul."  The  result  of  all  this  might,  in  some 
measure,  be  foreseen.  In  eight  weeks,  for  example,  Werner 
had  parted  with  his  wife.  It  was  not  to  be  expected,  he 
writes,  that  she  should  be  happy  with  him.  "  I  am  no  bad 
man,"  continues  he,  with  considerable  candor ;  "  yet  a  weak- 
ling in  many  respects  (for  God  strengthens  me  also  in  sev- 
eral), fretful,  capricious,  greedy,  impure.  Thou  knowest  me  ! 
Still,  immersed  in  my  fantasies,  in  my  occupation  :  so  that 
here,  what  with  playhouses,  what  with  social  parties,  she  had 
no  manner  of  enjoyment  with  me.  She  is  innocent :  I  too 
perhaps ;  for  can  I  pledge  m3-self  that  I  am  so  ?  "  These 
rpj)eated  divorces  of  Werner's  at  length  convinced  him  that 
ho  had  no  talent  for  managing  wives ;  indeed,  we  subsequently 
find  him,  more  than  once,  arguing  in  dissuasion  of  marriage 
altogether.  To  our  readers  one  otlier  consideration  may  occur: 
astonishment  at  the  state  of  marriage-hiw,  and  tlic  strange 
footing  this  "sacrament"  must  stand  on  througliout  I'rotestaut 
Germany.     For  a  Christian  man,  at  least  not  a  ^Maliometan, 


126         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  leave  three  widows  behind  him,  certainly  wears  a  peculiar 
aspect.  Perhaps  it  is  saying  much  for  German  morality,  that 
so  absurd  a  system  has  not,  by  the  disorders  resulting  from  it, 
already  brought  about  its  own  abrogation. 

Of  Werner's  farther  proceedings  in  Berlin,  except  by  impli- 
cation, we  have  little  notice.  After  the  arrival  of  the  French 
armies,  his  secretaryship  ceased ;  and  now  wifeless  and  place- 
less,  in  the  summer  of  1807,  "  he  felt  himself,"  he  says,  "  au- 
thorized by  Fate  to  indulge  his  taste  for  pilgriming."  Indulge 
it  accordingly  he  did ;  for  he  wandered  to  and  fro  many  years, 
nay  we  may  almost  say,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  like  a  perfect 
Bedouin.  The  various  stages  and  occurrences  of  his  travels 
he  has  himself  recorded  in  a  paper,  furnished  by  him  for  his 
own  name,  in  some  Biographical  Dictionary.  Hitzig  quotes 
great  part  of  it,  but  it  is  too  long  and  too  meagre  for  being 
quoted  here.  Werner  was  at  Prague,  Vienna,  Munich,  — 
everywhere  received  with  open  arms ;  "  saw  at  Jena,  in  De- 
cember, 1807,  for  the  first  time,  the  most  universal  and  the 
clearest  man  of  his  age  (the  man  whose  like  no  one  that  has 
seen  him  will  ever  see  again),  the  great,  nay  only  Goethe  ; 
and  under  his  introduction,  the  pattern  of  German  princes  " 
(the  Duke  of  Weimar)  ;  and  then,  "  after  three  ever-memorable 
months  in  this  society,  beheld  at  Berlin  the  triumphant  entry 
of  the  pattern  of  European  tyrants"  (Napoleon).  On  the 
summit  of  the  Rigi,  at  sunrise,  he  became  acquainted  with 
the  Crown-Prince,  now  King,  of  Bavaria ;  was  by  him  intro- 
duced to  the  Swiss  festival  at  Interlaken,  and  to  the  most 
"  intellectual  lady  of  our  time,  the  Baroness  de  Stael ;  and 
must  beg  to  be  credited  when,  after  sufficient  individual  expe- 
rience, 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  Wei- 
mar,^  again  to   Switzerland ;    in  short,  trudged   and  hurried 

^  It  was  here  that  Ilitzig  saw  him  for  the  last  time,  in  1809;  found  ad- 
mittance, through  his  means,  to  a  court-festival  in  honor  of  Bcrnadotte  ; 
and  ho  still  recollects,  with  gratification,  "  the  lordly  spectacle  of  ( Joethe 
and  that  sovereign  standing  front  to  front,  engaged  in  the  liveliest  couver- 
Buliou." 


LIFE  AND   WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  127 

hither  and  thither,  inconstant  as  an  ignis  fatuxis,  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 
betokens  of  itself  no  inward  repose ;  and  when  we,  from 
other  lights,  gain  a  transient  glimpse  into  the  wayfarer's 
thoughts,  they  seem  still  more  fluctuating  than  his  footsteps. 
His  project  of  a  New  Keligion  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  propa- 
gating it  in  new  purity  by  teaching  and  preaching,  had  nowise 
vanished  from  his  meditations.  On  the  contrary,  we  can  per- 
ceive 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  path- 
less desert  of  his  now  solitary,  barren  and  cheerless  existence. 
W'hat  his  special  opinions  or  prospects  on  the  matter  had,  at 
this  period,  become,  we  nowhere  learn  ;  except,  indeed,  nega- 
tively, —  for  if  he  has  not  yet  found  the  new,  he  still  cor- 
dially enough  detests  the  old.  All  his  admiration  of  Luther 
cannot  reconcile  him  to  modern  Lutheranism.  This  he  re- 
gards but  as  another  and  more  hideous  impersonation  of  the 
Utilitarian  spirit  of  the  age,  nay  as  the  last  triumph  of  In- 
fidelity, 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  mira- 
cles, and  how  his  body,  when  purchased  from  the  heathen  for 
its  weight  in  gold,  became  light  as  gossamer,  he  proceeds :  — 

''Though  these  things  may  be  justly  doubted ;  yet  one  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 


128        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  de- 
generate and  spurious  Protestantism,  would  be,  in  his  some- 
what 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  Avell  as  grave  charac- 
ter.  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  Slrach,  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 
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  llegensburg  and  Munich 
to  thronging  audiences,  —  chiefly  for  the  multitude  of  liberal 
Protestant  opinions  therein  brought  to  light ;  and  regard  the 
author,  all  his  struggling  to  the  contrary  unheeded,  as  a  secret 
lUuminatus,  or  at  worst  an  amiable  Enthusiast.  In  a  word, 
Vienna  is  determined,  without  loss  of  time,  to  overtake  Ber- 
lin in  the  career  of  improvement ;  and  when  I  recollect  that 
Berlin,  on  her  side,  carries  Porst's  Hymn-book  with  her,  in  her 
reticule,  to  the  shows  in  the  Tluerrjarten  ;  and  that  the  ray  of 
Christiano-catholico-platonic  Faith  pierces  deeper  and  deeper 
into  your  (already  by  nature  very  deep)  Privy-covmeillor 
iVIa'm'selle,  —  I  almost  fancy  that  Germany  is  one  great  mad- 
house ;  and  could  find  in  my  heart  to  pack  up  my  goods,  and 
set  off  for  Italy,  to-morrow  morning;  —  not,  indeed,  that  I 
might  work  there,  where  follies  enough  are  to  be  had  too  \  but 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  129 

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  Furst  Primas  von  Dalberg,  had  settled  a  yearly  pension 
on  him ;  so  that  now  he  felt  still  more  at  libert}'^  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  favorite  project;  he  set  out, 
through  Turin  and  Florence,  and  "on  the  9th  of  December, 
1809,  saw,  for  the  first  time,  the  Capital  of  the  World  ! "  Of 
his  proceedings  here,  much  as  we  should  desire  to  have  minute 
details,  no  information  is  given  in  this  Narrative ;  and  Hitzig 
seems  to  know,  by  a  letter,  merely  that  "  he  knelt  with  stream- 
ing 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  {Ge'istliche  Uelun- 
gen)  ; "  a  new  invention  set  on  foot  at  Rome  for  quickening 
the  devotion  of  the  faithful;  consisting,  so  far  as  we  can 
gather,  in  a  sort  of  fasting-and-prayer  meetings,  conducted  on 
the  most  rigorous  principles  ;  the  considerable  band  of  devotees 
being  bound  over  to  strict  silence,  and  secluded  for  several 
days,  with  conventual  care,  from  every  sort  of  intercourse  with 
the  world.  The  effect  of  these  Exercitations,  Werner  elsewhere 
declares,  was  edifying  to  an  extreme  degree ;  at  parting  on 
the  threshold  of  their  holy  tabernacle,  all  the  brethren  "  em- 
braced each  other,  as  if  intoxicated  with  divine  joy ;  and  each 
confessed  to  the  other,  that  throughout  tliese  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  week-day  world."  The  next  step  from  these  Tabor-feasts, 
if,  indeed,  it  had  not  preceded  them,  was  a  decisive  one  :  *•  On 
the  19th  of  April,  1811,  Werner  had  grace  given  him  to  return 
to  the  Faith  of  his  fathers,  the  Catholic  ! " 

Here,  then,  the  "  crowning  mercy  "  had  at  length  arrived  I 
This  passing  of  the  Eubicon  determined  the  whole  remainder 

^  Lebens-Abriss,  s.  70. 

VOL.    XIII.  9 


130        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  Werner's  life ;  which  had  henceforth  the  merit  at  least  ot 
entire  consistency.  He  forthwith  set  about  the  professional 
study  of  Theology ;  then,  being  perfected  in  this,  he  left  Italy 
in  1813,  taking  care,  however,  by  the  road,  "  to  supplicate,  and 
certainly  not  in  vain,  the  help  of  the  Gracious  Mother  at  Lo- 
retto ;  "  and  after  due  preparation,  under  the  superintendence 
of  his  patron,  the  Prince  Archbishop  von  Dalberg,  had  himself 
ordained  a  Priest  at  Aschaffenburg,  in  June,  1814.  Next  from 
Aschaffenburg  he  hastened  to  Vienna ;  and  there,  with  all  his 
might,  began  preaching ;  his  first  auditory  being  the  Congress 
of  the  Holy  Alliance,  which  had  then  just  begun  its  venera- 
ble sessions.  "The  novelty  and  strangeness,"  he  says,  "nay 
originality  of  his  appearance,  secured  him  an  extraordinary 
concourse  of  hearers."  He  was,  indeed,  a  man  worth  hearing 
and  seeing ;  for  his  name,  noised  abroad  in  many-sounding 
peals,  was  filling  all  Germany  from  the  hut  to  the  palace. 
This,  he  thinks,  might  have  affected  his  head  ;  but  he  "  had  a 
trust  in  God,  which  bore  him  through."  Neither  did  he  seem 
anywise  anxious  to  still  this  clamor  of  his  judges,  least  of  all 
to  propitiate  his  detractors :  for  already,  before  arriving  at 
Vienna,  he  had  published,  as  a  pendant  to  his  Martin  Luther, 
or  the  Consecration  of  Strength,  a  Pamphlet  in  doggerel  metre, 
entitled  the  Consecration  of  Weakness,  wherein  he  proclaims 
himself  to  the  whole  world  as  an  honest  seeker  and  finder  of 
truth,  and  takes  occasion  to  revoke  his  old  "  Trinity  "  of  art, 
religion  and  love  ;  love  having  now  turned  out  to  be  a  danger- 
ous ingredient  in  such  mixtures.  The  writing  of  this  Wcihe 
der  Unkraft  Avas  reckoned  by  many  a  bold  but  injudicious 
measure,  —  a  throwing  down  of  the  gauntlet  when  the  lists 
were  full  of  tumultuous  foes,  and  the  knight  was  but  weak,  and 
his  cause,  at  best,  of  the  most  questionable  sort.  To  rei)orts, 
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 ;  preach- 
ing diligently,  but  only  where  he  himself  saw  good ;  oftenest 
at  Vienna,  but  in  summer  over  all  parts  of  Austria,  in  Styria, 


LIFE  AND  WKITINGS  OF  WERNER.  131 

Carinthia,  and  even  Venice.  Everywhere,  he  says,  the  opin- 
ions of  his  hearers  were  "violently  divided."  At  one  time, 
he  thought  of  becoming  Monk,  and  had  actually  entered  on  a 
sort  of  novitiate ;  but  he  quitted  the  establishment  rather 
suddenly,  and,  as  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "for  reasons 
known  only  to  God  and  himself."  By  degrees,  his  health  grew 
very  weak  :  yet  he  still  labored  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  produc- 
tions during  this  period,  there  is  none  of  any  moment  known 
to  us,  except  the  Mother  of  the  Maccabees  (1819)  ;  a  tragedy 
of  careful  structure,  and  apparently  in  high  favor  with  the 
author,  but  which,  notwithstanding,  need  not  detain  us  long. 
In  our  view,  it  is  the  worst  of  all  his  pieces ;  a  pale,  blood- 
less, indeed  quite  ghost-like  affair  ;  for  a  cold  breath  as  from 
a  sepulchre  chills  the  heart  in  perusing  it :  there  is  no  passion 
or  interest,  but  a  certain  woe-struck  martyr  zeal,  or  rather 
frenzy,  and  this  not  so  much  storming  as  shrieking  ;  not  loud 
and  resolute,  but  shrill,  hysterical  and  bleared  with  ineffec- 
tual tears.  To  read  it  may  well  sadden  us :  it  is  a  convul- 
sive fit,  whose  uncontrollable  wri things  indicate,  not  strength, 
but  the  last  decay  of  that.^ 

Werner  was,  in  fact,  drawing  to  his  latter  end  :  his  health  had 
long  been  ruined ;  especially  of  later  years,  he  had  suffered 
much  from  disorders  of  the  lungs.  In  1817,  he  was  thought  to 
be  dangerously  ill ;  and  afterwards,  in  1822,  when  a  journey 
to  the  Baths  partly  restored  him ;  though  he  himself  still  felt 
that  his  term  was  near,  and  spoke  and  acted  like  a  man  that 
was  shortly  to  depart.     In  January,  1823,  he  was  evidently 

^  Of  his  Attila  (1808),  his  Vier-und-zwanzirjste  Fehrunr  (1809),  his  Cun€<]unde 
(1814),  and  various  other  pieces  written  in  his  wanderings,  we  liave  not  room 
to  spealc.  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  wiiole  fairly, 
characterized  by  Madame  de  Stael.  Of  the  last-named  little  work  we  might 
say,  with  double  emj)hasis.  Nee  pueros  coram  populo  Medfa  trucldet :  it  has  a 
deep  and  genuine  tragic  interest,  were  it  not  so  painfully  protracted  into  the 
regions  of  pure  horror.  Werner's  Sermons,  his  Hymns,  his  Preface  to  Thomas 
a  Kempis,  &c.  are  entirely  unknown  to  us. 


132        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

dying  :  his  affairs  lie  had  already  settled  ;  mnch  of  his  time  he 
spent  in  prayer ;  was  constantly  cheerful,  at  intervals  even 
gay.  "His  death,"  says  Hitzig,  "was  especially  mild.  On 
the  eleventh  day  of  his  disorder,  he  felt  himself,  particularly 
towards  evening,  as  if  altogether  light  and  well ;  bo  that  he 
would  hardly  consent  to  have  any  one  to  watch  with  him.  Thi 
servant  whose  turn  it  was  did  watch,  however ;  he  had  sa^- 
down  by  the  bedside  between  two  and  three  next  morning  (th« 
17th),  and  continued  there  a  considerable  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  in- 
strument of  his  aberrations,  his  sins  and  his  repentance."  He 
was  honorably  interred  at  Enzersdorf  on  the  Hill;  where  a 
simple  inscription,  composed  by  himself,  begs  the  wanderer  to 
"  pray  charitably  for  his  poor  soul ; "  and  expresses  a  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  Zacharias 
Werner's  Life  and  Works  ;  noting  down  from  the  former  such 
particulars  as  seemed  most  characteristic  ;  and  gleaning  from 
the  latter  some  more  curious  passages,  less  indeed  with  a  view 
to  their  intrinsic  excellence,  than  to  their  fitness  for  illustrating 
the  man.  These  scattered  indications  we  must  now  leave  our 
readers  to  interpret  each  for  himself :  each  will  adjust  them 
into  that  combination  which  shall  best  harmonize  with  his  own 
way  of  thought.  As  a  writer,  Werner's  character  will  occasion 
little  difficulty.  A  richly  gifted  nature ;  but  never  wisely 
guided,  or  resolutely  applied  ;  a  loving  heart ;  an  intellect 
subtle  and  inquisitive,  if  not  always  clear  and  strong ;  a  gor- 
geous, deep  and  bold  imagination  ;  a  true,  nay  keen  and  burn- 
ing sympathy  with  all  high,  all  tender  and  holy  things :  here 
lay  the  main  elements  of  no  common  poet ;  save  only  that  one 
was  still  wanting,  —  the  force  to  cultivate  them,  and  mould 
them  into  pure  union.     But  they  have  remained  uncultivated, 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OP  WERNER.  133 

disunited,  too  often  struggling  in  wild  disorder :  his  poetry, 
like  his  life,  is  still  not  so  much  an  edifice  as  a  quarry.  Werner 
had  cast  a  look  into  perhaps  the  very  deepest  region  of  the 
Wonderful ;  but  he  had  not  learned  to  live  there  :  he  was  yet 
no  denizen  of  that  mysterious  land ;  and,  in  his  visions,  its 
splendor  is  strangely  mingled  and  overclouded  with  the  flame 
or  smoke  of  mere  earthly  fire.  Of  his  dramas  we  have  already 
spoken;  and  with  much  to  praise,  found  always  more  to  cen- 
sure. In  his  rhymed  pieces,  his  shorter,  more  didactic  poems, 
we  are  better  satisfied :  here,  in  the  rude,  jolting  vehicle  of  a 
certain  Sternhold-and-Hopkins  metre,  we  often  find  a  strain  of 
true  pathos,  and  a  deep  though  quaint  significance.  His  prose, 
again,  is  among  the  worst  known  to  us  :  degraded  with  sillir 
ness ;  diffuse,  nay  taiitological,  yet  obscure  and  vague ;  con- 
torted into  endless  involutions  ;  a  misshapen,  lumbering, 
complected  coil,  well-nigh  inexplicable  in  its  entanglements, 
and  seldom  worth  the  trouble  of  unravelling.  He  does  not 
move  through  his  subject,  and  arrange  it,  and  rule  over  it :  for 
the  most  part,  he  but  welters  in  it,  and  laboriously  tumbles  it, 
and  at  last  sinks  under  it. 

As  a  man,  the  ill-fated  W^erner  can  still  less  content  us. 
His  feverish,  inconstant  and  wasted  life  we  have  already 
looked  at.  Hitzig,  his  determined  well-wisher,  admits  that  in 
practice  he  was  selfish,  wearying  out  his  best  friends  by  the 
most  barefaced  importunities ;  a  man  of  no  dignity ;  avaricious, 
greedy,  sensual,  at  times  obscene ;  in  discourse,  with  all  his 
humor  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 
I  the  world.  Nevertheless,  under  all  this  rubbish,  contends  the 
friendly  Biographer,  there  dwelt,  for  those  who  could  look 
more  narrowly,  a  spirit,  marred  indeed  in  its  beauty,  and  lan- 
guishing in  painful  conscious  oppression,  yet  never  wholly  for- 
getful of  its  original  nobleness.  Werner's  soul  was  made  for 
affection ;  and  often  as,  under  his  too  rude  collisions  with  ex- 
ternal 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 


134         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  un- 
stable 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  inco- 
herent expansion ;  his  activity  became  gigantic  endeavor,  fol- 
lowed by  most  dwarfish  performance. 

The  grand  incident  of  his  life,  his  adoption  of  the  Eoman 
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  feeling 
in  the  popular  mind,  which,  in  well-meant  hatred  of  incou' 
sistency,  perhaps  in  general  too  sweepingly  condemns  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  con- 
sistent of  mere  unbelievers,  —  in  whose  barren  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  Wer- 
ner'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. 
Surel}',  indeed,  that  must  be  a  nature  of  extreme  baseness,  who 
feeds  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.  lUit  for  Werner  there  was  no  gain  in  any  way  ;  nay 
rather  certainty  of  loss.  He  enjoyed  or  sought  no  patronage  ; 
with  his  own  resources  he  was  already  independent  though 
poor,  and  on  a  footing  of  good  esteem  with  all  that  was  most 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  135 

estimable  in  his  country.  His  little  pension,  conferred  on  hira, 
at  a  prior  date,  by  a  Catholic  Prince,  was  not  continued  after 
his  conversion,  except  by  the  Duke  of  Weimar,  a  Protestant. 
He  became  a  mark  for  calumny ;  the  defenceless  butt  at  which 
every  callow  witling  made  his  proof-shot ;  his  character  was 
more  deformed  and  mangled  than  that  of  any  other  man.  What 
had  he  to  gain  ?  Insult  and  persecution ;  and  with  these,  as 
candor  bids  us  believe,  the  approving  voice  of  his  own  con- 
science. To  judge  from  his  writings,  he  was  far  from  repent- 
ing of  the  change  he  had  made  ;  his  Catholic  faith  evidently 
stands  in  his  own  mind  as  the  first  blessing  of  his  life,  and 
he  clings  to  it  as  the  anchor  of  his  soul.  Scarcely  more  than 
once  (in  the  Preface  to  his  Mutter  der  Makkabiier)  does  he 
allude  to  the  legions  of  falsehoods  that  were  in  circulation 
against  him  ;  and  it  is  in  a  spirit  which,  without  entirely  con- 
cealing the  querulousness  of  nature,  nowise  fails  in  the  meek- 
ness 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  contemn,  or,  what  will  be  better,  pity  and 
sympathize  with  him  ;  but  the  structure  of  this  strange  piece 
surely  bespeaks  anything  but  insincerity.  We  translate  it 
with  all  its  breaks  and  fantastic  crotchets,  as  it  stands  be- 
fore 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  chari- 
tably 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 ! 


136         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

"  Motto,  Device  and  Watcliword  in  Death :  Bemittuntur  ei 
peccata  multa,  quoniam  dilexit  multum  !  J  !  Lucas,  caput  vii. 
V.  47. 


"  N.B.  Most  humbly  and  earnestly,  and  in  the  name  of  God, 
does  the  Author  of  this  Writing  beg,  of  such  honest  persons 
as  may  find  it,  to  submit  the  same  in  any  suitable  way  to 
public  examination. 

"  Fecisti  nos,  Domine,  ad  Te  ;  et  irrequietum  est  cor  nostrum, 
donee  requiescat  in  Te.     S.  Augustinus. 

"  Per  multa  dispergitur,  et  hie  illucque  qucerit  (cor)  ubi  requi- 
escere  possit,  et  nihil  invenit  quod  ei  sufficiat,  donee  ad  ipsum 
(sc.  Deurti)  redeat.     S.  Bernardus. 


"In  the  name  of  God  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost. 
Amen  ! 

"The  thunder  came  hither,  and  is  still  rolling,  though  now 
at  a  distance.  —  The  name  of  the  Lord  be  praised !   Hallelujah  ! 

I  BEGIX  :  — 

"  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, 
Avho  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  was,  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  salvas  gratis, 
Salva  me,  fans  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  j  for  though  not  free  from  this  vice  also,  I  would 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  137 

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  froni 
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  wilder- 
ness of  poisonous  weeds  and  garbage,  there  may  also  be  here 
and  there  a  medicinal  herb  lying  scattered,  from  which  poojr 
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  steadfastness,  is  not  only  in- 
capable 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."  * 

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  rumor,  which  had  spread,  of  his  having  given  up  Catholi- 
cism, he  says  (in  the  Preface  already  quoted)  :  — 

"  A  stupid  falsehood  I  must  reckon  it ;  since,  according  to 
my  deepest  conviction,  it  is  as  impossible  that  a  soul  in  Bliss 
sliould  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  perhaps 
far  dearer,  with  joyful  heart,  when  the  one  good  cause  \% 
concerned." 

1  Werner's  Letzte  Lebenatagen  (quoted  by  Hitzig,  p.  80). 


138         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

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  cease  to  be  a  Catholic,  I  would  a  thousand  times  sooner 
join  myself  to  Judaism,  or  to  the  Bramins  on  the  Ganges :  but 
to  that  shallowest,  driest,  most  contradictory,  inanest  Inanity . 
of  Protestantism,  never,  never,  never  !  " 

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  con- 
solation, that  there  all  our  works  will  be  known,  may  not 
indeed  prove  solacing  for  us  all;  but  where,  through  the 
strength  of  Him  that  alone  completes  all  works,  it  will  be 
granted  to  those  whom  He  has  saved,  not  only  to  know  each 
other,  but  even  to  know  Him,  as  by  Him  they  are  known !  — 
With  my  trust  in  Christ,  whom  I  have  not  yet  won,  I  regard, 
with  the  Teacher  of  the  Gentiles,  all  things  but  dross  that  I 
may  win  him  ;  and  to  Him,  cordially  and  lovingly  do  I,  in 
life  or  at  death,  commit  you  all,  my  beloved  Friends  and  my 
beloved  Enemies ! " 

On  the  whole,  we  cannot  think  it  doubtful  that  Werner's 
belief  was  real  and  heartfelt.  But  how  then,  our  wondering 
readers  may  inquire,  if  his  belief  was  real  and  not  pretended, 
how  then  did  he  believe  ?  He,  who  scoffs  in  infidel  style  at 
the  truths  of  Protestantism,  by  what  alchemy  did  he  succeed 
in  tempering  into  credibility  the  harder  and  bulkier  dogmas 
of  Popery  ?  Of  Popery,  too,  the  frauds  and  gross  corruptions 
of  which  he  has  so  fiercely  exposed  in  his  Martin  Luther  ;  and 
this,  moreover,  without  cancelling,  or  even  softening  his  vitu- 
perations, 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 : 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  139 

these,  as  some  step,  or  at  least,  attempt  towards  a  solution  of 
it,  we  shall  not  withhold. 

The  first  lies  in  Werner's  individual  character  and  mode  of 
life.  Not  only  was  he  born  a  mystic,  not  only  had  he  lived 
from  of  old  amid  freemasonry,  and  all  manner  of  cabalistic  and 
other  traditionary  chimeras ;  he  was  also,  and  had  long  been, 
what  is  emphatically  called  dissolute ;  a  word  which  has  now 
lost  somewhat  of  its  original  force ;  but  which,  as  applied  here, 
is  still  more  just  and  significant  in  its  etymological  than  in  its 
common  acceptation.  He  was  a  man  dissolute ;  that  is,  by  a 
long  course  of  vicious  indulgences,  enervated  and  loosened 
asunder.  Everywhere  in  Werner's  life  and  actions  we  discern 
a  mind  relaxed  from  its  proper  tension ;  no  longer  capable  of 
effort  and  toilsome  resolute  vigilance ;  but  floating  almost  pas- 
sively with  the  current  of  its  impulses,  in  languid,  imaginative, 
Asiatic  reverie.  That  such  a  man  should  discriminate,  with 
sharp  fearless  logic,  between  beloved  errors  and  unwelcome 
truths,  was  not  to  be  expected.  His  belief  is  likely  to  have 
been  persuasion  rather  than  conviction,  both  as  it  related  to 
Eeligion,  and  to  other  subjects.  What,  or  how  much  a  man 
in  this  way  may  bring  himself  to  believe,  with  such  force  and 
distinctness  as  he  honestly  and  usually  calls  belief,  there  is  no 
predicting. 

But  another  consideration,  which  we  think  should  nowise  be 
omitted,  is  the  general  state  of  religious  opinion  in  Germany, 
especially  among  such  minds  as  Werner  was  most  apt  to  take 
for  his  exemplars.  To  this  complex  and  highly  interesting 
subject  we  can,  for  the  present,  do  nothing  more  than  allude. 
So  much,  however,  we  may  say :  It  is  a  common  theory  among 
the  Germans,  that  every  Creed,  every  Form  of  worship,  is  a 
form-  merely;  the  mortal  and  ever-changing  body,  in  which  the 
immortal  and  unchanging  spirit  of  Eeligion  is,  with  more  or  less 
completeness,  expressed  to  the  material  eye,  and  made  mani- 
fest and  influential  among  the  doings  of  men.  It  is  thus,  for 
instance,  that  Johannes  Miiller,  in  his  Universal  History,  pro- 
fesses to  consider  the  Mosaic  Law,  the  creed  of  Mahomet,  nay 
Luther's  Reformation ;  and,  in  short,  all  other  systems  of 
Faith ;  which  he  scruples  not  to  designate,  without  special 


140         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

praise  or  censure,  simply  as  Vorstellungsarten,  '^  Modes  of  Rep^ 
resentation."  We  could  report  equally  singular  things  of 
Schelling  and  others,  belonging  to  the  philosophic  class ;  nay 
of  Herder,  a  Protestant  clergyman,  and  even  bearing  high  au- 
thority 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.  Con.- 
versions  to  Catholicism  are  accordingly  by  uo  means  unknown 
among  the  Germans  :  Friedrich  Schlegel,  and  the  younger 
Count  von  Stolberg,  men,  as  we  should  think,  of  vigorous  intelr 
lect,  and  of  character  above  suspicion,  were  colleagues,  or  rather 
precursors,  of  Werner  in  this  adventure  ;  and,  indeed,  formed 
part  of  his  acquaintance  at  Vienna.  It  is  but,  they  would  per- 
haps say,  as  if  a  melodist,  inspired  with  harmony  of  inward 
music,  should  choose  this  instrument  in  preference  to  that,  for 
giving  voice  to  it :  the  inward  inspiration  is  the  grand  concern ; 
and  to  express  it,  the  "  deep,  majestic,  solemn  organ  "  of  the 
Unchangeable  Church  may  be  better  fitted  than  the  "scran- 
nel pipe  "  of  a  withered,  trivial,  Arian  Protestantism.  That 
Werner,  still  more  that  Schlegel  and  Stolberg  could,  on  the 
strength  of  such  hypotheses,  put  off  or  put  on  their  religious 
creed,  like  a  new  suit  of  apparel,  we  are  far  from  asserting; 
they  are  men  of  earnest  hearts,  and  seem  to  have  a  deep  fee^ 
ing  of  devotion  :  but  it  should  be  remembered,  that  what  forms 
the  groundwork  of  their  religion  is  professedly  not  Demonstra-r 
tion  but  Faith ;  and  so  pliant  a  theory  could  not  but  help  to 
soften  the  transition  from  the  former  to  the  latter.  'Jhat  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, 
mysteriously  enough,  under  the  emblem  of  a  Phoeiiix,  he  seems 
to  be  shadowing  forth  the  history  of  his  own  Faith ;  and  rep- 
resents 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  rigor ;  acting  maoy  times  with 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS  OF  WERNER.  141 

only  half  consciousness,  he  was  always,  in  some  degree,  an 
enigma  to  himself,  and  may  well  be  obscured  to  us.  Above 
all,  there  are  mysteries  and  unsounded  abysses  in  every  human 
heart ;  and  that  is  but  a  questionable  philosophy  which  under- 
takes so  readily  to  explain  them.  Religious  belief  especially, 
at  least  when  it  seems  heartfelt  and  well-intentioned,  is  no 
subject  for  harsh  or  even  irreverent  investigation.  He  is  a 
wise  man  that,  having  such  a  belief,  knows  and  sees  clearly 
the  grounds  of  it  in  himself :  and  those,  we  imagine,  who  have 
explored  with  strictest  scrutiny  the  secret  of  their  own  bosoms 
will  be  least  apt  to  rush  with  intolerant  violence  into  that  of 
other  men's. 

"  The  good  Werner,"  says  Jean  Paul,  "  fell,  like  our  mote 
vigorous  Hoifmann,  into  the  poetical  fermenting-vat  (GaJir- 
hottich)  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  Werner :  yet  let  him 
be  condemned  with  pity !  And  well  were  it  could  each  of  us 
apply  to  himself  those  words,  which  Hitzig,  in  his  friendly 
indignation,  would  "  thunder  in  the  ears  "  of  many  a  German 
gainsayer:  Take  thou  the  beam  out  of  thine  own  eye;  then  shalt 
thou  see  clearly  to  take  the  mote  out  of  thy  brother's. 

1  Letter  to  Hitzig,  in  Jean  P<xul«  Leben,  by  Doring. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.^ 

[1828.] 

NovALis  has  rather  tauntingly  asserted  of  Goethe,  that  the 
grand  law  of  his  being  is  to  conclude  whatsoever  he  under- 
takes ;  that,  let  him  engage  in  any  task,  no  matter  what  its 
difficulties  or  how  small  its  worth,  he  cannot  quit  it  till  he  has 
mastered  its  whole  secret,  finished  it,  and  made  the  result  of 
it  his  own.  This,  surely,  whatever  Novalis  might  think,  is  a 
quality  of  which  it  is  far  safer  to  have  too  much  than  too 
little  :  and  if,  in  a  friendlier  spirit,  we  admit  that  it  does  strik- 
ingly belong  to  Goethe,  these  his  present  occupations  will  not 
seem  out  of  harmony  with  the  rest  of  his  life ;  but  rather 
it  may  be  regarded  as  a  singular  constancy  of  fortune,  which 
now  allows  him,  after  completing  so  many  single  enterprises, 
to  adjust  deliberately  the  details  and  combination  of  the 
whole  ;  and  thus,  in  perfecting  his  individual  works,  to  put 
the  last  hand  to  the  highest  of  all  his  works,  his  own  literary 
character,  and  leave  the  impress  of  it  to  posterity  in  that  form 
and  accompaniment  which  he  himself  reckons  fittest.  Yov  the 
last  two  years,  as  many  of  our  readers  may  know,  the  vener- 
able Poet  has  been  employed  in  a  patient  and  thorough  revisal 
of  all  his  Writings  ;  an  edition  of  which,  designated  as  the 
"complete  and  final"  one,  was  commenced  in  1827,  under  ex- 
ternal encouragements  of  the  most  flattering  sort,  and  with 
arrangements  for  private  co-operation,  which,  as  we  learn,  have 
secured  the  constant  progress  of  the  work  "  against  every 
accident."  The  first  Lieferung,  of  five  volumes,  is  now  in  our 
hands ;  a  second  of  like  extent,  we  understand  to  be  already 

^  FoREiGX  Review,  No.  2. —  Goethes  SUmmlliche.  Werlce.  Vollsldndige 
Ausf/dbe  letzter  Hand.  (Goethe's  Collective  Works.  Complete  Edition,  with 
liis  filial  Corrections.) — First  Portion,  vol.  i.-v.  IGmo  and  8vo.  Cotta; 
Stuttgard  and  Tubingen,  1827. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  143 

on  its  way  hither;  and  thus  by  regular  "Deliveries,"  from 
half-year  to  half-year,  the  whole  Forty  Volumes  are  to  be  com- 
pleted in  1831. 

To  the  lover  of  German  literature,  or  of  literature  in  general, 
this  undertaking  will  not  be  indiiferent :  considering,  as  he 
must  do,  the  works  of  Goethe  to  be  among  the  most  important 
which  Germany  for  some  centuries  has  sent  forth,  he  will  value 
their  correctness  and  completeness  for  its  own  sake ;  and  not 
the  less,  as  forming  the  conclusion  of  a  long  process  to  which 
the  last  step  was  still  wanting ;  whereby  he  may  not  only 
enjoy  the  result,  but  instruct  himself  by  following  so  great  a 
master  through  the  changes  which  led  to  it.  We  can  now  add, 
that,  to  the  mere  book-collector  also,  the  business  promises  to 
be  satisfactory.  This  Edition,  avoiding  any  attempt  at  splen- 
dor or  unnecessary  decoration,  ranks,  nevertheless,  in  regard 
to  accuracy,  convenience,  and  true  simple  elegance,  among  the 
best  specimens  of  German  typography.  The  cost  too  seems 
moderate ;  so  that,  on  every  account,  we  doubt  not  but  these 
tasteful  volumes  will  spread  far  and  wide  in  their  own  country, 
and  by  and  by,  we  may  hope,  be  met  with  here  in  many  a 
British  library. 

Hitherto,  in  this  First  Portion,  we  have  found  little  or  no 
alteration  of  what  was  already  known  ;  but,  in  return,  some 
changes  of  arrangement ;  and,  what  is  more  important,  some 
additions  of  heretofore  unpublished  poems  ;  in  particular,  a 
piece  entitled  ^^ Helena,  a  classico-romantic  Phantasmagoria" 
which  occupies  some  eighty  pages  of  Volume  Fourth.  It  is  to 
this  piece  that  we  now  propose  directing  the  attention  of  our 
readers.  Such  of  these  as  have  studied  Helena  for  themselves, 
must  have  felt  how  little  calculated  it  is,  either  intrinsically 
or  by  its  extrinsic  relations  and  allusions,  to  be  rendered  very 
interesting  or  even  very  intelligible  to  the  English  public, 
and  may  incline  to  augur  ill  of  our  enterprise.  Indeed,  to  our 
own  eyes  it  already  looks  dubious  enough.  But  the  dainty 
little  '•  Phantasmagoria,'"  it  would  appear,  has  become  a  sub- 
ject of  diligent  and  truly  wonderful  speculation  to  our  German 
neighbors :  of  which  also  some  vague  rumors  seem  now  to  have 
reached  this  country ;  and  these  likely  enough  to  awaken  on 


144         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

all  hands  a  curiosity,*  which,  whether  intelligent  or  idle,  it 
were  a  kind  of  good  deed  to  allay.  In  a  Journal  of  this  sort, 
what  little  light  on  such  a  matter  is  at  our  disposal  may 
naturally  be  looked  for. 

Helena,  like  inany  of  Goethe's  works,  by  no  means  carries 
its  significance  written  on  its  forehead,  so  that  he  who  runs 
may  read;  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  enveloped  in  a  certain 
mystery,  under  coy  disguises,  which,  to  hasty  readers,  may  be 
not  only  offensively  obscure,  but  altogether  provoking  and 
impenetrable.  Neither  is  this  any  new  thing  with  Goethe. 
Often  has  he  produced  compositions,  both  in  prose  and  verse, 
which  bring  critic  and  commentator  into  straits,  or  even  to  a 
total  nonplus.  Some  we  have  wholly  parabolic ;  some  half- 
literal,  half-parabolic ;  these  latter  are  occasionally  studied, 
by  dull  heads,  in  the  literal  sense  alone  ;  and  not  only  studied, 
but  condemned :  for,  in  truth,  the  outward  meaning  seems 
unsatisfactory  enough,  were  it  not  that  ever  and  anon  we  are 
reminded  of  a  cunning,  manifold  meaning  which  lies  hidden 
under  it ;  and  incited  by  capricious  beckonings  to  evolve  this, 
fnore  and  more  completely,  from  its  quaint  concealment. 

Did  we  believe  that  Goethe  adopted  this  mode  of  writing  as 
a  vulgar  lure,  to  confei'  on  his  poems  the  interest  which  might 
belong  to  so  many  charades,  we  should  hold  it  a  very  poor  pro- 
ceeding. Of  this  most  readers  of  Goethe  will  know  that  he 
is  incapable.  Such  juggleries,  and  uncertain  anglings  for  dis- 
tinction, are  a  class  of  accomplishments  to  which  he  has  never 
made  any  pretension.  The  truth  is,  this  style  has,  in  many 
cases,  its  own  appropriateness.  Certainly,  in  all  matters  of 
Business  and  Science,  in  all  expositions  of  fact  or  argument, 
clearness  and  ready  comprehensibility  are  a  great,  often  an  in- 
dispensable object.  Nor  is  there  any  man  better  aware  of  this 
principle  than  Goethe,  or  who  more  rigorously  adheres  to  it, 
or  more  happily  exemplifies  it,  wherever  it  seems  applicable. 
But  in  this,  as  in  many  other  respects.  Science  and  Poetry, 
having  separate  purposes,  may  have  each  its  several  law.  If 
an  artist  has  conceived  his  subject  in  the  secret  shrine  of  his 

1  See,  for  instance,  the  Alheiiftum,  No.  7,  wliere  an  article  stands  headed 
with  these  words:  Faust,  Helen  of  Tkoy,  and  Lord  Byron. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  145 

own  mind,  and  knows,  with  a  knowledge  beyond  all  power  of 
cavil,  that  it  is  true  and  pure,  he  may  choose  his  own  manner 
of  exhibiting  it,  and  will  generally  be  the  fittest  to  choose  it 
well.  One  degree  of  light,  he  may  find,  will  beseem  one  de- 
lineation ;  quite  a  different  degree  of  light  another.  The  face 
of  Agamemnon  was  not  painted  but  hidden  in  the  old  picture : 
the  Veiled  Figure  at  Sais  was  the  most  expressive  in  the  Tem- 
ple. In  fact,  the  grand  point  is  to  have  a  meaning,  a  genuine, 
deep  and  noble  one ;  the  proper  form  for  embodying  this,  the 
form  best  suited  to  the  subject  and  to  the  author,  will  gather 
round  it  almost  of  its  own  accord.  We  profess  ourselves 
unfriendly  to  no  mode  of  communicating  Truth  ;  which  we 
rejoice  to  meet  with  in  all  shapes,  from  that  of  the  child's 
Catechism  to  the  deepest  poetical  Allegory.  Nay  the  Allegory 
itself  may  sometimes  be  the  truest  part  of  the  matter.  John 
Bunyan,  we  hope,  is  nowise  our  best  theologian ;  neither,  un- 
happily, is  theology  our  most  attractive  science  ;  yet  which  of 
our  compends  and  treatises,  nay  which  of  our  romances  and 
poems,  lives  in  such  mild  sunshine  as  the  good  old  Pilgrim's 
Progress  in  the  memory  of  so  many  men  ? 

Under  Goethe's  management,  this  style  of  composition  has 
often  a  singular  charm.  The  reader  is  kept  on  the  alert,  ever 
conscious  of  his  own  active  co-operation ;  light  breaks  on  him, 
and  clearer  and  clearer  vision,  by  degrees  ;  till  at  last  the 
whole  lovely  Shape  comes  forth,  definite,  it  may  be,  and  bright 
with  heavenly  radiance,  or  fading,  on  this  side  and  that,  into 
vague  expressive  myster}- ;  but  true  in  both  cases,  and  beauti- 
ful with  nameless  enchantments,  as  the  poet's  own  eye  may 
have  beheld  it.  We  love  it  the  more  for  the  labor  it  has  given 
us  :  we  almost  feel  as  if  we  ourselves  had  assisted  in  its 
creation.  And  herein  lies  the  highest  merit  of  a  piece,  and 
the  proper  art  of  reading  it.  We  have  not  read  an  author  till 
we  have  seen  his  object,  whatever  it  may  be,  as  he  saw  it. 
Is  it  a  matter  of  reasoning,  and  has  he  reasoned  stupidly  and 
falsely  ?  We  should  understand  the  circumstances  which,  to 
his  mind,  made  it  seem  true,  or  persuaded  him  to  write  it, 
knowing  that  it  was  not  so.  In  any  other  way  we  do  him 
injustice  if  we  judge  him.    Is  it  of  poetry  ?     His  words  are  so 

VOL.  XIII.  10 


146         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

many  symbols,  to  which  we  ourselves  must  furnish  the  inter- 
pretation ;  or  they  remain,  as  in  all  prosaic  minds  the  words 
of  poetry  ever  do,  a  dead  letter :  indications  they  are,  barren 
in  themselves,  but,  by  following  which,  we  also  may  reach,  or 
approach,  that  Hill  of  Vision  where  the  poet  stood,  beholding 
the  glorious  scene  which  it  is  the  purport  of  his  poem  to  show 
others. 

A  reposing  state,  in  which  the  Hill  were  brought  under  us, 
not  we  obliged  to  mount  it,  might  indeed  for  the  present  be 
more  convenient;  but,  in  the  end,  it  could  not  be  equally 
satisfying.  Continuance  of  passive  pleasure,  it  should  never 
be  forgotten,  is  here,  as  under  all  conditions  of  mortal  exist- 
ence, an  impossibility.  Everywhere  in  life,  the  true  question 
is,  not  what  we  gain,  but  what  we  do :  so  also  in  intellectual 
matters,  in  conversation,  in  reading,  which  is  more  precise  and 
careful  conversation,  it  is  not  what  we  receive,  but  what  we 
are  made  to  give,  that  chiefly  contents  and  profits  us.  True, 
the  mass  of  readers  will  object ;  because,  like  the  mass  of 
men,  they  are  too  indolent.  But  if  any  one  affect,  not  the 
active  and  watchful,  but  the  passive  and  somnolent  line  of 
study,  are  there  not  writers  expressly  fashioned  for  him, 
enough  and  to  spare  ?  It  is  but  the  smaller  number  of  books 
that  become  more  instructive  by  a  second  perusal :  the  great 
majority  are  as  perfectly  plain  as  perfect  triteness  can  make 
them.  Yet,  if  time  is  precious,  no  book  that  will  not  improve 
by  repeated  readings  deserves  to  be  read  at  all.  And  were 
there  an  artist  of  a  right  spirit ;  a  man  of  wisdom,  conscious 
of  his  high  vocation,  of  whom  we  could  know  beforehand  that 
he  had  not  written  without  purpose  and  earnest  meditation, 
that  he  knew  what  he  had  written,  and  had  embodied  in  it, 
more  or  less,  the  creations  of  a  deep  and  noble  soul,  —  should 
we  not  draw  near  to  him  reverently,  as  disciples  to  a  master ; 
and  what  task  could  there  be  more  profitable  than  to  read  him 
as  we  have  described,  to  study  him  even  to  his  minutest  mean- 
ings ?  For,  were  not  this  to  think  as  he  had  thought,  to  see 
with  his  gifted  eyes,  to  make  the  very  mood  and  feeling  of  his 
groat  and  rich  mind  the  mood  also  of  our  poor  and  little  one  ? 
It  is  under  the  consciousness  of  some  such  mutual  relation 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.        '  147 

that  Goethe  writes,  and  that  his  countrymen  now  reckon 
themselves  bound  to  read  him :  a  relation  singular,  we  might 
say  solitary,  in  the  present  time ;  but  which  it  is  ever  neces- 
sary to  bear  in  mind  in  estimating  his  literary  procedure. 

To  justify  it  in  this  particular,  much  more  might  be  said, 
were  that  our  chief  business  at  present.  But  what  mainly 
concerns  us  here,  is  to  know  that  such,  justified  or  not,  is 
the  poet's  manner  of  writing ;  which  also  must  prescribe  for 
us  a  correspondent  manner  of  studying  him,  if  we  study  him 
at  all.  For  the  rest,  on  this  latter  point  he  nowhere  ex- 
presses any  undue  anxiety.  His  works  have  invariably  been 
sent  forth  without  preface,  without  note  or  comment  of  any 
kind;  but  left,  sometimes  plain  and  direct,  sometimes  dim 
and  typical,  in  what  degree  of  clearness  or  obscurity  he  him- 
self may  have  judged  best,  to  be  scanned,  and  glossed,  and 
censured,  and  distorted,  as  might  please  the  innumerable  mul- 
titude of  critics ;  to  whose  verdicts  he  has  been,  for  a  great 
part  of  his  life,  accused  of  listening  with  unwarrantable  com- 
posure. Helena  is  no  exception  to  that  practice,  but  rather 
among  the  strong  instances  of  it.  This  Interlude  to  Faust 
presents  itself  abruptly,  under  a  character  not  a  little  enig- 
matic ;  so  that,  at  first  view,  we  know  not  well  what  to  make 
of  it ;  and  only  after  repeated  perusals,  will  the  scattered 
glimmerings  of  significance  begin  to  coalesce  into  continuous 
light,  and  the  whole,  in  any  measure,  rise  before  us  with  that 
greater  or  less  degree  of  coherence  which  it  may  have  had  in 
the  mind  of  the  poet.  Nay,  after  all,  no  perfect  clearness 
may  be  attained,  but  only  various  approximations  to  it ;  hints 
and  half  glances  of  a  meaning,  Avhich  is  still  shrouded  in 
vagueness;  nay,  to  the  just  picturing  of  which  this  very 
vagueness  vras  essential.  For  the  whole  piece  has  a  dream- 
like character;  and  in  these  cases,  no  prudent  soothsayer 
will  be  altogether  confident.  To  our  readers  we  must  now 
endeavor,  so  far  as  possible,  to  show  both  the  dream  and  its 
interpretation :  the  former  as  it  stands  written  before  us  ;  the 
latter  from  our  own  private  conjecture  alone ;  for  of  those 
strange  German  comments  we  yet  know  nothing  except  by 
the  faintest  hearsay. 


148        CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Helena  forms  part  of  a  continuation  to  Faust ;  but,  happily 
for  our  present  undertaking,  its  connection  with  the  latter 
work  is  much  looser  than  might  have  been  expected.  We 
say  happily;  because  Faust,  though  considerably  talked  of 
in  England,  appears  still  to  be  nowise  known.  We  have 
made  it  our  duty  to  inspect  the  English  Translation  of  Faust, 
as  well  as  the  Extracts  which  accompany  Eetzsch's  Outlines  ; 
and  various  disquisitions  and  animadversions,  vituperative  or 
laudatory,  grounded  on  these  two  works ;  but  unfortunately 
have  found  there  no  cause  to  alter  the  above  persuasion. 
Faust  is  emphatically  a  work  of  Art;  a  work  matured  in 
the  mysterious  depths  of  a  vast  and  wonderful  mind ;  and 
bodied  forth  with  that  truth  and  curious  felicity  of  composi- 
tion, in  which  this  man  is  generally  admitted  to  have  no  liv- 
ing rival.  To  reconstruct  such  a  work  in  another  language ; 
to  show  it  in  its  hard  yet  graceful  strength ;  with  those  slight 
witching  traits  of  pathos  or  of  sarcasm,  those  glimpses  of 
solemnity  or  terror,  and  so  many  reflexes  and  evanescent 
echoes  of  meaning,  which  connect  it  in  strange  union  with 
the  whole  Infinite  of  thought,  —  were  business  for  a  man  of 
different  powers  than  has  yet  attempted  German  translation 
among  us.  In  fact,  Faust  is  to  be  .read  not  once  but  many 
times,  if  we  would  understand  it :  every  line,  every  word  has 
its  purport;  and  only  in  such  minute  inspection  will  the 
essential  significance  of  the  poem  disyjlay  itself.  Perhaps 
it  is  even  chiefly  by  following  these  fainter  traces  and  tokens 
that  the  true  point  of  vision  for  the  whole  is  discovered  to  us  ; 
that  we  get  to  stand  at  last  in  the  proper  scene  of  Faust ;  a 
wild  and  wondrous  region,  where  in  pale  light  the  primeval 
Shapes  of  Chaos — as  it  were,  the  Foundations  of  Being  it- 
self—  seem  to  loom  forth,  dim  and  huge,  in  the  vague  Im- 
mensity around  us ;  and  the  life  and  nature  of  man,  with  its 
brief  interests,  its  misery  and  sin,  its  mad  passion  and  poor 
frivolity,  struts  and  frets  its  hour,  encompassed  and  over- 
looked by  that  stupendous  All,  of  which  it  forms  an  indis- 
soluble though  so  mean  a  fraction.  He  who  would  study  all 
this  must  for  a  long  time,  we  are  afraid,  be  content  to  study 
it  iu  the  oriirinal. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  149 

But  our  English  criticisms  of  Faust  have  been  of  a  still 
more  unedifying  sort.  Let  any  man  fancy  the  (Edipus  Tyran- 
7ms  discovered  for  the  first  time ;  translated  from  an  unknown 
Greek  manuscript,  by  some  ready-writing  manufacturer;  and 
"  brought  out "  at  Drury  Lane,  with  new  music,  made  as 
"apothecaries  make  new  mixtures,  by  pouring  out  of  one 
vessel  into  another  "  !  Then  read  the  theatrical  report  in  the 
Morning  Papers,  and  the  Magazines  of  next  month.  Was  not 
the  whole  affair  rather  "  heavy "  ?  How  indifferent  did  the 
audience  sit ;  how  little  use  was  made  of  tlie  handkerchief, 
except  by  such  as  took  snuff!  Did  not  OEdipus  somewhat  re- 
mind us  of  a  blubbering  school-boy,  and  Jocasta  of  a  decayed 
milliner  ?  Confess  that  the  plot  was  monstrous ;  nay,  con- 
sidering the  marriage-law  of  England,  utterly  immoral.  On 
the  whole,  what  a  singular  deficiency  of  taste  must  this  Sopho- 
cles have  labored  under !  But  probably  he  was  excluded  from 
the  "  society  of  the  influential  classes  ; "  for,  after  all,  the  man 
is  not  without  indications  of  genius :  had  %oe  had  the  training 
of  him —  And  so  on,  through  all  the  variations  of  the  critical 
cornpipe. 

So  might  it  have  fared  with  the  ancient  Grecian ;  for  so  has 
it  fared  with  the  only  modern  that  writes  in  a  Grecian  spirit. 
This  treatment  of  Faust  may  deserve  to  be  mentioned,  for 
various  reasons ;  not  to  be  lamented  over,  because,  as  in  much 
more  important  instances,  it  is  inevitable,  and  lies  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  case.  Besides,  a  better  state  of  things  is  evidently 
enough  coming  round.  By  and  by,  the  labors,  poetical  and 
intellectual,  of  the  Germans,  as  of  other  nations,  will  appear 
before  us  in  their  true  shape ;  and  Faust,  among  the  rest,  will 
have  justice  done  it.  For  ourselves,  it  were  unwise  presump- 
tion, at  any  time,  to  pretend  opening  the  full  poetical  signifi- 
cance of  Faust;  nor  is  this  the  place  for  making  such  an 
attempt.  Present  purposes  will  be  answered  if  we  can  point 
out  some  general  features  and  bearings  of  the  piece  ;  such  as 
to  exhibit  its  relations  with  Helena  ;  by  what  contrivances 
this  latter  has  been  intercalated  into  it,  and  how  far  the 
strange  picture  and  the  strange  framing  it  is  enclosed  in 
correspond. 


loO         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

The  story  of  Faust  forms  one  of  the  most  remarkable  pro- 
ductions of  the  Middle  Ages ;  or  rather,  it  is  the  most  striking 
embodiment  of  a  highly  remarkable  belief,  which  originated  or 
prevailed  in  those  ages.  Considered  strictly,  it  may  take  the 
rank  of  a  Christian  mythus,  in  the  same  sense  as  the  story  of 
Prometheus,  of  Titan,  and  the  like,  are  Pagan  ones  ;  and  to 
our  keener  inspection,  it  will  disclose  a  no  less  impressive  or 
characteristic  aspect  of  the  same  human  nature,  —  here  bright, 
joyful,  self-contident,  smiling  even  in  its  sternness ;  there 
deep,  meditative,  awe-struck,  austere,  —  in  which  both  they 
«and  it  took  their  rise.  To  us,  in  these  days,  it  is  not  easy  to 
estimate  how  this  story  of  Faust,  invested  with  its  magic  and 
infernal  horrors,  must  have  harrowed  up  the  souls  of  a  rude 
and  earnest  people,  in  an  age  when  its  dialect  was  not  yet 
obsolete,  and  such  contracts  with  the  principle  of  Evil  were 
thought  not  only  credible  in  general,  but  possible  to  every 
individual  auditor  who  here  shuddered  at  the  mention  of  them. 
The  day  of  Magic  is  gone  by ;  Witchcraft  has  been  put  a  stop 
to  by  act  of  parliament.  But  the  mysterious  relations  which 
it  emblemed  still  continue ;  the  Soul  of  Man  still  fights  with 
the  dark  influences  of  Ignorance,  Misery  and  Sin ;  still  lacer- 
ates itself,  like  a  captive  bird,  against  the  iron  limits  which 
Necessity  has  drawn  round  it ;  still  follows  False  Shows,  seek- 
ing peace  and  good  on  paths  where  no  peace  or  good  is  to  be 
found.  In  this  sense,  Faust  may  still  be  considered  as  true; 
nay  as  a  truth  of  the  most  impressive  sort,  and  one  which  will 
always  remain  true. 

To  body  forth  in  modern  symbols  a  feeling  so  old  and  deep- 
rooted  in  our  whole  European  way  of  thought,  were  a  task 
not  unworthy  of  the  highest  poetical  genius.  In  Germany, 
accordingly,  it  has  several  times  been  attempted,  and  with 
very  various  success.  Klinger  has  produced  a  Eomance  of 
Faust,  full  of  rugged  sense,  and  here  and  there  not  without 
considerable  strength  of  delineation ;  yet,  on  the  whole,  of  an 
essentially  unpoetical  character ;  dead,  or  living  with  only  a 
mechanical  life ;  coarse,  almost  gross,  and  to  our  minds  far  too 
redolent  of  pitch  and  bitumen.  Maler  Midler's  Faust,  which 
is  a  Drama,  must  be  regarded  as  a  much  more  genial  perform- 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  151 

ance,  so  far  as  it  goes :  the  secondary  characters,  the  Jews  and 
rakish  Students,  often  remind  us  of  our  own  Fords  and  Mar- 
lowes.  His  main  persons,  however,  Faust  and  the  Devil,  are 
but  inadequately  conceived;  Faust  is  little  more  than  self- 
willed,  supercilious,  and,  alas,  insolvent ;  the  Devils,  above  all, 
are  savage,  long-winded  and  insufferably  noisy.  Besides,  the 
piece  has  been  left  in  a  fragmentary  state ;  it  can  nowise  pass 
as  the  best  work  of  Muller's.^  Klingemann's  Faust,  which 
also  is  (or  lately  was)  a  Drama,  we  have  never  seen ;  and  have 
only  heard  of  it  as  of  a  tawdry  and  hollow  article,  suited  for 
immediate  use,  and  immediate  oblivion. 

Goethe,  we  believe,  was  the  first  who  tried  this  subject; 
and  is,  on  all  hands,  considered  as  by  far  the  most  successful. 
His  manner  of  treating  it  appears  to  us,  so  far  as  we  can 
understand  it,  peculiarly  just  and  happy.  He  retains  the  su- 
pernatural vesture  of  the  story,  but  retains  it  with  the  con- 
sciousness, on  his  and  our  part,  that  it  is  a  chimera.  His 
art-magic  comes  forth  in  doubtful  twilight ;  vague  in  its  outline ; 

1  Friedrich  Miiller  (more  commonly  called  Maler,  or  Painter  Miiller)  is 
here,  so  far  as  we  know,  named  for  the  first  time  to  English  readers.  Never- 
theless, in  any  solid  study  of  German  literature  this  author  must  take  prece- 
dence of  many  hundreds  whose  reputation  has  travelled  faster.  But  Miiller 
has  been  unfortunate  in  his  own  country,  as  well  as  here.  At  an  early  age, 
nifeting  with  no  success  as  a  poet,  he  quitted  that  art  for  painting ;  aud  re- 
tired, perhaps  in  disgust,  into  Italy  ;  where  also  but  little  preferment  seems  to 
have  awaited  him.  His  Avritings,  after  almost  half  a  century  of  neglect,  were 
at  length  brought  into  sight  and  general  estimation  by  Ludwig  Tieck;  at  a 
time  wlien  the  author  might  indeed  say,  that  he  was  "old  and  could  not  enjoy 
it,  solitary  and  could  not  impart  it,"  but  not,  unhappily,  that  he  was  "  known 
and  did  not  want  it,"  for  his  fine  genius  had  yet  made  for  itself  no  free  way 
amid  so  many  obstructions,  and  still  continued  unrewarded  and  unrecognized- 
His  paintings,  chiefly  of  still-life  and  animals,  are  said  to  possess  a  true  though 
no  very  extraordinary  merit :  but  of  his  poetry  we  will  venture  to  assert  that 
it  bespeaks  a  genuine  feeling  and  talent,  nay  rises  at  times  even  into  the  higher 
regions  of  Art.  His  Adam's  Awakeninrj,  his  Satyr  Mopsns,  his  Nusskfmcn 
(Nutshelling),  informed  as  they  are  with  simple  kindly  strength,  with  dear 
vision,  and  love  of  nature,  are  incomparably  the  best  German,  or  indeed,  mod- 
ern Idyls ;  his  Genoveva  will  stand  reading  even  with  that  of  Tieck.  These 
things  are  now  acknowledged  among  the  Germans;  but  to  Miiller  tlie  ac- 
knowledgment is  of  no  avail.  He  died  some  two  years  ago  at  Rome,  where 
he  seems  to  have  subsisted  latterly  as  a  sort  of  a  picture-cicerone. 


152         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

interwoven  everywhere  with  light  sarcasm ;  nowise  as  a  real 
Object,  but  as  a  real  Shadow  of  an  Object,  which  is  also  real, 
yet  lies  beyond  our  horizon,  and  except  in  its  shadows,  cannot 
itself  be  seen.  Nothing  were  simpler  than  to  look  in  this  new 
poem  for  a  new  "  Satan's  Invisible  World  displayed,"  or  any 
effort  to  excite  the  sceptical  minds  of  these  days  by  goblins, 
wizards  and  other  infernal  ware.  Such  enterprises  belong  to 
artists  of  a  different  species  ;  Goethe's  Devil  is  a  cultivated 
personage,  and  acquainted  with  the  modern  sciences ;  sneers 
at  witchcraft  and  the  black-art,  even  while  employing  them,  as 
heartily  as  any  member  of  the  French  Institute ;  for  he  is  a 
jihilosophe.,  and  doubts  most  things,  nay  half  disbelieves  even 
his  own  existence.  It  is  not  without  a  cunning  effort  that  all 
this  is  managed ;  but  managed,  in  a  considerable  degree,  it  is ; 
for  a  world  of  magic  is  opened  to  us  which,  we  might  almost 
say,  we  feel  at  once  to  be  true  and  not  true. 

In  fact,  Mephistopheles  comes  before  us,  not  arrayed  in  the 
terrors  of  Cocytus  and  Phlegethon,  but  in  the  natural  indelible 
deformity  of  Wickedness ;  he  is  the  Devil,  not  of  Superstition, 
but  of  Knowledge.  Here  is  no  cloven  foot,  or  horns  and  tail: 
he  himself  informs  us  that,  during  the  late  march  of  intellect, 
the  very  Devil  has  participated  in  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and 
laid  these  appendages  aside.  Doubtless,  Mephistopheles  '*■  has 
the  manners  of  a  gentleman ;  "  he  " knows  the  world; "  nothing 
can  exceed  the  easy  tact  with  which  he  manages  himself;  his 
v.it  and  sarcasm  are  unlimited ;  the  cool  heartfelt  contempt 
with  which  he  despises  all  things,  human  and  divine,  might 
make  the  fortune  of  half  a  dozen  "  fellows  about  town."  Yet 
withal  he  is  a  devil  in  very  deed ;  a  genuine  Son  of  Night.  He 
calls  himself  the  Denier,  and  this  truly  is  his  name ;  for,  as 
Voltaire  did  with  historical  doubts,  so  does  he  with  all  moral 
appearances;  settles  them  with  a  iV'e/i  croyez  rien.  The 
shrewd,  all-informed  intellect  he  has,  is  an  attorney  intellect; 
it  can  contradict,  but  it  cannot  affirm.  With  lynx  vision,  he 
descries  at  a  glance  the  ridiculous,  the  unsuitable,  the  bad  ; 
but  for  the  solemn,  the  noble,  the  worthy,  he  is  blind  as  liis 
ancient  Mother.  Thus  does  he  go  along,  qualifying,  confuting, 
despising ;  on  all  hands  detecting  the  false,  but  without  force 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  ICS 

to  bring  forth,  or  even  to  discern,  any  glimpse  of  the  true. 
Poor  Devil !  what  truth  should  there  be  for  him  ?  To  see 
Falsehood  is  his  only  Truth :  falsehood  and  evil  are  the  rule, 
truth  and  good  the  exception  which  confirms  it.  He  can 
believe  in  nothing,  but  in  his  own  self-conceit,  and  in  the 
indestructible  baseness,  folly  and  hypocrisy  of  men.  For  him, 
virtue  is  some  bubble  of  the  blood :  "  it  stands  written  on  his 
face  that  he  never  loved  a  living  soul.'^  ^ay,  he  cannot  even 
hate:  at  Faust  himself  he  has  no  grudge;  he  merely  tempts 
him  by  way  of  experiment,  and  to  pass  the  time  scientifically. 
Such  a  combination  of  perfect  Understanding  with  perfect 
Selfishness,  of  logical  Life  with  moral  Death ;  so  universal 
a  denier,  both  in  heart  and  head,  —  is  undoubtedly  a  child  of 
Darkness,  an  emissary  of  the  primeval  Nothing:  and  coming 
forward,  as  he  does,  like  a  person  of  breeding,  and  without  any 
flavor  of  brimstone,  may  stand  here,  in  his  merely  spiritual 
deformity,  at  once  potent,  dangerous  and  contemptible,  as  the 
best  and  only  genuine  Devil  of  these  latter  times. 

In  strong  contrast  with  this  impersonation  of  modern 
worldly-mindedness  stands  Faust  himself,  by  nature  the  an- 
tagonist of  it,  but  destined  also  to  be  its  victim.  If  Mephisto- 
pheles  represent  the  spirit  of  Denial,  Faust  may  represent  that 
of  Inquiry  and  Endeavor  :  the  two  are,  by  necessity,  in  conflict; 
the  light  and  the  darkness  of  man's  life  and  mind.  Intrinsi- 
cally, Faust  is  a  noble  being,  though  no  wise  one.  His  desires 
are  towards  the  high  and  true ;  nay  with  a  whirlwind  impetu- 
osity he  rushes  forth  over  the  Universe  to  grasp  all  excellence ; 
his  heart  yearns  towards  the  infinite  and  the  invisible :  only 
that  he  knows  not  the  conditions  under  which  alone  this  is  to 
be  attained.  Confiding  in  his  feeling  of  himself,  he  has  started 
with  the  tacit  persuasion,  so  natural  to  all  men,  that  he  at  least, 
however  it  may  fare  with  others,  shall  and  must  be  haj^py ; 
a  deep-seated,  though  only  half-conscious  conviction  lurks  in 
him,  that  wherever  he  is  not  successful,  fortune  lias  dealt  with 
him  unjustbj.  His  purposes  are  fair,  nay  generous  :  why  should 
he  not  prosper  in  them  ?  For  in  all  his  lofty  aspirings,  his 
strivings  after  truth  and  more  than  human  greatness  of  mind, 
it  has  never  struck  him  to  inquire  how  he,  the  striver,  was 


154        CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

warranted  for  such  enterprises :  with  what  faculty  Nature  had 
equipped  him ;  within  what  limits  she  had  hemmed  him  in  ; 
by  what  right  he  pretended  to  be  happy,  or  could,  some  short 
space  ago,  have  pretended  to  be  at  all.  Experience,  indeed, 
will  teach  him,  for  "  Experience  is  the  best  of  schoolmasters ; 
only  the  school-fees  are  heavy."  As  yet  too,  disappointment, 
which  fronts  him  on  every  hand,  rather  maddens  than  in- 
structs. Faust  has  spent  his  youth  and  manhood,  not  as 
others  do,  in  the  sunny  crowded  paths  of  proiBt,  or  among  the 
rosy  bowers  of  pleasure,  but  darkly  and  alone  in  the  search  of 
Truth ;  is  it  fit  that  Truth  should  now  hide  herself,  and  his 
sleepless  pilgrimage  towards  Knowledge  and  Vision  end  in  the 
pale  shadow  of  Doubt  ?  To  his  dream  of  a  glorious  higher 
happiness,  all  earthly  happiness  has  been  sacrificed ;  friendship, 
love,  the  social  rewards  of  ambition  were  cheerfully  cast  aside, 
for  his  eye  and  his  heart  were  bent  on  a  region  of  clear  and 
supreme  good ;  and  now,  in  its  stead,  he  finds  isolation,  silenco 
and  despair.  What  solace  remains  ?  Virtue  once  promised  to 
be  her  own  reward ;  but  because  she  does  not  pay  him  in  the 
current  coin  of  worldly  enjoyment,  he  reckons  her  too  a  delu- 
sion ;  and,  like  Brutus,  reproaches  as  a  shadow,  what  he  once 
worshipped  as  a  substance.  Whither  shall  he  now  tend  ?  For 
his  loadstars  have  gone  out  one  by  one  ;  and  as  the  darkness 
fell,  the  strong  steady  wind  has  changed  into  a  fierce  and  aim- 
less tornado.  Faust  calls  himself  a  monster,  "  without  object, 
yet  without  rest."  The  vehement,  keen  and  stormful  nature 
of  the  man  is  stung  into  fury,  as  he  thinks  of  all  he  has  en- 
dured and  lost ;  he  broods  in  gloomy  meditation,  and,  like 
Bellerophon,  wanders  apart,  "  eating  his  own  heart ; "  or, 
bursting  into  fiery  paroxysms,  curses  man's  whole  existence 
as  a  mockery ;  curses  hope  and  faith,  and  joy  and  care,  and 
what  is  worst,  "  curses  patience  more  than  all  the  rest."  Had 
his  weak  arm  the  power,  he  could  smite  the  Universe  asunder, 
as  at  the  crack  of  Doom,  and  hurl  his  own  vexed  being  along 
with  it  into  the  silence  of  Annihilation. 

Thus  Faust  is  a  man  who  has  quitted  the  ways  of  vulgar 
men,  without  light  to  guide  him  on  a  better  way.  No  longer 
restricted  by  the  sympathies,  the  common  interests  and  com- 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  155 

mon  persuasions  by  which  the  mass  of  mortals,  each  individu- 
ally ignorant,  nay,  it  may  be,  stolid  and  altogether  blind  as  to 
the  proper  aim  of  life,  are  yet  held  together,  and,  like  stones 
in  the  channel  of  a  torrent,  by  their  very  multitude  and  mutual 
collision,  are  made  to  move  with  some  regularity,  —  he  is  still 
but  a  slave ;  the  slave  of  impulses,  which  are  stronger,  not 
truer  or  better,  and  the  more  unsafe  that  they  are  solitary. 
He  sees  the  vulgar  of  mankind  happy ;  but  happy  only  in 
their  baseness.  Himself  he  feels  to  be  peculiar;  the  victim 
of  a  strange,  an  unexampled  destiny ;  not  as  other  men,  he 
is  "  with  them,  not  of  them."  There  is  misery  here,  nay,  as 
Goethe  has  elsewhere  wisely  remarked,  the  beginning  of  mad- 
ness itself.  It  is  only  in  the  sentiment  of  companionship  that 
men  feel  safe  and  assured :  to  all  doubts  and  mysterious  "  ques- 
tionings of  destiny,"  their  sole  satisfying  answer  is.  Others  do 
and  suffer  the  like.  Were  it  not  for  this,  the  dullest  day- 
drudge  of  Mammon  might  think  himself  into  unspeakable 
abysses  of  despair ;  for  he  too  is  "  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made ; "  Infinitude  and  Incomprehensibility  surround  him  on 
this  hand  and  that ;  and  the  vague  spectre  Death,  silent  and 
sure  as  Time,  is  advancing  at  all  moments  to  sweep  him  away 
forever.  But  he  answers.  Others  do  and  suffer  the  like ;  and 
plods  along  without  misgivings.  Were  there  but  One  Man  in 
the  world,  he  would  be  a  terror  to  himself ;  and  the  highest 
man  not  less  so  than  the  lowest.  Now  it  is  as  this  One  Man 
that  Faust  regards  himself :  he  is  divided  from  his  fellows ; 
cannot  answer  with  them.  Others  do  the  like  ;  and  yet,  why  or 
how  he  specially  is  to  do  or  suffer,  will  nowhere  reveal  itself. 
For  he  is  still  "  in  the  gall  of  bitterness ;  "  Pride,  and  an  entire 
uncompromising  though  secret  love  of  Self,  are  still  the  main- 
springs of  his  conduct.  Knowledge  with  him  is  precious  only 
because  it  is  power ;  even  virtue  he  would  love  chiefly  as  a  finer 
sort  of  sensuality,  and  because  it  was  his  virtue.  A  ravenous 
hunger  for  enjoyment  haunts  him  everywhere ;  the  stinted 
allotments  of  earthly  life  are  as  a  mockery  to  him :  to  the  iron 
law  of  Force  he  will  not  yield,  for  his  heart,  though  torn,  is 
yet  unweakened,  and  till  Humility  shall  open  his  eyes,  the  soft 
law  of  Wisdom  will  be  hidden  from  him. 


156         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

To  invest  a  man  of  this  character  with  supernatural  powers 
is  but  enabling  him  to  repeat  his  error  on  a  larger  scale,  to 
play  the  same  false  game  with  a  deeper  and  more  ruinous  stake. 
Go  where  he  may,  he  will  ''find  himself  again  in  a  condi- 
tional world ; "  widen  his  sphere  as  he  pleases,  he  will  find  it 
again  encircled  by  the  empire  of  Necessity  ;  the  gay  island  of 
Existence  is  again  but  a  fraction  of  the  ancient  realm  of  Night. 
Were  he  all-wise  and  all-powerful,  perhaps  he  might  be  con- 
tented and  virtuous  ;  scarcely  otherwise.  The  poorest  human 
soul  is  infinite  in  wishes,  and  the  infinite  Universe  was  not 
made  for  one,  but  for  all.  Vain  were  it  for  Faust,  by  heaping 
height  on  height,  to  struggle  towards  infinitude ;  while  to  that 
law  of  Self-denial,  by  which  alone  man's  narrow  destiny  may 
become  an  infinitude  within  itself,  he  is  still  a  stranger.  Such, 
however,  is  his  attempt;  not  indeed  incited  by  hope,  but 
goaded  on  by  despair,  he  unites  himself  with  the  Fiend,  as 
with  a  stronger  though  a  wicked  agency ;  reckless  of  all 
issues,  if  so  were  that,  by  these  means,  the  craving  of  his 
heart  might  be  stayed,  and  the  dark  secret  of  Destiny  un- 
ravelled or  forgotten. 

It  is  this  conflicting  union  of  the  higher  nature  of  the  soul 
with  the  lower  elements  of  human  life ;  of  Faust,  the  son  of 
Liglit  and  Free-will,  with  the  infiuences  of  Doubt,  Denial  and 
Obstruction,  or  Mephistopheles,  who  is  the  symbol  and  spokes- 
man of  these,  that  the  poet  has  here  proposed  to  delineate.  A 
high  problem,  and  of  which  the  solution  is  yet  far  from  com- 
pleted ;  nay  perhaps,  in  a  poetical  sense,  is  not,  strictly  speak- 
ing, capable  of  completion.  For  it  is  to  be  remarked  that,  in 
this  contract  with  the  Prince  of  Darkness,  little  or  no  mention 
or  allusion  is  made  to  a  Future  Life ;  whereby  it  might  seem 
is  if  the  action  was  not  intended,  in  the  manner  of  the  old 
Li^gend,  to  terminate  in  Faust's  perdition  ;  but  rather  as  if  an 
altogether  different  end  must  be  provided  for  hira.  Faust,  in- 
deed, wild  and  wilful  as  he  is,  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  wicked, 
much  less  as  an  utterly  reprobate  man :  we  do  not  reckon  hira 
ill-intentioned,  but  misguided  and  miserable ;  he  falls  into 
crime,  not  by  purpose,  but  by  accident  and  blindness.  To  send 
him  to  the  Pit  of  Woe,  to  render  such  a  character  the  eternal 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  157 

slave  of  Mephistopheles,  would  look  like  making  darkness  tri- 
umphant over  light,  blind  force  over  erring  reason  ;  or  at  best, 
were  cutting  the  Gordian  knot,  not  loosing  it.  If  we  mis- 
take not,  Goethe's  Faust  will  have  a  finer  moral  than  the  old 
nursery-tale,  or  the  other  plays  and  tales  that  have  been 
founded  on  it.  Our  seared  and  blighted  yet  still  noble  Faust 
will  not  end  in  the  madness  of  horror,  but  in  Peace  grounded 
on  better  Knowledge.  Whence  that  Knowledge  is  to  come, 
what  higher  and  freer  world  of  Art  or  Religion  may  be  hover- 
ing in  the  mind  of  the  Poet,  we  will  not  try  to  surmise  ;  per- 
haps in  bright  aerial  emblematic  glimpses,  he  may  yet  show  it 
us,  transient  and  afar  off,  yet  clear  with  orient  beauty,  as  a 
Land  of  Wonders  and  new  Poetic  Heaven. 

With  regard  to  that  part  of  the  Work  already  finished,  we 
must  here  say  little  more.  Faust,  as  it  yet  stands,  is,  indeed, 
only  a  stating  of  the  difficulty  ;  but  a  stating  of  it  wisely,  truly 
and  with  deepest  poetic  emphasis.  Por  how  many  living 
hearts,  even  now  imprisoned  in  the  perplexities  of  Doubt,  do 
these  wild  piercing  tones  of  Paust,  his  withering  agonies  and 
fiery  desperation,  "  speak  the  word  they  have  long  been  wait- 
ing to  hear "  !  A  nameless  pain  had  long  brooded  over  the 
soul :  here,  by  some  light  touch,  it  starts  into  form  and  voice  ; 
we  see  it  and  know  it,  and  see  that  another  also  knew  it. 
This  Faust  is  as  a  mystic  Oracle  for  the  mind ;  a  Dodona 
grove,  where  the  oaks  and  fountains  prophesy  to  us  of  our 
destiny,  and  murmur  unearthly  secrets. 

How  all  this  is  managed,  and  the  Poem  so  curiously  fash- 
ioned ;  how  the  clearest  insight  is  combined  with  the  keenest 
feeling,  and  the  boldest  and  wildest  imagination ;  by  what  soft 
and  skilful  finishing  these  so  heterogeneous  elements  are 
blended  in  fine  harmony,  and  the  dark  world  of  spirits,  with 
its  merely  metaphysical  entities,  plays  like  a  checkering  of 
strange  mysterious  shadows  among  the  palpable  objects  of 
material  life ;  and  the  whole,  firm  in  its  details  and  sharp  and 
solid  as  reality,  yet  hangs  before  us  melting  on  all  sides  into 
air,  and  free  and  light  as  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vis^ion;  all 
this  the  reader  can  learn  fully  nowhere  but,  by  long  study,  in 
the  Work  itself.     The  general  scope  and  spirit  of  it  we  have 


138        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

now  endeavored  to  sketch ;  the  few  incidents  on  which,  with 
the  aid  of  much  dialogue  and  exposition,  these  have  been 
brought  out,  are  perhaps  already  known  to  most  readers,  and, 
at  all  events,  need  not  be  minutely  recapitulated  here.  Me- 
phistopheles  has  promised  to  himself  that  he  will  lead  Faust 
"  through  the  bustling  inanity  of  life,"  but  that  its  pleasures 
shall  tempt  and  not  satisfy  him  ;  "  food  shall  hover  before  his 
eager  lips,  but  he  shall  beg  for  nourishment  in  vain."  Hitherto 
they  have  travelled  but  a  short  way  together  ;  yet  so  far,  the 
Denier  has  kept  his  engagement  well.  Faust,  endowed  with 
all  earthly  and  many  more  than  earthly  advantages,  is  still  no 
nearer  contentment ;  nay,  after  a  brief  season  of  marred  and 
uncertain  joy,  he  finds  himself  sunk  into  deeper  wretchedness 
than  ever.  Margaret,  an  innocent  girl  whom  he  loves,  but  has 
betrayed,  is  doomed  to  die,  and  already  crazed  in  brain,  less 
for  her  own  errors  than  for  his  :  in  a  scene  of  true  pathos,  he 
would  fain  persuade  her  to  escape  with  him,  by  the  aid  of 
Mephistopheles,  from  prison  ;  but  in  the  instinct  of  her  heart 
she  finds  an  invincible  aversion  to  the  Fiend:  she  chooses 
death  and  ignominy  rather  than  life  and  love,  if  of  his  giving. 
At  her  final  refusal,  Mephistopheles  proclaims  that  "  she  is 
judged,"  a  "  voice  from  Above "  that  ''  she  is  saved ; "  the 
action  terminates  ;  Faust  and  Mephistopheles  vanish  from  our 
sight,  as  into  boundless  Space. 

And  now,  after  so  long  a  preface,  we  arrive  at  Helena,  the 
"  Classico-romantic  Phantasmagoria,"  where  these  Adventur- 
ers, strangely  altered  by  travel,  and  in  altogether  different 
costume,  have  again  risen  into  sight.  Our  long  preface  was 
not  needless ;  for  Faust  and  Helena,  though  separated  by  some 
wide  and  marvellous  interval,  are  nowise  disconnected.  Tlie 
characters  may  have  changed  by  absence  ;  Faust  is  no  longer 
the  same  bitter  and  tempestuous  man,  but  appears  in  chivalrous 
composure,  with  a  silent  energy,  a  grave  and,  as  it  were,  com- 
manding ardor.  Mephistopheles  alone  may  retain  somewhat 
of  his  old  spiteful  shrewdness  :  but  still  the  past  state  of  these 
personages  must  illustrate  the  present;  and  only  by  what  we 
remember  of  them,  can  we  try  to  interpret  what  we  see.     In 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  159 

fact,  the  style  of  Helena  is  altogether  new ;  quiet,  simple,  joy- 
ful ;  passing  by  a  short  gradation  from  Classic  dignity  into 
Romantic  pomp;  it  has  everywhere  a  full  and  sunny  tone  of 
coloring  ;  resembles  not  a  tragedy,  but  a  gay  gorgeous  masque. 
Neither  is  Faust's  former  history  alluded  to,  or  any  explanation 
given  us  of  occurrences  that  may  have  intervened.  It  is  a 
light  scene,  divided  by  chasms  and  unknown  distance  from 
that  other  country  of  gloom.  Nevertheless,  the  latter  still 
frowns  in  the  background ;  nay  rises  aloft,  shutting  out  farther 
view,  and  our  gay  vision  attains  a  new  significance  as  it  is 
painted  on  that  canvas  of  storm. 

We  question  whether  it  ever  occurred  to  any  English 
reader  of  Faust,  that  the  work  needed  a  continuation,  or  even 
admitted  one.  To  the  Germans,  however,  in  their  deeper  study 
of  a  favorite  poem,  which  also  they  have  full  means  of  study- 
ing, this  has  long  been  no  secret ;  and  such  as  have  seen  with 
what  zeal  most  German  readers  cherish  Faust,  and  how  the 
younger  of  them  will  recite  whole  scenes  of  it  with  a  vehe- 
mence resembling  that  of  Gil  Bias  and  his  Figures  Hibernoises, 
in  the  streets  of  Oviedo,  may  estimate  the  interest  excited  in 
that  country  by  the  following  Notice  from  the  Author,  pub- 
lished last  year  in  his  Kunst  tend  Alterthum. 

"Helena.     Interlude  in  Faust. 

"Faust's  character,  in  the  elevation  to  which  latter  refine- 
ment, working  on  the  old  rude  Tradition,  has  raised  it,  repre- 
sents a  man  who,  feeling  impatient  and  imprisoned  within  the 
limits  of  mere  earthly  existence,  regards  the  possession  of  the 
highest  knowledge,  the  enjoyment  of  the  fairest  blessings,  as 
insufficient  even  in  the  slightest  degree  to  satisfy  his  longing : 
a  spirit,  accordingly,  which  struggling  out  on  all  sides,  ever 
returns  the  more  unhappy. 

"  This  form  of  mind  is  so  accordant  with  our  modern  dispo- 
sition, that  various  persons  of  ability  have  been  induced  to 
undertake  the  treatment  of  such  a  subject.  My  manner  of 
attempting  it  obtained  approval :  distinguished  men  considered 
the  matter,  and  commented  on  my  performance  ;  all  Avhich 
I  thankfully  observed.     At  the  same  time  I  could  not  but 


160       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

"wonder  that  none  of  those  who  undertook  a  continuation  and 
completion  of  my  Fragment  had  lighted  on  the  thought,  which 
seemed  so  obvious,  that  the  composition  of  a  Second  Part  must 
necessarily  elevate  itself  altogether  away  from  the  hampered 
sphere  of  the  First,  and  conduct  a  man  of  such  a  nature  into 
higher  regions,  under  worthier  circumstances. 

"How  I,  for  my  part,  had  determined  to  essay  this,  lay 
silently  before  my  own  mind,  from  time  to  time  exciting  me  to 
some  progress ;  while  from  all  and  each  I  carefully  guarded  my 
secret,  still  in  hope  of  bringing  the  work  to  the  wished-for 
issue.  Now,  however,  I  must  no  longer  keep  back;  or,  in 
publishing  my  collective  Endeavors,  conceal  any  farther  secret 
from  the  world;  to  which,  on  the  contrary,  I  feel  myself 
bound  to  submit  my  whole  labors,  even  though  in  a  fragmen- 
tary state. 

"  Accordingly  I  have  resolved  that  the  above-named  Piece, 
a  smaller  drama,  complete  within  itself,  but  pertaining  to  the 
Second  Part  of  Faust,  shall  be  forthwith  presented  in  the  First 
Portion  of  my  Works. 

"  The  wide  chasm  between  that  well-known  dolorous  conclu- 
sion of  the  First  Part,  and  the  entrance  of  an  antique  Grecian 
Heroine,  is  not  yet  overarched  ;  meanwhile,  as  a  preamble, 
my  readers  will  accept  what  follows :  — 

"  The  old  Legend  tells  us,  and  the  Puppet-play  fails  not  to 
introduce  the  scene,  that  Faust,  in  his  imperious  pride  of  heart, 
required  from  Mephistopheles  the  love  of  the  fair  Helena  of 
Greece ;  in  which  demand  the  other,  after  some  reluctance, 
gratified  him.  Not  to  overlook  so  important  a  concern  in  our 
work  was  a  duty  for  us  :  and  how  we  have  endeavored  to  dis- 
charge it,  will  be  seen  in  this  Interlude.  But  what  may  have 
furnished  the  proximate  occasion  of  such  an  occurrence,  and 
how,  after  manifold  hindrances,  our  old  magical  Craftsman  can 
have  found  means  to  bring  back  the  individual  Helena,  in 
person,  out  of  Orcus  into  Life,  must,  in  tliis  stage  of  the  buci- 
ness,  remain  undiscovered.  For  the  present,  it  is  enough  if 
our  reader  will  admit  that  the  real  Helena  may  step  forth, 
on  antique  tragedy-cothurnus,  before  her  primitive  abode  in 
Sparta.     We  then  request  him  to  observe  in  what  way  and 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  161 

manner  Faust  will  presume  to  court  favor  from  this  royal 
all-famous  Beauty  of  the  world." 

To  manage  so  unexampled  a  courtship  will  be  admitted  to 
be  no  easy  task ;  for  the  mad  hero's  prayer  must  here  be  ful- 
filled to  its  largest  extent,  before  the  business  can  proceed  a 
step ;  and  the  gods,  it  is  certain,  are  not  in  the  habit  of  anni- 
hilating time  and  space,  even  to  make  "  two  lovers  happy." 
Our  Marlowe  was  not  ignorant  of  this  mysterious  liaison  of 
Faust's :  however,  he  slurs  it  over  briefly,  and  without  fronting 
the  difficulty :  Helena  merely  flits  across  the  scene  as  an  airy 
pageant,  without  speech  or  personality,  and  makes  the  love- 
sick philosopher  "  immortal  by  a  kiss."  Probably  there  are 
not  many  that  would  grudge  Faust  such  immortality ;  we  at 
least  nowise  envy  him :  for  who  does  not  see  that  this,  in  all 
human  probability,  is  no  real  Helena,  but  only  some  hollow 
phantasm  attired  in  her  shape ;  while  the  true  Daughter  of 
Leda  still  dwells  afar  off  in  the  inane  kingdoms  of  Dis,  and 
heeds  not  and  hears  not  the  most  potent  invocations  of  black- 
art  ?  Auotlier  matter  it  is  to  call  forth  the  frail  fair  one  in 
very  deed  ;  not  in  form  only,  but  in  soul  and  life,  the  same 
Helena  whom  the  Son  of  Atreus  wedded,  and  for  whose  sake 
Ilion  ceased  to  be.  For  Faust  must  behold  this  Wonder,  not 
as  she  seemed,  but  as  she  was ;  and  at  his  unearthly  desire  the 
Past  shall  become  Present ;  and  the  antique  Time  must  be  new- 
created,  and  give  back  its  persons  and  circumstances,  though 
so  long  since  reingulfed  in  the  silence  of  the  blank  bygone 
Eternity !  However,  Mephistopheles  is  a  cunning  genius  ;  and 
will  not  start  at  common  obstacles.  Perhaps,  indeed,  he  is 
Metaphysician  enough  to  know  that  Time  and  Space  are  but 
quiddities,  not  entities ;  forms  of  the  human  soul.  Laws  of 
Thought,  which  to  us  appear  independent  existences,  but, 
out  of  our  brain,  have  no  existence  whatever  :  in  which  case 
the  whole  nodus  may  be  more  of  a  logical  cobweb  than  any 
actual  material  perplexity.  Let  us  see  how  he  unravels  it,  or 
cuts  it. 

The  scene  is  Greece ;  not  our  poor  oppressed  Ottoman 
Morea,  but  the  old  heroic  Hellas ;  for  the  sun  again  shines 

TOL.  XIII.  11 


162        CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

on  Sparta,  and  "  Tyndarus'  high  House "  stands  here  brighl^ 
massive  and  entire,  among  its  mountains,  as  when  Menelaus 
revisited  it,  wearied  with  his  ten  years  of  warfare  and  eight 
of  sea-roving.  Helena  appears  in  front  of  the  Palace,  with 
a  Chorus  of  captive  Trojan  maidens.  These  are  but  Shades, 
we  know,  summoned  from  the  deep  realms  of  Hades,  and  em- 
bodied for  the  nonce  :  but  the  Conjurer  has  so  managed  it,  that 
they  themselves  have  no  consciousness  of  this  their  true  and 
highly  precarious  state  of  existence :  the  intermediate  three 
thousand  years  have  been  obliterated,  or  compressed  into  a 
point ;  and  these  fair  figitres,  on  revisiting  the  upper  air,  en- 
tertain not  the  slightest  suspicion  that  they  had  ever  left  it, 
or,  indeed,  that  anything  special  had  happened;  save  only 
that  they  had  just  disembarked  from  the  Spartan  ships,  and 
been  sent  forward  by  Menelaus  to  provide  for  his  reception, 
which  is  shortly  to  follow.  All  these  indispensable  prelimi- 
naries, it  would  appear,  Mephistopheles  has  arranged  with 
considerable  success.  Of  the  poor  Shades,  and  their  entire 
ignorance,  he  is  so  sure,  that  he  would  not  scruple  to  cross- 
question  them  on  this  very  point,  so  ticklish  for  his  whole 
enterprise;  nay,  cannot  forbear,  now  and  then,  throwing  out 
malicious  hints  to  mystify  Helena  herself,  and  raise  the 
strangest  doubts  as  to  her  personal  identity.  Thus  on  one 
occasion,  as  we  shall  see,  he  reminds  her  of  a  scandal  which 
had  gone  abroad  of  her  being  a  dovhle  personage,  of  her  living 
with  King  Proteus  in  Egypt  at  the  very  time  when  she  lived 
with  Beau  Paris  in  Troy ;  and,  what  is  more  extraordinary 
still,  of  her  having  been  dead,  and  married  to  Achilles  after- 
wards in  the  Island  of  Leuce  !  Helena  admits  that  it  is  the 
most  inexplicable  thing  on  earth  ;  can  only  conjecture  that 
"  she  a  Vision  was  joined  to  him  a  Vision ; "  and  then  sinks 
into  a  reverie  or  swoon  in  tlie  arms  of  the  Chorus.  In  this 
way  can  the  nether-world  Scapin  sport  with  the  perplexed 
Beauty ;  and  by  sly  practice  make  her  show  us  the  secret, 
which  is  unknown  to  herself ! 

For  the  present,  however,  there  is  no  thought  of  such 
scruples.  Helena  and  her  maidens,  far  from  doubting  that 
they  are  real  authentic  denizens  of  this  world,  feel  themselves 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  163 

in  a  deep  embarrassment  about  its  concerns.  From  the  dia- 
logue, in  long  Alexandrines,  or  choral  Recitative,  we  soon 
gather  that  matters  wear  a  threatening  aspect.  Helena  sa- 
lutes her  paternal  and  nuptial  mansion  in  such  style  as  may 
beseem  an  erring  wife,  returned  from  so  eventful  an  elope- 
ment ;  alludes  with  charitable  lenience  to  her  frailty ;  which, 
indeed,  it  would  seem,  was  nothing  but  the  merest  accident, 
for  she  had  simply  gone  to  pay  her  vows,  "  according  to  sacred 
wont,"  in  the  temple  of  Cy therea,  when  the  "  Phrygian  robber  " 
seized  her ;  and  farther  informs  us  that  the  Immortals  still 
foreshow  to  her  a  dubious  future  :  — 

**  For  seldom,  in  our  swift  ship,  did  my  husband  deign 
To  look  on  me  ;  and  word  of  comfort  spake  he  none.    .  - 
As  if  a-brooding  mischief,  there  he  silent  sat  j 
Until,  when  steered  into  Eurotas'  bending  bay, 
The  first  ships  with  their  prows  but  kissed  the  land, 
He  rose,  and  said,  as  by  the  voice  of  gods  inspired : 
Here  will  I  that  my  warriors,  troop  by  troop,  disbark ; 
I  muster  them,  in  battle-order,  on  the  ocean-strand. 
But  thou,  go  forward,  up  Eurotas'  sacred  bank, 
Guiding  the  steeds  along  the  flower-besprinkled  space, 
Till  thou  arrive  on  the  fair  plain  where  Lacedaemon, 
Erewhile  a  broad  fruit-bearing  field,  has  piled  its  roofs 
Amid  the  mountains,  and  sends  up  the  smoke  of  hearths. 
Then  enter  thou  the  high-towered  Palace  ;  call  the  Maida 
I  left  at  parting,  and  the  wise  old  Stewardess : 
With  her  inspect  the  Treasures  which  thy  father  left, 
And  I,  in  war  or  peace  still  adding,  have  heaped  up. 
Thou  findest  all  in  order  standing ;  for  it  is 
The  prince's  privilege  to  see,  at  his  return, 
Each  household  item  as  it  was,  and  where  it  was  ; 
For  of  himself  the  slave  hath  power  to  alter  nought." 

It  appears,  moreover,  that  Menelaus  has  given  her  directions 
to  prepare  for  a  solemn  Sacrifice :  the  ewers,  the  pateras,  the 
altar,  the  axe,  dry  wood,  are  all  to  be  in  readiness ;  only  of 
the  victim  there  was  no  mention ;  a  circumstance  from  which 
Helena  fails  not  to  draw  some  rather  alarming  surmises. 
However,  reflecting  that  all  issues  rest  with  the  higher  Powers, 
and  that,  in  any  case,  irresolution  and  procrastination  will 


164        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

avail  her  nothing,  she  at  length  determines  on  this  grand 
enterprise  of  entering  the  palace,  to  make  a  general  review ; 
and  enters  accordingly.  But  long  before  any  such  business 
could  have  been  finished,  she  hastily  returns,  with  a  frustrated, 
nay  terrified  aspect ;  much  to  the  astonishment  of  her  Chorus, 
who  pressingly  inquire  the  cause. 

HELENA,  wJw  has  left  the  door-leaves  open,  agitated. 

Beseems  not  that  Jove's  daughter  shrink  with  common  fright. 

Nor  by  the  brief  cold  touch  of  Fear  be  chilled  and  stunned. 

Yet  the  Horror,  which  ascending,  in  the  womb  of  Night, 

From  deeps  of  Chaos,  rolls  itself  together  many-shaped, 

Like  glowing  Clouds,  from  out  the  mountain's  fire-throat. 

In  threatening  ghastliness,  may  shake  even  heroes'  hearts. 

So  have  the  Stygian  here  to-day  appointed  me 

A  welcome  to  my  native  Mansion,  such  that  fain 

From  the  oft-trod,  long-wished-for  threshold,  like  a  guest 

That  has  took  leave,  I  would  withdraw  my  steps  for  aye. 

But  no !     Retreated  have  I  to  the  light,  nor  shall 

Ye  farther  force  me,  angry  Powers,  be  who  ye  may. 

New  expiations  viU  I  use ;  then  purified, 

The  blaze  of  the  Hearth  may  greet  the  Mistress  as  the  Lord. 

PANTHALIS   THE   CHORAGE.* 

Discover,  noble  queen,  to  \18  thy  handmaidens. 
That  wait  by  thee  in  love,  what  misery  has  befallen. 

HELENA. 

What  I  have  seen,  ye  too  with  your  own  eyes  shall  see, 

If  Night  have  not  already  suck'd  her  Phantoms  back 

To  the  abysses  of  her  wonder-bearing  breast. 

Yet,  would  ye  know  this  thing,  I  tell  it  you  in  words. 

When  bent  on  present  duty,  yet  with  anxit)us  thought, 

I  solemnly  sot  foot  in  these  high  royal  Halls, 

The  silent,  vacant  passages  astounded  me; 

For  tread  of  hasty  footsteps  nowhere  met  the  ear, 

Nor  bustle  as  of  busy  menial- work  the  eye. 

No  maid  comes  forth  to  me,  no  Stewardess,  such  as 

Still  wont  with  friendly  welcome  to  salute  all  guests. 

1  Leader  of  the  Chorus. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  16^ 

But  as,  alone  advancing,  I  approach  the  Hearth, 

There,  by  the  ashy  remnant  of  dim  outbumt  coals, 

Sits,  crouching  on  the  ground,  up-muffled,  some  huge  Crone; 

Not  as  in  sleep  she  sat,  but  as  in  drowsy  muse. 

With  ordering  voice  I  bid  her  rise  ;  nought  doubting  't  waa 

The  Stewardess  the  King,  at  parting  hence,  had  left. 

But,  heedless,  shrunk  together,  sits  she  motionless ; 

And  as  I  chid,  at  last  outstretch'd  her  lean  right  arm, 

As  if  she  beckoned  me  from  hall  and  hearth  away. 

I  turn  indignant  from  her,  and  hasten  out  forthwith 

Towards  the  steps  whereon  aloft  the  Thalamos 

Adorned  rises ;  and  near  by  it  the  Treasure-room  ; 

When,  lo,  the  Wonder  starts  abruptly  fn>ni  the  floor ; 

Imperious,  barring  my  advance,  displays  herself 

In  haggard  stature,  hollow  bloodshot  eyes ;  a  shape 

Of  hideous  strangeness,  to  perplex  all  sight  and  thought. 

But  I  discourse  to  the  air :  for  words  in  vain  attempt 

To  body  forth  to  sight  the  form  that  dwells  in  us. 

There  see  herself!     She  ventures  forward  to  the  light ! 

Here  we  are  masters  till  our  Lord  and  King  shall  come. 

The  ghastly  births  of  Night,  Apollo,  beauty's  friend, 

Disperses  back  to  their  abysses,  or  subdues. 

Phorcyas  enters  on  the  threshold,  between  the  door-posts. 

CHORUS. 

Much  have  I  seen,  and  strange,  though  the  ringlets 

Youthful  and  thick  still  wave  round  my  temples : 

Terrors  a  many,  war  and  its  horrors 

Witnessed  I  once  in  Ilion's  night, 

When  it  fell. 

Thorough  the  clanging,  cloudy-covered  din  of 

Onrushiug  warriors,  heard  I  th'  Immortali 

Shouting  in  anger,  heard  I  Bellona's 

Iron-toned  voice  resound  from  without 

City-wards. 

Ah  !  the  City  yet  stood,  with  its 
Bulwarks  ;  Ilion  safely  yet 
Towered :  but  spreading  from  house  orer 
House,  the  flame  did  begirdle  us ; 
Sea-like,  red,  loud  and  billowy ; 


166         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Hither,  thither,  as  tempest-floods, 
Over  the  death-circled  City. 

Flying,  saw  I,  through  heat  and  through 
Gloom  and  glare  of  that  fire-ocean. 
Shapes  of  Gods  in  their  wrathfulness, 
Stalking  grim,  fierce  and  terrible, 
Giant-high,  through  the  luridly 
Flame-dyed  dusk  of  that  vapor. 

Did  I  see  it,  or  was  it  hut 
Terror  of  heart  that  fashioned 
Forms  so  aff'righting  ?     Know  can  I 
Never :  hut  here  that  I  view  this 
Horrible  Thing  with  my  own  eyes, 
This  of  a  surety  believe  I : 
Yea,  I  could  clutch 't  in  my  fingers, 
Did  not,  from  Shape  so  dangerous, 
Fear  at  a  distance  keep  me. 

Which  of  old  Phorcys' 

Daughters  then  art  thou  f 

For  I  compare  thee  to 

That  generation. 

Art  thou  belike  of  the  Graige, 

Gray-bom,  one  eye  and  one  tooth 

Using  alternate. 

Child  or  descendant  f 

Darest  thou.  Haggard, 
Close  by  such  beauty, 
'Fore  the  divine  glance  of 
Phoebus  disphvy  thee  f 
But  display  as  it  pleases  thee  ; 
For  the  ugly  he  heedcth  not, 
As  his  bright  eye  yet  never  did 
Look  on  a  shadow. 

But  us  mortals,  alas  for  it ! 
Law  of  Destiny  burdens  us 
With  the  unspeakable  eye-sorrow 
Which  such  a  sight,  unblessed,  detestable, 
Doth  in  lovers  of  beauty  awaken. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  167 

Nay  then,  hear,  since  thou  shamelessly 
Com'st  forth  fronting  us,  hear  only 
Curses,  hear  all  manner  of  threatenings, 
Out  of  the  scornful  lips  of  the  happier 
That  were  made  by  the  Deities. 

PH0RCYA8. 

Old  is  the  saw,  but  high  and  true  remains  its  sense, 

That  Shame  and  Beauty  ne'er,  together  hand  in  hand, 

Were  seen  pursue  their  journey  over  the  earth's  green  path. 

Deep-rooted  dwells  an  ancient  hatred  in  these  two ; 

So  that  wherever,  on  their  way,  one  haps  to  meet 

The  other,  each  on  its  adversary  turns  its  back ; 

Then  hastens  forth  the  faster  on  its  separate  road ; 

Shame  all  in  sorrow.  Beauty  pert  and  light  of  mood ; 

Till  the  hollow  night  of  Orcus  catches  it  at  length, 

If  age  and  wrinkles  have  not  tamed  it  long  before. 

So  you,  ye  wantons,  wafted  hither  from  strange  lands, 

I  find  in  tumult,  like  the  cranes'  hoarse  jingling  flight. 

That  over  our  heads,  in  long-drawn  cloud,  sends  down 

Its  creaking  gabble,  and  tempts  the  silent  wanderer  that  he  look 

Aloft  at  them  a  moment :  but  they  go  their  way, 

And  he  goes  his ;  so  also  will  it  be  with  us. 

Who  then  are  ye,  that  here,  in  Bacchanalian  wise, 

Like  drunk  ones,  ye  dare  uproar  at  this  Palace-gate  I 

Who  then  are  ye,  that  at  the  Stewardess  of  the  King's  House 

Ye  howl,  as  at  the  moon  the  crabbed  brood  of  dogs  ? 

Think  ye  'tis  hid  from  me  what  manner  of  thing  ye  aret 

Ye  war-begotten,  figlit-bred,  feather-headed  crew ! 

Lascivious  crew,  seducing  as  seduced,  that  waste, 

In  rioting,  alike  the  soldier's  and  the  burgher's  strength.  I 

Here  seeing  you  gathered,  seems  as  a  cicada-swarm 

Had  lighted,  covering  the  herbage  of  the  fields. 

Consumers  ye  of  other's  thrift,  ye  greedy-mouthed 

Quick  squanderers  of  fruits  men  gain  by  tedious  toil ; 

Cracked  market-ware,  stol'n,  bought,  and  bartered  troop  of  slaves ! 

We  have  thought  it  right  to  give  so  much  of  these  singular 
expositions  and  altercations,  in  the  words,  as  far  as  might  be, 
of  the  parties  themselves  ;  happy  could  we,  in  any  measure, 


168         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

have  transfused  the  broad,  yet  rich  and  chaste  simplicity  of 
these  long  iambics  ;  or  imitated  the  tone,  as  we  have  done  the 
metre,  of  that  choral  song ;  its  rude  earnestness,  and  tortuous, 
awkward-looking,  artless  strength,  as  we  have  done  its  dactyls 
and  anapoests.  The  task  was  no  easy  one  ;  and  we  remain,  as 
might  have  been  expected,  little  contented  with  our  efforts ; 
having,  indeed,  nothing  to  boast  of,  except  a  sincere  fidelity 
to  the  original.  If  the  reader,  through  such  distortion,  can 
obtain  any  glimpse  of  Helena  itself,  he  will  not  only  pardon 
us,  but  thank  us.  To  our  own  minds,  at  least,  there  is  every- 
where a  strange,  piquant,  quite  peculiar  charm  in  these  imitar 
tions  of  the  old  Grecian  style :  a  dash  of  the  ridiculous,  if  we 
might  say  so,  is  blended  with  the  sublime,  yet  blended  with  it 
softly,  and  only  to  temper  its  austerity ;  for  often,  so  graphic 
is  the  delineation,  we  could  almost  feel  as  if  a  vista  were 
opened  through  the  long  gloomy  distance  of  ages,  and  we,  with 
our  modern  eyes  and  modern  levity,  beheld  afar  off,  in  clear 
light,  the  very  figures  of  that  old  grave  time ;  saw  them  again 
living  in  their  old  antiquai'ian  costume  and  environment,  and 
heard  them  audibly  discourse  in  a  dialect  which  had  long  been 
dead. 

Of  all  this  no  man  is  more  master  than  Goethe  :  as  a 
modern-antique,  his  Iphi genie  must  be  considered  unrivalled 
in  poetry.  A  similar  thoroughly  classical  spirit  will  be  found 
in  this  First  Part  of  Helena  ;  yet  the  manner  of  the  two  pieces 
is  essentially  different.  Here,  we  should  say,  we  are  more 
reminded  of  Sophocles,  perhaps  of  yEschylus,  than  of  Euripi- 
des :  it  is  more  rugged,  copious,  energetic,  inartificial ;  a  still 
more  ancient  style.  IIow  very  primitive,  for  instance,  are 
Helena  and  Phorcyas  in  thoir  whole  deportment  here  !  How 
frank  and  downright  "in  speecli ;  above  all,  how  minute  and 
specific ;  no  glimpse  of  "  i)hiloso})hical  culture  ; "  no  such 
thing  as  a  "general  idea;"  thus,  every  different  object  seems 
a  new  unknown  one,  and  requires  to  be  separately  stated.  In 
like  manner,  what  can  be  more  honest  and  edifying  than  the 
chant  of  the  Chorus  ?  With  what  inimitable  naivete  they  recur 
to  the  sack  of  Troy,  and  endeavor  to  convince  themselves  that 
they  do  actually  see  this  "  horrible  Thing ; "  then  lament  the 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  169 

law  of  Destiny  which  dooms  them  to  such  "  unspeakable  eye- 
sorrow  ;  "  and,  finally,  break  forth  into  sheer  cursing ;  to  all 
which  Phorcyas  answers  in  the  like  free  and  plain-spoken 
fashion. 

But  to  our  story.  This  hard-tempered  and  so  dreadfully 
ugly  old  lady,  the  reader  cannot  help  suspecting,  at  first  sight, 
to  be  some  cousin-german  of  Mephistopheles,  or  indeed  that 
great  Actor  of  all  Work  himself ;  which  latter  suspicion  the 
devilish  nature  of  the  beldame,  by  degrees,  confirms  into  a 
moral  certainty.  There  is  a  sarcastic  malice  in  the  "  wise  old 
Stewardess  "  which  cannot  be  mistaken.  Meanwhile  the  Chorus 
and  the  beldame  indulge  still  farther  in  mutual  abuse ;  she 
upbraiding  them  with  their  giddiness  and  wanton  disposition  ; 
they  chanting  unabatedly  her  extreme  deficiency  in  personal 
charms.  Plelena,  however,  interposes ;  and  the  old  Gorgon, 
pretending  that  she  has  not  till  now  recognized  the  stranger 
to  be  her  Mistress,  smooths  herself  into  gentleness,  affects  the 
greatest  humility,  and  even  appeals  to  her  for  protection 
against  the  insolence  of  these  young  ones.  But  wicked  Phor- 
cyas is  only  waiting  her  opportunity ;  still  neither  unwilling 
to  wound,  nor  afraid  to  strike.  Helena,  to  expel  some  un- 
pleasant vapors  of  doubt,  is  reviewing  her  past  history,  in 
concert  with  Phorcyas  ;  and  observes,  that  the  latter  had  been 
appointed  Stewardess  by  JMenelaus,  on  his  return  from  his 
Cretan  expedition  to  Sparta.  Xo  sooner  is  Sparta  mentioned, 
than  the  crone,  with  an  officious  air  of  helping  out  the  story, 
adds : — 

Which  thou  forsookest,  Ilion's  tower-encircled  town 
Preferring,  and  the  unexhausted  joys  of  Love. 

HELENA. 

Remind  me  not  of  joys ;  an  ail-too  heavy  woe's 
Infinitude  soon  followed,  crushing  breast  and  heart. 

PHORCYAS. 

But  I  have  heard  thou  livest  on  earth  a  double  life  ; 
In  nion  seen,  and  seen  the  while  in  Egypt  too. 


170        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


HELENA. 


Confound  not  so  the  weakness  of  my  weary  sense : 
Here  even,  who  or  what  I  am,  I  know  it  not. 


PHORCYA8. 


Then  I  have  heard  how,  from  the  hollow  Realm  of  Shades, 
Achilles  too  did  fervently  unite  himself  to  thee ; 
Thy  earlier  love  reclaiming,  spite  of  all  Fate's  laws. 

HELENA. 

To  him  the  Vision,  I  a  Vision  joined  myself: 

It  was  a  dream,  the  very  words  may  teach  us  this. 

But  I  am  faint;  and  to  myself  a  Vision  grow. 

[Sinks  into  the  arms  of  one  division  of  the  Chorus. 

CHORUS. 

Silence !  silence ! 
Evil-eyed,  evil-tongued,  thou ! 
Thnmgh  so  shrivelled-up,  one-tooth'd  a 
Mouth,  what  good  can  come  from  that 
Throat  of  horrors  detestable  — 

—  In  which  style  they  continue  musically  rating  her,  till 
"  Helena  has  recovered,  and  again  stands  in  the  middle  of  the 
chorus ; "  when  Phorcyas,  with  the  most  wheedling  air,  hastens 
to  greet  her,  in  a  new  sort  of  verse,  as  if  nothing  whatever 
had  happened :  — 

PHORCYAS. 

Issues  forth  from  passing  cloud  the  sun  of  this  hright  day : 

If  when  veil'd  she  so  could   charm  us,  now  her  beams  in  splendor 

blind. 
As  the  world  doth  look  before  thee,  in  such  gentle  wise  thou  look'st. 
Let  them  call  me  so  unlovely,  what  is  lovely  know  I  well. 

HELENA. 

Come  so  wavering  from  the  Void  which  in  that  faintnesa  circled  me, 
Glad  I  were  to  rest  again  a  space;  sfi  weary  are  my  limbs. 
Yet  it  well  becometh  queens,  all  mortals  it  becometh  well, 
To  possess  their  hearts  in  patience,  and  await  what  can  betide. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  171 

PH0RCYA8. 

Whilst  thou  standest  in  thy  greatness,  in  thy  beauty  here, 
Says  thy  look  that  thou  commandest :  what  command'st  thou  f     Speak 
it  out. 

HELENA. 

To  conclude  your  quarrel's  idle  loitering  he  prepared : 
Haste,  arrange  the  Sacrifice  the  King  commanded  me. 

PHOKCYAS. 

All  is  ready  in  the  Palace,  bowl  and  tripod,  sharp-ground  axe; 
For  besprinkling,  for  befuming :  now  the  Victim  let  us  see. 

HELENA. 

This  the  King  appointed  not. 

PH0RCYA8. 

Spoke  not  of  this  ?    0  word  of  woe  I 

HELENA. 

What  strange  sorrow  overpowers  thee  ? 

PH0RCYA8. 

Queen,  't  is  thou  he  meant. 

HELENA. 

II 

PHORCYAS. 

And  these. 

CHORUS. 

0  woe  !   0  woe  ! 

PHORCYAS. 

Thou  fallest  by  the  axe's  stroke. 

HELENA. 

Horrible,  yet  look'd  for :  hapless  I ! 

PHORCYAS. 

Inevitable  seems  it  me. 

CHORUS. 

Ah,  and  us  t    What  will  become  of  ub  t 


172        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

PHORCYAS. 

She  dies  a  noble  death : 
Ye,  on  the  high  Beam  within  that  bears  the  rafters  and  the  roof, 
As  in  birding-time  so  many  woodlarks,  in  a  row,  shall  sprawL 

[Helena  and  Chorus  stand  astounded  and  terror-struck; 
in  expressive,  well-concerted  grouping. 

Poor  spectres !  —  AU  like  frozen  statues  there  ye  stand, 
In  fright  to  leave  the  Day  which  not  belongs  to  you. 
No  man  or  spectre,  more  than  you,  is  fond  to  quit 
The  Upper  Liglit ;  yet  rescue,  respite  finds  not  one : 
All  know  it,  all  believe  it,  few  delight  in  it. 
Enough,  't  is  over  with  you  !     And  so  let 's  to  work  ! 

How  the  cursed  old  beldame  enjoys  the  agony  of  these  poor 
Shades ;  nay,  we  suspect,  she  is  laughing  in  her  sleeve  at  the 
very  Classicism  of  this  Drama,  which  she  herself  has  contrived, 
and  is  even  now  helping  to  enact !  Observe,  she  has  quitted 
her  octameter  trochaics  again,  and  taken  to  plain  blank  verse  ; 
a  sign,  perhaps,  that  she  is  getting  weary  of  the  whole  Clas- 
sical concern !  But  however  this  may  be,  she  now  claps  her 
hands  ;  whereupon  certain  distorted  dwarf  figures  appear  at 
the  door,  and,  with  great  speed  and  agility,  at  her  order,  bring 
forth  the  sacrificial  apparatus ;  on  which  she  fails  not  to  des- 
cant demonstratively,  explaining  the  purpose  of  the  several 
articles  as  they  are  successively  fitted  up  before  her.  Here 
is  the  "  gold-horned  altar,"  the  "  axe  glittering  over  its  silver 
edge ; "  then  there  must  be  "  water-urns  to  wash  the  black 
blood's  defilement,"  and  a  "  precious  mat "  to  kneel  on,  for  the 
victim  is  to  be  beheaded  queenlike.  On  all  hands,  mortal 
horror !  But  Phorcyas  hints  darkly  that  there  is  still  a  way 
of  escape  left ;  this,  of  course,  every  one  is  in  deepest  eager- 
ness to  learn.  Here,  one  would  think,  she  might  for  once 
come  to  the  point  without  digression :  but  Phorcyas  has  her 
own  way  of  stating  a  fact.     She  thus  commences  :  — 

PHORCYAS. 

Whoso,  collecting  store  of  wealth,  at  home  abides 
To  parget  in  due  season  bis  high  dwelling's  walls, 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  17ft 

And  prudent  guard  his  roof  from  inroad  of  the  rain, 
With  him,  through  long  still  years  of  life,  it  shall  be  well. 
But  he  who  lightly,  in  his  folly,  bent  to  rove, 
O'ersteps  with  wand'ring  foot  his  threshold's  sacred  line, 
Will  find,  at  his  return,  the  ancient  place  indeed 
Still  there,  but  else  all  alter'd,  if  not  overthrown. 

HELENA. 

Why  these  trite  saws  ?     Thou  wert  to  teach  us,  not  reprove. 

PHORCYAS. 

Historical  it  is,  is  nowise  a  reproof. 

Sea-roving,  steer'd  King  Menelaus  brisk  from  bay  to  bay ; 

Descended  on  all  ports  and  isles,  a  plundering  foe. 

And  still  came  back  with  booty,  which  yet  moulders  here. 

Then  by  the  walls  of  Ilion  spent  he  ten  long  years  ; 

How  many  in  his  homeward  voyage  were  hard  to  know. 

But  all  this  while  how  stands  it  here  with  Tyndarus' 

High  house  ?     How  stands  it  with  his  own  domains  around  f 

HELENA. 

Is  love  of  railing,  then,  so  interwoven  with  thee. 

That  thus,  except  to  chide,  thou  can'st  not  move  thy  lips? 

PHORCYAS. 

So  many  years  forsaken  stood  the  mountain  glen. 

Which,  north  from  Sparta,  towards  the  higher  laud  ascends 

Behind  Taygetus ;  where,  as  yet  a  merry  brook, 

Eurotas  gurgles  on,  and  then,  along  our  Vale, 

In  sep'rate  streams  abroad  outflowing  feeds  your  Swans. 

There,  backwards  in  the  rocky  hills,  a  daring  race 

Have  fix'd  themselves,  forth  issuing  from  Cimmerian  Night: 

An  inexpugnable  stronghold  have  piled  aloft. 

From  which  they  harry  land  and  people  as  they  please. 

HELENA. 

How  could  they  ?     All  impossible  it  seems  to  me. 

PHORCYAS. 

Enough  of  time  they  had :  't  is  haply  twenty  years. 

HELENA. 

Is  One  the  Master  ?     Are  there  Robbers  many ;  leagued  ? 


174        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


PHORCYAS. 

Not  Robbers  these :  yet  many,  and  the  Master  One. 
Of  him  1  say  no  ill,  though  hither  too  he  came. 
What  might  not  he  have  took  ?  yet  did  content  himself 
With  some  small  Present,  so  he  called  it,  Tribute  not. 

HELENA. 

How  looks  he  f 

PHORCYAS. 

Nowise  ill !     To  me  he  pleasant  look'd. 
A  jocund,  gallant,  hardy,  handsome  man  it  is, 
And  ratiomil  in  speech,  as  of  the  Greeks  are  few. 
We  call  the  folk  Barbarian  ;  yet  I  question  much 
If  one  there  be  so  cruel,  as  at  Ilion 
Full  many  of  our  best  heroes  man-devouring  were. 
I  do  respect  his  greatness,  and  confide  in  him. 
And  for  his  Tower !  this  with  your  own  eyes  ye  should  see : 
Another  thing  it  is  than  clumsy  boulder-work, 
Such  as  our  Fathers,  nothing  scrupling,  huddled  up, 
Cyclopean,  and  like  Cyclops-builders,  one  rude  crag 
On  other  rude  crags  tumbling :  in  that  Tow'r  of  theirs 
'T  is  plumb  and  level  all,  and  done  by  sf^uare  and  rule. 
Look  on  it  from  without !     Heav'nward  it  soars  on  high, 
So  straight,  so  tight  of  joint,  and  mirror-smooth  as  steel: 
To  clamber  there  —  Nay,  even  your  very  Thought  sUdes  down,  — 
And  then,  within,  such  courts,  broad  spaces,  all  around. 
With  masonry  encompass'd  of  every  sort  and  use  : 
There  have  ye  arches,  archlets,  pillars,  pillarlets, 
Balconies,  galleries,  for  looking  out  and  in, 
And  coats  of  arms. 

CHORUS. 

Of  arms  ?     What  mean'st  thou  T 

PHORCYAS. 

Ajax  bore 
A  twisted  Snake  on  his  Shield,  as  ye  yourselves  have  seen. 
The  Seven  also  before  Thebes  bore  carved  work 
Each  on  his  Shield ;  devices  rich  and  full  of  sense  : 
There  saw  ye  moon  and  stars  of  the  nightly  heaven's  vault, 
And  goddesses,  and  heroes,  ladders,  torclies,  swords, 
And  dangerous  tools,  such  as  in  stonn  o'erfall  good  towns. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  175 

Escutcheons  of  like  sort  our  heroes  also  bear  : 
There  see  ye  lions,  eagles,  claws  besides,  and  billa, 
Then  buflfalo-homs,  and  wings,  and  roses,  peacock-tails ; 
And  bandelets,  gold  and  black  and  silver,  blue  and  red. 
Such  like  are  there  hung  up  in  Halls,  row  after  row ; 
In  halls,  so  large,  so  lofty,  boundless  as  the  World ; 
There  might  ye  dance  ! 

CHORUS. 

Ha  I    Tell  us,  are  there  dancers  there  ? 

PHORCYAS. 

The  best  on  earth  !     A  golden-hair'd,  fresh,  younker  band, 
They  breathe  of  youth  ;  Paris  alone  so  breath'd  when  to 
Our  Queen  he  came  too  near. 

HELEKA. 

Thou  quite  dost  lose 
The  tenor  of  thy  story :  say  me  thy  last  word. 

PHORCYAS. 

Thyself  wilt  say  it :  say  in  earnest,  audibly,  Yes ! 
Next  moment,  I  surround  thee  with  that  Tow'r. 

The  step  is  questionable  :  for  is  not  this  Phorcyas  a  person 
of  the  most  suspicious  character ;  or  rather,  is  it  not  certain 
that  she  is  a  Turk  in  grain,  and  will,  almost  of  a  surety,  go 
how  it  may,  turn  good  into  bad  ?  And  yet,  what  is  to  be 
done  ?  A  trumpet,  said  to  be  that  of  Menelaus,  sounds  in 
the  distance ;  at  which  the  Chorus  shrink  together  in  in- 
creased terror.  Phorcyas  coldly  reminds  them  of  Deiphobus 
with  his  slit  nose,  as  a  small  token  of  Menelaus's  turn  of 
thinking  on  these  matters ;  supposes,  however,  that  there  is 
now  nothing  for  it  but  to  wait  the  issue,  and  die  with  propri- 
ety. Helena  has  no  wish  to  die,  either  with  propriety  or 
impropriety ;  she  pronounces,  though  with  a  faltering  resolve, 
the  definitive  Yes.  A  burst  of  joy  breaks  from  the  Chorus ; 
thick  fog  rises  all  round  ;  in  the  midst  of  whicli,  as  we  learn 
from  their  wild  tremulous  chant,  they  feel  themselves  hurried 
through  the  air  :  Eurotas  is  swept  from  sight,  and  the  cry  of 


176        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

its  Swans  fades  ominously  away  in  the  distance ;  for  now,  as 
we  suppose,  "Tyndarus'  high  House,"  with  all  its  appen- 
dages, is  rushing  back  into  the  depths  of  the  Past ;  old  Lace- 
dcemon  has  again  become  new  Misitra  ;  only  Taygetus,  with 
another  name,  remains  unchanged :  and  the  King  of  Eivers 
feeds  among  his  sedges  quite  a  different  race  of  Swans  from 
those  of  Leda !  The  mist  is  passing  away,  but  yet,  to  the 
horror  of  the  Chorus,  no  clear  daylight  returns.  Dim  masses 
rise  round  them  :  Phorcyas  has  vanished.  Is  it  a  castle  ?  Is 
it  a  cavern  ?  They  find  themselves  in  the  "  Interior  Court 
of  the  Tower,  surrounded  with  rich  fantastic  buildings  of  the 
Middle  Ages ! " 

If,  hitherto,  we  have  moved  along,  with  considerable  con- 
venience, over  ground  singular  enough  indeed,  yet,  the  nature 
of  it  once  understood,  affording  firm  footing  and  no  unpleas- 
ant scenery,  we  come  now  to  a  strange  mixed  element,  in 
which  it  seems  as  if  neither  walking,  swimming,  nor  even 
flying,  could  rightly  avail  us.  We  have  cheerfully  admitted, 
and  honestly  believed,  that  Helena  and  her  Chorus  were 
Shades  ;  but  now  they  appear  to  be  changing  into  mere  Ideas, 
mere  Metaphors,  or  poetic  Thoughts  !  Faust  too  —  for  he,  as 
every  one  sees,  must  be  lord  of  this  Fortress ' —  is  a  much- 
altered  man  since  we  last  met  him.  Nay  sometimes  we  could 
fancy  he  were  only  acting  a  part  on  this  occasion ;  were  a 
mere  mummer,  representing  not  so  much  his  own  natural  'per- 
sonality., as  some  shadow  and  impersonation  of  his  history ; 
not  so  much  his  own  Faustship,  as  the  tradition  of  Faust's 
adventures,  and  the  Genius  of  the  People  among  whom  this 
took  its  rise.  For,  indeed,  he  has  strange  gifts  of  flying 
through  the  air,  and  living,  in  ajiparent  friendship  and  con- 
tentment, with  mere  Eidolons  ;  and,  being  excessively  re- 
served withal,  he  becomes  not  a  little  enigmatic.  In  fact, 
our  whole  "  Interlude "  changes  its  character  at  this  point : 
the  Greek  style  passes  abruptly  into  the  Spanish ;  at  one 
bound  we  have  left  the  Seven  before  Thebes,  and  got  into 
the  Vida  es  Suefio.  The  action,  too,  becomes  more  and  more 
typical ;  or  rather,  we   should   say,  half-typical ;   for  it  will 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  177 

neither  hold  rightly  together  as  allegory  nor  as  matter  of 
fact. 

Thus  do  we  see  ourselves  hesitating  on  the  verge  of  a 
wondrous  region,  "  neither  sea  nor  good  dry  land ; "  full  of 
shapes  and  musical  tones,  but  all  dim,  fluctuating,  unsubstan- 
tial, chaotic.  Danger  there  is  that  the  critic  may  require 
"both  oar  and  sail  ;  "  nay,  it  will  be  well  if,  like  that 
other  great  Traveller,  he  meet  not  some  vast  vacuity,  where, 
all  unawares, 

"  Fluttering  his  pennons  vain,  plumb  down  he  drop 
Ten  thousand  fathom  deep      .      .      .     . " 

and  so  keep  falling  till 

"  The  strong  rebuff  of  some  tumultuoas  cloud. 
Instinct  with  fire  and  nitre,  hurry  him 
As  many  miles  aloft      .      .      .      . " 

—  Meaning,  probably,  that  he  is  to  be  "blown  up"  by  non- 
plused and  justly  exasperated  Review-reviewers!  — Neverthe- 
less, unappalled  by  these  possibilities,  we  venture  forwai'd 
into  this  impalpable  Limbo ;  and  must  endeavor  to  render 
such  account  of  the  "  sensible  species  "  and  "  ghosts  of  defunct 
bodies "  we  may  meet  there,  as  shall  be  moderately  satisfac- 
tory to  the  reader. 

In  the  little  Notice  from  the  Author,  quoted  above,  we  were 
bid  specially  observe  in  what  way  and  manner  Faust  would 
presume  to  court  this  World-beauty.  We  must  say,  his  style 
of  gallantry  seems  to  us  of  the  most  chivalrous  and  high- 
flown  description,  if  indeed  it  is  not  a  little  euphuistic.  In 
their  own  eyes,  Helena  and  her  Chorus,  encircled  in  this 
Gothic  court,  appear,  for  some  minutes,  no  better  than  cap- 
tives ;  but,  suddenly  issuing  from  galleries  and  portals,  and 
descending  the  stairs  in  stately  procession,  are  seen  a  numer- 
ous suite  of  Pages,  whose  gay  habiliments  and  red  downy 
cheeks  are  greatly  admired  by  the  Chorus  :  these  bear  with 
them  a  throne  and  canopy,  with  footstools  and  cushions,  and 
every  other  necessary  apparatus  of  royalty ;  the  portable  ma- 
chine, as  we  gather  from  the  Chorus,  is  soon  put  together ; 
and  Helena,  being  reverently  beckoned  into  the  same,  is  thus 

VOL.  XIII.  12 


178        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

forthwith  constituted  Sovereign  of  the  whole  Establishment. 
To  herself  such  royalty  still  seems  a  little  dubious;  but  no 
sooner  have  the  Pages,  in  long  train,  fairly  descended,  than 
"Faust  appears  above,  on  the  stairs,  in  knightly  court-dress 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  with  deliberate  dignity  comes  down," 
astonishing  the  poor  "feather-headed"  Chorus  with  the  grace- 
fulness of  his  deportment  and  his  more  than  human  beauty. 
He  leads  with  him  a  culprit  in  fetters  ;  and,  by  way  of  intro- 
duction, explains  to  Helena  that  this  man,  Lynceus,  has  de- 
served death  by  his  misconduct ;  but  that  to  her,  as  Queen  of 
the  Castle,  must  appertain  the  right  of  dooming  or  of  pardon- 
ing him.  The  crime  of  Lynceus  is,  indeed,  of  an  extraordi- 
nary nature  :  he  was  Warder  of  the  tower ;  but  now,  though 
gifted,  as  his  name  imports,  with  the  keenest  vision,  he  has 
failed  in  warning  Faust  that  so  august  a  visitor  was  approach- 
ing, and  thus  occasioned  the  most  dreadful  breach  of  polite- 
ness. Lynceus  pleads  guilty :  quick-sighted  as  a  lynx,  in 
usual  cases,  he  has  been  blinded  with  excess  of  light,  in  this 
instance.  While  looking  towards  the  orient  at  the  "course 
of  morning,"  he  noticed  a  "  sun  rise  wonderfully  in  the 
south,"  and,  all  his  senses  taken  captive  by  such  surprising 
beauty,  he  no  longer  knew  his  right  hand  from  his  left,  or 
could  move  a  limb,  or  utter  a  word,  to  announce  her  arrival. 
Under  these  peculiar  circumstances,  Helena  sees  room  for 
extending  the  royal  prerogative  ;  and  after  expressing  un- 
feigned regret  at  this  so  fatal  influence  of  her  charms  over 
the  whole  male  sex,  dismisses  the  Warder  with  a  reprieve. 
We  must  beg  our  readers  to  keep  an  eye  on  this  Innamorato  ; 
for  there  may  be  meaning  in  him.  Here  is  the  pleading, 
which  produced  so  fine  an  effect,  given  in  his  own  words  : 

Let  me  kneel  and  let  me  view  her, 
Let  me  live,  or  lot  me  die, 
Slave  to  this  high  woman,  truer 
Than  a  bondsman  boni,  am  I. 

Watching  o'er  the  course  of  morning, 
Eiistward,  as  I  mark  it  run, 
Rose  there,  all  the  sky  adorning, 
Stranjjoly  in  the  south  a  sun. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  179 

Draws  my  look  towards  those  places, 
Not  the  valley,  not  the  height, 
Not  the  earth's  or  heaven's  spaces ; 
She  alone  the  queen  of  light. 

Eyesight  truly  hath  been  lent  me, 
Like  the  lynx  on  highest  tree; 
Boots  not ;  for  amaze  hath  shent  me : 
Do  I  dream,  or  do  I  see  ? 

Knew  I  aught ;  or  could  I  ever 
Think  of  tow'r  or  bolted  gate  f 
Vapors  waver,  vapors  sever, 
Such  a  goddess  comes  in  state  ! 

Eye  and  heart  I  must  surrender 
Drown'd  as  in  a  radiant  sea  ; 
That  high  creature  with  her  splendor 
Blinding  aU  hath  blinded  me. 

I  forgot  the  warder's  duty  ; 
Trumpet,  challenge,  word  of  call : 
Chain  me,  threaten :  sure  this  Beauty 
Stills  thy  anger,  saves  her  thrall. 

Save  him  accordingly  she  did :  but  no  sooner  is  he  dismissed, 
and  Faust  has  made  a  remark  on  the  multitude  of  "  arrows  " 
which  she  is  darting  forth  on  all  sides,  than  Lynceus  returns 
in  a  still  madder  humor.  "Ee-enter  Lynceus  with  a  Chest, 
and  Men  carrying  other  Chests  behind  him." 

LYNCEUS. 

Thou  see'st  me,  Queen,  again  advance. 
The  wealthy  begs  of  thee  one  glance; 
He  look'd  at  thee,  and  feels  e'er  since 
As  beggar  poor,  and  rich  as  prince. 

What  was  I  erst?     What  am  I  grown? 
What  have  I  meant,  or  done,  or  known  ? 
What  boots  the  sharpest  force  of  eyes  ? 
Back  from  thy  throne  it  baffled  flies. 


180        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

From  Eastward  tnarcliing  came  we  on, 
And  soon  the  West  was  lost  and  won: 
A  long  broad  army  forth  we  pass'd, 
The  foremost  knew  not  of  the  last. 


The  first  did  fall,  the  second  stood, 
The  third  hew'd  in  with  falchion  good; 
And  still  the  next  had  prowess  more, 
Forgot  the  thousands  slain  before. 

We  stormed  along,  we  rushed  apace. 
The  masters  we  from  place  to  place ; 
And  where  I  lordly  ruled  to-day, 
To-morrow  another  did  rob  and  slay. 

We  look'd  ;  our  choice  was  quickly  made  ; 
This  snatch'd  with  him  the  fairest  maid, 
That  seiz'd  the  steer  for  burden  bent, 
The  horses  all  and  sundry  went. 

But  I  did  love  apart  to  spy 
The  rarest  things  could  meet  the  eye: 
Whate'er  in  others'  hands  I  saw, 
That  was  for  me  but  chaff  and  straw. 

For  treasures  did  I  keep  a  look, 
My  keen  eyes  pierc'd  to  every  nook ; 
Into  all  pockets  I  could  see. 
Transparent  each  strong-box  to  me. 

And  heaps  of  Gold  I  gained  this  way, 
And  precious  Stones  of  clearest  ray :  — 
Now  where  's  the  Diamond  meet  to  shine  f 
'T  is  meet  alone  for  breast  like  thine. 

So  let  the  Pearl  from  depths  of  sea, 
In  curious  stringlets  wave  on  thee : 
The  Ruby  for  some  covert  seeks, 
'T  is  paled  by  redness  of  thy  cheeks. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  181 

And  so  the  richest  treasure  's  brought 
Before  thy  throne,  as  best  it  ought; 
Beneath  thy  feet  here  let  me  lay 
The  fruit  of  many  a  bloody  fray. 


So  many  chests  we  now  do  bear; 
More  chests  I  have,  and  finer  ware : 
Think  me  but  to  be  near  thee  worth, 
Whole  treasure-vaults  I  empty  forth. 

For  scarcely  art  thou  hither  sent, 
All  hearts  and  wills  to  thee  are  bent; 
Our  riches,  reason,  strength  we  must 
Before  the  loveliest  lay  as  dust. 

All  this  I  reckon'd  great,  and  mine, 
Now  small  I  reckon  it,  and  thine. 
I  thought  it  worthy,  high  and  good ; 
'T  is  nought,  poor  and  misunderstood. 

So  dwindles  what  my  glory  was, 
A  heap  of  mown  and  withered  grass : 
What  worth  it  had,  and  now  does  lack. 
Oh,  with  one  kind  look,  give  it  back  I 


FAUST. 

Away !  away  !  take  back  the  bold-earn'd  load, 
Not  blam'd  indeed,  but  also  not  rewarded. 
Hers  is  already  whatsoe'er  our  Tower 
Of  costliness  conceals.     Go  heap  me  treasures 
On  treasures,  yet  with  order:  let  the  blaze 
Of  pomp  unspeakable  appear ;  the  ceilings 
Gem-fretted,  shine  like  skies  ;  a  Paradise 
Of  lifeless  life  create.     Before  her  feet 
Unfolding  quick,  let  flow'ry  carpet  roll 
Itself  from  flow'ry  carpet,  that  her  step 
May  light  on  softness,  and  her  eye  meet  nought 
But  splendor  blinding  only  not  the  Gods, 


182       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

LYNCEUS. 

Small  is  what  our  Lord  doth  say  J 
Servants  do  it ;  't  is  but  play : 
For  o'er  all  we  do  or  dream 
Will  this  Beauty  reign  supreme. 
Is  not  all  our  host  grown  tame  I 
Every  sword  is  blunt  and  lame. 
To  a  fonn  of  sucli  a  mould 
Sun  himself  is  dull  and  cold 
To  the  richness  of  that  face  ; 
What  is  beauty,  what  is  grace, 
Loveliness  we  saw  or  thought  ? 
All  is  empty,  all  is  nought. 

And  herewith  exit  Lynceus,  and  we  see  no  more  of  him! 
We  have  said  that  we  thought  there  might  be  method  in  this 
madness.  In  fact,  the  allegorical,  or  at  least  fantastic  and 
figurative,  character  of  the  whole  action  is  growing  more  and 
more  decided  every  moment.  Helena,  we  must  conjecture,  is, 
in  the  course  of  this  her  real  historical  intrigue  with  Faust, 
to  present,  at  the  same  time,  some  dim  a4umbration  of  Grecian 
Art,  and  its  flight  to  the  Northern  Nations,  when  driven  by 
stress  of  War  from  its  own  country.  Faust's  Tower  will,  in 
this  case,  afford  not  only  a  convenient  station  for  lifting  black- 
mail over  the  neighboring  district,  but  a  cunning,  though 
vague  and  fluctuating,  emblem  of  the  Product  of  Teutonic 
Mind ;  the  Science,  Art,  Institutions  of  the  Northmen,  of  whose 
Spirit  and  Genius  he  himself  may  in  some  degree  become  the 
representative.  In  this  way  the  extravagant  homage  and  ad- 
miration paid  to  Helena  are  not  without  their  meaning.  The 
manner  of  her  arrival,  enveloped  as  she  was  in  thick  clouds, 
and  frightened  onwards  by  hostile  trumpets,  may  also  have 
more  or  less  propriety.  And  who  is  Lynceus,  tlie  mad  Watch- 
man ?  We  cannot  but  suspect  him  of  being  a  Schoolman 
Philosopher,  or  School  Philosoi)hy  itself,  in  disguise ;  and  that 
this  wonderful  "  march  "  of  his  has  a  covert  allusion  to  the 
great  "  march  of  intellect,"  which  did  march  in  those  old  ages, 
though  only  "  at  ordinary  time."     We  observe,  the  military, 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  183 

one  after  the  other,  all  fell;  for  discoverers,  like  other  men, 
must  die ;  but  "  still  the  next  had  prowess  more,"  and  forgot 
the  thousands  that  had  sunk  in  clearing  the  way  for  him. 
However,  Lynceus,  in  his  love  of  plunder,  did  not  take  ^'the 
fairest  maid,"  nor  "  the  steer  "  fit  for  burden,  but  rather  jewels 
and  other  rare  articles  of  value ;  in  which  quest  his  high 
power  of  eyesight  proved  of  great  service  to  him.  Better  had 
it  been,  perhaps,  to  have  done  as  others  did,  and  seized  "  the 
fairest  maid,"  or  even  the  "  steer "  fit  for  burden,  or  one  of 
the  "  horses "  which  were  in  such  request :  for,  when  he 
quitted  practical  Science  and  the  philosophy  of  Life,  and 
addicted  himself  to  curious  subtleties  and  Metaphysical  crotch- 
ets, what  did  it  avail  him  ?  At  the  first  glance  of  the  Grecian 
beauty,  he  found  that  it  was  "nought,  poor  and  misunder- 
stood." His  extraordinary  obscuration  of  vision  on  Helena's 
approach ;  his  narrow  escape  from  death,  on  that  account,  at 
the  hands  of  Faust ;  his  pardon  by  the  fair  Greek :  his  subse- 
quent magnanimous  offer  to  her,  and  discourse  with  his  master 
on  the  subject, — might  give  rise  to  various  considerations. 
But  we  must  not  loiter,  questioning  the  strange  Shadows 
of  that  strange  country,  who,  besides,  are  apt  to  mystify 
one.  Our  nearest  business  is  to  get  across  it :  we  again  pro- 
ceed. 

Whoever  or  whatever  Faust  and  Helena  may  be,  they  are 
evidently  fast  rising  into  high  favor  with  each  other;  as  in- 
deed, from  so  generous  a  gallant,  and  so  fair  a  dame,  was  to 
be  anticipated.  She  invites  him  to  sit  with  her  on  the  throne, 
so  instantaneously  acquired  by  force  of  her  charms ;  to  which 
graceful  proposal  he,  after  kissing  her  hand  in  knightly  wise, 
fails  not  to  accede.  The  courtship  now  advances  apace. 
Helena  admires  the  dialect  of  Lynceus,  and  how  "  one  word 
seemed  to  kiss  the  other,"  —  for  the  Warder,  as  we  saw,  speaks 
in  doggerel ;  and  she  cannot  but  wish  that  she  also  had  some 
such  talent.  Faust  assures  her  that  nothing  is  more  easy  than 
this  same  practice  of  rhyme :  it  is  but  speaking  right  from  the 
heart,  and  the  rest  follows  of  course.  Withal  he  proposes  that 
they  should  make  a  trial  of  it  themselves.  The  experiment 
succeeds  to  mutual  satisfaction  :   for  not  only  can  they  two 


184       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

build  the  lofty  rhyme  in  concert,  with  all  convenience,  but,  in 
the  course  of  a  page  or  two  of  such  crambo,  many  love-tokens 
come  to  light ;  nay  we  find  by  the  Chorus  that  the  wooing 
has  well-nigh  reached  a  happy  end :  at  least,  the  two  are 
"  sitting  near  and  nearer  each  other,  —  shoulder  on  shoulder, 
knee  by  knee,  hand  in  hand,  they  are  swaying  over  the 
throne's  up-cushioned  lordliness ; "  which,  surely,  are  promis- 
ing symptoms. 

Such  ill-timed  dalliance  is  abruptly  disturbed  by  the  entrance 
of  Phorcyas,  now,  as  ever,  a  messenger  of  evil,  with  malignant 
tidings  that  Menelaiis  is  at  hand,  with  his  whole  force,  to 
storm  the  Castle,  and  ferociously  avenge  his  new  injuries.  An 
immense  "explosion  of  signals  from  the  towers,  of  trumpets, 
clarions,  military  music,  and  the  march  of  numerous  armies," 
confirms  the  news.  Faust,  however,  treats  the  matter  coolly ; 
chides  the  vmceremonious  trepidation  of  Phorcyas,  and  sum- 
mons his  men  of  war  ;  who  accordingly  enter,  steel-clad,  in 
military  pomp,  and  quitting  their  battalions,  gather  round  him 
to  take  his  orders.  In  a  wild  Pindaric  ode,  delivered  with 
due  emphasis,  he  directs  them  not  so  much  how  they  are  to 
conquer  Menelaus,  whom  doubtless  he  knows  to  be  a  sort  of 
dream,  as  how  they  are  respectively  to  manage  and  partition 
the  Country  they  shall  hereby  acquire.  Germanus  is  to  have 
the  "  bays  of  Corinth ; "  while  "  Achaia,  with  its  hundred 
dells,"  is  recommended  to  the  care  of  Goth ;  the  host  of  the 
Franks  must  go  towards  Elis ;  Messene  is  to  be  the  Saxon's 
share ;  and  Normann  is  to  clear  the  seas,  and  make  Argolis 
great.  Sparta,  however,  is  to  continue  the  territor}^  of  Helena, 
and  be  queen  and  patroness  of  these  inferior  Dukedoms.  In 
all  this,  are  we  to  trace  some  faint  changeful  shadow  of  the 
National  Character,  and  respective  Intellectual  Performance 
of  the  several  European  tribes  ?  Or,  perhaps,  of  the  real 
History  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  the  irru])tion  of  the  northern 
swarms,  issuing,  like  Faust  and  his  air-warriors,  "from  Cim- 
merian Night,"  and  spreading  over  so  many  fair  regions  ? 
Perhaps  of  both,  and  of  more ;  perhaps  properly  of  neither : 
for  the  whole  has  a  chameleon  character,  changing  hue  as  we 
lock  on  it.     However,  be  this  as  it  may,  the  Chorus  cannot 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  185 

sufnciently  admire  Faust's  strategic  faculty ;  and  the  troops 
march  off,  without  speech  indeed,  but  evidently  in  the  highest 
spirits.  He  himself  concludes  with  another  rapid  dithyrambic, 
describing  the  Peninsula  of  Greece,  or  rather,  perhaps,  typi- 
cally the  Eegion  of  true  Poesy,  "  kissed  by  the  sea- waters,"  and 
"  knit  to  the  last  mountain-branch  "  of  the  fii'm  land.  There 
is  a  wild  glowing  fire  in  these  two  odes ;  a  musical  indistinct- 
ness, yet  enveloping  a  rugged,  keen  sense,  which,  were  the  gift 
of  rhyme  so  common  as  Faust  thinks  it,  we  should  have  plea- 
sure in  presenting  to  our  readers.  Again  and  again  we  think 
of  Calderon  and  his  Life  a  Dream. 

Faust,  as  he  resumes  his  seat  by  Helena,  observes  that  "  she 
is  sprung  from  the  highest  gods,  and  belongs  to  the  first  world 
alone."  It  is  not  meet  that  bolted  towers  should  encircle  her ; 
and  near  by  Sparta,  over  the  hills,  "  Arcadia  blooms  in  eternal 
strength  of  youth,  a  blissful  abode  for  them  two."  "  Let 
tlu'ones  pass  into  groves  :  Arcadian-free  be  such  felicity  ! " 
Xo  sooner  said  than  done.  Our  Fortress,  we  suppose,  rushes 
asmider  like  a  Palace  of  Air,  for  the  scene  altogether  changes. 
A  series  of  Grottoes  now  are  shut  in  by  close  Bowers.  Shady 
Grove,  to  the  foot  of  the  Rocks  ichich  encircle  the  place.  Faust 
and  Helena  are  not  seen.  The  Chorus,  scattered  around,  lie 
slee2nng." 

In  Arcadia,  the  business  grows  wilder  than  ever.  Phorcyas, 
who  has  now  become  wonderfully  civil,  and,  notwithstanding 
her  ugliness,  stands  on  the  best  footing  with  the  poor  light- 
headed cicada-swarm  of  a  Chorus,  aAvakes  them  to  hear  and 
see  the  wonders  that  have  happened  so  shortly.  It  appears 
too,  that  there  are  certain  "  Bearded  Ones  "  (we  suspect, 
Devils)  waiting  with  anxiety,  "  sitting  watchful  there  below," 
to  see  the  issue  of  this  extraordinaiy  transaction ;  but  of  these 
Phorcyas  gives  her  silly  women  no  hint  whatever.  She  tells 
them,  in  glib  phrase,  what  great  things  are  in  the  wind.  Faust 
and  Helena  have  been  happier  than  mortals  in  these  grottoes. 
Phorcyas,  who  was  in  waiting,  gradually  glided  aAvay,  seeking 
"  roots,  moss  and  rinds,"  on  household  duty  bent,  and  so  "  they 
two  remained  alone." 


186        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


CHORUS. 

Talk  'st  as  if  within  those  grottoes  lay  whole  tracts  of  country, 
Wood  and  meadow,  rivers,  lakes  :  what  tales  thou  palm'st  on  us ! 

PHORCYAS. 

Sure  enough,  ye  foolish  creatures !     These  are  unexplored  recesses ; 

Hall  runs  out  on  hall,  spaces  there  on  spaces :  these  I  musing  traced. 

But  at  once  re-echoes  from  within  a  peal  of  laughter : 

Peeping  in,  what  is  it  ?     Leaps  a  boy  from  Mother's  breast  to  Father's, 

From  the  Father  to  the  Mother :  such  a  fondling,  such  a  dandling, 

Foolish  Love's  caressing,  teasing;  cry  of  jest,  and  shriek  of  pleasure, 

In  their  turn  do  stun  me  quite. 

Naked,  without  wings  a  Genius,  Faun  in  humor  without  coarseness, 

Springs  he  sportful  on  the  ground  ;  but  the  ground  reverberating. 

Darts  him  up  to  airy  heights ;  and  at  the  third,  the  second  gambol. 

Touches  he  the  vaulted  Roof. 

Frightened  cries  the  Mother :  Bound  away,  away,  and  as  thou  pleasest. 
But,  my  Son,  beware  of  Flying ;  wings  nor  power  of  flight  are  thine. 
And  tlie  Father  thus  advises  :  In  the  Earth  resides  the  virtue 
Which  so  fast  doth  send  thee  upwards;  touch  but  with  thy  toe  the  sur- 
face, 
Like  the  Earth-born,  old  Antseus,  straightway  thou  art  strong  again. 
And  so  skips  he  hither,  thither,  on  these  jagged  rocks ;  from  summit 
Still  to  summit,  all  about,  like  stricken  ball  rebounding,  springs. 

But  at  once  in  cleft  of  some  rude  cavern  sinking  has  he  vanished, 

And  so  seems  it  we  have  lost  him.     Mother  mourning.  Father  cheers 

her; 
Shrug  my  shoulders  I^  and  look  ai)out  me.     But  again,  behold  what 

vision  ! 
Are  there  treasures  lying  here  concealed  ?     There  he  is  again,  and  gar- 
ments 
Glittering,  flowor-bestripcd  has  on. 

Tassfls  waver  from  liis  arms,  about  liis  bosom  flutter  breast-knots. 
In  his  hand  the  golden  Lyre  ;  wholly  like  a  little  Phoebus, 
Steps  he  light  of  heart  upon  the  beetling  clifl"s :  astonished  stand  we, 
And  the  Parents,  in  their  rapture,  fly  into  each  other's  arms. 
For  what  glittering 's  that  about  his  head?     Were  hard  to  aay  what 

glitters. 
Whether  Jewels  and  g<ild,  or  Flame  of  all-subduing  strength  of  soul. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  187 

And  with  such  a  bearing  moves  he,  in  himself  this  boy  announces 
Future  Master  of  all  Beauty,  whom  the  Melodies  Eternal 
Do  inform  through  every  fibre  ;  and  forthwith  so  shall  ye  hear  him, 
And  forthwith  so  shall  ye  see  him,  to  your  uttermost  amazement. 

The  Chorus  suggest,  in  their  simplicity,  that  this  elastic 
little  urchin  may  have  some  relationship  to  the  "  Son  of 
Maia,"  who,  in  old  times,  whisked  himself  so  nimbly  out  of 
his  swaddling-clothes,  and  stole  the  "  Sea-ruler's  trident "  and 
"  Hephsestos'  tongs,"  and  various  other  articles,  before  he  was 
well  span-long.  But  Phorcyas  declares  all  this  to  be  super- 
annuated fable,  unfit  for  modern  uses.  And  now  "  a  beautiful 
purely  melodious  mu^ic  of  stringed  instruments  resounds  from 
the  Cave.  All  listen,  and  soon  appear  deeply  moved.  It  con- 
finues  playing  in  full  tone ; "  while  Euphorion,  in  person, 
makes  his  appearance,  "in  the  costume  above  described;"  larger 
of  stature,  but  no  less  frolicsome  and  tuneful. 

Our  readers  are  aware  that  this  Euphorion,  the  offspring  of 
Northern  Character  wedded  to  Grecian  Culture,  frisks  it  here 
not  without  reference  to  Modern  Poesy,  which  had  a  birth  so 
precisely  similar.  Sorry  are  we  that  we  cannot  follow  him 
through  these  fine  warblings  and  trippings  on  the  light  fan- 
tastic toe  :  to  our  ears  there  is  a  quick,  pure,  small-toned 
music  in  them,  as  perhaps  of  elfin  bells  when  the  Queen  of 
Faery  rides  by  moonlight.  It  is,  in  truth,  a  graceful  emble- 
matic dance,  this  little  life  of  Euphorion ;  full  of  meanings 
and  half-meanings.  The  history  of  Poetry,  traits  of  individual 
Poets ;  the  Troubadours,  the  Three  Italians  ;  glimpses  of  all 
things,  full  vision  of  nothing !  —  Euphorion  grows  rapidly, 
and  passes  from  one  pursuit  to  another.  Quitting  his  boyish 
gambols,  he  takes  to  dancing  and  romping  with  the  Chorus ; 
and  this  in  a  style  of  tumult  which  rather  dissatisfies  FauFt. 
The  wildest  and  coyest  of  these  damsels  he  seizes  with  avowed 
intent  of  snatching  a  kiss  ;  but,  alas,  she  resists,  and,  still 
more  singular,  "fashes  tip  in  fame  into  the  air;"  inviting 
him,  perhaps  in  mockery,  to  follow  her,  and  "catch  his  van- 
ished purpose."  Euphorion  shakes  off  the  remnants  of  the 
flame,  and  now,  in  a  wilder  humor,  mounts  on  the  crags,  begins 
to  talk  of  courage  and  battle  ;  higher  and  higher  he  rises,  till 


188        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

the  Chorus  see  him  on  the  topmost  cliff,  shining  "  in  harness 
as  for  victory  : "  and  yet,  though  at  such  a  distance,  they  still 
hear  his  tones,  neither  is  his  figure  diminished  in  their  eyes  ; 
which  indeed,  as  they  observe,  always  is,  and  should  be,  the 
case  with  "  sacred  Poesy,"  though  it  mounts  heavenward,  far- 
ther and  farther,  till  it  "  glitter  like  the  fairest  star."  But 
Euphorion's  life-dance  is  near  ending.  From  his  high  peak, 
he  catches  the  sound  of  war,  and  fires  at  it,  and  longs  to  mix 
in  it,  let  Chorus  and  Mother  and  Father  say  what  they  wilL 

EUPIIORION. 

And  hear  ye  thunders  on  the  ocean, 

And  thunders  roll  from  tower  and  wall  j 

And  host  with  host,  in  fierce  commotion, 

See  mixing  at  the  trumpet's  call. 

And  to  die  in  strife 

Is  the  law  of  life, 

That  is  certain  once  for  all. 

HELENA,  FAUST,  and  CHORUS. 

What  a  horror !  spoken  madly ! 
Wilt  thou  die  ?     Then  what  must  1 1 

EUPHORION. 

Shall  I  view  it,  safe  and  gladly  f 
No  !  to  share  it  will  I  hie. 

HELENA,  FAUST,  and  CHORUS. 

Fatal  are  such  haughty  things; 
War  is  for  the  stout. 

EUPHORION. 

Ha  !  —  and  a  pair  of  wings 
Folds  itself  out ! 
Thither  !  I  must !  I  must  I 
'T  is  my  hest  to  fly! 
[He  casts  himself  into  the  air  ;  his  Garments  support  him 
for  a  moment  J  his  head  radiates,  a  Train  of  Light  fol- 
lows him. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  189 


CHORUS. 

Icarus !  earth  and  dust ! 

Oh,  woe !  thou  mount'st  too  high. 
[A  beautiful  Youth  rushes  down  at  the  feet  of  the  Parents  ; 
you  fancy  you  recognize  in  the  dead  a  well-known  form  ;  ^ 
but  the  bodily  part  instantly  disappears  :  the  gold  Crown- 
let  mounts  like  a  comet  to  the  sky  ;  Coat,  Mantle  and  Lyre 
are  left  lying. 

HELENA  and  FAUST. 

Joy  soon  changes  to  woe, 
And  mirth  to  heaviest  moan. 

euphoeion's  voice  (from  beneath). 

Let  me  not  to  realms  below 
Descend,  0  mother,  alone ! 

The  prayer  is  soon  granted.     The  Chorus  chant  a  dirge  over 
the  remains,  and  then  :  — 

HELENA  (to  FAUST). 

A  sad  old  saying  proves  itself  again  in  me, 
Good  hap  with  beauty  hath  no  long  abode. 
So  with  Love's  band  is  Life's  asunder  rent : 
Lamenting  both,  I  clasp  thee  in  my  arms 
Once  more,  and  bid  thee  painfully  farewell. 
Persephoneia,  take  my  boy,  and  with  him  me. 
[She  embraces  Faust ;  her  Body  melts  away  ;  Garment  and 
Veil  remain  in  his  arms. 

'  Tt  is  perhaps  in  reference  to  this  phrase  that  certain  sagacious  critics 
among  the  Germans  have  hit  upon  the  wonderful  discovery  of  Eupliorion 
being  —  Lord  Byron  !  A  fact,  if  it  is  one,  which  curiously  verifies  the  author's 
prediction  in  this  passage.  But  un]iap])ily,  wliile  we  fancy  we  recognize  in 
the  dead  a  well-known  form,  "  the  bodily  part  instantly  disappears ;  "  and  the 
keenest  critic  finds  that  he  can  see  no  deeper  into  a  millstone  than  another 
man.  Some  allusion  to  our  English  Poet  there  is,  or  may  be,  here  and  in  the 
page  that  precedes  and  the  page  that  follows  ;  but  Eupliorion  is  no  image  of 
any  person ;  least  of  all,  one  would  think,  of  George  Lord  Byron. 


190        CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

PHORCYAS  (to  FAUST). 

Hold  fast  what  now  alone  remains  to  thee. 

That  Garment  quit  not.     They  are  tugging  there, 

These  Demons  at  the  skirt  of  it ;  would  fain 

To  the  Nether  Kingdoms  take  it  down.     Hold  fiaat  I 

The  goddess  it  is  not,  whom  thou  hast  lost, 

Yet  godlike  is  it.     See  thou  use  aright 

The  priceless  high  bequest,  and  soar  aloft ; 

'T  wiU  lift  thee  away  above  the  common  world, 

Far  up  to  Ether,  so  thou  canst  endure. 

We  meet  again,  far,  very  far  from  hence. 

[Helena's  Garments  unfold  into  Clouds,  encircle  Faust,  raise 
him  aloft,  and  float  away  with  him.  Phorcyas  picks  up 
Euphoriants  Coat,  Mantle,  aud  Lyre  from  the  ground, 
comes  forward  into  the  Proscenium,  holds  these  Bewains 
aloft,  and  says  :  — 

Well,  fairly  found  be  happily  won ! 

'T  is  true,  the  Flame  is  lost  and  gone : 

But  well  for  us  we  have  still  this  stuff! 

A  gala-dress  to  dub  our  poets  of  merit, 

And  make  guild-brethren  snarl  and  cuff; 

And  can't  they  borrow  the  Body  and  Spirit  T 

At  least,  I  '11  lend  them  Clothes  enough. 

[Sits  down  in  the  Proscenium  at  the  foot  of  a  pillar. 

The  rest  of  the  personages  are  now  speedily  disposed  of. 
Panthalis,  the  Leader  of  the  Chorus,  and  the  only  one  of  them 
who  has  shown  any  glimmerings  of  Reason,  or  of  aught  beyond 
mere  sensitive  life,  mere  love  of  Pleasure  and  fear  of  Pain, 
proposes  that,  being  now  delivered  from  the  soul-confusing 
spell  of  the  "Thessalian  Hag,"  they  should  forthwith  return 
to  Hades,  to  bear  Helena  company.  But  none  will  volunteer 
with  her;  so  she  goes  herself.  The  Chorus  have  lost  their 
taste  for  Asphodel  Meadows,  and  playing  so  subordinate  a 
part  in  Orcus :  they  prefer  abiding  in  the  Light  of  Day,  though, 
indeed,  under  rather  peculiar  circumstances  ;  being  no  longer 
"  Persons,"  they  say,  but  a  kind  of  Occult  Qualities,  as  we 
conjecture,  and  Poetic  Inspirations,  residing  in  various  natu- 
ral objects.     Thus,  one  division  become  a  sort  of  invisible 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  191 

Hamadryads,  and  have  their  being  in  Trees,  and  their  joy  in 
the  various  movements,  beauties  and  products  of  Trees.  A 
second  change  into  Echoes  ;  a  third,  into  the  Spirits  of  Brooks ; 
and  a  fourth  take  up  their  abode  in  Vineyards,  and  delight  in 
the  manufacture  of  Wine.  No  sooner  have  these  several 
parties  made  up  their  minds,  than  the  Curtain  falls ;  and 
Phorcyas  "  in  the  Froscenium  rises  in  gigantic  size  ;  but  steps 
down  from  her  cothurni,  lays  her  Mask  and  Veil  aside,  and 
shows  herself  as  Mephistopheles,  in  order,  so  far  as  may  be  ne- 
cessary, to  comment  on  the  piece,  by  way  of  Epilogice." 

Such  is  Helena,  the  interlude  in  Fatist.  We  have  all  the 
desire  in  the  world  to  hear  Mephisto's  Epilogue ;  but  far  be 
it  from  us  to  take  the  word  out  of  so  gifted  a  mouth !  In  the 
way  of  commentary  on  Helena,  we  ourselves  have  little  more 
to  add.  The  reader  sees,  in  general,  that  Faust  is  to  save 
himself  from  the  straits  and  fetters  of  Worldly  Life  in  the 
loftier  regions  of  Art,  or  in  that  temper  of  mind  by  which 
alone  those  regions  can  be  reached,  and  permanently  dwelt  in. 
Farther  also,  that  this  doctrine  is  to  be  stated  emblematically 
and  parabolically ;  so  that  it  might  seem  as  if,  in  Goethe's 
hands,  the  history  of  Faust,  commencing  among  the  realities 
of  every-day  existence,  superadding  to  these  certain  spiritual 
agencies,  and  passing  into  a  more  aerial  character  as  it  pro- 
ceeds, may  fade  away,  at  its  termination,  into  a  phantasma- 
goric region,  where  symbol  and  thing  signified  are  no  longer 
clearly  distinguished ;  and  thus  the  final  result  be  curiously 
and  significantly  indicated,  rather  than  directly  exhibited. 
With  regard  to  the  special  purport  of  Euphorion,  Lynceus 
and  the  rest,  we  have  nothing  more  to  say  at  present ;  nay 
perhaps  we  may  have  already  said  too  much.  For  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  by  the  commentator,  and  will  not,  of  a  surety, 
be  forgotten  by  Mephistopheles,  whenever  he  may  please  to 
deliver  his  Epilogue,  that  Helena  is  not  an  Allegory,  but  a 
Phantasmagory  ;  not  a  type  of  one  thing,  but  a  vague  fluctuat- 
ing fitful  adumbration  of  many.  This  is  no  Picture  painted 
on  canvas,  with  mere  material  colors,  and  steadfastly  abiding 
our  scrutiny ;  but  rather  it  is  like  the  Smoke  of  a  Wizard's 


192        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Caldron,  in  which,  as  we  gaze  on  its  flickering  tints  and  wild 
splendors,  thousands  of  strangest  shapes  unfold  themselves, 
yet  no  one  will  abide  with  us ;  and  thus,  as  Goethe  says  else- 
where, "  we  are  reminded  of  Nothing  and  of  All." 

Properly  speaking,  Helena  is  what  the  Germans  call  a 
Mahrchen  (Fabulous  Tale),  a  species  of  fiction  they  have 
particularly  excelled  in,  and  of  which  Goethe  has  already 
produced  more  than  one  distinguished  specimen.  Some  day 
we  propose  to  translate,  for  our  readers,  that  little  piece  of 
his,  deserving  to  be  named,  as  it  is,  "The  Mdhrchen,"'  and 
which  we  must  agree  with  a  great  critic  in  reckoning  the 
"  Tale  of  all  Tales."  As  to  the  composition  of  this  Helena, 
-we  cannot  but  perceive  it  to  be  deeply  studied,  appropriate 
and  successful.  It  is  wonderful  with  what  fidelity  the  Clas- 
sical style  is  maintained  throughout  the  earlier  part  of  the 
Poem ;  how  skilfully  it  is  at  once  united  to  the  Romantic 
style  of  the  latter  part,  and  made  to  reappear,  at  intervals,  to 
the  end.  And  then  the  small  half-secret  touches  of  sarcasm, 
the  curious  little  traits  by  which  we  get  a  peep  behind  the 
curtain  !  Figure,  for  instance,  that  so  transient  allusion  to 
these  "  Bearded  Ones  sitting  watchful  there  below,"  and  then 
their  tugging  at  Helena's  Mantle  to  pull  it  down  with  them. 
By  such  slight  hints  does  Mephistopheles  point  out  our  Where- 
about ;  and  ever  and  anon  remind  us,  that  not  on  the  firm 
earth,  but  on  the  wide  and  airy  Deep  has  he  spread  his  strange 
pavilion,  where,  in  magic  light,  so  many  wonders  are  displayed 
to  us. 

Had  we  chanced  to  find  that  Goethe,  in  other  instances, 
had  ever  written  one  line  without  meaning,  or  many  lines 
without  a  deep  and  true  meaning,  we  should  not  have  thought 
this  little  cloud-picture  worthy  of  such  minute  development, 
or  such  careful  study.  In  tliat  case,  too,  we  sliould  never 
have  seen  the  true  Helena  of  Goethe,  but  some  false  one  of 
our  own  too  indolent  imagination  ;  for  this  Drama,  as  it  grows 
clearer,  grows  also  more  beautiful  and  complete  ;  and  the  third, 
tlie  fourth  perusal  of  it  pleases  far  better  than  the  first.  Few 
living  artists  would  deserve  such  faith  from  us ;  but  few  also 
would  so  well  reward  it. 


GOETHE'S  HELENA.  193 

On  the  general  relation  of  Helena  to  Faust,  and  the  degree 
of  fitness  of  the  one  for  the  other,  it  were  premature  to  speak 
more  expressly  at  present.  We  have  learned,  on  authority 
which  we  may  justly  reckon  the  best,  that  Goethe  is  even  now 
engaged  in  preparing  the  Second  Part  of  Faust,  into  which 
this  Helena  passes  as  a  component  part.  With  the  third 
Lieferung  of  his  Works,  we  understand,  the  beginning  of  that 
Second  Part  is  to  be  published  :  we  shall  then,  if  need  be,  feel 
more  qualified  to  speak. 

For  the  present,  therefore,  we  take  leave  of  Helena  and 
Faust,  and  of  their  Author:  but  with  regard  to  the  latter,  our 
task  is  nowise  ended;  indeed,  as  yet,  hardly  begun;  for  it  is 
not  in  the  province  of  the  Mdhrchen  that  G-oethe  will  ever 
become  most  interesting  to  English  readers.  But,  like  his 
own  Euphorion,  tliough  he  rises  aloft  into  Ether,  he  derives, 
Antaeus-like,  his  strength  from  the  Earth.  The  dullest  plodder 
has  not  a  more  practical  understanding,  or  a  sounder  or  more 
quiet  character,  than  this  most  aerial  and  imaginative  of  poets. 
We  hold  Goethe  to  be  the  Foreigner,  at  this  era,  who,  of  all 
others,  the  best,  and  the  best  by  many  degrees,  deserves  our 
study  and  appreciation.  What  help  we  individually  can  give 
in  such  a  matter,  we  shall  consider  it  a  duty  and  a  pleasure  to 
have  in  readiness.  We  purpose  to  return,  in  our  next  Number, 
to  the  consideration  of  his  Works  and  Character  in  general. 


vol,.    XIII.  13 


GOETHE.^ 

[1828.] 

It  is  not  on  this  "Second  Portion"  of  Goethe's  Works, 
■which  at  any  rate  contains  nothing  new  to  us,  that  we  mean 
at  present  to  dwelL  In  our  last  Number,  we  engaged  to  make 
some  survey  of  his  writings  and  character  in  general;  and 
must  now  endeavor,  with  such  insight  as  we  have,  to  fulfil 
that  promise. 

We  have  already  said  that  we  reckoned  this  no  unimportant 
subject ;  and  few  of  Goethe's  readers  can  need  to  be  reminded 
that  it  is  no  easy  one.  We  hope  also  that  our  pretensions  in 
regard  to  it  are  not  exorbitant;  the  sum  of  our  aims  being 
nowise  to  solve  so  deep  and  pregnant  an  inquiry,  but  only  to 
show  that  an  inquiry  of  such  a  sort  lies  ready  for  solution ; 
courts  the  attention  of  thinking  men  among  us,  nay  merits 
a  thorough  investigation,  and  must  sooner  or  later  obtain  it. 
Goethe's  literary  history  appears  to  us  a  matter,  beyond  most 
others,  of  rich,  subtle  and  manifold  significance ;  which  will 
require  and  reward  the  best  study  of  the  best  heads,  and  to 
the  right  exposition  of  which  not  one  but  many  judgments 
will  be  neccssai'y. 

However,  we  need  not  linger,  preluding  on  our  own  in- 
ability, and  magnifying  the  difiiculties  we  have  so  coura- 
geously volunteered  to  front.  Considering  the  highly  complex 
aspect  which  such  a  mind  of  itself  presents  to  us  ;  and,  still 
more,  taking  into  account   the   state   of  English  opinion  in 

1  FoREiGK  TJeview,  No.  3.  —  Goelhfis  Summtlirhe  Werhc.  VolhtHndi(ie 
Ansgabe  letzler  Ilnnd.  (Goethe's  Collective  Works.  Com])lete  Edition,  with 
liis  final  Correctious.)  —  Second  Portion,  vol.  vi.-x.  Cotta;  Stuttgard  and 
Tiibingou,  1827. 


GOETHE.  195 

respect  of  it,  there  certainly  seem  few  literary  questions  of 
our  time  so  perplexed,  dubious,  perhaps  hazardous,  as  this 
of  the  character  of  Goethe;  but  few  also  on  which  a  well- 
founded,  or  even  a  sincere  word  would  be  more  likely  to 
profit.  For  our  countrymen,  at  no  time  indisposed  to  foreign 
excellence,  but  at, all  times  cautious  of  foreign  singularity, 
have  heard  much  of  Goethe  ;  but  heard,  for  the  most  part, 
what  excited  and  perplexed  rather  than  instructed  them. 
Vague  rumors  of  the  man  have,  for  more  than  half  a  century, 
been  humming  through  our  ears :  from  time  to  time,  we  have 
even  seen  some  distorted,  mutilated  transcript  of  his  own 
thoughts,  which,  all  obscure  and  hieroglyphical  as  it  might 
often  seem,  failed  not  to  emit  here  and  there  a  ray  of  keenest 
and  purest  sense ;  travellers  also  are  still  running  to  and  fro, 
importing  the  opinions  or,  at  worst,  the  gossip  of  foreign 
countries :  so  that,  by  one  means  or  another,  many  of  us  have 
come  to  understand,  that  considerably  the  most  distinguished 
poet  and  thinker  of  his  age  is  called  Ooethe,  and  lives  at 
M'eimar,  and  must,  to  all  appearance,  be  an  extremely  sur- 
prising character :  but  here,  unhappily,  our  knowledge  almost 
terminates ;  and  still  must  Curiosity,  must  ingenuous  love  of 
Information  and  mere  passive  "Wonder  alike  inquire :  What 
manner  of  man  is  this  ?  How  shall  we  interpret,  how  shall 
we  even  see  him  ?  \"\'liat  is  his  spiritual  structure,  what  at 
least  are  the  outward  form  and  features  of  his  mind  ?  Has 
he  any  real  poetic  worth ;  how  much  to  his  own  people,  how 
much  to  us  ? 

Reviewers,  of  great  and  of  small  character,  have  manfully 
endeavored  to  satisfy  the  British  world  on  these  points :  but 
which  of  us  could  believe  their  report  ?  Did  it  not  rather 
become  apparent,  as  we  reflected  on  the  matter,  that  this 
Goethe  of  theirs  was  not  the  real  man,  nay  could  not  be  any 
real  man  whatever  ?  For  what,  after  all,  were  their  portraits 
of  him  but  copies,  with  some  retouchings  and  ornamental 
appendages,  of  our  grand  English  original  Picture  of  the 
German  generally  ?  —  In  itself  such  a  piece  of  art,  as  national 
portraits,  under  like  circumstances,  are  wont  to  be ;  and  re- 
sembling Goethe,  as  some  unusually  expressive  Sign  of  the 


196       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Saracen's  Head  may  resemble  the  present  Sultan  of  Constan- 
tinople ! 

Did  we  imagine  that  much  information,  or  any  very  deep 
sagacity  were  required  for  avoiding  such  mistakes,  it  would  ill 
become  us  to  step  forward  on  this  occasion.  But  surely  it  is 
given  to  every  man,  if  he  will  but  take  heed,  to  know  so  much 
as  whether  or  not  he  knows.  And  nothing  can  be  plainer  to 
us  than  that  if,  in  the  present  business,  we  can  report  aught 
from  our  own  personal  vision  and  clear  hearty  belief,  it  will 
be  a  useful  novelty  in  the  discussion  of  it.  Let  the  reader  be 
patient  with  us,  then ;  and  according  as  he  finds  that  we  speak 
honestly  and  earnestly,  or  loosely  and  dishonestly,  consider  our 
statement,  or  dismiss  it  as  unworthy  of  consideration. 

Viewed  in  his  merely  external  relations,  Goethe  exhibits  an 
appearance  such  as  seldom  occurs  in  the  history  of  letters,  and 
indeed,  from  tlie  nature  of  the  case,  can  seldom  occur.  A  man 
who,  in  early  life,  rising  almost  at  a  single  bound  into  the 
highest  rejmtation  over  all  Europe ;  b}""  gradual  advances,  fix- 
ing himself  more  and  more  firmly  in  the  reverence  of  his  coun- 
trymen, ascends  silently  through  many  vicissitudes  to  the 
supreme  intellectual  place  among  them ;  and  now,  after  half 
a  century,  distinguished  by  convulsions,  political,  moral  and 
poetical,  still  reigns,  full  of  years  and  honors,  with  a  soft  un- 
disputed sway ;  still  laboring  in  his  vocation,  still  forwarding, 
as  with  kingly  benignity,  whatever  can  profit  the  culture  of 
his  nation :  such  a  man  might  justly  attract  our  notice,  were 
it  only  by  the  singularity  of  his  fortune.  Supremacies  of  this 
sort  are  rare  in  modern  times  ;  so  universal,  and  of  such  con- 
tinuance, they  are  almost  unexampled.  For  the  age  of  the 
Prophets  and  Theologic  Doctors  has  long  since  passed  away; 
and  now  it  is  by  much  slighter,  by  transient  and  mere  earthly 
ties,  that  bodies  of  men  connect  themselves  with  a  man.  The 
wisest,  most  nielodious  voice  cannot  in  these  days  pass  for  a 
divine  one;  the  word  Inspiration  still  lingers,  but  only  in  the 
shape  of  a  poetic  figure,  from  which  the  once  earnest,  awful  and 
soul-subduing  sense  has  vanished  without  return.  The  polity 
of  LitcBiiture  is  called  a  Ivcpublic  ;   ofteuer  it  is  an  Anarchy, 


GOETHE.  197 

where,  by  strengtli  or  fortune,  favorite  after  favorite  rises  into 
splendor  and  authority,  but  like  Masaniello,  while  judging  the 
people,  is  on  the  ninth  day  deposed  and  shot.  Nay,  few  such 
adventurers  can  attain  even  this  painful  pre-eminence  :  for  at 
most,  it  is  clear,  any  given  age  can  have  but  one  first  man ; 
many  ages  have  only  a  crowd  of  secondary  men,  each  of  whom 
is  first  in  his  own  eyes  :  and  seldom,  at  best,  can  the  "  Single 
Person  "  long  keep  his  station  at  the  head  of  this  wild  com- 
monwealth ;  most  sovereigns  are  never  universally  acknowl- 
edged, least  of  all  in  their  lifetime ;  few  of  the  acknowledged 
can  reign  peaceably  to  the  end.  • 

Of  such  a  perpetual  dictatorship  Voltaire  among  the  French 
gives  the  last  European  instance  ;  but  even  with  him  it  was  per- 
haps a  much  less  striking  affair.  Voltaire  reigned  over  a  sect, 
less  as  their  lawgiver  than  as  their  general ;  for  he  was  at 
bitter  enmity  with  the  great  numerical  majority  of  his  nation, 
by  whom  his  services,  far  from  being  acknowledged  as  bene- 
fits, were  execrated  as  abominations.  But  Goethe's  object  has, 
at  all  times,  been  rather  to  unite  than  to  divide  ;  and  though 
he  has  not  scrupled,  as  occasion  served,  to  speak  forth  his  con- 
victions distinctly  enougli  on  many  delicate  topics,  and  seems, 
in  general,  to  have  paid  little  court  to  the  prejudices  or  private 
feelings  of  any  man  or  body  of  men,  we  see  not  at  present  that 
his  merits  are  anywhere  disputed,  his  intellectual  endeavors 
controverted,  or  his  person  regarded  otherwise  than  with  affec- 
tion and  respect.  In  later  years,  too,  the  advanced  age  of  the 
poet  has  invested  him  with  another  sort  of  dignity;  and  the 
admiration  to  which  his  great  qualities  give  him  claim  is  tem- 
pered into  a  milder,  grateful  feeling,  almost  as  of  sons  and 
grandsons  to  their  common  father.  Dissentients,  no  doubt, 
there  are  and  must  be ;  but,  apparently,  their  cause  is  not 
pleaded  in  words  :  no  man  of  the  smallest  note  speaks  on  that 
side  ;  or  at  most,  such  men  may  question,  not  the  worth  of 
Goethe,  but  the  cant  and  idle  affectation  with  which,  in  many 
quarters,  this  must  be  promulgated  and  bepraised.  Certainly 
there  is  not,  probably  there  never  was.  in  any  European  coun- 
try, a  writer  who,  with  so  cunning  a  style,  and  so  deep,  so  ab- 
struse a  sense,  ever  found  so  many  readers.     For,  from  the 


198        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

peasant  to  the  king,  from  the  callow  dilettante  and  innamo- 
rato,  to  the  grave  transcendental  philosopher,  men  of  all  degrees 
and  dispositions  are  familiar  with  the  writings  of  Goethe : 
each  studies  them  with  affection,  with  a  faith  which,  "  where 
it  cannot  unriddle,  learns  to  trust ; "  each  takes  with  him  what 
he  is  adequate  to  carry,  and  departs  thankful  for  his  own 
allotment.  Two  of  Goethe's  intensest  admirers  are  Schelling 
of  Munich,  and  a  worthy  friend  of  ours  in  Berlin ;  one  of 
these  among  the  deepest  men  in  Eui-ope,  the  other  among  the 
shallowest. 

All  this  is,  no  doubt,  singular  enough ;  and  a  proper  under^ 
standing  of  it  would  throw  light  on  many  things.  Whatever 
we  may  think  of  Goethe's  ascendency,  the  existence  of  it 
remains  a  highly  curious  fact ;  and  to  trace  its  history,  to  dis- 
cover by  what  steps  such  influence  has  been  attained,  and  how 
so  long  preserved,  were  no  trivial  or  unprofitable  inquiry.  It 
would  be  worth  while  to  see  so  strange  a  man  for  his  own  sake ; 
and  here  we  should  see,  not  only  the  man  himself,  and  his  own 
progress  and  spiritual  development,  but  the  progress  also  of 
his  nation :  and  this  at  no  sluggish  or  even  quiet  era,  but  in 
times  marked  by  strange  revolutions  of  opinions,  by  angry 
controversies,  high  enthusiasm,  novelty  of  enterprise,  and 
doubtless,  in  many  respects,  by  rapid  advancement :  for  that 
the  Germans  have  been,  and  still  are,  restlessly  struggling  for- 
ward, with  honest  unwearied  effort,  sometimes  with  enviable 
success,  no  one,  who  knows  them,  will  deny ;  and  as  little, 
that  in  every  province  of  Literature,  of  Art  and  humane  ac- 
complishment, the  influence,  often  the  direct  guidance  of  Goethe 
may  be  recognized.  The  history  of  his  mind  is,  in  fact,  at  the 
same  time,  the  history  of  German  culture  in  his  day  :  for 
whatever  excellence  this  individual  might  realize  has  sooner 
or  later  been  acknowledged  and  appropriated  by  his  country  ; 
and  the  title  of  Mtisagetes,  which  his  admirers  give  him,  is 
perhaps,  in  sober  strictness,  not  unmerited.  Be  it  for  good  or 
for  evil,  there  is  certainly  no  German,  since  the  days  of  Luther, 
whose  life  can  occupy  so  large  a  space  in  the  intellectual  his- 
tory of  that  people. 

In  this  point  of  view,  were  it  in  no  other,  Goethe's  Dichtung 


GOETHE.  199 

und  Wahrheit,  so  soon  as  it  is  completed,  may  deserve  to  be 
reckoned  one  of  his  most  interesting  works.  We  speak  not 
of  its  literary  merits,  though  in  that  respect,  too,  we  must  say 
that  few  Autobiographies  have  come  in  our  way,  where  so 
difficult  a  matter  was  so  successfully  handled ;  where  perfect 
knowledge  could  be  found  united  so  kindly  with  perfect  toler- 
ance ;  and  a  personal  narrative,  moving  along  in  soft  clearness, 
showed  us  a  man,  and  the  objects  that  environed  him,  under 
an  aspect  so  verisimilar,  yet  so  lovely,  with  an  air  dignified 
and  earnest,  j'et  graceful,  cheerful,  even  gay :  a  story  as  of  a 
Patriarch  to  his  children  ;  such,  indeed,  as  few  men  can  be  called 
upon  to  relate,  and  few,  if  called  upon,  could  relate  so  well. 
"What  would  we  give  for  such  an  Autobiography  of  Shakspeare, 
of  Milton,  even  of  Pope  or  Swift  I 

The  Dlchtung  unci  Wahrheit  has  been  censured  consider- 
ably in  England ;  but  not,  we  are  inclined  to  believe,  with  any 
insight  into  its  proper  meaning.  The  misfortune  of  the  work 
among  us  was,  that  we  did  not  know  the  narrator  before  his 
narrative ;  and  could  not  judge  what  sort  of  narrative  he  was 
bound  to  give,  in  these  circumstances,  or  Avhether  he  was  bound 
to  give  any  at  all.  We  saw  nothing  of  his  situation  ;  heard 
only  the  sound  of  his  voice  ;  and  hearing  it,  never  doubted  but 
he  must  be  perorating  in  official  garments  from  the  rostrum, 
instead  of  speaking  trustfully  by  the  fireside.  For  the  chief 
ground  of  offence  seemed  to  be,  that  the  story  was  not  noble 
enough ;  that  it  entered  on  details  of  too  poor  and  private  a 
nature ;  verged  here  and  there  towards  garrulity ;  was  not,  in 
one  Avord,  written  in  the  style  of  what  we  call  a  gentleman. 
Whether  it  might  be  written  in  the  style  of  a  man,  and  how 
far  these  two  styles  might  be  compatible,  and  what  might  be 
their  relative  worth  and  preferableness,  was  a  deeper  question  ; 
to  which  apparently  no  heed  had  been  given.  Yet  herein  lay 
the  very  cream  of  the  matter ;  for  Goethe  was  not  writing  to 
''persons  of  quality"  in  England,  but  to  persons  of  heart  and 
head  in  Europe  :  a  somewhat  different  problem  perhaps,  and 
requiring  a  somewhat  different  solution.  As  to  this  ignoble- 
ness  and  freedom  of  detail,  especially,  we  may  say,  that,  to  a 
German,  few  accusations  could   appear  more  surprising  than 


200         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

this,  which,  with  us,  constitutes  the  head  and  front  of  his 
offending.  Goethe,  in  his  own  country,  far  from  being  ac- 
cused of  undue  familiarity  towards  his  readers,  had,  up  to 
that  date,  been  laboring  under  precisely  the  opposite  charge. 
It  was  his  stateliness,  his  reserve,  his  indifference,  his  con- 
tempt for  the  public,  that  were  censured.  Strange,  almost 
inexplicable,  as  many  of  his  works  might  appear;  loud,  sor- 
rowful, and  altogether  stolid  as  might  be  the  criticisms  they 
underwent,  no  word  of  explanation  could  be  wrung  from  him; 
he  had  never  even  deigned  to  write  a  preface.  And  in  later 
and  juster  days,  when  the  study  of  Poetry  came  to  be  prose- 
cuted in  another  spirit,  and  it  was  found  that  Goethe  Avas 
standing,  not  like  a  culprit  to  plead  for  himself  before  the 
liter^xT J  plebeians,  but  like  a  high  teacher  and  preacher,  speak- 
ing for  truth,  to  whom  both  plebeians  and  patricians  were 
bound  to  give  all  ear,  the  outward  difficulty  of  interpreting 
his  works  began  indeed  to  vanish ;  but  enough  still  remained, 
nay  increased  curiosity  had  given  rise  to  new  dfficulties  and 
deeper  inquiries.  Not  only  what  were  these  works,  but  how 
did  they  originate,  became  questions  for  the  critic.  Yet 
several  of  Goethe's  chief  productions,  and  of  his  smaller 
poems  nearly  the  whole,  seemed  so  intimately  interwoven  with 
his  private  history,  that,  without  some  knowledge  of  this,  no 
answer  to  such  questions  could  be  given.  Nay  commentaries 
have  been  written  on  sin;-jle  pieces  of  his,  endeavoring,  by  way 
of  guess,  to  supply  this  deficiency.^  We  can  thus  judge 
whether,  to  the  Germans,  such  minuteness  of  exposition  in 
Dichtung  imd  Wahrheit  may  have  seemed  a  sin.  Few  readers 
of  Goethe,  we  believe,  but  would  wish  rather  to  see  it  extended 
than  curtailed. 

It  is  our  duty  also  to  remark,  if  any  one  be  still  i;naware  of 
it,  that  the  Memoirs  of  Goethe,  published  some  years  ago  in 
London,  can  have  no  real  concern  with  this  Autobiography, 
The  rage  of  hunger  is  an  excnise  for  much  ;  otherwise  that 
German  Translator,  whom  indignant  Eeviewers  have  proved 
to  know  no  German,  were  a  highly  reprehensible  man.     His 

*  See,  in  particular,  Dr.  Kanncgiesser  Uher  Goethes  Uarzsreise  iin  Winter 
1820. 


GOETHE.  201 

work,  it  appears,  is  done  from  the  French,  and  shows  sub- 
tractions, and  what  is  worse,  additions.  But  the  unhappy 
Dragoman  has  already  been  chastised,  perhaps  too  sharply. 
If,  warring  with  the  reefs  and  breakers  and  cross  eddies  of 
Life,  he  still  hover  on  this  side  the  shadow  of  Night,  and  any 
word  of  ours  might  reach  him,  we  would  rather  say  :  Courage, 
Brother !  grow  honest,  and  times  will  mend ! 

It  woiild  appear,  then,  that  for  inquiries  into  Foreign  Litera- 
ture, for  all  men  anxious  to  see  and  understand  the  European 
world  as  it  lies  around  them,  a  great  problem  is  presented  in 
this  Goethe ;  a  singular,  highly  significant  phenomenon,  and 
now  also  means  more  or  less  complete  for  ascertaining  its 
significance.  A  man  of  wonderful,  nay  unexampled  reputa- 
tion and  intellectual  influence  among  forty  millions  of  reflec- 
tive, serious  and  cultivated  men,  invites  us  to  study  him  ;  and 
to  determine  for  ourselves,  whether  and  how  far  such  influence 
has  been  salutary,  such  reputation  merited.  That  this  call 
will  one  day  be  answered,  that  Goethe  will  be  seen  and  judged 
of  in  his  real  character  among  us,  appears  certain  enough.  His 
name,  long  familiar  everywhere,  has  now  awakened  the  atten- 
tion of  critics  in  all  European  countries  to  his  works  :  he  is 
studied  wherever  true  study  exists  :  eagerly  studied  even  in 
France ;  nay,  some  considerable  knowledge  of  his  nature  and 
spiritual  importance  seems  already  to  prevail  there. ^ 

For  ourselves,  meanwhile,  in  giving  all  due  weight  to  so 
curious  an  exhibition  of  opinion,  it  is  doubtless  our  part,  at 
the  same  time,  to  beware  that  we  do  not  give  it  too  much. 
This  universal  sentiment  of  admiration  is  wonderful,  is  in- 
teresting enough ;  but  it  must  not  lead  us  astray.  We  Eng- 
lish stand  as  yet  without  the  sphere  of  it ;  neither  will  we 
plunge  blindly  in,  but  enter  considerately,  or,  if  we  see  good, 
keep  aloof  from  it  altogether.  Fame,  we  may  understand, 
is  no  sure  test  of  merit,  but  only  a  probability  of  such  :  it  is 
an  accident,  not  a  property,  of  a  man ;  like  light,  it  can  give 
little  or  nothing,  but  at  most  may  show  what  is  given ;  often 

^  Witness  Le  Tasse,  Drame  par  Duval,  and  the  Criticisms  on  it.  See  also 
the  Essays  in  the  Globe,  Xos.  55,  64  (1826). 


202         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

it  is  but  a  false  glare,  dazzling  the  eyes  of  the  vulgar,  lend- 
ing by  casual  extrinsic  splendor  the  brightness  and  manifold 
glance  of  the  diamond  to  pebbles  of  no  value.  A  man  is  in 
all  cases  simply  the  man,  of  the  same  intrinsic  worth  and 
weakness,  whether  his  worth  and  weakness  lie  hidden  in  the 
depths  of  his  own  consciousness,  or  be  betrumpeted  and  be- 
shouted  from  end  to  end  of  the  habitable  globe.  These  are 
plain  truths,  which  no  one  should  lose  sight  of;  though, 
whether  in  love  or  in  anger,  for  praise  or  for  condemnation, 
most  of  us  are  too  apt  to  forget  them.  But  least  of  all  can 
it  become  the  critic  to  "  follow  a  multitude  to  do  evil,"  even 
when  that  evil  is  excess  of  admiration :  on  the  contrary,  it  will 
behoove  him  to  lift  up  his  voice,  how  feeble  soever,  how  un- 
heeded soever,  against  the  common  delusion ;  from  which,  if 
he  can  save,  or  help  to  save,  any  mortal,  his  endeavors  will 
have  been  repaid. 

With  these  things  in  some  measure  before  us,  we  must 
remind  our  readers  of  another  influence  at  work  in  this  affair, 
and  one  acting,  as  we  think,  in  the  contrary  direction.  That 
pitiful  enough  desire  for  "  originality,"  which  lurks  and  acts 
in  all  minds,  will  rather,  we  imagine,  lead  the  critic  of  Foreign 
Literature  to  adopt  the  negative  than  the  affirmative  with 
regard  to  Goethe.  If  a  writer  indeed  feel  that  he  is  writing 
for  England  alone,  invisibly  and  inaudibly  to  the  rest  of  the 
Earth,  the  temptations  may  be  pretty  equally  balanced ;  if  he 
write  for  some  small  conclave,  which  he  mistakenly  thinks 
the  representative  of  England,  they  may  sway  this  way  or 
that,  as  it  chances.  But  writing  in  such  isolated  spirit  is  no 
longer  possible.  Traffic,  with  its  swift  ships,  is  uniting  all 
nations  into  one ;  Europe  at  large  is  becoming  more  and  more 
one  public ;  and  in  this  public,  the  voices  for  Goethe,  compared 
with  those  against  him,  are  in  the  proportion,  as  we  reckon 
them,  both  as  to  the  number  and  value,  of  perhaps  a  hun- 
dred to  one.  We  take  in,  not  Germany  alone,  but  France  and 
Italy ;  not  the  Schlegels  and  Schellings,  but  the  Manzonis 
and  De  Staels.  The  bias  of  originality,  therefore,  may  lie  to 
the  side  of  censure ;  and  whoever  among  us  shall  step  for- 
ward, with  such  knowledge  as  our  common  critics  have  of 


GOETHE.  203 

Goethe,  to  enlighten  the  European  public,  by  contradiction  in 
this  matter,  displays  a  heroism,  which,  in  estimating  his  other 
merits,  ought  nowise  to  be  forgotten. 

Our  own  view  of  the  case  coincides,  we  confess,  in  some  de- 
gree with  that  of  the  majority.  We  reckon  that  Goethe's  fame 
has,  to  a  considerable  extent,  been  deserved ;  that  his  influence 
has  been  of  high  benefit  to  his  own  country ;  nay  more,  that 
it  promises  to  be  of  benefit  to  us,  and  to  all  other  nations. 
The  essential  grounds  of  this  opinion,  which  to  explain  mi- 
nutely were  a  long,  indeed  boundless  task,  we  may  state  without 
many  words.  We  find,  then,  in  Goethe,  an  Artist,  in  the  high 
and  ancient  meaning  of  that  term ;  in  the  meaning  which  it 
may  have  borne  long  ago  among  the  masters  of  Italian  paint- 
ing, and  the  fathers  of  Poetry  in  England ;  we  say  that  we 
trace  in  the  creations  of  this  man,  belonging  in  every  sense  to 
our  own  time,  some  touches  of  that  old,  divine  spirit,  which 
had  long  passed  away  from  among  us,  nay  which,  as  has  often 
been  laboriously  demonstrated,  was  not  to  return  to  this  world 
any  more. 

Or  perhaps  we  come  nearer  our  meaning,  if  we  say  that  in 
Goethe  we  discover  by  far  the  most  striking  instance,  in  our 
time,  of  a  writer  who  is,  in  strict  speech,  what  Philosophy  can 
call  a  Man.  He  is  neither  noble  nor  plebeian,  neither  liberal 
nor  servile,  nor  infidel  nor  devotee ;  but  the  best  excellence  of 
all  these,  joined  in  pure  union  ;  "  a  clear  and  universal  3Ian." 
Goethe's  poetry  is  no  separate  faculty,  no  mental  handicraft ; 
but  the  voice  of  the  whole  harmonious  manhood :  nay  it  is  the 
ver}^  harmony,  the  living  and  life-giving  harmony  of  that  rich 
manhood  which  forms  his  poetry.  All  good  men  may  be  called 
poets  in  act,  or  in  word ;  all  good  poets  are  so  in  both.  F)ut 
Goethe  besides  appears  to  us  as  a  person  of  that  deep  endow- 
ment, and  gifted  vision,  of  that  experience  also  and  sympathy 
in  the  ways  of  all  men,  which  qualify  him  to  stand  forth,  not 
only  as  the  literary  ornament,  but  in  many  respects  too  as  the 
Teacher  and  exemplar  of  his  age.  For,  to  say  nothing  of  his 
natural  gifts,  he  has  cultivated  himself  and  his  art,  he  has 
studied  how  to  live  and  to  write,  with  a  fidelity,  an  unwearied 
earnestness,  of  which  there   is  no  other  living  instance  ;  of 


204         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

which,  among  British  poets  especially,  Wordsworth  alone 
offers  any  resemblance.  And  this  in  our  view  is  the  result: 
To  our  minds,  in  these  soft,  melodious  imaginations  of  his, 
there  is  embodied  the  Wisdom  which  is  proper  to  this  time  ; 
the  beautiful,  the  religious  Wisdom,  which  may  still,  with 
something  of  its  old  impressiveness,  speak  to  the  whole  soul ; 
still,  in  these  hard,  unbelieving  utilitarian  days,  reveal  to  us 
glimpses  of  the  Unseen  but  not  unreal  World,  that  so  the 
Actual  and  the  Ideal  may  again  meet  together,  and  clear 
Knowledge  be  again  wedded  to  Eeligion,  in  the  life  and  busi- 
ness of  men. 

Such  is  our  conviction  or  persuasion  with  regard  to  the 
poetry  of  Goethe.  Could  we  demonstrate  this  opinion  to  be 
true,  could  we  even  exhibit  it  with  that  degree  of  clearness 
and  consistency  which  it  has  attained  in  our  own  thoughts, 
Goethe  were,  on  our  part,  sufficiently  recommended  to  the  best 
attention  of  all  thinking  men.  But,  uuhappily,  it  is  not  a  sub- 
ject susceptible  of  demonstration :  the  merits  and  character- 
istics of  a  Poet  are  not  to  be  set  forth  by  logic ;  but  to  be 
gathered  by  personal,  and  as  in  this  case  it  must  be,  by  deep  and 
careful  inspection  of  his  works.  Nay  Goethe's  world  is  every 
way  so  different  from  ours  ;  it  costs  us  such  effort,  we  have  so 
much  to  remember,  and  so  much  to  forget,  before  we  can 
transfer  ourselves  in  any  measure  into  his  peculiar  point  of 
vision,  that  a  right  study  of  him,  for  an  Englishman,  even  of 
ingenuous,  open,  inquisitive  mind,  becomes  unusually  difficult ; 
for  a  fixed,  decided,  contemptuous  Englishman,  next  to  im- 
possible. To  a  reader  of  the  first  class,  helps  may  be  given, 
explanations  will  remove  many  a  difficulty  ;  beauties  that  lay 
hidden  may  be  made  apparent ;  and  directions,  adapted  to  his 
actual  position,  will  at  length  guide  him  into  the  proper  track 
for  such  an  inquiry.  All  this,  however,  must  be  a  work  of 
progression  and  detail.  To  do  our  i)art  in  it,  from  time  to 
time,  must  rank  among  the  best  duties  of  an  English  Foreign 
Eeview.  Meanwhile,  our  present  endeavor  limits  itself  within 
far  narrower  bounds.  We  cannot  aim  to  make  Goethe  known, 
but  only  to  prove  that  he  is  wortliy  of  being  known  ;  at  most, 
to   point  out,  as  it  were  afar  off,  the  path  by  which  some 


GOETHE.  205 

knowledge  of  him  may  be  obtained.  A  slight  glance  at  his 
general  literary  character  and  procedure,  and  one  or  two  of  his 
chief  productions  which  throw  light  on  these,  must  for  the 
present  suffice. 

A  French  diplomatic  personage,  contemplating  Goethe's 
physiognomy,  is  said  to  have  observed :  VoUa  un  homme  qui 
a  eu  beaucoup  de  chagrins.  A  truer  version  of  the  matter, 
Goethe  himself  seems  to  think,  would  have  been :  Here  is  a 
man  who  has  struggled  toughly  ;  who  has  es  sich  recht  sauer 
werden  lassen.  Goethe's  life,  whether  as  a  writer  and  thinker, 
or  as  a  living  active  man,  has  indeed  been  a  life  of  effort,  of 
earnest  toilsome  endeavor  after  all  excellence.  Accordingly, 
his  intellectual  progress,  his  spiritual  and  moral  history,  as  it 
may  be  gathered  from  his  successive  Works,  furnishes,  with 
us,  no  small  portion  of  the  pleasure  and  profit  we  derive  from 
perusing  them.  Participating  deeply  in  all  the  influences  of 
his  age,  he  has  from  the  first,  at  every  new  epoch,  stood  forth 
to  elucidate  the  new  circumstances  of  the  time;  to  offer  the 
instruction,  the  solace,  which  that  time  required.  His  literary 
life  divides  itself  into  two  portions  widel}'  different  in  charac- 
ter :  the  products  of  the  first,  once  so  new  and  original,  have 
long,  either  directly  or  through  the  thousand  thousand  imita- 
tions of  them,  been  familiar  to  us ;  with  the  products  of  the 
second,  equally  original,  and  in  our  day  far  more  precious,  we 
are  yet  little  acquainted.  These  two  classes  of  work  stand 
curiously  related  with  each  other ;  at  first  view,  in  strong  con- 
tradiction, yet,  in  truth,  connected  together  by  the  strictest 
sequence.  For  Goethe  has  not  only  suffered  and  mourned  in 
bitter  agony  under  the  spiritual  perplexities  of  his  time ;  but 
lie  has  also  mastered  these,  he  is  above  them,  and  has  shown 
otlicrs  how  to  rise  above  them.  At  one  time,  Ave  found  hiiu 
ill  darkness,  and  now  he  is  in  light;  he  was  once  an  Unbe- 
liever, and  now  he  is  a  Believer ;  and  he  believes,  moreover, 
not  by  denying  his  unbelief,  but  by  following  it  out;  not  by 
stopping  sliort,  still  less  turning  back,  in  his  inquiries.  l)ut  by 
resolutely  prosecuting  them.  This,  it  appears  to  us,  is  a  case 
of  singular  interest,  and  rarely  exemplified,  if  at  all,  elsewhere. 


206       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS.       . 

in  these  our  days.  How  has  this  man,  to  whom  the  world 
once  offered  nothing  but  blackness,  denial  and  despair,  attained 
to  that  better  vision  which  now  shows  it  to  nim  not  tolerable 
only,  but  full  of  solemuity  and  loveliness  ?  How  has  the  be- 
lief  of  a  Saint  been  united  in  this  high  and  tme  mind  with  the 
clearness  of  a  Sceptic ;  the  devout  spirit  of  a  Fenelon  made 
to  blend  in  soft  harmony  with  the  gayety,  the  sarcasm,  the 
shrewdness  of  a  Voltaire  ? 

Goethe's  two  earliest  works  are  Gotz  von  Berlichingen  and 
the  Sorrows  of  Werter.  The  boundless  influence  and  popularity 
they  gained,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  is  well  known.  It  was 
they  that  established  almost  at  once  his  literary  fame  in  his 
own  country;  and  even  determined  his  subsequent  private 
history,  for  they  brought  him  into  contact  with  the  Duke  of 
Weimar ;  in  connection  with  whom,  the  Poet,  engaged  in  mani- 
fold duties,  political  as  well  as  literary,  has  lived  for  fifty-four 
years,  and  still,  in  honorable  retirement,  continues  to  live.^ 
Their  effects  over  Europe  at  large  were  not  less  striking  than 
in  Germany. 

"  It  would  be  difficult,"  observes  a  writer  on  this  subject, 
"  to  name  two  books  which  have  exercised  a  deeper  influence 
on  the  subsequent  literature  of  Europe,  than  these  two  per- 
formances of  a  yoimg  author ;  his  first-fruits,  the  produce  of 
his  twenty -fourth  year.  Werter  appeared  to  seize  the  hearts 
of  men  in  all  quarters  of  the  world,  and  to  utter  for  them  the 
word  which  they  had  long  been  waiting  to  hear.  As  usually 
happens,  too,  this  same  word,  once  uttered,  was  soon  abun- 
dantly repeated ;  spoken  in  all  dialects,  and  chanted  through 
all  notes  of  the  gamut,  till  the  sound  of  it  had  grown  a  weari- 
ness rather  than  a  pleasure.  Sceptical  sentimentality,  view- 
hunting,  love,  friendsliip,  suicide,  and  desperation,  became  the 
staple  of  literary  ware ;  and  though  the  epidemic,  after  a  long 
course  of  years,  subsided  in  Germany,  it  reappeared  with  vari- 
ous modifications  in  otlier  countries,  and  everywhere  abundant 

^  Since  the  above  was  written,  that  worthy  Prince — worthy,  we  have 
understood,  in  all  respects,  exemplary  in  whatever  concerned  Literature  and 
tlie  Arts —  has  been  called  suddenly  away.  He  died  on  his  road  from  Berlin, 
near  Torgau,  on  the  24th  of  Juue. 


GOETHE.  207 

traces  of  its  good  and  bad  effects  are  still  to  be  discerned. 
The  fortune  of  Berlichingen  with  the  Iron  Hand,  though  less 
sudden,  was  by  no  means  less  exalted.  In  his  own  country, 
Gotz,  though  he  now  stands  solitary  and  childless,  became  the 
parent  of  an  innumerable  progeny  of  chivalry  plays,  feudal 
delineations,  and  poetico-antiquarian  performances  ;  which, 
though  long  ago  deceased,  made  noise  enough  in  their  day  and 
generation:  and  with  ourselves,  his  influence  has  been  per- 
haps still  more  remarkable.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  first  literary 
enterprise  was  a  translation  of  Giitz  von  Berlichingen ;  and 
if  genius  could  be  communicated  like  instruction,  we  might 
call  this  work  of  Goethe's  the  prime  cause  of  Mai'mion 
and  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  with  all  that  has  followed  from 
the  same  creative  hand.  Truly,  a  gi-ain  of  seed  that  has 
lighted  on  the  right  soil !  For  if  not  firmer  and  fairer,  it 
has  grown  to  be  taller  and  broader  than  any  other  tree  ;  and 
all  the  nations  of  the  earth  are  still  yearly  gathering  of  its 
fruit. 

"But,  overlooking  these  spiritual  genealogies,  which  bring 
little  certainty  and  little  profit,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  observe 
of  Berlichingen  and  Werter,  that  they  stand  prominent  among 
the  causes,  or,  at  the  very  least,  among  the  signals  of  a  great 
change  in  modern  literature.  The  former  directed  men's-  atten- 
tion with  a  new  force  to  the  picturesque  effects  of  the  Past ; 
and  the  latter,  for  the  first  time,  attempted  the  more  accurate 
delineation  of  a  class  of  feelings  deeply  important  to  modern 
minds,  but  for  which  our  elder  poetry  offered  no  exponent,  and 
perhaps  could  offer  none,  because  the}^  are  feelings  that  arise 
from  Passion  incapable  of  being  converted  into  Action,  and 
belong  chiefly  to  an  age  as  indolent,  cultivated  and  unbeliev 
ing  as  our  own.  This,  notwithstanding  the  dash  of  falsehood 
which  may  exist  in  Werter  itself,  and  the  boundless  delirium 
of  extravagance  which  it  called  forth  in  others,  is  a  high  praise 
wliich  cannot  justly  be  denied  it.  The  English  reader  ought 
also  to  understand  that  our  current  version  of  Werter  is  muti- 
lated and  inaccurate  :  it  comes  to  us  through  the  all-subduing 
medium  of  the  French,  shorn  of  its  caustic  strength,  with  its 
melancholy  rendered  maudlin,  its  hero  reduced  from  the  stately 


208        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

gloom  of  a  broken-liearted  poet  to  the  tearful  wrangling  of  a 
dyspeptic  tailor." 

To  the  same  dark  wayward  mood,  which,  in  Werter,  pours 
itself  forth  in  bitter  wailings  over  human  life  ;  and,  in 
Berlichingen,  appears  as  a  fond  and  sad  looking  back  into  the 
Past,  belong  various  other  productions  of  Goethe's ;  for  ex- 
ample, the  Mitschuldigen,  and  the  first  idea  of  Faiist,  which, 
however,  was  not  realized  in  actual  composition  till  a  calmer 
period  of  his  history.  Of  this  early  harsh  and  crude  yet  fervid 
and  genial  period,  Werter  may  stand  here  as  the  representa- 
tive ;  and,  viewed  in  its  external  and  internal  relation,  will 
help  to  illustrate  both  the  writer  and  the  public  he  was  writing 
for. 

At  the  present  day,  it  would  be  difficult  for  us,  satisfied,  nay 
sated  to  nausea,  as  we  have  been  with  the  doctrines  of  Sen- 
timentality, to  estimate  the  boundless  interest  which  Werter 
must  have  excited  when  first  given  to  the  world.  It  was  then 
new  in  all  senses ;  it  was  wonderful,  yet  wished  for,  both  in 
its  own  country  and  in  every  other.  The  Literature  of  Ger- 
many had  as  yet  but  partially  awakened  from  its  long  torpor : 
deep  learning,  deep  reflection,  have  at  no  time  been  wanting 
there  ;  but  the  creative  spirit  had  for  above  a  century  been 
almost  extinct.  Of  late,  however,  the  Eamlers,  Eabeners, 
Gellerts,  had  attained  to  no  inconsiderable  polish  of  style  ; 
Klopstock's  Messias  had  called  forth  the  admiration,  and  per- 
haps still  more  the  pride,  of  the  country,  as  a  piece  of  art ;  a 
high  enthusiasm  was  abroad  ;  Lessing  had  roused  the  minds 
of  men  to  a  deeper  and  truer  interest  in  Literature,  had  even 
decidedly  begun  to  introduce  a  heartier,  warmer  and  more  ex- 
pressive style.  The  Germans  were  on  the  alert ;  in  expectation, 
or  at  least  in  full  readiness  for  some  far  bolder  impulse  ;  wait- 
ing for  the  Poet  that  might  speak  to  them  from  the  heart  to 
the  heart.  It  was  in  Goethe  that  such  a  Poet  was  to  be  given 
them. 

Nay  the  Literature  of  other  countries,  placid,  self-satisfied 
as  tliey  might  seem,  was  in  an  equally  expectant  condition. 
Everywhere,  as  in  German}',  there  was  polish  and  languor, 


GOETHE.  209 

external  glitter  and  internal  vacuity ;  it  was  not  fire,  but  a  pic- 
ture of  fire,  at  which  no  soul  could  be  warmed.  Literature 
had  sunk  from  its  former  vocation  :  it  no  longer  held  the 
mirror  up  to  Nature  ;  no  longer  reflected,  in  many-colored 
expressive  symbols,  the  actual  passions,  the  hopes,  sorrows, 
joys  of  living  men ;  but  dwelt  in  a  remote  conventional  world, 
in  Castles  of  Otranto,  in  Eplgoniads  and  Leonidases,  among 
clear,  metallic  heroes,  and  white,  high,  stainless  beauties, 
in  whom  the  drapery  and  elocution  were  nowise  the  least 
important  qualities.  Men  thought  it  right  that  the  heart 
should  swell  into  magnanimity  with  Caractacus  and  Cato,  and 
melt  into  sorrow  with  many  an  Eliza  and  Adelaide  ;  but  the 
heart  was  in  no  haste  either  to  swell  or  to  melt.  Some  pulses 
of  heroical  sentiment,  a  few  w?inatural  tears  might,  with  con- 
scientious readers,  be  actually  squeezed  forth  on  such  occa- 
sions :  but  they  came  only  from  the  surface  of  the  mind ;  nay 
had  the  conscientious  man  considered  of  the  matter,  he  would 
have  found  that  they  ought  not  to  have  come  at  all.  Our 
only  English  poet  of  the  period  was  Goldsmith ;  a  pure,  clear, 
genuine  spirit,  had  he  been  of  depth  or  strength  sufficient :  his 
Vicar  of  Wakefield  remains  the  best  of  all  modern  Idyls ;  but 
it  is  and  was  notliing  more.  And  consider  our  leading  writers  ; 
consider  the  poetry  of  Gray,  and  the  prose  of  Johnson.  The 
first  a  laborious  mosaic,  through  the  hard  stiff  lineaments  of 
which  little  life  or  true  grace  could  be  expected  to  look :  real 
feeling,  and  all  freedom  of  expressing  it,  are  sacrificed  to  pomp, 
to  cold  splendor ;  for  vigor  we  have  a  certain  mouthing  vehe- 
mence, too  elegant  indeed  to  be  tumid,  yet  essentially  foreign 
to  the  heart,  and  seen  to  extend  no  deeper  than  the  mere  voice 
and  gestures.  Were  it  not  for  his  Letters,  which  are  full  of 
warm  exuberant  power,  we  might  almost  doubt  whether  Gray 
was  a  man  of  genius  ;  nay  was  a  living  man  at  all,  and  not 
rather  some  thousand-times  more  cunningly  devised  poetical 
turning-loom,  than  that  of  Swift's  Philosophers  in  Laputa. 
Johnson's  prose  is  true,  indeed,  and  sound,  and  full  of  practical 
sense  :  few  men  have  seen  more  clearly  into  the  motives,  the 
interests,  the  whole  walk  and  conversation  of  the  living  busy 
world  as  it  lay  before  him  ;  but  farther  than  this  busy,  and, 

VOI,.    XTIT,  14 


210       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  most  of  us,  rather  prosaic  world,  he  seldom  looked :  his 
instruction  is  for  men  of  business,  and  in  regard  to  matters  of 
business  alone.  Prudence  is  the  highest  Virtue  he  can  incul- 
cate ;  and  for  that  finer  portion  of  our  nature,  that  portion  of 
it  which  belongs  essentially  to  Literature  strictly  so  called, 
where  our  highest  feelings,  our  best  joys  aud  keenest  sorrows, 
our  Doubt,  our  Love,  our  Religion  reside,  he  has  no  word  to 
utter ;  no  remedy,  no  counsel  to  give  us  in  our  straits ;  or  at 
most,  if,  like  poor  Boswell,  the  patient  is  importunate,  will 
answer :  "My  dear  Sir,  endeavor  to  clear  your  mind  of  Cant." 

The  turn  which  Philosophical  speculation  had  taken  in  the 
preceding  age  corresponded  with  this  tendency,  and  enhanced 
its  narcotic  influences  ;  or  was,  indeed,  properly  speaking,  the. 
root  they  had  sprung  from.  Locke,  himself  a  clear,  humble- 
minded,  patient,  reverent,  nay  religious  man,  had  paved  tho 
way  for  banishing  religion  from  the  world.  Mind,  by  being 
modelled  in  men's  imaginations  into  a  Shape,  a  Visibility ;  and 
reasoned  of  as  if  it  had  been  some  composite,  divisible  and 
reunitable  substance,  some  finer  chemical  salt,  or  curious  piece 
of  logical  joinery,  —  began  to  lose  its  immaterial,  mysterious, 
divine  though  invisible  character :  it  was  tacitly  figured  as 
something  that  might,  were  our  organs  fine  enough,  be  seen. 
Yet  who  had  ever  seen  it  ?  Who  could  ever  see  it  ?  Thus 
by  degrees  it  passed  into  a  Doubt,  a  Relation,  some  faint  Pos- 
sibility ;  and  at  last  into  a  highly  probable  Nonentity.  Fol- 
lowing Locke's  footsteps,  the  French  had  discovered  that  "  as 
the  stomach  secretes  Chyle,  so  does  the  brain  secrete  Thought." 
And  what  then  was  Religion,  what  was  Poetry,  what  was  all 
high  and  heroic  feeling  ?  Chiefly  a  delusion ;  often  a  false 
and  pernicious  one.  Poetry,  indeed,  was  still  to  be  preserved ; 
because  Poetry  was  a  useful  thing :  men  needed  amusement, 
and  loved  to  amuse  themselves  with  Poetry :  the  playhouse 
was  a  pretty  lounge  of  an  evening ;  then  there  were  so  many 
precepts,  satirical,  didactic,  so  much  more  impressive  for  the 
rhyme  ;  to  say  nothing  of  your  occasional  verses,  birthday 
odes,  epithalamiums,  epicediums,  by  which  "  the  dream  of  ex- 
istence may  be  so  considerably  sweetened  and  embellished." 
Nay  does  not  Poetry,  acting  on,  the   imaginations  of   men, 


GOETHE.  211 

excite  theiii  to  daring  purposes ;  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of 
Tyrtseus,  to  fight  better ;  in  which  wise  may  it  not  rank  as  a 
useful  stimulant  to  man,  along  with  Opium  and  Scotch  Whiskey, 
the  manufacture  of  which  is  allowed  by  law  ?  In  Heaven's 
name,  then,  let  Poetry  be  preserved. 

With  Religion,  however,  it  fared  somev^-hat  worse.  In  the 
eyes  of  Voltaire  and  his  disciples.  Religion  was  a  superfluity, 
indeed  a  nuisance.  Here,  it  is  true,  his  followers  have  since 
found  that  he  went  too  far  ;  that  Religion,  being  a  great  sanc- 
tion to  civil  morality,  is  of  use  for  keeping  society  in  order, 
at  Least  the  lower  classes,  who  have  not  the  feeling  of  Honor 
in  due  force ;  and  therefore,  as  a  considerable  help  to  the 
Constable  and  Hangman,  ought  decidedly  to  be  kept  up.  But 
such  toleration  is  the  fruit  only  of  later  days.  In  those  times, 
there  was  no  question  but  how  to  get  rid  of  it,  root  and  branch, 
the  sooner  the  better.  A  gleam  of  zeal,  nay  we  will  call  it, 
howevev  basely  alloyed,  a  glow  of  real  enthusiasm  and  love  of 
truth,  may  have  animated  the  minds  of  these  men,  as  they 
looked  abroad  on  the  pestilent  jungle  of  Sviperstition,  and 
hoped  to  clear  the  earth  of  it  forever.  This  little  glow,  so 
alloyed,  so  contaminated  with  pride  and  other  poor  or  bad  ad- 
mixtures, was  the  last  which  thinking  men  were  to  experience 
in  Europe  for  a  time.  So  is  it  always  in  regard  to  Religious 
Belief,  how  degraded  and  defaced  soever :  the  delight  of  the 
Destroyer  and  Denier  is  no  pure  delight,  and  must  soon  pass 
away.  With  bold,  with  skilful  hand,  Voltaire  set  his  torch  to 
the  jungle :  it  blazed  aloft  to  heaven  ;  and  the  flame  exhila- 
rated and  comforted  the  incendiaries  ;  but  unhappily,  such  com- 
fort could  not  continue.  Ere  long  this  flame,  with  its  cheerful 
light  and  heat,  was  gone :  the  jungle,  it  is  true,  had  been  con- 
sumed: but,  with  its  entanglements,  its  shelter  and  its  spots 
of  verdure  also ;  and  the  black,  chill,  ashy  swamp,  left  in  its 
stead,  seemed  for  a  time  a  greater  evil  than  the  other. 

In  such  a  state  of  painful  obstruction,  extending  itself 
everywhere  over  Europe,  and  already  master  of  Germany,  lay 
the  general  mind,  when  Goethe  first  appeared  in  Literature. 
Whatever  belonged  to  the  finer  nature  of  man  had  withered 
under  the  Harmattan  breath  of  Doubt,  or  passed  away  in  the 


212        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

conflagration  of  open  Infidelity ;  and  now,  where  the  Tree  of 
Life  once  bloomed  and  brought  fruit  of  goodliest  savor,  there 
was  only  barrenness  and  desolation.  To  such  as  could  find 
sufficient  interest  in  the  day-labor  and  day-wages  of  earthly 
existence ;  in  the  resources  of  the  five  bodily  Senses,  and  of 
Vanity,  the  only  mental  sense  which  yet  flourished,  which 
flourished  indeed  with  gigantic  vigor,  matters  were  still  not 
so  bad.  Such  men  helped  themselves  forward,  as  they  will 
generally  do  ;  and  found  the  world,  if  not  an  altogether  proper 
sphere  (for  every  man,  disguise  it  as  he  may,  has  a  soul  in 
Jiim),  at  least  a  tolerable  enough  place :  where,  by  one  item 
and  another,  some  comfort,  or  show  of  comfort,  might  from 
time  to  time  be  got  up,  and  these  few  years,  especially  since 
they  were  so  few,  be  spent  without  much  murmuring.  But  to 
men  afflicted  Avith  the  "  malady  of  Thought,"  some  devoutness 
of  temper  was  an  inevitable  heritage :  to  such  the  noisy  forum 
of  the  world  could  appear  but  an  empty,  altogether  insufiicient 
concern;  and  the  whole  scene  of  life  had  become  hopeless 
enough.  Unhappily,  such  feelings  are  yet  by  no  means  so 
infrequent  with  ourselves,  that  we  need  stop  here  to  depict 
them.  That  state  of  Unbelief  from  which  the  Germans  do 
seem  to  be  in  some  measure  delivered,  still  presses  with  incu- 
bus force  on  the  greater  part  of  Europe  ;  and  nation  after 
nation,  each  in  its  own  way,  feels  that  the  first  of  all  moral 
problems  is  how  to  cast  it  off,  or  how  to  rise  above  it.  Gov- 
ernments naturally  attempt  the  first  expedient ;  Philosophers, 
in  general,  the  second. 

The  poet,  says  Schiller,  is  a  citizen  not  only  of  his  country, 
but  of  his  time.  Whatever  occupies  and  interests  men  in  gen- 
eral, will  interest  him  still  more.  That  nameless  Unrest,  the 
blind  struggle  of  a  soul  in  bondage,  that  high,  sad,  longing  Dis- 
content, which  was  agitating  every  bosom,  had  driven  Goethe 
almost  to  despair.  All  felt  it ;  he  alone  could  give  it  voice. 
And  here  lies  the  secret  of  his  popularity ;  in  his  deep,  sus- 
ceptive heart,  he  felt  a  thousand  times  more  keenly  what  every 
one  was  feeling;  with  the  creative  gift  whio.b  belonged  to  him 
as  a  poet,  he  bodied  it  forth  into  visible  shape,  gave  it  a  local 
habitation  and  a  name ;  and  so  made  himself  the  spokesmau 


GOETHE.  213 

of  his  generation.  Werter  is  but  the  cry  of  that  dim,  rooted 
pain,  under  which  all  thoughtful  men  of  a  certain  age  were 
languishing:  it  paints  the  misery,  it  passionately  utters  the 
complaint ;  and  heart  and  voice,  all  over  Europe,  loudly  and 
at  once  respond  to  it.  True,  it  prescribes  no  remedy ;  for  that 
was  a  far  d liferent,  far  harder  enterprise,  to  which  other  years 
and  a  higher  culture  were  required ;  but  even  this  utterance 
of  the  pain,  even  this  little,  for  the  present,  is  ardently  grasped 
at,  and  with  eager  sympathy  appropriated  in  every  bosom.  If 
Byron's  life-weariness,  his  moody  melancholy,  and  mad  storm- 
ful  indignation,  borne  on  the  tones  of  a  wild  and  quite  artless 
melody,  could  pierce  so  deep  into  many  a  British  heart,  now 
that  the  whole  matter  is  no  longer  new,  —  is  indeed  old  and 
trite,  —  we  may  judge  with  what  vehement  acceptance  this  Wer- 
ter must  have  been  welcomed,  coming  as  it  did  like  a  voice  from 
unknown  regions ;  the  first  thrilling  peal  of  that  impassioned 
dirge,  which,  in  country  after  country,  men's  ears  have  listened 
to,  till  they  were  deaf  to  all  else.  For  Werter,  infusing  itself 
into  the  core .  and  whole  spirit  of  Literature,  gave  birth  to  a 
race  of  Sentimentalists,  who  have  raged  and  wailed  in  every 
part  of  the  world;  till  better  light  dawned  on  them,  or  at 
worst,  exhausted  Nature  laid  herself  to  sleep,  and  it  was  dis- 
covered that  lamenting  was  an  unproductive  labor.  These 
funereal  choristers,  in  Germany  a  loud,  haggard,  tumultuous, 
as  well  as  tearful  class,  were  named  the  Kraftmdnner,  or 
Power-men ;  but  have  all  long  since,  like  sick  children,  cried 
themselves  to  rest. 

Byron  was  our  English  Sentimentalist  and  Power-man ; 
the  strongest  of  his  kind  in  Europe ;  the  wildest,  the  gloomi- 
est, and  it  may  be  hoped  the  last.  For  what  good  is  it  to 
"whine,  put  finger  i'  the  eye,  and  sob,"  in  such  a  case  ?  Still 
more,  to  snarl  and  snap  in  malignant  wise,  ''  like  dog  distract, 
or  monkey  sick  "  ?  Why  should  we  quarrel  with  our  exist- 
ence, here  as  it  lies  before  us,  our  field  and  inheritance,  to 
make  or  to  mar,  for  better  or  for  worse  ;  in  which,  too,  so 
many  noblest  men  have,  ever  from  the  beginning,  warring 
with  the  very  evils  we  war  with,  both  made  and  been  what 
will  be  venerated  to  all  time  ? 


214         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

"  What  shapest  thou  here  at  the  World  ?     'T  is  shapen  long  ago ; 
The  Maker  shaped  it,  he  thought  it  best  even  so. 
Thy  lot  is  appointed,  go  follow  its  hest ; 
Thy  journey  's  begun,  thou  must  move  and  not  rest; 
For  sorrow  and  cure  cannot  alter  thy  case. 
And  running,  not  raging,  will  win  thee  the  race." 

Meanwhile,  of  the  philosophy  which  reigns  in  Werter,  and 
which  it  has  been  our  lot  to  hear  so  often  repeated  elsewhere, 
we  may  here  produce  a  short  specimen.  The  following  pas- 
sage will  serve  our  turn ;  and  be,  if  we  mistake  not,  new  to 
the  mere  English  reader :  — 

"That  the  life  of  "man  is  but  a  dream,  has  come  into  many 
a  head ;  and  with  me,  too,  some  feeling  of  that  sort  is  ever 
at  work.  When  I  look  upon  the  limits  within  which  man's 
powers  of  action  and  inquiry  are  hemmed  in ;  when  I  see  how 
all  effort  issues  simply  in  procuring  supply  for  wants,  which 
again  have  no  object  but  continuing  this  poor  existence  of 
ours;  and  then,  that  all  satisfaction  on  certain  points  of  in- 
quiry is  but  a  dreaming  resignation,  while  you  paint,  with 
many-colored  figures  and  gay  prospects,  the  walls  you  sit 
imprisoned  by,  —  all  this,  Wilhelm,  makes  me  dumb.  I  return 
to  my  own  heart,  and  find  there  such  a  world !  Yet  a  world, 
too,  more  in  forecast  and  dim  desire,  than  in  vision  and  living 
power.  And  then  all  swims  before  my  mind's  eye ;  and  so  I 
smile,  and  again  go  dreaming  on  as  others  do. 

"  That  children  know  not  what  they  want,  all  conscientious 
tutors  and  edncation-philosophers  have  long  been  agreed  :  but 
that  full-grown  men,  as  well  as  children,  stagger  to  and  fro 
along  this  earth ;  like  these,  not  knowing  whence  they  come 
or  whither  they  go ;  aiming,  just  as  little,  after  true  objects ; 
governed  jnst  as  well  by  biscuit,  oakes  and  birch-rods  :  this  is 
what  no  one  likes  to  believe  ;  and  yet  it  seems  to  me,  the  fact 
is  lying  under  our  very  nose. 

"  I  will  confess  to  tliee,  for  I  know  what  thou  wouldst  say 
to  me  on  this  point,  that  those  are  the  happiest,  who,  like 
children,  live  from  one  day  to  the  other,  carrying  their  dolls 
about  with  them,  to  dress  and  undress  ;  gliding  also,  with  the 
highest  respect,  before  the  drawer  where  mamma  has  locked 


GOETHE.  216 

the  gingerbread;  atid,  wlien  they  do  get  the  wished-ior  mor- 
sel, devouring  it  with  puffed-out  cheeks,  and  crying.  More  !  — 
these  are  the  fortunate  of  the  earth.  Well  is  it  likewise  with 
those  who  can  label  their  rag-gathering  employments,  or  per- 
haps their  passions,  with  pompous  titles,  and  represent  them 
to  mankind  as  gigantic  undertakings  for  its  welfare  and  salva- 
tion. Happy  the  man  who  can  live  in  such  wise  !  But  he 
who,  in  his  humility,  observes  where  all  this  issues,  who  sees 
how  featly  any  small  thriving  citizen  can  trim  his  patch  of 
garden  into  a  Paradise,  and  with  what  unbroken  heart  even 
the  unhappy  crawls  along  under  his  burden,  and  all  are  alike 
ardent  to  see  the  light  of  this  sun  but  one  minute  longer  ;  — 
yes,  he  is  silent,  and  he  too  forms  his  world  out  of  himself, 
and  he  too  is  happy  because  he  is  a  man.  And  then,  hemmed 
in  as  he  is,  he  ever  keeps  in  his  heart  the  sweet  feeling 
of  freedom,  and  that  this  dungeon  —  can  be  left  when  he 
likes."  1 

What  Goethe's  own  temper  and  habit  of  thought  must  have 
been,  while  the  materials  of  such  a  work  were  forming  them- 
selves within  his  heart,  might  be  in  some  degree  conjectured, 
and  he  has  himself  informed  us.  We  quote  the  following 
'passage  from  his  Dichtuiig  und  Wahrheit.  The  writing  of  Wer- 
ter,  it  would  seem,  indicating  so  gloomy,  almost  desperate  a 
state  of  mind  in  the  author,  was  at  the  same  time  a  symptom, 
indeed  a  caiise,  of  his  now  having  got  delivered  from  such 
melancholy.  Far  from  recommending  suicide  to  others,  as 
Werter  has  often  been  accused  of  doing,  it  was  the  first  proof 
that  Goethe  himself  had  abandoned  these  "  hypochondriacal 
crotchets  :  "  the  imaginary  "  Sorrows  "  had  helped  to  free  him 
from  many  real  ones. 

"Such  weariness  of  life,"  he  says,  "has  its  physical  and  its 
spiritual  causes ;  those  we  shall  leave  to  the  Doctoi',  these  to 
the  Moralist,  for  investigation  ;  and  in  this  so  trite  matter, 
touch  only  on  the  main  point,  where  that  phenomenon  ex- 
presses itself  most  distinctly.  All  pleasure  in  life  is  founded 
on  the  regular  return  of  external  things.  The  alternations  of 
day  and  night,  of  the  seasons,  of  the  blossoms  and  fruits,  and 

1  Leiden  dcs  jungen  Wtrther.     Am  22  May. 


216        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

wliatever  else  meets  us  from  epoch  to  epoch  with  the  offer  and 
command  of  enjoyment,  —  these  are  the  essential  springs  of 
earthly  existence.  The  more  open  we  are  to  sucli  enjoyments, 
the  happier  we  feel  ourselves ;  but,  should  the  vicissitude  of 
these  appearances  come  and  go  without  our  taking  interest  in 
it ;  should  such  benignant  invitations  address  themselves  to 
us  in  vain,  then  follows  the  greatest  misery,  the  heaviest  mal- 
ady ;  one  grows  to  view  life  as  a  sickening  burden.  We  have 
heard  of  the  Englishman  who  hanged  himself,  to  be  no  more 
troubled  with  daily  putting  off  and  on  his  clothes.  I  knew  an 
honest  gardener,  the  overseer  of  some  extensive  pleasure- 
grounds,  who  once  splenetically  exclaimed :  shall  I  see  these 
clouds  forever  passing,  then,  from  east  to  west  ?  It  is  told  of 
one  of  our  most  distinguished  men,^  that  he  viewed  with  dis- 
satisfaction the  spring  again  growing  green,  and  wished  that, 
by  way  of  change,  it  would  for  once  be  red.  These  are  spe- 
cially the  symptoms  of  life-weariness,  which  not  seldom  issues 
in  suicide,  and,  at  this  time,  among  men  of  meditative,  secluded 
character,  was  more  frequent  than  might  be  supposed. 

"I^othing,  however,  will  sooner  induce  this  feeling  of  sati- 
ety than  the  return  of  love.  The  first  love,  it  is  said  justly, 
is  the  only  one  ;  for  in  the  second,  and  by  the  second,  the 
highest  significance  of  love  is  in  fact  lost.  That  idea  of 
infinitude,  of  everlasting  endurance,  which  supports  and  bears 
it  aloft,  is  destroyed :  it  seems  transient,  like  all  that  re- 
turns. .  .  . 

"  Farther,  a  young  man  soon  comes  to  find,  if  not  in  him- 
self, at  least  in  others,  that  moral  epochs  have  their  course, 
as  well  as  the  seasons.  The  favor  of  the  great,  the  protec- 
tion of  the  powerful,  the  help  of  the  active,  the  good-will  of 
the  many,  the  love  of  the  few,  all  fluctuates  up  and  down; 
so  that  we  cannot  hold  it  fast,  any  more  than  we  can  hold 
sun,  moon  and  stars.  And  yet  these  things  are  not  mere 
natural  events  :  such  blessings  flee  away  from  us,  by  our  own 
blame  or  that  of  others,  by  accident  or  destiny  ;  but  they  do 
flee  away,  they  fluctuate,  and  we  are  never  sure  of  them. 

1  Lessing,  we  believe :  but  perhaps  it  was  less  the  greenness  of  spring 
tliat  vexed  him  than  Jacobi's  too  lyrical  admiration  of  it.  —  Ed. 


GOETHE.  217 

''  But  what  most  pains  the  young  man  of  sensibility  is,  the 
incessant  return  of  our  faults :  for  how  long  is  it  before  we 
learn,  that,  in  cultivating  our  virtues,  we  nourish  our  faults 
along  with  them  !  The  former  rest  on  the  latter,  as  on  their 
roots ;  and  these  ramify  themselves  in  secret  as  strongly  and 
as  wide,  as  those  others  in  the  Open  light.  Now,  as  we  for 
most  part  practise  our  virtues  with  forethought  and  will,  but 
by  our  faults  are  overtaken  unexpectedly,  the  former  seldom 
give  us  much  joy,  the  latter  are  continually  giving  us  sorrow 
and  distress.  Indeed,  here  lies  the  subtlest  difficulty  in  Self- 
knowledge,  the  difficulty  which  almost  renders  it  impossible. 
But  figure,  in  addition  to  all  this,  the  heat  of  youthful  blood, 
an  imagination  easily  fascinated  and  paralyzed  by  individual 
objects  ;  farther,  the  wavering  commotions  of  the  day ;  and 
yoLi  will  find  that  an  impatient  striving  to  free  one's  self  from 
such  a  pressure  was  no  unnatural  state. 

"  However,  these  gloomy  contemplations,  which,  if  a  man 
yield  to  them,  will  lead  him  to  boundless  lengths,  could  not 
have  so  decidedly  developed  themselves  in  our  young  German 
minds,  had  not  some  outward  cause  excited  and  forwarded  us 
in  this  sorrowful  employment.  Such  a  cause  existed  for  us 
in  the  Literature,  especially  the  Poetical  Literature,  of  Eng- 
land, the  great  qualities  of  which  are  accompanied  by  a  cer- 
tain earnest  melancholy,  which  it  imparts  to  every  one  that 
occupies  himself  with  it. 

"  In  such  an  element,  with  such  an  environment  of  circum- 
stances, with  studies  and  tastes  of  this  sort ;  harassed  by  un- 
satisfied desires,  externally  nowhere  called  forth  to  important 
action ;  with  the  sole  prospect  of  dragging  on  a  languid, 
spiritless,  mere  civic  life,  —  we  had  recurred,  in  our  discon- 
solate pride,  to  the  thought  that  life,  when  it  no  longer  suited 
one,  might  be  cast  aside  at  pleasure  ;  and  had  helped  our- 
selves hereby,  stintedly  enough,  over  the  crosses  and  tediums 
of  the  time.  These  sentiments  were  so  universal,  that  Werter, 
on  this  very  account,  could  produce  the  greatest  effect ;  strik- 
ing in  everywhere  with  the  dominant  humor,  and  representing 
the  interior  of  a  sickly  youthful  heart,  in  a  visible  and  palpable 


218        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

shape.  How  accurately  the  English  have  known  this  sorrow, 
migfht  be  seen  from  these  few  significant  lines,  written  before 
the  appearance  of  Werter :  — 

'  To  griefs  congenial  prone, 
More  wounds  than  nature  gave  he  knew, 
While  misery's  form  his  fancy  drew 
In  dark  ideal  hues,  and  horrors  not  its  own.'  ^ 

"  Self-murder  is  an  occurrence  in  men's  affairs  which,  how 
much  soever  it  may  have  already  been  discussed  and  com- 
mented upon,  excites  an  interest  in  every  mortal;  and,  at 
every  new  era,  must  be  discussed  again.  Montesquieu  con- 
fers on  his  heroes  and  great  men  the  right  of  putting  them- 
selves to  death  when  they  see  good ;  observing,  that  it  must 
stand  at  the  will  of  every  one  to  conclude  the  Fifth  Act  of 
his  Tragedy  whenever  he  thinks  best.  Here,  however,  our 
business  lies  not  with  persons  who,  in  activity,  have  led  an 
important  life,  who  have  spent  their  days  for  some  mighty 
empire,  or  for  the  cause  of  freedom ;  and  whom  one  may  for- 
bear to  censure,  when,  seeing  the  high  ideal  purpose  which 
had  inspired  them  vanish  from  the  earth,  they  meditate  pur- 
suing it  to  that  other  undiscovered  country.  Our  business 
here  is  Avith  persons  to  whom,  properly  from  want  of  activity, 
and  in  the  peacefulest  condition  imaginable,  life  has  neverthe- 
less, by  their  exorbitant  requisitions  on  themselves,  become  a 
burden.  As  I  myself  was  in  this  predicament,  and  know  best 
what  pain  I  suffered  in  it,  what  efforts  it  cost  me  to  escape 
from  it,  I  shall  not  hide  the  speculations  I,  from  time  to  time, 
considerately  prosecuted,  as  to  the  various  modes  of  death  one 
had  to  choose  from. 

"It  is  something  so  unnatural  for  a  man  to  break  loose 
from  himself,  not  only  to  hurt,  but  to  annihilate  himself,  that 
he  for  the  most  part  catches  at  means  of  a  mechanical  sort  for 
putting  his  purpose  in  execution.  When  Ajax  falls  on  his 
sword,  it  is  the  weight  of  his  body  that  performs  this  service 
for  him.  When  the  warrior  adjures  his  armor-bearer  to  slay 
him,  rather  than  that  he  come  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  this 
is  likewise  an  external  force  which  he  secures  for  himself ;  only 
*  So  in  the  original 


GOETHE.  219 

a  moral  instead  of  a  physical  one.  Women  seek  in  the  water 
a  cooling  for  their  desperation ;  and  the  highly  mechanical 
means  of  pistol-shooting  insures  a  quick  act  with  the  smallest 
effort.  Hanging  is  a  death  one  mentions  unwillingly,  because 
it  is  an  ignoble  one.  In  England  it  may  happen  more  readily 
than  elsewhere,  because  from  youth  upwards  you  there  see 
that  punishment  frequent  without  being  specially  ignomini- 
ous. By  poison,  by  opening  of  veins,  men  aim  but  at  parting 
slowly  from  life ;  and  the  most  refined,  the  speediest,  the 
most  painless  death,  by  means  of  an  asp,  was  worthy  of  a 
Queen,  who  had  spent  her  life  in  pomp  and  luxurious  plea- 
sure. All  these,  however,  are  extei"nal  helps  ;  are  enemies, 
with  which  a  man,  that  he  may  fight  against  himself,  makes 
league. 

"When  I  considered  these  various  methods,  and  farther, 
looked  abroad  over  history,  I  could  find  among  all  suicides 
no  one  that  had  gone  about  this  deed  with  such  greatness  and 
freedom  of  spirit  as  the  Emperor  Otho.  This  man,  beaten 
indeed  as  a  general,  yet  nowise  reduced  to  extremities,  deter- 
mines, for  the  good  of  the  Empire,  which  already  in  some 
measure  belonged  to  him,  and  for  the  saving  of  so  many 
thousands,  to  leave  the  world.  With  his  friends  he  passes 
a  gay  festive  night,  and  next  morning  it  is  found  that  with 
his  own  hand  he  has  plunged  a  sharp  dagger  into  his  heart. 
This  sole  act  seemed  to  me  worthy  of  imitation ;  and  I  con- 
vinced myself  that  whoever  could  not  proceed  herein  as  Otho 
had  done,  was  not  entitled  to  resolve  on  renouncing  life.  By 
this  conviction,  I  saved  myself  from  the  purpose,  or  indeed 
more  properly  speaking,  from  the  whim,  of  suicide,  which  in 
those  fair  peaceful  times  had  insinuated  itself  into  the  mind 
of  indolent  youth.  Among  a  considerable  collection  of  arms, 
I  possessed  a  costly  well-ground  dagger.  This  I  laid  down 
nightly  beside  my  bed  ;  and  before  extinguishing  the  light, 
I  tried  whether  I  could  succeed  in  sending  the  sharp  point 
an  inch  or  two  deep  into  my  breast.  But  as  I  truly  never 
could  succeed,  I  at  last  took  to  laughing  at  myself;  threw 
away  all  these  hypochondriacal  crotchets,  and  determined  to 
live.     To  do  this  with  cheerfulness,  however,   I  required  to 


220         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

have  some  poetical  task  given  me,  wherein  all  that  I  had  felt, 
thought  or  dreamed  on  this  weighty  business  might  be  spoken 
forth.  With  such  view,  I  endeavored  to  collect  the  elements 
which  for  a  year  or  two  had  been  floating  about  in  me;  I 
represented  to  myself  the  circumstances  which  had  most 
oppressed  and  aflQicted  me .  but  nothing  of  all  this  would 
take  form  ;  there  was  wanting  an  incident,  a  fable,  in  which 
I  might  embody  it. 

"  All  at  once  I  hear  tidings  of  Jerusalem's  death ;  and 
directly  following  the  general  rumor,  came  the  most  precise 
and  circumstantial  description  of  the  business  ;  and  in  this 
instant  the  plan  of  Werter  was  invented:  the  whole  shot 
together  from  all  sides,  and  became  a  solid  mass ;  as  the  water 
in  the  vessel,  which  already  stood  on  the  point  of  freezing, 
is  by  the  slightest  motion  changed  at  once  into  firm  ice."  ^ 

A  wide  and  everyway  most  important  interval  divides 
Werter,  Avith  its  sceptical  philosophy  and  "  hypochondriacal 
crotchets,"  from  Goethe's  next  Novel,  Wilhelm  Meister's  Ap- 
prenticeship, published  some  twenty  years  afterwards.  This 
work  belongs,  in  all  senses,  to  the  second  and  sounder  period 
of  Goethe's  life,  and  may  indeed  serve  as  the  fullest,  if  per- 
haps not  the  purest,  impress  of  it;  being  written  with  due 
forethought,  at  various  times,  during  a  period  of  no  less  than 
ten  years.  Considered  as  a  piece  of  Art,  there  were  much  to 
be  said  on  Meister ;  all  which,  however,  lies  beyond  our  pres- 
ent purpose.  We  are  here  looking  at  the  work  chiefly  as  a 
document  for  the  writer's  history ;  and  in  this  point  of  view 
it  certainly  seems,  as  contrasted  with  its  more  popular  pre- 
cursor, to  deserve  our  best  attention :  for  tlie  problem  which 
had  been  stated  in  Werter,  with  despair  of  its  solution,  is  here 
solved.  The  lofty  enthusiasm,  which,  wandering  wildly  over 
the  universe,  found  no  resting  place,  has  here  reached  its 
appointed  home  :  and  lives  in  harmony  with  what  long  ap- 
peared to  threaten  it  with  annihilation.  Anarchy  has  now 
become  Peace ;  the  once  gloomy  and  perturbed  spirit  is  now 
serene,  cheerfully  vigorous,  and  rich  in  good  fruits.  Neither, 
which  is  most  important  of  all,  has  this  Peace  been  attained 
1  Dichtungund  Wahrheit,  b.  iii.  s.  200-213. 


GOETHE.  221 

by  a  surrender  to  Necessity,  or  any  compact  with  Delusion ; 
a  seeming  blessing,  such  as  years  and  dispiritment  will  of 
themselves  bring  to  most  men,  and  which  is  indeed  no  bless- 
ing, since  even  continued  battle  is  better  than  destruction  or 
captivity;  and  peace  of  this  sort  is  like  that  of  Galgacus's 
Komans,  who  *'  called  it  peace  when  they  had  made  a  desert." 
Here  the  ardent  high-aspiring  youth  has  grown  into  the  calm- 
est man,  yet  with  increase  and  not  loss  of  ardor,  and  with 
aspirations  higher  as  well  as  clearer.  For  he  has  conquered 
his  unbelief ;  the  Ideal  has  been  built  on  the  Actual ;  no 
longer  floats  vaguely  in  darkness  and  regions  of  dreams,  but 
rests  in  light,  on  the  firm  ground  of  human  interest  and  busi- 
ness, as  in  its  true  scene,  on  its  true  basis. 

It  is  wonderful  to  see  with  what  softness  the  scepticism  of 
Jarno,  the  commercial  spirit  of  Werner,  the  reposing  polished 
manhood  of  Lothario  and  the  Uncle,  the  unearthly  enthusiasm 
of  the  Harper,  the  gay  animal  vivacity  of  Philina,  the  mystic, 
ethereal,  almost  spiritual  nature  of  Mignon,  are  blended  to- 
gether in  this  work;  how  justice  is  done  to  each,  how  each 
lives  freely  in  his  proper  element,  in  his  proper  form ;  and 
how,  as  Wilhelm  himself,  the  mild-hearted,  all-hoping,  all- 
believing  AYilhelm,  struggles  forward  towards  his  world  of 
Art  through  these  curiously  complected  influences,  all  this 
unites  itself  into  a  multifarious,  yet  so  harmonious  Whole  ; 
as  into  a  clear  poetic  mirror,  where  man's  life  and  business 
in  this  age,  his  passions  and  purposes,  the  highest  equally 
with  the  lowest,  are  imaged  back  to  us  in  beautiful  signifi- 
cance. Poetry  and  Prose  are  no  longer  at  variance  ;  for  the 
poet's  eyes  are  opened :  he  sees  the  changes  of  many-colored 
existence,  and  sees  the  loveliness  and  deep  purport  which  lies 
hidden  under  the  very  meanest  of  them ;  hidden  to  the  vulgar 
sight,  but  clear  to  the  poet's  ;  because  the  '^  open  secret "  is 
no  longer  a  secret  to  him,  and  he  knows  that  the  Universe 
is  full  of  goodness  ;  that  whatever  has  being  has  beauty. 

Apart  from  its  literary  merits  or  demerits,  such  is  the  tem- 
per of  mind  we  trace  in  Goethe's  Meister,  and,  more  or  less 
expressively  exhibited,  in  all  his  later  Avorks.  We  reckon 
it  a  rare  phenomenon  this  temper ;  and  worthy,  in  our  times, 


222        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

if  it  do  exist,  of  best  study  from  all  inquiring  men.  How 
has  such  a  temper  been  attained  in  this  so  lofty  and  impetu- 
ous mind,  once  too,  dark,  desolate  and  full  of  doubt,  more 
than  any  other  ?  How  may  we,  each  of  us  in  his  several 
sphere,  attain  it,  or  strengthen  it,  for  ourselves  ?  These  are 
questions,  this  last  is  a  question,  in  which  no  one  is  uncon- 
cerned. 

To  answer  these  questions,  to  begin  the  answer  of  them, 
would  lead  us  very  far  beyond  our  present  limits.  It  is  not, 
as  we  believe,  without  long,  sedulous  study,  without  learning 
much  and  unlearning  much,  that,  for  any  man,  the  answer 
of  such  questions  is  even  to  be  hoped.  Meanwhile,  as  regards 
Goethe,  there  is  one  feature  of  the  business  which,  to  us, 
throws  considerable  light  on  his  moral  persuasions,  and  will 
not,  in  investigating  the  secret  of  them,  be  overlooked.  We 
allude  to  the  spirit  in  which  he  cultivates  his  Art ;  the  noble, 
disinterested,  almost  religious  love  with  which  he  looks  on 
Art  in  general,  and  strives  towards  it  as  towards  the  sure, 
highest,  nay  only  good.  We  extract  one  passage  from  Wtl- 
helm  Meister :  it  may  pass  for  a  piece  of  fine  declamation,  but 
not  in  that  light  do  we  offer  it  here.  Strange,  unaccountable 
as  the  thing  may  seem,  we  have  actually  evidence  before  our 
mind  that  Goethe  believes  in  such  doctrines,  nay  has  in  some 
sort  lived  and  endeavored  to  direct  his  conduct  by  them. 

"  '  Look  at  men,'  continues  Wilhelm,  '  how  they  struggle 
after  happiness  and  satisfaction !  Their  wishes,  their  toil, 
their  gold,  are  ever  hunting  restlessly ;  and  after  what  ? 
After  that  which  the  Poet  has  received  from  nature  ;  the 
right  enjoyment  of  the  world ;  the  feeling  of  himself  in 
others ;  the  harmonious  conjunction  of  many  things  that  will 
seldom  go  together. 

" '  What  is  it  that  keeps  men  in  continual  discontent  and 
agitation  ?  It  is  that  they  cannot  make  realities  correspond 
with  their  conceptions,  that  enjoyment  steals  away  from  among 
their  hands,  that  the  wished-for  comes  too  late,  and  nothing 
reached  and  acquired  produces  on  the  heart  the  effect  which 
their  longing  for  it  at  a  distance  led  them  to  anticipate.  Now 
fate  has  exalted  the  Poet  above  all  this,  as  if  he  were  a  god. 


GOETHE.  223 

He  views  the  conflicting  tumult  of  the  passions ;  sees  families 
and  kingdoms  raging  in  aimless  commotion;  sees  those  per- 
plexed enigmas  of  misunderstanding,  which  often  a  single 
syllable  would  explain,  occasioning  convulsions  unutterably 
baleful.  He  has  a  fellow-feeling  of  bhe  mournful  and  the 
joyful  in  the  fate  of  all  mortals.  When  the  man  of  the 
world  is  devoting  his  days  to  wasting  melancholy  for  some 
deep  disappointment ;  or,  in  the  ebullience  of  joy,  is  going 
out  to  meet  his  happy  destiny,  the  lightly  moved  and  all- 
conceiving  spirit  of  the  Poet  steps  forth,  like  the  sun  from 
night  to  day,  and  with  soft  transition  tunes  his  harp  to  joy 
or  woe.  From  his  heart,  its  native  soil,  springs  the  fair  flower 
of  Wisdom ;  and  if  others  while  waking  dream,  and  are  pained 
with  fantastic  delusions  from  their  every  sense,  he  passes  the 
dream  of  life  like  one  awake,  and  the  strangest  event  is  to 
him  nothing,  save  a  part  of  the  past  and  of  the  future.  And 
thus  the  Poet  is  a  teacher,  a  prophet,  a  friend  of  gods  and 
men.  How !  Thou  wouldst  have  him  descend  from  his  height 
to  some  paltry  occupation  ?  He  who  is  fashioned,  like  a  bird, 
to  hover  round  the  world,  to  nestle  on  the  lofty  summits,  to 
feed  on  flowers  and  fruits,  exchanging  gayly  one  bough  for 
another,  he  ought  also  to  work  at  the  plough  like  an  ox ;  like 
a  dog  to  train  himself  to  the  harness  and  draught ; '  or  perhaps, 
tied  up  in  a  chain,  to  guard  a  farm-yard  b}"  his  barking  ? ' 

"  Werner,  it  may  well  be  supposed,  had  listened  with  the 
greatest  surprise.  'All  true,'  he  rejoined,  'if  men  were  but 
made  like  birds ;  and,  though  they  neither  span  nor  weaved, 
could  spend  peaceful  days  in  perpetual  enjoyment :  if,  at  the 
approach  of  winter,  they  could  as  easily  betake  themselves  to 
distant  regions ;  could  retire  before  scarcity,  and  fortify  them- 
selves against  frost.' 

"  *  Poets  have  lived  so,'  exclaimed  Wilhelm,  '  in  times  when 
true  nobleness  was  better  reverenced ;  and  so  should  they  ever 
live.  Sufficiently  provided  for  within,  they  had  need  of  little 
from  without ;  the  gift  of  imparting  lofty  emotions,  and  glo- 
rious images  to  men,  in  melodies  and  words  that  charmed  the 
ear,  and  fixed  themselves  inseparably  on  whatever  they  might 
touch,  of  old  enraptured  the  world,  and  served  the  gifted  as 


224        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

a  rich  inheritance.  At  the  courts  of  kings,  at  the  tables  of 
the  great,  under  the  windows  of  the  fair,  the  sound  of  them 
■was  heard,  while  the  ear  and  the  soul  were  shut  for  all  be- 
side; and  men  felt,  as  we  do  when  delight  comes  over  us, 
and  we  pause  with  rapture  if,  among  the  dingles  we  are 
crossing,  the  voice  of  the  nightingale  starts  out,  touching 
and  strong.  They  found  a  home  in  every  habitation  of  the 
world,  and  the  lowliness  of  their  condition  but  exalted  them 
the  more.  The  hero  listened  to  their  songs,  and  the  Con- 
queror of  the  Earth  did  reverence  to  a  Poet ;  for  he  felt  that, 
without  poets,  his  own  wild  and  vast  existence  would  pass 
away  like  a  whirlwind,  and  be  forgotten  forever.  The  lover 
wished  that  he  could  feel  his  longings  and  his  joys  so  variedly 
and  so  harmoniously  as  the  Poet's  inspired  lips  had  skill  to 
show  them  fortlj ;  and  even  the  rich  man  could  not  of  him- 
self discern  such  costliness  in  his  idol  grandeurs,  as  when 
they  were  presented  to  him  shining  in  the  splendor  of  the 
Poet's  spirit,  sensible  to  all  worth,  and  ennobling  all.  Nay, 
if  thou  wilt  have  it,  who  but  the  Poet  was  it  that  first  formed 
Gods  for  us ;  that  exalted  us  to  them,  and  brought  them  down 
to  us  ?  '"  1 

For  a  man  of  Goethe's  talent  to  write  many  such  pieces  of 
rhetoric,  setting  forth  the  dignity  of  poets,  and  their  innate 
independence  on  external  circumstances,  could  be  no  very 
hard  task ;  accordingly,  we  find  such  sentiments  again  and 
again  expressed,  sometimes  with  still  more  gracefulness,  still 
clearer  emphasis,  in  his  various  writings.  But  to  adopt  these 
sentiments  into  his  sober  practical  persuasion  ;  in  any  measure 
to  feel  and  believe  that  such  was  still,  and  must  always  be, 
the  high  vocation  of  the  poet ;  on  this  ground  of  universal 
humanity,  of  ancient  and  now  almost  forgotten  nobleness,  to 
take  his  stand,  even  in  these  trivial,  jeering,  withered,  un- 
believing days ;  and  through  all  their  complex,  dispiriting, 
mean,  yet  tumultuous  influences,  to  "make  his  light  shine 
before  men,"  that  it  might  beautify  even  our  "  rag-gathering 
age"  with  some  beams  of  that  mild,  divine  splendor,  which 
had  long  left  us,  the  very  possibility  of  which  was  denied: 
^   WiUielm  Meister's  Apprenticeship,  book  ii.  chap.  2. 


GOETHE.  225 

heartily  and  in  earnest  to  meditate  all  this,  was  no  common 
proceeding  ;  to  bring  it  into  practice,  especially  in  such  a  life 
as  his  has  been,  was  among  the  highest  and  hardest  enter- 
prises which  any  man  whatever  could  engage  in.  We  reckon 
this  a  greater  novelty,  than  all  the  novelties  which  as  a  mere 
writer  he  ever  put  forth,  whether  for  praise  or  censure.  We 
have  taken  it  upon  us  to  say  that  if  such  is,  in  any  sense,  the 
state  of  the  case  with  regard  to  Goethe,  he  deserves  not  mere 
approval  as  a  pleasing  poet  and  sweet  singer  ;  but  deep,  grate- 
ful study,  observance,  imitation,  as  a  Moralist  and  Philosopher. 
If  there  be  any  probability  that  such  is  the  state  of  the  case,  we 
cannot  but  reckon  it  a  matter  well  worthy  of  being  inquired 
into.  And  it  is  for  this  only  that  we  are  here  pleading  and 
arguing. 

On  the  literary  merit  and  meaning  of  Wilhelm  Meister  we 
have  already  said  that  we  must  not  enter  at  present.  The 
book  has  been  translated  into  English :  it  underwent  the  usual 
judgment  from  our  Reviews  and  Magazines  ;  was  to  some  a 
stone  of  stumbling,  to  others  foolishness,  to  most  an  object 
of  wonder.  On  the  whole,  it  passed  smoothly  through  the 
critical  Assaying-house  ;  for  the  Assayers  have  Christian  dis- 
positions, and  very  little  time ;  so  Meister  was  ranked,  with- 
out umbrage,  among  the  legal  coin  of  the  Minerva  Press  ;  and 
allowed  to  circulate  as  copper  currency  among  the  rest.  That 
in  so  quick  a  process,  a  German  Friedrich  d^or  might  not  slip 
through  unnoticed  among  new  and  equally  brilliant  British 
brass  Farthings,  there  is  no  warranting.  For  our  critics  can 
now  criticise  improwptu,  which,  though  far  the  readiest,  is  no- 
wise the  surest  plan.  Meister  is  the  mature  product  of  the 
first  genius  of  our  times ;  and  must,  one  would  think,  be 
different,  in  various  respects,  from  the  immature  products 
of  geniuses  who  are  far  from  the  first,  and  whose  works 
spring  from  the  brain  in  as  many  weeks  as  Goethe's  cost 
him  years. 

Nevertheless,  we  quarrel  with  no  man's  verdict ;  for  Time, 
which  tries  all  things,  will  try  this  also,  and  bring  to  light  the 
truth,  both  as  regards  criticism  and  thing  criticised ;  or  sink 
both  into  final  darkness,  which  likewise  will  be  the  truth  as 

VOL.  XIII.  15 


226         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

regards  them.  But  there  is  one  censure  which  we  must  ad- 
vert to  for  a  moment,  so  singular  does  it  seem  to  us.  Meister, 
it  appears,  is  a  "vulgar"  work;  no  "gentleman,"  we  hear  in 
certain  circles,  could  have  written  it ;  few  real  gentlemen,  it 
is  insinuated,  can  like  to  read  it;  no  real  lady,  unless  pos- 
sessed of  considerable  courage,  should  profess  having  read 
it  at  all.  Of  Goethe's  "  gentility  "  we  shall  leave  all  men  to 
speak  that  have  any,  even  the  faintest  knowledge  of  him ;  and 
with  regard  to  the  gentility  of  his  readers,  state  only  the  fol- 
lowing fact.  Most  of  us  have  heard  of  the  late  Queen  of 
Prussia,  and  know  whether  or  not  she  was  genteel  enough, 
and  of  real  ladyhood :  nay,  if  we  must  prove  everything,  her 
character  can  be  read  in  the  Life  of  Napoleon,  by  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  who  passes  for  a  judge  of  those  matters.  And  yet 
this  is  what  we  find  written  in  the  Kimst  und  Alterthum  for 
1824:1  — 

"  Books  too  have  their  past  happiness,  which  no  chance  can 
take  away :  — 

'  Wer  nie  sein  Brod  mit  Thr linen  ass, 
Wer  nichl  die  kummervdlen  Ndchte 
Avf  seinem  Bette  weinend  sass, 
Der  kennt  each  nicht,  ihr  hinimliscken  MUchie.'* 

"  These  heart-broken  lines  a  highly  noble-minded,  venerated 
Queen  repeated  in  the  crudest  exile,  when  cast  forth  to  bound- 
less misery.  She  made  herself  familiar  with  the  Book  in 
which  these  words,  with  many  other  painful  experiences,  are 
communicated,  and  drew  from  it  a  melancholy  consolation. 
This  influence,  stretching  of  itself  into  boundless  time,  what 
is  there  that  can  obliterate  ?  " 

Here  are  strange  diversities  of  taste ;  "  national  discrepan- 
cies "  enough,  had  we  time  to  investigate  them  !  Nevertheless, 
wishing  each  party  to  retain  his  own  special  persuasions,  so 

1  Band  v.  s.  8. 

'  Who  never  ate  his  bread  in  sorrow, 

Who  never  spent  the  darl<soine  hours 

Weeping  and  watching  for  the  morrow, 

He  knows  you  not,  je  unseen  Powers. 

Wilhelm  Meister,  book  ii.  chap.  13. 


GOETHE.  227 

far  as  they  are  honest,  and  adapted  to  his  intellectual  posi- 
tion, national  or  individual,  we  cannot  but  believe  that  there 
is  an  inward  and  essential  Truth  in  Art ;  a  Truth  far  deeper 
than  the  dictates  of  mere  Mode,  and  which,  could  we  pierce 
through  these  dictates,  would  be  true  for  all  nations  and  all 
men.  To  arrive  at  this  Truth,  distant  from  every  one  at  first, 
approachable  by  most,  attainable  by  some  small  number,  is 
the  end  and  aim  of  all  real  study  of  Poetry.  For  such  a  pur- 
pose, among  others,  the  comparison  of  English  with  foreign 
judgment,  on  works  that  will  bear  judging,  forms  no  unprofit- 
able help.  Some  day,  we  may  translate  Friedrich  Schlegel's 
Essay  on  Mekter,  by  way  of  contrast  to  our  English  animad- 
versions on  that  subject.  Schlegel's  praise,  whatever  ours 
might  do,  rises  sufficiently  high :  neither  does  he  seem,  during 
twenty  years,  to  have  repented  of  what  he  said  ;  for  we 
observe  in  the  edition  of  his  works,  at  present  publishing,  he 
repeats  the  whole  Character,  and  even  appends  to  it,  in  a 
separate  sketch,  some  new  assurances  and  elucidations. 

It  may  deserve  to  be  mentioned  here  that  Meister,  at  its 
first  appearance  in  Germany,  was  received  very  much  as  it 
has  been  in  England.  Goethe's  known  character,  indeed,  pre- 
cluded indifference  there ;  but  otherwise  it  was  much  the 
same.  The  whole  guild  of  criticism  was  thrown  into  perplex- 
ity, into  sorrow ;  everywhere  was  dissatisfaction  open  or  con- 
cealed. Official  duty  impelling  them  to  speak,  some  said  one 
thing,  some  another ;  all  felt  in  secret  that  they  knew  not 
what  to  say.  Till  the  appearance  of  Schlegel's  Character,  no 
Avord,  that  we  have  seen,  of  the  smallest  chance  to  be  decisive, 
or  indeed  to  last  beyond  the  day,  had  been  uttered  regarding 
it.  Some  regretted  that  the  fire  of  Werter  was  so  wonderfully 
abated;  whisj^erings  there  might  be  about  "lowness,"  "heavi- 
ness ;  "  some  spake  forth  boldly  in  behalf  of  suffering  "  virtue." 
Novalis  was  not  among  the  speakers,  but  he  censured  the  work 
in  secret,  and  this  for  a  reason  which  to  us  will  seem  the 
strangest;  for  its  being,  as  we  should  say,  a  Benthamite  work ! 
Many  are  the  bitter  aphorisms  we  find,  among  his  Fragments, 
directed  against  Meister  for  its  prosaic,  mechanical,  economi- 
cal, cold-hearted,  altogether  Utilitarian  character.      We  Eng- 


228         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

lish,  again,  call  Goethe  a  mystic :  so  difficult  is  it  to  please  all 
parties  !  But  the  good,  deep,  noble  Novalis  made  the  fairest 
amends;  for  notwithstanding  all  this,  Tieck  tells  us,  if  we 
remember  rightly,  he  continually  returned  to  Meister,  and 
could  not  but  peruse  and  reperuse  it. 

On  a  somewhat  different  ground  proceeded  quite  another 
sort  of  assault  from  one  Pustkucher  of  Quedlinburg.  Herr 
Pustkucher  felt  afflicted,  it  would  seem,  at  the  want  of  Patri- 
otism and  Religion  too  manifest  in  Meister;  and  determined 
to  take  what  vengeance  he  could.  By  way  of  sequel  to  the 
Apprenticeship,  Goethe  had  announced  his  Wilhelm  Meisters 
Wanderjahre,'^  as  in  a  state  of  preparation ;  but  the  book  still 
lingered :  whereupon,  in  the  interim,  forth  comes  this  Pustku- 
cher with  a  Pseudo-  Wanderjahre  of  his  own ;  satirizing,  accord- 
ing to  ability,  the  spirit  and  principles  of  the  Apprenticeship. 
We  have  seen  an  epigram  on  Pustkucher  and  his  Wanderjahre, 
attributed,  with  what  justice  we  know  not,  to  Goethe  himself: 
■whether  it  is  his  or  not,  it  is  written  in  his  name ;  and  seems 
to  express  accurately  enough  for  such  a  purpose  the  relation 
between  the  parties,  —  in  language  which  we  had  rather  not 
translate :  — 

"  Will  derm  von  Quedlinburg  aus 
Ein  neuer  Wanderer  trulien  ? 
Hat  dorh  die  Walljisch  seine  Laus, 
Muss  auch  die  meine  haien." 

So  much  for  Pustkucher,  and  the  rest.  The  true  Wander- 
jahre has  at  length  appeared :  the  first  volume  has  been  before 
the  world  since  1821.  This  Fragment,  for  it  still  continues 
such,  is  in  our  view  one  of  the  most  perfect  pieces  of  composi- 
tion that  Goethe  has  ever  produced.  We  have  heard  something 
of  his  being  at  present  engaged  in  extending  or  completing  it : 

1  "  Wanderjahre  denotes  the  period  which  a  German  artisan  is,  by  law  or 
usage,  obliged  to  pass  in  travelling,  to  perfect  himself  in  his  craft,  after  the 
conclusion  of  his  Lehrjaltre  (Api)renticesliip),  and  before  his  Mastership  can 
begin.  In  many  guilds  this  custom  is  as  old  as  their  existence,  and  continues 
still  to  he  indispensable :  it  is  said  to  have  originated  in  tlie  frequent  journeys 
of  the  German  Emperors  to  It.Tly,  and  the  consc([uent  improvement  observed 
in  such  workmen  among  their  menials  as  had  attended  them  thither.  Most 
of  the  guilds  are  what  is  called  fjesrhenklen,  that  is,  presenting,  having  presents 
to  give  to  needy  wandering  brothers." 


GOETHE.  229 

what  the  whole  may  in  his  hands  become,  we  are  anxious  to 
see ;  but  the  Wanderjahre,  even  in  its  actual  state,  can  hardly 
be  called  unfinished,  as  a  piece  of  writing ;  it  coheres  so  beauti- 
fully within  itself ;  and  yet  we  see  not  whence  the  wondrous 
landscape  came,  or  whither  it  is  stretching ;  but  it  hangs  before 
us  as  a  fairy  region,  hiding  its  borders  on  this  side  in  light 
sunny  clouds,  fading  away  on  that  into  the  infinite  azure : 
already,  we  might  almost  say,  it  gives  us  the  notion  of  a  cottv- 
pleted  fragment,  or  the  state  in  which  a  fragment,  not  meant 
for  completion,  might  be  left. 

But  apart  from  its  environment,  and  considered  merely  in 
itself,  this  Wanderjahre  seems  to  us  a  most  estimable  work. 
There  is,  in  truth,  a  singular  gracefulness  in  it ;  a  high,  me- 
lodious Wisdom  ;  so  light  is  it,  yet  so  earnest ;  so  calm,  so  gay, 
yet  so  strong  and  deep :  for  the  purest  spirit  of  all  Art  rests 
over  it  and  breathes  through  it ;  "  mild  Wisdom  is  wedded  in 
living  union  to  Harmony  divine ; "  the  Thought  of  the  Sage  is 
melted,  we  might  say,  and  incorporated  in  the  liquid  music  of 
the  Poet.  "  It  is  called  a  Romance,"  observes  the  English 
Translator  ;  "  but  it  treats  not  of  romance  characters  or  sub- 
jects ;  it  has  less  relation  to  Fielding's  Tom  Jones  than  to 
Spenser's  Faery  Queen P  We  have  not  forgotten  what  is  due 
to  Spenser ;  yet,  perhaps,  beside  his  immortal  allegory  this 
Wanderjahre  may,  in  fact,  not  unfairly  be  named  ;  and  with 
this  advantage,  that  it  is  an  allegory  not  of  the  Seventeenth 
century,  but  of  the  jSTineteenth ;  a  picture  full  of  expressive- 
ness, of  what  men  are  striving  for,  and  ought  to  strive  for,  in 
these  actual  days.  "  The  scene,"  we  are  farther  told,  *'  is  not 
laid  on  this  firm  earth ;  but  in  a  fair  Utopia  of  Art  and  Science 
and  free  Activity;  the  figures,  light  and  aeriform,  come  un- 
looked  for,  and  melt  away  abruptly,  like  the  pageants  of  Pros- 
pero  in  his  Enchanted  Island."  We  venture  to  add,  that,  like 
Prospero's  Island,  this  too  is  drawn  from  the  inward  depths, 
the  purest  sphere  of  poetic  inspiration  :  ever,  as  we  read  it, 
the  images  of  old  Italian  Art  flit  before  us ;  the  gay  tints  of 
Titian ;  the  quaint  grace  of  Domeniehino ;  sometimes  the  clear 
yet  unfathomable  depth  of  Rafaelle ;  and  whatever  else  we 
have  known  or  dreamed  of  in  that  rich  old  genial  world. 


230        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

As  it  is  Goethe's  moral  sentiments,  and  culture  as  a  man, 
that  we  have  made  our  chief  object  in  this  survey,  we  would 
fain  give  some  adequate  specimen  of  the  Watiderjahre,  where, 
as  appears  to  us,  these  are  to  be  traced  in  their  last  degree  of 
clearness  and  completeness.  But  to  do  this,  to  find  a  specimen 
that  should  be  adequate,  were  difficult,  or  rather  impossible. 
How  shall  we  divide  what  is  in  itself  one  and  indivisible  ? 
How  shall  the  fraction  of  a  complex  picture  give  us  any  idea 
of  the  so  beautiful  whole  ?  Nevertheless,  we  shall  refer  our 
readers  to  the  Tenth  and  Eleventh  Chapters  of  the  Wander- 
jahre ;  where,  in  poetic  and  symbolic  style,  they  will  find  a 
sketch  of  the  nature,  objects  and  present  ground  of  Eeligious 
Belief,  which,  if  they  have  ever  reflected  duly  on  that  matter, 
will  hardly  fail  to  interest  them.  They  will  find  these  chap- 
ters, if  we  mistake  not,  worthy  of  deep  consideration ;  for  this 
is  the  merit  of  Goethe :  his  maxims  will  bear  study ;  nay  they 
require  it,  and  improve  by  it  more  and  more.  They  come  from 
tlie  depths  of  his  mind,  and  are  not  in  their  place  till  they 
have  reached  the  depths  of  ours.  The  wisest  man,  we  believe, 
may  see  in  them  a  reflex  of  his  own  wisdom :  but  to  him  who 
is  still  learning,  they  become  as  seeds  of  knowledge ;  they  take 
root  in  the  mind,  and  ramify,  as  we  meditate  them,  into  a 
whole  garden  of  thought.  The  sketch  we  mentioned  is  far  too 
long  for  being  extracted  here  :  however,  we  give  some  scattered 
portions  of  it,  which  the  reader  will  accept  with  fair  allowance. 
As  the  wild  suicidal  Night-thoughts  of  Werter  formed  our  first 
extract,  this  by  way  of  counterpart  may  be  the  last.  We  must 
fancy  Wilhelm  in  the  "  Pedagogic  province,"  proceeding  to- 
wards the  "  Chief,  or  the  Three,"  with  intent  to  place  his 
son  under  their  charge,  in  that  wonderful  region,  "  where  he 
was  to  see  so  many  singularities." 

"  Wilhelm  had  already  noticed  that  in  the  cut  and  color  of 
the  young  p-^ople's  clothes  a  variety  prevailed,  which  gave  the 
whole  tiny  population  a  peculiar  aspect :  he  was  about  to  ques- 
tion his  attendant  on  this  point,  when  a  still  stranger  observa- 
tion forced  itself  upon  him :  all  the  children,  how  employed 
soever,  laid  down  their  work,  and  turned,  with  singular  yet 
diverse  gestures,  towards  the  party  riding  past  them  j  or  rather, 


GOETHE.  231 

as  it  was  easy  to  infer,  towards  the  Overseer,  who  was  in  it. 
The  youngest  laid  their  arms  crosswise  over  their  breasts,  and 
looked  cheerfully  up  to  the  sky ;  those  of  middle  size  held 
their  hands  on  their  backs,  and  looked  smiling  on  the  ground; 
the  eldest  stood  with  a  frank  and  spirited  air,  —  their  arras 
stretched  down,  they  turned  their  heads  to  the  right,  and 
formed  themselves  into  a  line  ;  whereas  the  others  kept  sepa- 
rate, each  where  he  chanced  to  be. 

"  The  riders  having  stopped  and  dismounted  here,  as  several 
children,  in  their  various  modes,  were  standing  forth  to  be 
inspected  by  the  Overseer,  Wilhelm  asked  the  meaning  of 
these  gestures ;  but  Felix  struck  in  and  cried  gayly  :  *  What 
posture  am  I  to  take,  then  ?  '  '  Without  doubt,'  said  the  Over- 
seer, '  the  first  posture  :  the  arms  over  the  breast,  the  face 
earnest  and  cheerful  towards  the  sky.'  Felix  obeyed,  but  soon 
cried :  '  This  is  not  much  to  my  taste ;  I  see  nothing  up  there  : 
does  it  last  long  ?  But  yes ! '  exclaimed  he  joyfully,  '  yonder 
ai-e  a  pair  of  falcons  flying  from  the  west  to  the  east :  that  is 
a  good  sign  too  ? '  —  'As  thou  takest  it,  as  thou  behavest,' 
said  the  other :  '  Now  mingle  among  them  as  they  mingle.' 
He  gave  a  signal,  and  the  children  left  their  postures,  and 
again  betook  them  to  work  or  sport  as  before." 

Wilhelm  a  second  time  "asks  the  meaning  of  these  ges- 
tures ;  "  but  the  Overseer  is  not  at  liberty  to  throw  much 
light  on  the  matter ;  mentions  only  that  they  are  symbolical, 
"  nowise  mere  grimaces,  but  have  a  moral  purport,  which  per- 
haps the  Chief  or  the  Three  may  farther  explain  to  him." 
The  children  themselves,  it  would  seem,  only  know  it  in  part ; 
"  secrecy  having  many  advantages ;  for  when  you  tell  a  man 
at  once  and  straightforward  the  purpose  of  any  object,  he 
fancies  there  is  nothing  in  it."  By  and  by,  however,  having 
left  Felix  by  the  way,  and  parted  with  the  Overseer,  Wilhelm 
arrives  at  the  abode  of  the  Three,  "  who  preside  over  sacred 
things,"  and  from  whom  farther  satisfaction  is  to  be  looked 
for. 

"  Wilhelm  had  now  reached  the  gate  of  a  wooded  vale,  sur- 
rounded with  high  walls :  on  a  certain  sign,  the  little  door 
opened;  and  a  man  of  earnest,  imposing  look  received  our 


232         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Traveller.  The  latter  found  himself  in  a  large  beautifully 
umbrageous  space,  decked  with  the  richest  foliage,  shaded 
with  trees  and  bushes  of  all  sorts;  while  stately  walls  and 
magnificent  buildings  were  discerned  only  in  glimpses  through 
this  thick  natural  boscage.  A  friendly  reception  from  the 
Three,  who  by  and  by  appeared,  at  last  turned  into  a  general 
conversation,  the  substance  of  which  we  now  present  in  an 
abbreviated  shape. 

" '  Since  you  intrust  your  son  to  us,'  said  they, '  it  is  fair  that 
we  admit  you  to  a  closer  view  of  our  procedure.  Of  what  is  ex- 
ternal you  have  seen  much  that  does  not  bear  its  meaning  on 
its  front.   What  part  of  this  do  you  wish  to  have  explained  ? ' 

" '  Dignified  yet  singular  gestures  of  salutation  I  have  no- 
ticed ;  the  import  of  which  I  would  gladly  learn :  with  you, 
doubtless,  the  exterior  has  a  reference  to  the  interior,  and  in- 
versely ;  let  me  know  what  this  reference  is.' 

" '  Well-formed  healthy  children,'  replied  the  Three,  '  bring 
nmch  into  the  world  along  with  them  ;  Nature  has  given  to 
each  whatever  he  requires  for  time  and  duration;  to  unfold 
this  is  our  duty ;  often  it  unfolds  itself  better  of  its  own  ac- 
cord. One  thing  there  is,  however,  which  no  child  brings  into 
the  world  with  him ;  and  yet  it  is  on  this  one  thing  that  all 
depends  for  making  man  in  every  point  a  man.  If  you  can 
discover  it  yourself,  speak  it  out.'  Wilhelm  thought  a  little 
while,  then  shook  his  head. 

"  The  Three,  after  a  suitable  pause,  exclaimed,  '  Keverence ! ' 
Wilhelm  seemed  to  hesitate.  '  Eeverence  ! '  cried  they,  a  sec- 
ond time.     '  All  want  it,  perhaps  yourself.' 

"  '  Three  kinds  of  gestures  you  have  seen ;  and  we  inculcate 
a  threefold  reverence,  which  when  commingled  and  formed 
into  one  whole,  attains  its  full  force  and  effect.  The  first  is 
Eeverence  for  what  is  Above  us.  That  posture,  the  arms 
crossed  over  the  breast,  the  look  turned  joyfully  towards  heav- 
en ;  that  is  what  we  have  enjoined  on  young  children  ;  requir- 
ing from  them  thereby  a  testimony  that  there  is  a  God  above, 
who  images  and  reveals  himself  in  parents,  teachers,  superiors. 
Then  comes  the  second ;  Reverence  for  what  is  Under  us. 
Those  hands  folded  over  the  back,  and  as  it  were  tied  together ; 


GOETHE.  233 

that  down-turned  smiling  look,  announce  that  -we  are  to  regard 
the  earth  with  attention  and  cheerfulness  :  from  the  bounty  of 
the  earth  we  are  nourished ;  the  earth  affords  unutterable  joys ; 
but  disproportionate  sorrows  she  also  brings  us.  Should  one 
of  our  children  do  himself  external  hurt,  blamably  or  blame- 
lessly; should  others  hurt  him  accidentally  or  purposely;  should 
dead  involuntary  matter  do  him  hurt ;  then  let  him  well  con- 
sider it ;  for  such  dangers  will  attend  him  all  his  days.  But 
from  this  posture  we  delay  not  to  free  our  pupil,  the  instant 
we  become  convinced  that  the  instruction  connected  with  it 
has  produced  sufficient  influence  on  him.  Then,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  bid  him  gather  courage,  and,  turning  to  his  comrades, 
range  himself  along  with  them.  Now,  at  last,  he  stands  forth, 
frank  and  bold ;  not  selfishly  isolated ;  only  in  combination 
with  his  equals  does  he  front  the  world.  Farther  we  have 
nothing  to  add.' 

"  '  I  see  a  glimpse  of  it ! '  said  Wilhelm.  '  Are  not  the  mass 
of  men  so  marred  and  stinted,  because  they  take  pleasure  only 
in  the  element  of  evil-wishing  and  evil-speaking  ?  Whoever 
gives  himself  to  this,  soon  comes  to  be  indifferent  towards 
God,  contemptuous  towards  the  world,  spiteful  towards  his 
equals ;  and  the  true,  genuine,  indispensable  sentiment  of  self- 
estimation  corrupts  into  self-conceit  and  presumption.  Allow 
me,  however,'  continued  he,  'to  state  one  difficulty.  You 
say  that  reverence  is  not  natural  to  man :  now  has  not  the 
reverence  or  fear  of  rude  people  for  violent  convulsions  of 
nature,  or  other  inexplicable  mysteriously  foreboding  occur- 
rences, been  heretofore  regarded  as  the  germ  out  of  which 
a  higher  feeling,  a  purer  sentiment,  was  by  degrees  to  be  de- 
veloped ? ' 

"'iSTature  is  indeed  adequate  to  fear,'  replied  they,  '.but 
to  reverence  not  adequate.  Men  fear  a  known  or  unknown 
powerful  being ;  the  strong  seeks  to  conquer  it,  the  weak  to 
avoid  it ;  both  endeavor  to  get  quit  of  it,  and  feel  themselves 
happy  when  for  a  short  season  they  have  put  it  aside,  and 
their  nature  has  in  some  degree  restored  itself  to  freedom  and 
independence.  The  natural  man  repeats  this  operation  mil- 
lions of  times  in  the  course  of  his  life  ;  from  fear  he  struggles 


2S4         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  freedom ;  from  freedom  he  is  driven  back  to  fear,  and  so 
makes  no  advancement.  To  fear  is  easy,  but  grievous  ;  to  rev- 
erence is  difncult,  but  satisfactory.  Man  does  not  willingly 
submit  himself  to  reverence,  or  rather  he  never  so  submits 
himself :  it  is  a  higher  sense  which  must  be  communicated  to 
his  nature ;  which  only  in  some  favored  individuals  unfolds 
itself  spontaneously,  who  on  this  account  too  have  of  old  been 
looked  upon  as  Saints  and  Gods.  Here  lies  the  worth,  here 
lies  the  business  of  all  true  Religions,  whereof  there  are  like- 
wise only  three,  according  to  the  objects  towards  which  they 
direct  our  devotion.' 

"  The  men  paused  ;  Wilhelm  reflected  for  a  time  in  silence ; 
but  feeling  in  himself  no  pretension  to  unfold  these  strange 
words,  he  requested  the  Sages  to  proceed  with  their  exposi- 
tion. They  immediately  complied.  '  No  Religion  that  grounds 
itself  on  fear,'  said  they,  *is  regarded  among  us.  With  the 
reverence  to  which  a  man  should  give  dominion  in  his  mind, 
he  can,  in  paying  honor,  keep  his  own  honor;  he  is  not  dis- 
united with  himself  as  in  the  former  case.  The  Religion 
which  depends  on  Reverence  for  what  is  Above  us,  we  denomi- 
nate the  Ethnic ;  it  is  the  Religion  of  the  Nations,  and  the 
first  happy  deliverance  from  a  degrading  fear :  all  Heathen 
religions,  as  we  call  them,  are  of  this  sort,  whatsoever  names 
they  may  bear.  The  Second  Religion,  which  founds  itself  on 
Reverence  for  what  is  Around  us,  we  denominate  the  Philo- 
sophical ;  for  the  Philosopher  stations  himself  in  the  middle, 
and  must  draw  down  to  him  all  that  is  higher,  and  up  to  him 
all  that  is  lower,  and  only  in  this  medium  condition  does  he 
merit  the  title  of  Wise.  Here  as  he  surveys  with  clear  sight 
his  relation  to  his  equals,  and  therefore  to  the  whole  human 
race,  his  relation  likewise  to  all  other  earthly  circumstances 
and  arrangements  necessary  or  accidental,  he  alone,  in  a  cos- 
mic sense,  lives  in  Truth.  But  now  we  have  to  speak  of  the 
Third  Religion,  grounded  on  Reverence  for  what  is  Under  us : 
tliis  we  name  the  Christian ;  as  in  the  Christian  Religion  such 
a  temper  is  the  most  distinctly  manifested:  it  is  a  last  step  to 
which  mankind  were  fitted  and  destined  to  attain.  But  what 
a  task  was  it,  not  only  to  be  patient  with  the  Earth,  and  let  it 


GOETHE.  235 

lie  beneath  us,  we  appealing  to  a  higher  birthplace ;  but  also 
to  recognize  humility  and  poverty,  mockery  and  despite,  dis- 
grace and  wretchedness,  suffering  and  death,  to  recognize  these 
things  as  divine ;  nay,  even  on  sin  and  crime  to  look  not  as 
hindrances,  but  to  honor  and  love  them  as  furtherances,  of 
what  is  holy.  Of  this,  indeed,  we  find  some  traces  in  all  ages : 
but  the  trace  is  not  the  goal ;  and  this  being  now  attained,  the 
human  species  cannot  retrogi-ade;  and  we  may  say  that  the 
Christian  Religion,  having  once  appeared,  cannot  again  vanisli ; 
having  once  assumed  its  divine  shape,  can  be  subject  to  no 
dissolution.' 

"  '  To  which  of  these  Religions  do  you  specially  adhere  ? ' 
inquired  Wilhelm. 

"*To  all  the  three,'  replied  they;  'for  in  their  union  they 
produce  what  may  properly  be  called  the  true  Religion.  Out 
of  those  three  Reverences  springs  the  highest  Reverence,  Rev- 
erence for  Oneself,  and  these  again  unfold  themselves  from 
this ;  so  that  man  attains  the  highest  elevation  of  which  he  is 
capable,  that  of  being  justified  in  reckoning  himself  the  Best 
that  God  and  Nature  have  produced ;  nay,  of  being  able  to 
continue  on  this  lofty  eminence,  without  being  again  by  self- 
conceit  and  presumption  drawn  down  from  it  into  the  vulgar 
level.' " 

The  Three  undertake  to  admit  him  into  the  interior  of  their 
Sanctuary;  whither,  accordingly,  he,  "at  the  hand  of  the 
Eldest,"  proceeds  on  the  morrow.  Sorry  are  we  that  we  can- 
not follow  them  into  the  "  octagonal  hall,"  so  full  of  paintings, 
and  the  "gallery  open  on  one  side,  and  stretching  round  a 
spacious,  gay,  flowery  garden."  It  is  a  beautiful  figurative 
representation,  by  pictures  and  symbols  of  Art,  of  the  First 
and  the  Second  Religions,  the  Ethnic  and  the  Philosophical ; 
for  the  former  of  which  the  pictures  have  been  composed  from 
the  Old  Testament ;  for  the  latter  from  the  New.  We  can 
only  make  room  for  some  small  portions. 

" '  I  observe,'  said  Wilhelm,  '  you  have  done  the  Israelites 
the  honor  to  select  their  history  as  the  groundwork  of  this 
delineation,  or  rather  you  have  made  it  the  leading  object 
there.' 


236        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

" '  As  you  see/  replied  the  Eldest ;  '  for  you  will  remark,  that 
on  the  socles  and  friezes  we  have  introduced  another  series  of 
transactions  and  occurrences,  not  so  much  of  a  synchronistic 
as  of  a  symphronistic  kind ;  since,  among  all  nations,  we  dis- 
cover records  of  a  similar  import,  and  grounded  on  the  same 
facts.  Thus  you  perceive  here,  while,  in  the  main  field  of  the 
picture,  Abraham  receives  a  visit  from  his  gods  in  the  form 
of  fair  youths,  Apollo  among  the  herdsmen  of  Admetus  is 
painted  above  on  the  frieze.  From  which  we  may  learn,  that 
the  gods,  when  they  appear  to  men,  are  commonly  unrecog- 
nized of  them.' 

"  The  friends  walked  on.  Wilhelra,  for  the  most  part,  met 
with  well-known  objects;  but  they  were  here  exhibited  in  a 
livelier,  more  expressive  manner,  than  he  had  been  used  to  see 
them.  On  some  few  matters  he  requested  explanation,  and 
at  last  could  not  help  returning  to  his  former  question : 
'Why  the  Israelitish  history  had  been  chosen  in  preference 
to  all  others  ?  ' 

"  The  Eldest  answered  :  '  Among  all  Heathen  religions,  for 
such  also  is  the  Israelitish,  this  has  the  most  distinguished 
advantages ;  of  which  I  shall  mention  only  a  few.  At  the 
Ethnic  judgment-seat ;  at  the  judgment-seat  of  the  God  of 
Nations,  it  is  not  asked  whether  this  is  the  best,  the  most  ex- 
cellent nation ;  but  whether  it  lasts,  whether  it  has  continued. 
The  Israelitish  people  never  was  good  for  much,  as  its  own 
leaders,  judges,  rulers,  prophets,  have  a  thousand  times  re- 
proachfully declared ;  it  j^ossesses  few  virtues,  and  most  of  the 
faults  of  other  nations  :  but  in  cohesion,  steadfastness,  valor, 
and  when  all  this  would  not  serve,  in  obstinate  toughness,  it  has 
no  match.  It  is  the  most  perseverant  nation  in  the  world ;  it 
is,  it  was  and  it  will  be,  to  glorify  the  name  of  Jehovah  through 
all  ages.  We  have  set  it  uj),  therefore,  as  the  pattern  figure ;  as 
the  main  figure  to  which  the  others  only  serve  as  a  frame.' 

"'It  becomes  not  me  to  dis[)ute  with  you,'  said  Wilhelm, 
'  since  you  have  instruction  to  impart.  Open  to  me,  therefore, 
the  other  advantages  of  this  people,  or  rather  of  its  history,  of 
its  religion.' 

"  '  One  chief  advantage/  said  the  other,  *  is  its  excellent  col* 


GOETHE.  237 

lection  of  Sacred  Books.  These  stand  so  happily  combined 
together,  that  even  out  of  the  most  diverse  elements,  the  feel- 
ing of  a  whole  still  rises  before  us.  They  are  complete  enough 
to  satisfy ;  fragmentary  enough  to  excite ;  barbarous  enough 
to  rouse ;  tender  enough  to  appease ;  and  for  how  many  other 
contradicting  merits  might  not  these  Books,  might  not  this 
one  Book,  be  praised  ? ' 

"  Thus  wandering  on,  they  had  now  reached  the  gloomy  and 
perplexed  periods  of  the  History,  the  destruction  of  the  City 
and  the  Temple,  the  murder,  exile,  slavery  of  whole  masses  of 
this  stiff-necked  people.  Its  subsequent  fortunes  were  deline- 
ated in  a  cunning  allegorical  way ;  a  real  historical  delineation 
of  them  would  have  lain  without  the  limits  of  true  Art. 

"  At  this  point,  the  gallery  abruptly  terminated  in  a  closed 
door,  and  Wilhelm  was  surprised  to  see  himself  already  at 
the  end.  'In  your  historical  series,'  said  he,  'I  find  a  chasm. 
You  have  destroyed  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem,  and  dispersed 
the  people ;  yet  you  have  not  introduced  the  divine  Man  who 
taught  there  shortly  before ;  to  whom,  shortly  before,  they 
would  give  no  ear.' 

" '  To  have  done  this,  as  you  require  it,  would  have  been  an 
error.  The  life  of  that  divine  Man,  Avhom  you  allude  to, 
stands  in  no  connection  with  the  general  history  of  the  world 
in  his  time.  It  was  a  private  life,  his  teaching  was  a  teaching 
for  individuals.  What  has  publicly  befallen  vast  masses  of 
people,  and  the  minor  parts  which  compose  them,  belongs  to 
the  general  History  of  the  World,  to  the  general  Religion  of 
the  World ;  the  Religion  we  have  named  the  First.  What  in- 
wardly befalls  individuals  belongs  to  the  Second  Religion,  the 
Philosophical :  such  a  Religion  was  it  that  Christ  taught  and 
practised,  so  long  as  he  went  about  on  Earth.  For  this  reason, 
the  external  here  closes,  and  I  now  open  to  you  the  internal.' 

"  A  door  went  back,  and  they  entered  a  similar  gallery  ; 
wdiere  Wilhelm  soon  recognized  a  corresponding  series  of  Pic- 
tures from  the  New  Testament.  They  seemed  as  if  by  another 
hand  than  the  first :  all  was  softer ;  forms,  movements,  accompa- 
niments, light  and  coloring." 


238         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Into  this  second  gallery,  with  its  strange  doctrine  about 
"  Miracles  and  Parables,"  the  characteristic  of  the  Philosophi- 
cal Eeligion,  we  cannot  enter  for  the  present,  yet  must  give 
one  hurried  glance.  Wilhelra  expresses  some  surprise  that 
these  delineations  terminate  "  with  the  Supper,  with  the  scene 
where  the  Master  and  his  Disciples  part."  He  inquires  for 
the  remaining  portion  of  the  history. 

"  ♦  In  all  sorts  of  instruction,'  said  the  Eldest,  '  in  all  sorts 
of  communication,  we  are  fond  of  separating  whatever  it  is 
possible  to  separate  ;  for  by  this  means  alone  can  the  notion 
of  importance  and  peculiar  significance  arise  in  the  young 
mind.  Actual  experience  of  itself  mingles  and  mixes  all 
things  together :  here,  accordingly,  we  have  entirely  disjoined 
that  sublime  Man's  life  from  its  termination.  In  life,  he  ap- 
pears as  a  true  Philosopher,  —  let  not  the  expression  stagger 
you,  —  as  a  Wise  Man  in  the  highest  sense.  He  stands  firm 
to  his  point ;  he  goes  on  his  way  inflexibly,  and  while  he  ex- 
alts the  lower  to  himself,  while  he  makes  the  ignorant,  the 
poor,  the  sick,  partakers  of  his  wisdom,  of  his  riches,  of  his 
strength,  he,  on  the  other  hand,  in  no  wise  conceals  his  divine 
origin  ;  he  dares  to  equal  himself  with  God,  nay  to  declare 
that  he  himself  is  God.  In  this  manner  he  is  wont,  from 
youth  upwards,  to  astound  his  familiar  friends ;  of  these  he 
gains  a  part  to  his  own  cause  ;  irritates  the  rest  against  him  ; 
and  shows  to  all  men,  who  are  aiming  at  a  certain  elevation 
in  doctrine  and  life,  what  they  have  to  look  for  from  the 
world.  And  thus,  for  the  noble  portion  of  mankind,  his  walk 
and  conversation  are  even  more  instructive  and  profitable  than 
his  death :  for  to  those  trials  every  one  is  called,  to  this  trial 
but  a  few.  Now,  omitting  all  that  results  from  this  considera- 
tion, do  but  look  at  the  touching  scene  of  the  Last  Supper. 
Here  the  Wise  Man,  as  it  ever  is,  leaves  those  that  are  his  own 
utterly  orphaned  behind  him ;  and  while  he  is  careful  for  the 
Good,  he  feeds  along  with  them  a  traitor,  by  whom  he  and  the 
Better  are  to  be  destroyed.'  " 

This  seems  to  us  to  have  "  a  deep,  still  meaning ; "  and  the 
longer  and  closer  we  examine  it,  the  more  it  pleases  us.  Wil- 
helm  is  not  admitted  into  the  shrine  of  the  Third  Religion, 


GOETHE.  239 

the  Christian,  or  that  of  which  Christ's  sufferings  and  death 
were  the  symbol,  as  his  walk  and  conversation  had  been  the 
symbol  of  the  Second,  or  Philosophical  Eeligion.  "  That  last 
Religion,"  it  is  said,  — 

" '  That  last  Religion,  which  arises  from  the  Reverence  of 
what  is  Beneath  us  j  that  veneration  of  the  contradictory,  the 
hated,  the  avoided,  we  give  to  each  of  our  pupils,  in  small 
portions,  by  way  of  outfit,  along  with  him  into  the  world, 
merely  that  he  may  know  where  more  is  to  be  had,  should 
such  a  want  spring  up  within  him.  I  invite  you  to  return 
hither  at  the  end  of  a  year,  to  attend  our  general  Festival,  and 
see  how  far  your  son  is  advanced :  then  shall  you  be  admitted 
into  the  Sanctuary  of  Sorrow.' 

" '  Permit  me  one  question,'  said  Wilhelm  :  '  as  you  have  set 
up  the  life  of  this  divine  Man  for  a  pattern  and  example,  have 
you  likewise  selected  his  sufferings,  his  death,  as  a  model  of 
exalted  patience  ? ' 

" '  Undoubtedly  we  have,'  replied  the  Eldest.  '  Of  this  we 
make  no  secret ;  but  we  draw  a  veil  over  those  sufferings,  even 
because  we  reverence  them  so  highly.  We  hold  it  a  damnable 
audacity  to  bring  forth  that  torturing  Cross,  and  the  Holy 
One  who  suffers  on  it,  or  to  expose  them  to  the  light  of  the 
Sun,  which  hid  its  face  when  a  reckless  world  forced  such  a 
sight  on  it;  to  take  these  mysterious  secrets,  in  which  the 
divine  depth  of  Sorrow  lies  hid,  and  play  with  them,  fondle 
them,  trick  them  out,  and  rest  not  till  the  most  reverend  of  all 
solemnities  appears  vulgar  and  paltry.  Let  so  much  for  the 
present  suffice  —  ...  The  rest  we  must  still  owe  you  for  a 
twelvemonth.  The  instruction,  which  in  the  interim  we  give 
the  children,  no  stranger  is  allowed  to  witness  :  then,  however, 
come  to  us,  and  jj-ou  will  hear  what  our  best  Speakers  think  it 
serviceable  to  make  public  on  those  matters.' " 

Could  we  hope  that,  in  its  present  disjointed  state,  this  em- 
blematic sketch  would  rise  before  the  minds  of  our  readers  in 
any  measure  as  it  stood  before  the  mind  of  the  writer ;  that, 
in  considering  it,  they  might  seize  only  an  outline  of  those 
many  meanings  which,  at  less  or  greater  depth,  lie  hidden  un- 
der it,  we  should  anticipate  their  thanks  for  having,  a  first  or 


240        CKITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

a  second  time,  brought  it  before  them.  As  it  is,  believing 
that,  to  open-minded  truth-seeking  men,  the  deliberate  words 
of  an  open-minded  truth-seeking  man  can  in  no  case  be  wholly 
unintelligible,  nor  the  words  of  such  a  man  as  Goethe  indiffer- 
ent, we  have  transcribed  it  for  their  perusal.  If  we  induce 
them  to  turn  to  the  original,  and  study  this  in  its  complete- 
ness, with  so  much  else  that  environs  it  and  bears  on  it,  they 
will  thank  us  still  more.  To  our  own  judgment  at  least,  there 
is  a  fine  and  pure  significance  in  this  whole  delineation :  such 
phrases  even  as  the  "  Sanctuary  of  Sorrow,"  the  "  divine  depth 
of  Sorrow,"  have  of  themselves  a  pathetic  wisdom  for  us  ;  as 
indeed  a  tone  of  devoutness,  of  calm,  mild,  priest-like  dignity 
pervades  the  whole.  In  a  time  like  ours,  it  is  rare  to  see,  in 
the  writings  of  cultivated  men,  any  opinion  whatever  bearing 
any  mark  of  sincerity  on  such  a  subject  as  this :  yet  it  is  and 
continues  the  highest  subject,  and  they  that  are  highest  are 
most  fit  for  studying  it,  and  helping  others  to  study  it. 

Goethe's  Wanderjahre  was  published  in  his  seventy-second 
year ;  Werter  in  his  twenty -fifth :  thus  in  passing  between 
these  two  works,  and  over  Meisters  Lehrjahre,  which  stands 
nearly  midway,  we  have  glanced  over  a  space  of  almost  fifty 
years,  including  within  them,  of  covirse,  whatever  was  most 
important  in  his  public  or  private  history.  By  means  of  these 
quotations,  so  diverse  in  their  tone,  we  meant  to  make  it  visi- 
ble that  a  great  change  had  taken  place  in  the  moral  disposi- 
tion of  the  man ;  a  change  from  inward  imprisonment,  doubt 
and  discontent,  into  freedom,  belief  and  clear  activity  :  such  a 
change  as,  in  our  opinion,  must  take  place,  more  or  less  con- 
sciously, in  every  character  that,  especially  in  these  times,  at- 
tains to  spiritual  manhood ;  and  in  characters  possessing  any 
thoughtfulness  and  sensibility,  will  seldom  take  place  without 
a  too  painful  consciousness,  without  bitter  conflicts,  in  which 
the  character  itself  is  too  often  maimed  and  impoverished, 
and  which  end  too  often  not  in  victory,  but  in  defeat,  or  fatal 
compromise  with  the  enemy.  Too  often,  we  may  well  say ; 
for  though  many  gird  on  the  harness,  few  bear  it  warrior-like ; 
still  fewer  put  it  off  with  triumph.     Among  our  own  poets, 


GOETHE.  241 

Byron  was  almost  the  only  man  we  saw  faithfully  and  man- 
fully struggling,  to  the  end,  in  this  cause ;  and  he  died  while 
the  victory  was  still  doubtful,  or  at  best,  only  beginning  to  be 
gained.  We  have  already  stated  our  opinion,  that  Goethe's 
success  in  this  matter  has  been  more  complete  than  that  of 
any  other  man  in  his  age  ;  nay  that,  in  the  strictest  sense,  he 
may  almost  be  called  the  only  one  that  has  so  succeeded.  On 
this  ground,  were  it  on  no  other,  we  have  ventured  to  say,  that 
his  spiritual  history  and  procedure  must  deserve  attention ; 
that  his  opinions,  his  creations,  his  mode  of  thought,  his  whole 
picture  of  the  world  as  it  dwells  within  him,  must  to  his  con- 
temporaries be  an  inquiry  of  no  common  interest ;  of  an  inter- 
est altogether  peculiar,  and  not  in  this  degree  exampled  in 
existing  literature.  These  things  can  be  but  imperfectly 
stated  here,  and  must  be  left,  not  in  a  state  of  demonstration, 
but,  at  the  utmost,  of  loose  fluctuating  probability  ;  neverthe- 
less, if  inquired  into,  they  will  be  found  to  have  a  precise 
enough  meaning,  and,  as  we  believe,  a  highly  important  one. 

For  the  rest,  what  sort  of  mind  it  is  that  has  passed  through 
this  change,  that  has  gained  this  victory ;  how  rich  and  high 
a  mind ;  how  learned  by  study  in  all  that  is  wisest,  by  experi- 
ence in  all  that  is  most  complex,  the  brightest  as  well  as  the 
blackest,  in  man's  existence ;  gifted  with  what  insight,  with  what 
grace  and  power  of  utterance,  we  shall  not  for  the  present  at- 
tempt discussing.  All  these  the  reader  will  learn,  who  studies 
his  writings  with  such  attention  as  they  merit :  and  by  no 
other  means.  Of  Goethe's  dramatic,  lyrical,  didactic  poems, 
in  their  thousand-fold  expressiveness,  for  they  are  full  of  ex- 
pressiveness, we  can  here  say  nothing.  But  in  every  department 
of  Literature,  of  Art  ancient  and  modern,  in  many  provinces- 
of  Science,  we  shall  often  meet  him  ;  and  hope  to  have  other 
occasions  of  estimating  what,  in  these  respects,  we  and  all  men 
owe  him. 

Two  circumstances,  meanwhile,  we  have  remarked,  which 
to  us  throw  light  on  the  nature  of  his  original  faculty  for 
Poetry,  and  go  far  to  convince  us  of  the  Mastery  he  has 
attained  in  that  art :  these  we  may  here  state  briefly,  for  the 
judgment  of  such  as  already  know  his  writings,  or  the  help  of 

TOL.  XIII.  16 


242         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

sucli  as  are  beginning  to  know  them.  The  first  is,  his  sin- 
gularly emblematic  intellect;  his  perpetual  never-failing  ten- 
dency to  transform  into  shape,  into  life,  the  opinion,  the  feeling 
that  may  dwell  in  him ;  which,  in  its  widest  sense,  we  reckon 
to  be  essentially  the  grand  problem  of  the  Poet.  We  do  not 
mean  mere  metaphor  and  rhetorical  trope :  these  are  but  the 
exterior  concern,  often  but  the  scaffolding  of  the  edifice,  which 
is  to  be  built  up  (within  our  thoughts)  by  means  of  them.  In 
allusions,  in  similitudes,  though  no  one  known  to  us  is  hap- 
pier, many  are  more  copious,  than  Goethe.  But  we  find  this 
faculty  of  his  in  the  very  essence  of  his  intellect ;  and  trace  it 
alike  in  the  quiet  cunning  epigram,  the  allegory,  the  quaint 
device,  reminding  us  of  some  Quarles  or  Bunyan  ;  and  in  the 
Fausts,  the  Tassos,  the  Mignojis,  which  in  their  pure  and  genu- 
ine personality,  may  almost  remind  us  of  the  Ariels  and  Ilain- 
lets  of  Shakspeare.  Everything  has  form,  everything  has 
visual  existence  ;  the  poet's  imagination  bodies  forth  the  forms 
of  things  unseen,  his  pen  turns  them  to  shape.  This,  as  a 
natural  endowment,  exists  in  Goethe,  we  conceive,  to  a  very 
high  degree. 

The  other  characteristic  of  his  mind,  which  proves  to  us  his 
acquired  mastery  in  art,  as  this  shows  us  the  extent  of  his 
original  capacity  for  it,  is  his  wonderful  variety,  nay  univer- 
sality ;  his  entire  freedom  from  Mannerism.  We  read  Goethe 
for  years,  before  we  come  to  see  wherein  the  distinguishing 
peculiarity  of  his  understanding,  of  his  disposition,  even  of 
liis  way  of  writing,  consists.  It  seems  quite  a  simple  style 
tiiat  of  his  ;  remarkable  chiefly  for  its  calmness,  its  perspicuity, 
in  short  its  commonness ;  and  yet  it  is  the  most  uncommon  of 
■all  styles:  we  feel  as  if  every  one  might  imitate  it,  and  yet  it 
is  inimitable.  As  hard  is  it  to  discover  in  his  writings,  — 
though  there  also,  as  in  every  man's  writings,  the  character 
of  the  writer  must  lie  recorded,  —  what  sort  of  spiritual  con- 
struction he  has,  what  are  his  temper,  his  affections,  his  indi- 
vidual specialities.  For  all  lives  freely  within  him  :  Philina 
and  Cliirchen,  Mephistopheles  and  ]Mignon,  are  alike  indifferent, 
or  alike  dear  to  him ;  he  is  of  no  sect  or  caste :  he  seems  not 
this  man,  or  that  man,  but  a  man.     W^e  reckon  this  to  be  the 


GOETHE.  243 

characteristic  of  a  Master  in  Art  of  any  sort ;  and  true  espe- 
cially of  all  great  Poets.  How  true  is  it  of  Shakspeare  and 
Homer !  Who  knows,  or  can  figure  what  the  Man  Shakspeare 
was,  by  the  lirst,  by  the  twentieth,  perusal  of  his  works  ?  He 
is  a  Voice  coming  to  us  from  the  Land  of  Melody :  his  old 
brick  dwelling-place,  in  the  mere  earthly  burgh  of  Stratford- 
on-Avon,  offers  us  the  most  inexplicable  enigma.  And  what  is 
Homer  in  the  Ilias  ?  He  is  the  witness  ;  he  has  seen,  and 
he  reveals  it ;  we  hear  and  believe,  but  do  not  behold  him. 
Now  compare,  with  these  two  Poets,  any  other  two ;  not  of 
equal  genius,  for  there  are  none  such,  but  of  equal  sincerity, 
who  wrote  as  earnestly,  and  from  the  heart,  like  them.  Take, 
for  instance,  Jean  Paul  and  Lord  Byron.  The  good  Richter 
begins  to  show  himself,  in  his  broad,  massive,  kindly,  quaint 
significance,  before  we  have  read  many  pages  of  even  his  slight- 
est work ;  and  to  the  last,  he  paints  himself  much  better  than  his 
subject.  Byron  may  also  be  said  to  have  painted  nothing  else 
than  himself,  be  his  subject  what  it  might.  Yet  as  a  test  for 
the  culture  of  a  Poet,  in  his  poetical  capacity,  for  his  preten- 
sions to  mastery  and  completeness  in  his  art,  we  cannot  but 
reckon  this  among  the  surest.  Tried  by  this,  there  is  no  liv- 
ing writer  that  approaches  within  many  degrees  of  Goethe. 

Thus,  it  would  seem,  we  consider  Goethe  to  be  a  richly 
educated  Poet,  no  less  than  a  richly  educated  Man ;  a  master 
both  of  Humanity  and  of  Poetry ;  one  to  whom  Experience 
has  given  true  wisdom,  and  the  "  Melodies  Eternal "  a  perfect 
utterance  for  his  wisdom.  Of  the  particular  form  which  this 
humanity,  this  wisdom  has  assumed ;  of  his  opinions,  character, 
personality,  —  for  these,  with  whatever  difficulty,  are  and  must 
be  decipherable  in  his  writings,  —  we  had  much  to  say  :  but 
;this  also  we  must  decline.  In  the  present  state  of  matters,  to 
speak  adequately  would  be  a  task  too  hard  for  us,  and  one  in 
which  our  readers  could  afford  little  help,  nay  in  which  many 
of  them  might  take  little  interest.  Meanwhile,  we  have  found 
a  brief  cursory  sketch  on  this  subject,  already  written  in  our 
language :  some  parts  of  it,  by  way  of  preparation,  we  shall 
here  transcribe.  It  is  written  by  a  professed  admirer  of 
Goethe ;  nay,  as  might  almost  seem,  by  a  grateful  learner,  whom 


244         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

he  had  taught,  whom  he  had  helped  to  lead  out  of  spiritual 
obstruction,  into  peace  and  light.  Making  due  allowance  for 
all  this,  there  is  little  in  the  paper  that  we  object  to. 

"In  Goethe's  mind,"  observes  he,  "the  first  aspect  that 
strikes  us  is  its  calmness,  then  its  beauty ;  a  deeper  inspection 
reveals  to  us  its  vastness  and  unmeasured  strength.  This 
man  rules,  and  is  not  ruled.  The  stern  and  fiery  energies  of- 
a  most  passionate  soul  lie  silent  in  the  centre  of  his  being ;  a 
trembling  sensibility  has  been  inui-ed  to  stand,  without  flinch- 
ing or  murmur,  the  sharpest  trials.  Nothing  outward,  nothing 
inward,  shall  agitate  or  control  him.  The  brightest  and  most 
capricious  fancy,  the  most  piercing  and  inquisitive  intellect, 
the  wildest  and  deepest  imagination ;  the  highest  thrills  of 
joy,  the  bitterest  pangs  of  sorrow :  all  these  are  his,  he  is  not 
theirs.  Wliile  he  moves  every  heart  from  its  steadfastness, 
his  own  is  firm  and  still :  the  words  that  search  into  the  in- 
most recesses  of  our  nature,  he  pronounces  with  a  tone  of 
coldness  and  equanimity ;  in  the  deepest  j^athos  he  weeps  not, 
or  his  tears  are  like  water  trickling  from  a  rock  of  adamant. 
He  is  king  of  himself  and  of  his  world  ;  nor  does  he  rule  it 
like  a  vulgar  great  man,  like  a  Napoleon  or  Charles  the 
Twelfth,  by  the  mere  brute  exertion  of  his  will,  grounded  on 
no  principle,  or  on  a  false  one :  his  faculties  and  feelings  are 
not  fettered  or  prostrated  under  the  iron  sway  of  Passion,  but 
led  and  guided  in  kindly  union  under  the  mild  sway  of  Reason  ; 
as  the  fierce  primeval  elements  of  Chaos  were  stilled  at  the 
coming  of  Light,  and  bound  together,  under  its  soft  vesture, 
into  a  glorious  and  beneficent  Creation. 

"  This  is  the  true  Rest  of  man ;  the  dim  aim  of  every 
human  soul,  the  full  attainment  of  only  a  chosen  few.  It 
comes  not  unsought  to  any ;  but  the  wise  are  wise  because 
they  think  no  price  too  high  for  it.  Goethe's  inward  home 
has  been  reared  by  slow  and  laborious  efforts ;  but  it  stands 
on  no  hollow  or  deceitful  basis  •  for  his  peace  is  not  from 
blindness,  but  from  clear  vision  ;  not  from  uncertain  hope  of 
alteration,  but  from  sure  insight  into  what  cannot  alter.  His 
world  seems  once  to  have  been  desolate  and  baleful  as  that  of 
the  darkest  sceptic :  but  he  has  covered  it  anew  with  beauty 


GOETHE.  2^5 

and  solemnity,  derived  from  deeper  sources,  over  which  Doubt 
can  have  no  sway.  He  has  inquired  fearlessly,  and  fearlessly 
searched  out  and  denied  the  False  ;  but  he  has  not  forgotten, 
wliat  is  equally  essential  and  infinitely  harder,  to  search  out 
and  admit  the  True.  His  heart  is  still  full  of  warmth,  though 
his  head  is  clear  and  cold  ;  the  world  for  him  is  still  full  of 
grandeur,  though  he  clothes  it  with  no  false  colors ;  his  fellow- 
creatures  are  still  objects  of  reverence  and  love,  though  their 
basenesses  are  plainer  to  no  eye  than  to  his.  To  reconcile 
these  contradictions  is  the  task  of  all  good  men,  each  for  him- 
self, in  his  own  way  and  manner  ;  a  task  which,  in  our  age,  is 
encompassed  with  difficulties  peculiar  to  the  time  ;  and  which 
Goethe  seems  to  have  accomplished  with  a  success  that  few 
can  rival.  A  mind  so  in  unity  with  itself,  even  though  it 
were  a  poor  and  small  one,  would  arrest  our  attention,  and 
win  some  kind  regard  from  us  ;  but  when  this  mind  ranks 
among  the  strongest  and  most  complicated  of  the  species, 
it  becomes  a  sight  full  of  interest,  a  study  full  of  deep  in- 
struction. 

"  Such  a  mind  as  Goethe's  is  the  fruit  not  only  of  a  royal 
endowment  by  Nature,  but  also  of  a  culture  proportionate  to 
her  bounty.  In  Goethe's  original  form  of  spirit  we  discern 
the  highest  gifts  of  manhood,  without  any  deficiency  of  the 
lower  :  he  has  an  eye  and  a  heart  equally  for  the  sublime,  the 
common,  and  the  ridiculous ;  the  elements  at  once  of  a  poet, 
a  thinker,  and  a  wit.  Of  his  culture  we  have  often  spoken 
already;  and  it  deserves  again  to  be  held  up  to  praise  and 
imitation.  This,  as  he  himself  unostentatiously  confesses, 
has  been  the  soul  of  all  his  conduct,  the  great  enterprise  of 
his  life  ;  and  few  that  understand  him  will  be  apt  to  deny 
that  he  has  prospered.  As  a  writer,  his  resources  have  been 
accumulated  from  nearly  all  the  provinces  of  human  intellect 
and  activity  ;  and  he  has  trained  himself  to  use  these  compli- 
cated instruments  with  a  light  expertness  which  we  might 
have  admired  in  the  professor  of  a  solitary''  department.  Free- 
dom, and  grace,  and  smiling  earnestness  are  the  characteristics 
of  his  works  :  the  matter  of  them  flows  along  in  chaste  abun- 
dance, in  the  softest  combination ;  and  their  style  is  referred 


246         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  by  native  critics  as  the  highest  specimen  of  the  German 
tongue. 

"  But  Goethe's  culture  as  a  writer  is  perhaps  less  remarkable 
than  his  culture  as  a  man.  He  has  learned  not  in  head  only, 
but  also  in  heart ;  not  from  Art  and  Literature,  but  also  by 
action  and  passion,  in  the  rugged  school  of  Experience.  If 
asked  what  was  the  grand  characteristic  of  his  writings,  we 
should  not  say  knowledge,  but  wisdom.  A  mind  that  has 
seen,  and  suffered,  and  done,  speaks  to  us  of  what  it  has  tried 
and  conquered.  A  gay  delineation  will  give  us  notice  of  dark 
and  toilsome  experiences,  of  business  done  in  the  great  deep 
of  the  spirit ;  a  maxim,  trivial  to  the  careless  eye,  will  rise 
with  light  and  solution  over  long  perplexed  periods  of  our  own 
history.  It  is  thus  that  heart  speaks  to  heart,  that  the  life  of 
one  man  becomes  a  possession  to  all.  Here  is  a  mind  of  the 
most  subtle  and  tumultuous  elements ;  but  it  is  governed  in 
peaceful  diligence,  and  its  impetuous  and  ethereal  faculties 
work  softly  together  for  good  and  noble  ends.  Goethe  may 
be  called  a  Philosopher  ;  for  he  loves  and  has  practised  as  a 
man  the  wisdom  which  as  a  poet  he  inculcates.  Composure 
and  cheerful  seriousness  seem  to  breathe  over  all  his  character. 
There  is  no  whining  over  human  woes :  it  is  understood  that 
we  must  simply  all  strive  to  alleviate  or  remove  them.  There 
is  no  noisy  battling  for  opinions ;  but  a  persevering  effort  to 
make  Truth  lovely,  and  recommend  her,  by  a  thousand  avenues, 
to  the  hearts  of  all  men.  Of  his  personal  manners  we  can 
easily  believe  the  universal  report,  as  often  given  in  the  way 
of  censure  as  of  praise,  that  he  is  a  man  of  consummate  breed- 
ing and  the  stateliest  presence :  for  an  air  of  polished  tolerance, 
of  courtly,  we  might  almost  say,  majestic  repose  and  serene 
humanity,  is  visible  throughout  his  works.  In  no  line  of  them 
does  he  speak  with  asperity  of  any  man  ;  scarcely  ever  even 
of  a  thing.  He  knows  the  good,  and  loves  it ;  he  knows  the 
bad  and  hateful,  and  rejects  it ;  but  in  neither  case  with  vio- 
lence :  his  love  is  calm  and  active ;  his  rejection  is  implied, 
rather  than  pronounced  ;  meek  and  gentle,  though  we  see  that 
it  is  thorough,  and  never  to  be  revoked.     The  noblest  and  the 


GOETHE.  247 

basest  lie  not  only  seems  to  comprehend,  but  to  personate  and 
body  forth  in  their  most  secret  lineaments  :  hence  actions  and 
opinions  appear  to  him  as  they  are,  with  all  the  circumstances 
which  extenuate  or  endear  them  to  the  hearts  where  they  origi- 
nated and  are  entertained.  This  also  is  the  spirit  of  our 
Shakspeare,  and  perhaps  of  every  great  dramatic  poet.  Shak- 
speare  is  no  sectarian ;  to  all  he  deals  with  equity  and  mercy  ; 
because  he  knows  all,  and  his  heart  is  wide  enough  for  all.  In 
his  mind  the  world  is  a  whole;  he  figures  it  as  Providence 
governs  it ;  and  to  him  it  is  not  strange  that  the  sun  should 
be  caused  to  shine  on  the  evil  and  the  good,  and  the  rain  to 
fall  on  the  just  and  the  unjust." 

Considered  as  a  transient  far-off  view  of  Goethe  in  his 
personal  character,  all  this,  from  the  writer's  peculiar  point 
of  vision,  may  have  its  true  grounds,  and  wears  at  least  the 
aspect  of  sincerity.  We  may  also  quote  something  of  what 
follows  on  Goethe's  character  as  a  poet  and  thinker,  and  the 
contrast  he  exhibits  in  this  respect  with  another  celebrated 
and  now  altogether  European  author. 

"Goethe,"  observes  this  Critic,  "has  been  called  the  *  Ger- 
man Voltaire ; '  bat  it  is  a  name  which  does  him  wrong  and 
describes  him  ill.  Except  in  the  corresponding  variety  of 
their  pursuits  and  knowledge  in  which,  perhaps,  it  does  Vol- 
taire wrong,  the  two  cannot  be  compared.  Goethe  is. all,  or 
the  best  of  all,  that  Voltaire  was,  and  he  is  much  that  Voltaire 
did  not  dream  of.  To  say  nothing  of  his  dignified  and  truth- 
ful character  as  a  man,  he  belongs,  as  a  thinker  and  a  writer, 
to  a  far  higher  class  than  this  enfant  gate  du  monde  qtCil  gdta. 
lie  is  not  a  questioner  and  a  despiser,  but  a  teacher  and  a 
reverencer  ;  not  a  destroyer,  but  a  builder-up  ;  not  a  wit  only, 
but  a  wise  man.  Of  him  Montesquieu  could  not  have  said, 
with  even  epigrammatic  truth  :  II  a  plus  qiie  personne  V esprit 
que  tout  le  monde  a.  Voltaire  is  the  cleverest  of  all  past  and 
present  men  ;  but  a  great  man  is  something  more,  and  this  he 
surely  was  not." 

Whether  this  epigram,  which  we  have  seen  in  some  Biograph- 
ical Dictionary,  really  belongs  to  ]\[ontes([uieu,  we  know  not ; 
but  it  does  seem  to  us  not  wholly  inapplicable  to  Voltaire,  and 


248        CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

at  all  events,  highly  expressive  of  an  important  distinction 
among  men  of  talent  generally.  In  fact,  the  popular  man,  and 
the  man  of  true,  at  least  of  great  originality,  are  seldom  one 
and  the  same ;  we  suspect  that,  till  after  a  long  struggle  on 
the  part  of  the  latter,  they  are  never  so.  Reasons  are  obvious 
enough.  The  popular  man  stands  on  our  own  level,  or  a  hair's- 
breadth  higher  ;  he  shows  us  a  truth  which  we  can  see  without 
shifting  our  present  intellectual  position.  This  is  a  highly 
convenient  arrangement.  The  original  man,  again,  stands 
above  us  ;  he  wishes  to  wrench  us  from  our  old  fixtures,  and 
elevate  us  to  a  higher  and  clearer  level :  but  to  quit  our  old 
fixtures,  especially  if  we  have  sat  in  them  with  moderate  com- 
fort for  some  score  or  two  of  years,  is  no  such  easy  business  ; 
accordingly  we  demur,  we  resist,  we  even  give  battle ;  we 
still  suspect  that  he  is  above  us,  but  try  to  persuade  ourselves 
(Laziness  and  Vanity  earnestly  assenting)  that  he  is  below. 
For  is  it  not  the  very  essence  of  such  a  man  that  he  be  new  ? 
And  who  will  warrant  us  that,  at  the  same  time,  he  shall  only 
be  an  intensation  and  continuation  of  the  old,  which,  in  general, 
is  what  we  long  and  look  for  ?  No  one  can  warrant  us.  And, 
granting  him  to  be  a  man  of  real  genius,  real  depth,  and  that 
speaks  not  till  after  earnest  meditation,  what  sort  of  a  phi- 
losophy were  his,  could  we  estimate  the  length,  breadth  and 
thickness  of  it  at  a  single  glance  ?  And  when  did  Criticism 
give  two  glances  ?  Criticism,  therefore,  opens  on  such  a  man 
its  greater  and  its  lesser  batteries,  on  every  side  :  he  has  no 
security  but  to  go  on  disregarding  it ;  and  "  in  the  end,"  says 
Goethe,  "  Criticism  itself  comes  to  relish  that  method."  But 
now  let  a  spoaker  of  the  other  class  come  forward  ;  one  of  those 
men  that  "  have  more  than  any  one,  the  opinion  which  all  men 
have  "  !  Xo  sooner  does  he  speak,  than  all  and  sundry  of  us 
feel  as  if  we  had  been  wishing  to  speak,  that  very  thing,  as  if 
we  ourselves  might  have  spoken  it ;  and  forthwith  resounds 
from  the  united  universe  a  celebration  of  that  surprising  feat. 
What  clearness,  brilliancy,  justness,  penetration  !  Who  can 
doubt  that  this  man  is  riglit,  when  so  many  tliousand  votes  are 
ready  to  back  him  ?  Doubtless,  he  is  right;  doubtless,  he  is  a 
clever  man  ;  and  his  praise  will  long  be  in  all  the  Magazines. 


GOETHE.  249 

Clever  men  are  good,  but  they  are  not  the  best.  "  The  in- 
struction they  can  give  us  is  like  baked  bread,  savory  and  satis- 
fying for  a  single  day ; "  but,  unhappily,  "  flour  cannot  be 
sown,  and  seed-corn  ought  not  to  be  ground."  We  proceed 
with  our  Critic  in  his  contrast  of  Goethe  with  Voltaire. 

"  As  poets,"  continues  he,  "  the  two  live  not  in  the  same 
hemisphere,  not  in  the  same  world.  Of  Voltaire's  poetry,  it 
were  blindness  to  deny  the  polished,  intellectual  vigor,  the 
logical  symmetry,  the  flashes  that  from  time  to  time  give  it 
the  color,  if  not  the  warmth,  of  fire  :  but  it  is  in  a  far  other 
sense  than  this  that  Goethe  is  a  poet;  in  a  sense  of  which 
the  French  literature  has  never  afforded  any  example.  We 
may  venture  to  say  of  him,  that  his  province  is  high  and  pecu- 
liar ;  higher  than  any  poet  but  himself,  for  several  generations, 
has  so  far  succeeded  in,  perhaps  even  has  steadfastly  attempted. 
In  reading  Goethe's  poetry,  it  perpetually  strikes  us  that  we 
are  reading  the  poetry  of  our  own  day  and  generation.  No 
demands  are  made  on  our  credulity ;  the  light,  the  science,  the 
scepticism  of  our  age,  is  not  hid  from  us.  He  does  not  deal  in 
antiquated  mythologies,  or  ring  changes  on  traditionary  poetic 
forms;  there  are  no  supernal,  no  infernal  influences,  —  for 
Faust  is  an  apparent,  rather  than  a  real  exception ;  —  but  there 
is  the  barren  prose  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  vulgar  life 
which  we  are  all  leading,  and  it  starts  into  strange  beauty  in 
liis  hands,  and  we  pause  in  delighted  wonder  to  behold  the 
flowerage  of  poesy  blooming  in  that  parched  and  rugged  soil. 
This  is  the  end  of  his  Mignons  and  Harpers,  of  his  Hermanns 
and  Meisters.  Poetry,  as  he  views  it,  exists  not  in  time  or 
place,  but  in  the  spirit  of  man ;  and  Art  with  Nature  is  now 
to  perform  for  the  poet  what  Nature  alone  performed  of  old. 
The  divinities  and  demons,  the  witches,  spectres  and  fairies, 
are  vanished  from  the  world,  never  again  to  be  recalled :  but 
the  Imagination,  which  created  these,  still  lives,  and  will  for- 
ever live,  in  man's  soul ;  and  can  again  pour  its  wizard  light 
over  the  Universe,  and  summon  forth  enchantments  as  lovely 
or  impressive,  and  which  its  sister  faculties  will  not  contra- 
dict. To  say  that  Goethe  has  accomplished  all  this,  would  be 
to  say  that  his  genius  is  greater  than  was  ever  given  to  any 


250         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

man  :  for  if  it  was  a  high  and  glorious  mind,  or  rather  series 
of  minds,  that  peopled  the  first  ages  with  their  peculiar  forms 
of  poetry,  it  must  be  a  series  of  minds  much  higher  and  more 
glorious  that  shall  so  people  the  present.  The  angels  and 
demons  that  can  lay  prostrate  our  hearts  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  must  be  of  another  and  more  cunning  fashion  than 
those  who  subdued  us  in  the  ninth.  To  have  attempted,  to 
have  begun  this  enterprise,  may  be  accounted  the  greatest 
praise.  That  Goethe  ever  meditated  it,  in  the  form  here  set 
forth,  we  have  no  direct  evidence  :  but,  indeed,  such  is  the  end 
and  aim  of  high  poetry  at  all  times  and  seasons  ;  for  the  fiction 
of  the  poet  is  not  falsehood,  but  the  purest  truth ;  and,  if  he 
would  lead  captive  our  whole  being,  not  rest  satisfied  with  a 
part  of  it,  he  must  address  us  on  interests  that  are,  not  that 
were  ours ;  and  in  a  dialect  which  finds  a  response,  and  not  a 
contradiction,  within  our  bosoms."  ^ 

Hei'e,  however,  we  must  terminate  our  pilferings  or  open 
robberies,  and  bring  these  straggling  lucubrations  to  a  close. 
In  the  extracts  we  have  given,  in  the  remarks  made  on  them 
and  on  the  subject  of  them,  we  are  aware  that  we  have  held 
the  attitude  of  admirers  and  pleaders :  neither  is  it  unknown 
to  us  that  the  critic  is,  in  virtue  of  his  ofiice,  a  judge,  and  not 
an  advocate ;  sits  there,  not  to  do  favor,  but  to  dispense  jus- 
tice, which  in  most  cases  will  involve  blame  as  well  as  praise. 
But  we  are  firm  believers  in  the  maxim  that,  for  all  right  judg- 
ment of  any  man  or  thing,  it  is  useful,  nay  essential,  to  see 
his  good  qualities  before  pronouncing  on  his  bad.  This  maxim 
is  so  clear  to  ourselves,  that,  in  respect  to  poetry  at  least,  we 
almost  think  we  could  make  it  clear  to  other  men.  In  the 
first  place,  at  all  events,  it  is  a  much  shallower  and  more  ig- 
noble occupation  to  detect  faults  than  to  discover  beauties. 
The  "  critic  fly,"  if  it  do  but  alight  on  any  plinth  or  single 
cornice  of  a  brave  stately  building,  shall  be  able  to  declare, 
with  its  half-inch  vision,  that  here  is  a  speck,  and  there  an 
inequality;  that,  in  fact,  this  and  the  other  individual,  stone 
are  nowise  as  they  should  be  ;  for  all  this  the  "  critic  fly  "  will 
be  suflicient :  but  to  take  in  the  fair  relations  of  the  Whole, 
^  Appendix,  I.  No.  2.  §  Gott'ie,  infra. 


GOETHE.  261 

to  see  the  building  as  one  object,  to  estimate  its  purpose,  the 
adjustment  of  its  parts,  and  their  .harmonious  co-operation 
towards  that  purpose,  will  require  the  eye  and  the  mind  of  a 
Vitruvius  or  a  Palladio.  But  farther,  the  faults  of  a  poem,  or 
other  piece  of  art,  as  we  view  them  at  first,  will  by  no  means 
continue  unaltered  when  we  view  them  after  due  and  final 
investigation.  Let  us  consider  what  we  mean  by  a  fault.  By 
the  word  fault  we  designate  something  that  displeases  us,  that, 
contradicts  us.  But  here  the  question  might  arise :  who  are 
we  ?  This  fault  displeases,  contradicts  us  y  so  far  is  clear  ;  and 
had  we,  had  /,  and  my  pleasure  and  confirmation  been  the  chief 
end  of  the  poet,  then  doubtless  he  has  failed  in  that  end,  and 
his  fault  remains  a  fault  irremediably,  and  without  defence. 
But  who  shall  say  whether  such  really  was  his  object,  whether 
such  ought  to  have  been  his  object  ?  And  if  it  was  not,  and 
ought  not  to  have  been,  what  becomes  of  the  fault  ?  It  must 
hang  altogether  undecided  ;  we  as  yet  know  nothing  of  it ;  per- 
haps it  may  not  be  the  poet's,  but  our  own  fault ;  perhaps  it 
may  be  no  fault  whatever.  To  see  rightly  into  this  matter,  to 
determine  with  any  infallibility,  whether  what  we  call  a  fault 
is  in  very  deed  a  fault,  we  must  previously  have  settled  two 
points,  neither  of  which  may  be  so  readily  settled.  First,  we 
must  have  made  plain  to  ourselves  what  the  poet's  aim  really 
and  truly  was,  how  the  task  he  had  to  do  stood  before  his  own 
eye,  and  how  far,  with  such  means  as  it  afforded  him,  he  has 
fulfilled  it.  Secondly,  we  must  have  decided  whether  and  how 
far  this  aim,  this  task  of  his,  accorded,  —  not  with  us,  and  our 
individual  crotchets,  and  the  crotchets  of  our  little  senate 
where  we  give  or  take  the  law,  —  but  with  human  nature,  and 
the  nature  of  things  at  large ;  with  the  universal  principles  of 
poetic  beauty,  not  as  they  stand  written  in  our  text-books,  but 
in  the  hearts  and  imaginations  of  all  men.  Does  the  answer 
in  either  case  come  out  unfavorable ;  was  there  an  inconsis- 
tency between  the  means  and  the  end,  a  discordance  between 
the  end  and  truth,  there  is  a  fault :  was  there  not,  there  is  no 
fault. 

Thus  it  would  appear  that  the  detection  of  faults,  provided 
they  be  faults  of  any  depth  and  consequence,  leads  us  of  itself 


2.32        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

into  that  region  where  also  the  higher  beauties  of  the  piece,  if 
it  have  any  true  beauties,  essentially  reside.  In  fact,  accord- 
ing to  our  view,  no  man  can  pronounce  dogmatically,  with 
even  a  chance  of  being  right,  on  the  faults  of  a  poem,  till  he 
has  seen  its  very  last  and  highest  beauty  ;  the  last  in  becom- 
ing visible  to  any  one,  which  few  ever  look  after,  which  indeed 
in  most  pieces  it  were  very  vain  to  look  after ;  the  beauty  of 
the  poem  as  a  Whole,  in  the  strict  sense ;  the  clear  view  of  it 
as  an  indivisible  Unity ;  and  whether  it  has  grown  up  natu- 
rally from  the  general  soil  of  Thought,  and  stands  there  like  a 
thousand-years  Oak,  no  leaf,  no  bough  superfluous ;  or  is  noth- 
ing but  a  pasteboard  Tree,  cobbled  together  out  of  size  and 
waste-paper  and  water-colors  ;  altogether  unconnected  with 
the  soil  of  Thought,  except  by  mere  juxtaposition,  or  at  best 
united  with  it  by  some  decayed  stump  and  dead  boughs,  which 
the  more  cunning  Decoration ist  (as  in  your  Historic  Novel) 
may  have  selected  for  the  basis  and  support  of  his  agglutina- 
tions. It  is  true,  most  readers  judge  of  a  poem  by  pieces,  they 
praise  and  blame  by  pieces ;  it  is  a  common  practice,  and  for 
most  poems  and  most  readers  may  be  perfectly  sufficient :  yet 
we  would  advise  no  man  to  follow  this  practice,  who  traces  in 
himself  even  the  slightest  capability  of  following  a  better 
one ;  and,  if  possible,  we  would  advise  him  to  practise  only 
on  worthy  subjects ;  to  read  few  poems  that  will  not  bear 
being  studied  as  well  as  read. 

That  Goethe  has  his  faults  cannot  be  doubtful ;  for  we 
believe  it  was  ascertained  long  ago  that  there  is  no  man  free 
from  them.  Neither  are  we  ourselves  without  some  glimmer- 
ing of  certain  actual  limitations  and  inconsistencies  by  which 
he  too,  as  he  really  lives  and  writes  and  is,  may  be  hemmed 
in ;  which  beset  him  too,  as  they  do  meaner  men  ;  which  show 
us  that  he  too  is  a  son  of  Eve.  But  to  exhibit  these  before 
our  readers,  in  the  present  state  of  matters,  we  should  reckon 
no  easy  labor,  Avere  it  to  be  adequately,  to  be  justly  done ;  and 
done  anyhow,  no  profitable  one.  Better  is  it  we  should  first 
study  him;  better  to  "see  the  great  man  before  attempting 
to  oversee  him."  We  are  not  ignorant  that  certain  objections 
against  Goethe  already  float  vaguely  in  the  English  mind,  and 


GOETHE.  253 

here  and  there,  according  to  occasion,  have  even  come  to  utter- 
ance :  these,  as  the  study  of  him  proceeds,  we  shall  hold  our- 
selves ready,  in  due  season,  to  discuss  ;  but  for  the  present  we 
must  beg  the  reader  to  believe,  on  our  word,  that  we  do  not 
reckon  them  unanswerable,  nay  that  we  reckon  them  in  general 
the  most  answerable  things  in  the  world ;  and  things  which 
even  a  little  increase  of  knowledge  will  not  fail  to  answer 
without  other  help. 

For  furthering  such  increase  of  knowledge  on  this  matter, 
may  we  beg  the  reader  to  accept  two  small  pieces  of  ad- 
vice, which  we  ourselves  have  found  to  be  of  use  in  studying 
Goethe.  They  seem  applicable  to  the  study  of  Foreign  Litera- 
ture generally ;  indeed  to  the  study  of  all  Literature  that  de- 
serves the  name. 

The  first  is,  nowise  to  suppose  that  Poetry  is  a  superficial, 
cursory  business,  which  may  be  seen  through  to  the  very  bot- 
tom, so  soon  as  one  inclines  to  cast  his  eye  on  it.  We  reckon 
it  the  falsest  of  all  maxims,  that  a  true  Poem  can  be  adequately 
tasted ;  can  be  judged  of  "as  men  judge  of  a  dinner,"  by  some 
internal  tongue,  that  shall  decide  on  the  matter  at  once  and 
irrevocably.  Of  the  poetry  which  supplies  spouting-clubs,  and 
circulates  in  circulating  libraries,  we  speak  not  here.  That  is 
quite  another  species ;  which  has  circulated,  and  will  circulate, 
and  ought  to  circulate,  in  all  times ;  but  for  the  study  of  which 
no  man  is  required  to  give  rules,  the  rules  being  already  given 
by  the  thing  itself.  We  speak  of  that  Poetry  which  Masters 
write,  which  aims  not  at  "furnishing  a  languid  mind  with 
fantastic  shows  and  indolent  emotions,"  but  at  incorporating 
the  everlasting  Reason  of  man  in  forms  visible  to  his  Sense, 
and  suitable  to  it :  and  of  this  we  say,  that  to  know  it  is  no 
slight  task  ;  but  rather  that,  being  the  essence  of  all  science, 
it  requires  the  purest  of  all  study  for  knowing  it.  "  What !  " 
cries  the  reader,  "  are  we  to  study  Poetry  ?  To  pore  over  it 
as  we  do  over  Fluxions  ?  "  Reader,  it  depends  upon  your  ob- 
ject :  if  you  want  only  amusement,  choose  your  book,  and  j^ou 
get  along,  without  study,  excellently  well.  "  But  is  not  Shak- 
speare  plain,  visible  to  the  very  bottom,  without  study  ?  "  cries 
he.     Alas,  no,  gentle  Header ;  we  cannot  think  so  ;  we  do  not 


254       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

find  that  he  is  visible  to  the  very  bottom  even  to  those  that 
profess  the  study  of  him.  It  has  been  our  lot  to  read  some 
criticisms  on  Shakspeare,  and  to  hear  a  great  many.;  but  for 
most  part  they  amounted  to  no  such  "  visibility."  Volumes 
we  have  seen  that  were  simply  one  huge  Interjection  printed 
over  three  hundred  pages.  Nine-tenths  of  our  critics  have 
told  us  little  more  of  Shakspeare  than  what  honest  Franz 
Horn  says  our  neighbors  used  to  tell  of  him,  "  that  he  was  a 
great  spirit,  and  stept  majestically  along."  Johnson's  Preface, 
a  sound  and  solid  piece  for  its  purpose,  is  a  complete  exception 
to  this  rule ;  and,  so  far  as  we  remember,  the  only  complete 
one.  Students  of  poetry  admire  Shakspeare  in  their  tenth 
year ;  but  go  on  admiring  him  more  and  more,  understanding 
him  more  and  more,  till  their  threescore-and-tenth.  Grotius 
said,  he  read  Terence  otherwise  than  boys  do.  "  Happy  con- 
tractedness  of  youth,"  adds  Goethe,  "  nay  of  men  in  general ; 
that  at  all  moments  of  their  existence  they  can  look  upon 
themselves  as  complete ;  and  inquire  neither  after  the  True 
nor  the  False,  nor  the  High  nor  the  Deep  ;  but  simply  after 
what  is  proportioned  to  themselves." 

Our  second  advice  we  shall  state  in  few  words.  It  is,  to 
remember  that  a  Foreigner  is  no  Englishman ;  that  in  judg- 
ing a  foreign  work,  it  is  not  enough  to  ask  whether  it  is  suit- 
able to  our  modes,  but  whether  it  is  suitable  to  foreign  wants  ; 
above  all,  whether  it  is  suitable  to  itself.  The  fairness,  the  ne- 
cessity of  this  can  need  no  demonstration  ;  yet  how  often  do  we 
find  it,  in  practice,  altogether  neglected  !  We  could  fancy  we 
saw  some  Bond-Street  Tailor  criticising  the  costume  of  an  an- 
cient Greek ;  censuring  the  highly  improper  cut  of  collar  and 
lapel ;  lamenting,  indeed,  that  collar  and  lapel  were  nowhere 
to  be  seen.  He  pronounces  the  costume,  easily  and  decisively, 
to  be  a  barbarous  one :  to  know  whether  it  is  a  barbarous  one, 
and  how  barbarous,  the  judgment  of  a  Winkelmann  might  be 
required,  and  he  would  find  it  hard  to  give  a  judgment.  For 
the  questions  set  before  the  two  were  radically  different.  The 
Fraction  asked  himself :  How  will  this  look  in  Almacks,  and  be- 
fore Lord  Mahogany  ?  The  Winkelmann  asked  himself :  How 
will  this  look  in  the  Universe,  and  before  the  Creator  of  Man  ? 


GOETHE.  2")5 

Whether  these  remarks  of  ours  may  do  anything  to  forward 
a  right  appreciation  of  Goethe  in  this  country,  we  know  not ; 
neither  do  we  reckon  this  last  result  to  be  of  any  vital  impor- 
tance. Yet  must  we  believe  that,  in  recommending  Goethe, 
we  are  doing  our  part  to  recommend  a  truer  study  of  Poetry 
itself;  and  happy  were  we  to  fancy  that  any  efforts  of  ours 
could  promote  such  an  object.  Promoted,  attained  it  will  be, 
as  we  believe,  by  one  means  and  another.  A  deeper  feeling  for 
Art  is  abroad  over  Europe ;  a  purer,  more  earnest  purpose  in 
the  study,  in  the  practice  of  it.  In  this  influence  we  too  must 
participate :  the  time  will  come  when  our  own  ancient  noble 
Literature  will  be  studied  and  felt,  as  well  as  talked  of  ;  when 
Dilettantism  will  give  place  to  Criticism  in  respect  of  it ;  and 
vague  wonder  end  in  clear  knowledge,  in  sincere  reverence, 
and,  what  were  best  of  all,  in  hearty  emulation. 


BURNS.^ 

[1828.] 

In  the  modern  arrangements  of  society,  it  is  no  uncommon 
thing  that  a  man  of  genius  must,  like  Butler,  "  ask  for  bread 
and  receive  a  stone;"  for,  in  spite  of  our  grand  maxim  of 
supply  and  demand,  it  is  by  no  means  the  highest  excellence 
that  men  are  most  forward  to  recognize.  The  inventor  of  a 
spinning-jenny  is  pretty  sure  of  his  reward  in  his  own  day  ; 
but  the  writer  of  a  true  poem,  like  the  apostle  of  a  true  re- 
ligion, is  nearly  as  sure  of  the  contrary.  We  do  not  know 
whether  it  is  not  an  aggravation  of  the  injustice,  that  there 
is  generally  a  posthumous  retribution.  Robert  Burns,  in  the 
course  of  Kature,  might  yet  have  been  living;  but  his  short 
life  was  spent  in  toil  and  penury ;  and  he  died,  in  the  prime 
of  his  manhood,  miserable  and  neglected :  and  yet  already  a 
brave  mausoleum  shines  over  his  dust,  and  more  than  one 
splendid  monument  has  been  reared  in  other  places  to  his 
fame ;  the  street  where  he  languished  in  poverty  is  called  by 
his  name ;  the  highest  personages  in  our  literature  have  been 
proud  to  appear  as  his  commentators  and  admirers  ;  and  here 
is  the  sixth  narrative  of  his  Life  that  has  been  given  to  the 
world ! 
.^  Mr.  Lockhart  thinks  it  necessary  to  apologize  for  this  new 
attempt  on  such  a  subject :  but  his  readers,  we  believe,  will 
readily  acquit  him ;  or,  at  worst,  will  censure  only  the  per- 
formance of  his  task,  not  the  choice  of  it.  The  character  of 
Burns,  indeed,  is  a  theme  that  cannot  easily  become  either 
trite  or  exhausted;  and  will  probably  gain  rather  than  lose 

^  Edinbcroh   Revie-\v,  No.  96. —  The  Life  of  Robert  Burns,    By  J.  Q. 
Lockhart,  LL.B.     Edinburgh,  1828. 


BURNS.  257 

in  its  dimensions  by  tlie  distance  to  which  it  is  removed  by 
Time.  Ko  man,  it  has  been  said,  is  a  hero  to  his  valet ;  and 
tliis  is  probably  true ;  but  the  fault  is  at  least  as  likely  to  be 
the  valet's  as  the  hero's.  For  it  is  certain,  that  to  the  vulgar 
eye  few  things  are  wonderful  that  are  not  distant.  It  is  diffi- 
cult for  men  to  believe  that  the  man,  the  mere  man  whom  they 
see,  nay  perhaps  painfully  feel,  toiling  at  their  side  through 
the  poor  jostlings  of  existence,  can  be  made  of  finer  clay  than 
themselves.  Suppose  that  some  dining  acquaintance  of  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy's,  and  neighbor  of  John  a  Combe's,  had  snatched 
an  hour  or  two  from  the  preservation  of  his  game,  and  written 
us  a  Life  of  Shakspeare !  What  dissertations  should  we  not 
have  had,  —  not  on  Hamlet  and  The  Tempest,  but  on  the  wool- 
trade,  and  deer-stealing,  and  the  libel  and  vagrant  laws ;  and 
how  the  Poacher  became  a  Player  ;  and  how  Sir  Thomas  and 
Mr.  John  had  Christian  bowels,  and  did  not  push  him  to  ex- 
tremities !  In  like  manner,  we  believe,  with  respect  to  Burns, 
that  till  the  companions  of  his  pilgrimage,  the  Honorable 
Excise  Commissioners,  and  the  Gentlemen  of  the  Caledonian 
Hunt,  and  the  Dumfries  Aristocracy,  and  all  the  Squires  and 
Earls,  equally  with  the  Ayr  Writers,  and  the  New  and  Old 
Light  Clergy,  whom  he  had  to  do  with,  shall  have  become 
invisible  in  the  darkness  of  the  Past,  or  visible  only  by  light 
borrowed  from  his  juxtaposition,  it  will  be  difficult  to  measure 
him  by  any  true  standard,  or  to  estimate  what  he  really  was 
and  did,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  for  his  country  and  the 
world.  It  will  be  difficult,  we  say ;  but  still  a  fair  problem 
for  literary  historians  ;  and  repeated  attempts  will  give  us 
repeated  approximations. 
3  His  former  Biographers  have  done  something,  no  doubt, 
but  by  no  means  a  great  deal,  to  assist  us.  Dr.  Currie  and 
Mr.  Walker,  the  principal  of  these  writers,  have  both,  we 
think,  mistaken  one  essentially  important  thing  :  Their  own 
and  the  world's  true  relation  to  their  author,  and  the  style 
in  which  it  became  such  men  to  think  and  to  speak  of  such 
a  man.  Dr.  Currie  loved  the  poet  truly ;  more  perhaps  than 
he  avowed  to  his  readers,  or  even  to  himself;  yet  he  every- 
where introduces  him  with  a  certain  patroniziugj  apologetic 

VOL.   XIII.  17 


i 


258        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

air;  as  if  the  polite  public  might  think  it  strange  and  half 
unwarrantable  that  he,  a  man  of  science,  a  scholar  and  gentle- 
man, should  do  such  honor  to  a  rustic.  In  all  this,  however, 
we  readily  admit  that  his  fault  was  not  want  of  love,  but 
weakness  of  faith ;  and  regret  that  the  first  and  kindest  of  all 
our  poet's  biographers  should  not  have  seen  farther,  or  be- 
lieved more  boldly  what  he  saw.  Mr.  Walker  offends  more 
deeply  in  the  same  kind :  and  both  err  alike  in  presenting  us 
with  a  detached  catalogue  of  his  several  supposed  attributes, 
virtues  and  vices,  instead  of  a  delineation  of  the  resulting 
character  as  a  living  unity.  This,  however,  is  not  painting  a 
portrait;  but  gauging  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  several 
features,  and  jotting  down  their  dimensions  in  arithmetical 
ciphers.  Nay  it  is  not  so  much  as  that :  for  we  are  yet 
to  learn  by  what  arts  or  instruments  the  mind  could  be  so 
measured  and  gatiged. 

Mr.  Lockhart,  we  are  happy  to  say,  has  avoided  both  these 
errors.  He  uniformly  treats  Burns  as  the  high  and  remark- 
able man  the  public  voice  has  now  pronounced  him  to  be  : 
and  in  delineating  him,  he  has  avoided  the  method  of  separate 
generalities,  and  rather  sought  for  characteristic  incidents, 
habits,,  actions,  sayings ;  in  a  word,  for  aspects  which  exliibit 
the  whole  man,  as  he  looked  and  lived  among  his  fellows. 
The  book  accordingly,  with  all  its  deficiencies,  gives  more  in- 
sight, we  think,  into  the  true  character  of  Burns,  than  any 
prior  biography :  though,  being  written  on  the  very  popular 
and  condensed  scheme  of  an  article  for  Constable's  Mvscellan]/, 
it  has  less  depth  than  we  could  have  wished  and  expected 
from  a  writer  of  such  power  ;  and  contains  rather  more,  and 
more  multifarious  quotations  than  belong  of  right  to  an  origi- 
nal production.  Indeed,  Mr.  Lockhart's  own  writing  is  gener- 
ally so  good,  so  clear,  direct  and  nervous,  that  we  seldom  wish 
to  see  it  making  place  for  another  man's.  However,  the  spirit 
of  the  work  is  throughout  candid,  tolerant  and  anxiously  con- 
ciliating; compliments  and  praises  are  liberally  distributed,  on 
all  hands,  to  great  and  small ;  and,  as  Mr.  Morris  Birkbeck 
observes  of  the  society  in  the  backwoods  of  America,  "the 
courtesies  of  polite  life  are  never  lost  sight  of  for  a  moment." 


BURNS.  259 

But  there  are  better  things  than  these  in  the  volume ;  and 
we  can  safely  testify,  not  only  that  it  is  easily  and  pleasantly 
read  a  first  time,  but  may  even  be  without  diflEiculty  read 
again, 
j"  Nevertheless,  we  are  far  from  thinking  that  the  problem  of 
Burns's  Biography  has  yet  been  adequately  solved.  We  do  not 
allude  so  much  to  deficiency  of  facts  or  documents,  —  though 
of  these  we  are  still  every  day  receiving  some  fresh  accession, 
—  as  to  tho  limited  and  imperfect  application  of  them  to  the 
great  end  of  Biography.  Our  notions  upon  this  subject  may 
perhaps  appear  extravagant  /  but  if  an  individual  is  really  of 
consequence  enough  to  have  his  life  and  character  recorded 
for  public  remembrance,  we  have  always  been  of  opinion  that 
the  public  ought  to  be  made  acquainted  with  all  the  inward 
springs  and  relations  of  his  character.^  How  did  the  world 
and  man's  life,  from  his  particular  position,  represent  them- 
selves to  his  mind  ?  How  did  coexisting  circumstances  mod- 
ify him  from  without ;  how  did  he  modify  these  from  within  ? 
With  what  endeavors  and  what  efficacy  rule  over  them ;  with 
what  resistance  and  what  suffering  sink  under  them  ?  In 
one  word,  what  and  how  produced  was  the  effect  of  society  on 
him  ;  what  and  how  produced  was  his  effect  on  society  ?  He 
who  should  answer  these  questions,  in  regard  to  any  individ- 
ual, would,  as  we  believe,  furnish  a  model  of  perfection  in 
Biography.  Few  individuals,  indeed,  can  deserve  such  a  study ; 
and  many  lives  will  be  written,  and,  for  the  gratification  of 
innocent  curiosity,  ought  to  be  written,  and  read  and  forgot- 
ten, which  are  not  in  this  sense  hlograj^hies.  But  Burns,  if  we 
mistake  not,  is  one  of  these  few  individuals  ;  and  such  a  study, 
at  least  with  such  a  result,  he  has  not  yet  obtained.  Our  own 
contributions  to  it,  we  are  aware,  can  be  but  scanty  and  feeble  ; 
but  we  offer  them  with  good-will,  and  trust  they  may  meet 
with  acceptance  from  those  they  are  intended  for. 

(f  Burns  first  came  upon  the  world  as  a  prodigy  ;  and  was,  in 
tliat  character,  entertained  by  it,  in  the  usual  fashion,  with 
loud,  vague,  tumultuous  wonder,  speedily  subsiding  into  cen- 
sure and  neglect  j  till  his  early  and  most  mournful  death  again 


260         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

awakened  an  enthusiasm  for  him,  which,  especially  as  there 
was  now  nothing  to  be  done,  and  much  to  be  spoken,  has  pro- 
longed itself  even  to  our  own  time.  It  is  true,  the  *'  nine  days  " 
have  long  since  elapsed ;  and  the  very  continuance  of  this 
clamor  proves  that  Burns  was  no  vulgar  wonder.  Accordingly, 
even  in  sober  judgments,  where,  as  years  passed  by,  he  has 
come  to  rest  more  and  more  exclusively  on  his  own  intrinsic 
merits,  and  may  now  be  well-nigh  shorn  of  that  casual  radiance, 
he  appears  not  only  as  a  true  British  poet,  but  as  one  of  the 
most  considerable  British  men  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Let 
it  not  be  obj  3cted,  that  he  did  little.  He  did  much,  if  we  con- 
sider where  and  how.  If  the  work  performed  was  small,  we 
must  remember  that  he  had  his  very  materials  to  discover  ;  for 
the  metal  he  worked  in  lay  hid  under  the  desert  moor,  where  no 
eye  but  his  had  guessed  its  existence ;  and  we  may  almost  say, 
that  with  his  own  hand  he  had  to  construct  the  tools  for  fash- 
ioning it.  For  he  found  himself  in  deepest  obscurity,  with- 
out help,  without  instruction,  without  model ;  or  with  models 
only  of  the  meanest  sort.  An  educated  man  stands,  as  it  were, 
in  the  midst  of  a  boundless  arsenal  and  magazine,  filled  with 
all  the  weapons  and  engines  which  man's  skill  has  been  able 
to  devise  from  the  earliest  time  ;  and  he  works,  accordingly, 
with  a  strength  borrowed  from  all  past  ages.  How  different 
is  his  state  who  stands  on  the  outside  of  that  storehouse,  and 
feels  that  its  gates  must  be  stormed,  or  remain  forever  shut 
against  him !  His  means  are  the  commonest  and  rudest ;  the 
mere  work  done  is  no  measure  of  his  strength.  A  dwarf  be- 
hind his  steam-engine  may  remove  mountains  ;  but  no  dwarf 
will  hew  them  down  with  the  pickaxe  ;  and  he  must  be  a  Titan 
that  hurls  them  abroad  with  his  arms. 
■^  It  is  in  this  last  shape  that  Burns  presents  himself.  Born 
in  an  age  the  most  prosaic  Britain  had  yet  seen,  and  in  a  con- 
dition the  most  disadvantageous,  where  his  mind,  if  it  accom- 
plished aught,  must  accomplish  it  under  the  pressure  of 
continual  bodily  toil,  nay  of  penury  and  desponding  apprehen- 
sion of  the  worst  evils,  and  with  no  furtherance  but  such 
knowledge  as  dwells  in  a  poor  man's  hut,  and  the  rhymes  of  a 
Ferguson  or  Ramsay  for  his  standard  of  beauty,  he  sinks  not 


BURNS.  261 

under  all  tluese  impediments :  through  the  fogs  and  darkness 
of  that  obscure  region,  his  lynx  eye  discerns  the  true  rela- 
tions of  the  world  and  human  life ;  he  grows  into  intellec- 
tual strength,  and  trains  himself  into  intellectual  expertness. 
Impelled  by  the  expansive  movement  of  his  own  irrepressible 
soul,  he  struggles  forward  into  the  general  view;  and  with 
haughty  modesty  lays  down  before  us,  as  the  fruit  of  his  labor, 
a  gift,  which  Time  has  now  pronounced  imperishable.  Add  to 
all  this,  that  his  darksome  drudging  childhood  and  youth  was 
by  far  the  kindliest  era  of  his  whole  life ;  and  that  he  died  in 
his  thirty-seventh  year :  and  then  ask,  If  it  be  strange  that  his 
poems  are  imperfect,  and  of  small  extent,  or  that  his  genius 
attained  no  mastery  in  its  art  ?  Alas,  his  Sun  shone  as 
through  a  tropical  tornado;  and  the  pale  Shadow  of  Death 
eclipsed  it  at  noon  !  Shrouded  in  such  baleful  vapors,  the 
genius  of  Burns  was  never  seen  in  clear  azure  splendor,  en- 
lightening the  world :  but  some  beams  from  it  did,  by  fits, 
pierce  through  ;  and  it  tinted  those  clouds  with  rainbow  and 
orient  colors,  into  a  glory  and  stern  grandeur,  which  men 
silently  gazed  on  with  wonder  and  tears ! 

We  are  anxious  not  to  exaggerate  ;  for  it  is  exposition  rather 
than  admiration  that  our  readers  require  of  us  here  ;  and  yet 
to  avoid  some  tendency  to  that  side  is  no  easy  matter.  We 
love  Burns,  and  we  pity  him ;  and  love  and  pity  are  prone  to 
magnify.  Criticism,  it  is  sometimes  thought,  should  be  a  cold 
business  ;  we  are  not  so  sure  of  this  ;  but,  at  all  events,  our 
concern  with  Burns  is  not  exclusively  that  of  critics.  True 
and  genial  as  his  poetry  must  appear,  it  is  not  chiefly  as  a 
poet,  but  as  a  man,  that  he  interests  and  affects  us.  He  was 
often  advised  to  write  a  tragedy  :  time  and  means  were  not 
lent  him  for  this ;  but  through  life  he  enacted  a  traged}',  and 
one  of  the  deepest.  We  question  whether  the  world  has  since 
witnessed  so  utterly  sad  a  scene  ;  whether  Napoleon  himself, 
left  to  brawl  with  Sir  Hudson  Lowe,  and  perish  on  his  rock, 
'••■  amid  the  melancholy  main,"'  presented  to  the  reflecting  mind 
such  a  " spectacle  of  pity  and  fear"  as  did  this  intrinsically 
nobler,  gentler  and  perhaps  greater  soul,  wasting  itself  away 
in  a  hopeless  struggle  with  base  entanglements,  which  coiled 


262         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

closer  and  closer  round  him,  till  only  death  opened  him  an 
outlet.  Conquerors  are  a  class  of  men  with  whom,  for  most 
part,  the  world  could  well  dispense  ;  nor  can  the  hard  intel- 
lect, the  unsympatliizing  loftiness  and  high  but  selfish  entlm- 
siasm  of  such  persons  inspire  us  in  general  with  any  affection  ; 
at  best  it  may  excite  amazement ;  and  their  fall,  like  that  of  a 

•, pyramid,  will  iye  beheld  with  a  certain  sadne^  and  awe.  But. 
a  true  Poet,  a  man  in  whose  heart  resides  some  effluence  of 
Wisdom,  some  tone  of  the  "Eternal  Melodies,"  is  the  most 
precious  gift  that  can  be  bestowed  on  a  generation :  we  see  in 
him  a  freer,  purer  development  of  whatever  is  noblest  in  our- 
selves ;  his  life  is  a  rich  lesson  to  us  ;  and  we  mourn  his  death 
as  that  of  a  benefactor  who  loved  and  taught  us. 

H  Such  a  gift  had  Nature,  in  her  bounty,  bestowed  on  us  in 
Robert  Burns  ;  but  with  queenlike  indifference  she  cast  it  from 
her  hand,  like  a  thing  of  no  moment ;  and  it  was  defaced  and 
torn  asunder,  as  an  idle  bauble,  before  we  recognized  it.  To 
the  ill-starred  Burns  was  given  the  power  of  making  man's 
life  more  venerable,  but  that  of  wisely  guiding  his  own  life 
was  not  given.  Destiny,  —  for  so  in  our  ignorance  we  must 
speak,  —  his  faults,  the  faults  of  others,  proved  too  hard  for 
him ;  and  that  spirit,  which  might  have  soared  could  it  but 
have  walked,  soon  sank  to  the  dust,  its  glorious  faculties  trod- 
den under  foot  in  the  blossom ;  and  died,  we  may  almost  say, 
without  ever  having  lived.  And  so  kind  and  warm  a  soul  5  so 
full  of  inborn  riches,  of  love  to  all  living  and  lifeless  things  ! 
How  his  heart  flows  out  in  sympathy  over  universal  Nature  ; 
and  in  her  bleakest  provinces  discerns  a  beauty  and  a  meaning ! 
The  "  Daisy  "  falls  not  unheeded  under  his  ploughshare  ;  nor 
the  ruined  nest  of  that  "  wee,  cowering,  timorous  beastie,"  cast 
forth,  after  all  its  provident  pains,  to  "  thole  the  sleety  dribble 
and  cranreuch  cauld."  The  "  hoar  visage  "  of  Winter  delights 
him ;  he  dwells  with  a  sad  and  oft-returning  fondness  in  these 
scenes  of  solemn  desolation  ;  but  the  voice  of  the  temj^est  be- 
comes an  anthem  to  his  ears  ;  he  loves  to  walk  in  the  sounding 
woods,  for  "  it  raises  his  thoughts  to  Him  that  walketh  on  the 
wings  of  the  wind."  A  true  Poet-soul,  for  it  needs  but  to  be 
struck,  and  the  sound  it  yields  will  be  music  !    But  observe  him 


BUKNS.  263 

chiefly  as  he  mingles  with  his  brother  men.  What  warm,  all- 
comprehending  fellow-feeling ;  what  trustful,  boundless  love  ; 
what  generous  exaggeration  of  the  object  loved  !  His  rustic 
friend,  his  nut-brown  maiden,  are  no  longer  mean  and  homely, 
but  a  hero  and  a  queen,  whom  he  prizes  as  the  paragons  of 
Earth.  The  rough  scenes  of  Scottish  life,  not  seen  by  hiia 
in  any  Arcadian  illusion,  but  in  the  rude  contradiction,  in  the 
smoke  and  soil  of  a  too  harsh  reality,  are  still  lovely  to  him : 
Poverty  is  indeed  his  companion,  but  Love  also,  and  Courage ; 
the  simple  feelings,  the  worth,  the  nobleness,  that  dwell  under 
the  straw  roof,  are  dear  and  venerable  to  his  heart :  and  thus 
over  the  lowest  provinces  of  man's  existence  he  pours  the  glory 
of  his  own  soul ;  and  they  rise,  in  shadow  and  sunshine,  soft- 
ened and  brightened  into  a  beauty  which  other  eyes  discern 
not  in  the  highest.  He  has  a  just  self-consciousness,  which 
too  often  degenerates  into  pride  ;  yet  it  is  a  noble  pride,  for 
defence,  not  for  offence ;  no  cold  suspicious  feeling,  but  a 
frank  and  social  one.  The  Peasant  Poet  bears  himself,  we 
might  say,  like  a  King  in  exile  :  he  is  cast  among  the  low,  and 
feels  himself  equal  to  the  highest ;  yet  he  claims  no  rank,  that 
none  may  be  disputed  to  him.  The  forward  he  can  repel,  the 
supercilious  he  can  subdue  ;  pretensions  of  wealth  or  ancestry 
are  of  no  avail  with  him ;  there  is  a  fire  in  that  dark  eye, 
under  which  the  "insolence  of  condescension"  cannot  thrive. 
In  his  abasement,  in  his  extreme  need,  he  forgets  not  for  a 
moment  the  majesty  of  Poetry  and  Manhood.  And  yet,  far 
as  he  feels  himself  above  common  men,  he  wanders  not  apart 
from  them,  but  mixes  warmly  in  their  interests  ;  nay  throws 
himself  into  their  arms,  and,  as  it  were,  entreats  them  to  love 
him.  It  is  moving  to  see  how,  in  his  darkest  despondency, 
this  proud  being  still  seeks  relief  from  friendship  ;  unbosoms 
himself,  often  to  the  unworthy  ;  and,  amid  tears,  strains  to  his 
glowing  heart  a  heart  that  knows  only  the  name  of  friendship. 
And  yet  he  was  '^  quick  to  learn  ;  "  a  man  of  keen  vision,  be- 
fore whom  common  disguises  afforded  no  concealment.  His 
understanding  saw  through  the  hollowness  even  of  accom- 
plished deceivers ;  but  there  was  a  generous  credulity  in  his 
heart.     And  so  did  our  Peasant  show  himself  among  us }  "a 


264         CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

soul  like  an  jEolian  harp,  in  whose  strings  the  vulgar  wind,  as 
it  passed  through  them,  changed  itself  into  articulate  melody." 
And  this  was  he  for  whom  the  world  found  no  fitter  busi- 
ness than  quarrelling  with  smugglers  and  vintners,  computing 
excise-dues  upon  tallow,  and  gauging  ale-barrels  !  In  such  toils 
was  that  mighty  Spirit  sorrowfully  wasted  :  and  a  hundred 
years  may  pass  on,  before  another  such  is  given  us  to  waste. 

t  *-*  All  that  remains  of  Burns,  the  Writings  he  has  left,  seem 
to  us,  as  we  hinted  above,  no  more  than  a  poor  mutilated  frac- 
tion of  what  was  in  him ;  brief,  broken  glimpses  of  a  genius 
that  could  never  show  itself  complete  ;  that  wanted  all  things 
for  completeness  :  culture,  leisure,  true  effort,  nay  even  length 
of  life.  His  poems  are,  with  scarcely  any  exception,  mere 
occasional  effusions  ;  poured  forth  with  little  premeditation  ; 
expressing,  by  such  means  as  offered,  the  passion,  opinion,  or 
humor  of  the  hour.  Never  in  one  instance  was  it  permitted 
him  to  grapple  with  any  subject  with  the  full  collection  of  his 
strength,  to  fuse  and  mould  it  in  the  concentrated  fire  of  his 
genius.  To  try  by  the  strict  rules  of  Art  such  imperfect  frag- 
ments, would  be  at  once  unprofitable  and  unfair.  Neverthe- 
less, there  is  something  in  these  poems,  marred  and  defective 
as  they  are,  which  forbids  the  most  fastidious  student  of  poetry 
to  pass  them  by.  Some  sort  of  enduring  quality  they  must 
have :  for  after  fifty  years  of  the  wildest  vicissitudes  in  poetic 
taste,  they  still  continue  to  be  read ;  nay,  are  read  more  and 
more  eagerly,  more  and  more  extensively  ;  and  this  not  only 
by  literary  virtuosos,  and  that  class  upon  whom  transitory 
causes  operate  most  strongly,  but  by  all  classes,  down  to  the 
most  hard,  unlettered  and  truly  natural  class,  who  i-ead  little, 
and  especially  no  poetry,  except  because  they  find  pleasure  in 
it.  The  grounds  of  so  singidar  and  wide  a  popularity,  which 
extends,  in  a  literal  sense,  from  the  palace  to  the  hut,  and 
over  all  regions  where  the  English  tongue  is  spoken,  are  well 
worth  inquiring  into.  After  every  just  deduction,  it  seems 
to  imply  some  rare  excellence  in  these  works.  What  is  that 
excellence  ? 

i      To  answer  this  question  will  not  lead  us  far.     The  excel- 


BURNS.  265 

lence  of  Burns  is,  indeed,  among  the  rarest,  whether  in  poetry 
or  prose  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  plain  and  easily  recognized : 
his  Sincerity,  his  indisputaLle  air  of  Truth.  Here  are  no  fabu- 
lous woes  or  joys  ;  no  hollow  fantastic  sentimentalities  ;  no 
wire-drawn  retinings,  either  in  thought  or  feeling  :  the  passion 
that  is  traced  before  us  has  glowed  in  a  living  heart;  the 
opinion  he  utters  has  risen  in  his  own  understanding,  and 
been  a  light  to  his  own  steps.  He  does  not  write  from  hear- 
say, but  from  sight  and  experience ;  it  is  the  scenes  that  he 
has  lived  and  labored  amidst,  that  he  describes  :  those  scenes, 
rude  and  humble  as  they  are,  have  kindled  beautiful  emotions 
in  his  soul,  noble  thoughts,  and  definite  resolves ;  and  he 
speaks  forth  what  is  in  him,  not  from  any  outward  call  of 
vanit}^  or  interest,  but  because  his  heart  is  too  full  to  be  silent. 
He  speaks  it  with  such  melody  and  modulation  as  he  can  ;  "  in 
homely  rustic  jingle ; "  but  it  is  his  own,  and  genuine.  This 
is  the  grand  secret  for  finding  readers  and  retaining  them  : 
let  him  who  would  move  and  convince  others,  be  first  moved 
and  convinced  himself.  Horace's  rule,  Si  vis  me  flere,  is  ap- 
plicable in  a  wider  sense  than  the  literal  one.  To  every 
poet,  to  every  writer,  we  might  say :  Be  true,  if  you  would 
be  believed.  Let  a  man  but  speak  forth  with  genuine  ear- 
nestness the  thouglit,  the  emotion,  the  actual  condition  of 
his  own  heart ;  and  other  men,  so  strangely  are  we  all  knit 
together  by  the  tie  of  sympathy,  must  and  will  give  heed  to 
him.  In  culture,  in  extent  of  view,  we  may  stand  above  the 
speaker,  or  below  him ;  but  in  either  case,  his  words,  if  they 
are  earuest  and  sincere,  will  find  some  response  within  us  ; 
for  in  spite  of  all  casual  varieties  in  outward  rank  or  in- 
ward, as  face  answers  to  face,  so  does  the  heart  of  man  to 
man. 
/?  This  may  appear  a  very  simple  principle,  and  one  which 
Burns  had  little  merit  in  discovering.  True,  the  discovery 
is  easy  enough  :  but  the  practical  appliance  is  not  easy  ;  is 
indeed  the  fundamental  difficulty  which  all  poets  have  to 
strive  with,  and  which  scarcely  one  in  the  hundred  ever  fairly 
surmounts.  A  head  too  dull  to  discriminate  the  true  from 
the  false ;  a  heart  too  dull  to  love  the  one  at  all  risks,  and  to 


2G6        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

hate  the  other  in  spite  of  all  temptations,  are  alike  fatal  to 
a  ^vTite^.  With  either,  or,  as  more  commonly  happens,  with 
both  of  these  deficiencies  combine  a  love  of  distinction,  a  wish 
to  be  original,  which  is  seldom  wanting,  and  we  have  Affecta- 
tion, the  bane  of  literature,  as  Cant,  its  elder  brother,  is  of 
morals.  How  often  does  the  one  and  the  other  front  ns,  in 
poetry,  as  in  life  !  Great  poets  themselves  are  not  always 
free  of  this  vice ;  nay,  it  is  precisely  on  a  certain  sort  and 
degree  of  greatness  that  it  is  most  commonly  ingrafted.  A 
strong  effort  after  excellence  will  sometimes  solace  itself  with 
a  mere  shadow  of  success ;  he  who  has  much  to  unfold,  will 
sometimes  unfold  it  imperfectly.  Byron,  for  instance,  was  no 
common  man:  yet  if  we  examine  his  poetry  with  this  view, 
we  shall  find  it  far  enough  from  faultless.  Generally  speak- 
ing, we  should  say  that  it  is  not  true.  He  refreshes  us,  not 
with  the  divine  fountain,  but  too  often  with  vulgar  strong 
waters,  stimulating  indeed  to  the  taste,  but  soon  ending  in 
dislike,  or  even  nausea.  Are  his  Harolds  and  Giaours,  we 
would  ask,  real  men ;  we  mean,  poetically  consistent  and  con- 
ceivable men  ?  Do  not  these  characters,  does  not  the  char- 
acter of  their  author,  which  more  or  less  shines  through  them 
all,  rather  appear  a  thing  put  on  for  the  occasion ;  no  natural 
or  possible  mode  of  being,  but  something  intended  to  look 
much  grander  than  nature  ?  Surely,  all  these  stormful  ago- 
nies, this  volcanic  heroism,  superhuman  contempt  and  moody 
desperation,  with  so  much  scowling,  and  teeth-gnashing,  and 
other  sulphurous  humor,  is  more  like  the  brawling  of  a  player 
in  some  paltry  tragedy,  which  is  to  last  three  hours,  than  tlie 
bearing  of  a  man  in  the  business  of  life,  which  is  to  last  three- 
score and  ten  years.  To  our  minds  there  is  a  taint  of  this 
sort,  something  which  we  should  call  theatrical,  false,  affected, 
in  every  one  of  these  otherwise  so  powerful  pieces.  Perhaps 
Don  Juan,  especially  the  latter  parts  of  it,  is  the  only  thing 
approaching  to  a  sincere  work,  he  ever  wrote ;  the  only  work 
where  he  showed  himself,  in  any  measure,  as  he  was  ;  and 
seemed  so  intent  on  his  subject  as,  for  moments,  to  forget 
himself.  Yet  Byron  hated  this  vice ;  we  believe,  heartily 
detested  it:   nay  he  had  declared  formal  war  against  it  in 


BURNS.  26T 

words.  So  difficult  is  it  even  for  the  strongest  to  make  this 
primary  attainment,  which  might  seem  the  simplest  of  all: 
to  read  its  own  consciousness  without  mistakes,  without  errors 
involuntary  or  wilful !  We  recollect  no  poet  of  Burns's  sus- 
ceptibility who  comes  before  us  from  the  first,  and  abides 
with  us  to  the  last,  with  such  a  total  want  of  affectation.  He 
is  an  honest  man,  and  an  honest  writer.  In  his  successes  and 
his  failures,  in  his  greatness  and  his  littleness,  he  is  ever  clear, 
simple,  true,  and  glitters  with  no  lustre  but  his  own.  We 
reckon  this  to  be  a  great  virtue ;  to  be,  in  fact,  the  root  o'f 
most  other  virtues,  literary  as  well  as  moral. 

Here,  however,  let  us  say,  it  is  to  the  Poetry  of  Burns  that 
we  now  allude  ;  to  tliose  writings  which  he  had  time  to  medi- 
tate, and  where  no  special  reason  existed  to  warp  his  critical 
feeling,  or  obstruct  his  endeavor  to  fulfil  it.  Certain  of  his 
Letters,  and  other  fractions  of  prose  composition,  by  no  means 
deserve  this  praise.  Hei-e,  doubtless,  there  is  not  the  same 
natural  truth  of  style;  but  on  the  contrary,  something  not 
only  stiff,  but  strained  and  twisted  ;  a  certain  high-flown  in- 
flated tone  ;  the  stilting  emphasis  of  which  contrasts  ill  with 
the  firmness  and  rugged  simplicity  of  even  his  poorest  verses. 
Thus  no  man,  it  would  appear,  is  altogether  unaffected.  Does 
not  Shakspeare  himself  sometimes  premeditate  the  sheerest 
bombast !  But  even  with  regard  to  these  Letters  of  Burns,  it 
is  but  fair  to  state  that  he  liad  two  excuses.  The  first  was  his 
comparative  deficiency  in  language.  Burns,  though  for  most 
part  he  writes  with  singular  force  and  even  gracefulness,  is  not 
master  of  English  prose,  as  he  is  of  Scottish  verse ;  not  master 
of  it,  we  mean,  in  proportion  to  the  depth  and  vehemence  of 
his  matter.  These  Letters  strike  us  as  the  effort  of  a  man  to 
express  something  which  he  has  no  organ  fit  for  expressing. 
But  a  second  and  weightier  excuse  is  to  be  found  in  the 
peculiarity  of  Burns's  social  rank.  His  coiTespondents  are 
often  men  whose  relation  to  him  he  has  never  accurately 
ascertained ;  whom  therefore  he  is  either  forearming  himself 
against,  or  else  unconsciously  flattering,  by  adopting  the 
style  he  thinks  will  please  them.  At  all  events,  we  should 
remember  that  these   faults,   even   in   his   Letters,   are   not 


268         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

tlie  rule,  but  the  exception.  Whenever  he  writes,  as  one 
■would  ever  wish  to  do,  to  trusted  friends  and  on  real  interests, 
his  style  becomes  simple,  vigorous,  expressive,  sometimes 
even  beautiful.  His  letters  to  Mrs.  Dunlop  are  uniformly 
excellent. 
I  (J  But  we  return  to  his  Poetry.  In  addition  to  its  Sincerity, 
it  has  another  peculiar  merit,  which  indeed  is  but  a  mode,  or 
perhaps  a  means,  of  the  foregoing :  this  displays  itself  in  his 
choice  of  subjects ;  or  rather  in  his  indifference  as  to  subjects, 
and  the  power  he  has  of  making  all  subjects  interesting.  The 
ordinary  poet,  like  the  ordinary  man,  is  forever  seeking  in 
external  circumstances  the  help  which  can  be  found  only  in 
himself.  In  what  is  familiar  and  near  at  hand,  he  discerns 
no  form  or  comeliness  :  home  is  not  poetical  but  prosaic ;  it  is 
in  some  past,  distant,  conventional  heroic  world,  that  poetry 
resides  ;  were  he  there  and  not  here,  were  he  thus  and  not  so, 
it  would  be  well  with  him.  Hence  our  innumerable  host  of 
rose-colored  Novels  and  iron-mailed  Epics,  with  their  locality 
not  on  the  Earth,  but  somewhere  nearer  to  the  Moon.  Hence 
our  Virgins  of  the  Sun,  and  our  Knights  of  the  Cross,  maliv 
cious  Saracens  in  turbans,  and  copper-colored  Chiefs  in  wam- 
pum, and  so  many  other  truculent  figures  from  the  heroic 
times  or  the  heroic  climates,  who  on  all  hands  swarm  in  our 
fioetry.  Peace  be  with  them  !  But  yet,  as  a  great  moralist 
proposed  preaching  to  the  men  of  this  century,  so  would  we 
fain  preach  to  the  poets,  "  a  sermon  on  the  duty  of  staying  at 
home."  Let  them  be  sure  that  heroic  ages  and  heroic  climates 
can  do  little  for  them.  That  form  of  life  has  attraction  for 
lis,  less  because  it  is  better  or  nobler  than  our  own,  than 
simply  because  it  is  different ;  and  even  this  attraction  must 
be  of  the  most  transient  sort.  For  will  not  our  own  age,  one 
day,  be  an  ancient  one  ;  and  have  as  quaint  a  costume  as  the 
rest  ;  not  contrasted  with  the  rest,  therefore,  but  ranked  along 
with  them,  in  respect  of  quaintness  ?  Does  Homer  interest 
us  now,  because  he  wrote  of  what  passed  beyond  his  native 
Greece,  and  two  centuries  before  he  was  born ;  or  because  he 
wrote  what  passed  in  God's  world,  and  in  the  heart  of  man, 
which  is  the  same  after  thirty  centuries  ?     Let  our  poets  look 


BURNS.  269 

to  this :  is  their  feeling  really  finer,  truer,  and  their  vision 
deeper  than  that  of  other  men,  —  they  have  nothing  to  fear, 
even  from  the  humblest  subject ;  is  it  not  so,  —  they  have 
nothing  to  hope,  but  an  ephemeral  favor,  even  from  the 
highest. 
/<^  The  poet,  we  imagine,  can  never  have  far  to  seek  for  a 
subject :  the  elements  of  his  art  are  in  him,  and  around  him 
on  every  hand ;  for  him  the  Ideal  world  is  not  remote  from 
the  Actual,  but  under  it  and  within  it :  nay,  he  is  a  poet, 
precisely  because  he  can  discern  it  there.  Wherever  there  is 
a  sky  above  him,  and  a  world  around  him,  the  poet  is  in  his 
place  ;  for  here  too  is  man's  existence,  with  its  infinite  long- 
ings and  small  acquirings ;  its  ever-thwarted,  ever-renewed 
endeavors ;  its  unspeakable  aspirations,  its  fears  and  hopes 
that  wander  through  Eternity  ;  and  all  the  mystery  of  bright- 
ness and  of  gloom  that  it  was  ever  made  of,  in  any  age  or 
climate,  since  man  first  began  to  live.  Is  there  not  the  fifth 
act  of  a  Tragedy  in  every  death-bed,  though  it  were  a  peas- 
ant's, and  a  bed  of  heath?  And  are  wdoings  and  weddings 
obsolete,  that  there  can  be  Comedy  no  longer  ?  Or  are  men 
suddenly  grown  wise,  that  Laughter  must  no  longer  shake  his 
sides,  but  be  cheated  of  his  Farce  ?  Man's  life  and  nature  is, 
as  it  was,  and  as  it  will  ever  be.  But  the  poet  must  have  an 
eye  to  read  these  things,  and  a  heart  to  understand  them ;  or 
they  come  and  pass  away  before  him  in  vain.  He  is  a  vates, 
a  seer;  a  gift  of  vision  has  been  given  him.  Has  life  no 
meanings  for  him,  which  another  cannot  equally  decipher; 
then  he  is  no  poet,  and  Delphi  itself  will  not  make  him 
one. 
^/'„  In  this  respect,  Burns,  though  not  perhaps  absolutely  a 
great  poet,  better  manifests  his  capability,  better  proves  the 
truth  of  his  genius,  than  if  he  had  by  his  own  strength  kept 
the  whole  Minerva  Press  going,  to  the  end  of  his  literary 
course.  He  shows  himself  at  least  a  poet  of  Nature's  own 
making;  and  Nature,  after  all,  is  still  the  grand  agent  in 
making  poets.  We  often  hear  of  this  and  the  other  external 
condition  being  requisite  for  the  existence  of  a  poet.  Some- 
times it  is  a  certain  sort  of  training ;  he  must  have  studied 


&7Q        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

eertain  things,  studied  for  instance  "the  elder  dramatists," 
and  so  learned  a  poetic  language ;  as  if  poetry  lay  in  the 
tongue,  not  in  the  heart.  At  other  times  we  are  told  he  must 
be  bred  in  a  eertain  rank,  and  must  be  on  a  confidential  foot- 
ing with  the  higher  classes  ;  because,  above  all  things,  he  must 
see  the  world.  As  to  seeing  the  world,  we  apprehend  this 
will  cause  him  little  difficulty,  if  he  have  but  eyesight  to  see 
it  with.  Without  eyesight,  indeed,  the  task  might  be  hard. 
The  blind  or  the  purblind  man  "  travels  from  Dan  to  Beer- 
sheba,  and  finds  it  all  barren."  But  happily  every  poet  is 
born  in  the  world ;  and  sees  it,,  with  or  against  his  will,  every 
day  and  every  hour  he  lives.  The  mysterious  workmanship 
of  man's  heart,  the  true  light  and  the  inscrutable  darkness  of 
man's  destiny,  reveal  themselves  not  only  in  capital  cities  and 
crowded  saloons,  but  in  every  hut  and  hamlet  where  men 
have  their  abode.  Nay,  do  not  the  elements  of  all  human 
virtues  and  all  human  vices ;  the  passions  at  once  of  a  Borgia 
and  of  a  Luther,  lie  written,  in  stronger  or  fainter  lines,  in 
the  consciousness  of  every  individual  bosom,  that  has  prac- 
tised honest  self-examination  ?  Truly,  this  same  world  may 
be  seen  in  Mossgiel  and  Tarbolton,  if  we  look  well,  as  clearly 
as  it  ever  came  to  light  in  Crockford's,  or  the  Tuileries 
itself. 

But  sometimes  still  harder  requisitions  are  laid  on  the  poor 
aspirant  to  poetry  ;  for  it  is  hinted  that  he  should  have  been 
born  two  centuries  ago ;  inasmuch  as  poetry,  about  that  date, 
vanished  from  the  earth,  and  became  no  longer  attainable  by 
men  !  Such  cobweb  speculations  have,  now  and  then,  over- 
hung the  field  of  literature  ;  but  they  obstruct  not  the  growth 
of  any  plant  there :  the  Shakspeare  or  the  Burns,  uncon- 
sciously and  merely  as  he  walks  onward,  silently  brushes 
them  away.  Is  not  every  genius  an  impossibility  till  he 
appear  ?  Why  do  we  call  him  new  and  original,  if  we  saw 
where  his  marble  was  lying,  and  what  fabric  he  could  rear 
from  it  ?  It  is  not  the  material  but  the  workman  that  is 
wanting.  It  is  not  the  dark  place  that  hinders,  but  the  dim 
eye.  A  Scottish  peasant's  life  was  the  meanest  and  rudest  of 
all  lives,  till  Burna  became  a  poet  ia  it.  and  a  poet  of  it; 


BURNS.  271 

found  it  a  marCs  life,  and  therefore  significant  to  men.  A 
thousand  battle-fields  remain  unsung ;  but  the  Wounded  Hare 
has  not  perished  without  its  memorial ;  a  balm  of  mercy  yet 
breathes  on  us  from  its  dumb  agonies,  because  a  poet  was 
there.  Our  Halloween  had  passed  and  repassed,  in  rude  awe 
and  laughter,  since  the  era  of  the  Druids ;  but  no  Theocritus, 
till  Burns,  discerned  in  it  the  materials  of  a  Scottish  Idyl : 
neither  was  the  Holy  Fair  any  Council  of  Trent  or  Roman 
Jtihilee  ;  but  nevertheless,  Superstition  and  Hypocrisy  and  Fun 
having  been  propitious  to  him,  in  this  man's  hand  it  became 
a  poem,  instinct  with  satire  and  genuine  comic  life.  Let  but 
the  true  poet  be  given  us,  we  repeat  it,  place  him  where  and 
how  you  will,  and  true  poetry  will  not  be  wanting. 

Independently  of  the  essential  gi£t  of  poetic  feeling,  as  we 
have  now  attempted  to  describe  it,  a  certain  rugged  sterling 
worth  pervades  whatever  Burns  has  "written ;  a  virtue,  as  of 
green  fields  and  mountain  breezes,  dwells  in  his  poetry  ;  it  is 
redolent  of  natural  life  and  hardy  natural  men.  There  is  a  deci- 
sive strength  in  him,  and  yet  a  sweet  native  gracefulness :  he 
is  tender,  he  is  vehement,  yet  without  constraint  or  too  visible 
effort ;  he  melts  the  heart,  or  inflames  it,  with  a  power  which 
seems  habitual  and  familiar  to  him.  We  see  that  in  this  man 
there  was  the  gentleness,  the  trembling  pity  of  a  woman,  with 
the  deep  earnestness,  the  force  and  passionate  ardor  of  a  hero. 
Tears  lie  in  him,  and  consuming  fire  ;  as  lightning  lurks  in  the 
drops  of  the  summer  cloud.  He  has  a  resonance  in  his  bosom 
for  every  note  of  human  feeling ;  the  high  and  the  low,  the  sad, 
the  ludicrous,  the  joyful,  are  welcome  in  their  turns  to  his 
"  lightly  moved  and  all-conceiving  spirit."  And  observe  with 
what  a  fierce  prompt  force  he  grasps  his  subject,  be  it  what  it 
may !  How  he  fixes,  as  it  were,  the  full  image  of  the  matter 
in  his  eye  ;  full  and  clear  in  every  lineament ;  and  catches  the 
real  type  and  essence  of  it,  amid  a  thousand  accidents  and 
superficial  circumstances,  no  one  of  which  misleads  him  !  Is 
it  of  reason  ;  some  truth  to  be  discovered  ?  No  sophistry,  no 
vain  surface-logic  detains  him ;  quick,  resolute,  unerring,  he 
pierces  through  into  the  marrow  of  the  question ;  and  speaks 
his  verdict  with  an  emphasis  that  cannot  be  forgotten.     Is  it 


272        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  description ;  some  visual  object  to  be  represented  ?  No  poet 
of  any  age  or  nation  is  more  graphic  than  Burns  :  the  character- 
istic features  disclose  themselves  to  him  at  a  glance  ;  three  lines 
from  his  hand,  and  we  have  a  likeness.  And,  in  that  rough 
dialect,  in  that  rude,  often  awkward  metre,  so  clear  and  defi- 
nite a  likeness  !  It  seems  a  draughtsman  working  with  a  burnt 
stick  ;  and  yet  the  burin  of  a  Eetzsch  is  not  more  expressive 
or  exact. 
/  ^  Of  this  last  excellence,  the  plainest  and  most  comprehensive 
of  all,  being  indeed  the  root  and  foundation  of  every  sort  of 
talent,  poetical  or  intellectual,  we  could  produce  innumerable 
instances  from  the  writings  of  Burns.  Take  these  glimpses 
of  a  snow-storm  from  his  Winter  Night  (the  italics  are 
ours)  :  —  tt 

"When  "biting  Boreas,  fell  and  doure, 
Sharp  shivers  thro'  the  leafless  bow'r, 
And  Phoebus  gies  a  short-liv'd  glowr 

Far  south  the  lift, 
Dim-darkening  thro'  the  flaky  showW 

Or  whirling  drift : 

"  Ae  night  the  storm  the  steeples  rock'd, 
Poor  labor  sweet  in  sleep  was  lock'd, 
While  burns  wi'  snawy  wreeths  upchoVd 

Wild-eddying  swhirl, 
Or  thro'  the  mining  outlet  bock'd 
Down  headlong  hurl." 

Are  there  not  "  descriptive  touches  "  here  ?  The  describer 
saiv  this  thing ;  the  essential  feature  and  true  likeness  of 
every  circumstance  in  it ;  saw,  and  not  with  the  eye  only. 
"  Poor  labor  locked  in  sweet  sleep ;  "  the  dead  stillness  of  man, 
unconscious,  vanquislied,  yet  not  unprotected,  while  such  strife 
of  the  material  elements  rages,  and  seems  to  reign  supreme  in 
loneliness  :  this  is  of  the  heart  as  well  as  of  the  eye  !  —  Look 
also  at  his  image  of  a  thaw,  and  propliesied  fall  of  the  Auld 
Brig :  — 

"  When  heavy,  dark,  continued,  a'- day  rains 
Wi'  deepening  deluges  o'erliow  the  plains  ; 


(-; 


BURNS.  273 

When  from  the  hills  where  springs  the  brawling  Coil, 
Or  stately  Lugar's  mossy  fountains  boil, 
Or  where  the  Greenoclc  winds  his  moorland  course, 
Or  haunted  Garpal  ^  draws  his  feeble  source, 
Arous'd  by  blust'ring  winds  and  spotting  thowes, 
In  mony  a  torrent  down  his  snaw-broo  rowes  ; 
While  crashing  ice,  borne  on  the  roaring  speat, 
Sweeps  dams  and  mills  and  brigs  a'  to  the  gate  ; 
And  from  Gleubuck  down  to  the  Rottonkey, 
Auld  Ayr  is  just  one  lengthen'd  tumbling  sea; 
Then  down  ye  '11  hurl,  Deil  nor  ye  never  rise  ! 
And  dash  the  gumlie  jaups  up  to  the  pouring  skies.^^ 

The  last  line  is  in  itself  a  Poussin-picture  of  that  Deluge  !  The 
welkin  has,  as  it  were,  bent  down  with  its  weight ;  the  "  gumlie 
jaups  "  and  the  "  pouring  skies  "  are  mingled  together  ;  it  is 
a  world  of  rain  and  ruin.  —  hi  respect  of  mere  clearness  and 
minute  fidelity,  the  Farmer^s  commendation  of  his  Auld  Mare, 
in  plough  or  in  cart,  may  vie  with  Homer's  Smithy  of  the 
C3'elops,  or  yoking  of  Priam's  Chariot.  Nor  have  we  forgotten 
stout  Burn-the-wind  and  his  brawny  customers,  inspired  by 
Scotch  Drink :  but  it  is  needless  to  multiply  examples.  One 
other  trait  of  a  much  finer  sort  we  select  from  multitudes  of 
such  among  his  Songs.  It  gives,  in  a  single  line,  to  the  saddest 
feeling  the  saddest  environment  and  local  habitation  : 

"  Tlie  pale  Moon  is  setting  beyond  the  white  wave, 
And  Time  is  setting  tci'  me,  0  ; 
Farewell,  false  friends  !  folse  lover,  farewell ! 
I  '11  nae  mair  trouble  them  nor  thee,  0." 

This  clearness  of  sight  we  have  called  the  foundation  of  all 
talent ;  for  in  fact,  unless  we  see  our  object,  how  shall  we  know 
how  to  place  or  prize  it,  in  our  understanding,  our  imagination, 
our  affections  ?  Yet  it  is  not  in  itself,  perhajis,  a  very  high 
excellence  ;  but  capable  of  being  united  indifferently  with  the 
strongest,  or  with  ordinary  powers.  Homer  surpasses  all  men 
in  tliis  quality  :  but  strangely  enough,  at  no  great  distance 
below  him  are  Richardson  and  Defoe.     It  belongs,  in  truth,  to 

1  Fabulonus  Uydaspes  ! 
VOL.   XIII.  lo 


274         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

what  is  called  a  lively  mind  ;  and  gives  no  sure  indication  of 
tlie  higher  endowments  that  may  exist  along  with  it.  In  all 
the  three  cases  we  have  mentioned,  it  is  combined  with  great 
garrulity  ;  their  descriptions  are  detailed,  ample  and  lovingly 
exact ;  Homer's  fire  bursts  through,  from  time  to  time,  as  if  by 
accident ;  but  Defoe  and  Richardson  have  no  fire.  Burns,  again, 
is  not  more  distinguished  by  the  clearness  than  by  the  impetu- 
ous force  of  his  conceptions.  Of  the  strength,  the  piercing 
emphasis  with  which  he  thought,  his  emphasis  of  expression 
may  give  a  humble  but  the  readiest  proof.  Who  ever  uttered 
sharper  sayings  than  his  ;  words  more  memorable,  now  by 
their  burning  vehemence,  now  by  their  cool  vigor  and  laconic 
pith  ?  A  single  phrase  depicts  a  whole  subject,  a  whole  scene. 
We  hear  of  "  a  gentleman  that  derived  his  patent  of  nobility 
direct  from  Almighty  God."  Our  Scottish  forefathers  in  the 
battle-field  struggled  forward  "  red-wat-shod : "  in  this  one  word, 
a  full  vision  of  horror  and  carnage,  perhaps  too  frightfully 
accurate  for  Art ! 
y,^  In  fact,  one  of  the  leading  features  in  the  mind  of  Burns  is 
this  vigor  of  his  strictly  intellectual  perceptions.  A  resolute 
force  is  ever  visible  in  his  judgments,  and  in  his  feelings  and 
volitions.  Professor  Stewart  says  of  him,  with  some  surprise  : 
"All  the  faculties  of  Burns's  mind  were,  as  far  as  I  could  judge, 
equally  vigorous  ;  and  his  predilection  for  poetry  was  rather 
the  result  of  his  own  enthusiastic  and  impassioned  temper, 
than  of  a  genius  exclusively  adapted  to  that  species  of  compo- 
sition. Erom  his  conversation  I  should  have  pronounced  hira 
to  be  fitted  to  excel  in  whatever  walk  of  ambition  he  had 
chosen  to  exert  his  abilities."  But  this,  if  we  mistake  not,  is 
at  all  times  the  very  essence  of  a  truly  poetical  endowment. 
Poetry,  except  in,  such  cases  as  that  of  Keats,  where  the  whole 
consists  in  a  weak-eyed  maudlin  sensibility,  and  a  certain 
vague  random  tunefulness  of  nnture,  is  no  separate  faculty, 
no  organ  which  can  bo  superadded  to  the  rest,  or  disjoined 
from  them ;  but  rather  the  result  of  their  general  harmony 
and  completion.  The  feelings,  the  gifts  that  exist  in  the  Poet 
are  those  that  exist,  with  more  or  less  development,  in  every 
human  soul :  the  imagination,  which  shudders  at  the  Hell  of 


BURNS.  275 

Dante,  is  the  same  faculty,  weaker  in  degree,  which  called  that 
picture  into  being.  How  does  the  Poet  speak  to  men,  with 
power,  but  by  being  still  more  a  man  than  they  ?  Shakspeare, 
it  has  been  well  observed,  in  the  planning  and  completing  of 
his  tragedies,  has  shown  an  Understanding,  were  it  nothing 
more,  which  might  have  governed  states,  or  indited  a  Novum 
Organum.  What  Burns's  force  of  understanding  may  have 
been,  we  have  less  means  of  judging :  it  had  to  dwell  among 
the  humblest  objects  ;  never  saw  Philosophy ;  never  rose,  ex- 
cept by  natural  effort  and  for  short  intervals,  into  the  region 
of  great  ideas.  Nevertheless,  sufficient  indication,  if  no  proof 
sufficient,  remains  for  us  in  his  Avorks  :  we  discern  the  brawny 
movements  of  a  gigantic  though  untutored  strength  ;  and  can 
understand  how,  in  conversation,  his  quick  sure  insight  into 
men  and  things  may,  as  much  as  aught  else  about  him,  have 
amazed  the  best  thinkers  of  his  time  and  country. 

5  But,  unless  we  mistake,  the  intellectual  gift  of  Burns  is 
fine  as  well  as  strong.  The  more  delicate  relations  of  things 
could  not  well  have  escaped  his  eye,  for  they  were  intimately 
present  to  his  heart.  The  logic  of  the  senate  and  the  forum  is 
indispensable,  but  not  all-sufficient ;  nay  perhaps  the  highest 
Truth  is  that  which  will  the  most  certainly  elude  it.  For  this 
logic  works  by  words,  and  "the  highest,"  it  has  been  said, 
"cannot  be  expressed  in  words."  "We  are  not  without  tokens 
of  an  openness  for  this  higher  truth  also,  of  a  keen  though  un- 
cultivated  sense  for  it,  having  existed  in  Burns.  Mr.  Stewart^ 
it  will  be  remembered,  "  wonders,"  in  the  passage  above  quoted, 
that  Burns  had  formed  some  distinct  conception  of  the  "  doc- 
trine of  association."  We  rather  think  that  far  subtler  things 
than  the  doctrine  of  association  had  from  of  old  been  familiar 
to  him.     Here  for  instance  :  — 

A  n.  "We  know  nothing,"  thus  writes  he,  "or  next  to  notliing, 
of  the  structure  of  our  souls,  so  we  cannot  account  for  those 
seeming  caprices  in  them,  that  one  should  be  i;articularly 
pleased  witli  this  thing,  or  struck  with  that,  wliich,  on  minds 
of  a  diiferent  cast,  makes  no  extraordinary  impression.  I  have 
some  favorite  flowers  in  spring,  among  which  are  the  moun- 
tain-daisy, the  harebell,  the  foxglove,  the  wild-brier  rose,  the 


276        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

budding  birch,  and  the  hoary  hawthorn,  that  I  view  and  hang 
Qver  with  particular  delight.  I  never  hear  the  loud  solitary 
whistle  of  the  curlew  in  a  summer  noon,  or  the  wild  mixing 
cadence  of  a  troop  of  gray  plover  in  an  autumnal  morning, 
without  feeling  an  elevation  of  soul  like  the  enthusiasm  of  de- 
votion or  poetry.  Tell  me,  my  dear  friend,  to  what  can  this 
be  owing  ?  Are  we  a  piece  of  machinery,  which,  like  the 
^olian  harp,  passive,  takes  the  impression  of  the  passing  acci-  ^ 
dent ;  or  do  these  workings  argue  something  within  us  above 
the  trodden  clod  ?  I  own  myself  partial  to  such  proofs  of 
those  awful  and  important  realities  :  a  God  that  made  all 
things,  man's  immaterial  and  immortal  nature,  and  a  world  of 
weal  or  woe  beyond  death  and  the  grave." 
1  A  Force  and  fineness  of  understanding  are  often  spoken  of  as 
something  different  from  general  force  and  fineness  af  nature, 
as  something  partly  independent  of  them.  The  necessities 
of  language  so  require  it ;  but  in  truth  these  qualities  are  not 
distinct  and  independent :  except  in  special  cases,  and  from 
special  causes,  they  ever  go  together.  A  man  of  strong  under- 
standing is  generally  a  man  of  strong  character ;  neither  is 
delicacy  in  the  one  kind  often  divided  from  delicacy  in  the 
other.  No  one,  at  all  events,  is  ignorant  that  in  the  Poetry  of 
Burns  keenness  of  insight  keeps  pace  with  keenness  of  feeling ; 
that  his  Uffht  is  not  more  pervading  than  his  warmth.  He  is  a 
man  of  the  most  impassioned  temper ;  with  passions  not  strong 
only,  but  noble,  and  of  the  sort  in  which  great  virtues  and 
great  poems  take  their  rise.  It  is  reverence,  it  is  love  towards 
all  Nature  that  inspires  him,  that  opens  his  eyes  to  its  beauty, 
and  makes  heart  and  voice  eloquent  in  its  praise.  There  is  a 
true  old  saying,  that  "  Love  furthers  knowledge  : "  but  above 
all,  it  is  the  living  essence  of  that  knowledge  which  makes 
poets  ;  the  first  principle  of  its  existence,  increase,  activity. 
Of  Burns's  fervid  affection,  his  generous  all-embracing  Love, 
we  have  spoken  already,  as  of  the  grand  distinction  of  his 
nature,  seen  equally  in  word  and  deed,  in  his  Life  and  in  his 
Writings.  It  were  easy  to  multiply  examples.  Not  man  only, 
but  all  that  environs  man  in  the  material  and  moral  universe, 
is  lovely  in  his  sight :  "  the  hoary  hawthorn,"  the  "  troop  of 


BURNS.  277 

gray  plover,"  the  "  solitary  curlew,"  all  are  dear  to  him ;  all 
live  in  this  Earth  along  with  him,  and  to  all  he  is  knit  as  in 
mysterious  brotherhood.  How  touching  is  it,  for  instance, 
that,  amidst  the  gloom  of  personal  misery,  brooding  over  the 
wintry  desolation  without  him  and  within  him,  he  thinks  of 
the  "  ourie  cattle  "  and  "  silly  sheep,"  and  their  sufferings  in 
the  pitiless  storm  ! 

"  I  thought  me  on  the  ourie  cattle, 
Or  silly  sheep,  wha  hide  this  brattle 

0'  wintry  war, 
Or  thro'  the  drift,  deep-lairing,  sprattle, 

Beneath  a  scaur. 
Ilk  happing  bird,  wee  helpless  thing, 
That  in  the  merry  montlis  o'  spring 
Dehghted  me  to  hear  thee  sing. 

What  comes  o'  thee  ? 
Where  wilt  thou  cow'r  thy  chittering  wing, 

And  close  thy  ee  1 " 

The  tenant  of  the  mean  hut,  with  its  "  ragged  roof  and  chinky 
wall,"  has  a  heart  to  pity  even  these  !  This  is  worth  several 
homilies  on  Mercy ;  for  it  is  the  voice  of  Mercy  herself. 
Burns,  indeed,  lives  in  sympathy  ;  his  soul  rushes  forth  into 
all  realms  of  being ;  nothing  that  has  existence  can  be  in- 
different to  him.  The  very  Devil  he  cannot  hate  with  right 
orthodoxy  :  — 

"  But  fare  you  weol,  auld  Nickie-ben; 
0,  wad  ye  tak  a  thought  and  men'  I 
Ye  aiblins  might,  — I  dinna  ken,  — 

Still  hae  a  stake ; 
I'm  wae  to  think  upo'  yon  den, 

Even  for  your  sake  ! " 

"  He  is  the  father  of  curses  and  lies,"  said  Dr.  Slop ;  "  and  is 
cursed  and  damned  already."  —  "I  am  sorry  for  it,"  quoth  my 
uncle  Toby  !  —  A  Poet  without  Love  were  a  physical  and 
metaphysical  impossibility. 

^    But  has  it  not  been  said,  in  contradiction  to  this  principle, 
that  "  Indignation  makes  verses  "  ?     It  has  been  so  said,  and 


278        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  true  enough:  but  the  contradiction  is  apparent,  not  real. 
The  Indignation  which  makes  verses  is,  properly  speaking,  an 
inverted  Love ;  the  love  of  some  right,  some  worth,  some  good- 
ness, belonging  to  ourselves  or  others,  which  has  been  injured, 
and  which  this  tempestuous  feeling  issues  forth  to  defend  and 
avenge.  No  selfish  fury  of  heart,  existing  there  as  a  primary 
feeling,  and  without  its  opposite,  ever  produced  much  Poetry : 
otherwise,  we  suppose,  the  Tiger  were  the  most  musical  of  all 
our  choristers.  Johnson  said,  he  loved  a  good  hater ;  by  which 
he  must  have  meant,  not  so  much  one  that  hated  violently,  as 
one  that  hated  wisely ;  hated  baseness  from  love  of  nobleness. 
However,  in  spite  of  Johnson's  paradox,  tolerable  enough  for 
once  in  speech,  but  which  need  not  have  been  so  often  adopted 
in  print  since  then,  we  rather  believe  tliat  good  men  deal  spar- 
ingly in  hatred,  either  wise  or  unwise :  nay  that  a  "  good '' 
hater  is  still  a  desideratum  in  this  world.  The  Devil,  at  least, 
who  passes  for  the  chief  and  best  of  that  class,  is  said  to  be 
nowise  an  amiable  character. 
/)  J  Of  the  verses  which  Indignation  makes.  Burns  has  also  given 
us  specimens  :  and  among  the  best  that  were  ever  given.  Who 
will  forget  his  "  Dweller  in  yon  Dungeon  dark  ;  "  a  piece  that 
might  have  been  chanted  by  the  Puries  of  ^schylus  ?  The 
secrets  of  the  infernal  Pit  are  laid  bare ;  a  boundless  baleful 
"  darkness  visible ;  "  and  streaks  of  hell-fire  quivering  madly 
in  its  black  haggard  bosom  !  — 

"  Dweller  in  yon  Dungeon  dark, 
Hangman  of  Creation,  mark ! 
Who  in  widow's  weeds  appears. 
Laden  with  unhonored  years. 
Noosing  with  care  abursting  purse, 
Baited  with  many  a  deadly  curse  !  " 

>r  Why  should  we  speak  of  Scots  wha  hae  fvV  Wallace  hied  ; 
since  all  know  of  it,  from  the  king  to  the  meanest  of  his  sub- 
jects ?  This  dithyrambic  was  composed  on  horseback;  in 
riding  in  the  middle  of  tempests,  over  the  wildest  Galloway 
moor,  in  company  with  a  Mr.  Syme,  who,  observing  the  poet's 
looks,  forbore  to  speak,  —  judiciously  enough,  for  a  man  com- 
posing Bruce's  Address  might  be  unsafe  to  trifle  with.     Doubt- 


BURNS.  279 

less  this  stern  hymn  was  singing  itself,  as  lie  formed  it,  through 
the  soul  of  Burns :  but  to  the  external  ear,  it  should  be  sung 
with  the  throat  of  the  whirlwind.  So  long  as  there  is  warm 
blood  in  the  heart  of  Scotchman  or  man,  it  will  move  in  fierce 
thrills  under  this  war-ode ;  the  best,  we  believe,  that  was  ever 
written  by  any  pen. 

Another  Avild  stormful  Song,  that  dwells  in  our  ear  and  mind 
with  a  strange  tenacity,  is  Macpherson's  Fareicell.  Perhaps 
there  is  something  in  the  tradition  itself  that  co-operates. 
For  was  not  this  grim  Celt,  this  shaggy  Northland  Cacus,  that 
"  lived  a  life  of  sturt  and  strife,  and  died  by  treacherie,"  — 
was  not  he  too  one  of  the  Nimrods  and  Napoleons  of  the  earth, 
in  the  arena  of  his  own  remote  misty  glens,  for  want  of  a 
clearer  and  wider  one  ?  Nay,  was  there  not  a  touch  of  grace 
given  him?  A  fibre  of  love  and  softness,  of  poetry  itself, 
must  have  lived  in  his  savage  heart :  for  he  composed  that  air 
the  night  before  his  execution ;  on  the  wings  of  that  poor 
melody  his  better  soul  would  soar  away  above  oblivion,  pain 
and  all  the  ignominy  and  despair,  which,  like  an  avalanche, 
was  hurling  him  to  the  abyss  !  Here  also,  as  at  Thebes,  and  in 
Pelops'  line,  was  material  Fate  matched  against  man's  Free- 
will ;  matched  in  bitterest  though  obscure  duel  ;  and  the 
ethereal  soul  sank  not,  even  in  its  blindness,  without  a  cry 
which  has  survived  it.  But  who,  except  Burns,  could  have 
given  words  to  such  a  soul ;  words  that  we  never  listen  to  with- 
out a  strange  half-barbarous,  half-poetic  fellow-feeling  ? 

"  Sae  rantingly,  sae  wantonly, 
Sne  dauntinghi  gned  he  ; 
He  phiy'd  a  spring,  and  danced  it  round, 
Below  the  gallows-tree." 

'  Under  a  lighter  disguise,  the  same  principle  of  Love,  which 
we  have  recognized  as  the  great  characteristic  of  Burns,  and 
of  all  true  poets,  occasionally  manifests  itself  in  the  shape  of 
Humor.  Everywhere,  indeed,  in  his  sunny  moods,  a  full  buoy- 
ant flood  of  mirth  rolls  through  the  mind  of  Burns  ;  he  rises 
to  the  high,  and  stoops  to  the  low,  and  is  brother  and  playmate 
to  all  Nature.     We  speak  not  of  his  bold  and  often  irresistible 


280        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

faculty  of  caricature ;  for  this  is  Drollery  rather  than  Humor : 
but  a  much  tenderer  sportfulness  dwells  in  him  ;  and  comes 
forth  here  and  there,  in  evanescent  and  beautiful  touches ;  as 
in  his  Address  to  the  House,  or  the  farmer's  Mare,  or  in  his 
Elegy  on  poor  Mailie,  which  last  may  be  reckoned  his  happiest 
effort  of  this  kind.  In  these  pieces  there  are  traits  of  a  Humor 
as  fine  as  that  of  Sterne ;  yet  altogether  different,  original, 
peculiar,  —  the  Humor  of  Burns. 
;)  <'■  Of  the  tenderness,  the  playful  pathos,  and  many  other  kin- 
dred qualities  of  Burns's  Poetry,  much  more  might  be  said; 
but  now,  with  these  poor  outlines  of  a  sketch,  we  must  prepare 
to  quit  this  part  of  our  subject.  To  speak  of  his  individual 
Writings,  adequately  and  with  any  detail,  would  lead  us  far 
beyond  our  limits.  As  already  hinted,  we  can  look  on  but 
few  of  these  pieces  as,  in  strict  critical  language,  deserving  the 
name  of  Poems  :  they  are  rhymed  eloqiience,  rhymed  pathos, 
rhymed  sense ;  yet  seldom  essentially  melodious,  aerial,  poeti- 
cal. Tam  6'  Shanter  itself,  which  enjoys  so  high  a  favor,  does 
not  appear  to  us  at  all  decisively  to  come  under  this  last  cate- 
gory. It  is  not  so  much  a  poem,  as  a  piece  of  sparkling 
rhetoric ;  the  heart  and  body  of  the  story  still  lies  hard  and 
dead.  He  has  not  gone  back,  much  less  carried  us  back,  into 
that  dark,  earnest,  wondering  age,  when  the  tradition  was  be- 
lieved, and  when  it  took  its  rise ;  he  does  not  attempt,  by  any 
new-modelling  of  his  supernatural  ware,  to  strike  anew  that 
deep  mysterious  chord  of  human  nature,  which  once  responded 
to  such  things ;  and  which  lives  in  us  too,  and  will  forever 
live,  though  silent  now,  or  vibrating  with  far  other  notes,  and 
to  far  different  issues.  Our  German  readers  will  understand 
us,  when  we  say,  that  he  is  not  the  Tieck  but  the  jNIusaus  of 
this  tale.  Externally  it  is  all  green  and  living ;  yet  look 
closer,  it  is  no  firm  growth,  but  only  ivy  on  a  rock.  The  piece 
does  not  properly  cohere :  the  strange  chasm  which  yawns  in 
our  incredulous  imaginations  between  the  Ayr  public-house 
and  the  gate  of  Tophet,  is  nowhere  bridged  over,  nay  the  idea 
of  such  a  bridge  is  laughed  at ;  and  thus  the  Tragedy  of  the 
adventure  becomes  a  mere  drunken  phantasmagoria,  or  many- 
colored  spectrum  painted  on  ale-vapors,  and  the  Farce  alone 


BURNS.  281 

has  any  reality.  We  do  not  say  that  Burns  should  have  made 
much  more  of  this  tradition ;  we  rather  think  that,  for  strictly 
poetical  purposes,  not  much  was  to  be  made  of  it.  Neither 
are  we  blind  to  the  deep,  varied,  genial  power  displayed  in 
what  he  has  actually  accomplished ;  but  we  find  far  more 
"  Shakspearean  "  qualities,  as  these  of  Tarn  o'  Shunter  have 
been  fondly  named,  in  many  of  his  other  pieces ;  nay  we  in- 
cline to  believe  that  this  latter  might  have  been  written,  all 
but  quite  as  well,  by  a  man  who,  in  place  of  genius,  had  only 
possessed  talent. 

i.  ^Perhaps  we  may  venture  to  say,  that  the  most  strictly 
poetical  of  all  his  ''poems"  is  one  which  does  not  appear  in 
Currie's  Edition ;  but  has  been  often  printed  before  and  since, 
under  the  humble  title  of  The  Jolly  Beggars.  The  subject 
truly  is  among  the  lowest  in  ]S"ature ;  but  it  only  the  more 
shows  our  Poet's  gift  in  raising  it  into  the  domain  of  Art. 
To  our  minds,  this  piece  seems  thoroughly  compacted ;  melted 
together,  refined ;  and  poured  forth  in  one  flood  of  true  liquid 
harmony.  It  is  light,  airy,  soft  of  movement ;  yet  sharp  and 
precise  in  its  details ;  every  face  is  a  portrait :  that  raucle 
carlin,  that  wee  Apollo,  that  Son  of  liars,  are  Scottish,  yet 
ideal ;  the  scene  is  at  once  a  dream,  and  the  very  Kagcastle  of 
"  Poosie-Xansic."  Farther,  it  seems  in  a  considerable  degree 
complete,  a  real  self-supporting  "Whole,  which  is  the  highest 
merit  in  a  poem.  The  blanket  of  the  Xight  is  drawn  asunder 
for  a  moment ;  in  full,  ruddy,  flaming  light,  these  rough  tatter- 
demalions are  seen  in  their  boisterous  revel;  for  the  strong 
pulse  of  Life  vindicates  its  right  to  gladness  even  here ;  and 
when  the  curtain  closes,  we  prolong  the  action,  without  effort ; 
the  next  day  as  the  last,  our  Caird  and  our  Balladmonger  are 
singing  and  soldiering ;  their  "  brats  and  callets "  are  hawk- 
ing, begging,  cheating ;  and  some  other  night,  in  new  com- 
binations, they  will  wring  from  Fate  another  hour  of  wassail 
and  good  cheer.  Apart  from  the  universal  sympathy  with 
man  which  this  again  bespeaks  in  Burns,  a  genuine  inspiration 
and  no  inconsiderable  technical  talent  are  manifested  here. 
There  is  the  fidelity,  humor,  warm  life  and  accurate  painting 
and  grouping  of  some  Teniers,  for  whom  hostlers  and  carous- 


282       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

jng  peasants  are  not  without  significance.  It  would  be  strange, 
doubtless,  to  call  this  the  best  of  Burns's  writings :  we  mean 
to  say  only,  that  it  seems  to  us  the  most  perfect  of  its  kind, 
as  a  piece  of  poetical  composition,  strictly  so  called.  In  the 
Beggars'  Opera,  in  the  Beggars'  Bush,  as  other  critics  have 
already  remarked,  there  is  nothing  which,  in  real  poetic  vigor, 
equals  this  Cantata  ;  nothing,  as  we  think,  which  comes  within 
many  degrees  of  it. 

But  by  far  the  most  finished,  complete  and  truly  inspired 
pieces  of  Burns  are,  without  dispute,  to  be  found  among  his 
Songs.  It  is  here  that,  although  through  a  small  aperture,  his 
light  shines  with  least  obstruction;  in  its  highest  beauty  and 
pure  sunny  clearness.  The  reason  may  be,  that  Song  is  a  brief 
simple  species  of  composition  ;  and  requires  nothing  so  much  for 
its  perfection  as  genuine  poetic  feeling,  genuine  music  of  heart. 
Yet  the  Song  has  its  rules  equally  with  the  Tragedy ;  rules 
which  in  most  cases  are  poorly  fulfilled,  in  many  cases  are 
not  so  much  as  felt.  We  might  write  a  long  essay  on  the 
Songs  of  Burns ;  which  we  reckon  by  far  the  best  that  Britain 
has  yet  produced :  for  indeed,  since  the  era  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
we  know  not  that,  by  any  other  hand,  aught  truly  worth  at- 
tention has  been  accomplished  in  this  department.  True,  we 
have  songs  enough  "  by  persons  of  quality ;  "  we  have  tawdry, 
hollow,  wine-bred  madrigals  ;  many  a  rhymed  speech  "  in  the 
flowing  and  watery  vein  of  Ossorius  the  Portugal  Bishop," 
rich  in  sonorous  words,  and,  for  moral,  dashed  perhaps  with 
Borae  tint  of  a  sentimental  sensuality ;  all  which  many  per- 
sons cease  not  from  endeavoring  to  sing;  though  for  most 
part,  we  fear,  the  music  is  but  from  the  throat  outwards,  or 
at  best  from  some  region  far  enough  short  of  the  Soul ;  not 
in  which,  but  in  a  certain  inane  Limbo  of  the  Fancy,  or  even 
in  some  vaporous  debatable-land  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
Nervous  System,  most  of  such  madrigals  and  rhymed  speeches 
seem  to  have  originated. 

With  the  Songs  of  Burns  we  must  not  name  these  things. 
Independently  of  the  clear,  manly,  heartfelt  sentiment  that 
ever  pervades  his  poetry,  his  Songs  are  honest   in  another 


BURNS.  283 

point  of  view:  in  form,  as  well  as  in  spirit.  They  do  not 
affect  to  be  set  to  music,  but  they  actually  and  in  themselves 
are  music ;  they  have  received  their  life,  and  fashioned  them- 
selves together,  in  the  medium  of  Harmony,  as  Venus  rose 
from  the  bosom  of  the  sea.  The  story,  the  feeling,  is  not 
detailed,  but  suggested ;  not  said,  or  spouted,  in  rhetorical 
completeness  and  coherence ;  but  sung,  in  iitful  gushes,  in 
glowing  hints,  in  fantastic  breaks,  in  warblings  not  of  the 
voice  only,  but  of  the  whole  mind.  We  consider  this  to  be 
the  essence  of  a  song  ;  and  that  no  songs  since  the  little  care- 
less catches,  and  as  it  were  drops  of  song,  which  Shakspeare 
has  here  and  there  sprinkled  over  his  Plays,  fulfil  this  condi- 
tion in  nearly  the  same  degree  as  most  of  Burns's  do.  Such 
grace  and  truth  of  external  movement,  too,  presupposes  in 
general  a  corresponding  force  and  truth  of  sentiment  and 
inward  meaning.  The  Songs  of  Burns  are  not  more  perfect 
in  the  former  quality  than  in  the  latter.  With  what  tender- 
ness he  sings,  yet  with  what  vehemence  and  entireness  !  There 
is  a  piercing  wail  in  his  sorrow,  the  purest  rapture  in  his  joy ; 
he  burns  with  the  sternest  ire,  or  laughs  with  the  loudest  or 
slyest  mirth  ;  and  yet  he  is  sweet  and  soft,  "  sweet  as  the  smile 
when  fond  lovers  meet,  and  soft  as  their  parting  tear."  If 
we  farther  take  into  account  the  immense  variety  of  his  sub- 
jects ;  how,  from  the  loud  flowing  revel  in  Willie  brewed  a 
Peck  o'  Maut,  to  the  still,  rapt  enthusiasm  of  sadness  for 
Mary  in  Heaven  ;  from  the  glad  kind  greeting  of  Auld  Lang 
Syne,  or  the  comic  archness  of  Duncan  Gray,  to  the  fire-eyed 
fury  of  Scots  wha  hoe  wH  Wallace  hied,  he  has  found  a  tone 
and  words  for  every  mood  of  man's  heart,  —  it  will  seem  a 
small  praise  if  we  rank  him  as  the  first  of  all  our  Song- 
writers ;  for  we  know  not  where  to  find  one  worthy  of  being 
second  to  him. 
y;  n  It  is  on  his  Songs,  as  we  believe,  that  Burns's  chief  influence 
as  an  autlior  will  ultimately  be  found  to  depend :  nor,  if  our 
Fletcher's  aphorism  is  true,  shall  we  account  this  a  small  in- 
fluence. *'  Let  me  make  the  songs  of  a  people,"  said  he,  "  and 
3'ou  shall  make  its  laws."  Surely,  if  ever  any  Poet  might 
have  equalled  himself  with  Legislators  on  this  ground,  it  was 


284       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Burns.  His  Songs  are  already  part  of  the  mother-tongue,  not 
of  Scotland  only  but  of  Britain,  and  of  the  millions  that  in 
all  ends  of  the  earth  speak  a  British  language.  In  hut  and 
hall,  as  the  heart  unfolds  itself  in  many-colored  joy  and  woe 
of  existence,  the  name,  the  voice  of  that  joy  and  that  woe,  is 
the  name  and  voice  which  Burns  has  given  them.  Strictly 
speaking,  perhaps  no  British  man  has  so  deeply  affected  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  so  many  men,  as  this  solitary  and 
altogether  private  individual,  with  means  apparently  the 
humblest. 
^  /  In  another  point  of  view,  moreover,  we  incline  to  think  that 
"  I  Burns's  influence  may  have  been  considetable :  we  mean,  as 
exerted  specially  on  the  Literature  of  his  country,  at  least  on 
the  Literature  of  Scotland.  Among  the  great  changes  which 
British,  particularly  Scottish  literature,  has  undergone  since 
that  period,  one  of  the  greatest  will  be  found  to  consist  in  its 
remarkable  increase  of  nationality.  Even  the  English  writers, 
most  popular  in  Burns's  time,  were  little  distinguished  for 
their  literary  patriotism,  in  this  its  best  sense.  A  certain 
attenuated  cosmopolitanism  had,  in  good  measure,  taken  place 
of  the  old  insular  home-feeling ;  literature  Avas,  as  it  were, 
without  any  local  environment ;  was  not  nourished  by  the 
affections  which  spring  from  a  native  soil.  Our  Grays  and 
Glovers  seemed  to  write  almost  as  if  iji  vacuo ;  the  thing 
written  bears  no  mark  of  place ;  it  is  not  written  so  much 
for  Englishmen,  as  for  men ;  or  rather,  which  is  the  inevitable 
result  of  this,  for  certain  Generalizations  which  philosophy 
termed  men.  Goldsmith  is  an  exception ;  not  so  Johnson  ; 
the  scene  of  his  Rambler  is  little  more  English  than  that  of 
his  Rasselas. 
^  ^  But  if  such  was,  in  some  degree,  the  case  with  England,  it 
^  was,  in  the  highest  degree,  the  case  with  Scotland.  In  fact, 
our  Scottish  literature  had,  at  that  period,  a  very  singular 
aspect ;  unexampled,  so  far  as  we  know,  except  perhaps  at 
Geneva,  where  the  same  state  of  matters  appears  still  to  con- 
tinue. For  a  long  period  after  Scotland  became  British,  we 
had  no  literature  :  at  the  date  when  Addison  and  Steele  were 
writing  their  Spectators,  our  good  Thomas  Boston  was  writing, 


BURNS.  286 

with  the  noblest  intent,  but  alike  in  defiance  of  grammar  and 
philosophy,  his  Fourfold  State  of  Man.  Then  came  the  schisms 
in  our  National  Church,  and  the  fiercer  schisms  in  our  Body- 
Politic  :  Theologic  ink,  and  Jacobite  blood,  with  gall  enough  in 
both  cases,  seemed  to  have  blotted  out  the  intellect  of  the 
country  :  however,  it  was  only  obscured,  not  obliterated.  Lord 
Kames  made  nearly  the  first  attempt  at  writing  English ;  and 
ere  long,  Hume,  Kobertson,  Smith,  and  a  whole  host  of  fol- 
lowers, attracted  hither  the  eyes  of  all  Europe.  And  yet  in 
this  brilliant  resuscitation  of  our  "fervid  genius,"  there  was 
nothing  truly  Scottish,  nothing  indigenous  ;  except,  perhaps, 
the  natural  impetuosity  of  intellect,  which  we  sometimes 
claim,  and  are  sometimes  upbraided  with,  as  a  characteristic 
of  our  nation.  It  is  curious  to  remark  that  Scotland,  so  full 
of  writers,  had  no  Scottish  culture,  nor  indeed  any  English ; 
our  culture  was  almost  exclusively  French.  It  was  by  study- 
ing Racine  and  Voltaire,  Batteux  and  Boileau,  that  Kames  had 
trained  himself  to  be  a  critic  and  philosopher ;  it  was  the  light 
of  Montesquieu  and  jMably  that  guided  Robertson  in  his  politi- 
cal speculations ;  Quesnay's  lamp  that  kindled  the  lamp  of 
Adam  Smith.  Hume  was  too  rich  a  man  to  borrow  ;  and  per- 
haps he  reacted  on  the  French  more  than  he  was  acted  on  by 
them  :  but  neither  had  he  aught  to  do  with  Scotland  ;  Edin- 
burgh, equally  with  La  Fleche,  was  but  the  lodging  and  labora- 
tory, in  which  he  not  so  much  morally  lived,  as  metaphysically 
investigated.  iSTever,  perhaps,  was  there  a  class  of  writers  so 
clear  and  well-ordered,  yet  so  totally  destitute,  to  all  appear- 
ance, of  any  patriotic  affection,  nay  of  any  human  affection 
whatever.  The  French  wits  of  the  period  were  as  unpatriotic : 
but  their  general  deficiency  in  moral  principle,  not  to  say  their 
avowed  sensuality  and  unbelief  in  all  virtue,  strictly  so  called, 
render  this  accountable  enough.  We  hope,  there  is  a  patriot- 
ism founded  on  something  better  than  prejudice  ;  that  our  coun- 
try may  be  dear  to  us,  without  injury  to  our  philosoj)hy  ;  that 
in  loving  and  justly  prizing  all  other  lands,  we  may  prize 
justly,  and  yet  love  before  all  others,  our  own  stern  Mother- 
land, and  the  venerable  Structure  of  social  and  moral  Life, 
which  Mind  has  through  long  ages  been  building  up  for  U3 


286        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

there.  Surely  there  is  nourishment  for  the  better  part  of 
man's  heart  in  all  this :  surely  the  roots,  that  have  fixed  them- 
selves in  the  very  core  of  man's  being,  may  be  so  cultivated  as 
to  grow  up  not  into  briers,  but  into  roses,  in  the  field  of  his 
life  !  Our  Scottish  sages  have  no  such  propensities  :  the  field 
of  their  life  shows  neither  briers  nor  roses ;  but  only  a  flat, 
continuous  thrashing-floor  for  Logic,  whereon  all  questions, 
from  the  "  Doctrine  of  Rent "  to  the  "  Natural  History  of 
Religion,"  are  thrashed  and  sifted  with  the  same  mechanical 
impartiality ! 
■&j  With  Sir  Walter  Scott  at  the  head  of  our  literature,  it  can- 
not be  denied  that  much  of  this  evil  is  past,  or  rapidly  passing 
away  :  our  chief  literary  men,  whatever  other  faults  they  may 
have,  no  longer  live  among  us  like  a  French  Colony,  or  some 
knot  of  Propaganda  Missionaries ;  but  like  natural-born  sub- 
jects of  the  soil,  partaking  and  sympathizing  in  all  our  attach- 
ments, humors  and  habits.  Our  literature  no  longer  grows  in 
water  but  in  mould,  and  with  the  true  racy  virtues  of  the  soil 
and  climate.  How  much  of  this  change  may  be  due  to  Burns, 
or  to  any  other  individual,  it  might  be  difficult  to  estimate. 
Direct  literary  imitation  of  Burns  was  not  to  be  looked  for. 
But  his  example,  in  the  fearless  adoption  of  domestic  subjects, 
could  not  but  operate  from  afar ;  and  certainly  in  no  heart  did 
the  love  of  country  ever  burn  with  a  warmer  glow  than  in  that 
of  Burns  :  "  a  tide  of  Scottish  prejudice,"  as  he  modestly  calls 
this  deep  and  generous  feeling,  "  had  been  poured  along  his 
veins  ;  and  he  felt  that  it  would  boil  there  till  the  flood-gates 
shut  in  eternal  rest."  It  seemed  to  him,  as  if  he  could  do  so 
little  for  his  country,  and  yet  would  so  gladly  have  done  all. 
One  small  province  stood  open  for  him, — that  of  Scottish 
Song ;  and  how  eagprly  he  entered  on  it,  how  devotedly  ho 
labored  there  !  In  liis  toilsome  journeyin;::s,  this  object  never 
quits  him  ;  it  is  the  little  happy-valley  of  his  careworn  heart. 
In  the  gloom  of  his  own  aiflietion,  he  eagerly  searches  after 
some  lonely  brother  of  the  muse,  and  rejoices  to  snatch 
one  other  name  from  the  oblivion  that  was  covering  it ! 
These  were  early  feelings,  and  they  abode  with  him  to  the 
end :  — 


BUENS.  287 

"...  A  wish  (I  mind  its  power), 
A  wish,  that  to  my  latest  hour 
Will  strongly  heave  ray  breast,  — 
That  I,  for  poor  auld  Scotland's  sake. 
Some  useful  plau  or  book  could  make, 
Or  sing  a  sang  at  least. 

"  The  rough  bur  Thistle  spreading  wide 
Amang  the  bearded  bear, 
I  turn'd  my  weeding-clips  aside. 
And  spared  the  symbol  dear." 

'^']  But  to  leave  the  mere  literary  character  of  Burns,  which  has 
already  detained  us  too  long.  Far  more  interesting  than  any 
of  his  written  works,  as  it  appears  to  us,  are  his  acted  ones  : 
the  Life  he  willed  and  was  fated  to  lead  among  his  fellow-men. 
These  Poems  are  but  like  little  rhymed  fragments  scattered 
here  and  there  in  the  grand  unrhymed  Romance  of  his  earthly 
existence ;  and  it  is  only  when  intercalated  in  this  at  their 
proper  places,  that  they  attain  their  full  measure  of  signifi- 
cance. And  this  too,  alas,  was  but  a  fragment !  The  plan  of 
a  mighty  edifice  had  been  sketched ;  some  columns,  porticos, 
firm  masses  of  building,  stand  completed ;  the  rest  more  or 
less  clearly  indicated  ;  with  many  a  far-stretching  tendency, 
which  only  studious  and  friendly  eyes  can  now  trace  towards 
the  purposed  termination.  For  the  work  is  broken  off  in  the 
middle,  almost  in  the  beginning;  and  rises  among  us,  beautiful 
and  sad,  at  once  unfinished  and  a  ruin  !  If  charitable  judg- 
ment was  necessary  in  estimating  his  Poems,  and  justice 
required  that  the  aim  and  the  manifest  power  to  fulfil  it  must 
often  be  accepted  for  the  fulfilment;  much  more  is  this  the  case 
in  regard  to  his  Life,  the  sum  and  result  of  all  his  endeavors, 
where  his  difficulties  came  upon  him  not  in  detail  only,  but  in 
mass  ;  and  so  much  has  been  left  unaccomplished,  nay  was 
mistaken,  and  altogether  marred. 

Properly  speaking,  there  is  but  one  era  in  the  life  of  Burns, 
and  that  the  earliest.  We  have  not  youth  and  manhood,  but 
only  youth  :  for,  to  the  end,  we  discern  no  decisive  change  in 
the  complexion  of  his  character  ;  in  his  thirty-seventh  year,  he 
is  still,  as  it  were,  in  youth.     With  all  that  resoluteness  of 


288         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

judgment,  that  penetrating  insight,  and  singular  maturity 
of  intellectual  power,  exhibited  in  his  wi-itings,  he  never 
attains  to  any  clearness  regarding  himself ;  to  the  last,  he 
never  ascertains  his  peculiar  aim,  even  with  such  distinctness 
as  is  common  among  ordinary  men  ;  and  therefore  never  can 
pursue  it  with  that  singleness  of  will,  which  insures  success 
and  some  contentment  to  such  men.  To  the  last,  he  wavers 
between  two  purposes  :  glorying  in  his  talent,  like  a  true  poet, 
he  yet  cannot  consent  to  make  this  his  chief  and  sole  glory, 
and  to  follow  it  as  the  one  thing  needful,  through  poverty  or 
riches,  through  good  or  evil  report.  Another  far  meaner  ambi- 
tion still  cleaves  to  him ;  he  must  dream  and  struggle  about 
a  certain  "  Rock  of  Independence  ;  "  which,  natural  and  even 
admirable  as  it  might  be,  was  still  but  a  warring  with  the 
world,  on  the  comparatively  insignificant  ground  of  his  being 
more  completely  or  less  completely  supplied  Avith  money  than 
others ;  of  his  standing  at  a  higher  or  at  a  lower  altitude  in 
general  estimation  than  others.  For  the  world  still  appears 
to  him,  as  to  the  young,  in  borrowed  colors  :  he  expects  from 
it  what  it  cannot  give  to  any  man  ;  seeks  for  contentment,  not 
within  himself,  in  action  and  wise  effort,  but  from  without,  in 
the  kindness  of  circumstances,  in  love,  friendship,  honor,  pecu- 
niary ease.  He  would  be  happy,  not  actively  and  in  himself, 
but  passively  and  from  some  ideal  cornucopia  of  Enjoyments, 
not  earned  by  his  own  labor,  but  showered  on  him  by  the 
beneficence  of  Destiny.  Thas,  like  a  j'oung  man,  he  cannot 
gird  himself  up  for  any  worthy  well-calculated  goal,  but 
swerves  to  and  fro,  between  passionate  hope  and  remorseful 
disappointment :  rushing  onwards  with  a  deep  tempestuous 
force,  he  surmounts  or  breaks  asunder  many  a  barrier;  travels, 
nay  advances  far,  but  advancing  only  under  uncertain  guid- 
ance, is  ever  and  anon  turned  from  his  path  ;  and  to  the  last 
cannot  reach  the  only  true  happiness  of  a  man,  that  of  clear 
decided  Activity  in  the  sphere  for  which,  by  nature  and  cir- 
cumstances, he  has  been  fitted  and  apj)ointed. 

We  do  not  say  these  things  in  dispraise  of  Burns  ;  nay,  per- 
haps, they  but  interest  us  the  more  in  his  favor.  This  blessing 
is  not  given  soonest  to  the  best;  but  rather,  it  is  often  the 


BURNS.  289 

greatest  minds  that  are  latest  in  obtaining  it ;  for  where  most 
is  to  be  developed,  most  time  may  be  required  to  develop  it. 
A  complex  condition  had  been  assigned  him  from  without ;  as 
complex  a  condition  from  within :  no  "  pre-established  har- 
mony" existed  between  the  clay  soil  of  Mossgiel  and  the 
empyrean  soul  of  Robert  Burns  ;  it  was  not  wonderful  that 
the  adjustment  between  them  should  have  been  long  post- 
poned, and  his  arm  long  cumbered,  and  his  sight  confused,  in 
so  vast  and  discordant  an  economy  as  he  had  been  appointed 
steward  over.  Byron  was,  at  his  death,  but  a  year  younger 
than  Burns ;  and  through  life,  as  it  might  have  appeared,  far 
more  simply  situated :  yet  in  him  too  we  can  trace  no  such 
adjustment,  no  such  moral  manhood;  but  at  best,  and  only  a 
little  before  his  end,  the  beginning  of  what  seemed  such. 

By  much  the  most  striking  incident  in  Burns's  Life  is  his 
journey  to  Edinburgh  ;  but  perhaps  a  still  more  important  one 
is  his  residence  at  Irvine,  so  early  as  in  his  twenty-third  year. 
Hitherto  his  life  had  been  poor  and  toilworn ;  but  otherwise 
not  ungenial,  and,  with  all  its  distresses,  by  no  means  unhappy. 
In  his  parentage,  deducting  outward  circumstances,  he  had 
every  reason  to  reckon  himself  fortunate.  His  father  was  a 
man  of  thoughtful,  intense,  earnest  character,  as  the  best  of 
our  peasants  are  ;  valuing  knowledge,  possessing  some,  and, 
what  is  far  better  and  rarer,  open-minded  for  more  ;  a  man 
with  a  keen  insight  and  devout  heart ;  reverent  towards  God, 
friendly  therefore  at  once,  and  fearless  towards  all  that  God 
has  made :  in  one  word,  though  but  a  hard-handed  peasant,  a 
complete  and  fully  unfolded  Man.  Such  a  father  is  seldom 
found  in  any  rank  in  society ;  and  was  worth  descending  far 
in  society  to  seek.  Unfortunately,  he  was  very  poor ;  had  he 
been  even  a  little  richer,  almost  never  so  little,  the  whole 
might  have  issued  far  otherwise.  Mighty  events  turn  on  a 
straw  ;  the  crossing  of  a  brook  decides  the  conquest  of  the 
world.  Had  this  William  Burns's  small  seven  acres  of  nur- 
sery-ground anywise  prospered,  the  boy  Robert  had  been  sent 
to  school ;  had  struggled  forward,  as  so  many  weaker  men  do, 
to  some  university  ;  come  forth  not  as  a  rustic  wonder,  but  as 
a  regular  well-trained  intellectual  workman,  and  changed  the 

TOL.  XIII.  19 


290        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

whole  course  of  British  Literature,  —  for  it  lay  in  him  to  have 
done  this !  But  the  nursery  did  not  prosper ;  poverty  sank 
his  whole  family  below  the  help  of  even  our  cheap  school- 
system  :  Burns  remained  a  hard- worked  ploughboy,  and  British 
literature  took  its  own  course.  Nevertheless,  even  in  this 
rugged  scene  there  is  much  to  nourish  him.  If  he  drudges,  it 
is  with  his  brother,  and  for  his  father  and  mother,  whom  he 
loves,  and  would  faiij  shield  from  want.  Wisdom  is  not  ban- 
ished from  their  poor  hearth,  nor  the  balm  of  natural  feeling : 
the  solemn  words,  Let  us  worship  God,  are  heard  there  from  a 
"  priest-like  father ; "  if  threatenings  of  unjust  men  throw 
mother  and  children  into  tears,  these  ai"e  tears  not  of  grief 
only,  but  of  holiest  affection ;  every  heart  in  that  humble  group 
feels  itself  the  closer  knit  to  every  other ;  in  their  hard  war- 
fare they  are  there  together,  a  "little  band  of  brethren." 
Neither  are  such  tears,  and  the  deep  beauty  that  dwells  in 
them,  their  only  portion.  Light  visits  the  hearts  as  it  does 
the  eyes  of  all  living :  there  is  a  force,  too,  in  this  youth,  that 
enables  him  to  trample  on  misfortune ;  nay  to  bind  it  under 
his  feet  to  make  him  sport.  For  a  bold,  warm,  buoyant  humor 
of  character  has  been  given  him;  and  so  the  thick-coming 
shapes  of  evil  are  welcomed  with  a  gay,  friendly  irony,  and 
in  their  closest  pressure  he  bates  no  jot  of  heart  or  hope. 
Vague  yearnings  of  ambition  fail  not,  as  he  grows  up ;  dreamy 
fancies  hang  like  cloud-cities  around  him ;  the  curtain  of  Ex- 
istence is  slowly  rising,  in  many-colored  splendor  and  gloom  : 
and  the  auroral  light  of  first  love  is  gilding  his  horizon,  and 
the  music  of  song  is  on  his  path  ;  and  so  he  walks 

" ....     in  glory  and  in  joy, 
Behind  his  plough,  upon  tlie  mountain  side." 

•^  '  We  ourselves  know,  from  the  best  evidence,  that  up  to  this 
date  Burns  was  happy ;  nay  that  he  was  the  gayest,  brightest, 
most  fantastic,  fascinating  being  to  be  found  in  the  world ; 
more  so  even  than  he  ever  afterwards  appeared.  But  now, 
at  this  early  age,  he  quits  the  paternal  roof;  goes  forth  into 
looser,  louder,  more  exciting  society  ;  and  becomes  initiated  in 
those  dissipations,  tliose  vices,  which  a  certain  class  of  philoso- 


BURNS.  291 

phers  have  asserted  to  be  a  natural  preparative  for  entering  on 
active  life ;  a  kind  of  mud-bath,  in  which  the  youth  is,  as  it 
were,  necessitated  to  steep,  and,  we  suppose,  cleanse  himself, 
before  the  real  toga  of  Manhood  can  be  laid  on  him.    We  shall 
not  dispute  much  with  this  class  of  philosophers  ;  we  hope 
they  are  mistaken :  for  Sin  and  Remorse  so  easily  beset  us  at 
all  stages  of  life,  and  are  always  such  indifferent  company, 
that  it  seems  hard  we  should,  at  any  stage,  be  forced  and  fated 
not  only  to  meet  but  to  yield  to  them,  and  even  serve  for  a 
term  in  their  leprous  armada.     We  hope  it  is  not  so.     Clear 
we  are,  at  all  events,  it  cannot  be  the  training  one  receives  in 
this  Devil's-service,  but  only  our  determining  to  desert  frora 
it,  that  fits  us  for  true  manly  Action.     We  become  men,  not 
after  we  have  been  dissipated,  and  disappointed  in  the  chase 
of  false  pleasure  ;  but  after  we  have  ascertained,  in  any  way, 
what  impassable  barriers  hem  us  in  through  this  life  ;  how 
mad  it  is  to  hope  for  contentment  to  our  infinite  soul  from  the 
gifts  of  this  extremely  finite  world ;  that  a  man  must  be  suffi- 
cient for  himself;  and  that  for  suffering  and  enduring  there 
is  no  remedy  but  striving  and  doing.     Manhood  begins  when 
we  have  in  any  way  made  truce  with  Necessity  ;  begins  even 
when  we   have  surrendered  to  Necessity,   as  the  most   part 
only  do ;   but   begins   joyfully  and   hopefully  only  when  we 
have  reconciled  ourselves  to  Necessity  ;  and  thus,  in  reality, 
triumphed   over  it,  and   felt   that  in  Necessity  we  are   free. 
Surely,  such  lessons  as  this  last,  which,  in  one  shape  or  other, 
is  the  grand  lesson  for  every  mortal  man,  are  better  learned 
from  the  lips  of  a  devout  mother,  in  the  looks  and  actions 
of  a  devout  father,  while  the  heart  is  yet  soft  and  pliant,  than 
in  collision  with  the  sharp  adamant  of  Fate,  attracting  us  to 
shipwreck  us,  when  the  heart  is  grown  hard,  and  may  be  broken 
before  it  will  become  contrite.     Had  Burns  continued  to  learn 
this,  as  he  was  already  learning  it,  in  his  father's  cottage,  he 
would  have  learned  it  fully,  which  he  never  did  ;   and  been 
saved  many  a  lasting  aberration,  many  a  bitter  hour  and  year 
of  remorseful  sorrow. 

It  seems   to  us  another   circumstance  of   fatal   import   in 
Burns's  history,  that  at  this  time  too  he  became  involved  in 


292         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

the  religious  quarrels  of  his  district ;  that  he  was  enlisted  and 
feasted,  as  the  fighting  man  of  the  New-Light  Priesthood,  in 
their  highly  unprofitable  warfare.  At  the  tables  of  these 
free-minded  clergy  he  learned  much  more  than  was  needful 
for  him.  Such  liberal  ridicule  of  fanaticism  awakened  in  his 
mind  scruples  about  Religion  itself ;  and  a  whole  world  of 
Doubts,  which  it  required  quite  another  set  of  conjurers  than 
these  men  to  exorcise.  We  do  not  say  that  such  an  intellect 
as  his  could  have  escaped  similar  doubts  at  some  period  of 
his  history ;  or  even  that  he  could,  at  a  later  period,  have  come 
through  them  altogether  victorious  and  unharmed:  but  it 
seems  peculiarly  unfortunate  that  this  time,  above  all  others, 
should  have  been  fixed  for  the  encounter.  For  now,  with 
■principles  assailed  by  evil  example  from  without,  by  "pas- 
sions raging  like  demons  "  from  within,  he  had  little  need  of 
sceptical  misgivings  to  whisper  treason  in  the  heat  of  the  bat- 
tle, or  to  cut  off  his  retreat  if  he  were  already  defeated.  He 
loses  his  feeling  of  innocence;  his  mind  is  at  variance  with 
itself;  the  old  divinity  no  longer  presides  there;  but  wild 
Desires  and  wild  Repentance  alternately  oppress  him.  Ere 
long,  too,  he  has  committed  himself  before  the  world;  his 
character  for  sobriety,  dear  to  a  Scottish  peasant  as  few  cor- 
rupted worldlings  can  even  conceive,  is  destroyed  in  the  eyes 
of  men ;  and  his  only  refuge  consists  in  trying  to  disbelieve 
his  guiltiness,  and  is  but  a  refuge  of  lies.  The  blackest  des- 
peration now  gathers  over  him,  broken  only  by  red  lightnings 
of  remorse.  The  whole  fabric  of  his  life  is  blasted  asunder ; 
for  now  not  only  his  character,  but  his  personal  liberty,  is  to 
be  lost ;  men  and  Fortune  are  leagued  for  his  hurt ;  "  hungry 
Kuin  has  him  in  the  wind."  He  sees  no  escape  but  the  sad- 
dest of  all :  exile  from  his  loved  country,  to  a  country  in  every 
sense  inhospitable  and  abhorrent  to  him.  While  the  "  gloomy 
night  is  gathering  fast,"  in  mental  storm  and  solitude,  as  well 
as  in  physical,  he  sings  his  wild  farewell  to  Scotland :  — 

"  Farewell,  my  friends ;  farewell,  my  foes  ! 
My  peace  with  these,  my  love  with  those  : 
The  bursting  tears  my  heart  declare ; 
Adieu,  my  native  banks  of  Ayr  !  " 


BURNS.  -293 

!^!'y  Light  breaks  suddenly  in  on  him  in  floods  ;  but  still  a  false 
transitory  light,  and  no  real  sunshine.  He  is  invited  to  Edin- 
burgh ;  hastens  thither  with  anticipating  heart ;  is  welcomed 
as  in  a  triumph,  and  with  universal  blandishment  and  acclama/- 
tion;  whatever  is  wisest,  whatever  is  greatest  or  loveliest 
there,  gathers  round  him,  to  gaze  on  his  face,  to  show  him 
honor,  sympathy,  aifection.  Burns's  appearance  among  the 
sages  and  nobles  of  Edinburgh  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  singular  phenomena  in  modern  Literature ;  almotst  like 
the  appearance  of  some  Napoleon  among  the  crowned  sov- 
ereigns of  modern  Politics.  For  it  is  nowise  as  "  a  mockery 
king,"  set  there  by  favor,  transiently  and  for  a  purpose,  that 
he  will  let  himself  be  treated ;  still  less  is  he  a  mad  Kienzi, 
whose  sudden  elevation  turns  his  too  weak  head :  but  he  stands 
there  on  his  own  basis ;  cool,  unastonished,  holding  his  equal 
rank  from  Isature  herself ;  putting  forth  no  claim  v/hich 
there  is  not  strength  in  him,  as  well  as  about  him,  to  vin- 
dicate. Mr.  Lockhart  has  some  forcible  observations  on  this 
point :  — 

^  -2  "  It  needs  no  effort  of  imagination,"  says  he,  "  to  conceive 
"what  the  sensations  of  an  isolated  set  of  scholars  (almost  all 
either  clergymen  or  professors)  must  have  been  in  the  presence 
of  this  big-boned,  black-browed,  brawny  stranger,  with  bis 
great  flashing  eyes,  who,  having  forced  his  way  among  tnem 
from  the  plough-tail  at  a  single  stride,  manifested  in  the  whole 
strain  of  his  bearing  and  conversation  a  most  thorough  convic- 
tion, that  in  the  society  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  his  nation 
he  was  exactly  where  he  was  entitled  to  be ;  hardly  deigned 
to  flatter  them  by  exhibiting  even  an  occasional  symptom  of 
being  flattered  by  their  notice ;  by  turns  calmly  measured 
himself  against  the  most  cultivated  understandings  of  his  time 
in  discussion ;  overpowered  the  bon-viots  of  the  most  celebrated 
convivialists  by  broad  floods  of  merriment,  impregnated  with 
all  the  burning  life  of  genius ;  astounded  bosoms  habitually 
enveloped  in  the  thrice-piled  folds  of  social  reserve,  by  com- 
pelling them  to  tremble,  —  nay,  to  tremble  visibly,  —  beneath 
the  fearless  touch  of  natural  pathos ;  and  all  this  without  indi- 
cating the  smallest  willingness  to  be  ranked  among  those  pro- 


294       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

fessional  ministers  of  excitement,  who  are  content  to  be  paid 
in  money  and  smiles  for  doing  what  the  spectators  and  audi- 
tors would  be  ashamed  of  doing  in  their  own  persons,  even  if 
they  had  the  power  of  doing  it ;  and  last,  and  probably  worst 
of  all,  who  was  known  to  be  in  the  habit  of  enlivening  socie- 
ties which  they  would  have  scorned  to  approach,  still  more 
frequently  than  their  own,  with  eloquence  no  less  magnificent ; : 
with  wit,  in  all  likelihood  still  more  daring ;  often  enough,  as 
the  superiors  whom  he  fronted  without  alarm  might  have 
guessed  from  the  beginning,  and  had  ere  long  no  occasion  to 
guess,  with  wit  pointed  at  themselves." 

The  farther  we  remove  from  this  scene,  the  more  singular 
will  it  seem  to  us  :  details  of  the  exterior  aspect  of  it  are 
already  full  of  interest.  Most  readers  recollect  Mr.  Walker's 
personal  interviews  with  Burns  as  among  the  best  passages 
of  his  Narrative  :  a  time  will  come  when  this  reminiscence 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott's,  slight  though  it  is,  will  also  be  pre- 
cious :  — 
^!  i^  "As  for  Burns,"  writes  Sir  Walter,  "I  may  truly  say,  Vir- 
ff ilium  vidi  tantum.  I  was  a  lad  of  fifteen  in  1786-87,  when  ho 
came  first  to  Edinburgh,  but  had  sense  and  feeling  enough  to 
be  much  interested  in  his  poetry,  and  would  have  given  the 
world  to  know  him :  but  I  had  very  little  acquaintance  with 
any  literary  people,  and  still  less  with  the  gentry  of  the  west 
country,  the  two  sets  that  he  most  frequented.  Mr.  Thomas 
Grierson  was  at  that  time  a  clerk  of  my  father's.  He  knew 
Burns,  and  promised  to  ask  him  to  his  lodgings  to  dinner ;  but 
had  no  opportunity  to  keep  his  word ;  otherwise  I  might  have 
seen  more  of  this  distinguished  man.  As  it  was,  I  saw  him 
one  day  at  the  late  venerable  Professor  Ferguson's,  where 
there  were  several  gentlemen  of  literary  reputation,  among 
whoin  I  remember  the  celebrated  Mr.  Dugald  Stewart.  Of 
course,  we  youngsters  sat  silent,  looked  and  listened.  The 
only  thing  I  remember  wliich  was  remarkable  in  Burns's  man- 
ner, was  the  effect  produced  upon  him  by  a  print  of  Bunbury's, 
representing  a  soldier  lying  dead  on  the  snow,  his  dog  sitting 
in  misery  on  one  side,  —  on  the  other,  his  widow,  with  a  child 
in  her  arms.     These  lines  were  written  beneath :  — 


BURNS.  295 

'  Cold  on  Canadian  hills,  or  Minden's  plain. 
Perhaps  that  mother  wept  her  soldier  slain  ; 
Bent  o'er  her  babe,  her  eye  dissolved  in  dew. 
The  big  drops  mingling  with  the  milk  he  drew. 
Gave  the  sad  presage  of  his  future  years, 
The  cliild  of  misery  baptized  in  tears.' 

"  Burns  seemed  much  affected  by  the  print,  or  rather  by  the 
ideas  which  it  suggested  to  his  mind.  He  actually  shed  tears. 
He  asked  whose  the  lines  were ;  and  it  chanced  that  nobody 
but  myself  remembered  that  they  occur  in  a  half-forgotten 
poem  of  Langhorne's  called  by  the  unpromising  title  of  *  The 
Justice  of  Peace.'  I  whispered  my  information  to  a  friend 
present ;  he  mentioned  it  to  Burns,  who  rewarded  me  with  a 
look  and  a  word,  which,  though  of  mere  civility,  I  then  re- 
ceived and  still  recollect  with  very  great  pleasure. 
^■^  "His  person  was  strong  and  robust ;  his  manners  rustic,  not 
clownish ;  a  sort  of  dignified  plainness  and  simplicity,  which 
received  part  of  its  effect  perhaps  from  one's  knowledge  of  his 
extraordinary  talents.  His  features  are  represented  in  Mr. 
Nasmyth's  picture :  but  to  me  it  conveys  the  idea  that  they 
are  diminished,  as  if  seen  in  perspective.  I  think  his  counte- 
nance was  more  massive  than  it  looks  in  any  of  the  portraits. 
I  should  have  taken  the  poet,  had  I  not  known  what  he  was, 
for  a  very  sagacious  country  farmer  of  the  old  Scotch  school, 
i.e.  none  of  your  modern  agriculturists  who  keep  laborers  for 
their  drudgery,  but  the  douce  gxideman  who  held  his  own 
plough.  There  was  a  strong  expression  of  sense  and  shrewd- 
ness in  all  his  lineaments  ;  the  e3^e  alone,  I  think,  indicated 
the  poetical  character  and  temperament.  It  was  large,  and 
of  a  dark  cast,  which  glowed  (I  say  literally  glowed)  when  he 
spoke  with  feeling  or  interest.  I  never  saw  such  another  Q\e 
in  a  human  head,  though  I  have  seen  the  most  distinguished 
men  of  my  time.  His  conversation  expressed  perfect  self- 
confidence,  without  the  slightest  presumption.  Among  the 
men  who  were  the  most  learned  of  their  time  and  countr}'",  he 
expressed  himself  with  perfect  firmness,  but  without  the  least 
intrusive  forwardness ;  and  when  he  differed  in  opinion,  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  express  it  firml}',  yet  at  the  same  time  with 


296        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

modesty.  I  do  not  remember  any  part  of  his  conversation 
distinctly  enough  to  be  quoted ;  nor  did  I  ever  see  him  again, 
except  in  the  street,  where  he  did  not  recognize  me,  as  I  could 
not  expect  he  should.  He  was  much  caressed  in  Edinburgh  : 
but  (considering  what  literary  emoluments  have  been  since  his 
day)  the  efforts  made  for  his  relief  were  extremely  trifling. 
.  /  "I  remember,  on  this  occasion  I  mention,  I  thought  Burns's 
'  acquaintance  with  English  poetry  was  rather  limited ;  and  also 
that,  having  twenty  times  the  abilities  of  Allan  Ramsay  and 
of  Ferguson,  he  talked  of  them  with  too  much  humility  as 
his  models :  there  was  doubtless  national  predilection  in  his 
estimate. 
.  ^  "  This  is  all  I  can  tell  you  about  Burns.  I  have  only  to 
'  '  add,  that  his  dress  corresponded  with  his  manner.  He  was 
like  a  farmer  dressed  in  his  best  to  dine  with  the  laird.  I  do 
not  speak  in  malam  pcui,em,  when  I  say,  I  never  saw  a  man  in 
company  with  his  superiors  in  station  or  information  more 
perfectly  free  from  either  the  reality  or  the  affectation  of  em- 
barrassment. I  was  told,  but  did  not  observe  it,  that  his  address 
to  females  was  extremely  deferential,  and  always  with  a  turn 
either  to  the  pathetic  or  humorous,  which  engaged  their  atten- 
tion particularly.  I  have  heard  the  late  Duchess  of  Gordon 
remark  this.  —  I  do  not  know  anything  I  can  add  to  these 
recollections  of  forty  years  since." 

The  conduct  of  Burns  under  this  dazzling  blaze  of  favor; 
^  the  calm,  unaffected,  manly  manner  in  which  he  not  only  bore 
it,  but  estimated  its  value,  has  justly  been  regarded  as  the 
best  proof  that  could  be  given  of  his  real  vigor  and  integrity 
of  mind.  A  little  natural  vanity,  some  touches  of  hypocriti- 
cal modesty,  some  glimmerings  of  affectation,  at  least  some 
fear  of  being  thought  affected,  we  could  have  pardoned  in 
almost  any  man  ;  but  no  such  indication  is  to  be  traced  here. 
In  his  unexampled  situation  the  young  peasant  is  not  a  mo- 
ment perplexed ;  so  many  strange  lights  do  not  confuse  him, 
do  not  lead  him  astray.  Nevertheless,  Ave  cannot  but  perceive 
that  this  winter  did  him  great  and  lasting  injury.  A  some- 
what clearer  knowledge  of  men's  affairs,  scarcely  of  their 
characters,  it  did  afford  him  ;  but  a  sharper  feeling  of  Fortune's 


BURNS.  297 

unequal  arrangements  in  their  social  destiny  it  also  left  with, 
him.  He  had  seen  the  gay  and  gorgeous  arena,  in  which  the 
powerful  are  born  to  play  their  parts ;  nay  had  himself  stood 
in  the  midst  of  it ;  and  he  felt  more  bitterly  than  ever,  that 
here  he  was  but  a  looker-on,  and  had  no  part  or  lot  in  that 
splendid  game.  From  this  time  a  jealous  indignant  fear  of 
social  degradation  takes  possession  of  him ;  and  perverts,  so 
far  as  aught  could  pervert,  his  private  contentment,  and  his 
feelings  towards  his  richer  fellows.  It  was  clear  to  Burns 
that  he  had  talent  enough  to  make  a  fortune,  or  a  hundred 
fortunes,  could  he  but  have  rightly  willed  this ;  it  was  clear 
also  that  he  willed  something  far  different,  and  therefore  could 
not  make  one.  Unhappy  it  was  that  he  had  not  power  to 
choose  the  one,  and  reject  the  other ;  but  must  halt  forevei? 
between  two  opinions,  two  objects ;  making  hampered  advance- 
ment towards  either.  But  so  is  it  with  many  men  ;  we  "  long 
for  the  merchandise,  yet  would  fain  keep  the  price  ; "  and  so 
stand  chaffering  with  Fate,  in  vexatious  altercation,  till  the 
night  come,  and  our  fair  is  over  ! 
/y  ;  The  Edinburgh  Learned  of  that  period  were  in  general  more 
noted  for  clearness  of  head  than  for  warmth  of  heart :  with  the 
exception  of  the  good  old  Blacklock,  whose  help  was  too  in- 
effectual, scarcely  one  among  them  seems  to  have  looked  at 
Burns  with  any  true  sympathy,  or  indeed  much  otherwise  than 
as  at  a  highly  curious  thing.  By  the  great  also  he  is  treated 
in  the  customary  fashion  ;  entertained  at  their  tables  and  dis- 
missed :  certain  modica  of  pudding  and  praise  are,  from  time 
to  time,  gladly  exchanged  for  the  fascination  of  his  presence  ; 
which  exchange  once  effected,  the  bargain  is  finished,  and  each 
party  goes  his  several  way.  At  the  end  of  this  strange  season. 
Burns  gloomily  sums  up  his  gains  and  losses,  and  meditates 
on  the  chaotic  future.  In  money  he  is  somewhat  richer ;  in 
fame  and  the  show  of  happiness,  infinitely  richer ;  but  in  the 
substance  of  it,  as  poor  as  ever.  Nay  poorer  ;  for  his  heart  is 
now  maddened  still  more  with  the  fever  of  worldly  Ambition ; 
and  through  long  years  the  disease  will  rack  him  with  unprofit- 
able sufferings,  and  weaken  his  strength  for  all  true  and  no- 
bler aims. 


298        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

^"i  What  Burns  was  next  to  do  or  to  avoid ;  how  a  man  *o  cir- 
cumstanced was  now  to  guide  himself  towards  his  true  ad- 
vantage, might  at  this  point  of  time  have  been  a  question  for 
the  wisest.  It  was  a  question  too,  which  apparently  he  was 
left  altogether  to  answer  for  himself :  of  his  learned  or  i-ich 
patrons  it  had  not  struck  any  individual  to  turn  a  thought  on 
this  so  trivial  matter.  Without  claiming  for  Burns  the  praise 
of  perfect  sagacity,  we  must  say,  that  his  Excise  and  Farm 
scheme  does  not  seem  to  us  a  very  unreasonable  one ;  that  we 
should  be  at  a  loss,  even  now,  to  suggest  one  decidedly  better. 
Certain  of  his  admirers  have  felt  scandalized  at  his  ever 
resolving  to  gauge ;  and  would  have  had  him  lie  at  the  pool, 
till  the  spirit  of  Patronage  stirred  the  waters,  that  so,  with 
one  friendly  plunge,  all  his  sorrows  might  be  healed.  Unwise 
counsellors  !  They  know  not  the  manner  of  this  spirit ;  and 
how,  in  the  lap  of  most  golden  dreams,  a  man  might  have  hai> 
piness,  were  it  not  that  in  the  interim  he  must  die  of  hunger ! 
It  reflects  credit  on  the  manliness  and  sound  sense  of  Burns, 
that  he  felt  so  early  on  what  ground  he  was  standing ;  and 
preferred  self-help,  on  the  humblest  scale,  to  dependence  and 
inaction,  though  with  hope  of  far  more  splendid  possibilities. 
But  even  these  possibilities  were  not  rejected  in  his  scheme  : 
he  might  expect,  if  it  chanced  that  he  had  any  friend,  to  rise, 
in  no  long  period,  into  something  even  like  opulence  and  lei- 
sure ;  while  again,  if  it  chanced  that  he  had  no  friend,  he  could 
still  live  in  security ;  and  for  the  rest,  he  "  did  not  intend  to 
borrow  honor  from  any  profession."  We  reckon  that  his  plan 
was  honest  and  well-calculated :  all  turned  on  the  execution  of 
it.  Doubtless  it  failed ;  yet  not,  we  believe,  from  any  vice  in- 
herent in  itself.  Nay,  after  all,  it  was  no  failure  of  external 
means,  but  of  internal,  that  overtook  Burns.  His  was  no 
bankruptcy  of  the  purse,  but  of  the  soul ;  to  his  last  day,  he 
owed  no  man  anything. 

Meanwhile  he  begins  well :  with  two  good  and  wise  actions. 
His  donation  to  his  mother,  munificent  from  a  man  whose  in- 
come had  lately  been  seven  pounds  a  year,  was  worthy  of  him, 
and  not  more  than  worthy.  Generous  also,  and  worthy  of 
him,  was  the  treatment  of  the  woman  whose  life's  welfare  now 


BURNS.  299 

depended  on  his  pleasure.  A  friendly  observer  might  have 
hoped  serene  days  for  him :  his  mind  is  on  the  true  road  to 
peace  with  itself :  what  clearness  he  still  wants  will  be  given 
as  he  proceeds ;  for  the  best  teacher  of  duties,  that  still  lie 
dim  to  us,  is  the  Practice  of  those  we  see  and  have  at  hand. 
Had  the  "  patrons  of  genius,"  who  could  give  him  nothing,  but 
taken  nothing  from  him,  at  least  nothing  more  !  The  wounds 
of  his  heart  would  have  healed,  vulgar  ambition  would  have 
.died  away.  Toil  and  Frugality  would  have  been  welcome, 
since  Virtue  dwelt  with  them ;  and  Poetry  would  have  shone 
through  them  as  of  old :  and  in  her  clear  ethereal  light,  which 
was  his  own  by  birthright,  he  might  have  looked  down  on  his 
earthly  destiny,  and  all  its  obstructions,  not  with  patience  only, 
but  with  love. 
/^■^^  But  the  patrons  of  genius  would  not  have  it  so.  Picturesque 
tourists,'  all  manner  of  fashionable  danglers  after  literature, 
and,  far  worse,  all  manner  of  convivial  Maecenases,  hovered 
round  him  in  his  retreat ;  and  his  good  as  well  as  his  weak 
qualities  secured  them  influence  over  him.  He  was  flattered 
by  their  notice ;  and  his  warm  social  nature  made  it  impossible 
for  him  to  shake  them  off,  and  hold  on  his  way  apart  from 
them.  These  men,  as  we  believe,  were  proximately  the  means 
of  his  ruin.  Not  that  they  meant  him  any  ill;  they  only 
meant  themselves  a  little  good ;  if  he  suffered  harm,  let  him 
look  to  it !  But  they  wasted  his  precious  time  and  his  precious 
talent ;  they  disturbed  his  composure,  broke  down  his  return- 

1  There  is  one  little  sketch  by  certain  "  English  gentlemen  "  of  this  class, 
which,  though  adopted  in  Carrie's  Narrative,  and  since  then  repeated  in  most 
others,  we  have  all  along  felt  an  invincible  disposition  to  regard  as  imaginary; 
'•  On  a  rock  that  projected  into  the  stream,  they  saw  a  man  employed  lu 
angling,  of  a  singular  appearance.  He  had  a  cap  made  of  fox-skin  on  his 
head,  a  loose  great-coat  fixed  round  him  by  a  belt,  from  which  depended  an 
enormous  Highland  broad-sword.  It  was  Burns."  Now,  we  rather  think  it 
was  not  Burns.  For,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fox-skin  cap,  the  loose  and  quite 
Hibernian  watch-coat  with  tlie  belt,  what  are  we  to  make  of  this  "  enormous 
Highland  broad  sword  "  depending  from  him  ?  More  especially,  as  tlicre  is 
no  word  of  parish  constables  on  the  outlook  to  see  whether,  as  Dennis  phrases 
it,  he  had  an  eye  to  his  own  midriff  or  that  of  the  public !  Burns,  of  all  men, 
had  the  least  need,  and  the  least  tendency,  to  seek  for  distinction,  either  in  his 
own  eyes,  or  those  of  others,  by  such  poor  mummeries. 


300         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ing  habits  of  temperance  and  assiduous  contented  exertion. 
Their  pampering  was  baneful  to  him;  their  cruelty,  which 
soon  followed,  was  equally  baneful.  The  old  grudge  against 
Fortune's  inequality  awoke  with  new  bitterness  in  their  neigh- 
boi-hood ;  and  Burns  had  no  retreat  but  to  "  the  Eock  of  Inde- 
pendence," which  is  but  an  air-castle  after  all,  that  looks  well 
at  a  distance,  but  will  screen  no  one  from  real  wind  and  wet. 
Flushed  with  irregular  excitement,  exasperated  alternately  by 
contempt  of  others,  and  contempt  of  himself.  Burns  was  no 
longer  regaining  his  peace  of  mind,  but  fast  losing  it  forever. 
There  was  a  hollowness  at  the  heart  of  his  life,  for  his  con- 
science did  not  no\t  approve  what  he  was  doing. 
"T  Amid  the  vapors  of  unwise  enjoyment,  of  bootless  remorse,- 
and  angry  discontent  with  Fate,  his  true  loadstar,  a  life  of 
Poetry,  with  Poverty,  nay  with  Famine  if  it  must  be  so,  was 
too  often  altogether  hidden  from  his  eyes.  And  yet  he  sailed 
a  sea,  where  without  some  such  loadstar  there  was  no  right 
steering.  Meteors  of  French  Politics  rise  before  him,  but 
these  were  not  his  stars.  An  accident  this,  which  hastened, 
but  did  not  originate,  his  worst  distresses.  In  the  mad  con- 
tentions of  that  time,  he  comes  in  collision  with  certain  official 
Superiors ;  is  wounded  by  them  ;  cruelly  lacerated,  we  should 
say,  could  a  dead  mechanical  implement,  in  any  case,  be  called 
cruel  :■  and  shrinks,  in  indignant  pain,  into  deeper  self-seclusion, 
into  gloomier  moodiness  than  ever.  His  life  has  now  lost  its 
unity :  it  is  a  life  of  fragments ;  led  with  little  aim,  beyond 
the  melancholy  one  of  securing  its  own  continuance,  —  in  fits 
of  wild  false  joy  when  such  offered,  and  of  black  despondency 
when  they  passed  away.  His  character  before  the  world  be- 
gins to  suffer :  calumny  is  busy  with  him  ;  for  a  miserable  man 
makes  more  enemies  than  friends.  Some  faults  he  has  fallen 
into,  and  a  thousand  misfortunes ;  but  deep  criminality  is 
what  he  stands  accused  of,  and  they  that  are  not  without  sin 
cast  the  first  stone  at  him  !  For  is  he  not  a  well-wisher  to  the 
French  Revolution,  a  Jacobin,  and  therefore  in  that  one  act 
guilty  of  all  ?  These  accusations,  political  and  moral,  it  has 
since  appeared,  were  false  enough :  but  the  world  hesitated 
little  to  credit  them.     Nay  his  convivial  Maecenases  themselves 


BURNS.  801 

were  not  the  last  to  do  it.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that,  in 
his  later  years,  the  Dumfries  Aristocracy  had  partly  withdrawn 
themselves  from  Burns,  as  from  a  tainted  person,  no  longer 
worthy  of  their  acquaintance.  That  painful  class,  stationed, 
in  all  provincial  cities,  behind  the  outmost  breastwork  of  Gen- 
tility, there  to  stand  siege  and  do  battle  against  the  intrusions 
of  Grocerdom  and  Grazierdom,  had  actually  seen  dishonor  in 
the  society  of  Burns,  and  branded  him  with  their  veto ;  had,  as  i 
we  vulgarly  say,  cut  him !  We  find  one  passage  in  this  Work 
of  Mr.  Lockhart's,  which  will  not  out  of  our  thoughts :  — 
l^  "A  gentleman  of  that  county,  whose  name  I  have  already 
more  than  once  had  occasion  to  refer  to,  has  often  told  me  that 
he  was  seldom  more  grieved,  than  when  riding  into  Dumfries 
one  fine  summer  evening  about  this  time  to  attend  a  county 
ball,  he  saw  Burns  walking  alone,  on  the  shady  side  of  the 
principal  street  of  the  town,  while  the  opposite  side  was  gay 
with  successive  groups  of  gentlemen  and  ladies,  all  drawn  to- 
gether for  the  festivities  of  the  night,  not  one  of  whom  ap- 
peared willing  to  recognize  him.  The  horseman  dismounted, 
and  joined  Burns,  who  on  his  proposing  to  cross  the  street 
said:  'Nay,  nay,  my  young  friend,  that's  all  over  now;'  and 
quoted,  after  a  pause,  some  verses  of  Lady  Grizzel  Baillie's 
pathetic  ballad :  — 

*  His  bonnet  stood  ance  f  u'  fair  on  his  brow. 
His  auld  ane  look'd  better  than  mony  ane's  new; 
But  now  he  lets  't  wear  ony  way  it  will  hing, 
And  casts  himsell  dowie  upon  the  corn-bing. 

'  Oh,  were  we  young  as  we  ance  hae  been. 
We  sud  hae  been  gallopping  down  on  yon  green. 
And  linking  it  ower  the  lily-white  lea! 
And  werena  my  heart  light,  I  wad  die.' 

It  was  little  in  Burns's  character  to  let  his  feelings  on  certain 
subjects  escape  in  this  fashion.  He,  immediately  after  recit- 
ing these  verses,  assumed  the  sprightliness  of  his  most  pleasing 
manner ;  and  taking  his  young  friend  home  with  him,  enter- 
tained him  very  agreeably  till  the  hour  of  the  ball  arrived." 
Alas !  when  we  think  that  Burns  now  sleeps  "  where  bitter 


802        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

indignation  can  no  longer  lacerate  his  heart,"  ^  and  that  most 
of  those  fair  dames  and  frizzled  gentlemen  already  lie  at  his 
side,  where  the  breastwork  of  gentility  is  quite  thrown  down, 
—  who  would  not  sigh  over  the  thin  delusions  and  foolish  toys 
that  divide  heart  from  heart,  and  make  man  unmerciful  to  his 
brother ! 
j^j  It  was  not  now  to  be  hoped  that  the  genius  of  Burns  would 
"^  ever  reach  maturity,  or  accomplish  aught  worthy  of  itself. 
His  spirit  was  jarred  in  its  melody  ;  not  the  soft  breath  of 
natural  feeling,  but  the  rude  hand  of  Fate,  was  now  sweeping 
over  the  strings.  And  yet  what  harmony  was  in  him,  what 
music  even  in  his  discords !  How  the  wild  tones  had  a  charm 
for  the  simplest  and  the  wisest ;  and  all  men  felt  and  knew 
that  here  also  was  one  of  the  Gifted !  "  If  he  entered  an  inn 
at  midnight,  after  all  the  inmates  were  in  bed,  the  news  of  his 
arrival  circulated  from  the  cellar  to  the  garret ;  and  ere  ten 
minutes  had  elapsed,  the  landlord  and  all  his  guests  were 
assembled  ! "  Some  brief  pure  moments  of  poetic  life  were 
yet  appointed  him,  in  the  composition  of  his  Songs.  We  can 
understand  how  he  grasped  at  this  employment ;  and  how  too, 
he  spurned  all  other  reward  for  it  but  what  the  labor  itself 
brought  him.  For  the  soul  of  Burns,  though  scathed  and 
marred,  was  yet  living  in  its  full  moral  strength,  though 
sharply  conscious  of  its  errors  and  abasement :  and  here, 
in  his  destitution  and  degradation,  was  one  act  of  seeming 
nobleness  and  self-devotedness  left  even  for  him  to  perform. 
He  felt  too,  that  with  all  the  "  thoughtless  follies  "  that  had 
"laid  him  low,"  the  world  was  unjust  and  cruel  to  him;  and 
he  silently  appealed  to  another  and  calmer  time.  Not  as  a 
hired  soldier,  but  as  a  patriot,  would  he  strive  for  the  glory 
of  his  country  :  so  he  cast  from  him  the  poor  sixpence  a  day, 
and  served  zealously  as  a  volunteer.  Lot  us  not  grudge  him 
this  last  luxury  of  his  existence ;  let  him  not  have  appealed 
to  us  in  vain  !  The  money  was  not  necessary  to  him  ;  he 
struggled  through  without  it :  long  since,  these  guineas  would 
have  been  gone,  and  now  the  high-mindedness  of  refusing 
them  will  plead  for  him  in  all  hearts  forever. 

1   Uli  tcEva  indiynatio  cor  uUerius  laccrare  nequit.     Swift's  Epitaph. 


BURNS.  808 

'  /  We  are  here  arrived  at  the  crisis  of  Burns's  life ;  for  mat- 
ters had  now  taken  such  a  shape  with  him  as  could  not  long 
continue.  If  improvement  was  not  to  be  looked  for,  Nature 
could  only  for  a  limited  time  maintain  this  dark  and  madden- 
ing warfare  against  the  world  and  itself.     We  are  not  medi- 

.cally  informed  whether  any  continuance  of  years  was,  at  this 
period,  probable  for  Burns ;  whether  his  death  is  to  be  looked 
on  as  in  some  sense  an  accidental  event,  or  only  as  the  natural 
consequence  of  the  long  series  of  events  that  had  preceded. 
The  latter  seems  to  be  the  likelier  opinion;  and  yet  it  is  by 
no  means  a  certain  one.  At  all  events,  as  we  have  said,  some 
change  could  not  be  very  distant.  Three  gates  of  deliverance, 
it  seems  to  us,  were  open  for  Burns :  clear  poetical  activity ; 
madness  ;  or  death.  The  first,  with  longer  life,  was  still  pos- 
sible, though  not  probable ;  for  physical  causes  were  beginning 
to  be  concerned  in  it :  and  yet  Burns  had  an  iron  resolution ; 
could  he  but  have  seen  and  felt,  that  not  only  his  highest 
glory,  but  his  first  duty,  and  the  true  medicine  for  all  his 
woes,  lay  here.  The  second  was  still  less  probable ;  for  his 
mind  was  ever  among  the  clearest  and  firmest.  So  the  milder 
third  gate  was  opened  for  him  :  and  he  passed,  not  softly  yet 
speedily,  into  that  still  country,  where  the  hail-storms  and 
fire-showers  do  not  reach,  and  the  heaviest-laden  wayfarer  at 
length  lays  down  his  load ! 

r*f  Contemplating  this  sad  end  of  Burns,  and  how  he  sank 
unaided  by  any  real  help,  uncheered  by  any  wise  sympathy, 
generous  minds  have  sometimes  figured  to  themselves,  with  a 
reproachful  sorrow,  that  much  might  have  been  done  for  him  *, 
that  by  counsel,  true  affection  and  friendly  ministrations,  he 
might  have  been  saved  to  himself  and  the  world.  We  question 
whether  there  is  not  more  tenderness  of  heart  than  soundness 
of  judgment  in  these  suggestions.  It  seems  dubious  to  us 
whether  the  richest,  wisest,  most  benevolent  individual  could 
have  lent  Burns  any  effectual  help.  Counsel,  which  seldom 
profits  any  one,  he  did  not  need ;  in  his  understanding,  he 
knew  the  right  from  the  wrong,  as  well  perhaps  as  any  man 
ever  did ;  but  the  persuasion,  which  would  have  availed  him, 


304         CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

lies  not  so  much  in  the  head  as  in  the  heart,  where  no  argu- 
ment or  expostulation  could  have  assisted  much  to  implant 
it.  As  to  money  again,  we  do  not  believe  that  this  was  his 
jessential  want ;  or  well  see  how  any  private  man  could,  eren 
presupposing  Burns's  consent,  have  bestowed  on  him  an  in- 
dependent fortune,  with  much  prospect  of  decisive  advantage. 
It  is  a  mortifying  truth,  that  two  men  in  any  rank  of  society, 
could  hardly  be  found  virtuous  enough  to  give  money,  and  to 
take  it  as  a  necessary  gift,  without  injury  to  the  moral  entire- 
ness  of  one  or  both.  But  so  stands  the  fact :  Friendship,  in 
the  old  heroic  sense  of  that  term,  no  longer  exists ;  except 
in  the  cases  of  kindred  or  other  legal  affinity,  it  is  in  reality 
jio  longer  expected,  or  recognized  as  a  virtue  among  men.  A 
close  observer  of  manners  has  pronounced  *•'  Patronage,"  that 
is,  pecuniary  or  other  economic  furtherance,  to  be  "  twice 
cursed ; "  cursing  him  that  gives,  and  him  that  takes !  And 
thus,  in  regard  to  outward  matters  also,  it  has  become  the 
rule,  as  in  regard  to  inward  it  always  was  and  must  be  the 
lule,  that  no  one  shall  look-  for  effectual  help  to  another ;  but 
that  each  shall  rest  contented  with  what  help  he  can  afford 
himself.  Such,  we  say,  is  the  principle  of  modern  Honor; 
naturally  enough  growing  out  of  that  sentiment  of  Pride, 
which  we  inculcate  and  encourage  as  the  basis  of  our  whole 
social  morality.  Many  a  poet  has  been  poorer  than  Burns ; 
but  no  one  was  ever  prouder :  we  may  question  whether, 
without  great  precautions,  even  a  pension  from  Eoyalty  would 
not  have  galled  and  encumbered,  more  than  actually  assisted 
him. 

Still  less,  therefore,  are  we  disposed  to  join  with  another 
class  of  Buins's  admirers,  who  accuse  the  higher  ranks  among 
us  of  having  ruined  Burns  by  their  selfish  neglect  of  him. 
We  have  already  stated  our  doubts  whether  direct  pecuniary 
help,  had  it  been  offered,  would  have  been  accepted,  or  could 
have  proved  very  effectual.  We  shall  readily  admit,  however, 
tliat  much  was  to  be  done  for  Burns  ;  that  many  a  poisoned 
arrow  might  have  been  warded  from  his  bosom ;  many  an 
entanglement  in  his  path  cut  asunder  by  the  hand  of  the 
powerful  J  and  light  and  heat,  shed  on  him  from  high  places, 


BURNS.  805 

would  have  made  his  humble  atmosphere  more  genial ;  and 
the  softest  heart  then  breathing  might  have  lived  and  died 
with  some  fewer  pangs.  Nay,  we  shall  grant  farther,  and  for 
Burns  it  is  granting  much,  that,  with  all  his  pride,  he  would 
have  thanked,  even  with  exaggerated  gratitude,  any  one  wlio 
had  cordially  befriended  him  :  patronage,  unless  once  cursed, 
needed  not  to  have  been  twice  so.  At  all  events,  the  poor 
promotion  he  desired  in  his  calling  might  have  been  granted  : 
it  was  his  own  scheme,  therefore  likelier  than  any  other  to  be 
of  service.  All  this  it  might  have  been  a  luxury,  nay  it  was 
a  duty,  for  our  nobility  to  have  done.  No  part  of  all  this, 
however,  did  any  of  them  do  ;  or  apparently  attempt,  or  wish 
to  do :  so  much  is  granted  against  them.  But  what  then  is 
the  amount  of  their  blame  ?  Simply  that  they  were  men  of 
the  world,  and  walked  by  the  principles  of  such  men ;  that 
they  treated  Burns,  as  other  nobles  and  other  commoners  had 
done  other  poets ;  as  the  English  did  Shakspeare  ;  as  King 
Charles  and  his  Cavaliers  did  Butler,  as  King  Philip  and  his 
Grandees  did  Cervantes.  Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns ; 
or  shall  we  cut  down  our  tliorns  for  yielding  only  a  fence  and 
haws  ?  How,  indeed,  could  the  "  nobility  and  gentry  of  his 
native  land  "  hold  out  any  help  to  this  "  Scottish  Bard,  proud 
of  his  name  and  country  "  ?  Were  the  nobility  and  gentry  so 
much  as  able  rightly  to  help  themselves  ?  Had  they  not  their 
game  to  preserve  ;  their  borough  interests  to  strengthen ;  din- 
ners, therefore,  of  various  kinds  to  eat  and  give  ?  Were  their 
means  more  than  adequate  to  all  this  business,  or  less  than 
adequate  ?  Less  than  adequate,  in  general ;  few  of  them  in 
reality  were  richer  than  Bui-ns  ;  many  of  them  were  poorer  ; 
for  sometimes  they  had  to  wring  their  supplies,  as  with  thumb- 
screws, from  the  hard  hand ;  and,  in  their  need  of  guineas,  to 
forget  their  dutj^  of  mercy ;  which  Burns  was  never  reduced 
to  do.  Let  us  pity  and  forgive  them.  The  game  the}'  pre- 
rerved  and  shot,  the  dinners  they  ate  and  gave,  the  borough 
interests  they  strengthened,  the  little  Bab,ylons  they  severally 
})uilded  by  the  glory  of  their  might,  are  all  melted  or  melting 
back  into  the  primeval  Chaos,  as  man's  merely  selfish  en- 
deavors are  fated  to  do :  and  here  was  an  action,  extending,  in 

VOL.   XIII.  -A) 


306        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

virtue  of  its  worldly  influence,  we  may  say,  through  all  time ; 
in  virtue  of  its  moral  nature,  beyond  all  time,  being  immortal 
as  the  Spirit  of  Goodness  itself ;  this  action  was  offered  them 
to  do,  and  light  was  not  given  them  to  do  it.  Let  us  pity  and 
forgive  them.  But  better  than  pity,  let  us  go  and  do  otherwise. 
Human  suffering  did  not  end  with  the  life  of  Burns  ;  neither 
was  the  solemn  mandate,  "Love  one  another,  bear  one  an- 
other's burdens,"  given  to  the  rich  only,  but  to  all  men.  True, 
we  shall  find  no  Burns  to  relieve,  to  assuage  by  our  aid  or 
our  pity ;  but  celestial  natures,  groaning  under  the  fardels  of 
a  weary  life,  we  shall  still  find;  and  that  wretchedness 
which  Fate  has  rendered  voiceless  and  tuneless  is  not  the  least 
wretched,  but  the  most, 
Qi)  Still,  we  do  not  think  that  the  blame  of  Burns's  failure  liea 
chiefly  with  the  world.  The  world,  it  seems  to  us,  treated 
him  with  more  rather  than  with  less  kindness  than  it  usually 
shows  to  such  men.  It  has  ever,  we  fear,  shown  but  small 
favor  to  its  Teachers :  hunger  and  nakedness,  perils  and  re- 
vilings,  the  prison,  the  cross,  the  poison-chalice  have,  in  most 
times  and  countries,  been  the  market-price  it  has  offered  for 
Wisdom,  the  welcome  with  which  it  has  greeted  those  who 
have  come  to  enlighten  and  purify  it.  Homer  and  Socrates, 
and  the  Christian  Apostles,  belong  to  old  days ;  but  the 
world's  Martyrology  was  not  completed  with  these.  Roger 
Bacon  and  Galileo  languish  in  priestly  dungeons  ;  Tasso  pines 
in  the  cell  of  a  madhouse  ;  Camoens  dies  begging  on  the 
streets  of  Lisbon.  So  neglected,  so  "  persecuted  they  the 
Prophets,"  not  in  Judea  only,  but  in  all  places  where  men 
have  been.  We  reckon  that  every  poet  of  Burns's  order  is, 
or  should  be,  a  prophet  and  teacher  to  his  age ;  that  he  has 
no  right  to  expect  great  kindness  from  it,  but  rather  is  bound 
to  do  it  great  kindness  ;  that  Burns,  in  particular,  experienced 
fully  the  usual  proportion  of  the  world's  goodness ;  and  that 
tlie  blame  of  his  failure,  as  we  have  said,  lies  not  chiefly  with 
the  world. 

Where,  then,  does  it  lie  ?  We  are  forced  to  answer :  With 
himself;  it  is  his  inward,  not  his  outward  misfortunes  that 
bring   him   to   the   dust.      Seldom,   indeed,    is   it   otherwise  j 


BURNS.  307 

seldom  is  a  life  morally  wrecked  but  the  grand  cause  lies 
in  some  internal  mal-arrangement,  some  want  less  of  good 
fortune  than  of  good  guidance.  Nature  fashions  no  creature 
without  implanting  in  it  the  strength  needful  for  its  action 
and  duration ;  least  of  all  does  she  so  neglect  her  masterpiece 
and  darling,  the  poetic  soul.  Neither  can  we  believe  that  it 
is  in  the  power  of  any  external  circumstances  utterly  to  iniin 
the  mind  of  a  man  ;  nay  if  proper  wisdom  be  given  him,  even 
so  much  as  to  affect  its  essential  health  and  beauty.  The 
sternest  sum-total  of  all  worldly  misfortunes  is  Death  ;  nothing 
more  can  lie  in  the  cup  of  human  woe :  yet  many  men,  in  all 
ages,  have  triumphed  over  Death,  and  led  it  captive  ;  convert- 
ing its  physical  victory  into  a  moral  victory  for  themselves, 
into  a  seal  and  immortal  consecration  for  all  that  their  past 
life  had  achieved.  What  has  been  done,  may  be  done  again : 
nay,  it  is  but  the  degree  and  not  the  kind  of  such  heroism 
that  differs  in  different  seasons  ;  for  without  some  portion 
of  this  spirit,  not  of  boisterous  daring,  but  of  silent  fearless- 
ness, of  Self-denial  in  all  its  forms,  no  good  man,  in  any  scene 
or  time,  has  ever  attained  to  be  good. 

We  have  already  stated  the  error  of  Burns  ;  and  mourned 
over  it,  rather  than  blamed  it.  It  was  the  want  of  unity  in 
his  purposes,  of  consistency  in  his  aims  ;  the  hapless  attempt 
to  mingle  in  friendly  union  the  common  spirit  of  the  world 
with  the  spirit  of  poetry,  which  is  of  a  far  different  and  alto- 
gether irreconcilable  nature.  Burns  was  nothing  wholly ;  and 
Burns  could  be  nothing,  no  man  formed  as  he  was  can  be  any- 
tliing,  by  halves.  The  heart,  not  of  a  mere  hot-blooded,  pop- 
ular Verse-monger,  or  poetical  Restaurateur,  but  of  a  true 
Poet  and  Singer,  worthy  of  the  old  religious  heroic  times, 
bad  been  given  him :  and  he  fell  in  an  age,  not  of  heroism 
and  rpli(xion,  but  of  scepticism,  selfishness  and  triviality,  when 
t  ue  Xobleness  was  little  understood,  and  its  place  supplied 
by  a  hollow,  dissocial,  altogether  barren  and  unfruitful  ]n'in- 
ciple  of  Pride.  The  influences  of  that  age,  his  open,  kind, 
susceptible  nature,  to  say  nothing  of  his  highly  untoward 
situation,  made  it  more  than  usually  difficult  for  him  to  cast 
aside,  or  rightly  subordinate ;  the  better  spirit  that  was  with- 


308        CKITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

in  him  ever  sternly  demanded  its  rights,  its  supremacy:  he 
spent  his  life  in  endeavoring  to  reconcile  these  two ;  and  lost 
it,  as  he  must  lose  it,  without  reconciling  them. 

(y  %  Burns  was  born  poor ;  and  born  also  to  continue  poor,  for 
"he  would  not  endeavor  to  be  otherwise  :  this  it  had  been  well 
could  he  have  once  for  all  admitted,  and  considered  as  finally 
settled.  He  was  poor,  truly ;  but  hundreds  even  of  his  own 
class  and  order  of  minds  have  been  poorer,  yet  have  suffered 
nothing  deadly  from  it :  nay,  his  own  Father  had  a  far  sorer 
battle  with  ungrateful  destiny  than  his  was ;  and  he  did  not 
yield  to  it,  but  died  courageously  warring,  and  to  all  moral 
intents  prevailing,  against  it.  True,  Burns  had  little  means, 
had  even  little  time  for  poetry,  his  only  real  pursuit  and  vo- 
cation ;  but  so  much  the  more  precious  was  what  little  he  had. 
In  all  these  external  respects  his  case  was  hard ;  but  very  far 
from  the  hardest.  Poverty,  incessant  drudgery  and  much 
worse  evils,  it  has  often  been  the  lot  of  Poets  and  wise  men 
to  strive  with,  and  their  glory  to  conquer.  Locke  was  ban- 
ished as  a  traitor  ;  and  wrote  his  Essay  on  the  Human  Under- 
standing sheltering  himself  in  a  Dutch  garret.  Was  Milton 
rich  or  at  his  ease  when  he  composed  Paradise  Lost?  Kot 
only  low,  but  fallen  from  a  height ;  not  only  poor,  but  im- 
poverished ;  in  darkness  and  with  dangers  compassed  round, 
he  sang  his  immortal  song,  and  found  fit  audience,  though 
few.  Did  not  Cervantes  finish  his  work,  a  maimed  soldier 
and  in  prison  ?  Nay,  was  not  the  Araucana,  which  Spain 
acknowledges  as  its  Epic,  written  without  even  the  aid  of 
paper ;  on  scraps  of  leather,  as  the  stout  fighter  and  voyager 
snatched  any  moment  from  that  wild  warfare  ? 

'r^  And  what,  then,  had  these  men,  which  Burns  wanted  ? 
Two  things  ;  both  which,  it  seems  to  us,  are  indispensable 
for  such  men.  They  had  a  true,  religious  principle  of  morals ; 
and  a  single,  not  a  double  aim  in  their  activity.  They  were 
not  self-seekers  and  self-worshippers ;  but  seekers  and  wor- 
shippers of  something  far  better  than  Self,  Not  personal  en- 
joyment was  their  object;  but  a  high,  heroic  idea  of  Religion, 
of  Patriotism,  of  heavenly  Wisdom,  in  one  or  the  other  form, 
ever  hovered  before  them ;  in  which  cause  they  neither  shrank 


BURNS.  809 

from  suffering,  nor  called  on  the  earth  to  witness  it  as  some- 
thing wonderful ;  but  patiently  endured,  counting  it  blessed- 
ness enough  so  to  spend  and  be  spent.  Thus  the  "  golden-calf 
of  Self-love,"  however  curiously  carved,  was  not  their  Deity  ; 
but  the  Invisible  Goodness,  which  alone  is  man's  reasonable  ser- 
vice. This  feeling  was  as  a  celestial  fountain,  whose  streams 
refreshed  into  gladness  and  beauty  all  the  provinces  of  their 
otherwise  too  desolate  existence.  In  a  word,  they  willed  one 
thing,  to  which  all  other  things  were  subordinated  and  made 
subservient ;  and  therefore  they  accomplished  it.  The  wedge 
will  rend  rocks ;  but  its  edge  must  be  sharp  and  single :  if 
it  be  double,  the  wedge  is  bruised  in  pieces  and  will  rend 
nothing. 

^</^Part  of  this  superiority  these  men  owed  to  their  age ;  in 
which  heroism  and  devotedness  were  still  practised,  or  at  least 
not  yet  disbelieved  in  :  but  much  of  it  likewise  they  owed  to 
themselves.  With  Burns,  again,  it  was  different.  His  moral- 
ity, in  most  of  its  practical  points,  is  that  of  a  mere  worldly 
man ;  enjoyment,  in  a  finer  or  coarser  shape,  is  the  only  thing 
he  longs  and  strives  for.  A  noble  instinct  sometimes  raises 
him  above  this  ;  but  an  instinct  only,  and  acting  only  for  mo~ 
ments.  He  has  no  Eeligion ;  in  the  shallow  age,  where  his 
days  were  cast,  Eeligion  was  not  discriminated  from  the  New 
and  Old  Jjight  forms  of  Religion;  and  was,  with  these,  becom- 
ing obsolete  in  the  minds  of  men.  His  heart,  indeed,  is  alive 
with  a  trembling  adoration,  but  there  is  no  temple  in  his  under- 
standing. He  lives  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of  doubt. 
His  religion,  at  best,  is  an  anxious  wish ;  like  that  of  E-abelais, 
"  a  great  Perhaps." 

QG-He  loved  Poetry  warmly,  and  in  his  heart ;  could  he  but 
have  loved  it  purely,  and  with  his  whole  undivided  heart,  it 
had  been  well.  For  Poetry,  as  Burns  could  have  followed  it, 
is  but  another  form  of  Wisdom,  of  Eeligion  ;  is  itself  Wisdom 
and  Eeligion.  But  this  also  was  denied  him.  His  poetry  is  a 
stray  vagrant  gleam,  which  will  not  be  extinguished  within 
him,  yet  rises  not  to  be  the  true  light  of  his  path,  but  is  often 
a  wildfire  that  misleads  him.  It  was  not  necessary  for  Burns 
to  be  rich,  to  be,  or  to  seem,  "  independent ;  "  but  it  was  neces- 


SIO        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

sary  for  him  to  be  at  one  with  his  own  heart ;  to  place  what 
was  highest  in  his  nature  highest  also  in  his  life ;  "  to  seek 
within  himself  for  that  consistency  and  sequence,  which  ex- 
ternal events  would  forever  refuse  him."  He  was  born  a  poet ; 
poetry  was  the  celestial  element  of  his  being,  and  should  have 
been  the  soul  of  his  whole  endeavors.  Lifted  into  that  serene 
ether,  whither  he  had  wings  given  him  to  mount,  he  would 
have  needed  no  other  elevation  :  poverty,  neglect  and  all  evil, 
save  the  desecration  of  himself  and  his  Art,  were  a  small  mat- 
ter to  him  ;  the  pride  and  the  passions  of  the  world  lay  far 
beneath  his  feet ;  and  he  looked  down  alike  on  noble  and  slave, 
on  prince  and  beggar,  and  all  that  wore  the  stamp  of  man,  with 
clear  recognition,  with  brotherly  affection,  with  sympathy,  with 
pity.  Nay,  we  question  whether  for  his  culture  as  a  Poet, 
poverty  and  much  suffering  for  a  season  were  not  absolutely 
advantageous.  Great  men,  in  looking  back  over  their  lives, 
have  testified  to  that  effect.  *'  I  would  not  for  much,"  says 
Jean  Paul,  "  that  I  had  been  born  richer."  And  yet  Paul's 
birth  was  poor  enough ;  for,  in  another  place,  he  adds  :  "  The 
prisoner's  allowance  is  bread  and  water ;  and  I  had  often  only 
the  latter."  But  the  gold  that  is  refined  in  the  hottest  fur- 
nace comes  out  the  purest ;  or,  as  he  has  himself  expressed  it, 
"  the  canary-bird  sings  sweeter  the  longer  it  has  been  trained 
in  a  darkened  cage." 

A  man  like  Burns  might  have  divided  his  hours  between 
poetry  and  virtuous  industry  ;  industry  which  all  true  feeling 
sanctions,  nay  prescribes,  and  which  has  a  beauty,  for  that 
cause,  beyond  the  pomp  of  thrones  :  but  to  divide  his  hours 
between  poetry  and  rich  men's  banquets  was  an  ill-starred  and 
inauspicious  attempt.  How  could  he  be  at  ease  at  such  ban- 
quets ?  What  had  he  to  do  there,  mingling  his  music  with 
the  coarse  roar  of  altogether  earthly  voices ;  brightening  the 
thick  smoke  of  intoxication  with  fire  lent  him  from  heaven  ? 
Was  it  his  aim  to  enjoy  life  ?  To-morrow  he  must  go  drudge 
as  an  Exciseman  !  We  wonder  not  that  Burns  became  moody, 
indignant,  and  at  times  an  offender  against  certain  rules  of 
society ;  but  rather  that  he  did  not  grow  utterly  frantic,  and 
run  amuck  against  them  all.     How  could  a  man,  so  falsely 


BURNS.  811 

placed,  by  his  own  or  others'  fault,  ever  know  contentment  or 
peaceable  diligence  for  an  hour  ?  What  he  did,  under  such 
perverse  guidance,  and  what  he  forbore  to  do,  alike  fill  us 
with  astonishment  at  the  natural  strength  and  worth  of  his 
character. 

/.  .'  Doubtless  there  was  a  remedy  for  this  perverseness ;  but  not 
in  others  ;  only  in  himself ;  least  of  all  in  simple  increase  of 
wealth  and  worldly  "  respectability."  We  hope  we  have  now 
heard  enough  about  the  efficacy  of  wealth  for  poetry,  and  to 
make  poets  happy.  Nay  have  we  not  seen  another  instance 
of  it  in  these  very  days  ?  Byron,  a  man  of  an  endowment 
considerably  less  ethereal  than  that  of  Burns,  is  born  in  the 
rank  not  of  a  Scottish  ploughman,  but  of  an  English  peer  : 
the  highest  worldly  honors,  the  fairest  worldly  career,  are  his 
by  inheritance ;  the  richest  harvest  of  fame  he  soon  reaps,  in 
another  province,  by  his  own  hand.  And  what  does  all  this 
avail  him  ?  Is  he  happy,  is  he  good,  is  he  true  ?  Alas,  he 
has  a  poet's  soul,  and  strives  towards  the  Infinite  and  the 
Eternal ;  and  soon  feels  that  all  this  is  but  mounting  to  the 
house-top  to  reach  the  stars  !  Like  Burns,  he  is  only  a  proud 
man  ;  might,  like  him,  have  "  purchased  a  pocket-copy  of 
Milton  to  study  the  character  of  Satan ; "  for  Satan  also  is 
Byron's  grand  exemplar,  the  hero  of  his  poetry,  and  the  model 
apparently  of  his  conduct.  As  in  Burns's  case  too,  the  celes- 
tial element  will  not  mingle  with  the  clay  of  earth ;  both  poet 
and  man  of  the  world  he  must  not  be ;  vulgar  Ambition  will 
not  live  kindly  with  poetic  Adoration ;  he  cannot  serve  God 
and  Mammon.  Byron,  like  Burns,  is  not  happy ;  nay  he  is 
the  most  wretched  of  all  men.  His  life  is  falsely  arranged : 
the  fire  that  is  in  him  is  not  a  strong,  still,  central  fire,  warm- 
ing into  beauty  the  products  of  a  world  ;  but  it  is  the  mad  fire 
of  a  volcano ;  and  now  —  we  look  sadly  into  the  ashes  of  a 
crater,  which  ere  long  will  fill  itself  with  snow  ! 

Ij,  Byron  and  Burns  were  sent  forth  as  missionaries  to  their 
generation,  to  teach  it  a  higher  Doctrine,  a  purer  Truth  ;  they 
had  a  message  to  deliver,  which  left  them  no  rest  till  it  was 
accomplished ;  in  dim  throes  of  pain,  this  divine  behest  lay 
smouldering  within  them ;  for  they  knew  not  what  it  meant, 


312        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

and  felt  it  only  in  mysterious  anticipation,  and  they  had  to 
die  without  articulately  uttering  it.  They  are  in  the  camp 
of  the  Unconverted  ;  yet  not  as  high  messengers  of  rigorous 
though  benignant  truth,  but  as  soft  flattering  singers,  and  in 
pleasant  fellowship  will  they  live  there :  they  are  first  adulated, 
then  persecuted ;  they  accomplish  little  for  others  ;  they  find 
no  peace  for  themselves,  but  only  death  and  the  peace  of  the 
grave.  We  confess,  it  is  not  without  a  certain  mournful  awe 
that  we  view  the  fate  of  these  noble  souls,  so  richly  gifted, 
yet  ruined  to  so  little  purpose  with  all  their  gifts.  It  seems 
to  us  there  is  a  stern  moral  taught  in  this  piece  of  history,  — 
ttvice  told  us  in  our  own  time  !  Surely  to  men  of  like  genius, 
if  there  be  any  such,  it  carries  with  it  a  lesson  of  deep  impres- 
sive significance.  Surely  it  would  become  such  a  man,  fur- 
nished for  the  highest  of  all  enterprises,  that  of  being  the  Poet 
of  his  Age,  to  consider  well  what  it  is  that  he  attempts,  and  in 
what  spirit  he  attempts  it.  For  the  words  of  Milton  are  true 
in  all  times,  and  were  never  truer  than  in  this  :  "  He  who  Avould 
write  heroic  poems  must  make  his  whole  life  a  heroic  poem." 
If  he  cannot  first  so  make  his  life,  then  let  him  hasten  from 
this  arena ;  for  neither  its  lofty  glories,  nor  its  fearful  perils, 
are  fit  for  him.  Let  him  dwindle  into  a  modish  balladmonger; 
let  him  worship  and  besing  the  idols  of  the  time,  and  the  time 
will  not  fail  to  reward  him.  If,  indeed,  he  can  endure  to  live 
in  that  capacity  !  Byron  and  Burns  could  not  live  as  idol- 
priests,  but  the  fire  of  their  own  hearts  consumed  them ;  and 
better  it  was  for  them  that  they  could  not.  For  it  is  not  in 
the  favor  of  the  great  or  of  the  small,  but  in  a  life  of  truth, 
and  in  the  inexpugnable  citadel  of  his  own  soul,  that  a  Byron's 
or  a  Burns's  strength  must  lie.  Let  the  great  stand  aloof  from 
him,  or  know  how  to  reverence  him.  Beautiful  is  the  union 
of  wealth  with  favor  and  furtherance  for  literature  ;  like  the 
costliest  flower-jar  enclosing  the  loveliest  amaranth.  Yet  let 
not  the  relation  be  mistaken.  A  true  poet  is  not  one  whom 
they  can  hire  by  money  or  flattery  to  be  a  minister  of  their 
pleasures,  their  writer  of  occasional  verses,  their  purveyor  of 
table-wit ;  he  cannot  be  their  menial,  he  cannot  even  be  their 
partisan.     At  the  peril  of  both  parties,  let  no  such  union  be 


BURNS.  813 

attempted !  Will  a  Courser  of  the  Sun  work  softly  in  tl;e 
harness  of  a  Dray-horse  ?  His  hoofs  are  of  fire,  and  his  path 
is  through  the  heavens,  bringing  light  to  all  lands  ;  will  he 
lumber  on  mud  highways,  dragging  ale  for  earthly  appetites 
from  door  to  door  ? 

?  ,  But  we  must  stop  short  in  these  considerations,  which  would 
lead  us  to  boundless  lengths.  We  had  something  to  say  on 
the  public  moral  character  of  Burns;  but  this  also  we  must 
forbear.  We  are  far  from  regarding  him  as  guilty  before  the 
world,  as  guiltier  than  the  average ;  nay  from  doubting  that 
he  is  less  guilty  than  one  of  ten  thousand.  Tried  at  a  tribunal 
far  more  rigid  than  that  where  the  Plebiscita  of  common  civic 
reputations  are  pronounced,  he  has  seemed  to  us  even  there 
less  worthy  of  blame  than  of  pity  and  wonder.  But  the  world 
is  habitually  unjust  in  its  judgments  of  such  men ;  unjust  on 
many  grounds,  of  which  this  one  may  be  stated  as  the  sub- 
stance :  It  decides,  like  a  court  of  law,  by  dead  statutes ;  and 
not  positively  but  negatively,  less  on  what  is  done  right,  than 
on  what  is  or  is  not  done  wrong.  Not  the  few  inches  of  de- 
flection from  the  mathematical  orbit,  which  are  so  easily  mea- 
sured, but  the  ratio  of  these  to  the  whole  diameter,  constitutes 
the  real  aberration.  This  orbit  may  be  a  planet's,  its  diameter 
the  breadth  of  the  solar  system  ;  or  it  may  be  a  city  hippo- 
drome ;  nay  the  circle  of  a  gin-horse,  its  diameter  a  score  of 
feet  or  paces.  But  the  inches  of  deflection  only  are  measured  : 
and  it  is  assumed  that  the  diameter  of  the  gin-horse,  and  that 
of  the  planet,  will  yield  the  same  ratio  when  compared  with 
them  !  Here  lies  the  root  of  many  a  blind,  cruel  condemnation 
of  Burnses,  Swifts,  Rousseaus,  which  one  never  listens  to  with 
approval.  Granted,  the  ship  comes  into  harbor  with  shrouds 
and  tackle  damaged  ;  the  pilot  is  blameworthy  ;  he  has  not 
been  all-wise  and  all-powerful :  but  to  know  ho7v  blameworthy, 
tell  us  first  whether  his  voyage  has  been  round  the  Globe,  or 
only  to  llamsgate  and  the  Isle  of  Dogs. 

' "  With  our  readers  in  general,  with  men  of  right  feeling  any- 
where, we  are  not  required  to  plead  for  Burns.  In  pitying 
admiration  he  lies  enshrined  in  all  our  hearts,  in  a  far  nobler 
mausoleum  than  that  one  of  marble  j  neither  will  his  Works, 


314        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

even  as  they  are,  pass  away  from  the  memory  of  men.  While^ 
the  Shakspeares  and  Miltons  roll  on  like  mighty  rivers  through 
the  country  of  Thought,  bearing  fleets  of  traffickers  and  assidu- 
ous pearl-fishers  on  their  waves  ;  this  little  Valclusa  Fountain 
will  also  arrest  our  eye  :  for  this  also  is  of  Nature's  own  and 
most  cunning  workmanship,  bursts  from  the  depths  of  the 
earth,  with  a  full  gushing  current,  into  the  light  of  day  ;  and 
often  will  the  traveller  turn  aside  to  drink  of  its  clear  waters, 
and  muse  among  its  rocks  and  pines  I 


THE  LIFE  OF  HEYNE.* 

[1828.] 

The  labors  and  merits  of  Heyne  being  better  known,  and 
more  justly  appreciated  in  England,  than  those  of  almost  any 
other  German,  whether  scholar,  poet  or  philosopher,  we  cannot 
but  believe  that  some  notice  of  his  life  may  be  acceptable  to 
most  readers.  Accordingly,  we  here  mean  to  give  a  short  ab- 
stract of  this  Volume,  a  miniature  copy  of  the  "  biographical 
portrait ; "  but  must  first  say  a  few  words  on  the  portrait 
itself,  and  the  limner  by  whom  it  was  drawn. 

Professor  Heeren  is  a  man  of  learning,  and  known  far  out 
of  his  own  Hanoverian  circle,  —  indeed,  more  or  less  to  all 
students  of  history,  —  by  his  researches  on  Ancient  Commerce, 
a  voluminous  account  of  which  from  his  hand  enjoys  consid- 
erable reputation.  He  is  evidently  a  man  of  sense  and  natural 
talent,  as  well  as  learning ;  and  his  gifts  seem  to  lie  round  him 
in  quiet  arrangement,  and  very  much  at  his  own  command. 
Nevertheless,  we  cannot  admire  him  as  a  writer ;  we  do  not 
even  reckon  that  such  endowments  as  he  has  are  adequately 
represented  in  his  books.  His  style  both  of  diction  and 
thought  is  thin,  cold,  formal,  without  force  or  character,  and 
painfully  reminds  us  of  college  lectures.  He  can  work  rapidly, 
but  with  no  freedom,  and,  as  it  were,  only  in  one  attitude,  and ' 
at  one  sort  of  labor.  ISTot  that  we  particularly  blame  Professor 
Heeren  for  this,  but  that  we  think  he  might  have  been  some- 
thing better  :  these  "  fellows  in  buckram,"  very  numerous  in 
certain  walks  of  literature,  are  an  unfortunate  rather  than  a 
guilty  class  of  men  ;   they  have  fallen,  perhaps  unwillingly, 

^  Foreign  Review,  No.  4.  —  Christian  Goftloh  Heyne  hiographisch  darqestellt 
von  Arnold  Hermann  Ludwig  Heeren.  (Christian  Gottlob  Heyne  biographicallj 
portrayed  by  Arnold  Hermann  Ludwig  Heeren.)     Gottingen. 


316       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

into  the  plan  of  writing  by  pattern,  and  can  now  do  no  other  ; 
for,  in  their  minds,  the  beautiful  comes  at  last  to  be  simply 
synonymous  with  the  neat.  Every  sentence  bears  a  family- 
likeness  to  its  precursor ;  most  probably  it  has  a  set  number 
of  clauses  (three  is  a  favorite  number,  as  in  Gibbon,  for  "  the 
Muses  delight  in  odds  ") ;  has  also  a  given  rhythm,  a  known 
and  foreseen  music,  simple  but  limited  enough,  like  that  of  ill- 
bred  lingers  drumming  on  a  table.  And  then  it  is  strange  how 
soon  the  outward  rhythm  cai'ries  the  inward  along  with  it ; 
and  the  thought  moves  with  the  same  stinted,  hamstrung  rub- 
a-dub  as  the  words.  In  a  state  of  perfection,  this  species  of 
writing  comes  to  resemble  power-loom  weaving ;  it  is  not  the 
mind  that  is  at  work,  but  some  scholastic  machinery  which 
the  mind  has  of  old  constructed,  and  is  from  afar  observing. 
Shot  follows  shot  from  the  unwearied  shuttle  ;  and  so  the  web 
is  woven,  ultimately  and  properly,  indeed,  by  the  wit  of  man, 
yet  immediately  and  in  the  mean  while  by  the  mere  aid  of 
time  and  steam. 

But  our  Professor's  mode  of  speculation  is  little  less  in- 
tensely academic  than  his  mode  of  writing.  We  fear  he  is 
something  of  what  the  Germans  call  a  Kleinstddter  ;  mentally 
as  well  as  bodily,  a  "  dweller  in  a  little  town."  He  speaks  at 
great  length,  and  with  undue  fondness,  of  the  "  Georgia  Au- 
gusta ; "  which,  after  all,  is  but  the  University  of  Gottingen, 
an  earthly  and  no  celestial  institution :  it  is  nearly  in  vain 
that  he  tries  to  contemplate  Heyne  as  a  Eui'opean  personage, 
or  even  as  a  German  one  ;  beyond  the  precincts  of  the  Georgia 
Augusta  his  view  seems  to  grow  feeble,  and  soon  dies  away 
into  vague  inanity ;  so  we  have  not  Heyne,  the  man  and 
scholar,  but  Heyne  the  Gottingen  Professor.  But  neither  is 
this  habit  of  mind  any  strange  or  crying  sin,  or  at  all  peculiar 
to  Gottingen  ;  as,  indeed,  most  parishes  in  England  can  pro^ 
duce  more  than  one  example  to  show.  And  yet  it  is  pitiful, 
when  an  establishment  for  universal  science,  which  ought  to 
be  a  watch-tower  where  a  man  might  see  all  the  kingdoms  of 
the  world,  converts  itself  into  a  workshop,  whence  he  sees 
nothing  but  his  tool-box  and  bench,  and  the  world,  in  broken 
glimpses,  through  one  patched  and  highly  discolored  pane ! 


LIFE  OF  HEYNE.  817 

Sometimes,  indeed,  our  worthy  friend  rises  into  a  region 
of  the  moral  sublime,  in  which  it  is  difficult  for  a  foreigner 
to  follow  him.  Thus  he  says,  on  one  occasion,  speaking  of 
Heyne :  "  Immortal  are  his  merits  in  regard  to  the  cata- 
logues "  —  of  the  Gottingen  library.  And,  to  cite  no  other 
instance  except  the  last  and  best  one,  we  are  informed,  that 
when  Heyne  died,  "  the  guardian  angels  of  the  Georgia  Au- 
gusta waited,  in  that  higher  world,  to  meet  him  with  bless- 
ings." By  Day  and  Night!  there  is  no  such  guardian  angel, 
that  we  know  of,  for  the  University  of  Gottingen ;  neither 
does  it  need  one,  being  a  good  solid  seminary  of  itself,  with 
handsome  stipends  from  Government.  We  had  imagined  too, 
that  if  anybody  welcomed  people  into  heaven,  it  would  be  St. 
Peter,  or  at  least  some  angel  of  old  standing,  and  not  a  mere 
mushroom,  as  this  of  Gottingen  must  be,  created  since  the 
year  1739. 

But  we  are  growing  very  ungrateful  to  the  good  Heeren, 
who  meant  no  harm  by  these  flourishes  of  rhetoric,  and  in- 
deed does  not  often  indulge  in  them.  The  grand  questions 
with  us  here  are,  Did  he  know  the  truth  in  this  matter;  and 
was  he  disposed  to  tell  it  honestly  ?  To  both  of  which  ques- 
tions we  can  answer  without  reserve,  that  all  appearances  are 
in  his  favor.  He  was  Heyne's  pupil,  colleague,  son-in-law, 
and  so  knew  him  intimately  for  thirty  years :  he  has  every 
feature  also  of  a  just,  quiet,  truth-loving  man ;  so  that  we  see 
little  reason  to  doubt  the  authenticity,  the  innocence,  of  any 
statement  in  his  Volume.  What  more  have  we  to  do  with 
him,  then,  but  to  take  thankfully  what  he  has  been  pleased 
and  able  to  give  us,  and,  with  all  despatch,  communicate  it 
to  our  readers  ? 

Hej'ne's  Life  is  not  without  an  intrinsic,  as  well  as  an  ex- 
ternal interest ;  for  he  had  much  to  struggle  with,  and  he 
struggled  with  it  manfully ;  thus  his  history  has  a  value  inde- 
pendent of  his  fame.  Some  account  of  his  early  years  we  are 
liappily  enabled  to  give  in  his  own  words  :  we  translate  a  con- 
siderable part  of  this  passage  ;  aixtobiography  being  a  favorite 
sort  of  reading  with  us. 


818        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

He  was  born  at  Chemnitz,  in  Upper  Saxony,  in  September, 
1729  ;  the  eldest  of  a  poor  weaver's  family,  poor  almost  to  the 
verge  of  destitution. 

"  My  good  father,  George  Heyne,"  says  he,  "  was  a  native 
of  the  principality  of  Glogau,  in  Silesia,  from  the  little  village 
of  Gravenschiitz.  His  youth  had  fallen  in  those  times  when 
the  Evangelist  party  of  that  province  were  still  exposed  to 
the  oppressions  and  persecutions  of  the  Romish  Church.  His 
kindred,  enjoying  the  blessing  of  contentment  in  a  humble 
but  independent  station,  felt,  like  others,  the  influence  of  this 
proselytizing  bigotry,  and  lost  their  domestic  peace  by  means 
of  it.  Some  went  over  to  the  Romish  faith.  My  father  left 
his  native  village,  and  endeavored,  by  the  labor  of  his  hands, 
to  procure  a  livelihood  in  Saxony.  "What  will  it  profit  a 
man,  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul !  "  was 
the  thought  which  the  scenes  of  his  youth  had  stamped  the 
most  deeply  on  his  mind.  But  no  lucky  chance  favored  his 
enterprises  or  endeavors  to  better  his  condition  never  so  little. 
On  the  contrary,  a  series  of  perverse  incidents  kept  him  con- 
tinually below  the  limits  even  of  a  moderate  sufficiency.  His 
old  age  was  thus  left  a  prey  to  poverty,  and  to  her  compan- 
ions, timidity  and  depression  of  mind.  Manufactures,  at  that 
time,  were  visibly  declining  in  Saxony;  and  the  misery  among 
the  working-classes,  in  districts  concerned  in  the  linen  trade, 
was  unusually  severe.  Scarcely  could  the  labor  of  the  hands 
suffice  to  support  the  laborer  himself,  still  less  his  family. 
The  saddest  aspect  which  the  decay  of  civic  society  can  ex- 
hibit has  always  appeared  to  me  to  be  this,  when  honorable, 
honor-loving,  conscientious  diligence  cannot,  by  the  utmost 
efforts  of  toil,  obtain  the  necessaries  of  life ;  or  when  the 
working  man  cannot  even  find  work,  but  must  stand  witli 
folded  arms,  lamenting  his  forced  idleness,  through  whieh 
himself  and  his  family  are  verginr^  to  stai  vatiou,  or  it  may 
be,  actually  suffering  the  pains  of  hunger. 

"  It  was  in  the  extremest  penniy  that  I  was  born  and 
brought  up.  The  earliest  companion  of  my  childhood  was 
Want ;  and  my  first  impressions  came  from  the  tears  of  my 
mother,  who  had  not  bread  for  her  children.     How  often  have 


LIFE  OF  HEYNE.  819 

I  seen  her  on  Saturday  nights  wringing  her  hands  and  weep- 
ing, when  she  had  come  back  with  what  the  hard  toil,  nay 
often  the  sleepless  nights  of  her  husband  had  produced,  and 
could  find  none  to  buy  it !  Sometimes  a  fresh  attempt  was 
made  through  me  or  my  sister :  I  had  to  return  to  the  pur- 
chasers with  the  same  piece  of  ware,  to  see  whether  we  could 
not  possibly  get  rid  of  it.  In  that  quarter  there  is  a  class  of 
so-called  merchants,  who,  however,  are  in  fact  nothing  more 
than  forestallers,  that  buy  up  the  linen  made  by  the  poorer 
people  at  the  lowest  price,  and  endeavor  to  sell  it  in  other 
districts  at  the  highest.  Often  have  I  seen  one  or  other  of 
these  petty  tyrants,  with  all  the  pride  of  a  satrap,  throw  back 
the  piece  of  goods  offered  him,  or  imperiously  cut  off  some 
trifle  from  the  price  and  wages  required  for  it.  Necessity 
constrained  the  poorer  to  sell  the  sweat  of  his  brow  at  a 
groschen  or  two  less,  and  again  to  make  good  the  deficit  by 
starving.  It  was  the  view  of  such  things  that  awakened  the 
first  sparks  of  indignation  in  my  young  heart.  The  show  of 
pomp  and  plenty  among  these  purse-proud  people,  who  fed 
themselves  on  the  extorted  crumbs  of  so  many  hundreds,  far 
from  dazzling  me  into  respect  or  fear,  filled  me  with  rage 
against  them.  The  first  time  I  heard  of  tyrannicide  at  school, 
there  rose  vividly  before  me  the  project  to  become  a  Brutus 
on  all  those  oppressors  of  the  poor,  who  had  so  often  cast  my 
father  and  mother  into  straits  :  and  here,  for  the  first  time, 
was  an  instance  of  a  truth  which  I  have  since  had  frequent 
occasion  to  observe,  that  if  the  unhappy  man,  armed  with  feel- 
ing of  his  wrongs  and  a  certain  strength  of  soul,  does  not  risk 
the  utmost  and  become  an  open  criminal,  it  is  merely  the  be- 
neficent result  of  those  circumstances  in  which  Providence 
has  placed  him,  thereby  fettering  his  activity,  and  guarding 
him  from  such  destructive  attempts.  That  the  oppressing 
part  of  mankind  should  be  secured  against  the  oppressed 
was,  in  the  plan  of  inscrutable  Wisdom,  a  most  importaut 
element  of  the  present  system  of  things. 

"  My  good  parents  did  what  they  could,  and  sent  me  to  a 
child's-school  in  the  suburbs.  I  obtained  the  praise  of  learn- 
ing very  fast,  and  being  very  fond  of  it.     My  schoolmaster 


320       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

had  two  sons,  lately  returned  from  Leipzig ;  a  couple  of  de- 
praved fellows,  who  took  all  pains  to  lead  me  astray ;  and,  as 
I  resisted,  kept  me  for  a  long  time,  by  threats  and  mistreat- 
ment of  all  sorts,  extremely  miserable.  So  early  as  my  tenth 
year,  to  raise  the  money  for  my  school-wages,  I  had  given 
lessons  to  a  neighbor's  child,  a  little  girl,  in  reading  and 
writing.  As  the  common  school-course  could  take  me  no 
farther,  the  point  now  was  to  get  a  private  hour  and  proceed 
into  Latin.  But  for  that  purpose  a  guter  groschen  weekly  was 
required ;  this  my  parents  had  not  to  give.  Many  a  day  I 
carried  this  grief  about  with  me  :  however,  I  had  a  godfather, 
who  was  in  easy  circumstances,  a  baker,  and  my  mother's 
half-brother.  One  Saturday  I  was  sent  to  this  man  to  fetch  a 
loaf.  With  wet  eyes  I  entered  his  house,  and  chanced  to  find 
my  godfather  himself  there.  Being  questioned  why  I  was 
crying,  I  tried  to  answer,  but  a  whole  stream  of  tears  broke 
loose,  and  scarcely  could  I  make  the  cause  of  my  sorrow  in- 
telligible. My  magnanimous  godfather  offered  to  pay  the 
weekly  groschen  out  of  his  own  pocket ;  and  only  this  condi- 
tion was  imposed  on  me,  that  I  should  come  to  him  every 
Sunday,  and  repeat  what  part  of  the  Gospel  I  had  learned 
by  heart.  This  latter  arrangement  had  one  good  effect  for 
me,  —  it  exercised  my  memory,  and  I  learned  to  recite  with- 
out bashfulness. 

*'  Drunk  with  joy,  I  started  off  with  my  loaf ;  tossing  it  up 
time  after  time  into  the  air,  and  barefoot  as  I  was,  I  capered 
aloft  after  it.  But  hereupon  my  loaf  fell  into  a  puddle.  This 
misfortune  again  brought  me  a  little  to  reason.  My  mother 
heartily  rejoiced  at  the  good  news  ;  my  father  was  less  con- 
tent. Thus  passed  a  couple  of  years  ;  and  my  schoolmaster 
intimated,  what  I  myself  had  long  known,  that  I  could  now 
learn  no  more  from  him. 

*'  This  then  was  the  time  when  I  must  leave  school,  and 
bi'take  me  to  the  handicraft  of  my  fatlier.  Were  not  the 
artisan  under  oppressions  of  so  many  kinds,  robbed  of  the 
fruits  of  his  hard  toil,  and  of  so  many  advantages  to  which 
the  useful  citizen  has  a  natural  claim  ;  I  should  still  say,  Had 
1  but  continued  in  the  station  of  my  parents,  what  thousand- 


LIFE   OF   HEYNE.,  821 

fold  vexation  would  at  this  hour  have  been  unknown  to  me ! 
My  father  could  not  but  be  anxious  to  have  a  grown-up  son 
for  an  assistant  in  his  labor,  and  looked -upon  my  repugnance 
to  it  with  great  dislike.  I  again  longed  to  get  into  the  gram- 
mar-school of  the  town ;  but  for  this  all  means  were  wanting. 
Where  was  a  gulden  of  quarterly  fees,  where  were  books  and 
a  blue  cloak  to  be  come  at  ?  How  wistfully  my  look  often 
hung  on  the  walls  of  the  school  when  I  passed  it ! 

"■  A  clergyman  of  the  suburbs  was  my  second  godfather ;  his 
name  was  Sebastian  Seydel ;  my  schoolmaster,  who  likewise 
belonged  to  his  congregation,  had  told  him  of  me.  I  was  sent 
for,  and  after  a  short  examination,  he  promised  me  that  I 
should  go  to  the  town-school ;  he  himself  would  bear  tho 
charges.  Who  can  express  my  happiness,  as  I  then  felt  it ! 
I  was  despatched  to  the  first  teacher;  examined,  and  placed 
with  approbation  in  the  second  class.  Weakly  from  the  first, 
pressed  down  with  sorrow  and  want,  without  any  cheerful 
enjoyment  of  childhood  or  youth,  I  was  still  of  very  small 
stature  ;  my  class-fellows  judged  by  externals,  and  had  a  veiy 
slight  opinion  of  me.  Scarcely,  by  various  proofs  of  diligence 
and  by  the  praisos  I  received,  could  I  get  so  far  that  they 
tolerated  ni}^  being  put  beside  them. 

"  And  certainly  my  diligence  was  not  a  little  hampered ! 
Of  his  promise,  the  clergyman,  indeed,  kept  so  much,  that  he 
paid  my  quarterly  fees,  provided  me  with  a  coarse  cloak,  and 
gave  me  some  useless  volumes  that  were  lying  on  his  shelves  ; 
but  to  furnish  me  with  school-books  he  could  not  resolve.  I 
thus  found  myself  under  the  necessity  of  borrowing  a  class- 
fellow's  books,  and  daily  copying  a  part  of  them  before  the 
lesson.  On  the  other  hand,  the  honest  man  would  have  some 
hand  himself  in  my  instruction,  and  gave  me  from  time  to 
time  some  liours  in  Latin.  In  his  youth  he  had  learned  to 
make  Latin  verses  :  scarcely  was  Erasvui.s  de  CivUltute  riorum 
got  over,  when  I  too  must  take  to  verse-making;  all  this 
before  I  had  read  any  authors,  or  could  possibly  jiossess  any 
ftore  of  words.  The  man  was  withal  ]iassionatf^  and  rigorous ; 
in  every  point  repulsive  ;  with  a  moderate  income  he  was 
accused  of  av;aice;  he  had  the  stift'ntss  and  self-will  of  an 
vcH,.  A  in.  '.'I 


322         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

old  bachelor,  and  at  the  same  time  the  vanity  of  aiming  to 
be  a  good  Latinist,  and,  what  was  more,  a  Latin  verse-maker, 
and  consequently  a  literary  clergyman.  These  qualities  of 
his  all  contributed  to  overload  my  youth,  and  nip  away  in 
the  bud  every  enjoyment  of  its  pleasures." 

In  this  plain  but  somewhat  leaden  style  does  Heyne  pro- 
ceed, detailing  the  crosses  and  losses  of  his  school-years.  We 
cannot  pretend  that  the  narrative  delights  us  much  ;  nay,  that 
it  is  not  rather  bald  and  barren  for  such  a  narrative ;  but  its 
fidelity  may  be  relied  on;  and  it  paints  the  clear,  broad, 
strong  and  somewhat  heavy  nature  of  the  writer,  perhaps 
better  than  description  could  do.  It  is  curious,  for  instance, 
to  see  with  how  little  of  a  purely  humane  interest  he  looks 
back  to  his  childhood ;  how  Heyne  the  man  has  almost  grown 
into  a  sort  of  teaching-machine,  and  sees  in  Heyne  the  boy 
little  else  than  the  incipient  Gerund-grinder,  and  tells  us  little 
else  but  how  this  wheel  after  the  other  was  developed  in  him, 
and  he  came  at  last  to  grind  in  complete  perfection.  We 
could  have  wished  to  get  some  view  into  the  interior  of  that 
poor  Chemnitz  hovel,  with  its  unresting  loom  and  cheerless 
hearth,  its  squalor  and  devotion,  its  affection  and  repining; 
and  the  fire  of  natural  genius  struggling  into  flame  amid  such 
incumbrances,  in  an  atmosphere  so  damp  and  close  !  But  of 
all  this  we  catch  few  farther  glimpses ;  and  hear  only  of  Fa- 
bricius  and  Owen  and  Pasor,  and  school-examinations,  and 
rectors  that  had  been  taught  by  Ernesti.  Neither,  in  another 
respect,  not  of  omission  but  of  commission,  can  this  piece  of 
writing  altogether  content  us.  We  must  object  a  little  to  the 
spirit  of  it,  as  too  narrow,  too  intolerant.  Sebastian  Seydel 
must  have  been  a  very  meagre  man;  but  is  it  right  that 
Heyne,  of  all  others,  should  speak  of  him  with  as])erity  ? 
Without  question  the  unfortunate  Seydel  meant  nobly,  had 
not  thrift  stood  in  lus  way.  Did  not  he  pay  down  his  gulden 
every  quarter  regularly,  and  give  the  boy  a  blue  cloak,  though 
a  coarse  one  ?  Nay,  he  bestowed  old  books  on  him,  and  in- 
struction, according  to  his  gift,  in  the  mj'^stery  of  verse- 
making.  And  was  not  all  this  something?  And  if  thrift  and 
charity  had  a  continual  battle  to  figlit,  was  not  that  better 


LIFE   OF  HEYNE.  823 

than  a  flat  surrender  on  the  part  of  the  latter  ?  The  other 
pastors  of  Chemnitz  are  all  quietly  forgotten :  why  should 
Sebastian  be  remembered  to  his  disadvantage  for  being  only 
a  little  better  than  they  ? 

Heyne  continued  to  be  much  infested  with  tasks  from 
Sebastian,  and  sorely  held  down  by  want,  and  discouragement 
of  every  sort.  The  school-course  moreover,  he  says,  was  bad ; 
nothing  but  the  old  routine ;  vocables,  translations,  exercises ; 
all  without  spirit  or  purpose.  jSTevertlieless,  he  continued 
to  make  what  we  must  call  wonderful  proficiency  in  these 
branches ;  especially  as  he  had  still  to  write  every  task  before 
he  could  learn  it.  For  he  prepared  "  Greek  versions,"  he 
says,  "  also  Greek  verses ;  and  by  and  by  could  write  down  in 
Greek  prose,  and  at  last  in  Greek  as  well  as  Latin  verses,  the 
discourses  he  heard  in  church  ! "  Some  ray  of  hope  was  be- 
ginning to  spring  up  within  his  mind.  A  certain  small  degree 
of  self-confidence  had  first  been  aAvakened  in  him,  as  he  in- 
forms us,  by  a  "  pedantic  adventure  :  "  — 

"  There  chanced  to  be  a  school-examination  held,  at  which 
the  Superintendent,  as  chief  school-inspector,  was  present. 
This  man.  Dr.  Theodor  Kriiger,  a  theologian  of  some  learning 
for  his  time,  all  at  once  interrupted  the  rector,  who  was  teach- 
ing ex  cathedra,  and  put  the  question  :  Who  among  the  schol- 
ars could  tell  him  what  might  be  made  ^;er  ana  gramma  from 
the  word  Austria?  This  whim  had  arisen  from  the  circum- 
stance that  the  first  Silesian  war  was  just  begun ;  and  some 
such  anagram,  reckoned  very  happy,  had  appeared  in  a  news- 
paper.^ Xo  one  of  us  knew  so  much  as  what  an  anagram 
was ;  even  the  rector  looked  quite  perplexed.  As  none  an- 
swered, the  latter  began  to  give  us  a  description  of  anagrams 
in  general.  I  set  myself  to  work,  and  sprang  forth  with  my 
discovery:  Vastari!  This  was  something  different  froni  tlie 
newspaY)er  one :  so  much  the  greater  was  our  Superintendent's 
admiration  ;  and  the  more,  as  the  successful  aspirant  was  a 
little  boy,  on  the  lowest  bench  of  the  secunda.  lie  growled 
out  his  applause  to  me ;  but  at  the  same  time  set  the  whole 

'  "As  yet  Saxony  was  against  Austria,  not,  as  iu  the  end,  allied  with 
her." 


S24         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

school  about  my  ears,  as  he  stoutly  upbraided  them  with 
being  beaten  by  an  injimus. 

"  Enough  :  this  pedantic  adventure  gave  the  first  impulse  to 
the  development  of  my  powers.  I  began  to  take  some  credit 
to  myself,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  oppression  and  contempt  in 
■which  I  languished,  to  resolve  on  struggling  forward.  This 
first  struggle  was  in  truth  ineffectual  enough ;  was  soon  re- 
garded as  a  piece  of  pride  and  conceitedness ;  it  brought  on 
me  a  thousand  humiliations  and  disquietudes  ;  at  times  it 
might  degenerate  on  my  part  into  defiance.  Nevertheless,  it 
kept  me  at  the  stretch  of  my  diligence,  ill-guided  as  it  w^s, 
and  withdrew  me  from  the  company  of  my  class-fellows, 
among  whom,  as  among  children  of  low  birth  and  bad  nurture 
could  not  fail  to  be  the  case,  the  utmost  coarseness  and  boor- 
ishness  of  every  sort  prevailed.  The  plan  of  these  schools 
does  not  include  any  general  inspection,  but  limits  itself  to 
mere  intellectual  instruction. 

'•'Yet  on  all  hands,"  continues  he,  "  I  found  myself  too  sadly 
hampered.  The  perverse  way  in  which  the  old  parson  treated 
me ;  at  home  the  discontent  and  grudging  of  my  parents,  es- 
pecially of  my  father,  who  could  not  get  on  with  his  work, 
and  still  thought  that,  had  I  kept  by  his  way  of  life,  he  might 
now  have  had  some  help ;  the  pressure  of  want,  the  feeling  of 
being  behind  every  other ;  all  this  would  allow  no  cheerful 
thought,  no  sentiment  of  worth  to  spring  up  within  me.  A 
timorous,  bashful,  awkward  carriage  shut  me  out  still  farther 
from  all  exterior  attractions.  Where  could  I  learn  good  man- 
ners, elegance,  a  right  way  of  thought  '^  Where  could  I  attain 
any  culture  for  heart  and  spirit  ? 

"  Upwards,  however,  I  still  strove.  A  feeling  of  honor,  a 
wish  for  something  better,  an  effort  to  work  myself  out  of 
this  abasement,  incessantly  attended  me;  but  without  direc- 
tion as  it  was,  it  led  me  rather  to  sullenness,  misanthropy 
and  clownishness. 

"  At  lenj^h  a  place  opened  for  me,  where  some  training  in 
these  points  lay  within  my  reach.  One  of  our  senators  took 
his  mother-in-law  home  to  live  with  him ;  she  had  still  two 
children  with  her,  a  son  and  a  daughter,  both  about  my  own 


LIFE  OF   HEYNE.  825 

age.  For  the  son  private  lessons  were  wanted ;  and  happily  I 
was  chosen  for  the  purpose. 

"  As  these  private  lessons  brought  me  in  a  gulden  monthly, 
I  now  began  to  defend  myself  a  little  against  the  grumbling 
of  my  parents.  Hitherto  I  had  been  in  the  habit  of  doing 
work  occasionally,  that  I  might  not  be  told  how  I  was  eating 
their  bread  for  nothing;  clothes,  and  oil  for  m}-  lamp,  I  liad 
earned  by  teaching  in  the  house :  these  things  I  could  now 
relinquish  ;  and  thus  my  condition  was  in  some  degree  im- 
proved. On  the  other  hand,  I  had  now  opportunity  of  see- 
ing persons  of  better  education.  I  gained  the  good-will  of 
the  family ;  so  that  besides  the  lesson-hours,  I  generally  lived 
there.  Such  society  afforded  me  some  culture,  extended  my 
conceptions  and  opinions,  and  also  polished  a  little  the  rude- 
ness of  my  exterior." 

In  this  senatorial  house  he  must  have  been  somewhat  more 
at  ease ;  for  he  now  very  privately  fell  in  love  with  his  pupil's 
sister,  and  made  and  burnt  many  Greek  and  Latin  verses  in 
her  praise;  and  had  sweet  dreams  of  some  time  rising  "so 
high  as  to  be  worthy  of  her."  Even  as  matters  stood,  he 
acquired  her  friendship  and  that  of  her  mother.  But  the 
grand  concern,  for  the  present,  was  how  to  get  to  college  at 
Leipzig.  Old  Sebastian  had  promised  to  stand  good  on  this 
occasion ;  and  unquestionably  would  have  done  so  Avith  the 
greatest  yjleasure,  had  it  cost  him  nothing:  but  he  promised 
and  promised,  without  doing  aught ;  above  all,  without  putting 
his  hand  into  his  pocket ;  and  elsewhere  there  was  no  help  or 
resource.  At  length,  wearied  perhaps  with  the  boy's  impor- 
tunity, he  determined  to  bestir  himself ;  and  so  directed  his 
assistant,  who  was  just  making  a  journey  to  Leipzig,  to  show 
Heyne  the  road :  the  two  arrived  in  perfect  safety ;  Ilej-ne 
still  longing  after  cash,  for  of  his  own  he  had  only  two  gn/deii, 
about  five  shillings ;  but  the  assistant  left  him  in  a  lodging- 
house,  and  went  his  way,  saying  he  had  no  farther  orders  ! 

The  miseries  of  a  poor  scholar's  life  were  now  to  be  Heyne's 
portion  in  full  measure.  Ill-clothed,  totally  destitute  of  books, 
with  five  shillings  in  his  purse,  he  found  himself  set  down  in 
the  Leipzig  University,  to  study  all  learning.     Despondency 


326         CllITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

at  first  overmastered  the  poor  boy's  heart,  and  he  sank  into 
sickness,  from  which  indeed  he  recovered ;  but  only,  he  says, 
"to  fall  into  conditions  of  life  where  he  became  the  prey  of 
desperation."  How  he  contrived  to  exist,  much  more  to  study, 
is  scarcely  apparent  from  this  narrative.  The  unhappy  old 
Sebastian  did  at  length  send  him  some  2:>ittance,  and  at  rare 
intervals  repeated  the  dole ;  yet  ever  with  his  own  peculiar- 
grace  ;  not  till  after  unspeakable  solicitations ;  in  quantities 
that  were  consumed  by  inextinguishable  debt,  and  coupled 
with  sour  admonitions;  nay,  on  one  occasion,  addressed  exter- 
nally, "  A  Mr.  Ilei/ne,  Etudiant  negligent."  For  half  a  year 
he  would  leave  him  without  all  help ;  then  promise  to  come 
and  see  what  he  was  doing ;  come  accordingly,  and  return 
without  leaving  him  a  penny  :  neither  could  the  destitute 
youth  ever  obtain  any  public  furtherance ;  no  freltisch  (free- 
table)  or  stipendluvi  was  to  be  procured,  ^fany  times  he  had 
no  regular  meal ;  "  often  not  three  halfpence  for  a  loaf  at 
midday."  He  longed  to  be  dead,  for  his  spirit  was  often  sunk 
in  the  gloom  of  darkness.  "  One  good  heart  alone,"  says  he, 
"I  found,  and  that  in  the  servant-girl  of  the  house  Avhere  I 
lodged.  She  laid  out  money  for  my  most  pressing  necessities, 
and  risked  almost  all  she  had,  seeing  me  in  such  frightful 
want.  Could  I  but  find  thee  in  the  world  even  now,  thou 
good  pious  soul,  that  I  might  repay  thee  what  thou  then  didst 
for  me  ! " 

Hoyne  declares  it  to  be  still  a  mystery  to  him  how  he  stood 
all  this.  '•'  What  carried  me  forward,"  continues  he,  "  was  not 
ambition;  any  youthful  dream  of  one  day  taking  a  place,  or 
aiming  to  take  one,  among  the  learned.  It  is  true,  the  bitter 
feeling  of  debasement,  of  deficiency  in  education  and  external 
polish,  the  consciousness  of  awkwardness  in  social  life,  inces- 
santly accompanied  me.  But  my  chief  strength  lay  in  a  cer- 
tain defiance  of  Fate.  This  gave  me  courage  not  to  yield; 
everywliere  to  try  to  the  uttermost  whether  I  was  doomed 
without  remedy  never  to  rise  from  this  degradation." 

Of  order  in  his  studies  there  could  be  little  expectation. 
He  did  not  even  know  what  profession  he  was  aiming  after: 
old  Sebastian  was  for  theology ;  and  Heyne,  though  himself 


LIFE   OF   HEYNE.  827 

averse  to  it,  affected  and  only  affected  to  comply :  besides  he 
had  no  money  to  pay  class  fees ;  it  was  only  to  open  lectures, 
or  at  most  to  ill-guarded  class-rooms,  that  he  could  gain  ad- 
mission. Of  this  ill-guarded  sort  was  Winkler's  ;  into  which 
poor  Heyne  insinuated  himself  to  hear  philosoph3\  Alas,  the 
first  problem  of  all  philosophy,  the  keeping  of  soul  and  body 
together,  was  well-nigh  too  hard  for  him !  Winkler's  stu- 
dents were  of  a  riotous  description ;  accustomed,  among  other 
improprieties,  to  scharren,  scraping  with  the  feet.  One  day 
they  chose  to  receive  Heyne  in  this  fashion;  and  he  could 
not  venture  back.  "  Nevertheless,"  adds  he,  simply  enough, 
'•'the  beadle  came  to  me  some  time  afterwards,  demanding 
the  fee  :  I  had  my  own  shifts  to  take  before  I  could  raise 
it." 

Ernesti  was  the  only  teacher  from  whom  he  derived  any 
benefit ;  the  man,  indeed,  whose  influence  seems  to  have  shaped 
the  whole  subsequent  course  of  his  studies.  By  dint  of  exces- 
sive endeavors  he  gained  admittance  to  Ernesti's  lectures ;  and 
here  first  learned,  says  Heeren,  "what  interpretation  of  the 
classics  meant."  One  Crist  also,  a  strange,  fantastic  Sir 
Plume  of  a  Professor,  who  built  much  on  taste,  elegance  of 
manners  and  the  like,  took  some  notice  of  him,  and  procured 
him  a  little  employment  as  a  private  teacher.  This  might  be 
more  useful  than  his  advice  to  imitate  Scaliger,  and  read  the 
ancients  so  as  to  begin  with  the  most  ancient,  and  proceed 
regularly  to  tlie  latest.  Small  service  it  can  do  a  bedrid  man 
to  convince  him  that  waltzing  is  preferable  to  quadrilles ! 
"Grist's  Lectures,"  says  he,  "were  a  tissue  of  endless  digres- 
sions, which,  however,  now  and  then  contained  excellent 
remarks." 

But  Ileyne's  best  teacher  was  himself.  No  pressure  of  dis- 
tresses, no  want  of  books,  advisers  or  encouragement,  not  hun- 
ger itself  could  abate  his  resolute  perseverance.  What  books 
he  could  come  at  he  borrowed  ;  and  such  was  his  excess  of 
zeal  in  reading,  that  for  a  whole  half-year  ho  allowed  himself 
only  two  nights  of  sleep  in  the  week,  till  at  last  a  fever 
obliged  him  to  be  more  moderate.  His  diligence  was  undi- 
rected, or  ill-directed,  but  it  never  rested,  never  paused,  and 


328         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS   ESSAYS. 

must  at  length  prevail.  Fortune  had  cast  him  into  a  cavern, 
and  he  was  groping  darkly  round;  but  the  prisoner  was  a 
giant,  and  would  at  length  burst  forth  as  a  giant  into  the 
light  of  day.  Heyne,  without  any  clear  aim,  almost  with- 
out any  hope,  had  set  his  heart  on  attaining  knowledge  ;  a 
force,  as  of  instinct,  drove  him  on,  and  no  promise  and  no 
threat  could  turn  him  back.  It  was  at  the  very  depth  of  his 
destitution,  when  he  had  not  ''three  groschen  for  a  loaf  to 
dine  on,"  that  he  refused  a  tutorship,  with  handsome  enough 
appointments,  but  which  was  to  have  removed  him  from  the 
University.  Crist  had  sent  for  him  one  Sunday,  and  made  him 
the  proposal:  "There  arose  a  violent  struggle  within  me," 
says  he,  "  which  drove  me  to  and  fro  for  several  days ;  to  this 
hour  it  is  incomprehensible  to  me  where  I  found  resolution 
to  determine  on  renouncing  the  offer,  and  pursuing  my  object 
in  Leipzig."  A  man  with  a  half  volition  goes  backwards  and 
forwards,  and  makes  no  way  on  the  smoothest  road  ;  a  man 
with  a  whole  volition  advances  on  the  roughest,  and  will  reach 
his  purpose  if  there  be  even  a  little  wisdom  in  it. 

With  his  first  two  years'  residence  in  Leipzig,  Heyne's  per- 
sonal narrative  terminates;  not  because  the  nodus  of  the  his- 
tory had  been  solved  then,  and  his  perplexities  cleared  up, 
but  simply  because  he  had  not  found  time  to  relate  farther. 
A  long  series  of  straitened  hopeless  days  were  yet  appointed 
him.  By  Ernesti's  or  Grist's  recommendation,  he  occasionally 
got  employment  in  giving  private  lessons ;  at  one  time,  he 
worked  as  secretary  and  classical  hodman  to  "  Crusius,  the 
philosopher,"  who  felt  a  little  rusted  in  his  Greek  and  Latin  ; 
<!very  where  he  found  the  scantiest  accommodation,  and  shifting 
from  side  to  side  in  dreary  vicissitude  of  want,  had  to  spin 
out  an  existence,  wnrmed  by  no  ray  of  comfort,  except  the 
lire  that  burnt  or  smouldered  unquenchably  within  his  own 
bosom.  However,  he  had  now  chosen  a  profession,  that  of 
law,  at  which,  as  at  many  other  branches  of  learning,  he 
was  laboring  with  his  old  diligence.  Of  preferment  in  this 
province  there  was,  for  the  present,  little  or  no  hope;  but  this 
was  no  new  thing  with  Heyne.  By  degrees,  too,  his  fine 
talents  and  endeavors,  and  his  perverse  situation,  began  to 


LIFE  OF   IIEYXE.  829 

attrr.ct  notice  and  sympathy;  and  here  and  there  some  well- 
wisher  had  his  eye  on  him,  and  stood  ready  to  do  him  a  ser- 
vice. Two-and-twenty  years  of  penury  and  joyless  struggling 
had  now  passed  over  the  man  ;  how  many  more  such  might 
be  added  was  still  uncertain ;  yet  surely  the  longest  winter  is 
followed  by  a  spring. 

Another  trifling  incident,  little  better  than  that  old  "  pedan- 
tic adventure,"  again  brought  about  important  changes  in 
Heyne's  situation.  Among  liis  favorers  in  Leipzig  had  been 
the  preacher  of  a  French  chapel,  one  Lacoste,  who,  at  this 
time,  was  cut  off  by  death.  Heyne,  it  is  said,  in  the  real 
sorrow  of  his  heart,  composed  a  long  Latin  Epicedium  on  that 
occasion  :  the  poem  had  nowise  been  intended  for  the  press ; 
but  certain  hearers  of  the  deceased  were  so  pleased  with  it,  that 
they  had  it  printed,  and  this  in  the  finest  style  of  typography 
and  decoration.  It  was  this  latter  circumstance,  not  the  merit 
of  the  verses,  Avhich  is  said  to  have  been  considerable,  that 
attracted  the  attention  of  Count  Briihl,  the  well-known  prime 
minister  and  favorite  of  the  Elector.  Briihl's  sons  were  study- 
ing in  Leipzig;  he  was  pleased  to  express  himself  contented 
with  the  poem,  and  to  say  that  he  should  like  to  have  the 
author  in  his  service.  A  prime  minister's  words  are  not  as 
water  spilt  upon  the  ground,  which  cannot  be  gathered ;  but 
rather  as  heavenly  manna,  which  is  treasured  up  and  eaten, 
not  without  a  religious  sentiment.  Heyne  was  forthwith 
written  to  from  all  quarters,  that  his  fortune  was  made :  he 
had  but  to  show  himself  in  Dresden,  said  his  friends  with  one 
voice,  and  golden  showers  from  the  ministerial  cornucopia 
would  refresh  him  almost  to  saturation.  For,  was  not  the 
Count  taken  with  him ;  and  who  in  all  Saxony,  not  except- 
ing Serene  Highness  itself,  could  gainsay  the  Count?  Over- 
persuaded,  and  against  his  will,  Heyne  at  length  determined 
on  the  journey;  for  which,  as  an  indispensable  preliminary, 
*'  fifty-one  fhalers  "  had  to  be  borrowed ;  and  so,  following  this 
hopeful  quest,  he  actually  arrived  at  Dresden  in  April,  1752. 
Count  Briihl  received  him  with  the  most  captivating  smiles  ; 
and  even  assured  him  in  words,  that  he,  Count  Briihl,  would 
take  care  of  him.     But  a  prime  minister  has  so  much  to  take 


830         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

care  of !  Heyne  danced  attendance  all  spring  and  summer ; 
happier  than  our  Johnson,  inasmuch  as  he  had  not  to  "  blow 
his  fingers  in  a  cold  lobby,"  the  weather  being  warm ;  and 
obtained  not  only  promises,  but  useful  experience  of  their 
value  at  courts. 

He  was  to  be  made  a  secretary,  with  five  hundred,  with  four 
hundred,  or  even  with  three  hundred  thalers,  of  income  :  only, 
in  the  mean  while,  his  old  stock  of  fifty -one  had  quite  run  out, 
and  he  had  nothing  to  live  upon.  By  great  good  luck,  he 
procured  some  employment  in  his  old  craft,  private  teaching, 
which  helped  him  through  the  winter ;  but  as  this  ceased,  he 
remained  without  resources.  He  tried  working  for  the  book- 
sellers, and  translated  a  French  romance,  and  a  Greek  one, 
"  Chariton's  Loves  of  Chareas  and  Callirhoe :  "  however,  his 
emoluments  would  scarcely  furnish  him  with  salt,  not  to 
speak  of  victuals.  He  sold  his  few  books.  A  licentiate  in 
divinity,  one  Sonntag,  took  pity  on  his  houselessness,  and 
shared  a  garret  with  him  ;  where,  as  there  was  no  unoccupiel 
bed,  Heyne  slept  on  the  floor,  Avith  a  few  folios  for  his  pillow. 
So  fared  he  as  to  lodging  :  in  regard  to  board,  he  gathered 
empty  pease-cods,  and  had  them  boiled ;  this  was  not  unfre- 
quently  his  only  meal.  —  0  ye  poor  naked  wretches !  what 
would  Bishop  Watson  say  to  this?  —  At  length,  by  dint  of 
incredible  solicitations,  Heyne,  in  the  autumn  of  1753,  ob- 
tained, not  his  secretaryship,  but  the  post  of  under-clerk 
(coplst)  in  the  Briihl  Library,  with  one  hundred  thalers  of 
salary ;  a  sum  barely  sufficient  to  keep  in  life,  which,  indeed, 
was  now  a  great  point  with  him.  In  such  sort  was  this  young 
scholar  "  taken  care  of." 

Nevertheless,  it  was  under  these  external  circumstances 
that  he  first  entered  on  his  proper  career,  and  forcibly  made  a 
place  for  himself  among  the  learned  men  of  his  day.  In  1754 
he  prepared  his  edition  of  Tibullus,  which  Avas  printed  next 
year  at  Leipzig ;  ^  a  work  said  to  exhibit  remarkable  talent, 
inasmuch  as  "the  rudiments  of  all  tliose  excellences,  by  whicli 
Heyne  afterwards  became  distinguished  as  a  commentator  on 

'  Alhii  TilmlU  qufi'  erlnnl  Carmina,  novis  atris  castlgata.  lUustrissimo  Domino 
Henrico  Comiti  de  Briilu  inscripta.      Lipsiac,  1755. 


LIFE  OF   HEYNE.  331 

the  Classics,  are  more  or  less  apparent  in  it."  The  most  illus- 
trious Henry  Count  von  Briihl,  in  spite  of  the  dedication,  paid 
no  regard  to  this  Tibullus ;  as  indeed  Germany  at  large 
paid  little  :  but,  in  another  country,  it  fell  into  the  hands  of 
Ehuuken,  where  it  was  rightly  estimated,  and  lay  waiting,  as 
in  due  season  appeared,  to  be  the  pledge  of  better  fortune  for 
its  author. 

jNIeanwhile  the  day  of  difficulty  for  Heyne  was  yet  far  from 
past.  The  profits  of  his  Tibullus  served  to  cancel  some  debts ; 
on  the  strength  of  the  hundi-ed  thalers,  the  spindle  of  Clothe 
might  still  keep  turning,  though  languidly  ;  but,  ere  long,  new 
troubles  arose.  His  superior  in  the  Library  was  one  Rost,  a 
poetaster,  atheist,  and  gold-maker,  who  corrupted  his  religious 
principles,  and  plagued  him  with  caprices  :  over  the  former 
evil  Heyne  at  length  triumphed,  and  became  a  rational  Chris- 
tian ;  but  the  latter  Avas  an  abiding  grievance  :  not,  indeed, 
forever,  for  it  was  removed  by  a  greater.  In  1756  the  Seven- 
Years  War  broke  out;  Frederick  advanced  towards  Dresden, 
animated  with  especial  fury  against  Briihl ;  whose  palaces 
accordingly  in  a  few  months  were  reduced  to  ashes,  as  his 
70,000  splendid  volumes  were  annihilated  by  fire  and  by 
water,^  and  all  his  domestics  and  dependents  turned  to  the 
street  without  appeal. 

Heyne  had  lately  been  engaged  in  studying  Epictet-us,  and 
publishing,  ad  fidem  Codd.  Ilnspt.,  an  edition  of  his  Enchiri- 
dion ;  ^  from  which,  quoth  Heeren,  his  great  soul  had  acquired 
much  stoical  nourishment.  Such  nourishment  never  comes 
wrong  in  life  ;  and,  surel}-,  at  this  time  Heyne  had  need  of  it 
all.  However,  he  struggled  as  he  had  been  wont :  translated 
pampldcts,  sometimes  wrote  newspaper  articles  ;  eat  when  he 
had  wherewithal,  and  resolutely  endured  when  he  had  not. 
By  and  by,  Eabener,  to  whom  he  was  a  little  known,  offered 

1  One  rich  cargo,  on  its  way  to  Hamburg,  sank  in  tlie  Ell)e  ;  auotlier  still 
more  valuahle  portion  had  been,  for  safety,  deposited  in  a  vault ;  tlirougli 
wliich  jiassed  certain  j)ipcs  of  artificial  water-works  ;  these  the  cannon  broke, 
and  when  tliP:  vault  came  to  be  opened,  all  was  reduced  to  pulp  and  mould. 
The  bomb-shells  burnt  the  remainder. 

2  Lipsise,  1756.     The  Codices,  or  rather  the  Codex,  was  in  Bruhl's  Library. 


8S2        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

him  a  tutorship  in  the  family  of  a  Herr  von  Schonberg;  which 
Heyne,  not  without  reluctance,  accepted.  Tutorships  were  at 
all  times  his  aversion :  his  rugged  plebeian  proud  spirit  made 
business  of  that  sort  grievous :  but  Want  stood  over  him,  like 
an  armed  man,  and  was  not  to  be  reasoned  with. 

In  this  Schonberg  family,  a  novel  and  unexpected  series  of 
fortunes  awaited  him  ;  but  whether  for  weal  or  for  woe  might 
stiir  be  hard  to  determine.  The  name  of  Theresa  Weiss  has 
become  a  sort  of  classical  word  in  biography ;  her  union  with 
Heyne  forms,  as  it  were,  a  green  cypress-and-myrtle  oasis  in 
his  otherwise  hard  and  stony  history.  It  was  here  that  he 
first  met  with  her  ;  that  they  learned  to  love  each  other.  She 
was  the  orphan  of  a  "  professor  on  the  lute  ;  "  had  long,  amid 
poverty  and  afflictions,  been  trained,  like  the  stoics,  to  bear 
and  forbear ;  was  now  in  her  twenty -seventh  year,  and  the 
humble  companion,  as  she  had  once  been  the  schoolmate,  of 
the  Frau  von  Schonberg,  whose  young  brother  He^^ne  had 
come  to  teach.  Their  first  interview  may  be  described  in  his 
own  words,  which  Heeren  is  here  again  happily  enabled  to 
introduce  :  — 

"  It  was  on  the  10th  of  October  (her  future  death-day  !)  that 
I  first  entered  the  Schonberg  house.  Towards  what  mountains 
of  mischances  was  I  now  proceeding !  To  what  endless  tissues 
of  good  and  evil  hap  was  the  thread  here  taken  up !  Could  I 
fancy  that,  at  this  moment.  Providence  was  deciding  the  for- 
tune of  my  life  !  I  was  ushered  into  a  room,  where  sat  several 
ladies  engaged,  with  gay  youthful  sportiveness,  in  friendly 
confidential  talk.  Frau  von  Schonberg,  but  lately  married,  yet 
at  this  time  distant  from  her  husband,  was  preparing  for  a 
journey  to  him  at  Prague,  where  his  business  detained  him. 
On  her  brow  still  beamed  the  pure  innocence  of  youth ;  in  her 
eyes  you  saw  a  glad  soft  vernal  sky  ;  a  smiling  loving  complai- 
sance accompanied  her  discourse.  This  too  seemed  one  of 
those  souls,  clear  and  uncontaminated  as  they  come  from  the 
hands  of  their  Maker,  l^y  reason  of  her  brother,  in  her  ten- 
der love  of  him,  I  must  have  been  to  her  no  unimportant 
guest. 

"  Beside  her  stood  a  young  lady,  dignified  in  aspect,  of  fair, 


LIFE   OF  HEYNE.  333 

slender  shape,  not  regular  in  feature,  yet  soul  in  every  glance. 
Her  words,  her  looks,  her  every  movement,  impressed  you 
with  respect ;  another  sort  of  respect  than  what  is  paid  to 
rank  and  birth.  Good  sense,  good  feeling  disclosed  itself  in 
all  she  did.  You  forgot  that  more  beauty,  more  softness, 
might  have  been  demanded  ;  you  felt  yourself  under  the  influ- 
ence of  something  noble,  something  stately  and  earnest,  some- 
thing decisive  that  lay  in  her  look,  in  her  gestures ;  not  less 
attracted  to  her  than  compelled  to  reverence  her. 

"  More  than  esteem  the  fii-st  sight  of  Theresa  did  not  inspire 
me  with.  What  I  noticed  most  were  the  efforts  she  made  to 
relieve  my  embarrassment,  the  fruit  of  my  down-bent  pride, 
and  to  keep  me,  a  stranger,  entering  among  familiar  acquain- 
tances, in  easy  conversation.  Her  good  heart  reminded  her 
how  much  the  unfortunate  requires  encouragement ;  especially 
when  placed,  as  I  was,  among  those  to  whose  protection  he 
must  look  up.  Thus  was  my  first  kindness  for  her  awakened 
by  that  good-heartedness,  which  made  her  among  thousands  a 
beneficent  angel.  She  was  one  at  this  moment  to  myself  ;  for 
I  twice  received  letters  from  an  unknown  hand,  containing 
mone}^,  which  greatly  alleviated  my  difficulties. 

"  In  a  few  days,  on  the  14th  of  October,  I  commenced  my 
task  of  instruction.  Her  I  did  not  see  agaiu  till  the  following 
spring,  when  she  returned  with  her  friend  from  Prague ;  and 
then  only  once  or  twice,  as  she  soon  accouipanied  Frau  von 
Schonberg  to  the  country,  to  J^nsdorf  in  Oberlausitz  (Upper 
Lusatia).  They  left  us,  after  it  had  been  settled  that  I  was 
to  follow  them  in  a  few  days  with  my  pupil.  My  young 
heart  joyed  in  the  prospect  of  rural  pleasures,  of  wliich 
I  had,  from  of  old,  cherished  a  thousand  delightful  dreams. 
I  still  remember  the  6th  of  May,  when  we  set  out  for 
^'Ensdorf. 

"  Tlie  society  of  two  cultivated  females,  who  belonged  to  the 
noblest  of  their  sex,  and  tlie  endeavor  to  acquire  their  esteem, 
C(jntributed  to  form  my  own  character.  Xature  and  religion 
were  the  objects  of  my  daily  conteuiplatiun ;  I  began  to  act 
and  live  on  principles,  of  which,  till  now,  I  had  never  thought : 
these  too  formed  the  subject  of  our  constant  discourse.    Lovely 


334       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Nature  and  solitude  exalted  our  feelings  to  a  pitch  of  pious 
enthusiasm, 

"  Sooner  than  I,  Theresa  discovered  that  her  friendship  for 
me  was  growing  into  a  passion.  Her  natural  melancholy  now 
seized  her  heart  more  keenly  than  ever :  often  our  glad  hours 
were  changed  into  very  gloomy  and  sad  ones.  Whenever  our 
conversation  chanced  to  turn  on  religion  (she  was  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  faith),  I  observed  that  her  grief  became  more 
apparent.  I  noticed  her  redouble  her  devotions ;  and  some- 
times found  her  in  solitude  weeping  and  praying  with  such  a 
fulness  of  heart  as  I  had  never  seen." 

Theresa  and  her  lover,  or  at  least  beloved,  were  soon  sepa- 
rated, and  for  a  long  while  kept  much  asunder;  partly  by 
domestic  arrangements,  still  more  by  the  tumults  of  war. 
Heyne  attended  his  pupil  to  the  Wittenberg  University,  and 
lived  there  a  year ;  studying  for  his  own  behoof,  chiefly  in 
philosophy  and  German  history,  and  with  more  profit,  as  he 
says,  than  of  old.  Theresa  and  he  kept  up  a  correspondence, 
which  often  passed  into  melancholy  and  enthusiasm.  The 
Prussian  cannon  drove  him  out  of  Wittenberg :  his  piipil  and 
he  witnessed  the  bombardment  of  the  place  from  the  neigh- 
borhood ;  and,  having  waited  till  their  University  became  "  a 
heap  of  rubbish,"  had  to  retire  else-whither  for  accommodation. 
The  young  man  subsequently  went  to  Erlangen,  then  to  Got- 
tingen.  Heyne  remained  again  without  employment,  alone  in 
Dresden.  Theresa  was  living  in  his  neighborhood,  lovely  and 
sad  as  ever  ;  but  a  new  bombardment  drove  her  also  to  a  dis- 
tance. She  left  her  little  property  with  Heyne  ;  who  removed 
it  to  his  lodging,  and  determined  to  abide  the  Prussian  siege, 
having  indeed  no  other  resource.  The  sack  of  cities  looks  so 
well  on  paper,  that  we  must  find  a  little  space  here  for  Heyne's 
account  of  his  experience  in  this  business ;  though  it  is  none  of 
the  brightest  accounts ;  and  indeed  contrasts  bub  poorl}'  with 
liabener's  brisk  sarcastic  narrative  of  the  same  adventure ;  for 
he  too  was  cannonaded  out  of  Dresden  at  this  time,  and  lost 
liouse  and  home,  and  books  and  manuscripts,  and  all  but  good 
humor. 

"The  Prussians  advanced  meanwhile,  and  on  the  18th  of 


LIFE  OF  HEYNE.  335 

July  (1760)  the  bombardment  of  Dresden  began.  Several 
nights  I  passed,  in  company  with  others,  in  a  tavern,  and  the 
days  in  my  room  ;  so  that  I  could  hear  the  balls  from  the 
battery,  as  they  flew  through  the  streets,  whizzing  past  my 
windows.  An  indifference  to  danger  and  to  life  took  such 
possession  of  me,  that  on  the  last  morning  of  the  siege,  I  went 
early  to  bed,  and,  amid  the  frightfulest  crashing  of  bombs  and 
grenades,  fell  fast  asleep  of  fatigue,  and  lay  sound  till  mid- 
day. On  awakening,  I  huddled  on  my  clothes,  and  ran  dovv^n- 
stairs,  but  found  the  whole  house  deserted.  I  had  returned 
to  my  room,  considering  what  I  was  to  do,  whither,  at  all 
events,  I  was  to  take  my  chest,  when,  with  a  tremendous 
crash,  a  bomb  came  down  in  the  court  of  the  house ;  did  not, 
indeed,  set  fire  to  it,  but  on  all  sides  shattered  everything  to 
pieces.  The  thought,  that  where  one  bomb  fell,  more  would 
soon  follow,  gave  me  wings ;  I  darted  downstairs,  found  the 
house-door  locked,  ran  to  and  fro ;  at  last  got  entrance  into  one 
of  the  under  rooms,  and  sprang  through  the  window  into  the 
street. 

"  Empty  as  the  street  where  I  lived  had  been,  I  found  the 
principal  thoroughfares  crowded  with  fugitives.  Amidst  the 
whistling  of  balls,  I  ran  along  the  Schlossgasse  towards 
the  Elbe-Bridge,  and  so  forward  to  the  iSTeustadt,  out  of  which 
the  Prussians  had  now  been  forced  to  retreat.  Glad  that  I 
had  leave  to  rest  anywhere,  I  passed  one  part  of  the  night 
on  the  floor  of  an  empty  house  ;  the  other,  witnessing  the 
frio^htful  light  of  flying  bombs  and  a  burning  city. 

"  At  break  of  day,  a  little  postern  was  opened  by  the  A  us- 
trian  guard,  to  let  the  fugitives  get  out  of  the  walls.  The 
captain,  in  his  insolence,  called  the  people  Lutheran  dogs,  and 
with  this  nickname  gave  each  of  us  a  stroke  as  we  passed 
through  the  gate. 

"  I  was  now  at  large  ;  and  the  thought,  "Whither  bound  ? 
began  for  the  first  time  to  employ  me.  As  I  had  run,  indeed 
leapt  from  my  house,  in  the  night  of  terror,  I  had  carried  with 
me  no  particle  of  my  property,  and  not  a  grosrJu'n  of  money. 
Only  in  liurryiug  along  the  street,  I  had  chanced  to  see  a 
tavern  open ;  it  was  an  Italian's,  where  I  used  to  pass  the 


336        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

nights.  Here  espying  a  fur  cloak,  I  had  picked  it  up,  and 
thrown  it  about  me.  With  this  I  walked  along,  in  one  of  the 
sultriest  days,  from  the  Neustadt,  over  the  sand  and  the  moor, 
and  took  the  road  for  ^nsdorf,  where  Theresa  with  her  friend 
was  staying ;  the  mother-in-law  of  the  latter  being  also  on  a 
visit  to  them.  In  the  fiercest  heat  of  the  sun,  through  tracts 
of  country  silent  and  deserted,  I  walked  four  leagues  to 
Bischofswerda,  where  I  had  to  sleep  in  an  inn  among  carriers. 
Towards  midnight  arrived  a  postilion  with  return-horses ;  I 
asked  him  to  let  me  ride  one ;  and  with  him  I  proceeded,  till 
my  road  turned  off  from  the  highway.  All  day,  I  heard  the 
shots  at  poor  Dresden  re-echoing  in  the  hills. 

"  Curiosity  at  first  made  my  reception  at  jiEnsdorf  very 
warm.  But  as  I  came  to  appear  in  the  character  of  an  alto- 
gether destitute  man,  the  family  could  see  in  me  only  a  future 
burden :  no  invitation  to  continue  with  them  followed.  In  a 
few  days  came  a  chance  of  conveyance,  by  a  wagon  for  Neu- 
stadt,  to  a  certain  Frau  von  Fletscher's  a  few  miles  on  this 
side  of  it  j  I  was  favored  with  some  old  linen  for  the  road. 
The  good  Theresa  suffered  unspeakably  under  these  pro- 
ceedings :  the  noble  lady,  her  friend,  had  not  been  allowed  to 
act  according  to  the  dictates  of  her  own  heart. 

"Not  till  now  did  I  feel  wholly  how  miserable  I  was. 
Spurning  at  destiny,  and  hardening  my  heart,  I  entered  on 
this  journey.  With  the  Frau  von  Fletscher  too  my  abode  was 
brief ;  and  by  the  first  opportunity  I  returned  to  Dresden. 
There  was  still  a  possibility  that  my  lodging  might  have  been 
saved.  With  heavy  heart  I  entered  the  city ;  hastened  to  the 
place  where  1  had  lived,  and  found  —  a  heap  of  ashes."' 

Heyne  took  up  his  quarters  in  the  vacant  rooms  of  the 
Briihl  Library.  Some  friends  endeavored  to  alleviate  his  dis- 
tress ;  but  war  and  rumors  of  war  continued  to  harass  him, 
and  drive  him  to  and  fro  ;  and  his  Theresa,  afterwards  also  a 
fugitive,  was  now  as  poor  as  himself.  She  heeded  little  the 
loss  of  her  property ;  but  inward  sorrow  and  so  many  outward 
agitations  preyed  hard  upon  her ;  in  the  winter  she  fell  vio- 
lently sick  at  Dresden,  was  given  up  by  her  physicians  ;  re- 
ceived extreme  unction  according  to  the  rites  of  her  church ; 


LIFE  OF  HEYNE.  337 

and  was  for  some  hours  believed  to  be  dead.  N'ature,  how- 
ever, again  prevailed :  a  crisis  had  occurred  in  the  mind  as 
well  as  in  the  body ;  for  with  her  first  returning  strenf^th 
Theresa  declared  her  determination  to  renounce  the  Catholic 
and  publicly  embrace  the  Protestant  faith.  Argument,  rep- 
resentation of  worldly  disgrace  and  loss  were  unavailing :  she 
could  now,  that  all  her  friends  were  to  be  estranged,  have 
little  hope  of  being  wedded  to  Heyne  on  earth;  but  she 
trusted  that  in  another  scene  a  like  creed  might  unite  them 
in  a  like  destiny.  He  himself  fell  ill ;  and  only  escaped  death 
by  her  nursing.  Persisting  the  more  in  her  purpose,  she  took 
priestly  instruction,  and  on  the  30th  of  May,  in  the  Evan- 
gelical Schlosskirche,  solemnly  professed  her  new  creed. 

"  Eeverent  admiration  filled  me,"  says  he,  ''  as  I  beheld  the 
peace  and  steadfastness  with  which  she  executed  her  deter- 
mination ;  and  still  more  the  courage  with  which  she  bore  the 
consequences  of  it.  She  saw  herself  altogether  cast  out  from 
her  family  ;  forsaken  by  her  acquaintance,  by  every  one;  and 
by  the  lire  deprived  of  all  she  had.  Her  courage  exalted  me 
to  a  higher  duty,  and  admonished  me  to  do  mine.  Imprudently 
I  had,  in  former  conversations,  first  awakened  her  religious 
scruples  ;  the  passion  for  me,  which  had  so  much  increased 
her  enthusiasm,  increased  her  melancholy ;  even  the  secret 
tliought  of  belonging  more  closely  to  me  by  sameness  of  belief 
had  unconsciously  influenced  her.  In  a  word,  I  formed  the 
determination  which  could  not  but  expose  me  to  universal 
censure :  helpless  as  I  was,  I  united  my  destiny  with  hers. 
"We  were  wedded  at  .^Ensdorf,  on  the  4th  of  June,  1761." 

This  was  a  bold  step,  but  a  right  one  :  Theresa  had  now  no 
stay  but  him  ;  it  behooved  them  to  struggle,  and  if  better 
might  not  bo,  to  sink  together.  Theresa,  in  this  nari'ative, 
appears  to  us  a  noble,  interesting  being ;  noble  not  in  senti- 
ment only,  but  in  action  and  suffering ;  a  fair  flower  trodd"u 
down  by  misfortune,  but  yielding,  like  flowers,  only  the  sweeter 
perfume  for  being  crushed,  and  which  it  would  have  been  a 
blessedness  to  raise  up  and  cherish  into  free  growth.  Yet,  in 
plain  prose,  we  nuist  question  whether  the  two  were  happier 
than  others  in  their  union:  l>oth  were  quick  of  temper;  she 
VOL.  XIII.  L*2 


338         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

•was  all  a  heavenly  light,  he  in  good  part  a  hard  terrestrial 
mass,  which  perhaps  she  could  never  wholly  illuminate ;  the 
balance  of  the  love  seems  to  have  lain  much  on  her  side. 
Nevertheless  Heyne  was  a  steadfast,  true  and  kindly,  if  no 
ethereal  man  ;  he  seems  to  have  loved  his  wife  honestly ;  and 
so,  amid  light  and  shadow,  they  made  their  pilgrimage  together, 
if  not  better  than  other  mortals,  not  worse,  which  was  to  have 
been  feared. 

Neither,  for  the  present,  did  the  pressure  of  distress  weigh 
heavier  on  either  than  it  had  done  before.  He  worked  dili- 
gently, as  he  found  scope,  for  his  old  Maecenases,  the  Book- 
sellers ;  the  war-clouds  grew  lighter,  or  at  least  the  young  pair 
better  used  to  them ;  friends  also  were  kind,  often  assisting 
and  hospitably  entertaining  them.  On  occasion  of  one  such 
visit  to  the  family  of  a  Herr  von  Liiben,  there  occurred  a  little 
trait,  which  for  the  sake  of  Theresa  must  not  be  omitted. 
Heyne  and  she  had  spent  some  happy  weeks  with  their  infant, 
in  this  country-house,  when  the  alarm  of  war  drove  the  Von 
Lbbens  from  their  residence,  which  with  the  management  of 
its  concerns  they  left  to  Heyne.  He  says,  he  gained  some  no- 
tion of  "  land-economy  "  hereby ;  and  Heeren  states  that  he  had 
"  a  candle-manufactory  "  to  oversee.     But  to  our  incident :  — 

"  Soon  after  the  departure  of  the  family,  there  came  upon 
us  an  irruption  of  Cossacks,  —  disguised  Prussians,  as  we  sub- 
sequently learned.  After  drinking  to  intoxication  in  the 
cellars,  they  set  about  plundering.  Pursued  by  them,  I  ran 
upstairs,  and  no  door  being  open  but  that  of  the  room  where 
my  wife  was  with  her  infant,  I  rushed  into  it.  She  arose 
courageously,  and  placed  herself,  with  the  child  on  her  arm, 
in  the  door  against  the  robbers.  This  courage  saved  me,  and 
the  treasure  which  lay  hidden  in  the  chamber." 

"  0  thou  lioness  ! "  said  Attila  Schmelzle,  on  occasion  of  a 
similar  rescue,  "  why  hast  thou  never  been  in  any  deadly  peril, 
that  I  might  show  thee  the  lion  in  thy  husband  ?  " 

But  better  days  were  dawning.  "  On  our  return  to  Dres- 
den," says  Heyne,  "I  learned  that  inquiries  had  been  made 
after  me  from  Hanover ;  I  knew  not  for  what  reason."  The 
reason  by  and  by  came  to  light.     Gessner,  Professor  of  Elo- 


LIFE  OF  HEYNE.  839 

qiience  in  Gottingen,  was  dead ;  and  a  successor  was  wanted. 
These  things,  it  would  appear,  cause  difficulties  in  Hanover, 
which  in  many  other  places  are  little  felt.  But  the  Prime 
Minister  Miinchhausen  had  as  good  as  founded  the  Georgia 
Augusta  himself ;  and  he  was  wont  to  watch  over  it  with  sin- 
gular anxiety.  The  noted  and  notorious  Klotz  was  already 
there,  as  assistant  to  Gessner ;  "  but  his  beautiful  latinity," 
says  Heeren,  "  did  not  dazzle  Miinchhausen ;  Klotz,  with  his 
pugnacity,  was  not  thought  of."  The  Minister  applied  to 
Ernesti  for  advice  :  Ernesti  knew  of  no  fit  man  in  German}^ ; 
but  recommended  Ehunken  of  Leyden,  or  Saxe  of  Utrecht. 
Ehunken  refused  to  leave  his  country,  and  added  these  words : 
"  But  why  do  you  seek  out  of  Germany,  what  Germany  itself 
offers  you  ?  "Why  not,  for  Gessner's  successor,  take  Christian 
Gottlob  Heyne,  that  true  pupil  of  Ernesti,  and  man  of  fine 
talent  (excellenti  virum  ingenio),  who  has  shown  how  much  he 
knows  of  Latin  literature  by  his  Tibullus ;  of  Greek,  by  his 
Epictetus  ?  In  my  opinion,  and  that  of  the  greatest  Hem- 
sterhuis  (ITemsterhusii  tou  ttuvv),  Heyne  is  the  only  one  that 
can  replace  your  Gessner.  Nor  let  any  one  tell  me  that  Heyne's 
fame  is  not  sufficiently  illustrious  and  extended.  Believe  me, 
there  is  in  this  man  such  a  richness  of  genius  and  learning, 
that  ere  long  all  Europe  will  ring  with  his  praises." 

This  courageous  and  generous  verdict  of  Ehunken's.  in  favor 
of  a  person  as  yet  little  known  to  the  world,  and  to  him  known 
only  by  his  writings,  decided  the  matter.  "Miinchhausen," 
says  our  Heeren,  "  believed  in  the  boldly  prophesying  man." 
Not  without  difficulty  Heyne  was  unearthed  ;  and  after  various 
excuses  on  account  of  competence  on  his  part,  —  for  he  had  lost 
all  his  books  and  papers  in  the  siege  of  Dresden,  and  sadly  for- 
gotten his  Latin  and  Greek  in  so  many  tumults,  —  and  various 
livuilential  negotiations  about  dismission  from  the  Saxon  ser- 
vice, and  salary  and  privilege  in  the  Hanoverian,  he  at  length 
formally  received  his  appointment ;  and  some  three  months 
after,  in  June,  17G3,  settled  in  Gottingen,  with  an  official  in- 
come of  eight  hundred  thnlers ;  \vhich,  it  appears,  Avas  by 
several  additions,  in  the  course  of  time,  increased  to  twelve 
hundred. 


340        CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Here  then  had  Heyne  at  last  got  to  land.  His  long  life  was 
henceforth  as  quiet,  and  fruitful  in  activity  and  comfort,  as 
the  past  period  of  it  had  been  desolate  and  full  of  sorrows. 
He  never  left  Gottingen,  though  frequently  invited  to  do  so, 
and  sometimes  with  highly  tempting  offers ;  ^  but  continued  in 
his  place,  busy  in  his  vocation ;  growing  in  influence,  in  extent 
of  connection  at  home  and  abroad ;  till  Rhunken's  prediction 
might  almost  be  reckoned  fulfilled  to  the  letter ;  for  Heyne  in 
his  own  department  was  without  any  equal  in  Europe. 

However,  his  history  from  this  point,  even  because  it  was 
so  happy  for  himself,  must  lose  most  of  its  interest  for  the 
general  reader.  Heyne  has  now  become  a  Professor,  and  a 
regularly  progressive  man  of  learning ;  has  a  fixed  household, 
has  rents  and  comings  in ;  it  is  easy  to  fancy  how  that  man 
might  flourish  in  calm  sunshine  of  prosperity,  whom  in  adver- 
sity we  saw  growing  in  spite  of  every  storm.  Of  his  proceed- 
ings in  Gottingen,  his  reform  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Sciences, 
his  editing  of  the  Gelehrte  Anzeigen  {Gazette  of  Learning),  his 
exposition  of  the  Classics  from  Virgil  to  Pindar,  his  remodel- 
ling of  the  Library,  his  passive  quarrels  with  Voss,  his  armed 
neutrality  with  Michaelis  ;  of  all  this  we  must  say  little.  The 
best  fruit  of  his  endeavors  lies  before  the  world,  in  a  long 
series  of  Works,  which  among  us,  as  well  as  elsewhere,  are 
known  and  justly  appreciated.  On  looking  over  them,  the 
first  thing  that  strikes  us  is  astonishment  at  Heyne's  diligence ; 
which,  considering  the  quantity  and  quality  of  his  writings, 
niiglit  have  appeared  singular  even  in  one  who  had  been  with- 
out other  duties.  Yet  Heyne's  office  involved  him  in  the  most 
laborious  researches  :  he  wrote  letters  by  the  hundred  to  all 
parts  of  the  world,  and  on  all  conceivable  subjects ;  he  had 
three  classes  to  teach  daily  ;  he  appointed  professors,  for  his 
recommendation  was  all-powerful ;  superintended  schools ;  for  a 

1  He  was  invited  successively  to  be  Professor  at  C.ossel,  and  at  Kloster- 
bergeu;  to  be  Librarian  at  Dresden;  and,  most  flattering  of  all,  to  be  Pro- 
kunzler  in  the  University  of  Copenliageu,  and  virtual  Director  of  Education 
over  all  T^enmark.  He  had  a  struggle  on  tiiis  last  occasion,  but  the  Georgia 
Augusta  again  prevailed.  Some  increase  of  salary  usually  follows  such  re- 
luails  ;  it  d.d  i:ot  in  this  iiistauce. 


LIFE   OF   HEYNE.  841 

long  time  the  inspectiofa  of  the  Freitische  was  laid  on  him,  and 
he  had  cooks'  bills  to  settle,  and  hungry  students  to  satisfy 
with  his  purveyance.  Besides  all  which,  he  accomplished,  in 
the  way  of  publication,  as  follows :  — 

In  addition  to  his  Tibullus  and  Epictetus,  the  first  of  which 
went  through  three,  the  second  through  two  editions,  each 
time  with  large  extensions  and  improvements  :  — 

His  Virgil  (P.  Virgilius  Maro  Varietate  Lectionis  et  per- 
petiid  Annotatione  illustratus),  in  various  forms,  from  1767  to 
1803 ;  no  fewer  than  six  editions. 

His  Pliny  (^Ex  C.  Plin^ii  Secun^di  Historid  Naturali  excerpta, 
quce  ad  Artes  spectani)  ;  two  editions,  1790,  1811. 

His  Apollodorus  (Apollodori  Atheniensis  Bibliothecce  Libri 
tres,  &c.) ;  two  editions,  1787,  1803. 

His  Pindar  (Pin^dari  Carmlna,  cum  Lectionis  Varietate, 
curavit  Ch.  G.  H.) ;  three  editions,  1774,  1797,  1798,  the  last 
with  the  Scholia,  the  Fragments,  a  Translation,  and  Hermann's 
Inq.  De  Metris. 

His  Conon  and  Parthenius  (Con-qnis  Narrationes,  et  Par- 
THEXii  Narrationes  atnatoria'),  1798. 

And  lastly  his  Homer  (Homeki  Ilias,  cum  hrevi  Annotatione)  ; 
8  volumes,  1802 ;  and  a  second,  contracted  edition,  in  2  vol- 
umes, 1804. 

Next,  almost  a  cart-load  of  Translations ;  of  which  we  shall 
mention  only  his  version,  said  to  be  with  very  important  im- 
provements, of  our  Universal  History  by  Guthrie  and  Gray. 

Then  some  ten  or  twelve  thick  volumes  of  Prolusions,  Eulo- 
gies, Essays ;  treating  of  all  subjects,  from  the  French  Direc- 
torate to  the  Chest  of  Cypselus.  Of  these.  Six  Volumes  are 
known  in  a  separate  shape,  under  the  title  of  Opuscula  ;  and 
contain  some  of  Heyne's  most  valuable  writings. 

And  lastly,  to  crown  the  whole  with  one  most  surprising 
item,  seven  thousand  five  hundred  (Heeren  says  from  seven  to 
eight  thousand)  Reviews  of  Books,  in  the  Gcittingen  Gclchrte 
Anzeigen.  Shame  on  us  degenerate  Editors !  Here  of  itself 
was  work  for  a  lifetime  ! 

To  expect  that  elegance  of  composition  should  prevail  in 
these  multifarious  performances  were  unreasonable  enough. 


342         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Heyne  wrote  very  indifferent  German ;  and  his  Latin,  by  much 
the  more  common  vehicle  in  his  learned  works,  flowed  from 
him  with  a  copiousness  which  could  not  be  Ciceronian.  At 
the  same  time,  these  volumes  are  not  the  folios  of  a  Mont- 
faucon,  not  mere  classical  ore  and  slag,  but  regularly  smelted 
metal;  for  most  part  exhibiting  the  essence,  and  only  the 
essence,  of  very  great  research ;  and  enlightened  by  a  philoso- 
phy which,  if  it  does  not  always  wisely  order  its  results,  has 
looked  far  and  deeply  in  collecting  them. 

To  have  performed  so  much,  evinces  on  the  part  of  Heyne 
no  little  mastership  in  the  great  art  of  husbanding  time. 
Heeren  gives  us  sufficient  details  on  this  subject;  explains 
Heyne's  adjustment  of  his  hours  and  various  occupations :  how 
he  rose  at  five  o'clock,  and  worked  all  the  day,  and  all  the 
year,  with  the  regularity  of  a  steeple  clock  ;  nevertheless,  how 
patiently  he  submitted  to  interruptions  from  strangers,  or 
extraneous  business ;  how  briefly,  yet  smoothly,  he  contrived 
to  despatch  such  interruptions;  how  his  letters  were  indorsed 
when  they  came  to  hand ;  and  lay  in  a  special  drawer  till  they 
were  answered :  nay  we  have  a  description  of  his  whole  "  local- 
ity," his  bureau  and  book-shelves  and  portfolios,  his  very  bed 
and  strong-box  are  not  forgotten.  To  the  busy  man,  especially 
the  busy  man  of  letters,  these  details  are  far  from  uninterest- 
ing; if  we  judged  by  the  result,  many  of  Heyne's  arrangements 
might  seem  worthy  not  of  notice  only,  but  of  imitation. 

His  domestic  circumstances  continued,  on  the  whole,  highly 
favorable  for  such  activity;  though  not  now  more  than  for- 
merly were  they  exempted  from  the  common  lot ;  but  still  had 
several  hard  changes  to  encounter.  In  1775  he  lost  his  The- 
resa, after  long  ill-health ;  an  event  which,  stoic  as  he  was, 
struck  heavily  and  dolefully  on  his  heart.  He  forbore  not  to 
shed  some  natural  tears,  though  from  eyes  little  used  to  the 
melting  mood.  Nine  days  after  her  death,  he  thus  writes  to 
a  friend,  with  a  solemn  mournful  tenderness,  which  none  of  us 
will  deny  to  be  genuine  :  — 

•'*  I  have  looked  upon  the  grave  that  covers  the  remains  of 
my  Theresa :  what  a  thousand-fold  pang,  beyond  the  pitch  of 
human  feeling,  pierced  through  my  soul !     How  did  my  limbs 


LIFE  OF  HEYNE.  343 

tremble  as  I  approached  this  holy  spot !  Here,  then,  reposes 
what  is  left  of  the  dearest  that  Heaven  gave  me ;  among  the 
dust  of  her  four  children  she  sleeps.  A  sacred  horror  covered 
the  place.  I  should  have  sunk  altogether  in  my  sorrow,  had 
it  not  been  for  my  two  daughters  that  were  standing  on  the 
outside  of  the  churchyard;  I  saw  their  faces  over  the  wall, 
directed  to  me  with  anxious  fear.  This  called  me  to  myself ; 
I  hastened  in  sadness  from  the  spot  where  I  could  have  con- 
tinued forever ;  where  it  cheered  me  to  think  that  one  day  I 
should  rest  by  her  side ;  rest  from  all  the  carking  care,  from 
all  the  griefs  which  so  often  have  embittered  to  me  the  enjoy- 
ment of  life.  Alas !  among  these  griefs  must  I  reckon  even 
her  love,  the  strongest,  truest,  that  ever  inspired  the  heart  of 
woman,  which  made  me  the  happiest  of  mortals,  and  yet  was 
a  fountain  to  me  of  a  thousand  distresses,  inquietudes  and 
cares.  To  entire  cheerfulness  perhaps  she  never  attained ;  but 
for  what  unspeakable  sweetness,  for  what  exalted  enrapturing 
joys,  is  not  Love  indebted  to  Sorrow !  Amidst  gnawing  anxie- 
ties, with  the  torture  of  anguish  in  my  heart,  I  have  been  made 
even  by  the  love  which  caused  me  this  anguish,  these  anx- 
ieties, inexpressibly  happy !  When  tears  flowed  over  our 
cheeks,  did  not  a  nameless,  seldom-felt  delight  stream  through 
my  breast,  o})pressed  equally  by  joy  and  by  sorrow  !  " 

But  Heyne  was  not  a  man  to  brood  over  past  griefs,  or  lin- 
ger long  where  nothing  was  to  be  done  but  mourn.  In  a  short 
time,  according  to  a  good  old  plan  of  his,  having  reckoned  up 
his  grounds  of  sorrow,  he  faiiiy  wrote  down  on  paper,  over 
against  them,  his  "  grounds  of  consolation  ;  "  concluding  with 
these  pious  words,  ''  So  for  all  these  sorrows  too,  these  trials, 
do  I  thank  thee,  my  God  !  And  now,  glorified  friend,  will  I 
again  turn  nie  with  undivided  heart  to  my  duty ;  thou  thyself 
sniilest  approval  on  me !  "  i^ay,  it  was  not  many  months 
before  a  new  marriage  came  on  the  anvil;  in  which  matter, 
truly,  He^'ne  conducted  himself  with  the  most  philosophic 
indiiference ;  leaving  his  friends,  by  whom  the  project  had 
been  started,  to  bring  it  to  what  issue  they  pleased.  It  was  a 
scheme  concerted  by  Zimmermann  (the  author  of  Solitude,  a 
man  little  known  to  Heyne),  and  one  lieich  a  Leipzig  Book- 


344       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

seller,  who  had  met  at  the  Pyrmont  Baths.  Brandes,  the 
Hanoverian  Minister,  successor  of  IMuuchhaiisen  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  University  concerns,  was  there  also  with  a 
daughter;  upon  her  the  projectors  cast  their  eye,  Heyne, 
being  consulted,  seems  to  have  comported  himself  like  clay  in 
the  hands  of  the  potter ;  father  and  fair  one,  in  like  manner, 
were  of  a  compliant  humor,  and  thus  was  the  business  achieved  ; 
and  on  the  9th  of  April,  1777,  Heyne  could  take  home  a  bride, 
won  with  less  difficulty  than  most  men  have  in  choosing  a 
pair  of  boots.  Nevertheless,  she  proved  an  excellent  wife  to 
him ;  kept  his  house  in  the  cheerfulest  order ;  managed  her 
step-children  and  her  own  like  a  true  mother ;  and  loved,  and 
faithfully  assisted  her  husband  in  whatever  he  undertook.^ 
Considered  in  his  private  relations,  such  a  man  might  well 
reckon  himself  fortunate. 

In  addition  to  Heyne's  claims  as  a  scholar  and  teacher, 
Heeren  would  hav3  us  regard  him  as  an  unusually  expert  man 
of  business  and  negotiator ;  for  which  line  of  life  he  himself 
seems,  indeed,  to  have  thought  that  his  talent  was  more  pecul- 
iarly fitted.  In  proof  of  this,  we  have  long  details  of  his 
procedure  in  managing  the  Library,  the  Royal  Society,  the 
University  generally,  and  his  incessant  and  often  rather  com- 
plex correspondence  with  Miinchhausen,  Brandes,  or  other 
ministers  who  presided  over  this  department.  Without  de- 
tracting from  Heyne's  skill  in  such  matters,  what  struck  us 
more  in  this  narrative  of  Heeren's  was  the  singular  contrast 
which  the  "  Georgia  Aiigusta,"  in  its  interior  arrangement,  as 
well  as  its  external  relations  to  the  Government,  exhibits  with 
our  own  Universities,  The  prime  minister  of  the  country 
writes  thrice  weekly  to  the  director  of  an  institution  for  learn- 
ing !  He  oversees  all ;  knows  the  character,  not  only  of  every 
professor,  but  of  every  pupil  that  gives  any  pi-omise.  He  is 
continually  purchasing  books,  drawings,  models ;  treating  for 
this  or  the  other  help  or  advantage  to  the  establishment.  He 
has  his  eye  over  all  Germany  ;  and  nowhere  does  a  man  of  any 
decided  talent  show  himself,  but  he  strains  every  nerve  to 
acquire  him.  And  seldom  even  can  he  succeed ;  for  the  Hano- 
verian assiduity  seems  nothing  singular ;  every  state  in  Ger- 


LIFE   OF   EEYXE.  845 

many  has  its  minister  for  education,  as  well  as  Hanover. 
They  correspon.l,  they  inquire,  they  negotiate;  everywhere 
there  seems  a  canvassing,  less  for  places  than  for  the  best  men 
to  fill  them.  Heyne  himself  has  his  Seminarium,  a  private 
class  of  the  nine  most  distinguished  students  in  the  University ; 
these  he  trains  with  all  diligence,  and  is  in  due  time  most 
probably  enabled,  by  his  connections,  to  place  in  stations  lit 
for  them.  A  hundred  and  thirty-five  professors  are  said  to 
have  been  sent  from  this  Seminarium  during  his  presidency. 
These  things  we  state  without  commentary :  we  believe  that 
the  experience  of  all  English  and  Scotch  and  Irish  University- 
men  will,  of  itself,  furnish  one.  The  state  of  education  in 
Germany,  and  the  structure  of  the  establishments  for  conduct- 
ing it,  seems  to  us  one  of  the  most  promising  inquiries  that 
could  at  this  moment  be  entered  on. 

But  to  return  to  Heyne.  We  have  said,  that  in  his  private 
circumstances  he  might  reckon  himself  fortunate.  His  public 
relations,  on  a  more  splendid  scale,  continued,  to  the  last,  to 
be  of  the  same  happy  sort.  By  degrees,  he  had  risen  to  be, 
both  in  name  and  office,  the  chief  man  of  his  establishment; 
his  character  stood  high  with  the  learned  of  all  countries ;  and 
the  best  fruit  of  external  reputation,  increased  respect  in  his 
own  circle,  was  not  denied  to  him.  The  burghers  of  Gottingen, 
so  fond  of  their  University,  could  not  but  be  proud  of  Heyne ; 
nay,  as  the  time  passed  on,  they  found  themselves  laid  under 
more  than  one  specific  obligation  to  him.  He  remodelled  and 
reanimated  their  Gymnasium  (Town-School),  as  he  had  before 
done  that  of  Ilfeld ;  and  what  was  still  more  important,  in  the 
rude  times  of  the  French  War,  by  his  skilful  application,  he 
succeeded  in  procuring  from  Napoleon,  not  only  a  protection 
for  the  University,  but  immunity  from  hostile  invasion  for 
the  whole  district  it  stands  in.  Nay,  so  happily  were  matters 
managed,  or  so  happily  did  they  turn  of  their  own  accord,  that 
Gottingen  rather  gained  than  suffered  by  the  War :  under 
Jerome  of  Westphalia,  not  only  were  all  benefices  punctually 
paid,  but  improvements  even  were  effected  ;  among  other 
things,  a  new  and  very  handsome  extension,  which  had  long 
been  desired,  was  built  for  the  Library,  at  the  charge  of  Gov- 


S46         CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ernment.  To  all  these  claims  for  public  regard,  add  Heyne's 
now  venerable  age,  and  we  can  fancy  how,  among  his  towns- 
men and  fellow-collegians,  he  must  have  been  cherished,  nay 
almost  worshipped.  Already  had  the  magistracy,  by  a  special 
act,  freed  him  from  all  public  assessments  ;  but  in  1809,  on  his 
eightieth  birthday,  came  a  still  more  emphatic  testimony ;  for 
Kitter  Franz,  and  all  the  public  Boards,  and  the  Faculties  in 
corpore,  came  to  him  in  procession  with  good  wishes ;  and 
students  reverenced  him  ;  and  young  ladies  sent  him  garlands, 
stitched  together  by  their  own  fair  fingers ;  in  short,  Gottingen 
was  a  place  of  jubilee ;  and  good  old  Heyne,  who  nowise 
affected,  yet  could  not  dislike  these  things,  was  among  the 
happiest  of  men. 

In  another  respect  we  must  also  reckon  him  fortunate  :  that 
he  lived  till  he  had  completed  all  his  undertakings  ;  and  then 
departed  peacefully,  and  without  sickness,  from  which,  indeed, 
his  whole  life  had  been  remarkably  free.  Three  months  before 
his  death,  in  April,  1812,  he  saw  the  last  Volume  of  his  Works 
in  print ;  and  rejoiced,  it  is  said,  with  an  affecting  thankful- 
ness, that  so  much  had  been  granted  him.  Length  of  life  was 
not  now  to  be  hoped  for ;  neither  did  Heyne  look  forward  to 
the  end  with  apprehension.  His  little  German  verses,  and 
Latin  translations,  composed  in  sleepless  nights,  at  this  ex- 
treme period,  are,  to  us,  by  far  the  most  touching  part  of  his 
poetry;  so  melancholy  is  the  spirit  of  them,  yet  so  mild; 
solemn,  not  without  a  shade  of  sadness,  yet  full  of  pious  resig- 
nation. At  length  came  the  end;  soft  and  gentle  as  his 
mother  could  have  wished  it  for  him.  The  11th  of  July  was 
a  public  day  in  the  Royal  Society ;  Heyne  did  his  part  in  it ; 
spoke  at  large,  and  with  even  more  clearness  and  vivacity 
than  usual. 

"Next  day,"  says  Heeren,  "was  Sunday:  I  saw  him  in  the 
evening  for  the  last  time.  He  was  resting  in  his  chair,  ex- 
hausted by  the  fatigue  of  yesterday.  On  Monday  morning,  he 
once  more  entered  his  class-room,  and  held  his  Seminarium. 
In  the  afternoon  he  prepared  his  letters,  domestic  as  well 
as  foreign ;  among  the  latter,  one  on  business ;  sealed  them 
all   but  one,  written  in   Latin,  to    Professor   Thorlacius  in 


LIFE  OF  HEYNE.  847 

Copenhagen,  which  I  found  open,  but  finished,  on  his  desk. 
At  supper  (none  but  his  elder  daughter  was  with  him)  he 
talked  cheerfully ;  and,  at  his  usual  time,  retired  to  rest.  In 
the  night,  the  servant  girl,  that  slept  under  his  apartment,  heard 
him  walking  up  and  down ;  a  common  practice  with  him  when 
he  could  not  sleep.  However,  he  had  again  gone  to  bed.  Soon 
after  five,  he  arose,  as  usual ;  he  joked  with  the  girl  when  she 
asked  him  how  he  had  been  overnight.  She  left  him,  to  make 
ready  his  coffee,  as  was  her  wont ;  and,  returning  with  it  in  a 
short  quarter  of  an  hour,  she  found  him  sunk  down  before  his 
washing-stand,  close  by  his  work-table.  His  hands  were  wet ; 
at  the  moment  when  he  had  been  washing  them,  had  death 
taken  him  into  his  arms.  One  breath  more,  and  he  ceased  to 
live  :  when  the  hastening  doctor  opened  a  vein,  no  blood  would 
flow." 

Heyne  was  interred  with  all  public  solemnities :  and,  in 
epicedial  language,  it  may  be  said,  without  much  exaggera- 
tion, that  his  country  mourned  for  him.  At  Chemnitz,  his 
birthplace,  there  assembled,  under  constituted  authority,  a 
grand  meeting  of  the  magnates,  to  celebrate  his  memory;  the 
old  school-album,  in  which  the  little  ragged  boy  had  inscribed 
his  name,  was  produced  ;  grandiloquent  speeches  were  deliv- 
ered ;  and  "  in  the  afternoon,  many  hundreds  went  to  see  the 
poor  cottage  "  where  his  father  had  weaved,  and  he  starved 
and  learned.     How  generous ! 

To  estimate  Heyne's  intellectual  character,  to  fix  accurately 
his  rank  and  merits  as  a  critic  and  philologer,  we  cannot  but 
consider  as  beyond  our  province,  and  at  any  rate  superfluous 
here.  By  the  general  consent  of  the  learned  in  all  countries, 
he  seems  to  be  acknowledged  as  the  first  among  recent  schol- 
ars ;  his  immense  reading,  his  lynx-eyed  skill  in  exposition 
and  emendation  are  no  longer  anywhere  controverted ;  among 
ourselves  his  taste  in  these  matters  has  been  praised  by  Gibbon, 
and  by  Parr  pronounced  to  be  "exquisite."  In  his  own  coun- 
try, Heyne  is  even  regarded  as  the  founder  of  a  new  epoch 
in  classical  study ;  as  the  first  who  with  any  decisiveness  at- 
tempted to  translate  faiily  beyond  the  letter  of  the  Classics; 


348        CKITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  read  in  the  writings  of  the  Ancients,  not  their  language 
alone,  or  even  their  detached  opinions  and  records,  but  their 
spirit  and  character,  their  way  of  life  and  thought ;  how  the 
World  and  Nature  painted  themselves  to  the  mind  in  those 
old  ages ;  how,  in  one  word,  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  were 
men,  even  as  we  are.  Such  of  our  readers  as  have  studied 
any  one  of  Heyue's  works,  or  even  looked  carefully  into  the 
Lectures  of  the  Schlegels,  the  most  ingenious  and  popular  com- 
mentators of  that  school,  will  be  at  no  loss  to  understand  what 
we  mean. 

By  his  inquiries  into  antiquity,  especially  by  his  labored  in- 
vestigation of  its  politics  and  its  mythology,  Heyne  is  believed 
to  have  carried  the  torch  of  philosophy  towards,  if  not  into, 
the  mysteries  of  old  time.  What  Winkelmann,  his  great  con- 
temporary, did,  or  began  to  do,  for  ancient  Plastic  Art,  the 
other  with  equal  success  began  for  ancient  Literature.^  A  high 
praise,  surely ;  yet,  as  we  must  think,  one  not  unfounded,  and 
which,  indeed,  in  all  parts  of  Europe,  is  becoming  more  and 
more  confirmed. 

So  much,  in  the  province  to  which  he  devoted  his  activity,  is 
Heyne  allowed  to  have  accomplished.  Nevertheless,  we  must 
not  assert  that,  in  point  of  understanding  and  spiritual  endow- 
ment, he  can  be  called  a  great,  or  even,  in  strict  speech,  a  com- 
plete man.  Wonderful  perspicacity,  unwearied  diligence,  are 
not  denied  him  ;  but  to  philosophic  order,  to  classical  adjust- 

*  It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  these  two  men,  so  singularly  correspondent  in 
their  early  sufferings,  subsequent  distinction,  line  of  study,  and  rugged  enthu- 
siasm of  cliaracter,  were  at  one  time,  while  both  as  yet  were  under  the  horizon, 
brought  into  partial  contact.  "  An  acquaintance  of  another  sort,"  says  Heeren, 
"  tlie  young  Heyne  was  to  make  in  the  Briihl  Library ;  with  a  person  whose 
iniportauce  he  could  not  then  anticipate.  One  frequent  visitor  of  this  estal)- 
lisliment  was  a  certain  almost  wholly  unknown  man,  whose  visits  could  not 
be  specially  desirable  for  the  librarians,  such  endless  labor  did  he  cost  them, 
lie  seemed  insatiable  in  reading ;  and  called  for  so  many  books,  that  his  recep- 
tion there  grew  rather  of  the  coolest.  It  was  Juhnnn  Winlcfhnnnn.  Meditat- 
ing his  journey  for  Italy,  he  was  then  laying  in  preparation  for  it.  Thus  did 
these  two  men  become,  if  not  confidential,  yet  acquainted ;  who  at  that  time, 
both  still  in  darkness  and  poverty,  could  little  suppose,  that  in  a  few  years 
they  were  to  be  the  teachers  of  cultivated  Europe,  and  the  ornaments  of 
their  nation." 


LIFE   OF  HEYNE.  849 

ment,  clearness,  polish,  whether  in  word  or  thought,  he  seldom 
attains ;  nay,  many  times,  it  must  be  avowed,  he  involves  him- 
self in  tortuous  long-winded  verbosities,  and  stands  before  us 
little  better  than  one  of  that  old  school  which  his  admirers 
boast  that  he  displaced.  He  appears,  we  might  also  say,  as  if 
he  had  wings  but  could  not  well  use  them.  Or  indeed,  it  miglit 
be  that,  writing  constantly  in  a  dead  language,  he  came  to 
write  heavily ;  working  forever  on  subjects  where  learned 
armor-at-all-points  cannot  be  dispensed  with,  he  at  last  grew 
so  habituated  to  his  harness  that  he  would  not  walk  abroad 
without  it ;  nay  perhaps  it  had  rusted  together,  and  could  not 
be  unclasped  !  A  sad  fate  for  a  thinker  !  Yet  one  which 
threatens  many  commentators,  and  overtakes  many. 

As  a  man  encrusted  and  encased,  he  exhibits  himself,  more- 
over, to  a  certain  degree,  in  his  moral  character.  Here  too,  as 
in  his  intellect,  there  is  an  awkwardness,  a  cumbrous  inertness ; 
nay,  there  is  a  show  of  dulness,  of  hardness,  which  nowise  in- 
triusically  belongs  to  him.  He  passed,  we  are  told,  for  less 
religious,  less  affectionate,  less  enthusiastic  than  he  was.  His 
heart,  one  would  think,  had  no  free  course,  or  had  found  itself 
a  secret  one ;  outwardly  he  stands  before  us  cold  and  still,  a 
very  wall  of  rock  ;  yet  within  lay  a  well,  from  which,  as  we 
have  witnessed,  the  stroke  of  some  Moses'-wand  (the  death  of 
a  Theresa)  could  draw  streams  of  pure  feeling.  Callous  as  the 
man  seems  to  us,  he  has  a  sense  for  all  natural  beauty ;  a  mer- 
ciful sympathy  for  his  fellow-men  :  his  own  early  distresses 
never  left  his  memory  ;  for  similar  distresses  his  pity  and  help 
were,  at  all  times,  in  store.  This  form  of  character  may  also 
be  the  fruit  partly  of  his  employments,  partly  of  his  sufferings, 
and  perhaps  is  not  very  singular  among  commentators. 

For  the  rest,  Heeren  assures  us,  that  in  practice  Heyne  was 
truly  a  good  man  ;  altogether  just ;  diligent  in  his  own  honest 
business,  and  ever  ready  to  forward  that  of  others  ;  compas- 
sionate ;  tliough  quick-tempered,  placal)le ;  friendly,  and  satis- 
fied witli  sini])le  pleasures.  He  delighted  in  roses,  and  always 
kept  a  bouquet  of  them  in  water  on  his  desk.  His  house  was 
embowered  among  roses  ;  and  in  his  old  days  he  used  to  wander 
through  the  bushes  with  a  pair  of  scissors.     "Farther,''  says 


350         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Heeren,  "  in  spite  of  his  short  sight,  he  was  fond  of  the  fields 
and  skies,  and  could  lie  for  hours  reading  on  the  grass."  A 
kindly  old  man !  With  strangers,  hundreds  of  whom  visited 
him,  he  was  uniformly  courteous ;  though  latterly,  being  a 
little  hard  of  hearing,  less  fit  to  converse.  In  society  he  strove 
much  to  be  polite ;  but  had  a  habit  (which  ought  to  be  general) 
of  yawning,  when  people  spoke  to  him  and  said  nothing. 

On  the  whole,  the  Germans  have  some  reason  to  be  proud 
of  Heyne  :  who  shall  deny  that  they  have  here  once  more 
produced  a  scholar  of  the  right  old  stock  ;  a  man  to  be  ranked, 
for  honesty  of  study  and  of  life,  with  the  Scaligers,  the  Bent- 
leys,  and  old  illustrious  men,  who,  though  covered  with  aca- 
demic dust  and  harsh  with  polyglot  vocables,  were  true  men  of 
endeavor,  and  fought  like  giants,  with  such  weapons  as  they 
had,  for  the  good  cause  ?  To  ourselves,  we  confess,  Heyne, 
highly  interesting  for  what  he  did,  is  not  less  but  more  so  for 
what  he  was.  This  is  another  of  the  proofs,  which  minds  like 
his  are  from  time  to  time  sent  hither  to  give,  that  the  man  is 
not  the  product  of  his  circumstances,  but  that,  in  a  far  higher 
degree,  the  circumstances  are  the  product  of  the  man.  While 
beneficed  clerks  and  other  sleek  philosophers,  reclining  on 
their  cushions  of  velvet,  are  demonstrating  that  to  make  a 
scholar  and  man  of  taste,  there  must  be  co-operation  of  the 
upper  classes,  society  of  gentlemen-commoners,  and  an  income 
of  four  hundred  a  year  ;  —  arises  the  son  of  a  Chemnitz  weaver, 
and  with  the  very  wind  of  his  stroke  sweeps  them  from  the 
scene.  Let  no  man  doubt  the  omnipotence  of  Nature,  doubt 
the  majesty  of  man's  soul ;  let  no  lonely  unfriended  son  of 
genius  despair  !  Let  him  not  despair;  if  he  have  the  will,  the 
right  will,  then  the  power  also  has  not  been  denied  him.  It  is 
but  the  artichoke  that  will  not  grow  except  in  gardens.  Tha 
acorn  is  cast  carelessly  abroad  into  the  wilderness,  yet  it  rises 
to  be  an  oak  ;  on  the  wild  soil  it  nourishes  itself,  it  defies  the 
tempest,  and  lives  for  a  thousand  years. 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.* 

[1829.] 

In  this  stage  of  society,  the  playwright  is  as  essential  and 
acknowledged  a  character  as  the  millwright,  or  cartwright,  or 
any  other  wright  whatever ;  neither  can  we  see  why,  in  general 
estimation,  he  should  rank  lower  than  these  his  brother  arti- 
sans, except  perhaps  for  this  one  reason :  that  the  former 
working  in  timber  and  iron,  for  the  wants  of  the  body,  pro- 
duce a  completely  suitable  machine ;  while  the  latter,  working 
in  thought  and  feeling,  for  the  wants  of  the  soul,  produces  a 
machine  which  is  twcompletely  suitable.  In  other  respects, 
we  confess  we  cannot  perceive  that  the  balance  lies  against 
him  :  for  no  candid  man,  as  it  seems  to  us,  will  doubt  but  the 
talent  which  constructed  a  Virglnius  or  a  Bertram,  might  have 
sufficed,  had  it  been  properly  directed,  to  make  not  only  wheel- 
barrows and  wagons,  but  even  mills  of  considerable  complicacy. 
However,  if  the  public  is  niggardly  to  the  playwright  in  one 
point,  it  must  be  proportionably  liberal  in  another  ;  according 

1  FoREiGX  Review,  No.  6.  —  1.  Die  Ahnfrau  (The  Ancestress).  A 
Tragedy,  in  five  Acts.     By  F.  Grillparzer.     Fourth  Edition.     Vieuua,  1823. 

Konig  Ottnkars  Gliick  unde  Ende  (King  Ottocar's  Fortune  and  End).  A 
Tragedy,  in  five  Acts.     By  F.  Grillparzer.     Vienna,  1825. 

Sappho.  A  Tragedy,  in  five  Acts.  By  F.  Grillparzer.  Third  Edition. 
Vienna,  1822. 

2.  Faust.  A  Tragedy,  in  five  Acts.  By  August  Klingemaun.  Leipzig 
and  Altenburg,  1815. 

Ahn.tupr.  A  Tragedy,  in  five  Acts.  By  August  Klingemann.  Bruns- 
wick, 1827. 

3.  MuUners  Drnmatische  Werke.  Erste  recltmdssige,  voUstiindige  und  vom  Ver- 
/asser  verbesxprte  Cesainmt-Atisgabe.  (Milliner's  Dramatic  Works.  First  legal 
collective  Edition,  complete  and  revised  by  the  Author.)  7  vola.  Bruns- 
wick, 1828. 


352         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  Adam  Smith's  observation,  that  trades  which  are  reckoned 
less  reputable  have  higher  money  wages.  Thus,  one  thing 
compensating  the  otlier,  the  playwright  may  still  realize  an 
existence;  as,  in  fact,  we  find  that  he  does:  for  playwrights 
were,  are  and  probably  will  always  be ;  unless,  indeed,  in  pro- 
cess of  years,  the  whole  dramatic  concern  be  finally  abandoned 
by  mankind;  or,  as  in  the  case  of  our  Pufich  and  Mathews, 
every  player  becoming  his  own  playwright,  this  trade  may 
merge  in  the  other  and  older  one. 

The  British  nation  has  its  own  playwrights,  several  of  them 
cunning  men  in  their  craft :  yet  here,  it  would  seem,  this  sort 
of  carpentry  does  not  flourish;  at  least,  not  with  that  pre- 
eminent vigor  which  distinguishes  most  other  branches  of  our 
national  industry.  In  hardware  and  cotton  goods,  in  all  sorts 
of  chemical,  mechanical,  or  other  material  processes,  England 
outstrips  the  world  ;  nay  in  many  departments  of  literary 
manufacture  also,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  fabrication  of  Novels, 
she  ma}''  safely  boast  herself  peerless  :  but  in  the  matter  of  the 
Drama,  to  whatever  cause  it  be  owing,  she  can  claim  no  such 
superiority.  In  theatrical  produce  she  yields  considerably  to 
France  ;  and  is,  out  of  sight,  inferior  to  Germany.  Nay,  do 
not  we  English  hear  daily,  for  the  last  twenty  years,  that  the 
Drama  is  dead,  or  in  a  state  of  suspended  animation ;  and  are 
not  medical  men  sitting  on  the  case,  and  propounding  their 
remedial  appliances,  weekly,  monthly,  quarterly,  to  no  manner 
of  purpose  ?  Whilst  in  Germany  the  Drama  is  not  only,  to  all 
appearance,  alive,  but  in  the  very  flush  and  heyday  of  super- 
abundant strength ;  indeed,  as  it  were,  still  only  sowing  its 
first  wild  oats  !  For  if  the  British  Playwrights  seem  verging 
to  ruin,  and  our  Knowleses,  Maturins,  Shiels  and  Shees  stand 
few  and  comparatively  forlorn,  like  firs  on  an  Irish  bog,  the 
Playwrights  of  Germany  are  a  strong,  triumphant  body  ;  so 
numerous  that  it  has  bc^en  calculated,  in  case  of  war,  a  regi- 
ment of  foot  might  be  raised,  in  which,  from  the  colonel  down 
to  the  drummer,  every  olhcer  and  private  sentinel  might  show 
his  drama  or  dramas. 

To  investigate  the  origin  of  so  marked  a  superiority  would 
lead  us  beyond  our  purpose.     Doubtless  the  proximate  cause 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  353 

must  lie  in  a  superior  demand  for  the  article  of  dramas ;  which 
superior  demand  again  may  arise  either  from  the  climate  of 
Germany,  as  Montesquieu  might  believe;  or  perhaps  more 
naturally  and  immediately  from  the  political  condition  of  that 
country  ;.  for  man  is  not  only  a  working  but  a  talking  animal, 
and  where  no  Catholic  Questions,  and  Parliamentary  Reforms, 
and  Select  Vestries  are  given  him  to  discuss  in  his  leisure 
hours,  he  is  glad  to  fall  upon  plays  or  players,  or  whatever 
comes  to  hand,  whereby  to  fence  himself  a  little  against  the 
inroads  of  Ennui.  Of  the  fact,  at  least,  that  such  a  superior 
demand  for  dramas  exists  in  Germany,  we  have  only  to  open  a 
newspaper  to  find  proof.  Is  not  every  Litteraturhlatt  and  Ktinst- 
blatt  stuffed  to  bursting  with  theatricals  ?  Nay,  has  not  the 
"  able  Editor  "  established  correspondents  in  every  capital  city 
of  the  civilized  world,  who  report  to  him  on  this  one  matter 
and  on  no  other  ?  For,  be  our  curiosity  what  it  ma}'',  let  us 
have  profession  of  "  intelligence  from  Munich,"  "  intelligence 
from  Vienna,"  '-intelligence  from  Berlin,"  is  it  intelligence  of 
anything  but  of  green-room  controversies  and  negotiations,  of 
tragedies  and  operas  and  farces  acted  and  to  be  acted  ?  Xot 
of  men,  and  their  doings,  by  hearth  and  hall,  in  the  firm  earth  ; 
but  of  mere  effigies  and  shells  of  men,  and  their  doings  in  the 
world  of  pasteboard,  do  these  unhappy  correspondents  write. 
Unhappy  we  call  them  ;  for,  with  all  our  tolerance  of  play- 
wrights, we  cannot  but  think  that  there  are  limits,  and  very 
strait  ones,  within  which  their  activity  should  be  restricted. 
Here  in  England,  our  "theatrical  reports"  are  nuisance 
enough  ;  and  many  persons  who  love  their  life,  and  therefore 
"  take  care  of  their  time,  which  is  the  stuff  life  is  made  of," 
regularly  lose  several  columns  of  their  weekly  newspaper  in 
that  way  :  but  our  case  is  pure  luxury,  compared  with  that  of 
the  Germans,  who  instead  of  a  measurable  and  sutferable  spi- 
cing of  theatric  matter,  are  obliged,  metaphorically  speaking,  to 
breakfast  and  dine  on  it;  have  in  fact  nothing  else  to  live  on 
but  that  highly  unnutritive  victual.  We  ourselves  are  occa- 
sional readers  of  German  newspapers  ;  and  have  often,  in  the 
spirit  of  Christian  humanity,  meditated  presenting  to  the  whole 
body  of  German  editors  a  project, —  which,  however,  must 
VOL.  XIII,  23 


854        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

certainly  have  ere  now  occurred  to  themselves,  and  for  some 
reason  been  found  inapplicable :  it  was,  to  address  these  corre- 
spondents of  theirs,  all  and  sundry,  in  plain  language,  and  put 
the  question.  Whether,  on  studiously  surveying  the  Universe 
from  their  several  stations,  there  was  nothing  in  the  heavens 
above,  or  the  earth  beneath,  or  the  waters  under  the  earth, 
nothliKj  visible  but  this  one  business,  or  rather  shadow  of  busi- 
ness, that  had  an  interest  for  the  minds  of  men  ?  If  the  corre- 
spondents still  answered  that  nothing  was  visible,  then  of 
course  they  must  be  left  to  continue  in  this  strange  state ; 
prayers,  at  the  same  time,  being  put  up  for  them  in  all 
churches. 

However,  leaving  every  able  Editor  to  fight  his  own  battle, 
we  address  ourselves  to  the  task  in  hand  :  meaning  here  to  in- 
quire a  very  little  into  the  actual  state  of  the  dramatic  trade 
in  Germany,  and  exhibit  some  detached  features  of  it  to  the 
consideration  of  our  readers.  For,  seriously  speaking,  low  as 
the  province  may  be,  it  is  a  real,  active  and  ever-enduring  prov- 
ince of  the  literary  republic ;  nor  can  the  pursuit  of  many 
men,  even  though  it  be  a  profitless  and  foolish  pursuit,  ever  be 
without  claim  to  some  attention  from  us,  either  in  the  way  of 
furtherance  or  of  censure  and  correction.  Our  avowed  object 
is  to  promote  the  sound  study  of  Foreign  Literature ;  which 
study,  like  all  other  earthly  undertakings,  has  its  negative  as 
well  as  its  positive  side.  We  have  already,  as  occasion  served, 
borne  testimony  to  the  merits  of  various  German  poets ;  and 
must  now  say  a  word  on  certain  German  poetasters ;  hoping 
that  it  may  be  chiefly  a  regard  to  the  former  which  has  made 
us  take  even  this  slight  notice  of  the  latter  :  for  the  bad  is  in 
itself  of  no  value,  and  only  worth  describing  lest  it  be  mis- 
taken for  the  good.  At  the  same  time,  let  no  reader  tremble, 
as  if  we  meant  to  overwhelm  him,  on  this  occasion,  with  a 
whole  mountain  of  dramatic  lumber,  poured  forth  in  torrents, 
like  shot  rubbish,  from  the  playhouse  garrets,  where  it  is 
mouldering  and  evaporating  into  nothing,  silently  and  without 
harm  to  any  one.  Far  be  this  from  us !  Nay,  our  own  knowl- 
edge of  this  subject  is  in  the  highest  degree  limited ;  and, 
indeed,  to  exhaust  it,  or  attempt  discussing  it  with  scientific 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  855 

precision,  would  be  an  impossible  enterprise.  "What  man  is 
there  that  could  assort  the  whole  furniture  of  Milton's  Limho 
of  Vanity  ;  or  where  is  the  Hallam  that  would  undertake  to 
write  us  the  Constitutional  History  of  a  Rookery  ?  Let  the 
courteous  reader  take  heart,  then ;  for  he  is  in  hands  that  will 
not,  nay  what  is  more,  that  cannot,  do  him  much  harm.  One 
brief  shy  glance  into  this  huge  bivouac  of  Playwrights,  all 
sawing  and  planing  with  such  tumult ;  and  we  leave  it,  proba- 
bly for  many  years. 

The  German  Parnassus,  as  one  of  its  own  denizens  re- 
marks, has  a  rather  broad  summit ;  yet  only  two  Dramatists 
are  reckoned,  within  the  last  century,  to  have  mounted  thith- 
er :  Schiller  and  Goethe :  if  we  are  not,  on  the  strength  of 
his  Minna  von  Bamhelvi  and  Emilie  Galotti,  to  account  Les- 
sing  also  of  the  number.  On  the  slope  of  the  Mountain  may 
be  found  a  few  stragglers  of  the  same  brotherhood  ;  among 
these,  Tieck  and  Maler  Miiller,  firmly  enough  stationed  at 
considerable  elevations ;  while  far  below  appear  various  hon- 
est persons  climbing  vehemently,  but  against  precipices  of 
loose  sand,  to  whom  we  wish  all  speed.  But  the  reader  will 
understand  that  the  bivouac  we  speak  of,  and  are  about  to 
enter,  lies  not  on  the  declivity  of  the  Hill  at  all ;  but  on  the 
level  ground  close  to  the  foot  of  it ;  the  essence  of  a  Play- 
wright being  that  he  works  not  in  Poetry,  but  in  Prose  wliich 
more  or  less  cunningly  resembles  it. 

And  here  pausing  for  a  moment,  the  reader  observes  that 
he  is  in  a  civilized  country ;  for  see,  on  the  very  boundary- 
line  of  Parnassus,  rises  a  gallows  with  the  figure  of  a  man 
hung  in  chains  !  It  is  the  figure  of  August  von  Kotzebue ; 
and  has  swung  there  for  many  years,  as  a  warning  to  all 
too  audacious  Playwrights ;  who  nevertheless,  as  we  see,  pay 
little  heed  to  it.  Ill-fated  Kotzebue,  once  the  darling  of 
theatrical  Europe  !  This  was  the  prince  of  all  Playwrights, 
and  could  manufacture  Plays  with  a  speed  and  felicity  sur- 
passing even  Edinburgh  ISTovels.  For  his  muse,  like  other 
doves,  hatched  twins  in  the  month;  and  the  world  gazed  on 
them  with  an  admiration  too  deep  for  mere  words.  "What 
is  all  past  or  present  popularity  to  this  ?    "Were  not  these 


356         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Plays  translated  into  almost  every  language  of  articulate- 
speaking  men  ;  acted,  at  least,  we  may  literally  say,  in  every 
theatre  from  Kamtschatka  to  Cadiz  ?  Nay,  did  they  not  melt 
the  most  obdurate  hearts  in  all  countries ;  and,  like  the  music 
of  Orpheus,  draw  tears  down  iron  cheeks  ?  We  ourselves  have 
known  the  flintiest  men,  who  professed  to  have  wept  over 
them,  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives.  So  was  it  twenty  years 
ago  ;  how  stands  it  to-day  ?  Kotzebue,  lifted  up  on  the  hol- 
low balloon  of  popular  applause,  thought  wings  had  been 
given  him  that  he  might  ascend  to  the  Immortals :  gay  he 
rose,  soaring,  sailing,  as  with  supreme  dominion ;  but  in  the 
rarer  azure  deep,  his  windbag  burst  asunder,  or  the  arrows 
of  keen  archers  pierced  it ;  and  so  at  last  we  find  him  a  com- 
pound-pendulum, vibrating  in  the  character  of  scarecrow,  to 
guard  from  forbidden  fruit !  0  ye  Playwrights,  and  literary 
quacks  of  every  feather,  weep  over  Kotzebue,  and  over  your- 
selves !  Know  that  the  loudest  roar  of  the  million  is  not 
fame ;  that  the  windbag,  are  ye  mad  enough  to  mount  it,  will 
burst,  or  be  shot  through  with  arrows,  and  your  bones  too 
shall  act  as  scarecrows. 

But,  quitting  this  idle  allegorical  vein,  let  us  at  length  pro- 
ceed in  plain  English,  and  as  beseems  mere  prose  Reviewers, 
to  the  work  laid  out  for  us.  Among  the  hundreds  of  German 
Dramatists,  as  they  are  called,  three  individuals,  already  known 
to  some  British  readers,  and  prominent  from  all  the  rest  in 
Germany,  may  fitly  enough  stand  here  as  representatives  of 
the  whole  Playwright  class  ;  whose  various  craft  and  produce 
the  procedure  of  these  three  may  in  some  small  degree  serve 
to  illustrate.  Of  Grillparzer,  therefore,  and  Klingemann,  and 
Milliner,  in  their  order. 

Franz  Grillparzer  seems  to  be  an  Austrian ;  which  country 
is  reckoned  nowise  fertile  in  poets ;  a  circumstance  that  may 
perhaps  have  contributed  a  little  to  his  own  rather  rapid 
celebrity.  Our  more  special  acquaintance  with  Grillparzer 
is  of  very  recent  date  ;  though  his  name  and  samples  of  his 
ware  have  for  some  time  been  hung  out,  in  many  British  and 
foreign  Magazines,  often  with  testimonials  which  might  have 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  857 

beguiled  less  time-worn  customers.  Neither,  after  all,  have 
we  found  these  testimonials  falser  than  other  such  are,  but 
rather  not  so  false;  for,  indeed,  Grill parzer  is  a  most  inoffen- 
sive man,  nay  positively  rather  meritorious ;  nor  is  it  with- 
out reluctance  that  we  name  him  under  this  head  of  Play- 
wrights, and  not  under  that  of  Dramatists,  which  he  aspires 
to.  Had  the  law  with  regard  to  mediocre  poets  relaxed  it- 
self since  Horace's  time,  all  had  been  well  with  Grillparzer; 
for  undoubtedly  there  is  a  small  vein  of  tenderness  and  grace 
running  through  him  ;  a  seeming  modesty  also,  and  real  love 
of  his  art,  which  gives  promise  of  better  things.  But  gods 
and  men  and  columns  are  still  equally  rigid  in  that  un- 
happy particular  of  mediocrity,  even  pleasing  mediocrity ; 
and  no  scene  or  line  is  yet  known  to  us  of  Grillparzer's 
which  exhibits  anything  more.  iVbn  eoncessere,  therefore,  is 
his  sentence  for  the  present ;  and  the  louder  his  well-mean- 
ing admirers  extol  him,  the  more  emphatically  should  it  be 
pronounced  and  repeated.  Nevertheless  Grillparzer's  claim 
to  the  title  of  Playwright  is  perhaps  more  his  misfortune 
than  his  crime.  Living  in  a  country  where  the  Drama  en- 
grosses so  much  attention,  he  has  been  led  into  attempting 
it,  without  any  decisive  qualification  for  such  an  enterprise; 
and  so  his  allotment  of  talent,  which  might  have  done  good 
service  in  some  prose  department,  or  even  in  the  sonnet,  elegy, 
song  or  other  outlying  province  of  Poetry,  is  driven,  as  it 
were,  in  spite  of  fate,  to  write  Plays ;  which,  though  regu- 
larly divided  into  scenes  aifd  separate  speeches,  are  essen- 
tially monological ;  and  though  swarming  with  characters,  too 
often  express  only  one  character,  and  that  no  very  extraordi- 
nary one,  —  the  character  of  Franz  Grillparzer  himself.  What 
is  an  increase  of  misfortune  too,  he  has  met  with  applause 
in  this  career;  which  therefore  he  is  likely  to  follow  far- 
ther and  farther,  let  nature  and  his  stars  say  to  it  what  they 
will. 

The  characteristic  of  a  Playwright  is,  that  he  writes  in 
Prose  ;  which  Prose  he  palms,  probably  first  on  himself,  and 
then  on  the  simpler  part  of  the  public,  for  Poetry  :  and  the 
manner  in  which  he  effects  this  legerdemain  constitutes  his 


S53         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

specific  distinction,  fixes  the  species  to  which  he  belongs 
in  the  genus  Playwright.  But  it  is  a  universal  feature  of 
him  that  he  attempts,  by  prosaic,  and  as  it  were  mechanical- 
means,  to  accomplish  an  end  which,  except  by  poetical  genius, 
is  absolutely  not  to  be  accomplished.  For  the  most  part, 
he  has  some  knack,  or  trick  of  the  trade,  which  by  close 
inspection  can  be  detected,  and  so  the  heart  of  his  mysteiy! 
be  seen  into.  He  may  have  one  trick,  or  many ;  and  the 
more  cunningly  he  can  disguise  these,  the  more  perfect  is 
he  as  a  craftsman ;  for  were  the  public  once  to  penetrate 
into  this  his  sleight-of-hand,  it  were  all  over  with  him,  — 
Othello's  occupation  were  gone.  No  conjurer,  when  we  once 
understand  his  method  of  fire-eating,  can  any  longer  pass  for 
a  true  thaumaturgist,  or  even  entertain  us  in  his  proper 
character  of  quack,  though  he  should  eat  Mount  Vesuvius 
itself.  But  happily  for  Playwrights  and  others,  the  public 
is  a  dim-eyed  animal;  gullible  to  almost  all  lengths,  —  nay, 
which  often  seems  to  prefer  being  gulled. 

Of  Grillparzer's  peculiar  knack  and  recipe  for  play-making, 
there  is  not  very  much  to  be  said.  He  seems  to  have  tried 
various  kinds  of  recipes,  in  his  time ;  and,  to  his  credit  be 
it  spoken,  seems  little  contented  with  any  of  them.  By  much 
the  worst  Play  of  his,  that  we  have  seen,  is  the  Ahnfrau 
(Ancestress)  ;  a  deep  tragedy  of  the  Castle-Spectre  sort ;  the 
whole  mechanism  of  which  was  discernible  and  condemnable 
at  a  single  glance.  It  is  nothing  but  the  old  story  of  Fate  ; 
an  invisible  Nemesis  visiting  tfie  sins  of  the  fathers  upon 
the  children  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation ;  a  method 
almost  as  common  and  sovereign  in  German  Art,  at  this  day, 
as  the  method  of  steam  is  in  British  mechanics ;  and  of 
which  we  shall  anon  have  more  occasion  to  speak.  In  his 
Preface,  Grillparzer  endeavors  to  palliate  or  deny  the  fact  of 
his  being  a  Schicksal-Dichter  (Fate-Tragedian)  ;  but  to  no  pur- 
pose ;  for  it  is  a  fact  grounded  on  the  testimony  of  the  seven 
senses :  however,  we  are  glad  to  observe  that,  with  this  one 
trial,  he  seems  to  have  abandoned  the  Fate-line,  and  taken 
into  better,  at  least  into  different  ones.  With  regard  to  the 
Ahnfrau  itself,  we  may  remark  that  few  things  struck  us  so 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  £59 

much  as  this  little  observation  of  Count  Borotin's,  occurring 
in  the  middle  of  the  dismalest  night-thoughts,  so  unexpect- 
edly, as  follows  :  — 

BERTHA. 


Und  der  Hitnmel,  sternelos, 
Starrt  aus  leeren  AugenJwhlen 
In  das  ungeheure  Grab 
Schwarz  herah ! 

GRAF. 

Wie  sich  dock  die  Stunden  dehnen  ! 
Was  ist  wohl  die  Glocke,  Bertha  f 

BERTHA  (is  just  Condoling  with  him,  in  these  words) : 

And  the  welkm,  starless, 

Glares  from  em]>ty  eye-holes, 

Black,  down  on  that  boundless  grave  I 


How  the  hours  do  linger ! 

What  d'cloch  is 't,  prithee,  Bertha  ? 

A  more  delicate  turn,  we  venture  to  say,  is  rarely  to  be  met 
with  in  tragic  dialogue. 

As  to  the  story  of  the  Ah?ifrau,  it  is,  naturally  enough,  of 
the  most  heart-rending  descri})tion.  This  Ancestress  is  a 
lady,  or  rather  the  ghost  of  a  lady,  for  she  has  been  defunct 
some  centuries,  who  in  life  had  committed  what  we  call  an 
''indiscretion;  "  which  indiscretion  the  unpolite  husband  pun- 
ished, one  would  have  thought  sufficiently,  by  running  her 
tlirough  the  body.  However,  the  Sch'uksal  of  Grillparzor 
does  not  think  it  sufficient;  but  farther  dooms  the  fair  peni- 
tent to  walk  as  goblin,  till  the  last  branch  of  her  family  be 
extinct.  Accordingly  she  is  heard,  from  time  to  time,  slam- 
ming doors  and  the  like,  and  now  and  then  seen  with  dreadful 
goggle-eyes  and  other  ghost-appurtenances,  to  the  terror  not 
only  of  servant  people,  but  of  old  Count  Borotin,  her   now 


360         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

sole  male  descendant,  whose  afternoon  nap  she,  on  one  occa- 
sion, cruelly  disturbs.  This  Count  Borotin  is  really  a  worthy 
prosing  old  gentleman ;  only  he  had  a  son  long  ago  drowned 
in  a  fish-pond  (body  not  found)  ;  and  has  still  a  liighly  accom- 
plished daughter,  whom  there  is  none  offering  to  wed,  except 
one  Jaromir,  a  person  of  unknown  extraction,  and  to  all  appear- 
ance of  the  lightest  purse  ;  nay,  as  it  turns  •  out  afterwards, 
actually  the  head  of  a  Banditti  establishment,  which  had  long 
infested  the  neighboring  forests.  However,  a  Captain  of  Foot 
arrives  at  this  juncture,  utterly  to  root  out  these  Bobbers  ; 
and  now  the  strangest  things  come  to  light.  For  who  should 
this  Jaromir  prove  to  be  but  poor  old  Borotin's  drowned 
son;  not  drowned,  but  stolen  and  bred  up  by  these  Out- 
laws ;  the  brother,  therefore,  of  his  intended  ;  a  most  truculent 
fellow,  who  fighting  for  his  life  unwittingly  kills  his  own  fa- 
ther, and  drives  his  bride  to  poison  herself ;  in  which  wise,  as 
was  also  Giles  Scroggins's  case,  he  *•'  cannot  get  married."  The 
reader  sees,  all  this  is  not  to  be  accomplished  without  some 
jarring  and  tumult.  In  fact,  there  is  a  frightful  uproar  every- 
where throughout  that  night ;  robbers  dying,  musketry  discharg- 
ing, women  shrieking,  men  swearing,  and  the  Ahnfrau  herself 
emerging  at  intervals,  as  the  genius  of  the  whole  discord. 
But  time  and  hours  bring  relief,  as  they  always  do.  Jaro- 
mir in  the  long-run  likewise  succeeds  in  dying;  whereupon 
the  whole  Borotin  lineage  having  gone  to  the  devil,  the  An- 
cestress also  retires  thither,  —  at  least  makes  the  upper  world 
rid  of  her  presence  ;  and  the  piece  ends  in  deep  stillness.  Of 
this  poor  Ancestress  we  shall  only  say  farther:  Wherever 
she  be,  requiascat !   requiescat  ! 

As  we  mentioned  above,  the  Fate-method  of  manufacturing 
tragic  emotion  seems  to  have  yielded  Grillparzer  himself  lit- 
tle contentment ;  for  after  this  Ahnfrau,  we  hear  no  more  of 
it.  His  Konig  Ottokars  Gluck  und  Ende  (King  Ottocar's  For- 
tune and  End)  is  a  much  more  innocent  piece,  and  proceeds 
in  quite  a  different  strain  ;  aiming  to  subdue  us  not  by  old 
women's  fables  of  Destiny,  but  by  the  accumulated  splendor 
of  thrones  and  principalities,  the  cruel  or  magnanimous  pride 
of  Austrian  Emperors  and  Bohemian  conquerors,  the  wit  of 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  861 

cliiyalrous  courtiers,  and  beautiful  but  shrewish  queens  ;  the 
whole  set  off  by  a  proper  intermixture  of  coronation-ceremonies, 
Hungarian  dresses,  whiskered  halberdiers,  alarms  of  battle,  and 
the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war.  There  is  even 
some  attempt  at  delineating  character  in  this  Play  :  certain 
of  the  dramatis  persona}  are  evidently  meant  to  differ  from  cer- 
tain others,  not  in  dress  and  name  only,  but  in  nature  and 
mode  of  being ;  so  much  indeed  they  repeatedly  assert,  or 
hint,  and  do  their  best  to  make  good,  —  unfortunately,  how- 
ever, with  very  indifferent  success.  In  fact,  these  dramatis 
personoe  are  rubrics  and  titles  rather  than  persons  ;  for  most 
part,  mere  tlieatrical  automata,  w^ith  only  a  mechanical  exist- 
ence. The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  Grillparzer  cannot  commu- 
nicate a  poetic  life  to  any  character  or  object ;  and  in  this, 
Avere  it  in  no  other  way,  he  evinces  the  intrinsically  prosaic 
nature  of  his  talent.  These  personages  of  his  have,  in  some 
instances,  a  certain  degree  of  metaphysical  truth ;  that  is  to 
say,  one  portion  of  their  structure,  psychologically  viewed, 
corresponds  with  the  other  ;  —  so  far  all  is  well  enough  :  but 
to  unite  these  merely  scientific  and  inanimate  qualities  into  a 
living  vian  is  work  not  for  a  Playwright,  but  for  a  Dramatist. 
Nevertheless,  KlJuig  Ottolcar  is  comparatively  a  harmless  trag- 
e([y.  It  is  full  of  action,  striking  enough,  though  without  any 
discernible  coherence ;  and  with  so  much  both  of  flirting  and 
fighting,  with  so  many  weddings,  funerals,  processions,  encamp- 
ments, it  must  be,  we  should  think,  if  the  tailor  and  decora^ 
tionist  do  their  duty,  a  very  comfortable  piece  to  see  acted ; 
especially  on  the  Vienna  boards,  where  it  has  a  national  inter- 
est, Rodolph  of  Hapsburg  being  a  main  personage  in  it. 

The  model  of  this  Ottokar  we  imagine  to  have  l)eeu  Schiller's 
Piccolomini ;  a  poem  of  similar  materials  and  object;  but  dif- 
fering from  it  as  a  living  rose  from  a  mass  of  dead  rose-loaves, 
or  even  of  broken  Italian  guniflowers.  It  seems  as  though 
Grillparzer  had  hoped  to  subdue  us  by  a  sufficient  multitude 
of  wonderful  scenes  and  circumstances,  without  inquiring,  with 
any  painful  solicitude,  whether  the  soul  and  moaning  of  them 
were  presented  to  us  or  not.  Herein  truly,  we  believe,  lies 
the  peculiar  knack  or  playwright-mystery  of  Ottokar :  that  its 


362         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

effect  is  calculated  to  depend  chiefly  on  its  quantity ;  on  the 
mere  number  of  astonishments,  and  joyful  or  deplorable  adven- 
tures there  brought  to  light;  abundance  in  superficial  contents 
compensating  the  absence  of  selectness  and  calUda  junctura. 
Which  second  method  of  tragic  manufacture  we  hold  to  be 
better  than  the  first,  but  still  far  from  good.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  a  very  common  method,  both  in  Tragedy  and  else- 
where ;  nay,  we  hear  persons  whose  trade  it  is  to  write  metre, 
or  be  otherwise  "  imaginative,"  professing  it  openly  as  the 
best  they  know.  Do  not  these  men  go  about  collecting  "fea- 
tures ; "  ferreting  out  strange  incidents,  murders,  duels,  ghost- 
apparitions,  over  the  habitable  globe  ?  Of  which  features  and 
incidents  when  they  have  gathered  a  sufl&cient  stock,  what 
more  is  needed  than  that  they  be  ample  enough,  high-colored 
enough,  though  huddled  into  any  case  (Novel,  Tragedy  or 
Metrical  Romance)  that  will  hold  them  all  ?  Nevertheless 
this  is  agglomeration,  not  creation ;  and  avails  little  in  Litera- 
ture. Quantity,  it  is  a  certain  fact,  will  not  make  up  for  defect 
of  quality ;  nor  are  the  gayest  hues  of  any  service,  unless  there 
be  a  likeness  painted  from  them.  Better  were  it  for  Ko7iig 
Ottokar  had  the  story  been  twice  as  short  and  twice  as  expres- 
sive. For  it  is  still  true,  as  in  Cervantes'  time,  nunca  lo  hueno 
fue  mucho.  What  avails  the  dram  of  brandy,  while  it  swims 
chemically  united  with  its  barrel  of  wort  ?  Let  the  distiller 
pass  it  and  repass  it  through  his  limbecs  ;  for  it  is  the  drops 
of  pure  alcohol  that  we  want,  not  the  gallons  of  Water,  which 
may  be  had  in  every  ditch. 

On  the  whole,  however,  we  remember  Kdnig  Ottokar  without 
animosity  ;  and  to  prove  that  Grillparzer,  if  he  could  not  make 
it  poetical,  might  have  made  it  less  prosaic,  and  has  in  fact 
something  better  in  him  than  is  here  manifested,  we  shall 
quote  one  passage,  which  strikes  us  as  really  rather  sweet  and 
natural.  King  Ottocar  is  in  the  last  of  his  fields,  no  prospect 
before  him  but  death  or  captivity  ;  and  soliloquizing  on  his 
past  misdeeds  :  — 

"  I  have  not  borne  me  wisely  in  thy  World, 
Thou  great,  all-judging  God  !     Like  storm  and  tempest 
I  traversed  thy  fair  garden,  wasting  it : 


GERMAN.  PLAYWRIGHTS.  868 

T  la  thine  to  waste,  for  thou  alone  ca,nst  heaL 
Was  evil  not  my  aim,  yet  how  did  I, 
Poor  worm,  presume  to  ape  the  Lord  of  Worlds, 
And  through  the  Bad  seek  out  a  way  to  the  Good  I 

"  My  fellow-man,  sent  thither  for  his  joy. 
An  End,  a  Self,  within  thy  World  a  World,  — 
For  thou  hast  fashioned  him  a  marvellous  work, 
With  lofty  brow,  erect  iu  look,  strange  sense, 
And  clothed  him  in  the  garment  of  thy  Beauty, 
And  wondrously  encircled  him  with  wonders  ; 
He  hears,  and  sees,  and  feels,  has  pain  and  pleasure ; 
He  takes  him  food,  and  cunning  powers  come  forth, 
And  work  and  work,  within  their  secret  chambers, 
And  build  him  up  his  House :  no  royal  Palace 
Is  comparable  to  the  frame  of  Man ! 
And  I  have  cast  them  forth  from  me  by  thousands, 
For  whims,  as  men  throw  rubbish  from  their  door. 
And  none  of  all  these  slain  but  had  a  Mother 
Who,  as  she  bore  him  in  sore  travail. 
Had  clasped  him  fondly  to  her  fostering  breast; 
A  Father  who  had  blessed  him  as  his  pride. 
And  nurturing,  watched  over  him  long  years : 
If  he  but  hurt  the  skin  upon  his  finger, 
There  would  they  run,  with  anxious  look,  to  bind  it, 
And  tend  it,  cheering  him,  until  it  healed  ; 
And  it  was  but  a  finger,  the  skin  o'  the  finger! 
And  I  have  trod  men  down  in  heaps  and  squadron*. 
For  the  stern  iron  op'ning  out  a  way 
To  their  warm  living  hearts.  —  0  God, 
Wilt  thou  go  into  judgment  with  me,  spare 
My  suffering  people."  ^ 

Passages  of  this  sort,  scattered  here  and  there  over  Grill- 
pavzer's  Plays,  and  evincing  at  least  an  amiable  tenderness 
of  natural  disposition,  make  us  regret  the  more  to  condemn 
him.  In  fact,  we  have  hopes  that  he  is  not  born  to  be  forever 
a  Playwright.  A  true  though  feeble  vein  of  poetic  talent  he 
really  seems  to  possess ;  and  such  purity  of  heart  as  may  yet, 
with  assiduous  study,  lead  hira  into  his  proper  field.     For  we 

>  K&ntg  Ottokar,  160,  181. 


364         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

do  reckon  him  a  conscientious  man,  and  honest  lover  of  Art ; 
nay  this  incessant  fluctuation  in  his  dramatic  schemes  is  itself 
a  good  omeu.  Besides  this  Ahnfrau  and  Ottokar,  he  has  writ- 
ten two  dramas,  Sappho  and  Der  Goldene  Vliess  (The  Golden 
Fleece),  on  quite  another  principle  ;  aiming  apparently  at  some 
Classic  model,  or  at  least  at  some  French  reflex  of  such  a 
model.  Sappho,  which  we  are  sorry  to  learn  is  not  his  last 
piece,  but  his  second,  appears  to  us  very  considerably  the  most 
faultless  production  of  his  we  are  yet  acquainted  with.  There 
is  a  degree  of  grace  and  simplicity  in  it,  a  softness,  polish  and 
general  good  taste,  little  to  be  expected  from  the  author  of  the 
Ahnfrau :  if  he  cannot  bring  out  the  full  tragic  meaning  of 
Sappho's  situation,  he  contrives,  with  laudable  dextei-ity,  to 
avoid  the  ridicule  that  lies  within  a  single  step  of  it ;  his 
Drama  is  weak  and  thin,  but  innocent,  lovable ;  nay  the  last 
scene  strikes  us  as  even  poetically  meritorious.  His  Goldene 
Vliess  we  suspect  to  be  of  similar  character,  but  have  not  yet 
found  time  and  patience  to  study  it.  We  repeat  our  hope  of 
one  day  meeting  Grillparzer  in  a  more  honorable  calling  than 
this  of  Playwright,  or  even  fourth-rate  Dramatist;  which 
titles,  as  was  said  above,  we  have  not  given  him  without 
regret ;  and  shall  be  truly  glad  to  cancel  for  whatever  better 
one  he  may  yet  chance  to  merit. 

But  if  we  felt  a  certain  reluctance  in  classing  Grillparzer 
among  the  Playwrights,  no  such  feeling  can  have  place  with 
regard  to  the  second  name  on  our  list,  that  of  Doctor  August 
Klingemann.  Dr.  Klingemann  is  one  of  the  most  indisputable 
Playwrights  now  extant ;  nay  so  superlative  is  his  vigor  in 
this  department,  we  miglit  even  designate  him  the  Playwright. 
His  manner  of  proceeding  is  quite  different  from  Grillpar- 
zer's ;  not  a  wavering  ever-changed  method,  or  combination  of 
methods,  as  the  other's  was ;  but  a  fixed  principle  of  action, 
which  he  follows  with  unflinching  courage  ;  his  own  mind 
being  to  all  appearance  highly  satistied  with  it.  If  Grillparzer 
attempted  to  overpower  us,  now  by  the  method  of  Fate,  now  by 
that  of  pompous  action,  and  grandiloquent  or  lachrymose  senti- 
ment, heaped  on  us  in  too  rich  abundance,  Klingemann,  with- 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  865 

out  neglecting  any  of  these  resources,  seems  to  place  his  chief 
dependence  on  a  surer  and  readier  stay,  —  on  his  magazines 
of  rosin,  oil-paper,  vizards,  scarlet-di'apery  and  gunpowder. 
What  thunder  and  lightning,  magic-lantern  transparencies, 
death's-heads,  fire-showers  and  plush-cloaks  can  do,  is  here 
done.  Abundance  of  churchyard  and  chapel  scenes,  in  the 
most  tempestuous  weather ;  to  say  nothing  of  battle-fields, 
gleams  of  scoured  arms  here  and  there  in  the  wood,  and  even 
occasional  shots  heard  in  the  distance.  Then  there  are  such 
scowls  and  malignant  side-glances,  ashy  palenesses,  stampings 
and  hysterics,  as  might,  one  would  think,  wring  the  toughest 
bosom  into  drops  of  pity.  For  not  only  are  the  looks  and  ges- 
tures of  these  people  of  the  most  heart-rending  description,  but 
their  words  and  feelings  also  (for  Klingemann  is  no  half-artist) 
are  of  a  piece  with  them  :  gorgeous  inflations,  the  purest  inno- 
cence, highest  magnanimity  ;  godlike  sentiment  of  all  sorts  ; 
everywhere  the  finest  tragic  humor.  The  moral  too  is  genu- 
ine ;  there  is  the  most  anxious  regard  to  virtue  ;  indeed  a  dis- 
tinct patronage  both  of  Providence  and  the  Devil.  In  this 
manner  does  Dr.  Klingemann  compound  his  dramatic  electua- 
ries, no  less  cunningly  than  Dr.  Kitchiner  did  his  "peptic 
persuaders  ;  "  and  truly  of  the  former  we  must  say,  that  their 
operation  is  nowise  unpleasant ;  nay  to  our  shame  be  it  spoken, 
we  have  even  read  these  Plays  with  a  certain  degree  of  satis- 
faction ;  and  shall  declare  that  if  any  man  wish  to  amuse  him- 
self irrationally,  here  is  the  ware  for  his  money. 

Klingemann's  latest  dramatic  undertaking  is  Ahasuer ;  a 
purely  original  invention,  on  which  he  seems  to  pique  himself 
somewhat;  confessing  his  opinion  that,  now  when  the  '-birth- 
pains  "  are  over,  the  character  of  Ahasuer  may  possibly  do  good 
service  in  many  a  future  drama.  We  are  not  prophets,  or  sons 
of  prophets ;  so  shall  leave  this  prediction  resting  on  its  own 
basis.  Ahasuer,  the  reader  will  be  interested  to  learn,  is  no 
other  than  the  Wandering  Jew  or  Shoemaker  of  Jerusalem  : 
concerning  whom  there  are  two  things  to  be  remarked.  The 
first  is,  the  strange  name  of  the  Shoemaker :  why  do  Klinge- 
mann and  all  the  Germans  call  the  man  Ahasuer,  when  his 
authentic   Christian   name   is   John;    Joannes    a    Temporibus 


CKITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Chrtsti,  or,  for  brevity's  sake,  simply  Joannes  a  Temporihus  ? 
This  should  be  looked  into.  Our  second  remark  is  of  the  cir- 
cumstance that  no  Historian  or  Narrator,  neither  Schiller, 
Strada,  Thuanus,  Monro,  nor  Dugald  Dalgetty,  makes  any 
mention  of  Ahasuer's  having  been  present  at  the  Battle  of 
Liitzen.  Possibly  they  thought  the  fact  too  notorious  to  need 
mention.  Here,  at  all  events,  he  was;  nay,  as  we  infer,  he 
must  have  been  at  Waterloo  also  ;  and  probably  at  Trafalgar, 
though  in  which  Fleet  is  not  so  clear ;  for  he  takes  a  hand  in 
all  great  battles  and  national  emergencies,  at  least  is  witness 
of  them,  being  bound  to  it  by  his  destiny.  Such  is  the  pecul- 
iar occupation  of  the  Wandering  Jew,  as  brought  to  light  in 
this  Tragedy  •  his  other  specialties,  —  that  he  cannot  lodge 
above  three  nights  in  one  place ;  that  he  is  of  a  melancholic 
temperament;  above  aU,  that  he  cannot  die,  not  by  hemp 
or  steel,  or  Prussic-acid  itself,  but  must  travel  on  till  the  gen- 
eral consummation, — are  familiar  to  all  historical  readers. 
Ahasuer's  task  at  this  Battle  of  Liitzen  seems  to  have  been  a 
very  easy  one :  simply  to  see  the  Lion  of  the  North  brought 
down ;  not  by  a  cannon-shot,  as  is  generally  believed,  but  by 
the  traitorous  pistol-bullet  of  one  Heinyn  von  Warth,  a  bigoted 
Catholic,  who  had  pretended  to  desert  from  the  Imperialists, 
that  he  might  find  some  such  opportunity.  Unfortunately, 
Heinyn,  directly  after  this  feat,  falls  into  a  sleepless,  half-rabid 
state ;  comes  home  to  Castle  Warth,  frightens  his  poor  Wife 
and  worthy  old  noodle  of  a  Father;  then  skulks  about,  for 
some  time,  now  praying,  oftener  cursing  and  swearing;  till  at 
length  the  Swedes  lay  hold  of  him  and  kill  him.  Ahasuer,  as 
usual,  is  in  at  the  death :  in  the  interim,  however,  he  has 
saved  Lady  Heinyn  from  drowning,  though  as  good  as  poisoned 
her  with  the  look  of  his  strange  stony  eyes ;  and  now  his  busi- 
ness to  all  appearance  being  over,  he  signifies  in  strong  lan- 
guage that  he  must  begone;  thereupon  he  ''steps  solemnly 
into  the  wood ;  Wasaburg  looks  after  him  surprised :  the  rest 
kneel  round  the  corpse  ;  the  Bequiem  faintly  continues  ;  "  and 
what  is  still  more  surprising,  "  the  curtain  falls."  Such  is  the 
simple  action  and  stern  catastrophe  of  this  Tragedy ;  concern- 
ing which  it  were  superfluous  for  us  to  speak  farther  in  the 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  867 

w^ay  of  criticism.  We  shall  only  add,  that  there  is  a  dreadful 
lithographic  print  in  it,  representing  "Ludwig  Devrient  as 
Ahasuer ; "  in  that  very  act  of  "  stepping  solemnly  into  the 
wood ;  "  and  uttering  these  final  words :  "  Ich  aher  wandle 
welter  —  iveiter  —  welter  I"  We  have  heard  of  Herr  Devrient 
as  of  the  best  actor  in  Germany  ;  and  can  now  bear  testimony, 
if  there  be  truth  in  this  plate,  that  he  is  one  of  the  ablest- 
bodied  men.  A  most  truculent,  rawboned  figure,  "with  bare 
legs  and  red-leather  shoes ; "  huge  black  beard ;  eyes  turned 
inside  out ;  and  uttering  these  extraordinary  words :  "  But  /  go 
on  —  on  —  on  ! " 

i^ow,  however,  we  must  give  a  glance  at  Klingemann's 
other  chief  performance  in  this  line,  the  Tragedy  of  Faust. 
Dr.  Klingemann  admits  that  the  subject  has  been  often 
treated ;  that  Goethe's  Faxist  in  particular  has  "  dramatic 
points  (  dramatlsche  Momente)  :  "  but  the  business  is  to  give  it 
an  entire  dramatic  superficies,  to  make  it  an  acht  dramatlsche, 
a  "  genuinely  dramatic  "  tragedy.  Setting  out  with  this  laud- 
able intention,  Dr.  Klingemann  has  produced  a  Faust,  which 
differs  from  that  of  Goethe  in  more  than  one  particular.  The 
hero  of  this  piece  is  not  the  old  Faust,  doctor  in  philosophy ; 
driven  desperate  by  the  uncertainty  of  human  knowledge ;  but 
plain  John  Faust,  the  printer,  and  even  the  inventor  of  gun- 
powder ;  driven  desperate  by  his  ambitious  temper,  and  a  total 
deficiency  of  cash.  He  has  an  excellent  wife,  an  excellent 
blind  father,  both  of  whom  would  fain  have  him  be  peaceable, 
and  work  at  his  trade ;  but  being  an  adept  in  the  black-art,  he 
determines  rather  to  relieve  himself  in  that  way.  Accordingly, 
he  proceeds  to  make  a  contract  with  the  Devil,  on  what  we 
should  consider  pretty  advantageous  terms ;  the  Devil  being 
bound  to  serve  him  in  the  most  effectual  manner,  and  Faust  at 
liberty  to  commit  four  mortal  sins  before  any  hair  of  his  head 
can  be  harmed.  However,  as  will  be  seen,  tlie  Devil  proves 
Yorkshire ;  and  Faust,  naturally  enough,  finds  himself  quite 
jockeyed  in  the  long-run. 

Another  characteristic  distinction  of  Klingemann  is  his 
manner  of  embodying  this  same  Evil  Principle,  when  at  last 
he  resolves  on   introducing  him  to  sight;  for  all  these  con- 


368        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

tracts  and  preliminary  matters  are  very  properly  managed 
behind  the  scenes ;  only  the  main  points  of  the  transaction 
being  indicated  to  the  spectator  by  some  thunder-clap,  or  the 
like.  Here  is  no  cold  mocking  Mephistopheles  ;  but  a  swagger- 
ing, jovial,  West-India-lookiiig  "Stranger,"  with  a  rubicund, 
indeed  quite  brick-colored  face,  which  Faust  at  first  mistakes 
for  the  effect  of  hard-drinking.  However,  it  is  a  remark- 
able feature  of  this  Stranger,  that  always  on  the  introduc- 
tion of  any  religious  topic,  or  the  mention  of  any  sacred 
name,  he  strikes  his  glass  down  on  the  table,  and  generally 
breaks  it. 

For  some  time,  after  his  grand  bargain,  Faust's  affairs  go 
on  triumphantly,  on  the  great  scale,  and  he  seems  to  feel 
pretty  comfortable.  But  the  Stranger  shows  him  "his  wife," 
Helena,  the  most  enchanting  creature  in  the  world;  and  the 
most  cruel-hearted,  —  for,  notwithstanding  the  easy  temper 
of  her  husband,  she  will  not  grant  Faust  the  smallest  encour- 
agement, till  he  have  killed  Kathe,  his  own  living  helpmate, 
against  whom  he  entertains  no  manner  of  grudge.  Neverthe- 
less, reflecting  that  he  has  a  stock  of  four  mortal  sins  to  draw 
upon,  and  may  well  venture  one  for  such  a  prize,  he  determines 
on  killing  Kathe.  But  here  matters  take  a  bad  turn  :  for  hav- 
ing poisoned  poor  Kathe,  he  discovers,  most  unexpectedly, 
that  she  is  in  the  family-way ;  and  therefore  that  he  has  com- 
mitted not  one  sin  but  two !  Nay,  before  the  interment  can 
take  place,  he  is  farther  reduced,  in  a  sort  of  accidental  self- 
defence,  to  kill  his  father  ;  thus  accomplishing  his  third  mor- 
tal sin  ;  with  which  third,  as  we  shall  presently  discover,  his 
whole  allotment  is  exhausted  ;  a  fourth,  that  he  knew  not  of, 
being  already  on  the  score  against  him !  From  this  point,  it 
cannot  surprise  us  that  bad  grows  worse  :  catchpoles  are  out 
in  pursuit  of  him,  "black  masks  "  dance  round  him  in  a  most 
suspicious  manner,  the  brick-faced  Stranger  seems  to  laugh  at 
him,  and  Helena  will  nowhere  make  her  appearance.  That 
the  sympathizing  reader  may  see  with  his  own  eyes  how  poor 
Faust  is  beset  at  this  juncture,  we  shall  quote  a  scene  or 
two.  The  first  may,  properly  enough,  be  that  of  those  "  black 
masks." 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  S69 

Scene  VII. 

A  lighted  Hall. 

In  tlie  distance  is  heard  quick  dancing -music.  Masks  pass  from  time 
to  time  over  the  Stage,  but  all  dressed  in  black,  and  with  vizards  per- 
fectly close.  After  a  pause,  Faust  plunges  wildly  in,  with  a  full  gob- 
let in  his  hand. 

Faust  [rushing  stormfully  into  the  foreground]. 
Ha  !  Poisou,  'stead  of  wine,  that  I  intoxicate  me  1 
Your  wine  makes  sober,  —burning  fire  bring  us! 
Off  with  your  drink  !  —  and  blood  is  in  it  too ! 

[Shuddering,  he  dashes  the  goblet  from  his  hand. 
My  father's  blood,  —  I  've  drunk  my  fill  of  that ! 

[  With  increasing  tumult. 
Yet  curses  on  him  !  curses,  that  he  begot  me  ! 
Curse  on  my  mother's  bosom,  that  it  bore  me  ! 
Curse  on  the  gossip-crone  tliat  stood  by  her, 
And  did  not  strangle  me  at  my  first  scream  ! 
How  could  I  help  this  being  that  was  given  me  f 
Accursed  art  thou,  Nature,  that  hast  rnock'd  me  I 
Accursed  I,  that  let  myself  be  mock'd  !  — 
And  thou,  strt)ng  Being,  tliat,  to  make  thee  sport, 
Enclosedst  the  tire-soul  in  this  dungeon, 
That  so  despairing  it  might  strive  for  freedom  — 
Accur  .  .  .  [He  shrinks  terror-struck. 

No,  not  the  fourth  .  .  .  the  blackest  sin  ! 
No !  no !  [In  the  excess  of  his  outbreaking  anguish,  he  hides 

his  face  in  his  hands. 
Oh,  I  am  altogether  wretched  ! 

Tliree  black  Masks  come  toicards  him. 

First  Mask.  Hey  I  merry  friend  ! 

Second  Mask.  Hey!  merry  brother ! 

Third  Mask  [reiterating  tvith  a  cutting  tone].  Merry! 

Faust    [breaking  out  in  wild  humor,  and  looking  round  among 

them].  Hoy  !  merry,  then  ! 
First  Mask.  "Will  any  one  catch  flies? 

Second  Mask.   A  long  life  yet;  —  to  iiii(hii';-lit  all  the  way! 
VOL.  XI  ir.  -  I 


370         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Thiud  Mask.  And  after  that,  such  pleasure  without  end  ! 

[The  music  suddenly  ceases,  and  a  dock  strikes  thrice. 
Faust  [astonished] .  What  is  it  ? 

First  Mask.  Wants  a  quarter,  Sir,  of  twelve  I 

Second  Mask.  Then  we  have  time ! 

Third  Mask.  Ay,  time  enough  for  jigging ! 

First  Mask.  And  not  till  midnight  comes  the  shot  to  pay  I 
Faust  [shuddering].  What  want  ye? 
First  Mask  [clasps  his  hand  abruptly]. 

Hey !     To  dance  a  step  with  thee  I 
Faust  [plucks  his  hands  hack].  Off!  — Fire !  ! 
First  Mask.  Tush  !    A  spark  or  so  of  brimstone ! 

Second  Mask.  Art  dreaming,  brother  f 
Third  Mask.  Holloa  !    Music,  there  ! 

[The  music  begins  again  in  the  distance. 
First  Mask  [secretly  laughing].  The  spleen  is  biting  him! 
Second  Mask.  Hark  !  at  the  gallows, 

What  jovial  footing  of  it ! 

Third  Mask.  Thither  must  I !  [Exit. 

First  Mask.  Below,  too  !  down  in  Purgatory  !     Hear  ye  ? 
Second  Mask.  A  stirring  there  f     'T  is  time,  then !     Hui,  your 

servant ! 
First  Mask  [to  Faust].  TUl  midnight ! 

[Exeunt  both  Masks  hastily. 
Faust  [clasping  his  brow] .  Ha !    What  begirds  me  here  ? 

[  Stepj)ing  vehemen t ly  forward. 
Down  with  your  masks  !  [  Violent  knocking  without. 

What  horrid  uproar  next ! 
Is  madness  coming  on  me  ?  — 

Voice  [violently  from  without].  Open,  in  the  King's  name  ! 

[The  music  ceases.     Thunder-clap. 
Faust  [staggers  hack]. 
I  have  a  heavy  dream  !  —  Sure  ^t  is  not  doomsday  ? 

Voice  [as  bejore].  Here  is  the  Tnurderer  !     Open!     Open,  then  ! 
Faust  [wipes  his  brow].  Has  agony  unmanned  me  ?  — 

Scene  VIII. 
Bailiffs.  Where  is  he  ?  where  ?  -^- 


GERMAN   PLAYWRIGHTS.  371 

From  these  merely  terrestrial  constables  the  jovial  Stranger 
easily  delivers  Faust :  but  now  comes  the  long-looked-for  tete- 
a-tete  with  Helena. 

Scene  XII. 

Faust  leads  Helena  on  the  stage.     She  also  is  close-masked.     The  other 
Masks  withdraw. 

Faust  [warm  and  glowing].  No  longer  strive,  proud  beauty  ! 
Helena.  Ha,  wild  stonner  I 

Faust.  My  bosom  burns  —  ! 
Helena.  The  time  is  not  yet  come.  — 

—  And  so  forth,  through  four  pages  of  flame  and  ice,  till  at 
last, 

Faust  [insisting].  Off  with  the  mask,  then! 

Helena  [still  wilder] .  Hey  !  the  marriage-hour  !  -^ 

Faust.  Off  with  the  mask ! ! 
Helena.  'T  is  striking  !  ! 

Faust.  One  kiss ! 

Helena.  Take  it ! ! 

[The  mask  and  head-dress  fall  from  her  ;  and  she  grins  at 
him  from  a  death'' s-head :  loud  thunder;  and  the  music 
ends,  as  with  a  shriek,  in  dissonances. 
Faust  [staggers  back] .  0  horror  !  —  Woe  ! 

Helena.  The  couch  is  ready,  there  I 

Come,  Bridegroom,  to  thy  fire-nuptials! 

[She  sinks,  with  a  crashing  thunder-peal,  into  the  ground, 
out  of  ichich  issue  flames. 

All  this  is  bad  enough;  but  mere  child's-play  to  the  "Thir- 
teenth Scene,"  the  last  of  this  strange  eventful  history:  with 
some  parts  of  wliieh  we  propose  to  send  our  readers  weeping 
to  their  beds. 


872        CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Scene  XIII. 

The  Stranger  hurls  Faust,  whose  face  is  deadly  pale,  hack  to  the  stage, 

hy  the  hair. 

Faust.  Ha,  let  rae  fly  !  —  Come  !    Come  ! 

Stranger  [with  wild  thundering  tone].  *T  is  over  now  I 

Faust.     That  horrid  visage  !  — 

[Throwing  himself,  in  a  tremor,  on  the  Stranger's  breast. 
Thou  art  my  Friend  I 
Protect  me ! ! 
Stranger  [laughing  dloud\.  Ha !  ha  !  ha ! 

Faust.  Oh,  save  me  ! ! 

Stranger  [clutches  him  with  irresistible  force  ;  whirls  him  round, 
so  that  Faust's  face  is  towards  the  spectators,  whilst  his  own  is 
turned  away  ;  and  thus  he  looks  at  him,  and  bawls  with  thun- 
dering voice] .  'T  is  I ! !  — 

[A  clap  of  thunder.  Faust,  with  gestures  of  deepest  horror, 
rushes  to  the  ground,  uttering  an  inarticulate  cry.  The 
other,  after  a  pause,  continues,  with  cutting  coolness : 

Is  that  the  mighty  Hell-subduer, 
That  threatened  me  ?  —  Ha,  me  !  !  [  With  highest  contempt. 

Worm  of  the  dust  I 
I  had  reserved  thy  torment  for  —  myself!  !  — 
Descend  to  other  hands,  be  sport  for  slaves  — 
Thou  art  too  small  for  me  ! ! 

Faust  [rises  erect,  and  seems  to  recover  his  strength]. 

Am  nut  I  Faust  ? 
Stranger.  Thou,  no  ! 
Faust,  [rising  in  his  whole  vehemence]. 

Accursed  !     Ha,  I  am  !     I  am  1 
Down  at  my  feet !  —  I  am  thy  master  ! 

Stranger.  No  more ! ! 

Faust  [wildly].  More  ?     Ha !     My  Bargain  !  1 

Stranger.  Is  concluded  I 

Faust.   Three  mortal  sius.  — 

Stranger.  The  Fourth  too  is  committed  I 

Faust.  My  Wife,  my  Child,  and  my  old  Father's  blood  —  I 

Stranger  [holds  up  a  Parchment  to  him].    And  licro  thy  own  !  — 

Faust.  That  is  my  coveuanti 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  873 

Stranger.  This  signature  —  was  thy  most  damning  sin  I 
Faust  Iraging].     Ha,  spirit  of  lies ! !  &c.  &c. 

Stranger  [in  highest  fury].    Down,  thou  accursed! 

{He  drags  him  by  the  Imir  towards  the  background  ;  at  this 
moment,  amid  violent  thunder  and  lightning,  the  scene 
changes  into  a  horrid  wilderness  ;  in  the  background  of 
which,  a  yawning  Chasm  :  into  this  the  Devil  hurls  Faust; 
on  all  sides  fire  rains  down,  so  that  the  whole  interior  of 
the  Cavern  seems  burning  :  a  black  veil  descends  over  both, 
so  soon  as  Faust  is  got  under. 

Faust  [huzzaing  in  wild  defiance].  Ha,  down  !     Down  ! 

[Thunder,  lightning  and  fire.     Both  sink.     The  curtain  falls. 

On  considering  all  whicli  supernatural  transactions,  the 
bewildered  reader  has  no  theory  for  it,  except  that  Faust 
must,  in  Dr.  Cabanis's  phrase,  have  labored  under  "  obstruc- 
tions in  the  epigastric  region,"  and  all  this  of  the  Devil,  and 
Helena,  and  so  much  murder  and  carousing,  have  been  noth- 
ing but  a  waking  dream,  or  other  atrabilious  phantasm ; 
and  regrets  that  the  poor  Printer  had  not  rather  applied  to 
some  Abernethy  on  the  subject,  or  even,  by  one  sufficient  dose 
of  Epsom-salt,  on  his  own  prescription,  put  an  end  to  the 
whole  matter,  and  restored  himself  to  the  bosom  of  his  afflicted 
family. 

Such,  then,  for  Dr.  Klingemann's  part,  is  his  method  of 
constructing  Tragedies ;  to  which  method  it  may  perhaps  be 
objected  that  there  is  a  want  of  originality  in  it ;  for  do  not 
our  own  British  Playwrights  follow  precisely  the  same  i)lan  ? 
"We  might  answer  that,  if  not  his  plan,  at  least  his  infinitely 
siiperior  execution  of  it  must  distinguish  Klingemann :  but  we 
rather  think  his  claim  to  originality  rests  on  a  different  ground ; 
on  the  ground,  namely,  of  his  entire  contentment  with  him- 
self and  with  this  his  dramaturgy  ;  and  the  cool  heroism  with 
which,  on  all  occasions,  he  avows  that  contentment.  Here  is 
no  poor  cowering  underfoot  Playwright,  begging  the  public  for 
God's  sake  not  to  give  him  the  whipping  which  he  deserves; 
but  a  bold  perpendicular  Playwright,  avowing  himself  as  such; 
nay  mounted  ou  the  top  of  his  joinery,  and  therefrom  cxcr- 


374         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

cising  a  sharp  critical  superintendence  over  the  German  Drama 
generally.  Klingemann,  we  understand,  has  lately  executed 
a  theatrical  Tour,  as  Don  Quixote  did  various  Sallies;  and 
thrown  stones  into  most  German  Playhouses,  and  at  various 
German  Play  writers  ;  of  which  we  have  seen  only  his  assault 
on  Tieck  ;  a  feat  comparable  perhaps  to  that  "  never-imagined 
adventure  of  the  Windmills."  Fortune,  it  is  said,  favors  the 
brave ;  and  the  prayer  of  Burns's  Kilmarnock  weaver  is  not 
always  unheard  of  Heaven.  In  conclusion,  we  congratulate 
Dr.  Klingemann  on  his  Manager-dignity  in  the  Brunswick 
Theatre ;  a  post  he  seems  made  for,  almost  as  Bardolph  was 
for  the  Eastcheap  waitership. 

But  now,  like  his  own  Ahasuer,  Dr.  Klingemann  must  "  go 
on  —  on  —  on  :  "  for  another  and  greater  Doctor  has  been  kept 
too  long  waiting,  whose  Seven  beautiful  Volumes  of  Drama- 
tische  Werke  might  well  secure  him  a  better  fate.  Dr.  Miillner, 
of  all  these  Playwrights,  is  the  best  known  in  England ;  some 
of  his  works  have  even,  we  believe,  been  translated  into  our 
language.  In  his  own  country,  his  fame,  or  at  least  notoriety, 
is  also  supreme  over  all :  no  Playwright  of  this  age  makes 
such  a  noise  as  Miillner ;  nay,  many  there  are  who  affirm  that 
he  is  something  far  better  than  a  Playwright.  Critics  of  tlie 
sixth  and  lower  magnitudes,  in  every  corner  of  Germany,  have 
put  the  question  a  thousand  times  :  Whether  Miillner  is  not  a 
Poet  and  Dramatist  ?  To  which  question,  as  the  higher  author- 
ities maintain  an  obstinate  silence,  or,  if  much  pressed,  reply 
only  in  groans,  these  sixth-magnitude  men  have  been  obliged 
to  make  answer  themselves ;  and  they  have  done  it  with  an 
emphasis  and  vociferation  calculated  to  dispel  all  remaining 
doubts  in  the  minds  of  men.  Ill  Milliner's  mind,  at  least,  they 
have  left  little  ;  a  conviction  the  more  excusable,  as  the  play- 
going  vulgar  seem  to  be  almost  unanimous  in  sharing  it ;  and 
thunders  of  applause,  nightly  through  so  many  theatres,  return 
him  loud  acclaim. 

Such  renown  is  pleasant  food  for  the  hungry  appetite  of  a 
man,  and  naturally  he  rolls  it  as  a  sweet  morsel  under  his 
tongue  :  but,  after  all,  it  can  profit  him  but  little  ;  nay,  many 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  875 

times,  what  is  sugar  to  the  taste  may  be  sugar-of-lead  when  it 
is  swallowed.  Better  were  it  for  Milliner,  we  think,  had  fainter 
thunders  of  applause  and  from  fewer  theatres  greeted  him. 
For  what  good  is  in  it,  even  were  there  no  evil  ?  Though  a 
thousand  caps  leap  into  the  air  at  his  name,  his  own  stature  is 
no  hair's-breadth  higher ;  neither  even  can  the  final  estimate 
of  its  height  be  thereby  in  the  smallest  degree  enlarged.  From 
gainsayers  these  greetings  provoke  only  a  stricter  scrutiny ; 
the  matter  comes  to  be  accurately  known  at  last ;  and  he  who 
has  been  treated  with  foolish  liberality  at  one  period  must 
make  up  for  it  by  the  want  of  bare  necessaries  at  another.  ISTo 
one  will  deny  that  Milliner  is  a  person  of  some  considerable 
talent :  we  understand  he  is,  or  was  once,  a  Lawyer ;  and  can 
believe  that  he  may  have  acted,  and  talked,  and  written,  very 
prettily  in  that  capacity :  but  to  set  up  for  a  Poet  was  quite  a 
different  enterjirise,  in  which  we  reckon  that  he  has  altogether 
mistaken  his  road,  and  that  these  mob-cheers  have  led  him 
farther  and  farther  astray. 

Several  years  ago,  on  the  faith  of  very  earnest  recommen- 
dation, it  was  our  lot  to  read  one  of  Dr.  Milliner's  Tragedies, 
the  Alha  71  riser  inn ;  with  which,  such  was  its  effect  on  us,  we 
could  willingly  enough  have  terminated  our  acquaintance  with 
Dr.  Milliner.  A  palpable  imitation  of  Schiller's  Braut  von 
Messina  ;  without  any  philosophy  or  feeling  that  was  not 
either  perfectly  commonplace  or  perfectly  false,  often  both 
the  one  and  the  other  ;  inflated,  indeed,  into  a  certain  hollow 
bulk,  but  altogether  without  greatness  ;  being  built  throughout 
on  mere  rant  and  clangor,  and  other  elements  of  the  most 
indubitable  Prose :  such  a  work  could  not  but  be  satisfactory 
to  us  respecting  Dr.  Milliner's  genius  as  a  Poet ;  and  time 
being  precious,  and  the  world  wide  enough,  we  had  privately 
determined  that  we  and  Dr.  Milliner  were  each  henceforth 
to  pursue  his  own  course.  Nevertheless,  so  considerable  has 
been  the  progress  of  our  worthy  friend  since  then,  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  that  his  labors  are  again  forced  on  our 
notice  :  for  we  reckon  the  existence  of  a  true  Poet  in  any 
country  to  be  so  important  a  fact,  that  even  tlie  slight  proba- 
bility of  such   is  worthy  of  investigation.     Accordingly  we 


376        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

have  again  perused  the  Albandserinn,  and  along  with  it  faith- 
fully examined  the  whole  Dramatic  Works  of  ^liillner,  pub- 
lished in  Seven  Volumes,  on  beautiful  paper,  in  small  shape 
and  every  way  very  fit  for  handling.  The  whole  tragic  works, 
we  should  rather  say :  for  three  or  four  of  his  comic  perform- 
ances sufficiently  contented  us  ;  and  some  two  volumes  of 
farces,  we  confess,  are  still  unread.  We  have  also  carefully 
gone  through,  and  with  much  less  difficulty,  the  Prefaces, 
Appendices,  and  other  prose  sheets,  wherein  the  Author  ex- 
hibits the  ^^fata  lihell'i ;"  defends  himself  from  unjust  criti- 
cisms, reports  just  ones,  or  himself  makes  such.  The  toils 
of  this  task  we  shall  not  magnify,  well  knowing  that  man's 
life  is  a  fight  throughout :  only  having  now  gathered  what 
light  is  to  be  had  on  this  matter,  we  proceed  to  speak  forth 
our  verdict  thereon  ;  fondly  hoping  that  we  shall  then  have 
done  with  it,  for  an  indefinite  period  of  time. 

Dr.  Miillnei",  then,  we  must  take  liberty  to  believe,  in  spite 
of  all  that  has  been  said  or  sung  upon  the  subject,  is  no 
Dramatist ;  has  never  written  a  Tragedy,  and  in  all  human 
probability  will  never  write  one.  Grounds  for  this  harsh, 
negative  opinion,  did  the  burden  of  proof  lie  chiefly  on  our 
side,  we  might  state  in  extreme  abundance.  There  is  one 
ground,  however,  which,  if  our  observation  be  correct,  would 
virtually  include  all  the  rest.  Dr.  Mullner's  whole  soul  and 
character,  to  the  deepest  root  we  can  trace  of  it,  seems  prosaic, 
not  poetical ;  his  Dramas,  therefore,  like  whatever  else  he 
])rodaces,  must  be  manufactured,  not  created ;  nay,  we  think 
that  his  principle  of  manufacture  is  itself  rather  a  poor  and 
second-hand  one.  Vain  were  it  for  any  reader  to  search  in 
these  Seven  Volumes  for  an  opinion  any  deeper  or  clearer,  a 
sentiment  any  finer  or  higher,  than  may  conveniently  belong 
to  the  commonest  practising  advocate  :  except  stilting  heroics, 
which  the  man  himself  half  knows  to  be  false,  and  every  otiier 
man  easily  waves  aside,  there  is  nothing  here  to  disturb  the 
quiescence  either  of  heart  or  head.  This  man  is  a  Doctor 
utriusque  Juris,  most  probably  of  good  juristic  talent ;  and 
nothing  more  whatever.  His  language  too,  all  accurately 
measured  into  feet,  and  good  current  German,  so  far  as  a 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  877 

foreigner  may  judge,  bears  similar  testimony.  Except  the 
rhyme  aud  metre,  it  exhibits  no  poetical  symptom :  without 
being  verbose,  it  is  essentially  meagre  and  watery ;  no  idio- 
matic expressiveness,  no  melody,  no  virtue  of  any  kind ;  the 
commonest  vehicle  for  the  commonest  meaning.  Not  that  our 
Doctor  is  destitute  of  metaphors  and  other  rhetorical  further- 
ances ;  but  that  these  also  are  of  the  most  trivial  character : 
old  threadbare  material,  scoured  up  into  a  state  of  shabby- 
gentility  ;  mostly  turning  on  "  light  "  and  "  darkness  ;  "  "  flashes 
through  clouds,"  "  tire  of  heart,"  "  tempest  of  soul,"  and  the 
like,  which  can  profit  no  man  or  woman.  In  short,  we  must 
repeat  it,  Dr.  Miillner  has  yet  to  show  that  there  is  any 
particle  of  poetic  metal  in  him ;  that  his  genius  is  other  than 
a  sober  clay-pit,  from  which  good  bricks  may  be  made  ;  but 
where  to  look  for  gold  or  diamonds  were  sheer  waste  of 
labor. 

When  we  think  of  our  own  Maturin  and  Sheridan  Knowles, 
and  the  gala-day  of  popularity  which  they  also  once  enjoyed 
with  us,  we  can  be  at  no  loss  for  the  genus  under  which 
Dr.  Miillner  is  to  be  included  in  critical  physiology.  Never- 
theless, in  marking  him  as  a  distinct  Playwright,  we  are  bound 
to  mention  that  in  general  intellectual  talent  he  shows  himself 
very  considerably  superior  to  his  two  German  brethren.  He 
has  a  much  better  taste  than  Klingemann  ;  rejecting  the  aid 
of  plush  and  gunpowder,  we  may  say  altogether;  is  even  at 
the  pains  to  rhyme  great  part  of  his  Tragedies ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  writes  with  a  certain  care  and  decorous  composure, 
to  which  the  Brunswick  Manager  seems  totally  indifferent. 
IMoreover,  he  appears  to  surpass  Grillparzer,  as  well  as  Klinge- 
mann, in  a  certain  force  both  of  judgment  and  passion ;  which 
indeed  is  no  very  mighty  affair;  Grillparzer  being  naturally 
but  a  treble-pipe  in  these  matters ;  and  Klingemann,  blowing 
through  such  an  enormous  coach-horn,  that  the  natural  note 
goes  for  nothing,  becomes  a  mere  vibration  in  that  all-subduing 
volume  of  sound.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  singular  enough 
that  neither  Grillparzer  nor  Klingemann  should  be  nearly  so 
tough  reading  as  Miillner ;  which,  however,  we  declare  to  be 
the  fact.    As  to  Klingemann,  he  is  even  an  amusing  artist ; 


378        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

there  is  such  a  briskness  and  heart  in  him  ;  so  rich  is  he,  nay 
so  exuberant  in  riches,  so  full  of  explosions,  fire-flashes,  exe- 
crations and  all  manner  of  catastrophes  ;  and  then,  good  soul, 
he  asks  no  attention  from  us,  knows  his  trade  better  than  to 
dream  of  asking  any.  Grillparzer,  again,  is  a  sadder  and  per- 
haps a  wiser  companion ;  long-winded  a  little,  but  peaceable 
and  soft-hearted:  his  melancholy,  even  when  he  pules,  is  in 
the  highest  degree  inoffensive,  and  we  can  often  weep  a  tear 
or  two /or  him,  if  not  with  him.  But  of  all  Tragedians,  may 
the  indulgent  Heavens  deliver  us  from  any  farther  traf&c  with 
Dr.  Milliner !  This  is  the  lukewarm,  which  we  could  wish  to 
be  either  cold  or  hot.  Mullner  will  not  keep  us  awake,  while 
we  read  him ;  yet  neither  will  he,  like  Klingemann,  let  us 
fairly  get  asleep.  Ever  and  anon,  it  is  as  if  we  came  into 
some  smooth  quiescent  country ;  and  the  soul  flatters  herself 
that  here  at  last  she  may  be  allowed  to  fall  back  ou  her 
cushions,  the  eyes  meanwhile,  like  two  safe  postilions,  com- 
fortably conducting  her  through  that  flat  region,  in  which  are 
nothing  but  flax-crops  and  milestones ;  and  ever  and  anon 
some  jolt  or  unexpected  noise  fatally  disturbs  her ;  and  look- 
ing out,  it  is  no  waterfall  or  mountain  chasm,  but  only  the 
villanous  highway,  and  squalls  of  October  wind.  To  speak 
without  figure,  Dr.  Mullner  does  seem  to  us  a  singularly  op- 
pressive writer ;  and  perhaps  for  this  reason :  that  he  hovers 
too  near  the  verge  of  good  writing ;  ever  tempting  us  with 
some  hope  that  here  is  a  touch  of  Poetry;  and  ever  disap- 
pointing us  with  a  touch  of  pure  Prose.  A  stately  sentiment 
comes  tramping  forth  with  a  clank  that  sounds  poetic  and 
heroic :  we  start  in  breathless  expectation,  waiting  to  rever- 
ence the  heavenly  guest ;  and,  alas,  he  proves  to  be  but  an 
old  stager  dressed  in  new  buckram,  a  stager  well  known  to 
us,  nay  often  a  stager  that  has  already  been  drummed  out  of 
most  well-regulated  communities.  So  is  it  ever  with  Dr.  Miill- 
ner :  no  feeling  can  be  traced  much  deeper  in  him  than  the 
tongue;  or  perhaps  when  we  search  more  strictly,  instead  of 
an  ideal  of  beauty,  we  shall  find  some  vague  aim  after  strength, 
or  in  defect  of  this,  after  mere  size.  And  yet  how  cunningly 
he  manages  the  counterfeit !     A  most  plausible,  fair-spoken, 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  379 

close-shaven  man :  a  man  whom  you  must  not,  for  decency 's- 
sake,  throw  out  of  the  window ;  and  yet  you  feel  that,  being 
palpably  a  Turk  in  grain,  his  intents  are  wicked  and  not 
charitable ! 

But  the  grand  question  with  regard  to  MUllner,  as  with  regard 
to  those  other  Playwrights,  is :  Where  lies  his  peculiar  sleight- 
of-hand  in  this  craft  ?  Let  us  endeavor,  then,  to  find  out  his 
secret,  —  his  recipe  for  play-making ;  and  communicate  the 
same. for  behoof  of  the  British  nation.  Mullner's  recipe  is 
no  mysterious  one ;  floats,  indeed,  on  the  very  surface ;  might 
even  be  taught,  one  would  suppose,  on  a  few  trials,  to  the 
humblest  capacity.  Our  readers  may  perhaps  recollect  Zacha- 
rias  Werner,  and  some  short  allusion,  in  our  First  Number,  to 
a  highly  terrific  piece  of  his,  entitled  The  Tiventy-fourth  of 
February.  A  more  detailed  account  of  the  matter  may  be 
found  in  Madame  de  Stael's  Allemagne  ;  in  the  Chapter  which 
treats  of  that  infatuated  Zacharias  generally.  It  is  a  story  of 
a  Swiss  peasant  and  bankrupt,  called  Kurt  Kuruh,  if  we  mis- 
take not ;  and  of  his  wife,  and  a  rich  travelling  stranger  lodged 
with  them ;  which  latter  is,  in  the  night  of  the  Twenty- fourth 
of  February,  wilfully  and  feloniously  murdered  by  the  two 
former  ;  and  proves  himself,  in  the  act  of  dying,  to  be  their 
own  only  son,  who  had  returned  home  to  make  them  all  com- 
fortable, could  they  only  have  hcCd  a  little  more  patience.  But 
the  foul  deed  is  already  accomplished,  with  a  rusty  knife  or 
scythe ;  and  nothing  of  course  remains  but  for  the  whole  batch 
to  go  to  perdition.  For  it  was  written,  as  the  Arabs  say,  "  on 
the  iron  leaf  :  "  these  Kuruhs  are  doomed  men ;  old  Kuruh, 
the  grandfather,  had  committed  some  sin  or  other ;  for  which, 
like  the  sons  of  Atreus,  his  descendants  are  "  i)rosecuted  with 
the  utmost  rigor :  "  nay  so  punctilious  is  Destiny,  that  this 
very  Twenty-fourth  of  February,  the  day  when  that  old  sin 
was  enacted,  is  still  a  fatal  day  with  the  family  ;  and  this  very 
knife  or  scythe,  the  criminal  tool  on  that  former  occasion,  is 
ever  the  instrument  of  new  crime  and  punishment ;  the  Kuruhs, 
during  all  that  half-century,  never  having  carried  it  to  the 
smithy  to  make  hobnails ;  but  kept  it  hanging  on  a  peg,  most 
injudiciously  we  think,  almost  as  a  sort  of  bait  and  bonus  to 


380         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Satan,  a  ready-made  fulcrum  for  whatever  machinery  he  might 
bring  to  bear  against  them.  This  is  the  tragic  lesson  taught 
in  Werner's  Twenty-fourth  of  February ;  and,  as  the  whole 
dramatis  personam  are  either  stuck  through  with  old  iron,  or 
hanged  in  hemp,  it  is  surely  taught  with  some  considerable 
emphasis. 

Werner's  Play  was  brought  out  at  Weimar,  in  1809 ;  under 
the  direction  or  permission,  as  he  brags,  of  the  great  Goethe 
himself ;  and  seems  to  have  produced  no  faint  impression  on  a 
discerning  public.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  piece  nowise  destitute  of 
substance  and  a  certain  coarse  vigor ;  and  if  any  one  has  so 
obstinate  a  heart  that  he  must  absolutely  stand  in  a  slaughter- 
house, or  within  wind  of  the  gallows  before  tears  will  come,  it 
may  have  a  very  comfortable  effect  on  him.  One  symptom  of 
merit  it  must  be  admitted  to  exhibit,  —  an  adaptation  to  the 
general  taste ;  for  the  small  fibre  of  originality  which  exists 
here  has  already  shot  forth  into  a  whole  wood  of  imitations. 
We  understand  that  the  Fate-line  is  now  quite  an  established 
branch  of  dramatic  business  in  Germany  ;  they  have  their 
Fate-dramatists,  just  as  we  have  our  gingham-weavers  and  inkle- 
weavers.  Of  this  Fate-manufacture  we  have  already  seen 
one  sample  in  Grillparzer's  Ahnfrau:  but  by  far  the  most  ex- 
tensive Fate-manufacturer,  the  head  and  prince  of  all  Fate- 
dramatists,  is  the  Dr.  Milliner  at  present  under  consideration. 
]\Iullner  deals  in  Fate,  and  Fate  only  ;  it  is  the  basis  and 
staple  of  his  whole  tragedy-goods ;  cut  off  this  one  principle, 
you  annihilate  his  raw  material,  and  he  can  manufacture  no 
more. 

Mullner  acknowledges  his  obligations  to  Werner;  but,  we 
think,  not  half  warmly  enough.  Werner  was  in  fact  the  mak- 
ing of  him  ;  great  as  he  has  now  become,  our  Doctor  is  nothing 
but  a  mere  mistletoe  growing  from  that  poor  oak.  itself  already 
lialf  dead;  had  there  been  no  Twenty-fourth  of  February,  there 
were  then  no  Twenty-ninth  of  February,  no  Schuld,  no  Albnna- 
serinn,  most  i)robably  no  Konig  Yngurd.  For  the  reader  is  to 
understand  that  Dr.  Mullner,  already  a  middle-aged,  and  as 
yet  a  perfectly  undramatic  man,  began  business  with  a  direct 
copy  of  this  Twenty-fourth;  a  thing  proceeding  by  Destiny, 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  881 

and  ending  in  murder,  by  a  knife  or  scythe,  as  in  the  Kuruh 
case ;  with  one  improvement,  indeed,  that  there  was  a  grinding- 
stone  introduced  into  the  scene,  and  the  spectator  had  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  the  knife  previously  whetted.  The  Au- 
thor, too,  was  honest  enough  publicly  to  admit  his  imitation; 
for  he  named  this  Play  the  Twenty-ninth  of  February  ;  and,  in 
his  Preface,  gave  thanks,  though  somewhat  reluctantly,  to 
Werner,  as  to  his  master  and  originator.  For  some  inscrutable 
reason,  this  Twenty-ninth  was  not  sent  to  the  greengrocer,  but 
became  popular :  there  was  even  the  weakest  of  parodies  writ- 
ten on  it,  entitled  Eumenides  Diister  (Eumenides  Gloomy), 
which  Mullner  has  reprinted ;  there  was  likewise  "  a  Avish  ex- 
pressed "  that  the  termination  might  be  made  joyous,  not 
grievous ;  with  which  wish  also  the  indefatigable  wright  has 
complied ;  and  so,  for  the  benefit  of  weak  nerves,  we  have  the 
Wahn  (Delusion),  which  still  ends  in  tears,  but  glad  ones. 
In  short,  our  Doctor  has  a  peculiar  merit  with  this  Twenty- 
ninth  of  his ;  for  who  but  he  could  have  cut  a  second  and  a 
third  face  on  the  same  cherry-stone,  said  cherry-stone  having 
first  to  be  borrowed,  or  indeed  half-stolen  ? 

At  this  point,  however.  Dr.  Mullner  apparently  began  to  set 
up  for  himself ;  and  ever  henceibrth  he  endeavors  to  persuade 
his  own  mind  and  ours  that  his  debt  to  Werner  terminates 
here.  Nevertheless  clear  it  is  that  fresh  debt  was  every  day 
contracting.  For  had  not  this  one  Wernerian  idea  taken  com- 
plete hold  of  the  Doctor's  mind  ;  so  that  he  was  quite  possessed 
with  it,  had,  we  might  say,  no  other  tragic  idea  whatever  ? 
That  a  man  on  a  certain  day  of  the  month  shall  fall  into 
crime  ;  for  which  an  invisible  Fate  shall  silently  pursue  him  ; 
punishing  the  transgression,  most  probably  on  the  same  day 
of  the  month,  annually  (unless,  as  in  the  Tirenty-ninth,  it  be 
leap-year,  and  Fate  in  tliis  may  be,  to  a  certain  extent,  bilked) ; 
and  never  resting  till  the  poor  wight  himself,  and  perhaps  his 
last  descendant,  shall  be  swept  away  with  the  besom  of  de- 
struction ;  such,  n;iore  or  less  disguised,  frequently  without  any 
disguise,  is  the  tragic  essence,  the  vital  principle,  natural  or 
galvanic  we  are  not  deciding,  of  all  Dr.  jMiillner's  Dramas. 
Thus,  in  that  everlasting  Twenty-ninth  of  February,  we  have 


382        CEITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

the  principle  in  its  naked  state :  some  old  Woodcutter  or 
Forester  has  fallen  into  deadly  sin  with  his  wife's  sister,  long 
ago,  on  that  intercalary  day ;  and  so  his  whole  progeny  must, 
wittingly  or  unwittingly,  proceed  in  incest  and  murder;  the 
day  of  the  catastrophe  regularly  occurring,  every  four  years, 
on  the  same  Twenty-ninth ;  till  happily  the  whole  are  mur- 
dered, and  there  is  an  end.  So  likewise  in  the  Schuld  (Guilt), 
a  much  more  ambitious  performance,  we  have  exactly  the 
same  doctrine  of  an  anniversary ;  and  the  interest  once  more 
turns  on  that  delicate  business  of  murder  and  incest.  In 
the  Albandserinn  (Fair  Albanese),  again,  which  may  have  the 
credit,  such  as  it  is,  of  being  Mullner's  best  Play,  we  find  the 
Fate-theory  a  little  colored ;  as  if  the  drug  had  begun  to  dis- 
gust, and  the  Doctor  would  hide  it  in  a  spoonful  of  syrup :  it 
is  a  dying  man's  curse  that  operates  on  the  criminal ;  which 
curse,  being  strengthened  by  a  sin  of  very  old  standing  in  the 
family  of  the  cursee,  takes  singular  effect;  the  parties  only 
weathering  parricide,  fratricide,  and  the  old  story  of  incest, 
by  two  self-banishments,  and  two  very  decisive  self-murders. 
Nay,  it  seems  as  if  our  Doctor  positively  could  not  act  at  all 
without  this  Fate-panacea :  in  Konig  Yngurd,  we  might  almost 
think  that  he  had  made  such  an  attempt,  and  found  that  it 
would  not  do.  This  Konig  Yngurd,  an  imaginary  Peasant- 
King  of  Norway,  is  meant,  as  we  are  kindly  informed,  to  pre- 
sent us  with  some  adumbration  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte ;  and 
truly,  for  the  two  or  three  first  Acts,  he  goes  along  with  no 
small  gallantry,  in  what  drill-sergeants  call  a  dashing  or  swash- 
ing style ;  a  very  virtuous  kind  of  man,  and  as  bold  as  Ruy 
Diaz  or  the  Warwick  Mastiff:  when  suddenly  in  the  middle 
of  a  battle,  far  on  in  the  Play,  he  is  seized  with  some  caprice, 
or  whimsical  qualm ;  retires  to  a  solitar}''  place  among  rocks, 
and  there  in  a  most  gratuitous  manner,  delivers  himself  over, 
viva  voce,  to  the  Devil ;  who,  in^leed,  does  not  appear  personally 
to  take  seisin  of  him,  but  yet,  as  afterwards  comes  to  light, 
has  with  great  readiness  accepted  the  gift.  For  now  Yngurd 
grows  dreadfully  sulky  and  wicked,  does  little  henceforth  but 
bully  men  and  kill  them  ;  till  at  length,  the  measure  of  his 
iniquities  being  full,  he  himself  is  bidlied  and  killed ;  and  the 


GERxMAN   PLAYWRIGHTS.  883 

Author,  carried  through  by  this  his  sovereign  tragic  elixir, 
contrary  to  expectation,  terminates  his  piece  with  reasonable 
comfort. 

This,  then,  is  Dr.  Milliner's  dramatic  mystery ;  this  is  the 
one  patent  hook  by  which  he  would  hang  his  clay  tragedies  on 
the  upper  spiritual  world ;  and  so  establish  for  himself  a  free 
communication,  almost  as  if  by  block-and-tackle,  between  the 
visible  Prose  Earth  and  the  invisible  Poetic  Heaven.  The 
greater  or  less  merit  of  this  his  invention,  or  rather  improve- 
ment, for  Werner  is  the  real  patentee,  has  given  rise,  we  un- 
derstand, to  extensive  argument.  The  small  deer  of  criticism 
seem  to  be  much  divided  in  opinion  on  this  point ;  and  the 
higher  orders,  as  we  have  stated,  declining  to  throw  any  light 
whatever  on  it,  the  subject  is  still  mooting  with  great  anima- 
tion. For  our  own  share,  we  confess  that  we  incline  to  rank 
it,  as  a  recipe  for  dramatic  tears,  a  shade  higher  than  the 
Page's  split  onion  in  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  Craftily  hid 
in  the  handkerchief,  this  onion  was  sufficient  for  the  deception 
of  Christopher  Sly;  in  that  way  attaining  its  object;  which 
also  the  Fate-invention  seems  to  have  done  with  the  Chris- 
topher Slys  of  Germany,  and  these  not  one  but  many,  and 
therefore  somewhat  harder  to  deceive.  To  this  onion-supe- 
riority we  think  Dr.  M.  is  fairly  entitled  ;  and  with  this  it 
were,  perhaps,  good  for  him  that  he  remained  content. 

Dr.  Milliner's  Fate-scheme  has  been  attacked  by  certain  of 
his  traducers  on  the  score  of  its  hostility  to  the  Christian 
religion.  Languishing  indeed  should  we  reckon  the  condition 
of  the  Christian  religion  to  be,  could  Dr.  Milliner's  play-joinery 
produce  any  perceptible  eifect  on  it.  Nevertheless,  we  may 
remark,  since  the  matter  is  in  hand,  that  this  business  of  Fate 
does  seem  to  us  nowise  a  Christian  doctrine  ;  not  even  a  Ma- 
hometan or  Heathen  one.  The  Fate  of  the  Greeks,  though  a 
false,  Avas  a  lofty  hypothesis,  and  harmonized  sufficiently  with 
the  whole  sensual  and  material  structure  of  their  theology : 
a  ground  of  deepest  black,  on  which  that  gorgeous  phantas- 
magoria was  fitly  enough  painted.  Besides,  with  them  the 
avenging  Power  dwelt,  at  least  in  its  visible  manifestations, 
among  the  high  places  of   the  earth ;    visiting  only  kingly 


384        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

houses  and  world  criminals,  from  whom  it  might  be  supposed 
the  world,  but  for  such  miraculous  inter fereuces,  could  have 
exacted  no  vengeance,  or  found  no  protection  and  purification. 
Never,  that  we  recollect  of,  did  the  Eriunyes  become  mere 
sheriff 's-officers,  and  Fate  a  justice  of  the  peace,  haling  poor 
drudges  to  the  treadmill  for  robbery  of  hen-roosts,  or  scatter- 
ing the  earth  with  steel-traps  to  keep  down  poaching.  And 
what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  revealed  Providence  of  these 
days ;  that  Power  whose  path  is  emphatically  through  the 
great  deep  ;  his  doings  and  plans  manifested,  in  completeness, 
not  by  the  year  or  by  the  century,  on  individuals  or  on  nations, 
but  stretching  through  Eternity,  and  over  the  Infinitude  which 
he  rules  and  sustains  ? 

But  there  needs  no  recourse  to  theological  arguments  for 
judging  this  Fate-tenet  of  Dr.  Miillner's.  Its  value,  as  a 
dramatic  principle,  may  be  estimated,  it  seems  to  us,  by  this 
one  consideration  :  that  in  these  days  no  person  of  either  sex 
in  the  slightest  degree  believes  it ;  that  Dr.  INIullner  himself 
does  not  believe  it.  We  are  not  contending  that  fiction  should 
become  fact,  or  that  no  dramatic  incident  is  genuine,  unless 
it  could  be  sworn  to  before  a  jury ;  but  simply  that  fiction 
should  not  be  falsehood  and  delirium.  How  shall  any  one, 
in  the  drama,  or  in  poetry  of  any  sort,  present  a  consistent 
philosophy  of  life,  which  is  the  soul  and  ultimate  essence  of 
all  poetry,  if  he  ajjd  every  mortal  know  tliat  the  whole  moral 
basis  of  his  ideal  world  is  a  lie  ?  And  is  it  other  than  a  lie 
that  man's  life  is,  was  or  could  be,  grounded  on  this  pettifog- 
ging principle  of  a  Fate  that  pursues  woodcutters  and  cowherds 
with  miraculous  visitations,  on  stated  days  of  the  month  ? 
Can  we,  with  any  profit,  hold  the  mirror  up  to  Nature  in  this 
wise  ?  When  our  mirror  is  no  mirror,  but  only  as  it  were  a 
nursery  saucepan,  and  that  long  since  grown  rust}''  ? 

We  might  add,  were  it  of  any  moment  in  this  case,  that  we 
reckon  Dr.  Miillner's  tragic  knack  altogetlier  insufficient  for 
a  still  more  couiprehensive  reason  ;  simjjly  for  the  reason  that 
it  is  a  knack,  a  recipe,  or  secret  of  the  craft,  which,  could  it 
be  never  so  excellent,  must  by  rej)eated  use  degenerate  into  a 
mannerism,  and  therefore  into  a  nuisance.    But  herein  lies  the 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  885 

difference  between  creation  and  manufacture :  the  latter  has 
its  manipulations,  its  secret  processes,  which  can  be  learned 
by  apprenticeship ;  the  former  has  not.  For  in  poetry  we  have 
heard  of  no  secret  possessing  the  smallest  effectual  virtue,  ex- 
cept this  one  general  secret :  that  the  poet  be  a  man  of  a  purer, 
higher,  richer  nature  than  other  men ;  which  higher  nature 
shall  itself,  after  earnest  inquiry,  have  taught  him  the  proper 
form  for  embodying  its  inspirations,  as  indeed  the  imperish- 
able beauty  of  these  will  shine,  with  more  or  less  distinctness, 
through  any  form  whatever. 

Had  Dr.  Milliner  any  visible  pretension  to  this  last  great 
secret,  it  might  be  a  duty  to  dwell  longer  and  more  gravely 
on  his  minor  ones,  however  false  and  poor.  As  he  has  no 
such  pretension,  it  appears  to  us  that  for  the  present  we  may 
take  our  leave.  To  give  any  farther  analysis  of  his  individual 
dramas  would  be  an  easy  task,  but  a  stupid  and  thankless  one. 
A  Harrison's  watch,  though  this  too  is  but  an  earthly  machine, 
may  be  taken  asunder  Avith  some  prospect  of  scieutihc  advan- 
tage ;  but  who  would  spend  time  in  screwing  and  unscrewing 
the  mechanism  of  ten  pepper-mills  ?  Neither  shall  we  offer 
any  extract,  as  a  specimen  of  the  diction  and  sentiment  that 
reigns  in  these  dramas.  \Ve  have  said  already  that  it  is  fair, 
well-ordered  stage-sentiment,  this  of  his ;  that  the  diction  too 
is  good,  well-scanned,  grammatical  diction  ;  no  fault  to  be 
found  with  either,  except  that  they  pretend  to  be  poetry,  and 
are  throughout  the  most  unadulterated  prose.  To  exhibit  tliis 
fact  in  extracts  would  be  a  vain .  undertaking.  Kot  the  few 
sprigs  of  heath,  but  the  thousand  acres  of  it,  characterize  the 
wilderness.  Let  any  one  who  covets  a  trim  heath-nosegay, 
clutch  at  random  into  Mullner's  Seven  Volumes  :  for  our- 
selves, we  would  not  deal  farther  in  that  article. 

Besides  his  dramatic  labors,  Dr.  jNIullner  is  known  to  the 
public  as  a  journalist.  For  some  considerable  time  he  has 
edited  a  Literary  Newspaper  of  his  own  originating,  the  Mitter- 
nacht-Blatt  (Midnight  Paper)  ;  stray  leaves  of  which  we  occa- 
sionally look  into.  In  this  last  capacity,  we  are  happy  to 
observe,  he  shows  to  much  more  advantage :  indeed,  the  jour- 
nalistic office  seems  quite  natural  to  him  ;  and  would  he  take 

VOL.    XIIT.  25 


386        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

any  advice  from  us,  whicli  lie  will  not,  here  were  the  arena  in 
which,  and  not  in  the  Fate-drama,  he  would  exclusively  con- 
tinue to  fence,  for  his  bread  or  glory.  He  is  not  without  a 
vein  of  small  wit ;  a  certain  degree  of  drollery  there  is,  of  grin- 
ning half-risible,  half-impudent ;  he  has  a  fair  hand  at  the 
feebler  sort  of  lampoon  ;  the  German  Joe  Millers  also  seem 
familiar  to  him,  and  his  skill  in  the  riddle  is  respectable ;  so 
that  altogether,  as  we  said,  he  makes  a  superior  figure  in  this 
line,  which  indeed  is  but  despicably  managed  in  Germany  ;  and 
his  Mitternacht-Blatt  is,  by  several  degrees,  the  most  readable 
paper  of  its  kind  we  meet  with  in  that  country.  Not  that  we, 
in  the  abstract,  much  admire  Dr.  Milliner's  newspaper  pro- 
cedure ;  his  style  is  merely  the  common  tavern-style,  familiar 
enough  in  our  own  periodical  literature ;  riotous,  blustering, 
with  some  tincture  of  blackguardism ;  a  half-dishonest  style, 
and  smells  considerably  of  tobacco  and  spirituous  liquor. 
Neither  do  we  find  that  there  is  the  smallest  fraction  of  valu- 
able knowledge  or  opinion  communicated  in  the  Midnight 
Paper ;  indeed,  except  it  be  the  knowledge  and  opinion  that 
Dr.  Milliner  is  a  great  dramatist,  and  that  all  who  presume  to 
think  otherwise  are  insufficient  members  of  society,  we  cannot 
charge  our  memory  with  having  gathered  any  knowledge  from 
it  whatever.  It  may  be  too,  that  Dr.  Miillner  is  not  perfectly 
original  in  his  journalistic  manner  :  we  have  sometimes  felt 
as  if  his  light  were,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  borrowed  one  ;  a  rush- 
light kindled  at  the  great  pitch-link  of  our  own  Blackwood's 
Magazine.  But  on  this  point  we  cannot  take  upon  us  to 
decide. 

One  of  Milliner's  regular  journalistic  articles  is  the  Kriegs- 
zeitung,  or  War-intelligence,  of  all  the  paper-battles,  feuds, 
defiances  and  private  assassinations,  chiefly  dramatic,  which 
occur  in  the  more  distracted  portion  of  the  German  Literary 
Republic.  This  Kriegszeitui^g  Dr.  Miillner  evidently  writes 
with  great  gusto,  in  a  lively  braggadocio  manner,  especially 
when  touching  on  his  own  exploits;  yet  to  us  it  is  far  the  most 
melancholy  part  of  the  Mitternacht-Blatt.  Alas,  this  is  not 
what  we  search  for  in  a  German  newspaper ;  how  "  Herr 
Sapphir,"  or  Herr  Carbuncle,  or  so  many  other  Herren  Dous- 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  887 

terswivel,  are  all  busily  molesting  one  another!  We  ourselves 
are  pacific  men ;  make  a  point  "  to  shun  discrepant  circles 
rather  than  seek  them :  "  and  how  sad  is  it  to  hear  of  so  many 
illustrious-obscure  persons  living  in  foreign  parts,  and  hear 
only,  what  was  well  known  without  hearing,  that  they  also  are 
instinct  with  the  spirit  of  Satan  !  For  what  is  the  bone  that 
these  Journalists,  in  Berlin  and  elsewhere,  are  worrying  over  ; 
•what  is  the  ultimate  purpose  of  all  this  barking  and  snarl- 
ing ?  Sheer  love  of  fight,  you  would  say ;  simply  to  make  one 
another's  life  a  little  bitterer ;  as  if  Fate  had  not  been  cross 
enough  to  the  happiest  of  them.  Were  there  any  perceptible 
subject  of  dispute,  any  doctrine  to  advocate,  even  a  false  one, 
it  would  be  something  ;  but,  so  far  as  we  can  discover,  whether 
from  Sapphire  and  Company,  or  the  "  Kabob  of  Weissenfels  " 
(our  own  worthy  Doctor),  there  is  none.  And  is  this  their 
appointed  function  ?  Are  Editors  scattered  over  the  country, 
and  supplied  with  victuals  and  fuel,  purely  to  bite  one  another  ? 
Certainly  not.  But  these  Journalists,  we  think,  are  like  the 
Academician's  colony  of  spiders.  This  French  virtuoso  had 
found  that  cobwebs  were  worth  something,  that  they  could  even 
be  woven  into  silk  stockings  :  whereiipon  he  exhibits  a  very 
handsome  pair  of  cobweb  hose  to  the  Academy,  is  encouraged 
to  proceed  with  the  manufacture ;  and  so  collects  some  half- 
bushel  of  spiders,  and  puts  them  down  in  a  spacious  loft,  with 
every  convenience  for  making  silk.  But  will  the  vicious  crea- 
tures spin  a  thread  ?  In  place  of  it,  they  take  to  fighting  with 
their  whole  vigor,  in  contempt  of  the  poor  Academician's  ut- 
most exertions  to  part  them  ;  and  end  not,  till  there  is  simply 
one  spider  left  living,  and  not  a  shred  of  cobweb  woven,  or 
thenceforth  to  be  expected  !  Could  the  weavers  of  paragraphs, 
like  these  of  the  cobweb,  fairly  exterminate  and  silence  one 
another,  it  would  perhaps  be  a  little  more  supportable.  But 
an  Editor  is  made  of  sterner  stuif.  In  general  cases,  indeed, 
when  the  brains  are  out  the  man  will  die  :  but  it  is  a  well-known 
fact  in  Journalistics,  that  a  man  may  not  only  live,  but  support 
wife  and  children  by  his  labors  in  this  line,  years  after  the 
brain  (if  there  ever  was  any)  has  been  completely  abstracted, 
or  reduced  by  time  and  hard  usage  into  a  state  of  dry  powder. 


S88        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

What,  then,  is  to  be  done  ?  Is  there  no  end  to  this  brawling ; 
and  will  the  unprofitable  noise  endure  forever  ?  By  way  of 
palliative,  we  have  sometimes  imagined  that  a  CongTess  of  all 
German  Editors  might  be  appointed,  by  proclamation,  in  some 
central  spot,  say  the  Niirnberg  Market-place,  if  it  would  hold 
them  all :  here  we  would  humbly  suggest  that  the  whole  Jour- 
nalistik  might  assemble  on  a  given  day,  and  under  the  eye 
of  proper  marshals,  sulRciently  and  satisfactorily  horsewhip 
one  another,  simultaneously,  each  his  neighbor,  till  the  very 
toughest  had  enough  both  of  whipping  and  of  being  whipped. 
In  this  way,  it  seems  probable,  little  or  no  injustice  would  be 
done  ;  and  each  Journalist,  cleared  of  gall  for  several  months, 
might  return  home  in  a  more  composed  frame  of  mind,  and 
betake  himself  with  new  alacrity  to  the  real  duties  of  his 
office. 

But  enough  !  enough  !  The  humor  of  these  men  may  be  in. 
fectious  :  it  is  not  good  for  us  to  be  here.  Wandering  over 
the  Elysian  Fields  of  German  Literature,  not  watching  the 
gloomy  discords  of  its  Tartarus,  is  what  we  wish  to  be  em- 
ployed in.  Let  the  iron  gate  again  close,  and  shut  in  the 
pallid  kingdoms  from  vicAv  :  we  gladly  revisit  the  upper  air. 
Not  in  despite  towards  the  German  nation,  which  we  love 
honestly,  have  we  spoken  thus  of  these  its  Playwrights  and 
Journalists.  Alas,  when  we  look  around  us  at  home,  we  feel 
too  well  that  the  Germans  might  say  to  us :  Neighbor,  sweep 
thy  own  floor !  Neither  is  it  with  any  hope  of  bettering  the 
existence  of  these  three  individual  Poetasters,  still  less  with 
the  smallest  shadow  of  wish  to  make  it  more  miserable,  that 
we  have  spoken.  After  all,  there  must  be  Playwrights,  as  we 
have  said  ;  and  these  are  among  the  best  of  the  class.  So  long 
as  it  pleases  them  to  manufacture  in  this  line,  and  any  body 
of  German  Thebans  to  pay  them  in  groschen  or  plaudits  for 
their  ware,  let  both  parties  persist  in  so  doing,  and  fair  befall 
them !  But  the  duty  of  Foreign  Reviewers  is  of  a  twofold 
soi*t.  For  not  only  are  we  stationed  on  the  coast  of  the  coun- 
f;ry,  aa  watchers  and  spials,  to  report  whatsoever  remarkable 
thing  becomes  visible  in  the  distance  ;  but  we  stand  there  also 
as  a  sort  of  Tide-waiters  and  Preventive-service  men,  to  con- 


GERMAN  PLAYWRIGHTS.  S89 

tend,  with  our  utmost  vigor,  that  no  improper  article  be  landed. 
These  offices,  it  would  seem,  as  in  the  material  world,  so  also 
in  the  literary  and  spiritual,  usually  fall  to  the  lot  of  aged, 
invalided,  impoverished,  or  otherwise  decayed  persons ;  but 
that  is  little  to  the  matter.  As  true  British  subjects,  with 
ready  will,  though  it  may  be  with  our  last  strength,  we  are 
here  to  discharge  that  double  duty.  Movements,  we  observe, 
are  making  along  the  beach,  and  signals  out  seawards,  as  if 
these  Klingemanns  and  Mulluers  were  to  be  landed  on  our 
soil :  but  through  the  strength  of  heaven  this  shall  not  be 
done,  till  the  "  most  thinking  people  "  know  what  it  is  that  is 
lauding.  For  the  rest,  if  any  one  wishes  to  import  that  sort 
of  produce,  and  finds  it  nourishing  for  his  inward  man,  let  him 
do  so,  and  welcome.  Only  let  him  understand  that  it  is  not 
German  Literature  he  is  swallowing,  but  the  froth  and  scum 
of  German  Literature  ;  which  scum,  if  he  will  only  wait,  we  can 
farther  promise  him  that  he  may,  ere  long,  enjoy  in  the  new, 
and  perhaps  cheaper  form  of  sediment.  And  so  let  every  one 
be  active  for  himself  :  — 

"  Noch  ist  ea  Tag,  da  riihre  sich  der  Mann  ; 
Di*  Nadu  trilt  ein,  wo  niemand  wirken  kann.'^ 


VOLTAIRE.^ 

[1829.] 

CoTjLD  ambition  always  choose  its  own  path,  and  were  will 
in  human  undertakings  synonymous  Avith  faculty,  all  truly 
ambitious  men  would  be  men  of  letters.  Certainly,  if  we 
examine  that  love  of  power,  which  enters  so  largely  into  most 
practical  calculations,  nay  which  our  Utilitarian  friends  have 
recognized  as  the  sole  end  and  origin,  both  motive  and  reward, 
of  all  earthly  enterprises,  animating  alike  the  philanthropist, 
the  conqueror,  the  money-changer  and  the  missionary,  we 
shall  find  that  all  other  arenas  of  ambition,  compared  with 
this  rich  and  boundless  one  of  Literature,  meaning  thereby 
whatever  respects  the  promulgation  of  Thought,  are  poor, 
limited  and  ineffectual.  For  dull,  unreflective,  merely  instinc- 
tive as  the  ordinary  man  may  seem,  he  has  nevertheless,  as  a 
quite  indispensable  appendage,  a  head  that  in  some  degree 
considers  and  computes ;  a  lamp  or  rushlight  of  understanding 
has  been  given  him,  which,  through  whatever  dim,  besmoked 
and  strangely  diffractive  media  it  may  shine,  is  the  ultimate 
guiding  light  of  his  whole  path :  and  here  as  well  as  there, 
now  as  at  all  times  in  man's  history,  Opinion  rules  the  world. 

Curious  it  is,  moreover,  to  consider  in  this  respect,  how 
different  appearance  is  from  reality,  and  under  what  singu- 
lar shape  and  circumstances  the  truly  most  important  man  of 

1  FonEiGV  Review,  No.  6.  —  Mcmoires  sur  Voltaire  et  snr  ses  OmTnge/t,  par 
Longcliam/)  ct  Warjniere,  ses  Secretaires  ;  suivis  de  divers  Ecrits  inSdils  de  la 
Marquise  du  Chateht,  da  President  1/enault,  ^c.  totis  relatifs  a  Voltaire.  (Me- 
moirs concerning  Voltaire  and  his  Works,  by  Longchamp  and  WagniJ^re,  his 
Secretaries ;  with  various  unpublished  Pieces  by  the  Marquise  du  Chatelet, 
Ac.  all  relating  to  Voltaire.)     2  tomes.     Paris,  1826. 


VOLTAIRE.  891 

any  given  period  might  be  found.  Could  some  Asmodeus,  by 
simply  waving  his  arm,  open  asunder  the  meaning  of  the 
Present,  even  so  far  as  the  Future  will  disclose  it,  what  a 
much  more  marvellous  sight  should  we  have,  than  that  mere 
bodily  one  through  the  roofs  of  Madiid !  For  we  know  not 
what  we  are,  any  more  than  what  we  shall  be.  It  is  a  high, 
solemn,  almost  awful  thought  for  every  individual  man,  that 
his  earthly  influence,  which  has  had  a  commencement,  will 
never  through  all  ages,  were  he  the  very  meanest  of  us,  have 
an  end!  What  is  done  is  done;  has  already  blended  itself 
with  the  boundless,  ever-living,  ever-working  Universe,  and 
will  also  work  there,  for  good  or  for  evil,  openly  or  secretly, 
throughout  all  time.  But  the  life  of  every  man  is  as  the 
w^ellspring  of  a  stream,  whose  small  beginnings  are  indeed 
plain  to  all,  but  whose  ulterior  course  and  destination,  as  it 
winds  through  the  expanses  of  infinite  years,  only  the  Omnis- 
cient can  discern.  Will  it  mingle  with  neighboring  rivulets, 
as  a  tributary ;  or  receive  them  as  their  sovereign  ?  Is  it  to 
be  a  nameless  brook,  and  will  its  tiny  waters,  among  millions 
of  other  brooks  and  rills,  increase  the  current  of  some  world- 
river  ?  Or  is  it  to  be  itself  a  Ehene  or  Danaw,  whose  goings- 
forth  are  to  the  uttermost  lands,  its  flood  an  everlasting 
boundary-line  on  the  globe  itself,  the  bulwark  and  highway  of 
whole  kingdoms  and  continents  ?  We  know  not ;  only  in 
either  case,  we  know,  its  path  is  to  the  great  ocean ;  its  waters, 
were  they  but  a  handful,  are  here,  and  cannot  be  annihilated 
or  permanently  held  back. 

As  little  can  we  prognosticate,  with  any  certainty,  the 
future  influences  from  the  present  aspects  of  an  individual. 
How  many  Demagogues,  Croesuses,  Conquerors  fill  their  own 
age  with  joy  or  terror,  with  a  tumult  that  promises  to  be 
perennial;  and  in  the  next  age  die  away  into  insignificance 
and  oblivion !  These  are  the  forests  of  gourds,  that  overtop 
tlie  infant  cedars  and  aloe-trees,  but,  like  the  Prophet's  gourd, 
wither  on  the  third  day.  What  was  it  to  the  Pharaohs  of 
Egypt,  in  that  old  era,  if  Jethro  the  Midianitish  priest  and 
grazier  accepted  the  Hebrew  outlaw  as  his  herdsman  ?  Yet 
the  Pharaohs,  with  all  their  chariots  of  war,  are  buried  deep 


S92         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

in  the  wrecks  of  time ;  and  that  Moses  still  lives,  not  among 
his  own  tribe  only,  but  in  the  hearts  and  daily  business  of  all 
civilized  nations.  Or  figure  Mahomet,  in  his  youthful  years, 
"travelling  to  the  horse-fairs  of  Syria."  Nay,  to  take  an 
infinitely  higher  instance :  who  has  ever  forgotten  those  lines 
of  Tacitus ;  inserted  as  a  small,  transitory,  altogether  trifling 
circumstance  in  the  history  of  such  a  potentate  as  Nero  ? 
To  us  it  is  the  most  earnest,  sad  and  sternly  significant  pas- 
sage that  we  know  to  exist  in  writing :  Ergo  abolendo  inimori 
Nero  subdidlt  reos,  et  quoesitlssimis  pcenis  affecit,  quos  per  fia- 
gitia  invisos,  vulgus  Christianos  appellahat.  Auctor  nominis 
ejus  Christus,  qui,  Tiberio  imperitante,  per  Frocuratorem  Forir 
Hum  Pilatum  suppllcio  affectus  erat.  Repressaque  in  prcesens 
exitiah'dls  sxiperstitlo  mrsus  erumpebat,  non  modo  per  Judceam 
originem  ejus  mall,  sed  per  urbem  etlam,  quo  cuncta  undique 
atrocla  aut  piudenda  confluunt  celebranturque.  "  So,  for  the 
quieting  of  this  rumor,*  Nero  judicially  charged  with  the 
crime,  and  punished  with  most  studied  severities,  that  class, 
hated  for  their  general  wickedness,  whom  the  vulgar  called 
Christians.  The  originator  of  that  name  was  one  Christ,  who, 
in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  suffered  death  by  sentence  of  the 
Procurator,  Pontius  Pilate.  The  baneful  superstition,  thereby 
repressed  for  the  time,  again  broke  out,  not  only  over  Judea, 
the  native  soil  of  that  mischief,  but  in  the  City  also,  where 
from  every  side  all  atrocious  and  abominable  things  collect 
and  flourish."  ^  Tacitus  was  the  wisest,  most  penetrating  man 
of  his  generation ;  and  to  such  depth,  and  no  deeper,  has  he 
seen  into  this  transaction,  the  most  important  that  has  oc- 
curred or  can  occur  in  the  annals  of  mankind. 

Nor  is  it  only  to  those  primitive  ages,  when  religions  took 
tlieir  rise,  and  a  man  of  pure  and  high  mind  appeared  not 
merely  as  a  teacher  and  philosopher,  but  as  a  priest  and 
prophet,  that  our  observation  applies.  The  same  uncertainty, 
in  estimating  present  things  and  men,  holds  more  or  less  in 
all  times ;  for  in  all  times,  even  in  those  which  seem  most 
trivial,  and  open  to  research,  human  society  rests  on  inscruta.- 

1  Of  his  having  set  fire  to  Eome. 
*  Ta^iit.  Annul,  xv.  44. 


VOLTAIRE.  893 

hly  deep  foundations ;  which  he  is  of  all  others  the  most  mis- 
tiiken,  who  fancies  he  has  explored  to  the  bottom.  Neither 
is  that  sequence,  which  we  love  to  speak  of  as  "a  chain  of 
causes,"  properly  to  be  figured  as  a  "  chain "  or  line,  but 
rather  as  a  tissue,  or  superficies  of  innumerable  lines,  ex- 
tending in  breadth  as  well  as  in  length,  and  with  a  complexity, 
which  will  foil  and  utterly  bewilder  the  most  assiduous  com-; 
putation.  In  fact,  the  wisest  of  us  must,  for  by  far  the  most 
part,  judge  like  the  simplest;  estimate  importance  by  mere 
magnitude,  and  expect  that  what  strongly  affects  our  own 
generation  will  strongly  affect  those  that  are  to  follow.  In 
this  way  it  is  that  Conquerors  and  political  E evolutionists 
come  to  iigure  as  so  miglity  in  their  influences ;  whereas  truly 
there  is  no  class  of  persons  creating  such  an  uproar  in  the 
world,  who  in  the  long-run  produce  so  very  slight  an  impres- 
sion on  its  affairs.  When  Tamerlane  had  finished  building 
his  pyramid  of  seventy  thousand  human  skulls,  and  was  seen 
"standing  at  the  gate  of  Damascus,  glittering  in  steel,  with 
his  battle-axe  on  his  shoulder,"  till  his  fierce  hosts  filed  out 
to  new  victories  and  new  carnage,  the  pale  on-looker  might 
have  fancied  that  Xature  was  in  her  death-throes ;  for  havoc 
and  despair  had  taken  possession  of  the  earth,  the  sun  of 
manhood  seemed  setting  in  seas  of  blood.  Yet,  it  might  be, 
on  that  very  gala-day  of  Tamerlane,  a  little  boy  was  playing 
ninepins  on  the  streets  of  Mentz,  whose  history  was  more 
important  to  men  than  that  of  twenty  Tamerlanes.  The  Tar> 
tar  Khan,  with  his  shaggy  demons  of  the  wilderness,  "passed 
away  like  a  whirlwind,"  to  be  forgotten  forever  ;  and  that 
German  artisan  has  wrought  a  benefit,  wliich  is  yet  immea- 
surably expanding  itself,  and  will  continue  to  expand  itself 
through  all  countries  and  through  all  times.  "What  are  the 
conquests  and  expeditions  of  the  whole  corporation  of  cap- 
tains, from  Walter  the  Penniless  to  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  com- 
pared with  these  "  movable  types  "  of  Johannes  Faust  ? 

Truly  it  is  a  mortifying  thing  for  your  Conqueror  to  reflect, 
how  perishable  is  the  metal  which  he  hammers  Avith  such  vio- 
lence :  how  the  kind  earth  will  soon  shroud  up  his  bloody 
footprints ;    and  all  that  he  achieved  and  skilfully  piled  to- 


394         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

gether  will  be  but  like  his  own  "  canvas  city  "  of  a  camp,  — 
this  evening  loud  with  life,  to-morrow  all  struck  and  vanished, 
"  a  few  earth-pits  and  heaps  of  straw  I "  For  here,  as  always, 
it  continues  true,  that  the  deepest  force  is  the  stillest ;  that, 
as  in  the  Fable,  the  mild  shining  of  the  sun  shall  silently 
accomplish  what  the  fierce, blustering  of  the  tempest  has  in 
vain  essayed.  Above  all,  it  is  ever  to  be  kept  in  mind,  that 
not  by  material,  but  by  moral  power,  are  men  and  their  ac- 
tions governed.  How  noiseless  is  thought !  No  rolling  of 
drums,  no  tramp  of  squadrons,  or  immeasurable  tumult  of 
baggage-wagons,  attends  its  movements :  in  what  obscure  and 
sequestered  places  may  the  head  be  meditating,  which  is  one 
day  to  be  crowned  with  more  than  imperial  authority;  for 
Kings  and  Emperors  will  be  among  its  ministering  servants  ; 
it  will  rule  not  over,  but  in,  all  heads,  and  with  these  its  soli- 
tary combinations  of  ideas,  as  with  magic  formulas,  bend  the 
world  to  its  will !  The  time  may  come,  when  Napoleon  him- 
self will  be  better  known  for  his  laws  than  for  his  battles ; 
and  the  victory  of  Waterloo  prove  less  momentous  than  the 
opening  of  the  first  Mechanics'  Institute. 

We  have  been  led  into  such  rather  trite  reflections,  by  these 
Volumes  of  Memoirs  on  Voltaire  ;  a  man  in  whose  histor}^  the 
relative  importance  of  intellectual  and  pliysical  power  is  again 
curiously  evinced.  This  also  was  a  private  person,  by  birth 
nowise  an  elevated  one ;  yet  so  far  as  present  knowledge 
will  enable  us  to  judge,  it  may  be  said  that  to  abstract  Vol- 
taire and  his  activity  from  the  eighteenth  century,  were  to 
produce  a  greater  difference  in  the  existing  figure  of  things, 
tlian  the  want  of  any  other  individual,  up  to  this  day,  could 
have  occasioned.  Nay,  with  the  single  exception  of  Luther, 
there  is  perhaps,  in  these  modern  ages,  no  other  man  of  a 
merely  intellectual  character,  whose  influence  and  reputation 
have  become  so  entirely  European  as  that  of  Voltaire.  In- 
deed, like  the  great  German  Keformer's,  his  doctrines  too, 
almost  from  the  first,  have  affected  not  only  the  belief  of  the 
thinking  world,  silently  propagating  themselves  from  mind 
to  mind ;  but  in  a  high  degree  also,  the  conduct  of  the  active 


VOLTAIRE.  395 

and  political  world  ;  entering  as  a  distinct  element  into  some 
of  the  most  fearful  civil  convulsions  which  European  history- 
has  on  record. 

Doubtless,  to  his  own  contemporaries,  to  such  of  them  at 
least  as  had  any  insight  into  the  actual  state  of  men's  minds, 
Voltaire  already  appeared  as  a  noteworthy  and  decidedly  his- 
torical personage  :  yet,  perhaps,  not  the  wildest  of  his  admir- 
ers ventured  to  assign  him  such  a  magnitude  as  he  now  figures 
in,  even  with  his  adversaries  and  detractors.  He  has  grown 
in  appai'ent  importance,  as  we  receded  from  him,  as  the  nature 
of  his  endeavors  became  more  and  more  visible  in  their  re- 
sults. For,  unlike  many  great  men,  but  like  all  great  agita- 
tors, Voltaire  everywhere  shows  himself  emphatically  as  the 
man  of  his  century  :  uniting  in  his  own  person  whatever  spir- 
itual accomplishments  were  most  valued  by  that  age  ;  at  the 
same  time,  with  no  depth  to  discern  its  ulterior  tendencies, 
still  less  with  any  magnanimity  to  attempt  withstanding  these, 
his  greatness  and  his  littleness  alike  fitted  him  to  produce  an 
immediate  effect ;  for  he  leads  whither  the  multitude  was  of 
itself  dimly  minded  to  run,  and  keeps  the  van  not  less  by 
skill  in  commanding,  than  by  cunning  in  obeying.  Besides, 
now  that  we  look  on  the  matter  from  some  distance,  the 
efforts  of  a  thousand  coadjutors  and  disciples,  nay  a  series 
of  mighty  political  vicissitudes,  in  the  production  of  which 
these  efforts  had  but  a  subsidiary  share,  have  all  come,  natu- 
rally in  such  a  case,  to  appear  as  if  exclusively  his  work  ;  so 
that  he  rises  before  us  as  the  paragon  and  epitome  of  a 
whole  spiritual  period,  now  almost  passed  away,  yet  remark- 
able in  itself,  and  more  than  ever  interesting  to  us,  who 
seem  to  stand,  as  it  were,  on  the  confines  of  a  new  and  better 
one. 

Nay,  had  we  forgotten  that  ours  is  the  '•  Age  of  the  Press," 
when  he  who  runs  may  not  only  read,  but  furnish  us  with 
reading ;  and  simply  counted  the  books,  and  scattered  leaves, 
thick  as  the  autumnal  in  Vallombrosa,  that  have  been  written 
and  printed  concerning  this  man,  we  might  almost  fancy  him 
the  most  important  person,  not  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but 
of  all  the  centuries  from  Xoah's  Flood  downwards.     We  have 


896        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

J^ives  of  Voltaire  by  friend  and  by  foe  :  Condorcet,  Duvernet, 
Lepan,  have  each  given  us  a  whole  ;  portions,  documents  and 
all  manner  of  authentic  or  spurious  contributions  have  been 
supplied  by  innumerable  hands ;  of  which  we  mention  only 
the  labors  of  his  various  Secretaries  :  Collini's,  published  some 
twenty  years  ago,  and  now  these  Two  massive  Octavos  from 
Longchamp  and  VVagniere.  To  say  nothing  of  the  Baron  de 
Grimm's  Collections,  unparalleled  in  more  than  one  respect ; 
or  of  the  six-and-thirty  volumes  of  scurrilous  eavesdropping, 
long  since  printed  under  the  title  of  Memoires  de  Bachau^ 
mont ;  or  of  the  daily  and  hourly  attacks  and  defences  that 
appeared  separately  in  his  lifetime,  and  all  the  judicial  pieces, 
whether  in  the  style  of  apotheosis  or  of  excommunication, 
that  have  seen  the  light  since  then ;  a  mass  of  fugitive  writ- 
ings, the  very  diamond  edition  of  which  might  fill  whole 
libraries.  The  peculiar  talent  of  the  French  in  all  narrative, 
at  least  in  all  anecdotic  departments,  rendering  most  of  these 
works  extremely  readable,  still  farther  favored  their  circula- 
tion both  at  home  and  abroad  :  so  that  now,  in  most  countries, 
Voltaire  has  been  read  of  and  talked  of,  till  his  name  and 
life  hav-e  grown  familiar  like  those  of  a  village  acquaintance. 
In  England,  at  least,  where  for  almost  a  century  the  study  of 
foreign  literature  has,  we  may  say,  confined  itself  to  that  of 
the  French,  with  a  slight  intermixture  from  the  elder  Italians, 
Voltaire's  writings,  and  such  writings  as  treated  of  him,  were 
little  likely  to  want  readers.  We  suppose,  there  is  no  literary 
era,  not  even  any  domestic  one,  concerning  which  Englishmen 
in  general  have  such  information,  at  least  have  gathered  so 
many  anecdotes  and  opinions,  as  concerning  this  of  Voltaire. 
Kor  have  native  additions  to  the  stock  been  wanting,  and 
these  of  a  due  variety  in  purport  and  kind  :  maledictions,  ex- 
])ostulations  and  dreadful  death-scenes  painted  like  Spanish 
Sanbenitos,  by  weak  well-meaning  persons  of  the  hostile  class  ; 
eulogies,  generally  of  a  gayer  sort,  by  oj)en  or  secret  friends : 
all  this  has  been  long  and  extensively  carried  on  among  us. 
There  is  even  an  English  Life  of  Voltaire  ;  ^  nay  we  remember 

1  "By  Frank  Hall  Standish,  Esq."  (London,  1821)  ;  a  work  which  we  can 
rcconunend  only  to  such  as  feel  themselves  in  extreme  want  of  informatioa 


VOLTAIRE.  397 

to  have  Seen  portions  of  his  writings  cited  in  terrorem,  and 
with  criticisms,  in  some  pamphlet,  "by  a  country  gentleman," 
either  on  the  Education  of  the  People,  or  else  on  the  question 
of  Preserving  the  Game. 

With  the  "  Age  of  the  Press,"  and  such  manifestations  of 
it  on  this  subject,  we  are  far  from  quarrelling.  We  have 
read  great  part  of  these  thousand-and-first  "  Memoirs  on  Vol- 
taire," by  Longchamp  and  Wagniere,  not  without  satisfaction ; 
and  can  cheerfully  look  forward  to  still  other  "  Memoirs " 
following  in  their  train.  Nothing  can  be  more  in  the  course 
of  Nature  than  the  wish  to  satisfy  one's  self  with  knowledge 
of  all  sorts  about  any  distinguished  person,  especially  of  our 
own  era ;  the  true  study  of  his  character,  his  spiritual  indi- 
viduality and  peculiar  manner  of  existence,  is  full  of  instruc- 
tion for  all  mankind :  even  that  of  his  looks,  sayings,  habi- 
tudes and  indifferent  actions,  were  not  the  records  of  them 
generally  lies,  is  rather  to  be  commended ;  nay  are  not  such 
lies  themselves,  when  they  keep  within  bounds,  and  the  sub- 
ject of  them  has  been  dead  for  some  time,  equal  to  snipe- 
shooting,  or  Colburn-Novels,  at  least  little  inferior,  in  tlie 
great  art  of  getting  done  with  life,  or,  as  it  is  technically 
called,  killing  time  ?  For  our  own  part,  we  say  :  Would  that 
every  Johnson  in  the  world  had  his  veridical  Boswell,  or 
leash  of  Bos  wells  !  We  could  then  tolerate  his  Hawkins  also, 
though  not  veridical.  With  regard  to  Voltaire,  in  particular, 
it  seems  to  us  not  only  innocent  but  profitable  that  the  whole 
truth  regarding  him  should  be  well  understood.  Surely  the 
biography  of  such  a  man,  who,  to  say  no  more  of  him,  spent 
his  best  efforts,  and  as  many  still  think,  successfully,  in 
assaulting  the  Christian  religion,  must  be  a  matter  of  consid- 
erable import ;  what  he  did,  and  what  he  could  not  do ;  how 
he  did  it,  or  attempted  it,  that  is,  with  what  degree  of 
strength,  clearness,  especially  with  what  moral  intents,  what 

on  this  subject,  and  except  in  their  own  language  unable  to  acquire  any.  It 
is  written  very  badly,  though  with  sincerity,  and  not  witliout  considerable 
indications  of  talent ;  to  all  appearance,  by  a  minor ;  many  of  whose  state- 
ments and  opinions  (for  he  seems  an  inquiring,  honest-hearted,  rather  decisive 
character)  must  have  begun  to  astonish  even  himself,  several  years  agf». 


898       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

theories  and  feelings  on  man  and  man's  life,  are  questions 
that  will  bear  some  discussing.  To  Voltaire  individually,  for 
the  last  fifty-one  years,  the  discussion  has  been  indifferent 
enough ;  and  to  us  it  is  a  discussion  not  on  one  remarkable 
person  only,  and  chiefly  for  the  curious  or  studious,  but  in- 
volving considerations  of  highest  moment  to  all  men,  and  ^ 
inquiries  which  the  utmost  compass  of  our  philosophy  will  be  j 
unable  to  embrace.  ' 

Here,  accordingly,  we  are  about  to  offer  some  farther  obser- 
vations on  this  qucestio  vexata ;  not  without  hope  that  the 
reader  may  accept  them  in  good  part.  Doubtless,  when  we 
look  at  the  whole  bearings  of  the  matter,  there  seems  little 
prospect  of  any  unanimity  respecting  it,  either  now,  or  within 
a  calculable  period :  it  is  probable  that  many  will  continue 
for  a  long  time  to  speak  of  this  "universal  genius,"  this 
"  apostle  of  Reason,"  and  "  father  of  sound  Philosophy ; " 
and  many  again,  of  this  "  monster  of  impiety,"  this  "  soph- 
ist," and  "atheist,"  and  "ape-demon;"  or,  like  the  late  Dr. 
Clarke  of  Cambridge,  dismiss  him  more  briefly  with  informar 
tion  that  he  is  "  a  driveller : "  neither  is  it  essential  that 
these  two  parties  should,  on  the  spur  of  the  instant,  reconcile 
themselves  herein.  Nevertheless,  truth  is  better  than  error, 
were  it  only  "  on  Hannibal's  vinegar."  It  may  be  expected 
that  men's  opinions  concerning  Voltaire,  which  is  of  some  mo- 
ment, and  concerning  Voltairism,  which  is  of  almost  bound- 
less moment,  will,  if  they  cannot  meet,  gradually  at  every 
new  comparison  approach  towards  meeting ;  and  what  is  still 
more  desirable,  towards  meeting  somewhere  nearer  the  truth 
than  they  actually  stand. 

With  honest  wishes  to  promote  such  approximation,  there 
is  one  condition,  which  above  all  others  in  tliis  inquiry  we 
must  beg  the  reader  to  impose  on  himself :  the  duty  of  fair- 
ness towards  Voltaire,  of  tolerance  towards  him,  as  towards  all 
men.  This,  truly,  is  a  duty  which  we  have  the  happiness  to 
hear  daily  inculcated ;  yet  which,  it  has  been  well  said,  no 
mortal  is  at  bottom  disposed  to  practise.  Nevertheless,  if  we 
really  desire  to  understand  the  truth  on  any  subject,  not 
merely,  as  is  much  more  common,  to  confirm  our  already  exist- 


VOLTAIRE.  899 

ing  opinions,  and  gratify  this  and  the  other  pitiful  claim  of 
vanity  or  malice  in  respect  of  it,  tolerance  may  be  regarded 
as  the  most  indispensable  of  all  prerequisites ;  the  condition, 
indeed,  by  which  alone  any  real  progress  in  the  question  be- 
comes possible.  In  respect  of  our  fellow-men,  and  all  real 
insight  into  their  characters,  this  is  especially  true.  No  char- 
acter, we  may  affirm,  was  ever  rightly  understood  till  it  had 
first  been  regarded  with  a  certain  feeling,  not  of  tolerance  only, 
but  of  sympathy.  For  here,  more  than  in  any  other  case,  it 
is  verified  that  the  heart  sees  farther  than  the  head.  Let  us 
be  sure,  our  enemy  is  not  that  hateful  being  we  are  too  apt  to 
paint  him.  His  vices  and  basenesses  lie  combined  in  far  other 
order  before  his  own  mind  than  before  ours ;  and  under  colors 
which  palliate  them,  nay  perhaps  exhibit  them  as  virtues. 
Were  he  the  wretch  of  our  imagining,  his  life  would  be  a 
burden  to  himself :  for  it  is  not  by  bread  alone  that  the  basest 
mortal  lives  ;  a  certain  approval  of  conscience  is  equally  essen- 
tial even  to  physical  existence;  is  the  fine  all-pervading  cement 
by  which  that  wondrous  union,  a  Self,  is  held  together.  Since 
the  man,  therefore,  is  not  in  Bedlam,  and  has  not  shot  or 
hanged  himself,  let  us  take  comfort,  and  conclude  that  he  is  one 
of  two  things :  either  a  vicious  dog  in  man's  guise,  to  be  muzzled 
and  mourned  over,  and  greatly  marvelled  at ;  or  a  real  man, 
and  consequently  not  without  moral  worth,  which  is  to  be  en- 
lightened, and  so  far  approved  of.  But  to  judge  rightly  of  his 
character,  we  must  learn  to  look  at  it,  not  less  with  his  eyes, 
than  with  our  own  ;  we  must  learn  to  pity  him,  to  see  him  as 
a  fellow-creature,  in  a  word,  to  love  him  ;  or  his  real  spiritual 
nature  will  ever  be  mistaken  by  us.  In  interpreting  Voltaire, 
accordingly,  it  will  be  needful  to  bear  some  things  carefully  in 
mind,  and  to  keep  many  other  things  as  carefully  in  abeyance. 
Let  us  forget  that  our  opinions  were  ever  assailed  by  him,  or 
ever  defended;  that  we  have  to  thank  him,  or  upbraid  him, 
for  pain  or  for  pleasure  ;  let  us  forget  that  we  are  Deists  or 
Millennarians,  Bishops  or  Radical  Reformers,  and  remember 
only  that  we  are  men.  This  is  a  European  subject,  or  there 
never  was  one  ;  and  musit,  if  we  would  in  the  least  compre- 
hend it,  be  looked  at  neither  from  the  parish  belfry,  nor  any 


400         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Peterloo  platform ;  but,  if  possible,  from  some  natural  and 
infinitely  higher  poiut  of  vision. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  throughout  the  last  fifty  years 
of  his  life  Voltaire  was  seldom  or  never  name^,  even  by  his 
detractors,  without  the  epithet  ''  great "  being  appended  to 
him  ;  so  that,  had  the  syllables  suited  such  a  junction,  as  they 
did  in  the  happier  case  of  Charle-Ma gne,  we  might  almost  have 
expected  that,  not  Voltah'e,  but  Voltaire-ce-grand-homme  would 
be  his  designation  with  posterity.  However,  posterity  is  much 
more  stinted  in  its  allowances  on  that  score ;  and  a  multitude 
of  things  remain  to  be  adjusted,  and  questions  of  very  dubious 
issue  to  be  gone  into,  before  such  coronation-titles  can  be  con- 
ceded with  any  permanence.  The  million,  even  the  wiser  part 
of  them,  are  apt  to  lose  their  discretion,  when  "  tumultuously 
assembled  ;  "  -for  a  small  object,  near  at  hand,  may  subtend  a 
large  angle  ;  and  often  a  Pennenden  Heath  has  been  mistaken 
for  a  Field  of  Eunnymede ;  whereby  the  couplet  on  that  im- 
mortal Dalhousie  proves  to  be  the  emblem  of  many  a  man's 
real  fortune  with  the  public:  — 

"  And  thou,  Dalhousie,  the  great  God  of  "War, 
Lieuteuaut-Colonel  to  the  Earl  of  Mar ; " 

the  latter  end  corresponding  poorly  with  the  beginning.  To 
ascertain  what  was  the  true  significance  of  Voltaire's  history, 
both  as  respects  himself  and  the  world ;  what  was  his  specific 
character  and  value  as  a  man ;  what  has  been  the  character 
and  value  of  his  influence  on  society,  of  his  appearance  as  an 
active  agent  in  the  culture  of  Europe  :  all  this  leads  us  into 
much  deeper  investigations  ;  on  the  settlement  of  which,  how- 
ever, the  whole  business  turns. 

To  our  own  view,  we  confess,  on  looking  at  Voltaire's  life, 
the  chief  quality  that  shows  itself  is  one  for  which  adroitness 
seems  the  fitter  name.  Greatness  implies  several  conditions, 
the  existence  of  which  in  his  case  it  might  be  difficult  to  de- 
monstrate ;  but  of  his  claim  to  this  other  praise  tliere  can  be 
no  disputing.  Whatever  be  his  aini^,  high  or  low,  just  or  the 
contrary,  he  is,  at  all  times  and  to  the  utmost  degree,  expert  in 


VOLTAIRE.  401 

pursuing  them.  It  is  to  be  observed,  moreover,  that  his  aims 
in  general  were  not  of  a  simple  sort,  and  the  attainment  of 
them  easy  :  few  literary  men  have  had  a  course  so  diversified 
with  vicissitudes  as  Voltaire's.  His  life  is  not  spent  in  a  cor- 
ner, like  that  of  a  studious  recluse,  but  on  the  open  theatre  of 
the  world  ;  in  an  age  full  of  commotion,  when  society  is  rending 
itself  asunder,  Superstition  already  armed  for  deadly  battle 
against  Unbelief  ;  in  which  battle  he  himself  plays  a  dis- 
tinguished part.  From  his  earliest  years,  we  find  him  in  per- 
petual communication  with  the  higher  personages  of  his  time, 
often  with  the  highest :  it  is  in  circles  of  authority,  of  reputa- 
tion, at  lowest  of  fashion  and  rank,  that  he  lives  and  works. 
Ninon  de  I'EnclQs  leaves  the  boy  a  legacy  to  buy  books  ;  he  is 
still  young,  when  he  can  say  of  his  supper  companions,  "  We 
are  all  Princes  or  Poets."  In  after-life  he  exhibits  himself  in 
company  or  correspondence  with  all  manner  of  principalities 
and  powers,  from  Queen  Caroline  of  England  to  the  Empress 
Catherine  of  Russia,  from  Pope  Benedict  to  Frederick  the 
Great.  Meanwhile,  shifting  from  side  to  side  of  Europe,  hid- 
ing in  the  country,  or  living  sumptuously  in  capital  cities,  he 
quits  not  his  pen  ;  with  which,  as  with  some  enchanter's  rod, 
more  potent  than  any  king's  sceptre,  he  turns  and  winds  the 
mighty  machine  of  European  Opinion  ;  approves  himself,  as 
his  schoolmaster  had  predicted,  the  Coryphee  du  Deisvie  ;  and, 
not  content  with  this  elevation,  strives,  and  nowise  ineffec- 
tually, to  unite  with  it  a  poetical,  historical,  philosophic  and 
even  scientific  pre-eminence.  Nay,  Ave  may  add,  a  pecuniary 
one  ;  for  he  speculates  in  the  funds,  diligently  solicits  pensions 
and  promotions,  trades  to  America,  is  long  a  regular  victualling- 
contractor  for  armies ;  and  thus,  by  one  means  and  another, 
independently  of  literature  which  would  never  yield  much 
money,  raises  his  income  from  800  francs  a  year  to  more  than 
centuple  that  sum.^  And  now,  having,  besides  all  this  com- 
mercial and  economical  business,  written  some  thirty  quartos, 
the  most  popular  tliat  were  ever  written,  he  returns  after  long 
exile  to  his  native  city,  to  be  welcomed  there  almost  as  a  re- 
ligious idol ;  and  closes  a  life,  prosperous  alike  in  the  building 

1  See  Tome  ii.  p  328  of  these  Mcmoires. 
VOL.  XIII.  '26 


402         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  country-seats,  an(5  the  composition  of  Henriades  and 
Philosophical  Dictionaries,  by  the  most  appropriate  demise, 
—  by  drowning,  as  it  were,  in  an  ocean  of  applause ;  so 
that  as  he  lived  for  fame,  he  may  be  said  to  have  died 
of  it. 

Such  various,  complete  success,  granted  only  to  a  small  por- 
tion of  men  in  any  age  of  the  world,  presupposes  at  least, 
with  every  allowance  for  good  fortune,  an  almost  unrivalled 
expertness  of  management.  There  must  have  been  a  great 
talent  of  some  kind  at  work  here;  a  cause  proportionate  to 
the  eifect.  It  is  wonderful,  truly,  to  observe  with  what  per- 
fect skill  Voltaire  steers  his  course  through  so  many  conflict- 
ing circumstances :  how  he  weathers  this  Cape  Horn,  darts 
lightly  through  that  Mahlstrom ;  always  either  sinks  his 
enemy,  or  shuns  him  ;  here  waters,  and  careens,  and  traffics 
with  the  rich  savages ;  there  lies  land-locked  till  the  hurricane 
is  overblown  ;  and  so,  in  spite  of  all  billows,  and  sea-monsters, 
and  hostile  fleets,  finishes  his  long  Manilla  voyage,  with 
streamers  flying,  and  deck  piled  with  ingots  !  To  say  nothing 
of  his  literary  character,  of  which  this  same  dexterous  address 
will  also  be  found  to  be  a  main  feature,  let  us  glance  only  at 
the  general  aspect  of  his  conduct,  as  manifested  both  in  his 
writings  and  actions.  By  turns,  and  ever  at  the  right  season, 
he  is  imperious  and  obsequious  ;  now  shoots  abroad,  from  the 
mountain-tops,  Hyperion-like,  his  keen  innumerable  shafts ; 
anon,  when  danger  is  advancing,  flies  to  obscure  nooks ;  or, 
if  taken  in  the  fact,  swears  it  was  but  in  sport,  and  that  he 
is  the  peaceablest  of  men.  He  bends  to  occasion ;  can,  to 
a  certain  extent,  blow  hot  or  blow  cold ;  and  never  attempts 
force,  where  cunning  will  serve  his  turn.  The  beagles  of  the 
Hierarchy  and  of  the  Monarchy,  proverbially  quick  of  scent 
and  sharp  of  tooth,  are  out  in  quest  of  him  ;  but  this  is  a  lion- 
fox  which  cannot  be  captured.  By  wiles  and  a  thousand 
doublings,  he  utterly  distracts  his  pursuers ;  he  can  burrow  in 
the  earth,  and  all  trace  of  him  is  gone.^    With  a  strange  sys- 

^  Of  one  such  "  taking  to  cover  "  we  have  a  curioua  and  rather  ridiculous 
account  iu  this  Work,  by  Longchamp.  It  was  with  the  Dnchess  du  Maine 
that  he  sought  shelter,  and  on  a  very  sliglit  occasion  :  nevertheless  he  had 


VOLTAIEE.  403 

tem  of  anonymity  and  publicity,  of  denial  and  assertion,  of 
Mystification  in  all  senses,  has  Voltaire  surrounded  himself. 
He  can  raise  no  standing  armies  for  his  defence,  yet  he  too 
is  a  ''European  Power,"  and  not  undefended;  an  invisible, 
impregnable,  though  hitherto  unrecognized  bulwark,  that  of 
Public  Opinion,  defends  him.  With  great  art,  he  maintains 
this  stronghold  ;  though  ever  and  anon  sallying  out  from  it, 
far  beyond  the  permitted  limits.  But  he  has  his  coat  of  dark- 
ness, and  his  shoes  of  swiftness,  like  that  other  Killer  of 
Giants.  "We  find  Voltaire  a  supple  courtier,  or  a  sharp  satir- 
ist ;  he  can  talk  blasphemy,  and  build  churches,  according  to 
the  signs  of  the  times.  Frederick  the  Great  is  not  too  high 
for  his  diplomacy,  nor  the  poor  Printer  of  his  Zadig  too  low ;  * 
he  manages  the  Cardinal  Fleuri,  and  the  Cure  of  St.  Sulpice ; 
and  laughs  in  his  sleeve  at  all  the  world.  We  should  pro- 
nounce him  to  be  one  of  the  best  politicians  on  record ;  as  we 
have  said,  the  adroit  est  of  all  literary  men. 

At  the  same  time,  Voltaire's  worst  enemies,  it  seems  to  us, 
will  not  deny  that  he  had  naturally  a  keen  sense  for  rectitude, 
indeed  for  all  virtue  :  the  utmost  vivacity  of  temperament 
characterizes  him ;  his  quick  susceptibility  for  every  form  of 
beauty  is  moral  as  well  as  intellectual.  Xor  was  his  practice 
without  indubitable  and  highly  creditable  proofs  of  this.  To 
the  help-needing  he  was  at  all  times  a  ready  benefactor :  many 
were  the  hungry  adventurers  who  profited  of  his  bounty,  and 
then  bit  the  hand  that  had  fed  them.  If  we  enumerate  his 
generous  acts,  from  the  case  of  the  Abbe  Desfontaines  down 
to  that  of  the  "Widow  Galas,  and  the  Serfs  of  Saint  Claude,  we 
shall  find  that  few  private  men  have  had  so  wide  a  circle  of 
charity,  and  have  watched  over  it  so  well.  Should  it  be  ob- 
joct;-d  that  love  of  reputation  entered  largely  into  these  pro- 
ceedings, Voltaire  can  afford  a  handsome  deduction  on  that 
head :    should  the   uncharitable  even   calculate   that   love  of 

to  lie  perdue,  for  two  months,  at  tlie  Castle  of  Sceanx  ;  and,  ■with  closed 
windows,  and  burning  caudles  iu  daylight,  compose  Zadiy,  Bubouc,  Menoion, 
^■c.  for  his  amusement. 

*  See  in  Longchamp  (pp.  1.54-103)  how,  by  natural  legerdemain,  a  knave 
may  be  caught,  aud  the  cha.iye  rendu  a  Jes  inijirinicurs  injulelei. 


404        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

reputation  was  the  sole  motive,  we  can  only  remind  them  that 
love  of  such  reputation  is  itself  the  effect  of  a  social,  humane 
disposition ;  and  wish,  as  an  immense  improvement,  that  all 
men  were  animated  with  it.  Voltaire  was  not  without  his 
experience  of  human  baseness ;  but  he  still  had  a  fellow-feeliug 
for  human  sufferings  ;  and  delighted,  were  it  only  as  an  honest 
luxury,  to  relieve  them.  His  attachments  seem  remarkably 
constant  and  lasting :  even  such  sots  as  Thiriot,  whom  nothing 
but  habit  could  have  endeared  to  him,  he  continues,  and  after 
repeated  injuries,  to  treat  and  regard  as  friends.  Of  his  equals 
we  do  not  observe  him  envious,  at  least  not  palpably  and 
despicably  so ;  though  this,  we  should  add,  might  be  in  him, 
who  was  from  the  first  so  paramountly  popular,  no  such  hard 
attainment.  Against  Montesquieu,  perhaps  against  him  alone, 
he  cannot  help  entertaining  a  small  secret  grudge ;  yet  ever 
in  public  he  does  him  the  amplest  justice  ;  V Arlequin-Grotitis  of 
the  fireside  becomes,  on  all  grave  occasions,  the  author  of 
the  Esprit  des  Lois.  Neither  to  his  enemies,  and  even  betrayers, 
is  Voltaire  implacable  or  meanly  vindictive  :  the  instant  of 
their  submission  is  also  the  instant  of  his  forgiveness ;  their 
hostility  itself  provokes  only  casual  sallies  from  him ;  his 
heart  is  too  kindly,  indeed  too  light,  to  cherish  any  rancor, 
any  continuation  of  revenge.  If  he  has  not  the  virtue  to  for- 
give, he  is  seldom  without  the  prudence  to  forget :  if,  in  his 
life-long  contentions,  he  cannot  treat  his  opponents  with  any 
magnanimity,  he  seldom,  or  perhaps  never  once,  treats  them 
quite  basely  ;  seldom  or  never  with  that  absolute  unfaii'ness, 
which  the  law  of  retaliation  might  so  often  have  seemed  to 
justif3\  We  would  say  that,  if  no  heroic,  he  is  at  all  times  a 
perfectly  civilized  man  ;  which,  considering  that  his  war  was 
with  exasperated  theologians,  and  a  "war  to  the  knife"  on 
their  part,  may  be  looked  upon  as  rather  a  surprising  circum- 
stance. He  exhibits  many  minor  virtues,  a  due  appreciation 
of  tlie  highest ;  and  fewer  faults  than,  in  his  situation,  might 
have  been  expected,  and  perhaps  pardoned. 

All  this  is  well,  and  may  fit  out  a  highly  expert  and  much- 
esteemed  man  of  business,  in  the  widest  sense  of  that  term  ; 
but  is  still  far  from  constituting  a  "  great  character."    In  fact, 


VOLTAIRE.  405 

there  is  one  deficiency  in  Voltaire's  original  structure,  whicli, 
it  appears  to  us,  must  be  quite  fatal  to  such  claims  for  him : 
we  mean  his  inborn  levity  of  nature,  his  entire  want  of  Ear- 
nestness. Voltaire  was  by  birth  a  Mocker,  and  light  Pococu- 
rante;  which  natural  disposition  his  way  of  life  confirmed 
into  a  predominant,  indeed  all-pervading  habit.  Far  be  it 
from  us  to  say,  that  solemnity  is  an  essential  of  greatness ; 
that  no  great  man  can  have  other  than  a  rigid  vinegar  aspect 
of  countenance,  never  to  be  thawed  or  warmed  by  billows  of 
mirth  !  There  are  things  in  this  world  to  be  laughed  at,  as 
well  as  things  to  be  admired ;  and  his  is  no  complete  mind, 
that  cannot  give  to  each  sort  its  due.  Nevertheless,  contempt 
is  a  dangerous  element  to  sport  in  ;  a  deadly  one,  if  we  habit- 
ually live  in  it.  How,  indeed,  to  take  the  lowest  view  of  this 
matter,  shall  a  man  accomplish  great  enterprises ;  enduring 
all  toil,  resisting  temptation,  laying  aside  every  weight, — 
unless  he  zealously  love  what  he  pursues  ?  The  faculty  of 
love,  of  admiration,  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  sign  and  the 
measure  of  high  souls :  unwisely  directed,  it  leads  to  many 
evils  ;  but  without  it,  there  cannot  be  any  good.  Eidicule,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  indeed  a  faculty  much  prized  by  its  posses- 
sors ;  yet,  intrinsically,  it  is  a  small  faculty'- ;  we  may  say,  the 
smallest  of  all  faculties  that  other  men  are  at  the  pains  to 
repay  with  any  esteem.  It  is  directly  opposed  to  Thought,  to 
Knowledge,  properly  so  called ;  its  nourishment  and  essence  is 
Denial,  which  hovers  only  on  the  surface,  while  Knowledge 
dwells  far  below.  Moreover,  it  is  by  nature  selfish  and  mor- 
ally trivial ;  it  cherishes  nothing  but  our  Vanity,  which  may 
in  general  be  left  safely  enough  to  shift  for  itself.  Little 
"  discourse  of  reason,"  in  any  sense,  is  implied  in  Ridicule  :  a 
scoffing  man  is  in  no  lofty  mood,  for  the  time  ;  shows  more  of 
tlie  imp  than  of  the  angel.  This  too  when  his  scoffing  is  what 
we  call  just,  and  has  some  foundation  on  truth  ;  while  again 
the  laughter  of  fools,  that  vain  sound  said  in  Scripture  to 
resemble  the  "  crackling  of  thorns  under  the  pot "  (which  they 
cannot  heat,  but  only  soil  and  begrime),  must  be  regarded,  in 
these  latter  times,  as  a  very  serious  addition  to  the  sum  of 
human  wretchedness  ;  nor  perhaps  will  it  always,  —  when  the 


406        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

"Increase  of  Crime  in  the  Metropolis"  comes  to  be  debated 
again,  —  escape  the  vigilance  of  Parliament  as  hitherto. 

We  have,  oftener  than  once,  endeavored  to  attach  some 
meaning  to  that  aphorism,  vulgarly  imputed  to  Shaftesbury, 
which,  however,  we  can  find  nowhere  in  his  works,  that  ridi- 
cule is  the  test  of  truth.  But  of  all  chimeras  that  ever  advanced 
themselves  in  the  shape  of  philosophical  doctrines,  this  is  to 
us  the  most  formless  and  purely  inconceivable.  Did  or  could 
the  unassisted  human  faculties  ever  understand  it,  much  more 
believe  it  ?  Surely,  so  far  as  the  common  mind  can  discern, 
laughter  seems  to  depend  not  less  on  the  laugher  than  on  the 
laughee  :  and  now,  who  gave  laughers  a  patent  to  be  always 
just,  and  always  omniscient  ?  If  the  philosophers  of  Nootka 
Sound  were  pleased  to  laugh  at  the  manoeuvres  of  Cook's  sea- 
men, did  that  render  these  manoeuvres  useless ;  and  were  the 
seamen  to  stand  idle,  or  to  take  to  leather  canoes,  till  the 
laughter  abated  ?    Let  a  discerning  public  judge. 

But,  leaving  these  questions  for  the  present,  we  may  observe 
at  least  that  all  great  men  have  been  careful  to  subordinate 
this  talent  or  habit  of  ridicule  ;  nay,  in  the  ages  which  we  con- 
sider the  greatest,  most  of  the  arts  that  contribute  to  it  have 
been  thought  disgraceful  for  freemen,  and  confined  to  the  ex- 
ercise of  slaves.  With  Voltaire,  however,  there  is  no  such 
subordination  visible :  by  nature,  or  by  practice,  mockery  has 
grown  to  be  the  irresistible  bias  of  his  disposition ;  so  that  for 
him,  in  all  matters,  the  first  question  is,  not  what  is  true,  but 
what  is  false  ;  not  what  is  to  be  loved,  and  held  fast,  and  ear- 
nestly laid  to  heart,  but  what  is  to  be  contemned,  and  derided, 
and  sportfully  cast  out  of  doors.  Here  truly  he  earns  abun- 
dant triumph  as  an  image-breaker,  but  pockets  little  real  wealth. 
Vanity,  with  its  adjuncts,  as  we  have  said,  finds  rich  solace- 
ment ;  but  for  aught  better  there  is  not  much.  Reverence, 
the  highest  feeling  that  man's  nature  is  capable  of,  the  crown 
of  his  whole  moral  manhood,  and  precious,  like  fine  gold,  were 
it  in  the  rudest  forms,  he  seems  not  to  understand,  or  have 
heard  of  even  by  credible  tradition.  The  glory  of  knowing 
and  believing  is  all  but  a  stranger  to  him  ;  only  with  that  of 
questioning  and  qualifying  is  he  familiar.      Accordingly,  he 


VOLTAIRE.  407 

sees  but  a  little  way  into  Nature :  the  mighty  All,  in  its 
beauty,  and  infinite  mysterious  grandeur,  humbling  the  small 
Me  into  nothingness,  has  never  even  for  moments  been  re- 
vealed to  him  ;  only  this  or  that  other  atom  of  it,  and  the  dif- 
ferences and  discrepancies  of  these  two,  has  he  looked  into 
and  noted  down.  His  theory  of  the  world,  his  picture  of  man 
and  man's  life,  is  little  ;  for  a  Poet  and  Philosopher,  even 
pitiful.  Examine  it  in  its  highest  developments,  you  find  it 
an  altogether  vulgar  picture ;  simply  a  reflex,  with  more  or 
fewer  mirrors,  of  Self  and  the  poor  interests  of  Self.  "  The 
Divine  Idea,  that  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  Appearance," 
was  never  more  invisible  to  any  man.  He  reads  History  not 
with  the  eye  of  a  devout  seer,  or  even  of  a  critic ;  but  through 
a  pair  of  mere  anti-catholic  spectacles.  It  is  not  a  mighty 
drama,  enacted  on  the  theatre  of  Infinitude,  with  Suns  for 
lamps,  and  Eternity  as  a  background ;  whose  author  is  God, 
and  whose  purport  and  thousand-fold  moral  lead  us  up  to  the 
"  dark  with  excess  of  light "  of  the  Throne  of  God ;  but  a  poor 
wearisome  debating-club  dispute,  spun  through  ten  centuries, 
between  the  Encydopedie  and  the  Sorbomie.  Wisdom  or  folly, 
nobleness  or  baseness,  are  merely  superstitious  or  unbelieving : 
God's  Universe  is  a  larger  Patrimony  of  St.  Peter,  from  which 
it  were  well  and  pleasant  to  hunt  out  the  Pope. 

In  this  way,  Voltaire's  nature,  which  was  originally  vehe- 
ment rather  than  deep,  came,  in  its  maturity,  in  spite  of  all 
his  wonderful  gifts,  to  be  positively  shallow.  We  find  no 
heroism  of  character  in  him,  from  first  to  last ;  nay  there  is 
not,  that  we  know  of,  one  great  thought  in  all  liis  six-and- 
thirty  quartos.  The  high  worth  implanted  in  him  by  Nature, 
and  still  often  manifested  in  his  conduct,  does  not  shine  there 
like  a  light,  but  like  a  coruscation.  The  enthusiasm,  proper 
to  such  a  mind,  visits  him ;  but  it  has  no  abiding  virtue  in  his 
thoughts,  no  local  habitation  and  no  name.  There  is  in  him  a 
rapidity,  but  at  the  same  time  a  pettiness ;  a  certain  violence, 
and  fitful  abruptness,  which  takes  from  him  all  dignity.  Of 
his  emportemens,  and  tragi-comical  explosions,  a  thousand  anec- 
dotes are  on  record  ;  neither  is  he,  in  tliese  cases,  a  terrific 
volcano,  but  a  mere  bundle  of  rockets.     He  is  nigh  shooting 


408         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

poor  Dorn,  the  Frankfort  constable ;  actually  fires  a  pistol, 
into  the  lobby,  at  him ;  and  this,  three  days  after  that  melaii- 
choly  business  of  the  "  (Euvre  de  Poeshie  du  Roi  mon  Maitre  " 
had  been  finally  adjusted.  A  bookseller,  who,  with  the  natural 
instinct  of  fallen  mankind,  overcharges  him,  receives  from  this 
Philosopher,  by  way  of  payment  at  sight,  a  slap  on  the  face. 
Poor  Longchamp,  with  considerable  tact,  and  a  praiseworthy 
air  of  second-table  respectability,  details  various  scenes  of  this 
kind :  how  Voltaire  dashed  away  his  combs,  and  maltreated 
his  wig,  and  otherwise  fiercely  comported  himself,  the  very 
first  morning :  how  once,  having  a  keenness  of  appetite,  sharp- 
ened by  walking  and  a  diet  of  weak  tea,  he  became  uncom- 
monly anxious  for  supper*;  and  Clairaut  and  Madame  du 
Chatelet,  sunk  in  algebraic  calculations,  twice  promised  to 
come  down,  but  still  kept  the  dishes  cooling,  and  the  Philoso- 
pher at  last  desperately  battered  open  their  locked  door  with 
his  foot ;  exclaiming,  "  Vous  etes  done  de  concert  poitr  me 
faire  mour'ir?^'' — And  yet  Voltaire  had  a  true  kindness  of 
heart ;  all  his  domestics  and  dependents  loved  him,  and  con- 
tinued with  him.  He  has  many  elements  of  goodness,  but 
floating  loosely  ;  nothing  is  combined  iu  steadfast  union.  lb 
is  true,  he  presents  in  general  a  surface  of  smoothness,  of  cul- 
tured regularity ;  yet,  under  it,  there  is  not  the  silent  rock- 
bound  strength  of  a  World,  but  the  wild  tumults  of  a  Chaos 
are  ever  bursting  through,  fie  is  a  man  of  power,  but  not  of 
beneficent  authority  ;  we  fear,  but  cannot  reverence  him ;  we 
feel  him  to  be  stronger,  not  higher. 

Much  of  this  spiritual  shortcoming  and  perversion  might  be 
due  to  natural  defect ;  but  much  of  it  also  is  due  to  the  age  into 
which  he  was  cast.  It  was  an  age  of  discord  and  division  ; 
the  approach  of  a  grand  crisis  in  human  affairs.  Already  we 
discern  in  it  all  the  elements  of  the  French  Revolution;  and 
wonder,  so  easily  do  we  forget  how  entangled  and  hidden  the 
meaning  of  the  present  generally  is  to  us,  that  all  men  did  not 
foresee  the  comings-on  of  that  fearful  convulsion.  On  the  one 
hand,  a  high  all-attempting  activity  of  Intellect ;  the  most 
peremptory  spirit  of  inquiry  abroad  on  every  subject;  things 
human  and  things  divine  alike  cited  without  misgivings  before 


VOLTAIEE.  409 

the  same  boastful  tribunal  of  so-called  Reason,  which  means 
here  a  merely  argumentative  Logic ;  the  strong  in  mind  ex- 
cluded from  his  regular  influence  in  the  state,  and  deeply  con- 
scious of  that  injury.  On  the  other  hand,  a  privileged  few, 
strong  in  the  subjection  of  the  many,  yet  in  itself  weak ;  a 
piebald,  and  for  most  part  altogether  decrepit  battalion  of 
Clergy,  of  purblind  Nobility,  or  rather  of  Courtiers,  for  as  yet 
the  Nobility  is  mostly  on  the  other  side  :  these  cannot  fight 
with  Logic,  and  the  day  of  Persecution  is  well-nigh  done.  The 
whole  force  of  law,  indeed,  is  still  in  their  hands  ;  but  the  far 
deeper  force,  which  alone  gives  efficacy  to  law,  is  hourly  pass- 
ing from  them.  Hope  animates  one  side,  fear  the  other ;  and 
the  battle  will  be  fierce  and  desperate.  For  there  is  wit  with- 
out wisdom  on  the  part  of  the  self-styled  Philosophers  ;  fee- 
bleness with  exasperation  on  the  part  of  their  opponents  ;  pride 
enough  on  all  hands,  but  little  magnanimity ;  perhaps  nowhere 
any  pure  love  of  truth,  only  everywhere  the  purest,  most 
ardent  love  of  self. 

In  such  a  state  of  things,  there  lay  abundant  principles  of 
discord  :  these  two  influences  hung  like  fast-gathering  electric 
clouds,  as  yet  on  opposite  sides  of  the  horizon,  but  with  a 
malignity  of  aspect,  which  boded,  whenever  they  might  meet, 
a  sky  of  fire  and  blackness,  thunder-bolts  to  waste  the  earth ; 
and  the  sun  and  stars,  though  but  for  a  season,  to  be  blotted 
out  from  the  heavens.  For  there  is  no  conducting  medium 
to  unite  softly  these  hostile  elements  ;  there  is  no  true  virtue, 
no  true  wisdom,  on  the  one  side  or  on  the  other.  Kever  per- 
haps was  there  an  epoch,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  when 
universal  corruption  called  so  loudly  for  reform  ;  and  they  who 
undertook  that  task  were  men  intrinsically  so  worthless.  Kot 
by  Gracchi  but  by  Catilines,  not  by  Luthers  but  by  Aretines, 
was  Europe  to  be  renovated.  The  task  has  been  a  long  and 
bloody  one  ;  and  is  still  far  from  done. 

In  this  condition  of  affairs,  what  side  such  a  man  as  Vol- 
taire was  to  take  could  not  be  doubtful.  Whether  he  ought 
to  have  taken  either  side ;  whether  he  should  not  rather  have 
stationed  himself  in  the  middle  ;  the  partisan  of  neither,  per- 
haps  hated    by   both ;    acTinowledging  and    forwarding,   and 


410        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

striying  to  reconcile,  what  truth  was  in  each ;  and  preaching 
forth    a    far    deeper  truth,  which,    if  his    own   century    had 
neglected  it,  had  persecuted  it,  future  centuries  would  have 
recognized  as  priceless  :  all  this  was  another  question.     Of  no 
man,  however  gifted,  can  we  require  what  he  has  not  to  give  : 
but  Voltaire  called  himself  Philosopher,  nay  the  Philosopher. 
And  such  has  often,  indeed  generally,  been  the  fate  of  great 
men,  and  Lovers  of  Wisdom  :  their  own  age  and  country  have 
treated  them  as  of  no  account ;  in  the  great  Corn-Exchange  of 
the  world,  their  pearls  have  seemed  but  spoiled  barley,  and 
been  ignorainiously  rejected.     Weak  in  adherents,  strong  only 
in  their  faith,  in  their  indestructible  consciousness  of  worth 
and  well-doing,  they  have  silently,  or  in  words,  appealed  to 
coming  ages,  when  their  own  ear  would  indeed  be  shut  to  the 
voice  of  love  and  of  hatred,  but  the  Truth  that  had  dwelt  in 
them  would  speak  with  a  voice  audible  to  all.     Bacon  left  his 
works  to  future  generations,  when  some  centuries  should  have 
elapsed.     "  Is  it  much  for  me,"  said  Kepler,  in  his  isolation, 
and  extreme  need,  "  that  men  should  accept  my  discovery  ? 
If  the  Almighty  waited  six  thousand  years  for  one  to  see 
what  He  had  made,  I  may  surely  wait  two  hundred  for  one  to 
understand  what  I  have  seen ! "     All  this,  and  more,  is  im- 
plied in  love   of  wisdom,  in   genuine  seeking  of  truth:  the 
noblest  function  that  can  be  appointed  for  a  man,  but  requir- 
ing also  the  noblest  man  to  fulfil  it. 

With  Voltaire,  however,  there  is  no  symptom,  perhaps  there 
was  no  conception,  of  such  nobleness  ;  the  high  call  for  which 
indeed,  in  the  existing  state  of  things,  his  intellect  may  have 
had  as  little  the  force  to  discern,  as  his  heart  had  the  force  to 
obey.  He  follows  a  simpler  course.  Heedless  of  remoter 
issues,  he  adopts  the  cause  of  his  own  party  ;  of  that  class 
with  whom  he  lived,  and  was  most  anxious  to  stand  well :  he 
enlists  in  their  ranks,  not  without  hopes  that  he  may  one  day 
rise  to  be  their  general.  A  resolution  perfectly  accordant 
with  his  prior  habits,  and  temper  of  mind  ;  and  from  which 
his  whole  subsequent  procedure,  and  moral  aspect  as  a  man, 
naturally  enough  evolves  itself.  Not  that  we  would  say, 
Voltaire  was  a  mere  prize-fighter;  one  of  "Heaven's  Swiss," 


VOLTAIRE.  411 

contending  for  a  cause  which  he  only  half,  or  not  at  all  ap- 
proved of.     Far  from  it.     Doubtless  he  loved  truth,  doubtless 
he  partially  felt  himself  to  be  advocating  truth ;  nay  we  know 
not  that  he  has  ever  yet,  in  a  single  instance,  been  convicted 
of  wilfully  perverting  his  belief;  of  uttering,  in  all  his  con- 
troversies, one  deliberate  falsehood.     Nor  should  this  negative 
praise  seem  an  altogether  slight  one  ;  for  greatly  were  it  to  be 
wished  that  even  the  best  of  his  better-intentioned  opponents 
had   always   deserved  the   like.      Nevertheless,   his   love    of 
truth  is  not  that  deep   infinite  love,  which  beseems  a  Phi- 
losopher; which  many  ages  have  been  fortunate  enough  to 
witness  ;  nay,  of  which  his  own  age  had  still  some  examples. 
It  is  a  far  inferior  love,  we  should  say,  to  that  of  poor  Jean 
Jacques,  half -sage,  half-maniac  as  he  was  ;  it  is  more  a  pru- 
dent calculation  than  a  passion.      Voltaire  loves  Truth,  but 
chiefly  of  the  triumphant  sort :  we  have  no  instance  of  his 
fighting  for  a  quite  discrowned  and  outcast  Truth ;  it  is  chiefly 
when  she  walks  abroad,  in  distress  it  may  be,  but  still  with 
queenlike  insignia,  and  knighthoods  and  renown  are  to  be 
earned  in  her  battles,  that  he  defends  her,  that  he  charges 
gallantly  against  the  Cades  and  Tylers.     Nay,  at  all  times, 
belief  itself  seems,  with  him,  to  be  less  the  product  of  Medi- 
tation than  of  Argument.     His  first  question  with  regard  to 
any  doctrine,  perhaps  his  final  test  of  its  worth  and  genuine- 
ness is :  Can  others  be  convinced  of  this  ?     Can  I  truck  it  in 
the  market  for  power  ?     "  To  such  questioners,"  it  has  been 
said,  "  Truth,  who  buys  not,  and  sells  not,  goes  on  her  way, 
and  makes  no  answer." 

In  fact,  if  we  inquire  into  Voltaire's  ruling  motive,  we  shall 
find  that  it  was  at  bottom  but  a  vulgar  one  :  ambition,  the 
desire  of  ruling,  by  such  means  as  he  had,  over  other  men. 
He  acknowledges  no  higher  divinity  than  Public  Opinion  ;  for 
whatever  he  asserts  or  performs,  the  number  of  votes  is  the 
measure  of  strength  and  value.  Yet  let  us  be  just  to  him  ; 
let  us  admit  that  he  in  some  degree  estimates  his  votes,  as 
well  as  counts  them.  If  love  of  fame,  which,  especially  for 
such  a  man,  we  can  only  call  another  modification  of  Vanity, 
is  always  his  ruling  passion,  he  has  a  certain  taste  in  grati- 


412        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

fying  it.  His  vanity,  which  cannot  be  extinguished,  is  ever 
skilfully  concealed ;  even  his  just  claims  are  never  boisterously 
insisted  on  ;  throughout  his  whole  life  he  shows  no  single  fear 
ture  of  the  quack.  Nevertheless,  even  in  the  height  of  his 
glory,  he  has  a  strange  sensitiveness  to  the  judgment  of  the 
world :  could  he  have  contrived  a  Dionysius'  Ear,  in  the  Rue 
Traversiere,  we  should  have  found  him  watching  at  it,  night 
and  day.  Let  but  any  little  evil-disposed  Abbe,  any  Freron 
or  Piron, 

"  Pauvre  Piron,  qui  ne  fut  jamais  rien, 
Pas  meitie  Academicien," 

write  a  libel  or  epigram  on  him,  what  a  fluster  he  is  in  !  We 
grant  he  forbore  much,  in  these  cases  ;  manfully  consumed  his 
own  spleen,  and  sometimes  long  held  his  peace ;  but  it  was 
his  part  to  have  always  done  so.  Why  should  such  a  man 
ruffle  himself  with  the  spite  of  exceeding  small  persons  ? 
Why  not  let  these  poor  devils  write  ;  why  should  not  they 
earn  a  dishonest  penny,  at  his  expense,  if  they  had  no  readier 
way  ?  But  Voltaire  cannot  part  with  his  "  voices,"  his  '•  most 
sweet  voices  : "  for  they  are  his  gods ;  take  these,  and  what 
has  he  left  ?  Accordingly,  in  literature  and  morals,  in  all  his 
comings  and  goings,  we  find  him  striving,  with  a  religious 
care,  to  sail  strictly  with  the  wind.  In  Art,  the  Parisian 
Parterre  is  his  court  of  last  appeal :  he  consults  the  Cafe  de 
Procope,  on  his  wisdom  or  his  folly,  as  if  it  were  a  Delphic 
Oracle.  The  following  adventure  belongs  to  his  fifty-fourth 
year,  when  his  fame  might  long  have  seemed  abundantly 
established.  We  translate  from  the  Sieur  Longchamp's  thin, 
half-roguish,  mildly  obsequious,  most  lackey-like  Narrative  : 

"Judges  could  appreciate  the  merits  of  Semiramis,  which 
has  continued  on  the  stage,  and  always  been  seen  there  with 
pleasure.  Every  one  knows  how  the  two  principal  parts  in 
this  piece  contributed  to  the  celebrity  of  two  great  trage- 
dians, Mademoiselle  Dumesnil  and  M.  le  Kain.  The  enemies 
of  M.  de  Voltaire  renewed  their  attempts  in  the  subsequent  rep- 
resentations ;  but  it  only  the  better  confirmed  his  triumph. 
Piron,  to  console  himself    for  the  defeat  of   his  party,   had 


VOLTAIRE.  413 

•ecourse  to  his  usual   remedy ;    pelting  the  piece  with  some 
paltry  epigrams,  which  did  it  no  harm. 

"  Nevertheless,  M.  de  Voltaire,  who  always  loved  to  correct 
his  works,  and  perfect  them,  became  desirous  to  learn,  more 
specially  and  at  first  hand,  what  good  or  ill  the  public  were 
saying  of  his  Tragedy ;  and  it  appeared  to  him  that  he  could 
nowhere  learn  it  better  than  in  the  Cafe  de  Procope,  which  was 
also  called  the  Autre  (Cavern)  de  Procope,  because  it  was  very 
dark  even  in  full  day,  and  ill-lighted  in  the  evenings ;  and  be- 
cause you  often  saw  there  a  set  of  lank,  sallow  poets,  who  had 
somewhat  the  air  of  apparitions.  In  this  Cafe,  wliich  fronts 
the  Comedle  Frungaise,  had  been  held,  for  more  than  sixty 
years,  the  tribunal  of  those  self-called  Aristarchs,  who  fancied 
they  could  pass  sentence  without  appeal,  on  plays,  authors  and 
actors.  M.  de  Voltaire  wished  to  compear  there,  but  in  dis- 
guise and  altogether  iticognito.  It  was  on  coming  out  from  the 
playhouse  that  the  judges  usually  proceeded  thither,  to  open 
what  they  called  their  great  sessions.  On  the  second  night  of 
Semiramis  he  borrowed  a  clergyman's  clothes  ;  dressed  him- 
self in  cassock  and  long  cloak :  black  stockings,  girdle,  bands, 
breviary  itself ;  nothing  was  forgotten.  He  clapt  on  a  large 
peruke,  unpowdered,  very  ill-combed,  which  covered  more  than 
the  half  of  his  cheeks,  and  left  nothing  to  be  seen  but  the 
end  of  a  long  nose.  The  peruke  was  surmounted  by  a  large 
three-cornered  hat,  corners  half  bruised  in.  In  this  equipment, 
then,  the  author  of  Semiramis  proceeded  on  foot  to  the  Cafe 
de  Procope,  where  he  squatted  himself  in  a  corner ;  and  wait- 
ing for  the  end  of  the  pla}',  called  for  a  bavaroise,  a  small 
roll  of  bread  and  the  Gazette.  It  was  not  long  till  those 
familiars  of  the  Parterre  and  tenants  of  the  Cafe  stejit  in. 
They  instantl}^  began  discussing  the  new  Tragedy.  Its  parti- 
sans and  its  adversaries  pleaded  their  cause  witli  warmth ; 
each  giving  his  reasons.  Impartial  jiersons  also  spoke  their 
sentiment;  and  repeated  some  fine  verses  of  the  piece.  Dur- 
ing all  this  time,  jSE.  de  Voltaire,  with  spectacles  on  nose,  head 
stooping  over  tlie  Gazette  which  he  pretended  to  be  reading, 
was  listening  to  the  debate  ;  profiting  by  reasonable  observa- 
tions, suffering  much  to  hear  very  absurd  ones,  and  not  answer 


414       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

them,  which  irritated  him.  Thus,  during  an  hour  and  a  half, 
had  he  the  courage  and  patience  to  hear  Semiramis  talked  of 
and  babbled  of,  without  speaking  a  word.  At  last,  all  these 
pretended  judges  of  the  fame  of  authors  having  gone  their 
ways,  without  converting  one  another,  M.  de  Voltaire  also 
went  off;  took  a  coach  in  the  Rue  Mazarine,  and  returned 
home  about  eleven  o'clock.  Though  I  knew  of  his  disguise,  I 
confess  I  was  struck  and  almost  frightened  to  see  him  accou- 
tred so.  I  took  him  for  a  spectre,  or  shade  of  Ninus,  that  was 
appearing  to  me ;  or,  at  least,  for  one  of  those  ancient  Irish 
debaters,  arrived  at  the  end  of  their  career,  after  wearing  them- 
selves out  in  school-syllogisms.  I  helped  him  to  doff  all  that 
apparatus,  which  I  carried  next  morning  to  its  true  owner,  —  a 
Doctor  of  the  Sorbonne." 

This  stroke  of  art,  which  cannot  in  anywise  pass  for  sub- 
lime, might  have  its  uses  and  rational  purpose  in  one  case, 
and  only  in  one:  if  Semiramis  was  meant  to  be  a  popular 
show,  that  was  to  live  or  die  by  its  first  impression  on  the  idle 
multitude ;  which  accordingly  we  must  infer  to  have  been  its 
real,  at  least  its  chief  destination.  In  any  other  case,  we  can- 
not but  consider  this  Haroun-Alraschid  visit  to  the  Cafe  de 
Procope  as  questionable,  and  altogether  inadequate.  If  Semi- 
ramis was  a  Poem,  a  living  Creation,  won  from  the  empyrean 
by  the  silent  power  and  long-continued  Promethean  toil  of  its 
author,  what  could  the  Cafe  de  Procope  know  of  it,  what  could 
all  Paris  know  of  it,  "  on  the  second  night "  ?  Had  it  been 
a  Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  they  might  have  despised  it  till  after 
the  fiftieth  year  !  True,  the  object  of  the  Poet  is,  and  must 
be,  to  "  instruct  by  pleasing,"  yet  not  by  pleasing  this  man  and 
that  man  ;  only  by  pleasing  man,  by  speaking  to  the  pure  na- 
ture of  man,  can  any  real  "  instruction,"  in  this  sense,  be  con- 
veyed. Vain  does  it  seem  to  search  for  a  judgment  of  this 
kind  in  the  largest  Cafe  in  the  largest  Kingdom,  "  on  the 
second  night."  The  deep,  clear  consciousness  of  one  mind 
comes  infinitely  nearer  it,  than  the  loud  outcry  of  a  million 
that  have  no  such  consciousness  ;  whose  "  talk,"  or  whose 
"  babble,"  but  distracts  the  listener ;  and  to  most  genuine 
Poets  has,  from  of  old,  been  in  a  great  measure  indifferent. 


VOLTAIRE.  416 

For  the  multitude  of  voices  is  no  authority;  a  thousand 
voices  may  not,  strictly  examined,  amount  to  one  vote.  Man- 
kind in  this  world  are  divided  into  flocks,  and  follow  their  sev- 
eral bell-wethers.  Now,  it  is  well  known,  let  the  bell-wether 
rush  through  any  gap,  the  rest  rush  after  him,  were  it  into 
bottomless  quagmires.  Nay,  so  conscientious  are  sheep  in  this 
particular,  as  a  quaint  naturalist  and  moralist  has  noted,  "  if 
you  hold  a  stick  before  the  wether,  so  that  he  is  forced  to 
vault  in  his  passage,  the  whole  flock  will  do  the  like  when 
the  stick  is  withdrawn ;  and  the  thousandth  sheep  shall  be 
seen  vaulting  impetuously  over  air,  as  the  first  did  over  an 
otherwise  impassable  barrier ! "  A  farther  peculiarity  which, 
in  consulting  Acts  of  Parliament,  and  other  authentic  records, 
not  only  as  regards  "  Catholic  Disabilities,"  but  many  other 
matters,  you  may  find  curiously  verified  in  the  human  species 
also !  —  On  the  whole,  we  must  consider  this  excursion  to 
Frocojje's  literary  Cavern  as  illustrating  Voltaire  in  rather 
pleasant  style ;  but  nowise  much  to  his  honor.  Fame  seems  a 
far  too  high,  if  not  the  highest  object  with  him ;  nay  some-  * 
times  even  popularity  is  clutched  at :  we  see  no  heavenly 
polestar  in  this  voyage  of  his  ;  but  only  the  guidance  of  a  pro- 
verbially uncertain  ivind. 

Voltaire  reproachfully  says  of  St.  Louis,  that  he  "  ought  to 
have  been  above  his  age ; "  but  in  his  own  case  we  can  find  few 
symptoms  of  such  heroic  superiority.  The  same  perpetual 
appeal  to  his  contemporaries,  the  same  intense  regard  to  repu- 
tation, as  he  viewed  it,  prescribes  for  him  both  his  enterprises 
and  his  manner  of  conducting  them.  His  aim  is  to  please  the 
more  enlightened,  at  least  the  politer  part  of  the  world ;  and  he 
offers  them  simply  what  they  most  wish  for,  be  it  in  theatri- 
cal shows  for  their  pastime,  or  in  sceptical  doctrines  for  their 
edification.  For  this  latter  purpose,  Ridicule  is  the  weapon 
he  selects,  and  it  suits  him  well.  This  was  not  the  age  of 
deep  thoughts;  no  Due  de  Richelieu,  no  Prince  Conti,  no 
Frederick  the  Great  would  have  listened  to  such :  only  sport- 
ful contempt,  and  a  thin  conversational  logic  will  avail.  There 
may  be  wool-quilts,  which  the  latli-sword  of  Harlequin  will 
pierce,  when  the  club  of  Hercules  has  rebounded  from  them  in 


416         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

vaiu.  As  little  was  this  an  age  for  high  virtues ;  no  heroism, 
in  any  form,  is  required,  or  even  acknowledged ;  but  only,  in 
all  forms,  a  certain  bienseance. 

To  this  rule  also  Voltaire  readily  conforms;  indeed,  he 
finds  no  small  advantage  in  it.  For  a  lax  public  morality 
not  only  allows  him  the  indulgence  of  many  a  little  private 
vice,  and  brings  him  in  this  and  the  other  windfall  of  menus 
plaisii's,  but  opens  him  the  readiest  resource  in  many  enter- 
prises of  danger.  Of  all  men,  Voltaire  has  the  least  dispo- 
sition to  increase  the  Army  of  Martyrs.  No  testimony  will 
he  seal  with  his  blood ;  scarcely  any  will  he  so  much  as  sign 
with  ink.  His  obnoxious  doctrines,  as  we  have  remarked,  he 
publishes  under  a  thousand  concealments  ;  with  underplots, 
and  wheels  within  wheels ;  so  that  his  whole  track  is  in  dark- 
ness, only  his  works  see  the  light.  No  Proteus  is  so  nimble, 
or  assumes  so  many  shapes :  if,  by  rare  chance,  caught  sleep- 
ing, he  whisks  through  the  smallest  hole,  and  is  out  of  sight, 
while  the  noose  is  getting  ready.  Let  his  judges  take  him  to 
task,  he  will  shuffle  and  evade  ;  if  directly  questioned,  he  will 
even  lie.  In  regard  to  this  last  point,  the  Marquis  de  Con- 
dorcet  has  set  up  a  defence  for  him,  which  has  at  least  the 
merit  of  being  frank  enough, 

"The  necessity  of  lying  in  order  to  disavow  any  work," 
says  he,  "  is  an  extremity  equally  repugnant  to  conscience  and 
nobleness  of  character :  but  the  crime  lies  with  those  unjust 
men,  who  render  such  disavowal  necessary  to  the  safety  of 
him  whom  they  force  to  it.  If  you  have  made  a  crime  of 
what  is  not  one ;  if,  by  absurd  or  by  arbitrary  laws,  you  have 
infringed  the  natural  right,  which  all  men  have,  not  only  to 
form  an  opinion,  but  to  render  it  public  ;  then  you  deserve 
to  lose  the  right  which  every  man  has  of  hearing  the  truth 
from  the  mouth  of  another ;  a  right  which  is  the  sole  basis 
of  that  rigorous  obligation,  not  to  lie.  If  it  is  not  permitted 
to  deceive,  the  reason  is,  that  to  deceive  any  one,  is  to  do  him 
a  wrong,  or  expose  yourself  to  do  him  one  ;  but  a  wrong  sup- 
poses a  right ;  and  no  one  has  the  right  of  seeking  to  secure 
himself  the  means  of  committing  an  injustice."  * 

1   Vie  de  Voltaire,  p.  32. 


VOLTAIRE.  417 

It  is  strange,  how  scientific  discoveries  do  maintain  them- 
selves :  here,  quite  in  other  hands,  and  in  an  altogether  dif- 
ferent dialect,  we  have  the  old  Catholic  doctrine,  if  it  ever 
was  more  than  a  Jesuitic  one,  "that  faith  need  not  be  kept 
with  heretics."  Truth,  it  appears,  is  too  precious  an  article 
for  our  enemies ;  is  fit  only  for  friends,  for  those  who  will 
pay  us  if  we  tell  it  them.  It  may  be  observed,  however, 
that  granting  Condorcet's  premises,  this  doctrine  also  must 
be  granted,  as  indeed  is  usual  with  that  sharp-sighted  writer. 
If  the  doing  of  right  depends  on  the  receiving  of  it ;  if  our 
fellow-men,  in  this  world,  are  not  persons,  but  mere  things, 
that  for  services  bestowed  will  return  services,  —  steam-en- 
gines that  will  manufacture  calico,  if  we  put  in  coals  and 
water,  —  then  doubtless,  the  calico  ceasing,  our  coals  and 
water  may  also  rationally  cease;  the  questioner  threatening 
to  injure  us  for  the  truth,  we  may  rationally  tell  him  lies. 
But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  our  fellow-man  is  no  steam-engine, 
but  a  man ;  united  with  us,  and  with  all  men,  and  with  the 
Maker  of  all  men,  in  sacred,  mysterious,  indissoluble  bonds, 
in  an  All-embracing  Love,  that  encircles  alike  the  seraph 
and  the  glow-worm;  then  will  our  duties  to  him  rest  on 
quite  another  basis  than  this  very  humble  one  of  quid  pro 
quo;  and  the  Marquis  de  Condorcet's  conclusion  will  be 
false ;  and  might,  in  its  practical  extensions,  be  infinitely 
pernicious. 

Such  principles  and  habits,  too  lightly  adopted  by  Voltaire, 
acted,  as  it  seems  to  us,  with  hostile  effect  on  his  moral  nature, 
not  originally  of  the  noblest  sort,  but  which,  under  other  in- 
fluences, might  have  attained  to  far  greater  nobleness.  As  it 
is,  we  see  in  him  simply  a  Man  of  the  World,  such  as  Paris 
and  the  eighteenth  century  produced  and  approved  of :  a 
polite,  attractive,  most  cultivated,  but  essentially  self-inter- 
ested man ;  not  without  highly  amiable  qualities ;  indeed, 
with  a  general  disposition  which  we  could  have  accepted 
without  disappointment  in  a  mere  Man  of  the  World,  but 
must  find  very  defective,  sometimes  altogether  out  of  place, 
in  a  Poet  and  Philosopher.  Above  this  character  of  a  Parisian 
"nonorable  man,"  he  seldom  or  never  rises;  nay  sometimes 

TOL.   XIII.  27 


418         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

we  find  him  hovering  on  the  very  lowest  boundaries  of  it,  or 
perhaps  even  fairly  below  it.  We  shall  nowise  accuse  him  of 
excessive  regard  for  money,  of  any  wish  to  shine  by  the  in- 
fluence of  mere  wealth :  let  those  commercial  speculations, 
including  even  the  victualling-contracts,  pass  for  laudable 
prudence,  for  love  of  independence,  and  of  the  power  to  do 
good.  But  what  are  we  to  make  of  that  hunting  after  pen- 
sions, and  even  after  mere  titles  ?  There  is  an  assiduity 
displayed  here,  which  sometimes  almost  verges  towards  sneak- 
ing. Well  might  it  provoke  the  scorn  of  Alfieri ;  for  there 
is  nothing  better  than  the  spirit  of  "  a  French  plebeian "  ap- 
parent in  it.  Much,  we  know,  very  much  should  be  allowed 
for  difference  of  national  manners,  which  in  general  mainly 
determine  the  meaning  of  such  things  :  nevertheless,  to  our 
insular  feelings,  that  famous  Trajan  est-il  content  f  especially 
when  we  consider  who  the  Trajan  was,  will  always  remain 
an  unfortunate  saying.  The  more  so,  as  Trajan  himself 
turned  his  back  on  it,  without  answer ;  declining,  indeed, 
through  life,  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  this  charmer,  or  disturb 
his  own  ^'  dme  paisihle,''  for  one  moment,  though  with  the  best 
philosopher  in  Nature.  Nay,  Pompadour  herself  was  applied 
to ;  and  even  some  considerable  progress  made,  by  that  under- 
ground passage,  had  not  an  envious  hand  too  soon  and  fatally 
intervened.  D'Alembert  says,  there  are  two  things  that  can 
reach  the  top  of  a  pyramid,  the  eagle  and  the  reptile.  Ap- 
parently, Voltaire  wished  to  combine  both  methods ;  and  he 
had  with  one  of  them  but  indifferent  success. 

The  truth  is,  we  are  trying  Voltaire  by  too  high  a  standard ; 
comparing  him  with  an  ideal,  which  he  himself  never  strove 
after,  perhaps  never  seriously  aimed  at.  He  is  no  great  Man, 
but  only  a  great  Persifletir  ;  a  man  for  whom  life,  and  all  that 
pertains  to  it,  has,  at  best,  but  a  despicable  meaning ;  who 
meets  its  diflficulties  not  with  earnest  force,  but  with  gay 
agility  ;  and  is  found  always  at  the  top,  less  by  power  in 
swimming,  than  by  lightness  in  floating.  Take  him  in  his 
character,  forgetting  that  any  other  was  ever  ascribed  to  him, 
and  we  find  that  he  enacted  it  almost  to  perfection.     Never 


VOLTAIRE.  419 

man  better  understood  the  whole  secret  of  Persiflage ;  mean- 
ing thereby  not  only  the  external  faculty  of  polite  contempt, 
but  that  art  of  general  inward  contempt,  by  which  a  man  of 
this  sort  endeavors  to  subject  the  circumstances  of  his  Destiny 
to  his  Volition,  and  be,  what  is  the  instinctive  effort  of  all 
men,  though  in  the  midst  of  material  Necessity,  morally  Free. 
Voltaire's  latent  derision  is  as  light,  copious  and  all-pervading 
as  the  derision  which  he  utters.  Nor  is  this  so  simple  an  at- 
tainment as  we  might  fancy  ;  a  certain  kind  and  degree  of 
Stoicism,  or  approach  to  Stoicism,  is  necessary  for  the  com- 
pleted Persijieur ;  as  for  moral,  or  even  practical  completion, 
in  any  other  way.  The  most  indifferent-minded  man  is  not 
by  nature  indifferent  to  his  own  pain  and  pleasure  :  this  is  an 
indifference  which  he  must  by  some  method  study  to  acquire, 
or  acquire  the  show  of ;  and  which,  it  is  fair  to  say,  Voltaire 
manifests  in  a  rather  respectable  degree. 

Without  murmuring,  he  has  reconciled  himself  to  most 
things :  the  human  lot,  in  this  lower  world,  seems  a  strange 
business,  yet,  on  the  whole,  with  more  of  the  farce  in  it  than 
of  the  tragedy ;  to  him  it  is  nowise  heartrending  that  this 
Planet  of  ours  should  be  sent  sailing  through  Space,  like 
a  miserable  aimless  Ship-of-Fools,  and  he  himself  be  a  fool 
among  the  rest,  and  only  a  very  little  wiser  than  they.  He 
does  not,  like  Bolingbroke,  "patronize  Providence,"  though 
such  sayings  as  Si  Dieu  n'existait  pas,  il  faudrait  I'inveiiter, 
seem  now  and  then  to  indicate  a  tendency  of  that  sort :  but, 
at  all  events,  he  never  openly  levies  war  against  Heaven  -,  well 
knowing  that  the  time  spent  in  frantic  malediction,  directed 
thither,  might  be  spent  otherwise  with  more  profit.  There  is, 
j  truly,  no  Werterism  in  him,  either  in  its  bad  or  its  good  sense. 
If  he  sees  no  unspeakable  majesty  in  heaven  and  earth, 
neither  does  he  see  any  unsufferable  horror  there.  His  view 
of  the  world  is  a  cool,  gently  scornful,  altogether  prosaic  one : 
his  sublimest  Apocalypse  of  Nature  lies  in  the  microscope  and 
telescope  ;  the  Earth  is  a  place  for  producing  corn ;  the  Starry 
Heavens  are  admirable  as  a  nautical  timekeeper.  Yet,  like 
a  prudent  man,  he  has  adjusted  himself  to  his  condition,  such 
as  it  is :  he  does  not  chant  any  Miserere  over  human  life,  cal- 


420        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

culating  that  no  charitable  dole,  but  only  laughter,  would  be 
the  reward  of  such  an  enterprise ;  does  not  hang  or  drown  him- 
self, clearly  understanding  that  death  of  itself  will  soon  save 
him  that  trouble.  Affliction,  it  is  true,  has  not  for  him  any 
precious  jewel  in  its  head ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  an  unmixed 
nuisance ;  yet,  happily,  not  one  to  be  howled  over,  so  much  as 
one  to  be  speedily  removed  out  of  sight :  if  he  does  not  learn 
from  it  Humility,  and  the  sublime  lesson  of  Resignation, 
neither  does  it  teach  him  hard-heartedness  and  sickly  discon- 
tent ;  but  he  bounds  lightly  over  it,  leaving  both  the  jewel  and 
the  toad  at  a  safe  distance  behind  him. 

Nor  was  Voltaire's  history  without  perplexities  enough  to 
keep  this  principle  in  exercise  ;  to  try  whether  in  life,  as  in 
literature,  the  ridiculum  were  really  better  than  the  acre.  We 
must  own,  that  on  no  occasion  does  it  altogether  fail  him; 
never  does  he  seem  perfectly  at  a  nonplus ;  no  adventure  is 
so  hideous,  that  he  cannot,  in  the  long-run,  find  some  means 
to  laugh  at  it,  and  forget  it.  Take,  for  instance,  that  last 
ill-omened  visit  of  his  to  Frederick  the  Great.  This  was, 
probably,  the  most  mortifying  incident  in  Voltaire's  whole 
life :  an  open  experiment,  in  the  sight  of  all  Europe,  to  ascer- 
tain whether  French  Philosophy  had  virtue  enough  in  it  to 
found  any  friendly  union,  in  such  circumstances,  even  between 
its  great  master  and  his  most  illustrious  disciple ;  and  an  ex- 
periment which  answered  in  the  negative.  As  was  natural 
enough ;  for  Vanity  is  of  a  divisive,  not  of  a  uniting  nature ; 
and  between  the  King  of  Letters  and  the  King  of  Armies 
there  existed  no  other  tie.  They  should  have  kept  up  an 
interchange  of  flattery,  from  afar :  gravitating  towards  one 
another  like  celestial  luminaries,  if  they  reckoned  themselves 
such ;  yet  always  with  a  due  centrifugal  force ;  for  if  either 
shot  madly  from  his  sphere,  nothing  but  collision,  and  con- 
cussion, and  mutual  recoil,  could  be  the  consequence.  On  the 
whole,  we  must  pity  Frederick,  environed  with  that  cluster 
of  Philosophers :  doubtless  he  meant  rather  well ;  yet  the 
French  at  Rossbach,  with  guns  in  their  hands,  were  but  a 
small  matter,  compared  with  these  French  in  Sans-Souci. 
Maupertuis  sits  sullen,  monosyllabic;   gloomy  like   the  bear 


VOLTAIRE.  421 

of  his  own  arctic  zone :  Voltaire  is  the  mad  piper  that  will 
make  him  dance  to  tunes  and  amuse  the  people.  In  this  royal 
circle,  with  its  parasites  and  bashaws,  what  heats  and  jeal- 
ousies must  there  not  have  been  ;  what  secret  heart-burnings, 
smooth-faced  malice,  plottings,  counter-plottings,  and  laurel- 
water  pharmacy,  in  all  its  branches,  before  the  ring  of  eti- 
quette fairly  burst  asunder,  and  the  establishment,  so  to  speak, 
exploded ! 

Yet  over  all  these  distressing  matters  Voltaire  has  thrown 
a  soft  veil  of  gayety ;  he  remembers  neither  Dr.  Akakia,  nor 
Dr.  Akakia's  patron,  with  any  animosity ;  but  merely  as  actors 
in  the  grand  farce  of  life  along  with  him,  a  new  scene  of  which 
has  now  commenced,  quite  displacing  the  other  from  the  stage. 
The  arrest  at  Frankfort,  indeed,  is  a  sour  morsel ;  but  this  too 
he  swallows,  with  an  effort.  Frederick,  as  we  are  given  to 
understand,  had  these  whims  by  kind ;  was,  indeed,  a  wonder- 
ful scion  from  such  a  stock ;  for  what  could  equal  the  avarice, 
malice  and  rabid  snappishness  of  old  Frederick  William  the 
father  ? 

"He  had  a  minister  at  the  Hague,  named  Luicius,"  says  the 
wit :  "  this  Luicius  was,  of  all  royal  ministers  extant,  the  worst 
paid.  The  poor  man,  with  a  view  to  warm  himself,  had  a 
few  trees  cut  down,  in  the  garden  of  Honslardik,  then  belong- 
ing to  the  House  of  Prussia ;  immediately  thereafter  he  re- 
ceived despatches  from  the  King  his  master,  keeping  back  a 
year  of  his  salary.  Luicius,  in  despair,  cut  his  throat  with 
the  only  razor  he  had  {avec  le  seul  rasoir  qu'il  etit)  :  an  old 
lackey  came  to  his  assistance,  and  unfortunately  saved  his 
life.  At  an  after  period,  I  myself  saw  his  Excellency  at  the 
Hague,  and  gave  him  an  alms  at  the  gate  of  that  Palace 
called  La  Vieille  Cour,  which  belongs  to  the  King  of  Prussia,  ' 
where  this  unhappy  Ambassador  had  lived  twelve  years." 

With  the  Roi-Philosophe  himself  Voltaire  in  a  little  while 
recommences  correspoudence  ;  and,  to  all  appearance,  i)roceeds 
quietly  in  his  office  of  "buckwasher,"  that  is,  of  verse-corrector 
to  his  Majesty,  as  if  nothing  whatever  had  happened. 

Again,  what  human  pen  can  describe  the  troubles  this 
unfortunate  philosopher  had  with  his  women?    A  gadding, 


422         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

feather-brained,  capricious,  old-coquettish,  embittered  and  em- 
bittering set  of  wantons  from  the  earliest  to  the  last !  Widow 
Denis,  for  example,  that  disobedient  Niece,  whom  he  rescued 
from  furnished  lodgings  and  spare  diet,  into  pomp  and  plenty, 
how  did  she  pester  the  last  stage  of  his  existence,  for  twenty- 
four  years  long !  Blind  to  the  peace  and  roses  of  Ferney , 
ever  hankering  and  fretting  after  Parisian  display  ;  not  with- 
out flirtation,  though  advanced  in  life  ;  losing  money  at  play, 
and  purloining  wherewith  to  make  it  good ;  scolding  his  ser- 
vants, quarrelling  with  his  secretaries,  so  that  the  too  indul- 
gent uncle  must  turn  ofE  his  beloved  CoUini,  nay  almost  be 
run  through  the  body  by  him,  for  her  sake !  The  good  Wag- 
niere,  who  succeeded  this  fiery  Italian  in  the  secretaryship, 
and  loved  Voltaire  with  a  most  creditable  affection,  cannot, 
though  a  simple,  humble  and  philanthropic  man,  speak  of 
Madame  Denis  without  visible  overflowings  of  gall.  He 
openly  accuses  her  of  hastening  her  uncle's  death  by  her 
importunate  stratagems  to  keep  him  in  Paris,  where  was 
her  heaven.  Indeed  it  is  clear  that,  his  goods  and  chattels 
once  made  sure  of,  her  chief  care  was  that  so  fiery  a  patient 
might  die  soon  enough  ;  or,  at  best,  according  to  her  own  con- 
fession, "  how  she  was  to  get  him  buried."  We  have  known 
superannuated  grooms,  nay  effete  saddle-horses,  regarded  with 
more  real  sympathy  in  their  home,  than  was  the  best  of  uncles 
by  the  worst  of  nieces.  Had  not  this  surprising  old  man 
retained  the  sharpest  judgment,  and  the  gayest,  easiest  tem- 
per, his  last  days  and  last  years  must  have  been  a  continued 
scene  of  violence  and  tribulation. 

Little  better,  worse  in  several  respects,  though  at  a  time 
when  he  could  better  endure  it,  was  the  far-famed  Marquise 
du  Chiitelet.  Many  a  tempestuous  day  and  wakeful  night 
had  he  with  that  scientific  and  too-fascinating  shrew.  She 
speculated  in  mathematics  and  metaphysics ;  but  was  an  adept 
also  in  far,  very  far  different  acquirements.  Setting  aside 
its  whole  criminality,  which,  indeed,  perhaps  went  for  little 
there,  this  literary  amour  wears  but  a  mixed  aspect ;  short  sun- 
gleams,  with  long  tropical  tornadoes ;  touches  of  guitar-music, 
soon  followed  by  Lisbon  earthquakes.     Marmontel,  we  remem- 


VOLTAIRE.  428 

ber,  speaks  of  knives  being  used,  at  least  brandished,  and  fot 
quite  other  purposes  than  carving.  Madame  la  Marquise  was 
no  saint,  in  any  sense ;  but  rather  a  Socrates's  spouse,  who 
"Would  keep  patience,  and  the  whole  philosophy  of  gayety, 
in  constant  practice.  Like  Queen  Elizabeth,  if  she  had  the 
talents  of  a  man,  she  had  more  than  the  caprices  of  a  woman. 

We  shall  take  only  one  item,  and  that  a  small  one,  in  this 
mountain  of  misery  :  her  strange  habits  and  methods  of  loco- 
motion. She  is  perpetually  travelling :  a  peaceful  philosopher 
is  lugged  over  the  world,  to  Cirey,  to  Luneville,  to  that  pied  h 
terre  in  Paris ;  resistance  avails  not ;  here,  as  in  so  many  other 
cases,  il  faut  se  ranger.  Sometimes,  precisely  on  the  eve  of 
such  a  departure,  her  domestics,  exasperated  by  hunger  and 
ill-usage,  will  strike  work,  in  a  body ;  and  a  new  set  has  to  be 
collected  at  an  hour's  warning.  Then  Madame  has  been  known 
to  keep  the  postilions  cracking  and  sacre-ing  at  the  gate  from 
dawn  till  dewy  eve,  simply  because  she  was  playing  cards, 
and  the  games  went  against  her.  But  figure  a  lean  and  vivid- 
tempered  philosopher  starting  from  Paris  at  last ;  under  cloud 
of  night ;  during  hard  frost ;  in  a  huge  lumbering  coach,  or 
rather  wagon,  compared  with  which,  indeed,  the  generality 
of  modern  wagons  were  a  luxurious  conveyance.  With  four 
starved,  and  perhaps  spavined  hacks,  he  slowly  sets  forth, 
"  under  a  mountain  of  bandboxes : "  at  his  side  sits  the  wan- 
dering virago ;  in  front  of  him  a  serving-maid,  with  additional 
bandboxes  "  et  divers  effets  de  sa  mattresse.^'  At  the  next  stage, 
the  postilions  have  to  be  beat  up ;  they  come  out  swearing. 
Cloaks  and  fur-pelisses  avail  little  against  the  January  cold ; 
"  time  and  hours  "  are,  once  move,  the  only  hope ;  but,  lo,  at 
the  tenth  mile,  this  Tyburn-coach  breaks  down  !  One  many- 
voiced  discordant  wail  shrieks  through  the  solitude,  making 
night  hideous,  — but  in  vain  ;  the  axletree  has  given  way,  tho 
vehicle  has  overset,  and  marchionesses,  chambermaids,  band- 
boxes and  philosophers,  are  weltering  in  inextricable  chaos. 

"  The  carriage  was  in  the  stage  next  Xangis,  about  half-way 
to  that  town,  when  the  hind  axletree  broke,  and  it  tumbled  on 
the  road,  to  M.  de  Voltaire's  side :  Madame  du  Chatelet,  and 
her  maid,  fell  above  him,  with  all  thoir  bundles  and  bandboxes, 


424         CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

for  these  were  not  tied  to  the  front,  but  only  piled  up  on  both 
hands  of  the  maid ;  and  so,  observing  the  laws  of  equilibrium 
and  gravitation  of  bodies,  they  rushed  towards  the  corner 
where  M.  de  Voltaire  lay  squeezed  together.  Under  so  many 
burdens,  which  half-sulfocated  him,  he  kept  shouting  bitterly 
(poussait  des  cris  aigits) ;  but  it  was  impossible  to  change 
place ;  all  had  to  remain  as  it  was,  till  the  two  lackeys,  one 
of  whom  was  hurt  by  the  fall,  could  come  up,  with  the  pos- 
tilions, to  disencumber  the  vehicle ;  they  first  drew  out  all 
the  luggage,  next  the  women,  then  ]\[.  de  Voltaire.  Nothing 
coiild  be  got  out  except  by  the  top,  that  is,  by  the  coach-door, 
which  now  opened  upwards :  one  of  the  lackeys  and  a  postil- 
ion clambering  aloft,  and  fixing  themselves  on  the  body  of 
the  vehicle,  drew  them  up,  as  from  a  well ;  seizing  the  first 
limb  that  came  to  hand,  whether  arm  or  leg;  and  then  passed 
them  down  to  the  two  stationed  below,  who  set  them  finally 
on  the  ground."  ^ 

What  would  Dr.  Kitchiner,  with  his  Traveller's  Oracle,  have 
said  to  all  this  ?  For  there  is  snow  on  the  ground :  and  four 
peasants  must  be  roused  from  a  village  half  a  league  oif,  before 
that  accursed  vehicle  can  so  much  as  be  lifted  from  its  beam- 
ends  !  Vain  it  is  for  Longchamp,  far  in  advance,  sheltered  in 
a  hospitable  though  half-dismantled  chateau,  to  pluck  pigeons 
and  be  in  haste  to  roast  them :  they  will  never,  never  be  eaten 
to  supper,  scarcely  to  breakfast  next  morning! — Nor  is  it  now 
only,  but  several  times,  that  this  unhappy  axletree  plays  them 
foul ;  nay  once,  beggared  by  Madame's  gambling,  they  have 
not  cash  to  pay  for  mending  it,  and  the  smith,  though  they 
are  in  keenest  flight,  almost  for  their  lives,  will  not  trust 
them. 

We  imagine  that  these  are  trying  things  for  any  philosopher. 
Of  the  thousand  other  more  private  and  perennial  grievances ; 
of  certain  discoveries  and  explanations,  especially,  which  it 
still  seems  surprising  that  human  ])hilosophy  could  have  toler- 
ated, we  make  no  mention ;  indeed,  with  regard  to  the  latter, 
few  earthly  considerations  could  tempt  a  Reviewer  of  sensi- 
bility to  mention  them  in  this  place. 
I  Vol.  ii.  p.  166. 


VOLTAIRE.  425 

The  Marquise  rlu  Cliatelet,  and  her  husband,  have  been 
much  wondered  at  in  England:  the  calm  magnanimity  with 
which  M.  le  Marquis  conforms  to  the  custom  of  the  country, 
to  the  wishes  of  his  helpmate,  and  leaves  her,  he  himself 
meanwhile  fighting,  or  at  least  drilling,  for  his  King,  to  range 
over  Space,  in  quest  of  loves  and  lovers ;  his  friendly  dis- 
cretion, in  this  particular;  no  less  so,  his  blithe  benignant 
gullibility,  the  instant  a  contretems  de  famille  renders  his 
countenance  needful,  —  have  had  all  justice  done  them  among 
us.  His  lady  too  is  a  wonder ;  offers  no  mean  study  to  psy- 
chologists :  she  is  a  fair  experiment  to  try  how  far  that  Deli- 
cacy, which  we  reckon  innate  in  females,  is  only  incidental 
and  the  product  of  fashion ;  how  far  a  woman,  not  merely  im- 
modest, but  witliout  the  slightest  fig-leaf  of  common  decency 
remaining,  witli  the  whole  character,  in  short,  of  a  male  de- 
bauchee, may  still  have  any  moral  worth  as  a  woman.  We 
ourselves  have  wondered  a  little  over  both  these  parties  ;  and 
over  the  goal  to  which  so  strange  a  "  progress  of  society  "  might 
be  tending.  But  still  more  wonderful,  not  without  a  shade  of 
the  sublime,  has  appeared  to  us  the  cheerful  thraldom  of  this 
maltreated  philosopher ;  and  with  what  exhaustless  patience, 
not  being  wedded,  he  endured  all  these  forced-marches, 
whims,  irascibilities,  delinquencies  and  thousand-fold  unrea- 
sons ;  braving  "  the  battle  and  the  breeze,"  on  that  wild  Bay 
of  Biscay,  for  such  a  period.  Fifteen  long  years,  and  was  not 
mad,  or  a  suicide  at  the  end  of  them  !  But  the  like  fate,  it 
would  seem,  though  worthy  D'Israeli  has  omitted  to  enumerate 
it  in  his  Calamities  of  Authors,  is  not  unknown  in  literature. 
Pope  also  had  his  Mrs.  Martha  Blount ;  and,  in  the  midst  of 
that  warfare  with  united  Duncedom,  his  daily  tale  of  Egyp- 
tian bricks  to  bake.  Let  us  pity  the  lot  of  genius,  in  this 
sublunary  sphere  ! 

Every  one  knows  the  earthly  termination  of  Madame  la 
Marquise;  and  how,  by  a  strange,  almost  satirical  Nemesis, 
she  was  taken  in  her  own  nets,  and  her  worst  sin  became  her 
final  punishment.  To  no  purpose  was  the  unparalleled  credu- 
lity of  M.  le  Marquis  ;  to  no  purpose,  the  amplest  toleration, 
and  even  helpful  knavery  of  M.  de  Voltaire  ;  "  Ics  assiduites  de 


426        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

M.  de  Saint-Lambert"  and  the  unimaginable  consultations  to 
whicli  they  gave  rise  at  Cirey,  wei-e  frightfully  parodied  in 
the  end.  The  last  scene  was  at  Luneville,  in  the  peaceable 
court  of  King  Stanislaus. 

"  Seeing  that  the  aromatic  vinegar  did  no  good,  we  tried  to 
recover  her  from  the  sudden  lethargy  by  rubbing  her  feet, 
and  striking  in  the  palms  of  her  hands ;  but  it  was  of  no  use  : 
she  had  ceased  to  be.  The  maid  was  sent  off  to  Madame  de 
Boufflers's  apartment,  to  inform  the  company  that  Madame  du 
Chatelet  was  worse.  Instantly  they  all  rose  from  the  supper- 
table:  M.  du  Chatelet,  M.  de  Voltaire,  and  the  other  guests, 
rushed  into  the  room.  So  soon  as  they  understood  the  truth, 
there  was  a  deep  consternation ;  to  tears,  to  cries  succeeded  a 
mournful  silence.  The  husband  was  led  away,  the  other  indi- 
viduals went  out  successively,  expressing  the  keenest  sorrow. 
M.  de  Voltaire  and  M.  de  Saint-Lambert  remained  the  last  by 
the  bedside,  from  which  they  could  not  be  drawn  away.  At 
length,  the  former,  absorbed  in  deep  grief,  left  the  room,  and 
with  difficulty  reached  the  main  door  of  the  Castle,  not  know- 
ing whither  he  went.  Arrived  there,  he  fell  down  at  the  foot 
of  the  outer  stairs,  and  near  the  box  of  a  sentry,  where  his 
head  came  on  the  pavement.  His  lackey,  who  was  following, 
seeing  him  fall  and  struggle  on  the  ground,  ran  forward  and 
tried  to  lift  him.  At  this  moment,  M.  de  Saint  Lambert,  re- 
tiring by  the  same  way,  also  arrived;  and  observing  M.  de 
Voltaire  in  that  situation,  hastened  to  assist  the  lackey.  No 
sooner  was  M.  de  Voltaire  on  his  feet,  than  opening  his  eyes, 
dimmed  with  tears,  and  recognizing  M.  de  Saint-Lambert,  he 
said  to  him,  with  sobs  and  the  most  pathetic  accent :  '  Ah, 
my  friend,  it  is  you  that  have  killed  her  ! '  Then,  all  on  a 
sudden,  as  if  he  were  starting  from  a  deep  sleep,  he  exclaimed 
in  a  tone  of  reproach  and  despair :  *  Eh !  tnon  Dien  !  Mon- 
sieur, de  quoi  vous  avisiez-vous  de  lui  faire  un  enfant  ? '  They 
parted  thereupon,  Avithout  adding  a  single  word ;  and  retired 
to  their  several  apartments,  overwhelmed  and  almost  annihi- 
lated by  the  excess  of  their  sorrow."  * 

Among  all  threnetical  discourses  on  record,  this  last,  between 

1  Vol.  ii.  p.  250. 


VOLTAIRE.  427 

men  overwhelmed  and  almost  annihilated  by  the  excess  of 
their  sorrow,  has  probably  an  unexampled  character.  Some 
days  afterwards,  the  first  paroxysm  of  "reproach  and  despair" 
being  somewhat  assuaged,  the  sorrowing  widower,  not  the  glad 
legal  one,  composed  this  quatrain  :  — 

"  L'univers  a  perdu  la  sublime  Emilie. 
Elle  aima  les  pluisirs,  les  arts,  la  v€rite ; 
Les  dieux,  en  lui  dormant  leur  dine  et  leitr  g^nie, 
N'avaient  gard£ pour  eux  que  I'immmtalite." 

After  which,  reflecting,  perhaps,  that  with  this  sublime  Emilia, 
so  meritoriously  singular  in  loving  pleasure,  "his  happiness 
had  been  chiefly  on  paper,"  he,  like  the  bereaved  Universe, 
consoled  himself,  and  went  on  his  way. 

Woman,  it  has  been  sufiiciently  demonstrated,  was  given  to 
man  as  a  benefit,  and  for  mutual  support ;  a  precious  ornament 
and  staff  whereupon  to  lean  in  many  trying  situations :  but  to 
Voltaire  she  proved,  so  unlucky  was  he  in  this  matter,  little 
else  than  a  broken  reed,  which  only  ran  into  his  hand.  We 
confess  that,  looking  over  the  manifold  trials  of  this  poor 
philosopher  with  the  softer,  or  as  he  may  have  reckoned  it, 
the  harder  sex,  —  from  the  Dutchwoman  who  published  his 
juvenile  letters,  to  the  Kiece  Denis  who  as  good  as  kOled  him 
with  racketing,  —  we  see,  in  this  one  province,  very  great 
scope  for  almost  all  the  cardinal  virtues.  And  to  these 
internal  convulsions  add  an  incessant  series  of  controversies 
and  persecutions,  political,  religious,  literary,  from  without ; 
and  we  have  a  life  quite  rent  asunder,  horrent  with  asperi- 
ties and  chasms,  where  even  a  stout  traveller  might  have 
faltered.  Over  all  which  Chaniouni-Needles  and  Staubbach- 
Falls  the  great  Persifleur  skims  along  in  this  his  little  poetical 
air-ship,  more  softly  than  if  he  travelled  the  smoothest  of 
merely  prosaic  roads. 

Leaving  out  of  view  the  worth  or  worthlessness  of  such  a 
temper  of  mind,  we  are  bound,  in  all  seriousness,  to  say,  both 
that  it  seems  to  have  been  Voltaire's  highest  conception  of 
moral  excellence,  and  that  he  has  pursued  and  realized  it  with 
no  small  success.  One  great  praise  therefore  he  deserves,  — 
that  of  unity  with  himself ;  that  of  having  an  aim,  and  stead- 


428        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

fastly  endeavoring  after  it,  nay,  as  we  have  found,  of  attaining 
it ;  for  his  ideal  Voltaire  seems,  to  an  unusual  degree,  mani- 
fested, made  practically  apparent  in  the  real  one.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  but  this  attainment  of  Persifieur,  in  the  wide 
sense  we  here  give  it,  was  of  all  others  the  most  admired  and 
sought  after  in  Voltaire's  age  and  country ;  nay,  in  our  own 
age  and  country  we  have  still  innumerable  admirers  of  it,  and 
unwearied  seekers  after  it,  on  every  hand  of  us  ;  nevertheless, 
we  cannot  but  believe  that  its  acme  is  past;  that  the  best 
sense  of  our  generation  has  already  weighed  its  significance, 
and  found  it  wanting.  Voltaire  himself,  it  seems  to  us,  were 
he  alive  at  this  day,  would  find  other  tasks  than  that  of 
mockery,  especially  of  mockery  in  that  style :  it  is  not  by 
Derision  and  Denial,  but  by  far  deeper,  more  earnest,  diviner 
means  that  aught  truly  great  has  been  effected  for  mankind ; 
that  the  fabric  of  man's  life  has  been  reared,  through  long 
centuries,  to  its  present  height.  If  we  admit  that  this  chief 
of  Persifieurs  had  a  steady  conscious  aim  in  life,  the  still 
higher  praise  of-  having  had  a  right  or  noble  aim  cannot  be 
conceded  him  without  many  limitations,  and  may,  plausibly 
enough,  be  altogether  denied. 

At  the  same  time,  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  that  amid  all  these 
blighting  influences,  Voltaire  maintains  a  certain  indestructible 
humanity  of  nature ;  a  soul  never  deaf  to  the  cry  of  wretched- 
ness ;  never  utterly  blind  to  the  light  of  truth,  beauty,  good- 
ness. It  is  even,  in  some  measure,  poetically  interesting  to 
observe  this  fine  contradiction  in  him :  the  heart  acting  with- 
out directions  from  the  head,  or  perhaps  against  its  directions  ; 
the  man  virtuous,  as  it  were,  in  spite  of  himself.  For,  at  all 
events,  it  will  be  granted  that,  as  a  private  man,  his  existence 
was  beneficial,  not  hurtful,  to  his  fellow-men  :  the  Calases, 
the  Sirvens,  and  so  many  orphans  and  outcasts  whom  he 
cherished  and  protected,  ought  to  cover  a  multitude  of  sins. 
It  was  his  own  sentiment,  and  to  all  appearance  a  sincere 
one  — 

"  jTat  fait  un  pen  de  hien :  c'est  mon  meilleur  ouvrage." 

Perhaps  there  are  few  men,  with  such  principles  and  such 
temptations  as  his  were,  that  could  have  led  such  a  life  ;  few 


VOLTAIRE.  429 

that  could  have  done  his  work,  and  come  through  it  with 
cleaner  hands.  If  we  call  him  the  greatest  of  all  PersifieurSy 
let  us  add  that,  morally  speaking  also,  he  is  the  best :  if  he 
excels  all  men  in  universality,  sincerity,  polished  clearness  of 
Mockery,  he  perhaps  combines  with  it  as  much  worth  of  heart 
as,  in  any  man,  that  habit  can  admit  of. 

It  is  now  well-nigh  time  that  we  should  quit  this  part  of  our 
subject :  nevertheless,  in  seeking  to  form  some  picture  of  Vol- 
taire's practical  life,  and  the  character,  outward  as  well  as 
inward,  of  his  appearance  in  society,  our  readers  will  not 
grudge  us  a  few  glances  at  the  last  and  most  striking  scene 
he  enacted  there.  To  our  view,  that  final  visit  to  Paris  has 
a  strange  half-frivolous,  half-fateful  aspect;  there  is,  as  it 
were,  a  sort  of  dramatic  justice  in  this  catastrophe,  that  he, 
who  had  all  his  life  hungered  and  thirsted  after  public  favor, 
should  at  length  die  by  excess  of  it ;  sliould  find  the  door  of 
his  Heaven-on-earth  unexpectedly  thrown  wide  open,  and  enter 
there,  only  to  be,  as  he  himself  said,  "  smothered  under  roses." 
Had  Paris  any  suitable  thedgony  or  theology,  as  Eome  and 
Athens  had,  this  might  almost  be  reckoned,  as  those  Ancients 
accounted  of  death  by  lightning,  a  sacred  death,  a  death  from 
the  gods ,  from  their  many-headed  god,  Popularity.  In  the 
benignant  quietude  of  Ferney,  Voltaire  had  lived  long,  and  as 
his  friends  calculated,  might  still  have  lived  long,  but  a  series 
of  trifling  causes  lures  him  to  Paris,  and  in  three  months  he  is 
no  more.  At  all  hours  of  his  history,  he  might  have  said  with 
Alexander:  "0  Athenians,  what  toil  do  I  undergo  to  please 
you  !  "  and  the  last  pleasure  his  Athenians  demand  of  him  is, 
that  he  would  die  for  them. 

Considered  with  reference  to  the  world  at  large,  this  jour- 
ney is  farther  remarkable.  It  is  the  most  splendid  triumph 
of  that  nature  recorded  in  these  ages  ;  the  loudest  and  showi- 
est homage  ever  paid  to  Avhat  we  moderns  call  Literature ;  to 
a  man  that  had  merely  thought,  and  published  his  thoughts. 
Much  false  tumult,  no  doubt,  there  was  in  it ;  yet  also  a  cer- 
tain deeper  significance.  It  is  interesting  to  see  how  universal 
and  eternal  in  man  is  love  of  wisdom ;  how  the  highest  and 


430         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

tlxe  lowest,  how  supercilious  princes,  and  rude  peasants,  and 
all  men  must  alike  show  honor  to  Wisdom,  or  the  appearance 
of  Wisdom ;  nay,  properly  speaking,  can  show  honor  to  noth- 
ing else.  For  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  all  Xerxes'  hosts  to 
bend  one  thought  of  our  proud  heart:  these  "may  destroy 
the  case  of  Anaxarclius  ;  himself  they  cannot  reach  :  "  only  to 
spiritual  worth  can  the  spirit  do  reverence ;  only  in  a  soul 
deeper  and  better  than  ours  can  we  see  any  heavenly  mystery, 
and  in  humbling  ourselves  feel  ourselves  exalted.  That  the 
so  ebullient  enthusiasm  of  the  French  was  in  this  case  per- 
fectly well  directed,  we  cannot  undertake  to  say :  yet  we 
Tejoioe  to  see  and  know  that  such  a  principle  exists  peren- 
nially in  man's  inmost  bosom  ;  that  there  is  no  heart  so 
sunk  and  stupefied,  none  so  withered  and  pampered,  but  the 
felt  presence  of  a  nobler  heart  will  inspire  it  and  lead  it 
captive. 

Few  royal  progresses,  few  Eoman  triumphs,  have  equalled 
this  long  triumph  of  Voltaire.  On  his  journey,  at  Bourg-en- 
Bresse,  "he  was  recognized,"  says  Wagniere,  "while  the  horses 
were  changing,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  whole  town  crowded 
about  the  carriage ;  so  that  he  was  forced  to  lock  himself  for 
some  time  in  a  room  of  the  inn."  The  Maitre-de-poste  ordered 
his  postilion  to  yoke  better  horses,  and  said  to  him  with  a 
broad  oath:  "  Vabon  train,  creve  mes  chevaux,  je  m'enf-^;  iu 
menes  M.  de  Voltaire!"  At  Dijon,  there  were  persons  of 
distinction  that  wished  even  to  dress  themselves  as  waiters, 
that  they  might  serve  him  at  supper,  and  see  him  by  this 
stratagem. 

"  At  the  barrier  of  Paris,"  continues  Wagniere,  ''  the  officers 
asked  if  we  had  nothing  with  us  contrary  to  the  King's  regula- 
tions :  *  On  my  word,  gentlemen,  Ma  foi.  Messieurs,  replied 
M.  de  Voltaire,  *I  believe  there  is  nothing  contraband  here 
except  myself.'  I  alighted  from  the  carriage,  that  the  inspec- 
tor might  more  readily  examine  it.  One  of  the  guards  said  to 
his  comrade :  C^est  pardieu  I  M.  de  Voltaire.  He  plucked  at 
the  coat  of  the  person  who  was  searching,  and  repeated  the 
same  words,  looking  fixedly  at  me.  I  could  not  help  laugh- 
ing ;  then  all  gazing  with  th^  greatest  astooishment  mingled 


VOLTAIRE.  481 

with  respect,  begged  M.  de  Voltaire  to  pass  on  whither  he 
pleased."  ^ 

Intelligence  soon  circulated  over  Paris ;  scarcely  could  the 
arrival  of  Kien-Long,  or  the  Grand  Lama  of  Thibet,  have 
excited  greater  ferment.  Poor  Longchamp,  demitted,  or  rather 
dismissed  from  Voltaire's  service  eight-and-twenty  years  be- 
fore, and  now,  as  a  retired  map-dealer  (having  resigned  in 
favor  of  his  son),  living  quietly  "dans  un  petit  logement  a 
part,'^  a  fine  smooth,  garrulous  old  man,  —  heard  the  news 
next  morning  in  his  remote  logement,  in  the  Estrapade ;  and 
instantly  huddled  on  his  clothes,  though  he  had  not  been  out 
for  two  days,  to  go  and  see  what  truth  was  in  it. 

"  Several  persons  of  my  acquaintance,  whom  I  met,  told  me 
that  they  had  heard  the  same.  I  went  purposely  to  the  Cafe 
Frocope,  where  this  news  formed  the  subject  of  conversation 
among  several  politicians,  or  men  of  letters,  who  talked  of  it 
with  warmth.  To  assure  myself  still  farther,  I  walked  thence 
towards  the  Quai  des  Theatins,  where  he  had  alighted  the 
night  before,  and,  as  was  said,  taken  up  his  lodging  in  a  man- 
sion near  the  church.  Coming  out  from  the  Rue  de  la  Seine, 
I  saw  afar  off  a  great  number  of  people  gathered  on  the  Quai, 
not  far  from  the  Pont-Royal.  Approaching  nearer,  I  observed 
that  this  crowd  was  collected  in  front  of  the  Marquis  de  Vil- 
lette's  Hotel,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  Beaune.  I  inquired 
Avhat  the  matter  was.  The  people  answered  me,  that  M.  de 
Voltaire  was  in  that  house ;  and  they  were  waiting  to  see  him 
when  he  came  out.  They  were  not  sure,  however,  whether  he 
would  come  out  that  day  ;  for  it  was  natural  to  think  that  an-^ 
old  man  of  eighty-four  might  need  a  day  or  two  of  rest.  From 
that  moment,  I  no  longer  doubted  the  arrival  of  M,  de  Vol- 
taire in  Paris."  ^ 

By  dint  of  address,  Longchamp,  in  process  of  time,  contrived 
to  see  his  old  master ;  had  an  interview  of  ten  minutes ;  was 
for  falling  at  his  feet;  and  wept  with  sad  presentiments  at 
parting.  Ten  such  minutes  were  a  great  matter  ;  for  Voltaire 
had  his  levees  and  couchees,  more  crowded  than  those  of  any 
Emperor;  princes  and  peers  thronged  his  antechamber;  and 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  121.  »  Vol.  ii.  p.  353. 


432        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

when  he  •went  abroad,  his  carriage  was  as  the  nucleus  of  a 
comet,  whose  train  extended  over  whole  districts  of  the  city. 
He  himself,  says  Wagniere,  expressed  dissatisfaction  at  much 
of  this.  Nevertheless,  there  were  some  plaudits  which,  as  he 
confessed,  went  to  his  heart.  Condorcet  mentions  that  once  a 
person  in  the  crowd,  inquiring  who  this  great  man  was,  a  poor 
woman  answered,  "  C'est  le  sauveur  des  Calas."  Of  a  quite 
different  sort  was  the  tribute  paid  him  by  a  quack,  in  the 
Place  Louis  Quinze,  haranguing  a  mixed  multitude  on  the  art 
of  juggling  with  cards :  "  Here,  gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  is  a 
trick  I  learned  at  Ferney,  from  that  great  man  who  makes  so 
much  noise  among  you,  that  famous  M.  de  Voltaire,  the  mas- 
ter of  us  all !  "  In  fact,  mere  gaping  curiosity,  and  even  ridi- 
cule, was  abroad,  as  well  as  real  enthusiasm.  The  clergy  too 
were  recoiling  into  ominous  groups ;  already  some  Jesuitic 
drums  ecclesiastic  had  beat  to  arms. 

Figuring  the  lean,  tottering,  lonely  old  man  in  the  midst  of 
all  this,  how  he  looks  into  it,  clear  and  alert,  though  no  longer 
strong  and  calm,  we  feel  drawn  towards  him  by  some  tie  of 
aifection,  of  kindly  sympathy.  Longchamp  says,  he  appeared 
"  extremely  worn,  though  still  in  the  possession  of  all  his 
senses,  and  with  a  very  firm  voice."  The  following  little 
sketch,  by  a  hostile  journalist  of  the  day,  has  fixed  itself 
deeply  with  us  :  — 

"  M.  de  Voltaire  appeared  in  full  dress,  on  Tuesday,  for  the 
first  time  since  his  arrival  in  Paris.  He  had  on  a  red  coat 
lined  with  ermine ;  a  large  peruke,  in  the  fashion  of  Louis 
XIV.,  black,  unpowdered;  and  in  which  his  withered  visage 
was  so  buried  that  you  saw  only  his  two  eyes  shining  like  car- 
buncles. His  head  was  surmounted  by  a  square  red  cap  in 
the  form  of  a  crown,  which  seemed  only  laid  on.  He  had  in 
his  hand  a  small  nibbed  cane ;  and  the  public  of  Paris,  not 
accustomed  to  see  him  in  this  accoutrement,  laughed  a  good 
deal.  This  personage,  singular  in  all,  wishes  doubtless  to 
have  nothing  in  common  with  ordinary  men."  ^ 

This  head  —  this  wondrous  microcosm  in  the  grande  per- 
ncgue  a  la  Louis  XIV.  —  was  SO  soon  to  be  distenanted  of  all 
1  Vol.  ii.  p.  466. 


VOLTAIRE.  433 

its  cunning  gifts;  these  eyes,  shining  like  carbuncles,  were 
so  soon  to  be  closed  in  long  night!  — We  must  now  give  the 
coronation  ceremony,  of  which  the  reader  may  have  heard  so 
iiiu(3h  :  borrowing  from  this  same  sceptical  hand,  which,  how- 
ever, is  vouched  for  by  Waguiere  ;  as,  indeed.  La  Harpe's  more 
heroical  narrative  of  that  occurrence  is  well  known,  and  hardly 
differs  from  the  following,  except  in  style  :  — 

"  On  Monday,  M.  de  Voltaire,  resolving  to  enjoy  the  triumph 
which  had  been  so  long  promised  him,  mounted  his  carriage, 
that  azure-colored  vehicle,  bespangled  with  gold  stars,  which  a 
Avag  called  the  chariot  of  the  empyrean  ;  and  so  repaired  to 
the  Academic  Frauc^aise,  which  that  day  had  a  special  meet- 
ing. Twenty-two  members  vv^ere  present.  Xone  of  the  pre- 
lates, abbes  or  other  ecclesiastics  who  belong  to  it,  would 
attend,  or  take  part  in  these  singular  deliberations.  The  sole 
exceptions  were  the  Abbes  de  Boismont  and  Millot ;  the  one  a 
court  rake-hell  (roue),  with  nothing  but  the  guise  of  his  pro- 
fession ;  the  other  a  varlet  (culstre),  having  no  favor  to  look 
for,  either  from  the  Court  or  the  Church. 

"  The  Academie  went  out  to  meet  M.  de  Voltaire :  he  was 
led  to  the  Director's  seat,  which  that  office-bearer  and  the 
meeting  invited  him  to  accept.  His  portrait  had  been  hung 
up  above  it.  The  company,  without  drawing  lots,  as  is  the 
custom,  proceeded  to  work,  and  named  him,  by  acclamation. 
Director  for  the  April  quarter.  The  old  man,  once  set  a-going, 
Avas  about  to  talk  a  great  deal ;  but  they  told  him,  that  they 
valued  his  health  too  much  to  hear  him,  —  that  they  would 
reduce  him  to  silence.  M.  d'Alembert  accordingly  occupied 
the  session,  by  reading  his  Eloge  de  Despreaux,  which  had 
already  been  communicated  on  a  public  occasion,  and  where  he 
had  inserted  various  flattering  things  for  the  present  visitor. 

"  M.  de  Voltaire  then  signified  a  wish  to  visit  the  Secretary 
of  the  Aeadeuiie,  whose  apartments  are  above.  Witli  tl:is 
gentleman  he  stayed  some  time ;  and  at  last  set  out  for  the 
Cojnedie  Fran^aise.  The  court  of  the  Louvre,  vast  as  it  is,  was 
full  of  people  waiting  for  him.  So  soon  as  his  notnble  vehicle 
came  in  sight,  the  cry  arose,  Le  voilu  !  The  Savoyards,  the 
a|!ple-women,  all  the  rabble  of  the  quarter  had  at.;sembled  there  ; 
VOL.  XIII.  26 


434"        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

and  the  acclamations,  Vive  Voltaire/  resounded  as  if  they 
"would  never  end.  The  Marquis  de  Villette,  who  had  arrived 
before,  came  to  hand  him  out  of  his  carriage,  where  the  Pro- 
cureur  Clos  was  seated  beside  him  :  both  these  gave  him  their 
arms,  and  could  scarcely  extricate  him  from  the  press.  On  his 
entering  the  playhouse,  a  crowd  of  more  elegance,  and  seized 
with  true  enthusiasui  for  genius,  surrounded  him  :  the  ladies, 
above  all,  threw  themselves  in  his  way,  and  stopped  it,  the 
better  to  look  at  him ;  some  were  seen  squeezing  forward  to 
touch  his  clothes ;  some  plucking  hair  from  his  fur.  M.  le 
Due  de  Chartres,^  not  caring  to  advance  too  near,  showed, 
though  at  a  distance,  no  less  curiosity  than  others. 

"  The  saint,  or  rather  the  god,  of  the  evening,  was  to  oc- 
cupy the  box  belonging  to  the  Gentlemen  of  the  Bedchamber,* 
opposite  that  of  the  Comte  d'Artois.  Madame  Denis  and 
Madame  de  Villette  Avere  already  there ;  and  the  pit  was  in 
convulsions  of  joy,  awaiting  the  moment  when  the  poet  should 
appear.  There  was  no  end  till  he  placed  himself  on  the  front 
seat,  beside  the  ladies.  Then  rose  a  cry  :  La  Couronne  !  and 
Brizard,  the  actor,  came  and  put  the  garland  on  his  head.  *'  Ah, 
Heaven  !  will  you  kill  me,  then  ?  {Ah,  Dieu  !  vous  voulez  done 
me /aire  mourir  ?)"  cvied  M.  de  Voltaire,  weeping  with  joy, 
and  resisting  this  honor.  He  took  the  crown  in  his  hand, 
and  presented  it  to  Belle-et-Bonne : '  she  withstood ;  and  the 
Prince  de  Beauvau,  seizing  the  laurel,  replaced  it  on  the  head 
of  our  Sophocles,  who  could  refuse  no  longer. 

"  The  piece  (Ireyie)  was  played,  and  with  more  applause  than 
usual,  though  scarcely  with  enough  to  correspond  to  this  tri- 
umph of  its  author.  Meanwhile  the  players  were  in  straits 
as  to  what  they  should  do  ;  and  during  their  deliberations  the 
tragedy  ended  ;  the  curtain  fell,  and  the  tumult  of  the  people 
was  extreme,  till  it  rose  again,  disclosing  a  shoAV  like  that  of 
the  Centenaire.  M.  de  Voltaire's  bust,  which  had  been  placed 
shortly  before  in  t\\e  foyer  (green-room)  of  the  Comedie  Fran- 
9aise,  had  been  brought  upon  the  stage,  and  elevated  on  a 

1  Afterwards  Egalit(?. 

-  He  himself,  as  is  perhaps  too  well  known,  was  one. 

8  The  Marquise  de  Villette,  a  foster-child  of  his. 


VOLTAIRE.  435 

pedestal ;  the  whole  body  of  comedians  stood  round  it  in  a  semi- 
circle, with  palms  and  garlands  in  their  hands ;  there  was  a 
crown  already  on  the  bust.  The  pealing  of  musical  flour- 
ishes, of  drums,  of  trumpets,  had  announced  the  ceremony  ; 
and  Madame  Vestris  held  in  her  hand  a  paper,  which  was  soon 
understood  to  contain  verses,  lately  composed  by  the  Marquis  de 
Saint-Marc.  She  recited  them  with  an  emphasis  proportioned 
to  the  extravagance  of  the  scene.     They  ran  as  follows  :  — 

'  Aux  yeux  de  Paris  enchante, 
Regois  en  cejoiir  nn  hommage. 
Que  confirmeni  d'dge  en  age 
La  severe  posterite  ! 

'  Non,  tu  n'as  pas  hesoin  d'atteindre  au  noir  rivage 
Pour  jouir  dcs  honneurs  de  V immortalite  ! 

'  Voltaire,  re<^ois  la  couronne 
Que  Von  vient  de  te  presenter  ; 
II  est  beau  de.  la  m^riter, 
Quaiid  c'est  la  France  gui  la  donne!'  ^ 

This  was  encored  :  the  actress  recited  it  again.  Next,  each  of 
them  went  forward  and  laid  his  garland  round  the  bust.  Made- 
moiselle Fanier,  in  a  fanatical  ecstasy,  kissed  it,  and  all  the 
others  imitated  her. 

"  This  long  ceremony,  accompanied  with  infinite  vivats,  being 
over,  the  curtain  again  dropped ;  and  when  it  rose  for  Nanine, 
one  of  M.  de  Voltaire's  comedies,  his  bust  was  seen  on  the 
right-hand  side  of  the  stage,  where  it  remained  during  the 
whole  play. 

"M.  le  Comte  d'Artois  did  not  choose  to  show  himself  too 
openly ;  but  being  informed,  according  to  his  orders,  as  soon 
as  M.  de  Voltaire  appeared  in  the  theatre,  he  had  gone  thither 
incognito  ;  and  it  is  thought  that  the  old  man,  once  wlioii  he 
went  out  for  a  moment,  had  the  honor  of  a  short  interview 
with  his  Eoyal  Highness. 

"  Kaniyie  finished,  comes  a  new  hurly-burly  ;  a  now  trial  for 
the  modesty  of  our  philosopher !    He  had  got  into  his  carriage, 

1  As  Drvfleu  said  of  Swift,  so  ma^  we  say  :  Our  cousin  Saint-Marc  has  no 
turn  for  poetry. 


436        CRITICAL  AND   MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

but  the  people  would  not  let  him  go ;  they  threw  themselves 
on  the  horses,  they  kissed  them :  some  young  poets  even  cried 
out  to  unyoke  these  animals,  and  draw  the  modern  Apollo 
home  with  their  own  arms  ;  unhappily,  there  were  not  enthu- 
siasts enough  to  volunteer  this  service,  and  he  at  last  got  leave 
to  depart,  not  without  vlvats,  which  he  may  have  heard  on  the 
Pont-Royal,  and  even  in  his  own  house.  .  .  . 

"  M.  de  Voltaire,  on  reaching  home,  wept  anew  ;  and  mod- 
estly protested  that  if  he  had  known  the  people  were  to  play 
so  many  follies,  he  would  not  have  gone." 

On  all  these  wonderful  proceedings  we  shall  leave  our  readers 
to  their  own  reflections  ;  remarking  only,  that  this  happened 
on  the  30th  of  March  (1778),  and  that  on  the  SOtli  of  May, 
about  the  same  hour,  tlie  object  of  such  extraordinary  adula- 
tion was  in  the  article  of  death  ;  the  hearse  already  prepared 
to  receive  his  remains,  for  which  even  a  grave  had  to  be  stolen. 
"  He  expired,"  says  Wagniere,  "  about  a  quarter  past  eleven  at 
night,  with  the  most  perfect  tranquillity,  after  having  suffered 
the  crudest  pains,  in  consequence  of  those  fatal  drugs,  which 
his  own  imprudence,  and  especially  that  of  the  persons  who 
should  have  looked  to  it,  made  him  swallow.  Ten  minutes 
before  his  last  breath,  he  took  the  hand  of  Morand,  his  valet- 
de-chambre,  who  was  watching  by  him ;  pressed  it,  and  said, 
*  Adieu,  mon  cher  Morand,  je  me  meurs.  Adieu,  my  dear  Morand, 
I  am  gone.'  These  are  the  last  words  uttered  by  M.  de  Vol- 
taire." ^ 

^  On  this  sickness  of  Voltaire,  and  his  death-bed  deportment,  many  foolish 
books  have  been  written  ;  concerning  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  say  anything. 
The  conduct  of  the  Parisian  clergy,  on  that  occasion,  seems  totally  unworthy 
of  their  cloth  ;  nor  was  their  reward,  so  far  as  concerns  these  individuals,  in- 
appropriate :  that  of  finding  themselves  once  more  bilked,  once  more  pfrxiflcs 
by  that  strange  old  man,  in  his  last  decrepitude,  who,  in  his  strength,  had 
wrought  them  and  others  so  many  griefs.  Surely  the  parting  agonies  of  a 
fellow-mortal,  when  the  spirit  of  our  brother,  rapt  in  the  whirlwinds  and 
thick  ghastly  vapors  of  death,  clutches  blindly  for  help,  and  no  help  is  there, 
are  not  the  scenes  where  a  wise  faith  would. seek  to  exult,  when  it  can  no 
longer  hope  to  alleviate  !  For  the  rest,  to  touch  farther  on  those  their  idle 
tales  (jf  dying  horrors,  remorse  and  tlie  like  ;  to  write  of  such,  to  believe  them, 
or  disbelieve  them,  or  in  anywise  discuss  them,  were  but  a  contiimation  of  tlio 
same  ineptitude.    He  who,  after  the  imperturbable  exit  of  so  many  Cartouches 


VOLTAIRE.  437 

We  have  still  to  consider  this  man  in  his  specially  intel- 
lectual capacity ;  which,  as  with  every  man  of  letters,  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  clearest,  and,  to  all  practical  intents,  the  most 
important  aspect  of  him.  Voltaire's  intellectual  endowment 
and  acquirement,  his  talent  or  genius  as  a  literary  man,  lies 
opened  to  us  in  a  series  of  Writings,  unexampled,  as  we  believe, 
in  two  respects, — their  extent,  and  their  diversity-.  Perhaps 
there  is  no  writer,  not  a  mere  compiler,  but  writing  from  his 
own  invention  or  elaboration,  who  has  left  so  many  volumes 
behind  him  ;  and  if  to  the  merely  arithmetical,  we  add  a  criti- 
cal estimate,  the  singularity  is  still  greater ;  for  these  volumes 
are  not  written  without  an  appearance  of  due  care  and  prepa- 
ration ;  perhaps  there  is  not  one  altogether  feeble  and  confused 
treatise,  nay  one  feeble  and  confused  sentence,  to  be  found  in 
them.  As  to  variety,  again,  they  range  nearly  over  all  human 
subjects  ;  from  Theology  down  to  Domestic  Economy ;  from  the 
Familiar  Letter  to  the  Political  History  ;  from  the  Pasquinade 
to  the  Epic  Poem.  Some  strange  gift,  or  union  of  gifts,  must 
have  been  at  work  here  ;  for  the  result  is,  at  least,  in  the  highest 
degree  uncommon,  and  to  be  wondered  at,  if  not  to  be  admired. 

If,  through  all  this  many-colored  versatility,  we  try  to  deci- 

and  Thurtells,  in  every  age  of  the  world,  can  continue  to  regard  the  manner 
of  a  man's  death  as  a  test  of  his  religious  orthodoxy,  may  hoast  himself  im- 
prcgnal>le  to  merely  terrestrial  logic.  Voltaire  had  enough  of  suffering,  and 
of  mean  enough  suffei'ing  to  encounter,  without  any  addition  from  theological 
despair.  His  hist  interview  witli  the  clergy,  who  had  heen  sent  for  by  his 
friends,  that  the  rites  of  burial  might  not  be  denied  liim,  is  thus  described  by 
AVngnicre,  as  it  has  been  by  all  other  credible  reporters  of  it :  — 

"  Two  days  before  tliat  mournful  death,  M.  TAbbe'  Mignot,  his  nephew, 
went  to  seek  the  Cure'  of  Saint-Sulpice  and  the  AI)be'  Guaticr,  and  brought 
them  into  his  uncle's  sick-room;  who,  being  informed  that  the  Al)be  Guaticr 
was  there,  '  Ah,  well ! '  said  he,  '  give  him  my  compliments  and  my  thanks.' 
Tlie  Abbe  spoke  some  words  to  him,  exhorting  him  to  patience.  The  Curt^ 
of  Saint-Sulpice  then  came  forward,  having  announced  himself,  and  asked  of 
M.  de  Voltaire,  elevating  his  voice,  if  he  acknowleged  the  divinity  of  our  Lord 
.lesus  Christ  ?  The  sick  man  pushed  one  of  his  liauds  against  the  Cure"s  calotle 
(coif),  shoving  him  back,  and  cried,  turning  abruptly  to  the  other  side,  '  Let 
me  die  in  peace  (Laisse.z-moi  mowir  enpaix)  !'  The  Cun^  seemingly  considered 
his  person  soiled,  and  his  coif  dishonored,  by  the  touch  of  ir  jjliiiosopher.  Ho 
made  the  sick-nurse  give  him  a  little  brushing,  and  then  went  out  with  the 
Abbe'  Guatier."     Vol.  i.  p.  161. 


438        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

pher  the  essential,  distinctive  features  of  Voltaire's  intellect, 
it  seems  to  us  that  we  find  there  a  counterpart  to  our  theory 
of  his  moral  character ;  as,  indeed,  if  that  theory  was  accurate, 
■we  must  do :  for  the  thinking  and  the  moral  nature,  distin- 
guished by  the  necessities  of  speech,  have  no  such  distinction 
in  themselves ;  but,  rightly  examined,  exhibit  in  every  ease 
the  strictest  sympathy  and  correspondence,  are,  indeed,  but 
different  phases  of  the  same  indissoluble  unity,  —  a  living 
mind.  In  life,  Voltaire  was  found  to  be  without  good  claim 
to  the  title  of  philosopher ;  and  now,  in  literature,  and  for 
similar  reasons,  we  find  in  him  the  same  deficiencies.  Here 
too  it  is  not  greatness,  but  the  very  extreme  of  expertness, 
that  we  recognize ;  not  strength,  so  much  as  agility ;  not  depth, 
but  superficial  extent.  That  truly  surprising  ability  seems 
rather  the  unparalleled  combination  of  many  common  talents, 
than  the  exercise  of  any  finer  or  higher  one  :  for  here  too  the 
v/ant  of  earnestness,  of  intense  continuance,  is  fatal  to  him. 
He  has  the  eye  of  a  lynx;  sees  deeper,  at  the  first  glance, 
than  any  other  man ;  but  no  second  glance  is  given.  Thus 
Truth,  which  to  the  philosopher,  has  from  of  old  been  said  to 
live  in  a  well,  remains  for  the  most  part  hidden  from  him  ; 
we  may  say  forever  hidden,  if  we  take  the  highest,  and  only 
philosophical  species  of  Truth ;  for  this  does  not  reveal  itself 
to  any  mortal,  without  quite  another  sort  of  meditation  than 
Voltaire  ever  seems  to  have  bestowed  on  it.  In  fact,  his 
deductions  are  uniformly  of  a  forensic,  argumentative,  imme- 
diately practical  nature ;  often  true,  we  will  admit,  so  far  as 
they  go ;  but  not  the  whole  truth ;  and  false,  when  taken  for 
the  whole.  In  regard  to  feeling,  it  is  the  same  with  him  :  he 
is,  in  general,  humane,  mildly  affectionate,  not  without  touches 
of  nobleness;  but  light,  fitful,  discontinuous;  "a  smart  free- 
thinker, all  things  in  an  hour."  He  is  no  Poet  and  Philoso- 
pher, but  a  popular  sweet  Singer  and  Haranguer :  in  all  senses, 
and  in  all  styles,  a  Concionator,  which,  for  the  most  part,  will 
turn  out  to  be  an  altogether  different  character.  It  is  true,  in 
this  last  province  he  stands  unrivalled ;  for  such  an  audience, 
the  most  fit  and  perfectly  persuasive  of  all  preachers  :  but  in 
many  far  higher  provinces,  he  is  neither  perfect  nor  unrivalled  j 


VOLTAIllE.  439 

has  been  often  surpassed ;  was  surpassed  even  in  his  own  age 
and  nation.  For  a  decisive,  thorough-going,  in  any  measure 
gigantic  force  of  thought,  he  is  far  inferior  to  Diderot :  with 
all  the  liveliness  he  has  not  the  soft  elegance,  with  more  than 
the  wit  he  has  but  a  small  portion  of  the  wisdom,  that  belonged 
to  Fontenelle :  as  in  real  sensibility,  so  in  the  delineation  of 
it,  in  pathos,  loftiness  and  earnest  eloquence,  he  cannot, 
making  all  fair  abatements,  and  there  are  many,  be  compared 
with  Eousseau. 

Doubtless,  an  astonishing  fertility,  quickness,  address ;  an 
openness  also,  and  universal  susceptibility  of  mind,  must  have 
belonged  to  him.  As  little  can  we  deny  that  he  manifests  an 
assiduous  perseverance,  a  capability  of  long-continued  exertion, 
strange  in  so  volatile  a  man ;  and  consummate  skill  in  hus- 
banding and  wisely  directing  his  exertion.  The  very  knowl- 
edge he  had  amassed,  granting,  which  is  but  partly  true,  that 
it  was  superficial  remembered  knowledge,  might  have  distin- 
guished him  as  a  mere  Dutch  commentator.  From  Newton's 
Principla  to  the  Shaster  and  Vedam,  nothing  has  escaped  him  : 
he  has  glanced  into  all  literatures  and  all  sciences;  nay  studied 
in  them,  for  he  can  speak  a  rational  word  on  all*.  It  is  known, 
for  instance,  that  he  understood  Newton  when  no  other  man 
in  France  understood  him  :  indeed,  his  countrymen  may  call 
Voltaire  their  discoverer  of  intellectual  England; — a  dis- 
covery, it  is  true,  rather  of  the  Curtis  than  of  the  Columbus 
sort,  yet  one  which  in  his  day  still  remained  to  be  made.  Nay 
from  all  sides  he  brings  new  light  into  his  country ;  now,  for 
the  first  time,  to  the  upturned  wondering  eyes  of  Frenchmen 
in  general,  does  it  become  clear  that  Thought  has  actually  a 
kind  of  existence  in  other  kingdoms  ;  that  some  glimmerings 
of  civilization  had  dawned  here  and  there  on  the  human 
species,  prior  to  the  Siede  de  Louis  Quatorr:e.  Of  Voltaire's 
acquaintance  with  History,  at  least  with  what  he  called  His- 
tory, be  it  civil,  religious,  or  literary  ;  of  his  innumerable, 
indescribable  collection  of  facts,  g;ithered  from  all  sources, — 
from  European  Chronicles  and  State  Papers,  from  eastern 
Zends  and  Jewish  Talmuds,  we  need  not  remind  any  reader. 
It  has  been  objected  that  his  information  was  often  borrowed 


440         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

at  second-hand  ;  that  he  had  his  plodders  and  pioneers,  -whom, 
as  living  dictionaries,  he  skilfully  consulted  in  time  of  need. 
This  also  seems  to  be  partly  true,  but  deducts  little  from  our 
estimate  of  him :  for  the  skill  so  to  borrow  is  even  rarer  than 
the  power  to  lend.  Voltaire's  knowledge  is  not  a  mere  show- 
room of  curiosities,  but  truly  a  museum  for  purposes  of 
teaching ;  every  object  is  in  its  place,  and  there  for  its  uses : 
nowhere  do  we  find  confusion  or  vain  display ;  everywhere 
intention,  instructiveness  and  the  clearest  order. 

Perhaps  it  is  this  very  power  of  Order,  of  rapid,  perspicu- 
ous Arrangement,  that  lies  at  the  root  of  Voltaire's  best  gifts ; 
or  rather,  we  should  say,  it  is  that  keen,  accurate  intellectual 
vision,  from  which,  to  a  mind  of  any  intensity,  Order  naturally 
arises.  The  clear  quick  vision,  and  the  methodic  arrangement 
which  springs  from  it,  are  looked  upon  as  peculiarly  French 
qualities ;  and  Voltaire,  at  all  times,  manifests  them  in  a  more 
than  French  degree.  Let  him  but  cast  his  eye  over  any  sub- 
ject, in  a  moment  he  sees,  though  indeed  only  to  a  short  depth, 
yet  with  instinctive  decision,  where  the  main  bearings  of  it 
for  that  short  depth  lie  ;  what  is,  or  appears  to  be,  its  logical 
coherence ;  hoAv  causes  connect  themselves  with  effects ;  how 
the  whole  is  to  be  seized,  and  in  lucid  sequence  represented 
to  his  own  or  to  other  minds.  In  this  respect,  moreover,  it  is 
happy  for  him  that,  below  the  short  depth  alluded  to,  his  view 
does  not  properly  grow  dim,  but  altogether  terminates  :  thus 
there  is  nothing  farther  to  occasion  him  misgivings  ;  has  he 
not  already  sounded  into  that  basis  of  bottomless  Darkness 
on  which  all  things  firmly  rest  ?  What  lies  below  is  delusion, 
imagination,  some  form  of  Superstition  or  Folly  ;  which  he, 
nothing  doubting,  altogether  casts  away.  Accordingly,  he  is 
the  most  intelligible  of  writers  ;  everywhere  transparent  at  a 
glance.  There  is  no  delineation  or  disquisition  of  his,  tliat 
lias  not  its  whole  purport  written  on  its  forehead ;  all  is  pre- 
cise, all  is  rightly  adjusted  ;  that  keen  spirit  of  Order  shows 
itself  in  the  whole,  and  in  every  line  of  tlie  whole. 

If  we  say  that  this  power  of  Arrangement,  as  applied  both 
to  the  acquisition  and  to  the  communication  of  ideas,  is  Vol- 
taire's most  serviceable  faculty  in  all  his  enterprises,  we  say 


VOLTAIRE.  441 

nothing  singular :  for  take  the  word  in  its  largest  acceptation, 
and  it  comprehends  the  whole  office  of  Understanding,  logi- 
cally so  called ;  is  the  means  whereby  man  accomplishes  what- 
ever, in  the  way  of  outward  force,  has  been  made  possible  for 
him  ;  conquers  all  practical  obstacles,  and  rises  to  be  the  "king 
of  this  lower  world."  It  is  the  organ  of  all  that  Knowledge 
which  can  properly  be  reckoned  synonymous  with  Power ;  for 
hereby  man  strikes  with  wise  aim,  into  the  infinite  agencies 
of  Nature,  and  multiplies  his  own  small  strength  to  unlimited 
degrees.  It  has  been  said  also  that  man  may  rise  to  be  the 
"  god  of  this  lower  world ; "  but  that  is  a  far  loftier  height, 
not  attainable  by  such  j)ower-knowledge,  but  by  quite  an- 
other sort,  for  which  Voltaire  in  particular  shows  hardly  any 
aptitude. 

In  truth,  readily  as  we  have  recognized  his  spirit  of  Method, 
with  its  many  uses,  we  are  far  from  ascribing  to  him  any  per- 
ceptible portion  of  that  greatest  praise  in  thinking,  or  in  writ- 
ing, the  praise  of  philosophic,  still  less  of  poetic  Method; 
which,  especially  the  latter,  must  be  the  fruit  of  deep  feeling 
as  well  as  of  clear  vision,  —  of  genius  as  well  as  talent;  and 
is  much  more  likely  to  be  found  in  the  compositions  of  a 
Hooker  or  a  Shakspeare  than  of  a  Voltaire.  The  JNIethod  dis- 
cernible in  Voltaire,  and  this  on  all  subjects  whatever,  is  a 
purely  business  IMethod.  The  order  that  arises  from  it  is 
not  Beaut3%  but,  at  best,  Regularity.  His  objects  do  not  lie 
round  him  in  pictorial,  not  always  in  scientific  grouping;  but 
rather  in  commodious  rows,  where  each  may  be  seen  and 
come  at,  like  goods  in  a  well-kept  warehouse.  We  might  say, 
there  is  not  the  deep  natural  symmetry  of  a  forest  oak,  but 
the  simple  artificial  symmetry  of  a  parlor  chandelier.  Com- 
pare, for  example,  the  plan  of  the  Henr'wde  to  that  of  our  so 
barbarous  Hamlet.  The  plan  of  the  former  is  a  geometrical 
diagram  by  Fermat ;  that  of  the  latter  a  cartoon  by  Kapliacl. 
Tlie  Hcnriade,  as  we  see  it  completed,  is  a  polislied,  square- 
built  Tuileries  :  Hamlet  is  a  mysterious  star-paved  A'alhalla 
and  dwelling  of  the  gods. 

Nevertheless,  Voltaire's  style  of  Method  is,  as  we  have 
said,  a  business  one ;  and  for  his  purposes  more  available  than 


442        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

any  other.  It  carries  him  swiftly  through  his  work,  and  car- 
ries his  reader  swiftly  through  it ;  there  is  a  prompt  intelli- 
gence between  the  two;  the  whole  meaning  is  communicated 
clearly,  and  comprehended  without  effort.  From  this  also  it 
may  follow,  that  Voltaire  will  please  the  young  more  than 
he  does  the  old ;  that  the  first  perusal  of  him  will  please 
better  than  the  second,  if  indeed  any  second  be  thought  neces- 
sary. But  what  merit  (and  it  is  considerable)  the  pleasure 
and  profit  of  this  first  perusal  presupposes,  must  be  honestly 
allowed  him.  Herein,  it  seems  to  us,  lies  the  grand  quality  in 
all  his  performances.  These  Histories  of  his,  for  instance,  are 
felt,  in  spite  of  their  sparkling  rapidity,  and  knowing  air  of 
philosophic  insight,  to  be  among  the  shallowest  of  all  histo- 
ries ;  mere  bead-rolls  of  exterior  occurrences,  of  battles,  edifices, 
enactments,  and  other  quite  superficial  phenomena ;  yet  being 
clear  bead-rolls,  well  adapted  lor  memory,  and  recited  in  a 
•lively  tone,  we  listen  with  satisfaction,  and  learn  somewhat; 
learn  much,  if  we  began  knowing  nothing.  Nay  sometimes 
the  summary,  in  its  skilful  though  crowded  arrangement,  and 
brilliant  well-defined  outlines,  has  almost  a  poetical  as  well 
as  a  didactic  merit.  Charles  the  Twelfth  may  still  pass  for 
a  model  in  that  often-attempted  species  of  Biography  :  the 
clearest  details  are  given  in  the  fewest  words  ;  we  have 
sketches  of  strange  men  and  strange  countries,  of  wars,  ad- 
ventures, negotiations,  in  a  style  which,  for  graphic  brevity, 
rivals  that  of  Sallust.  It  is  a  line-engraving,  on  a  reduced 
scale,  of  that  Swede  and  his  mad  life  ;  without  colors,  yet  not 
without  the  foreshortenings  and  perspective  observances,  nay 
not  altogether  without  the  deeper  harmonies,  which  belong  to 
a  true  Picture.  In  respect  of  composition,  whatever  may  be 
said  of  its  accuracy  or  worth  otherwise,  we  cannot  but  reckon 
it  greatly  the  best  of  Voltaire's  Histories. 

In  his  other  prose  works,  in  his  Novels,  and  innumerable 
Essays  and  fugitive  pieces,  the  same  clearness  of  order,  the 
same  rapid  precision  of  view,  again  forms  a  distinguishing 
merit.  His  Zadigs  and  BaJ)Oucs  and  Candides,  which,  con- 
sidered as  products  of  imagination  perhaps  rank  higher  with 
foreigners  than  any  of  his  professedly  poetical  performances, 


VOLTAIRE.  443 

are  instinct  with  this  sort  of  intellectual  life:  the  sharpest 
glances,  though  from  an  oblique  point  of  sight,  into  at  least 
the  surface  of  human  life,  into  the  old  familiar  world  of  busi- 
ness; which  truly,  from  his  oblique  station,  looks  oblique 
enough,  and  yields  store  of  ridiculous  combinations.  The 
Wit,  manifested  chiefly  in  these  and  the  like  performances, 
but  ever  flowing,  unless  purposely  restrained,  in  boundless 
abundance  from  Voltaire's  mind,  has  been  often  and  duly 
celebrated.  It  lay  deep-rooted  in  his  nature  ;  the  inevitable 
produce  of  such  an  understanding  with  such  a  character,  and 
was  from  the  first  likely,  as  it  actually  proved  in  the  latter 
period  of  his  life,  to  become  the  main  dialect  in  which  he 
spoke  and  even  thought.  Doing  all  justice  to  the  inexhausti- 
ble readiness,  the  quick  force,  the  polished  acuteness  of  Vol- 
taire's Wit,  we  may  remark,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  was  no- 
wise the  highest  species  of  employment  for  such  a  mind  as 
his ;  that,  indeed,  it  ranks  essentially  among  the  lowest  spe- 
cies even  of  Ridicule.  It  is  at  all  times  mere  logical  pleasan- 
try ;  a  gayety  of  thfe  head,  not  of  the  heart ;  there  is  scarcely 
a  twinkling  of  Humor  in  the  whole  of  his  numberless  sallies. 
Wit  of  this  sort  cannot  maintain  a  demure  sedateness ;  a  grave 
yet  infinitely  kind  aspect,  warming  the  inmost  soul  with  true 
loving  mirth  ;  it  has  not  even  the  force  to  laugh  outright,  but 
can  only  sniff  and  titter.  It  grounds  itself,  not  on  fond  sport- 
ful sympatliy,  but  on  contempt,  or  at  best  on  indifference.  It 
stands  related  to  Humor  as  Prose  does  to  Poetry ;  of  whicli, 
in  this  department  at  least,  Voltaire  exhibits  no  symptom. 
The  most  determinedly  ludicrous  composition  of  his,  the  Pu- 
celle,  which  cannot,  on  other  grounds,  be  recommended  to  any 
reader,  has  no  higher  merit  than  that  of  an  audacious  carica- 
ture. True,  he  is  not  a  buffoon ;  seldom  or  never  vioLatcs 
the  rules,  we  shall  not  say  of  propriety,  yet  of  good  breeding  -. 
to  this  negative  praise  he  is  entitled.  But  as  for  any  high 
claim  to  positive  praise,  it  cannot  be  made  good.  We  look 
in  vain,  through  his  whole  writings,  for  one  lineament  of  a 
Quixote  or  a  Shandy ;  even  of  a  Iludibras  or  Battle  of  the 
Books.  Indeed  it  has  been  more  than  once  observed,  that 
Humor  is  not  a  national  gift  with  the  French  in  late  times ; 


444        CllITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

that  since  Montaigne's  day  it  seems  to  have  well-nigh  vanished 
from  among  them. 

Considered  in  his  technical  capacity  of  Poet,  Voltaire  need 
not.  at  present,  detain  us  very  long.  Here  too  his  excellence 
is  chiefly  intellectual,  and  shown  in  the  way  of  business-like 
method.  Everything  is  well  calculated  for  a  given  end ;  there 
is  the  utmost  logical  fitness  of  sentiment,  of  incident,  of  gen- 
eral contrivance.  Nor  is  he  without  an  enthusiasm  that 
sometimes  resembles  inspiration ;  a  clear  fellow-feeling  for 
the  personages  of  his  scene  he  always  has  ;  with  a  chameleon 
susceptibility  he  takes  some  hue  of  every  object ;  if  he  cannot 
he  that  object,  he  at  least  plausibly  enacts  it.  Thus  we  have 
a  result  everywhere  consistent  with  itself ;  a  contrivance,  not 
without  nice  adjustments  and  brilliant  aspects,  which  pleases 
with  that  old  pleasure  of  "  difficulties  overcome,"  and  the  visi- 
ble correspondence  of  means  to  end.  That  the  deeper  portion 
of  our  soul  sits  silent,  unmoved  under  all  this ;  recognizing  no 
universal,  everlasting  Beauty,  but  only  a  modish  Elegance,  less 
the  work  of  a  poetical  creation  than  a  prbcess  of  the  toilette, 
need  occasion  no  surprise.  It  signifies  only  that  Voltaire  was 
a  French  poet,  and  wrote  as  the  French  people  of  that  day 
required  and  approved.  We  have  long  known  that  French 
poetry  aimed  at  a  dilferent  result  from  ours  ;  that  its  splendor 
was  what  we  should  call  a  dead,  artificial  one ;  not  the  mani- 
fold soft  sunmer  glories  of  Nature,  but  a  cold  splendor,  as  of 
polished  metal. 

On  the  whole,  in  reading  Voltaire's  poetry,  that  adventure 
of  the  Cafe  de  Procope  should  ever  be  held  in  mind.  He  was 
not  without  an  eye  to  have  looked,  had  he  seen  others  looking, 
into  the  deepest  nature  of  poetry ;  nor  has  he  failed  here  and 
there  to  cast  a  glance  in  that  direction :  but  what  preferment 
could  such  enterprises  earn  for  him  in  the  Cafe  de  Procope  ? 
What  could  it  profit  his  all-precious  "fame"  to  pursue  them 
farther  ?  In  the  end,  he  seems  to  have  heartily  reconciled  him- 
S-4f  to  use  and  wont,  and  striven  only  to  do  better  what  he  saw 
all  others  doing.  Yet  his  private  poetical  creed,  which  could 
not  be  a  catholic  one,  was,  nevertheless,  scarcely  so  bigoted 
as  might  have  been  looked  for.     That  censure  of  Shakspeare, 


VOLTAIRE.  445 

which  elicited  a  re-censure  in  England,  perhaps  rather  deserved 
a  "  recommendatory  epistle,"  all  things  being  considered.  He 
calls  Shakspeare  "  a  genius  full  of  force  and  fertility,  of  na- 
ture and  sublimity,"  though  unhappily  "  without  the  smallest 
spark  of  good  taste,  or  the  smallest  acquaintance  with  the 
rules ;  "  which,  in  Voltaire's  dialect,  is  not  so  false ;  Shakspeare 
having  really  almost  no  Parisian  bon  gout  whatever,  and  walk- 
ing through  ^Hhe  rules"  so  often  as  he  sees  good,  with  the 
most  astonishing  tranquillity.  After  a  fair  enough  account  of 
Hamlet,  the  best  of  those  ^^  farces  monstrueuses  qu'on  appelLe 
tragedies"  where,  however,  there  are  "  scenes  so  beautiful, 
passages  so  grand  and  so  terrible,"  Voltaire  thus  proceeds  to 
resolve  two  great  problems  :  — 

"  The  first,  how  so  many  wonders  could  accumulate  in  a 
single  head ;  for  it  must  be  confessed  that  all  the  divine  Shak- 
speare's  plays  are  written  in  this  taste  :  the  second,  how  men's 
minds  could  have  been  elevated  so  as  to  look  at  these  plays 
with  transport ;  and  how  they  are  still  followed  after,  in  a 
century  which  has  produced  Addison's   Cato  ? 

"  Our  astonishment  at  the  lirst  wonder  will  cease,  when  we 
understand  that  Shakspeare  took  all  his  tragedies  from  his- 
tories or  romances ;  and  that  in  this  case  he  onl}''  turned  into 
verse  the  romance  of  Claudius,  Gertrude  and  llavdet,  written 
in  full  by  Saxo  Grammaticus,  to  whom  be  the  praise. 

'''  The  second  part  of  the  problem,  that  is  to  say,  the  pleasure 
mon  take  in  these  tragedies,  presents  a  little  more  diihculty ; 
but  here  is  (en  void)  the  solution,  according  to  the  deep  reflec- 
tions of  certain  philosophers. 

"  The  English  chairmen,  the  sailors,  hackney-coachmen,  shop- 
porters,  butchers,  clerks  even,  are  passionately  fond  of  shows ; 
give  them  cock-fights,  bull-baitings,  fencing-matches,  burials, 
duels,  gibbets,  witchcraft,  apparitions,  they  run  thither  in 
crowds;  nay  there  is  move  than  one  paniiaau  as  curious  as 
the  populace.  The  citizens  of  London  found,  in  Shakspeare's 
tragedies,  satisfac^tion  enough  for  such  a  turn  of  mind.  The 
courtiers  were  obliged  to  follow  the  torrent :  how  can  yovi  help 
admiring  what  the  more  sensible  jiart  of  the  town  admires  ? 
There  was  nothing  better  for  a  hundred  and  iifty  years :  the 


44G         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

admiration  grew  "witli  age,  and  became  an  idolatry.  Somer 
touches  of  genius,  some  happy  verses  full  of  force  and  nature,, 
which  you  remember  in  spite  of  yourself,  atoned  for  the  re- 
mainder, and  soon  the  whole  piece  succeeded  by  the  help  of 
some  beauties  of  detail."  * 

Here,  truly,  is  a  comfortable  little  theory,  which  throws 
light  on  more  than  one  thing.  However,  it  is  couched  in  mild 
terms,  comparatively  speaking.  Frederick  the  Great,  for  ex- 
ample, thus  gives  his  verdict :  — 

"  To  convince  yourself  of  the  wretched  taste  that  up  to  this 
day  prevails  in  Germany,  you  have  only  to  visit  the  public 
theatres.  You  will  there  see,  in  action,  the  abominable  plays 
of  Shakspeare,  translated  into  our  language  ;  and  the  whole 
audience  fainting  with  rapture  (se  pdmer  d'aise)  in  listening 
to  those  ridiculous  farces,  worthy  of  the  savages  of  Canada. 
I  call  them  such,  because  they  sin  against  all  the  rules  of  the 
theatre.  One  may  pardon  those  mad  sallies  in  Shakspeare,  for 
the  birth  of  the  arts  is  never  the  point  of  their  maturity.  But 
here,  even  now,  we  have  a  Goetz  de  Berlichingen,  which  has 
just  made  its  appearance  on  the  scene ;  a  detestable  imitation 
of  those  miserable  English  pieces  ;  and  the  pit  applauds,  and 
demands  with  enthusiasm  the  repetition  of  these  disgusting 
ineptitudes   (de  ces  degoutantes  platiUides)."  * 

We  have  not  cited  these  criticisms  with  a  view  to  impugn 
them ;  but  simply  to  ascertain  where  the  critics  themselves  are 
standing.  This  passage  of  Frederick's  has  even  a  touch  of 
pathos  in  it ;  may  be  regarded  as  the  expiring  cry  of  "  Gout  " 
in  that  country,  who  sees  himself  suddenly  beleaguered  by 
strange,  appalling  Supernatural  Influences,  which  he  mistakes 
for  Lapland  witchcraft  or  Cagliostro  juggler}^;  which  never- 
theless swell  up  round  him,  irrepressible,  higher,  ever  higher  ; 
and  so  he  drowns,  grasping  his  opera-hat,  in  an  ocean  of  "  r/e- 
goutantes  platitudes."  On  the  whole,  it  would  appear  that 
Voltaire's  view  of  poetry  was  radically  different  from  ours  ; 
tliat,  in  fact,  of  what  we  should  strictly  call  poefry,  he  had 

1   (Euires,  t.  xlvii.  p.  300. 

'  De  In  Litterature  Allcmande  ;  Berlin,  1780.  We  quote  from  the  compila* 
tion,  Goethe  in  den  Zeugnissen  der  MitUbenden,  a.  124. 


VOLTAIRE.  447 

almost  no  view  whatever.  A  Tragedy,  a  Poem,  with  him  is 
not  to  be  "  a  manifestation  of  man's  Eeason  in  forms  suitable 
to  his  Sense ;  "  but  rather  a  highly  complex  egg-dance,  to  be 
danced  before  the  King,  to  a  given  tune  and  without  breaking 
a  single  egg.  Nevertheless,  let  justice  be  shown  to  him,  and 
to  French  poetry  at  large.  This  latter  is  a  peculiar  growth  of 
our  modern  ages  ;  has  been  laboriously  cultivated,  and  is  not 
without  its  own  value.  We  have  to  remark  also,  as  a  curious 
fact,  that  it  has  been,  at  one  time  or  other,  transplanted  into 
all  countries,  England,  Germany,  Spain  ;  but  though  under 
the  sunbeams  of  royal  protection,  it  would  strike  root  nowhere. 
Nay,  now  it  seems  falling  into  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf  in  its 
own  natal  soil :  the  axe  has  already  been  seen  near  its  root ; 
and  perhaps,  in  no  great  lapse  of  years,  this  species  of  poetry 
may  be  to  the  French,  what  it  is  to  all  other  nations,  a  pleas- 
ing reminiscence.  Yet  the  elder  French  loved  it  with  zeal ; 
to  them  it  must  have  had  a  true  worth :  indeed  we  can  under- 
stand how,  when  Life  itself  consisted  so  much  in  Display, 
these  representations  of  Life  may  have  been  the  only  suitable 
ones.  And  now,  when  the  nation  feels  itself  called  to  a  more 
grave  and  nobler  destiny  among  nations,  the  want  of  a  new 
literature  also  begins  to  be  felt.  As  yet,  in  looking  at  their 
too  purblind,  scrambling  controversies  of  Romanticists  and 
Classicists,  we  cannot  find  that  our  ingenious  neighbors  have 
done  much  more  than  make  a  commencement  in  this  enter- 
prise ;  however,  a  commencement  seems  to  be  made  :  they  are 
in  what  may  be  called  the  eclectic  state  ;  trying  all  things, 
German,  English,  Italian,  Spanish,  with  a  candor  and  real  love 
of  improvement,  which  give  the  best  omens  of  a  still  higher 
success.  From  the  peculiar  gifts  of  the  French,  and  their 
peculiar  spiritual  position,  we  may  expect,  had  they  once  more 
attained  to  an  original  style,  many  important  benefits,  and  im- 
portant accessions  to  the  Literature  of  the  World.  ^lean while, 
in  considering  and  duly  estimating  what  that  people  has  in 
past  times  accomplished,  Voltaire  must  always  be  reckoned 
among  their  most  meritorious  Poets.  Inferior  in  what  we  may 
call  general  poetic  temperament  to  Piacine ;  greatly  inferior,  in 
some  points  of  it,  to  Corneille,  he  has  an  intellectual  vivacity, 


448         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

a  quickness  both  of  sight  and  of  invention,  which  belongs  to 
neither  of  these  two.  We  believe  that,  among  foreign  na- 
tions, his  Tragedies,  such  works  as  Zaire  and  Mahomet,  are 
considerably  the  most  esteemed  of  this  school. 

However,  it  is  nowise  as  a  Poet,  Historian  or  Novelist,  that 
Voltaire  stands  so  prominent  in  Europe ;  but  chiefly  as  a  reli- 
gious Polemic,  as  a  vehement  opponent  of  the  Christian  Faith. 
Viewed  in  this  last  character,  he  may  give  rise  to  many  grave 
reflections,  only  a  small  portion  of  which  can  here  be  so  much 
as  glanced  at.  We  may  say,  in  general,  that  his  style  of  con- 
troversy is  of  a  piece  with  himself ;  not  a  higher,  and  scarcely 
a  lower  style  than  might  have  been  expected  from  him.  As, 
in  a  moral  point  of  view,  Voltaire  nowise  wanted  a  love  of 
truth,  yet  had  withal  a  still  deeper  love  of  his  own  interest  in 
truth ;  was,  therefore,  intrinsically  no  Philosopher,  but  a  highly 
accomplished  Trivialist ;  so  likewise,  in  an  intellectual  point 
of  view,  he  manifests  himself  ingenious  and  adroit,  rather  than 
noble  or  comprehensive  ;  fights  for  truth  or  victory,  not  by 
patient  meditation,  but  by  light  sarcasm,  whereby  victory  may 
indeed,  for  a  time,  be  gained;  but  little  Truth,  what  can  be 
named  Truth,  especially  in  such  matters  as  this,  is  to  be  looked 
for. 

No  one,  we  suppose,  ever  arrogated  for  Voltaire  any  praise 
of  originality  in  this  discussion ;  we  suppose  there  is  not  a 
single  idea,  of  any  moment,  relating  to  the  Christian  Religion, 
in  all  his  multifarious  writings,  that  had  not  been  set  forth 
again  and  again  before  his  enterprises  commenced.  The  labors 
of  a  very  mixed  multitude,  from  Porphyry  down  to  Shaftes- 
bury, including  Hobbeses,  Tindals,  Tolands,  some  of  them 
sceptics  of  a  much  nobler  class,  had  left  little  room  for  merit 
in  this  kind ;  nay,  Bayle,  his  own  countryman,  had  just  linished 
a  life  spent  in  preaching  scepticism  precisely  similar,  and  by 
methods  precisely  similar,  when  Voltaire  appeared  on  the 
arena.  Indeed,  scepticism,  as  we  have  before  observed,  was 
at  this  period  universal  among  the  higher  ranks  in  France, 
Avith  whom  Voltaire  cliiefly  associated.  It  is  only  in  the  merit 
and  demerit  of  grinding  down  this  grain  into  food  for  the 
people,  and  inducing  so  many  to  eat  of  it,  that  Voltaii'e  can 


VOLTAIRE.  449 

claim  any  singularity.  However,  we  quarrel  not  with  him  on 
this  head :  there  may  be  cases  Avhere  tlie  want  of  originality  is 
even  a  moral  merit.  But  it  is  a  much  more  serious  ground  of 
offence  that  he  intermeddled  in  Religion,  without  being  him- 
self, in  any  measure,  religious;  that  he  entered  the  Temple 
and  continued  there,  with  a  levity,  which,  in  any  Temple  where 
men  worship,  can  beseem  no  brother  man ;  that,  in  a  word,  he 
ardently,  and  with  long-continued  effort,  warred  against  Chris- 
tianity, without  iinderstanding  beyond  the  mere  superficies 
what  Christianity  was. 

His  polemical  procedure  in  this  matter,  it  appears  to  us, 
must  now  be  admitted  to  have  been,  on  the  whole,  a  shallow 
one.  Through  all  its  manifold  forms,  and  involutions,  and 
repetitions,  it  turns,  we  believe  exclusively,  on  one  point : 
what  Theologians  have  called  the  "  plenary  Inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures."  This  is  the  single  wall,  against  which,  through 
long  years,  and  with  innumerable  battering-rams  and  catapults 
and  pop-guns,  he  unweariedly  batters.  Concede  him  this,  and 
his  ram  swings  freely  to  and  fro  through  space:  there  is  noth- 
ing farther  it  can  even  aim  at.  That  the  Sacred  Books  could 
be  aught  else  than  a  Bank-of-Faith  Bill,  for  such  and  such 
quantities  of  Enjoyment,  payable  at  sight  in  the  other  world, 
value  received  ;  which  bill  becomes  waste  paper,  the  stamp 
being  questioned  :  —  that  the  Christian  Religion  could  have 
any  deeper  foundation  than  Books,  could  possibly  be  written 
in  the  purest  nature  of  man,  in  mysterious,  ineffaceable  char- 
acters, to  which  Books,  and  all  Revelations,  and  authentic 
traditions,  were  but  a  subsidiary  matter,  were  but  as  the  liijlit 
whereby  that  divine  wrltbuj  was  to  be  read  ;  —  nothing  of  this 
seems  to  have,  even  in  the  faintest  manner,  occurred  to  him. 
Yet  herein,  as  we  believe  that  the  whole  world  has  now  begun 
to  discover,  lies  the  real  essence  of  the  question  ;  by  the  nega- 
tive or  alfirmative  decision  of  which  the  Christian  Religion, 
anything  that  is  worth  calling  by  that  name,  must  fall,  or  en- 
dure forever.  We  believe  also,  that  the  wiser  minds  of  our 
age  have  already  come  to  agreement  on  this  question ;  or  rather 
never  were  divided  regarding  it.  Christianity,  the  "  Worship 
of  Sorrow,"  has  been  recognized  as  divine,  on  far  other  grounds 
VOL.  XIII.  29 


450         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

than  "  Essays  on  Miracles,"  and  by  considerations  infinitely 
deeper  than  would  avail  in  any  mere  "  trial  by  jury."  He 
who  argues  against  it,  or  for  it,  in  this  manner,  may  be  regarded 
as  mistaking  its  nature :  the  Ithuriel,  though  to  our  eyes  he 
wears  a  body  and  the  fashion  of  armor,  cannot  be  wounded 
with  material  steel.  Our  fathers  were  wiser  than  we,  when 
they  said  in  deepest  earnestness,  what  we  often  hear  in  shallow 
mockery,  that  Religion  is  "not  of  Sense,  but  of  Faith;"  not 
of  Understanding,  but  of  Reason.  He  who  finds  himself  with- 
out the  latter,  who  by  all  his  studying  has  failed  to  unfold  it 
in  himself,  may  have  studied  to  great  or  to  small  purpose,  we 
say  not  which ;  but  of  the  Christian  Religion,  as  of  many  other 
things,  be  has  and  can  have  no  knowledge. 

The  Christian  Doctrine  we  often  hear  likened  to  the  Greek 
Philosophy,  and  found,  on  all  hands,  some  measurable  way 
superior  to  it :  but  this  also  seems  a  mistake.  The  Christian 
Doctrine,  that  Doctrine  of  Humility,  in  all  senses  godlike  and 
the  parent  of  all  godlike  virtues,  is  not  superior,  or  inferior, 
or  equal,  to  any  doctrine  of  Socrates  or  Thales  ;  being  of  a 
totally  different  nature ;  differing  from  these,  as  a  perfect  Ideal 
Poem  does  from  a  correct  Computation  in  Arithmetic.  He 
who  compares  it  with  such  standards  may  lament  that,  beyond 
the  mere  letter,  the  purport  of  this  divine  Humility  has  never 
been  disclosed  to  him ;  that  the  loftiest  feeling  hitherto  vouch- 
safed to  mankind  is  as  yet  hidden  from  his  eyes. 

For  the  rest,  the  question  how  Christianity  originated  is 
doubtless  a  high  question  ;  resolvable  enough,  if  we  view  only 
its  surface,  which  was  all  that  Voltaire  saw  of  it ;  involved  in 
sacred,  silent,  unfathomable  depths,  if  we  investigate  its  in- 
terior meanings ;  which  meanings,  indeed,  it  may  be,  every  new 
age  will  develop  to  itself  in  a  new  manner  and  with  new 
degrees  of  light ;  for  the  whole  truth  may  be  called  infinite, 
and  to  man's  eye  discernible  only  in  parts ;  but  the  question 
itself  is  nowise  the  ultimate  one  in  this  matter. 

We  understand  ourselves  to  be  risking  no  new  assertion,  but 
simply  reporting  what  is  already  the  conviction  of  the  greatest 
of  our  age,  when  we  say,  —  that  cheerfully  recognizing,  grate- 
fully appropriating  whatever  Voltaire  has  proved,  or  any  other 


VOLTAIRE.  451 

man  has  proved,  or  shall  prove,  the  Christian  Religion,  once 
here,  cannot  again  pass  away ;  that  in  one  or  the  other  form, 
it  will  endure  through  all  time  ;  that  as  in  Scripture,  so  also  in 
the  heart  of  man,  is  written,  "  the  Gates  of  Hell  shall  not  pre- 
vail against  it."  Were  the  memory  of  this  Faith  never  so 
obscured,  as,  indeed,  in  all  times,  the  coarse  passions  and  per- 
ceptions of  the  world  do  all  but  obliterate  it  in  the  hearts  of 
most ;  yet  in  every  pure  soul,  in  every  Poet  and  Wise  Man,  it 
finds  a  new  Missionary,  a  new  Martyr,  till  the  great  volume  of 
Universal  History  is  finally  closed,  and  man's  destinies  are 
fulfilled  in  this  earth.  "  It  is  a  height  to  which  the  human 
species  were  fated  and  enabled  to  attain;  and  from  which, 
having  once  attained  it,  they  can  never  retrograde." 

These  things,  which  it  were  far  out  of  our  place  to  attempt 
adequately  elucidating  here,  must  not  be  left  out  of  sight  in 
appreciating  Voltaire's  polemical  worth.  We  find  no  trace  of 
these,  or  of  any  the  like  essential  considerations  having  been 
present  with  him,  in  examining  the  Christian  Religion ;  nor 
indeed  was  it  consistent  with  his  general  habits  that  they 
should  be  so.  Totally  destitute  of  religious  Reverence,  even 
of  common  practical  seriousness  ;  by  nature  or  habit,  undevout 
both  in  heart  and  head ;  not  only  without  any  Belief,  in  other 
than  a  material  sense,  but  without  the  possibility  of  acquiring 
any,  he  can  be  no  safe  or  permanently  useful  guide  in  this  in- 
vestigation. We  may  consider  him  as  having  opened  the  way 
to  future  inquirers  of  a  truer  spirit ;  but  for  his  own  part,  as 
having  engaged  in  an  enterprise,  the  real  nature  of  which  was 
well-nigh  unknown  to  him ;  and  engaged  in  it  with  the  issue 
to  be  anticipated  in  such  a  case ;  producing  chiefly  confusion, 
dislocation,  destruction,  on  all  hands  ;  so  that  the  good  lie 
achieved  is  still,  in  these  times,  found  mixed  with  an  alarming 
proportion  of  evil,  from  which,  indeed,  men  rationally  doubt 
whether  much  of  it  will  in  any  time  be  separable. 

We  should  err  widely  too,  if,  in  estimating  what  quantity, 
altogether  overlooking  what  quality,  of  intellect  Voltaire  may 
have  manifested  on  this  occasion,  we  took  the  result  produced 
as  any  measure  of  the  force  applied.  His  task  was  not  one  of 
Affirmation,  but  of  Denial ;  not  a  task  of  erecting  and  rearing 


452         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

up,  which  is  slow  and  laborious ;  but  of  destroying  and  over- 
turning, which  in  most  cases  is  rapid  and  far  easier.  The 
force  necessary  for  him  was  nowise  a  gi'eat  and  noble  one  ; 
but  a  small,  in  some  respects  a  mean  one  ;  to  be  nimbly  and 
seasonably  put  in  use.  The  Ephesian  Temple,  which  it  had 
employed  many  wise  heads  and  strong  arms  for  a  lifetime  to 
build,  could  be  unhnilt  by  one  madman,  in  a  single  hour. 

Of  such  errors,  deficiencies  and  positive  misdeeds,  it  appears 
to  us  a  just  criticism  must  accuse  Voltaire  :  at  the  same  time, 
we  can  nowise  join  in  the  condemnatory  clamor  which  so  many 
worthy  persons,  not  without  the  best  intentions,  to  this  day 
keep  up  against  him.  His  whole  character  seems  to  be  plain 
enough,  common  enough,  had  not  extraneous  influences  so  per- 
verted our  views  regarding  it:  nor,  morally  speaking,  is  it  a 
worse  character,  but  considerably  a  better  one,  than  belongs  to 
the  mass  of  men.  Voltaire's  aims  in  opposing  the  Christian 
Religion  were  unhappily  of  a  mixed  nature ;  yet,  after  all, 
very  nearly  such  aims  as  we  have  often  seen  directed  against 
it,  and  often  seen  directed  in  its  favor  :  a  little  love  of  finding 
Truth,  with  a  great  love  of  making  Proselytes  ;  Avhich  last  is 
in  itself  a  natural,  universal  feeling ;  and  if  honest,  is,  even  in 
the  worst  cases,  a  subject  for  pity,  rather  than  for  hatred.  As 
a  light,  careless,  courteous  Man  of  the  World,  he  offers  no  hate- 
ful aspect ;  on  the  contrary,  a  kindly,  gay,  rather  amiable  one : 
hundreds  of  men,  with  half  his  worth  of  disposition,  die  daily, 
and  their  little  world  laments  them.  It  is  time  that  he  too 
should  be  judged  of  by  his  intrinsic,  not  by  his  accidental  quali- 
ties ;  that  justice  should  be  done  to  him  also ;  for  injustice  can 
profit  no  man  and  no  cause. 

In  fact,  Voltaire's  chief  merits  belong  to  Nature  and  him- 
self; his  chief  faults  are  of  his  time  and  country.  In  that 
famous  era  of  the  ]*ompadours  and  Encyd  ope  dies,  he  forms  the 
main  figure  ;  and  was  such,  we  have  seen,  more  by  resembling 
the  multitude,  than  by  differing  from  them.  It  was  a  strange 
age,  that  of  Louis  XV.  ;  in  several  points,  a  novel  one  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind.  In  regard  to  its  luxury  and  depravity,  to  the 
high  culture  of  all  merely  practical  and  material  faculties,  and 
tlie  entire  toi-por  of  all  the  purely  contemplative  and  spiritual, 


VOLTAIRE.  453 

this  era  considerably  resembles  that  of  the  Roman  Emperors. 
There  too  was  external  splendor  and  internal  squalor;  tlie 
highest  completeness  in  all  sensual  arts,  including  among  these 
not  cookery  and  its  adjuncts  alone,  but  even  " etfect-painting " 
and  "  effect-writing ; "  only  the  art  of  virtuous  living  was  a 
lost  one.  Instead  of  Love  for  Poetry,  there  was  "  Taste  "  for 
it ;  refinement  in  manners,  with  utmost  coarseness  in  morals : 
in  a  word,  the  strange  spectacle  of  a  Social  System,  embracing 
large,  cultivated  portions  of  the  human  species,  and  founded 
only  on  Atheism.  With  tlie  Romans,  things  went  what  we 
should  call  their  natural  course  :  Liberty,  public  spirit  quietly 
declined  iuto  caput-mortuuni ;  Self-love,  Materialism,  Baseness 
even  to  the  disbelief  in  all  possibility  of  Virtue,  stalked  more 
and  more  imperiously  abroad ;  till  the  body-politic,  long  since 
deprived  of  its  vital  circulating  fluids,  had  now  become  a  putrid 
carcass,  and  fell  in  pieces  to  be  the  prey  of  ravenous  wolves. 
Then  was  there,  under  these  Attilas  and  Alarics,  a  world- 
spectacle  of  destruction  and  despair,  compared  with  which  the 
often-commemorated  "  horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,"  and 
all  Napoleon's  wars,  were  but  the  gay  jousting  of  a  tournament 
to  the  sack  of  stormed  cities.  Our  European  community  has 
escaped  the  like  dire  consummation  ;  and  by  causes  which,  as 
may  be  hoped,  will  always  secure  it  from  such.  Nay,  v^ere 
there  no  other  cause,  it  may  be  asserted,  that  in  a  common- 
wealth where  the  Christian  Religion  exists,  where  it  once  has 
existed,  public  and  private  Virtue,  the  basis  of  all  Strength, 
never  can  become  extinct ;  but  in  every  new  age,  and  even 
from  the  deepest  decline,  there  is  a  chance,  and  in  the  course 
of  ages  a  certainty  of  renovation. 

That  the  Christian  Religion,  or  any  Religion,  continued  to 
exist;  that  some  martyr  heroism  still  lived  in  the  heart  of 
Europe  to  rise  against  mailed  Tyranny  when  it  rode  trium- 
phant, —  was  indeed  no  merit  in  the  age  of  Louis  XV.,  but  a 
happy  accident  which  it  could  not  altogether  get  rid  of.  For 
that  age  too  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  experiment,  on  the  great 
scale,  to  decide  the  question,  not  yet,  it  would  appear,  settled 
to  universal  satisfaction  :  With  what  degree  of  vigor  a  politi- 
cal system,  grounded  on  pure  Self-interest,  never  so  enlight- 


454         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ened,  but  without  a  God  or  any  recognition  of  the  godlike  iu 
man,  can  be  expected  to  flourish ;  or  whether,  in  such  circum- 
stances, a  political  system  can  be  expected  to  flourish,  or  even 
to  subsist  at  all  ?  It  is  contended  by  many  that  our  mere  love 
of  personal  Pleasure,  or  Happiness  as  it  is  called,  acting  on 
every  individual,  with  such  clearness  as  he  may  easily  have, 
will  of  itself  lead  him  to  respect  the  rights  of  others,  and 
wisely  employ  his  own ;  to  fulfil,  on  a  mere  principle  of  econ- 
omy, all  the  duties  of  a  good  patriot ;  so  that,  in  what  respects 
the  State,  or  the  mere  social  existence  of  mankind,  Belief, 
beyond  the  testimony  of  the  senses,  and  Virtue,  beyond  the 
very  common  Virtue  of  loving  what  is  pleasant  and  hating 
what  is  painful,  are  to  be  considered  as  supererogatory  qualifi- 
cations, as  ornamental,  not  essential.  Many  there  are,  on  the 
other  hand,  who  pause  over  this  doctrine ;  cannot  discover,  in 
such  a  universe  of  conflicting  atoms,  any  principle  by  which 
the  whole  shall  cohere ;  for  if  every  man's  selfishness,  in- 
finitely expansive,  is  to  be  hemmed  in  only  by  the  infinitely 
expansive  selfishness  of  every  other  man,  it  seems  as  if  we 
should  have  a  world  of  mutually  repulsive  bodies  with  no  cen- 
tripetal force  to  bind  them  together ;  in  which  case,  it  is  well 
known,  they  would,  by  and  by,  diffuse  themselves  over  space, 
and  constitute  a  remarkable  Chaos,  but  no  habitable  Solar  or 
Stellar  System. 

If  the  age  of  Louis  XV.  was  not  made  an  experimentum 
crucis  in  regard  to  this  question,  one  reason  may  be,  that  such 
experiments  are  too  expensive.  Nature  cannot  afford,  above 
once  or  twice  in  the  thousand  years,  to  destroy  a  whole  world 
for  purposes  of  science ;  but  must  content  herself  with  de- 
stroying one  or  two  kingdoms.  The  age  of  Louis  XV.,  so  far 
as  it  went,  seems  a  highly  illustrative  experiment.  We  are 
to  remark  also,  that  its  operation  was  clogged  by  a  very  con- 
siderable disturbing  force ;  by  a  large  remnant,  namely,  of 
the  old  faith  in  Religion,  in  the  invisible,  celestial  nature  of 
Virtue,  which  our  French  Purifiers,  by  their  utmost  efforts 
of  lavation,  had  not  been  able  to  wash  away.  The  men  did 
their  best,  but  no  man  can  do  more.  Their  worst  enemy,  we 
imagine,  will  not  accuse  them  of  any  undue  regard  to  things 


VOLTAIRE.  455 

unseea  and  spiritual :  far  from  practising  this  invisible  sort  of 
Virtue,  they  cannot  even  believe  in  its  possibility.  The  high 
exploits  and  endurances  of  old  ages  were  no  longer  virtues, 
but  "  passions ; "  these  antique  persons  had  a  taste  for  being 
heroes,  a  certain  fancy  to  die  for  the  truth :  the  more  fools 
they  !  With  our  Philosophes,  the  only  virtue  of  any  civiliza- 
tion was  what  they  call  "Honor,"  the  sanctioning  deity  of 
which  is  that  wonderful  "Eorce  of  Public  Opinion."  Con- 
cerning which  virtue  of  Honor,  we  must  be  permitted  to  say, 
that  she  reveals  herself  too  clearly  as  the  daughter  and  heiress 
of  our  old  acquaintance  Vanity,  who  indeed  has  been  known 
enough  ever  since  the  foundation  of  the  world,  at  least  since 
the  date  of  that  "  Lucifer,  son  of  the  Morning ; "  but  known 
chiefly  in  her  proper  character  of  strolling  actress,  or  cast» 
clothes  Abigail ;  and  never,  till  that  new  era,  had  seen  hef 
issue  set  up  as  Queen  and  all-sufficient  Dictatress  of  man's 
whole  soul,  prescribing  with  nicest  precision  what,  in  all  prac- 
tical and  all  moral  emergencies,  he  was  to  do  and  to  forbear. 
Again,  with  regard  to  this  same  Force  of  Public  Opinion,  it  is 
a  force  well  known  to  all  of  us ;  respected,  valued  as  of  indis- 
pensable utility,  but  nowise  recognized  as  a  final  or  divine 
force.  We  might  ask,  What  divine,  what  truly  great  thing 
had  ever  been  effected  by  this  force  ?  Was  it  the  Force 
of  Public  Opinion  that  drove  Columbus  to  America;  John 
Kepler,  not  to  fare  sumptuously  among  Rodolph's  Astrologers 
and  Fire-eaters,  but  to  perish  of  want,  discovering  the  true 
System  of  the  Stars  ?  Still  more  ineffectual  do  we  find  it  as 
a  basis  of  public  or  private  Morals.  Nay,  taken  by  itself, 
it  may  be  called  a  baseless  basis :  for  without  some  ulterior  ^ 
sanction,  common  to  all  minds  ;  without  some  belief  in  the 
necessary,  eternal,  or  which  is  the  same,  in  the  supramundane, 
divine  nature  of  Virtue,  existing  in  each  individual,  Avhat 
could  tlie  moral  judgment  of  a  thousand  or  a  thousand-thou- 
sand individuals  avail  us  ?  Without  some  celestial  guidance, 
whencesoever  derived,  or  howsoever  named,  it  appears  to  us 
the  Force  of  I'ublic  Opinion  would,  by  and  by,  become  an 
extremely  unprofitable  one.  "Enlighten  Self-interest!"  cries 
the  Fhilosophe ;  "do  but  sufficiently  enlighten  it!"     We  our- 


456         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS   ESSAYS. 

selves  have  seen  enlightened  Self-interests,  ere  now ;  and 
truly,  for  most  part,  their  light  was  only  as  that  of  a  horn- 
lantern,  sufficient  to  guide  the  bearer  himself  out  of  various 
paddles ;  but  to  us  and  the  world  of  comparatively  small  ad- 
vantage. And  figure  the  human  species,  like  an  endless  host, 
seeking  its  way  onwards  through  undiscovered  Time,  in  black 
darkness,  save  that  each  had  his  horn-lantern,  and  the  van- 
guard some  few  of  glass  ! 

However,  we  will  not  dwell  on  controversial  niceties.  What 
we  had  to  remark  was,  that  this  era,  called  of  Philosophy,  was 
in  itself  but  a  poor  era ;  that  any  little  morality  it  had  was 
chiefly  borrowed,  and  from  those  very  ages  which  it  accounted 
so  barbarous.  For  this  "  Honor,"  this  "  Force  of  Public  Opin- 
ion," is  not  asserted,  on  any  side,  to  have  much  renovating, 
but  only  a  sustaining  or  preventive  power;  it  cannot  create 
new  Virtue,  but  at  best  may  preserve  what  is  already  there. 
Nay,  of  the  age  of  Louis  XV.  we  may  say  that  its  very  Power, 
its  material  strength,  its  knowledge,  all  that  it  had,  was  bor- 
rowed. It  boasted  itself  to  be  an  age  of  illumination ;  and 
truly  illumination  there  was,  of  its  kind :  only,  except  the  illu- 
minated windows,  almost  nothing  to  be  seen  thereby.  None 
of  those  great  Doctrines  or  Institutions  that  have  "made  man 
in  all  points  a  man ; "  none  even  of  those  Discoveries  that 
have  the  most  subjected  external  Nature  to  his  purposes,  were 
made  in  that  age.  What  Plough  or  Printing-press,  what 
Chivalry  or  Christianity,  nay  what  Steam-engine,  or  Quaker- 
ism, or  Trial  by  Jury,  did  these  Encyclopedists  invent  for 
mankind  ?  They  invented  simply  nothing :  not  one  of  man's 
virtues,  not  one  of  man's  powers,  is  due  to  them ;  in  all  these 
respects  the  age  of  Louis  XV.  is  among  the  most  barren  of 
recorded  ages.  Indeed,  the  whole  trade  of  our  Fhilosophes 
was  directly  the  opposite  of  invention :  it  was  not  to  produce, 
that  they  stood  there ;  but  to  criticise,  to  quarrel  with,  to 
rend  in  pieces,  what  had  been  already  produced ;  —  a  quite 
inferior  trade :  sometimes  a  useful,  but  on  the  whole  a  mean 
trade ;  often  the  fruit,  and  always  the  parent,  of  meanness,  in 
every  mind  that  permanently  follows  it. 

Considering  the  then  position  of  affairs,  it  is  not  singular 


VOLTAIRE.  457 

that  the  age  of  Louis  XV.  should  have  been  what  it  was :  an 
age  without  nobleness,  without  high  virtue  or  high  manifesta- 
tions of  talent ;  an  age  of  shallow  clearness,  of  polish,  self- 
conceit,  scepticism  and  all  forms  of  Persiflage.  As  little  does 
it  seem  surprising,  or  peculiarly  blamable,  that  Voltaire,  the 
leading  man  of  that  age,  should  have  partaken  largely  of  all 
its  qualities.  True,  his  giddy  activity  took  serious  effect ;  the 
light  firebrands,  which  he  so  carelessly  scattered  abroad,  kin- 
dled fearful  conflagrations ;  but  in  these  there  has  been  good 
as  well  as  evil ;  nor  is  it  just  that,  even  for  the  latter,  he,  a 
limited  mortal,  should  be  charged  with  more  than  mortal's 
responsibility.  After  all,  that  parched,  blighted  period,  and 
the  period  of  earthquakes  and  tornadoes  which  followed  it, 
have  now  well-nigh  cleared  away :  they  belong  to  the  Past, 
and  for  us,  and  those  that  come  after  us,  are  not  without  their 
benefits,  and  calm  historical  meaning. 

"  The  thinking  heads  of  all  nations,"  says  a  deep  observer, 
"had  in  secret  come  to  majority;  and  in  a  mistaken  feeling  of 
their  vocation,  rose  the  more  fiercely  against  antiquated  con- 
straint. The  Man  of  Letters  is,  by  instinct,  opposed  to  a 
Priesthood  of  old  standing:  the  literary  class  and  the  clerical 
must  Avage  a  war  of  extermination,  when  they  are  divided ; 
for  both  strive  after  one  place.  Such  division  became  more 
and  more  perceptible,  the  nearer  we  approached  the  period  of 
European  manhood,  the  epoch  of  triumphant  Learning;  and 
Knowledge  and  Faith  came  into  more  decided  contradiction. 
In  the  prevailing  Faith,  as  was  thought,  lay  the  reason  of  the 
universal  degradation;  and  by  a  more  and  more  searching 
Knowledge  men  hoped  to  remove  it.  On  all  hands,  the  Ee- 
ligious  feeling  suffered,  under  manifold  attacks  against  its 
actual  manner  of  existence,  against  the  forms  in  whicli  hith- 
erto it  had  embodied  itself.  The  result  of  that  modern  way 
of  thought  was  named  Philosophy  ;  and  in  tliis  all  was  in- 
cluded that  opposed  itself  to  the  ancient  way  of  thought, 
especially,  therefore,  all  that  opposed  itself  to  Religion.  The 
original  personal  hatred  against  the  Catholic  Faith  passed,  by 
degi-ees,  into  hatred  against  tlie  I>ihle,  against  the  Christian 
Keligion,  and  at  laiit  against  Keligiou  altogether.     Nay  more, 


458       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

this  hatred  of  Religion  na,turally  extended  itself  over  aJ^l 
objects  of  enthusiasm  in  general ;  proscribed  !Fa,ncy"  and  Feel- 
ing, Morality  and  love  of  Art,  the  Future  and  the  Antique  j 
placed  man,  with  an  effort,  foremost  in  the  series  of  natu- 
ral productions ;  and  changed  the  infinite,  creative  music  of 
the  Universe  into  the  monotonous  clatter  of  a  boundless 
Mill,  which,  turned  by  the  stream  of  Chance,  and  swimming 
thereon,  was  a  Mill  of  itself,  without  Architect  and  Miller, 
properly  a  genuine  perpetuum  mobile,  a  real  self-grinding 
Mill. 

"  One  enthusiasm  was  generously  left  to  poor  mankind,  and 
rendered  indispensable  as  a  touchstone  of  the  highest  culture, 
for  all  jobbers  in  the  same  :  Enthusiasm  for  this  magnanimous 
Philosophy,  and  above  all,  for  these  its  priests  and  mysta- 
gogues.  France  was  so  happy  as  to  be  the  birthplace  and 
dwelling  of  this  new  Faith,  which  had  thus,  from  patches  of 
pure  knowledge,  been  pasted  together.  Low  as  Poetry  ranked 
in  this  new  Church,  there  were  some  poets  among  them,  who, 
for  effect's  sake,  made  use  of  the  old  orruxments  and  old  lights  ; 
but  in  so  doing,  ran  a  risk  of  kindling  the  new  world-system 
by  ancient  fire.  More  cunning  brethren,  however,  were  at 
hand  to  help ;  and  always  in  season  poured  cold  water  on  the 
warming  audience.  The  members  of  this  Church  were  rest- 
lessly employed  in  clearing  Nature,  the  Earth,  the  Souls  of 
men,  the  Sciences,  from  all  Poetry  ;  obliterating  every  vestige 
of  the  Holy  ;  disturbing,  by  sarcasms,  the  memory  of  all  lofty 
occurrences  and  lofty  men ;  disrobing  the  world  of  all  its  varie- 
gated vesture.  .  .  .  Pity  that  Nature  continued  so  wondrous 
and  iuconiprehensible,  so  poetical  and  infinite,  all  efforts  to 
modernize  her  notwithstanding  !  However,  if  anywhere  an 
old  superstition,  of  a  higher  world  and  the  like,  came  to  light, 
instantly,  on  all  hands,  was  a  springing  of  rattles  ;  that,  if  pos- 
sible, the  dangerous  spark  might  be  extinguished,  by  appli- 
ances of  philosophy  and  wit :  yet  Tolerance  was  the  watchword 
of  the  cultivated ;  and  in  France,  above  all,  synonymous  with 
Philosophy.  Highly  remarkable  is  this  history  of  modern 
Unbelief ;  the  key  to  all  the  vast  phenomena  of  recent  times. 
Not  till  last  century,  till  the  latter  half  of  it,  does  the  novelty 


VOLTAIRE.  459 

begin;  and  in  a  little  while  it  expands  to  an  immeasurable 
bulk  and  variety :  a  second  Keformation,  a  more  compre- 
hensive, and  more  specific,  was  unavoidable  ;  and  naturally  it 
first  visited  that  land  which  was  the  most  modernized,  and 
had  the  longest  lain  in  an  asthenic  state,  from  want  of 
freedom.  .  .  . 

"  At  the  present  epoch,  however,  we  stand  high  enough  to 
look  back  with  a  friendly  smile  on  those  bygone  days ;  and  even 
in  those  marvellous  follies  to  discern  curious  crystallizations 
of  historical  matter.  Thankfully  will  we  stretch  out  our 
hands  to  those  Men  of  Letters  and  Philosophes :  for  this  delu- 
sion too  required  to  be  exhausted,  and  the  scientific  side  of 
things  to  have  full  value  given  it.  More  beauteous  and  many- 
colored  stands  Poesy,  like  a  leafy  India,  when  contrasted  with 
the  cold,  dead  Spitzbergen  of  that  Closet-Logic.  That  in  the 
middle  of  the  globe,  an  India,  so  warm  and  lordly,  might  exist, 
must  also  a  cold  motionless  sea,  dead  cliffs,  mist  instead  of  the 
starry  sky,  and  a  long  night,  make  both  Poles  uninhabitable. 
The  deep  meaning  of  the  laws  of  Mechanism  lay  heavy  on 
those  anchorites  in  the  deserts  of  Understanding :  the  charm 
of  the  first  glimpse  into  it  overpowered  them :  the  Old  avenged 
itself  on  them  ;  to  the  first  feeling  of  self -consciousness,  they 
sacrificed,  with  wondrous  devotedness,  what  was  holiest  and 
fairest  in  tlie  world  ;  and  were  the  first  that,  in  practice,  again 
recognized  and  preached  forth  the  sacredness  of  Nature,  the 
infinitude  of  Art,  the  independence  of  Knowledge,  the  worth 
of  the  Practical,  and  the  all-presence  of  the  Spirit  of  His- 
tory ;  and  so  doing,  put  an  end  to  a  Spectre-dynasty,  more 
potent,  universal  and  terrific  than  perhaps  they  themselves 
were  aware  of."  ^ 

How  far  our  readers  will  accompany  Xovalis  in  such  high- 
soaring  speculation,  is  not  for  us  to  say.  Meanwhile,  that  the 
better  part  of  them  have  already,  in  their  own  dialect,  united 
with  him,  and  with  us,  in  candid  tolerance,  in  clear  acknowl- 
edgment, towards  French  Philosophy,  towards  this  Voltaire 
and  the  spiritual  period  which  bears  his  name,  we  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  believe.     Intolerance,  animosity  can  forward  no  cause  ; 

1  Novalis  Scliri/)en,  i.  8.  198. 


460         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

and  least  of  all  beseems  the  cause  of  moral  and  religious  truth. 
A  wise  man  has  well  reminded  us,  that  "  in  any  controversy, 
the  instant  we  feel  angry,  we  have  already  ceased  striving  for 
Truth,  and  begun  striving  for  Ourselves."  Let  no  man  doubt 
but  Voltaire  and  his  disciples,  like  all  men  and  all  things  that 
live  and  act  in  God's  world,  will  one  day  be  found  to  have 
"  worked  together  for  good."  Nay  that,  with  all  his  evil,  he 
has  already  accomplished  good,  must  be  admitted  in  the  sober- 
est calculation.  How  much  do  we  include  in  this  little  word  : 
He  gave  the  death-stab  to  modern  Superstition  !  That  horrid 
incubus,  which  dwelt  in  darkness,  shunning  the  light,  is  pass- 
ing away;  with  all  its  racks,  and  poison-chalices,  and  foul 
sleeping-draughts,  is  passing  away  without  return.  It  was 
a  most  weighty  service.  Does  not  the  cry  of  "No  Popery," 
and  some  vague  terror  or  sham-terror  of  "  Smithfield  fires," 
still  act  on  certain  minds  in  these  very  days  ?  He  who  sees 
even  a  little  way  into  the  signs  of  the  times,  sees  well  that 
both  the  Smithfield  fires,  and  the  Edinburgh  thumb-screws 
(for  these  too  must  be  held  in  remembrance)  are  things  which 
have  long,  very  long,  lain  behind  us ;  divided  from  us  by  a  wall 
of  Centuries,  transparent  indeed,  but  more  impassable  than 
adamant.  For,  as  we  said,  Superstition  is  in  its  death-lair: 
the  last  agonies  may  endure  for  decades,  or  for  centuries  ;  but 
it  carries  the  iron  in  its  heart,  and  will  not  vex  the  earth  any 
more. 

That,  with  Superstition,  Religion  is  also  passing  away, 
seems  to  us  a  still  more  ungrounded  fear.  Keligion  cannot 
pass  away.  The  burning  of  a  little  straw  may  hide  the  stars 
of  the  sky  ;  but  the  stars  are  there,  and  will  reappear.  On  the 
whole,  we  must  repeat  the  often-repeated  saying,  that  it  is 
unworthy  a  religious  man  to  view  an  irreligious  one  either 
with  alarm  or  aversion  ;  or  with  any  other  feeling  than  regret, 
and  hope,  and  brotherly  commiseration.  If  he  seek  Truth,  is 
he  not  our  brother,  and  to  be  pitied  ?  If  he  do  not  seek  Truth, 
is  he  not  still  our  brother,  and  to  be  pitied  still  more  ?  Old 
Ludovicus  Vives  has  a  story  of  a  clown  that  killed  his  ass 
because  it  had  drunk  up  the  moon,  and  he  thought  the  world 
could  ill  spare  that  luminary.     So  he  killed  his  ass,  ut  lunam 


VOLTAIRE.  461 

redderet.  The  clown  was  well-intentioned,  but  unwise.  Lot 
us  not  imitate  him :  let  us  not  slay  a  faithful  servant,  who 
has  carried  us  far.  He  has  not  drunk  the  moon  ;  but  only 
the  reflection  of  the  moon,  in  his  own  poor  water-pail,  where 
too,  it  may  be,  he  was  drinking  with  purposes  the  most 
harmless. 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.* 

[1829.] 

It  is  no  very  good  symptom  either  of  nations  or  individuals, 
that  they  deal  much  in  vaticination.  Happy  men  are  full  of 
the  present,  for  its  bounty  suffices  them ;  and  wise  men  also, 
for  its  duties  engage  them.  Our  grand  business  undoubtedly 
is,  not  to  see  what  lies  dimly  at  a  distance,  but  to  do  what  lies 
clearly  at  hand. 

"  KnoVst  thou  Yesterday,  its  aim  and  reason ; 
Work'st  thou  well  Today,  for  worthy  things  1 
Calmly  wait  the  Morrow's  hidden  season, 
Need'st  not  fear  what  hap  soe'er  it  brings." 

But  man's  "  large  discourse  of  reason  "  xoill  look  "  before  and 
after ;  "  and,  impatient  of  the  "  ignorant  present  time,"  will 
indulge  in  anticipation  far  more  than  profits  him.  Seldom 
can  the  unhappy  be  persuaded  that  the  evil  of  the  day  is 
sufficient  for  it ;  and  the  ambitious  will  not  be  content  with 
present  splendor,  but  paints  yet  more  glorious  triumphs,  on 
the  cloud-curtain  of  the  future. 

The  case,  however,  is  still  worse  with  nations.  For  here 
the  prophets  are  not  one,  but  many ;  and  each  incites  and  con- 
firms the  other ;  so  that  the  fatidical  fury  spreads  wider  and 
wider,  till  at  last  even  Saul  must  join  in  it.  For  there  is 
still  a  real  magic  in  the  action  and  reaction  of  minds  on  one 
another.  The  casual  deliration  of  a  few  becomes,  by  this  mys- 
terious reverberation,  the  frenzy  of  many ;  men  lose  the  use, 
not  only  of  their  understandings,  but  of  their  bodily  senses  ; 
while  the  most  obdurate  unbelieving  hearts  melt,  like  the  rest, 
in  the  furnace  where  all  are  cast  as  victims  and  as  fuel.     It 

1  Edinbuboh  Review,  No.  98. 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  463 

is  grievous  to  think,  that  this  noble  omnipotence  of  Sympathy- 
has  been  so  rarely  the  Aaron's-rod  of  Truth  and  Virtue,  and 
so  often  the  Enchanter's-rod  of  Wickedness  and  Folly !  Ko 
solitary  miscreant,  scarcely  any  solitary  maniac,  would  ven- 
ture on  such  actions  and  imaginations,  as  large  communities 
of  sane  men  have,  in  such  circumstances,  entertained  as  sound 
wisdom.  "Witness  long  scenes  of  the  French  Revolution,  in 
these  late  times  !  Levity  is  no  protection  against  such  visi- 
tations, nor  the  utmost  earnestness  of  character.  The  New- 
England  Puritan  burns  witches,  wrestles  for  months  with  the 
horrors  of  Satan's  invisible  world,  and  all  ghastly  phantasms, 
the  daily  and  hourly  precursors  of  the  Last  Day  ;  then  sud- 
denly bethinks  him  that  he  is  frantic,  weeps  bitterly,  prays 
contritely,  and  the  history  of  that  gloomy  season  lies  behind 
him  like  a  frightful  dream. 

Old  England  too  has  had  her  share  of  such  frenzies  and 
panics  ;  though  happily,  like  other  old  maladies,  they  have 
grown  milder  of  late  :  and  since  the  days  of  Titus  Oates  have 
mostly  passed  without  loss  of  men's  lives ;  or  indeed  without 
much  other  loss  than  that  of  reason,  for  the  time,  in  the  suf- 
ferers. In  this  mitigated  form,  however,  the  distemper  is  of 
pretty  regular  recurrence ;  and  may  be  reckoned  on  at  inter- 
vals, like  other  natural  visitations ;  so  that  reasonable  men 
deal  with  it,  as  the  Londoners  do  Avith  their  fogs,  —  go  cau- 
tiously out  into  the  groping  crowd,  and  patiently  carry  lan- 
terns at  noon  ;  knowing,  by  a  well-grounded  faith,  that  the 
sun  is  still  in  existence,  and  will  one  day  reappear.  How 
often  have  we  heard,  for  the  last  fifty  years,  that  the  country 
was  wrecked,  and  fast  sinking ;  whereas,  up  to  this  date,  the 
country  is  entire  and  afloat !  The  "  State  in  Danger  "  is  a 
condition  of  things,  which  we  have  witnessed  a  hundred 
times;  and  as  for  the  Church,  it  has  seldom  been  out  of 
"danger"  since  we  can  remember  it. 

All  men  are  aware  that  the  present  is  a  crisis  of  this  sort; 
and  why  it  has  become  so.  The  repeal  of  the  Test  Acts,  and 
then  of  the  Catholic  disabilities,  has  struck  many  of  their 
admirers  with  an  indescribable  astonishment.  Tliose  things 
seenied  fixed  and  immovable  ;  deep  as  the  foundations  of  the 


464         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

world ;  and  lo,  in  a  moment  they  have  vanished,  and  their 
place  knows  them  no  more !  Our  worthy  friends  mistook 
the  slumbering  Leviathan  for  an  island;  often  as  they  had 
been  assured,  that  Intolerance  was,  and  could  be  nothing  but 
a  Monster ;  and  so,  mooring  under  the  lee,  they  had  anchored 
comfortably  in  his  scaly  rind,  thinking  to  take  good  cheer ;  as 
for  some  space  they  did.  But  now  their  Leviathan  has  sud- 
denly dived  under  ;  and  they  can  no  longer  be  fastened  in  the 
stream  of  time ;  but  must  drift  forward  on  it,  even  like  the 
rest  of  the  world  :  no  very  appalling  fate,  we  think,  could 
they  but  understand  it ;  which,  however,  they  will  not  yet,  for 
a  season.  Their  little  island  is  gone ;  sunk  deep  amid  con- 
fused eddies  ;  and  what  is  left  worth  caring  for  in  the  uni- 
verse ?  What  is  it  to  them  that  the  great  continents  of  the 
earth  are  still  standing  ;  and  the  polestar  and  all  our  loadstars, 
in  the  heavens,  still  shining  and  eternal  ?  Their  cherished 
little  haven  is  gone,  and  they  will  not  be  comforted  !  And 
therefore,  day  after  day,  in  all  inanner  of  periodical  or  peren- 
nial publications,  the  most  lugubrious  predictions  are  sent 
forth.  The  King  has  virtually  abdicated ;  the  Church  is  a 
widow,  without  jointure ;  public  principle  is  gone ;  private 
honesty  is  going ;  society,  in  short,  is  fast  falling  in  pieces ; 
and  a  time  of  unmixed  evil  is  come  on  us. 

At  such  a  period,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  the  rage  of 
prophecy  should  be  more  than  usually  excited.  Accordingly, 
tlie  Millennarians  have  come  forth  on  the  right  hand,  and  the 
]\lillites  on  the  left.  The  Fifth-monarchy  men  prophesy  from 
the  Bible,  and  the  Utilitarians  from  Bentham.  The  one  an- 
nounces that  the  last  of  the  seals  is  to  be  opened,  positively, 
in  the  year  1860  ;  and  the  other  assures  us  that  "the  greatest- 
happiness  principle  "  is  to  make  a  heaven  of  earth,  in  a  still 
shorter  time.  We  know  tliese  symptoms  too  well,  to  think  it 
necessary  or  safe  to  interfere  with  them.  Time  and  the  hours 
will  bring  relief  to  all  parties.  The  grand  encourager  of  Del- 
phic or  other  noises  is  -r-the  Echo.  Left  to  themselves,  they 
will  the  sooner  dissipate,  and  die  away  in  space. 

Meanwhile,  we  too  admit  that  the  present  is  an  important 
time;  as  all  present  time  necessarily  is.    The  poorest  Day  that 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  465 

passes  over  us  is  the  conflux  of  two  Eternities ;  it  is  made 
up  of  currents  that  issue  from  the  remotest  Past,  and  flow 
onwards  into  the  remotest  Future.  We  were  wise  indeed 
could  we  discern  truly  the  signs  of  our  own  time ;  and  by 
knowledge  of  its  wants  and  advantages,  wisely  adjust  our 
own  position  in  it.  Let  us,  instead  of  gazing  idly  into  the 
obscure  distance,  look  calmly  around  us,  for  a  little,  on  the 
perplexed  scene  where  we  stand.  Perhaps,  on  a  more  serious 
inspection,  something  of  its  perplexity  will  disappear,  some  of 
its  distinctive  characters  and  deeper  tendencies  more  clearly 
reveal  themselves ;  whereby  our  own  relations  to  it,  our  own 
true  aims  and  endeavors  in  it,  may  also  become  clearer. 

Were  we  required  to  characterize  this  age  of  ours  by  any 
single  epithet,  we  should  be  tempted  to  call  it,  not  an  Heroi- 
cal.  Devotional,  Philosophical,  or  Moral  Age,  but,  above  all 
others,  the  Mechanical  Age,  It  is  the  Age  of  Machinery,  in 
every  outward  and  inward  sense  of  that  word  ;  the  age  which, 
with  its  whole  undivided  might,  forwards,  teaches  and  prac- 
tises the  great  art  of  adapting  means  to  ends.  Nothing  is  now 
done  direccly,  or  by  hand ;  all  is  by  rule  and  calculated  con- 
trivance. For  the  simplest  operation,  some  helps  and  accom- 
paniments, some  cunning  abbreviating  process  is  in  readiness. 
Our  old  modes  of  exertion  are  all  discredited,  and  thrown 
aside.  On  every  hand,  the  living  artisan  is  driven  from  his 
workshop,  to  make  room  for  a  speedier,  inanimate  one.  The 
shuttle  drops  from  the  fingers  of  the  weaver,  and  falls  into 
iron  fingers  that  ply  it  faster.  The  sailor  furls  his  sail,  and 
lays  down  his  oar;  and  bids  a  strong,  unwearied  servant,  on 
vaporous  wings,  bear  him  through  the  waters.  ]\Ien  have 
crossed  oceans  by  steam  ;  the  Birmingham  Fire-king  has  vis- 
ited the  fabulous  East ;  and  the  genius  of  the  Cape,  were 
there  any  Camoens  now  to  sing  it,  has  again  been  alarmed, 
and  with  far  stranger  thunders  than  Gauia's.  There  is  no  end 
to  machinery.  Even  the  horse  is  stripped  of  his  liarness,  and 
finds  a  fleet  fire-horse  yoked  in  his  stead.  Nay,  we  have  an 
artist  that  hatches  cliickens  by  steam  ;  the  very  brood-hen  is 
to  be  superseded  !     For  all  earthly,  and  for  some  unearthly 

VOL.   XIII.  oO 


466         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

purposes,  we  have  macliines  and  mechanic  furtherances ;  for 
luincing  our  cabbages ;  for  casting  us  into  magnetic  sleep. 
We  remove  mountains,  and  make  seas  our  smooth  highway ; 
nothing  can  resist  us.  We  war  with  rude  Nature  ;  and,  by  our 
resistless  engines,  come  off  always  victorious,  and  loaded  with 
spoils. 

What  wonderful  accessions  have  thus  been  made,  and  are 
still  making,  to  the  physical  power  of  mankind ;  how  much 
better  fed,  clothed,  lodged  and,  in  all  outward  respects,  accom- 
modated men  now  are,  or  might  be,  by  a  given  quantity  of 
labor,  is  a  grateful  reflection  which  forces  itself  on  every  one. 
What  changes,  too,  this  addition  of  power  is  introducing  into 
the  Social  System  ;  how  wealth  has  more  and  more  increased, 
and  at  the  same  time  gathered  itself  more  and  more  into 
masses,  strangely  altering  the  old  relations,  and  increasing  the 
distance  between  the  rich  and  the  poor,  will  be  a  question  for 
Political  Economists,  and  a  much  more  complex  and  impor-. 
tant  one  than  any  they  have  yet  engaged  with. 

But  leaving  these  matters  for  the  present,  let  us  observe 
how  the  mechanical  genius  of  our  time  has  diffused  itself  into 
quite  other  provinces.  Not  tlie  external  and  physical  alone  is 
now  managed  by  machinery,  but  the  internal  and  spiritual 
also.  Here  too  nothing  follows  its  spontaneous  course,  noth- 
ing is  left  to  be  accomplished  by  old  natural  methods.  Every- 
thing has  its  cunningly  devised  implements,  its  pre-established 
apparatus ;  it  is  not  done  by  hand,  but  by  machinery.  Thus 
we  have  machines  for  Education  :  Lancastrian  machines  ; 
Hamiltonian  machines ;  monitors,  maps  and  emblems.  In- 
struction, that  mysterious  communing  of  Wisdom  with  Igno- 
rance, is  no  longer  an  indefinable  tentative  process,  requiring 
a  study  of  individual  aptitudes,  and  a  perpetual  variation  of 
means  and  methods,  to  attain  the  same  end ;  but  a  secure, 
universal,  straightforward  business,  to  be  conducted  in  the 
gross,  by  proper  mechanism,  with  such  intellect  as  comes  to 
hand.  Then,  we  have  Ileligious  machines,  of  all  imaginable 
varieties  ;  the  Bible-Society,  professing  a  far  higher  and 
heavenly  structure,  is  found,  on  inquiry,  to  be  altogether  an 
earthly  contrivance  ;    supported  by  collection  of  moneys,  by 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  467 

fomenting  of  vanities,  by  puffing,  intrigue  and  chicane;  a 
machine  for  converting  the  Heathen.  It  is  the  same  in  all 
other  departments.  Has  any  man,  or  any  society  of  men,  a 
truth  to  speak,  a  piece  of  spiritual  work  to  do;  they  can 
nowise  proceed  at  once  and  with  the  mere  natural  organs, 
but  must  first  call  a  public  meeting,  appoint  committees,  issue 
prospectuses,  eat  a  public  dinner ;  in  a  word,  construct  or  bor- 
row machinery,  wherewith  to  speak  it  and  do  it.  Without 
machinery  they  were  hopeless,  helpless  ;  a  colony  of  Hindoo 
weavers  squatting  in  the  heart  of  Lancashire.  Mark,  too, 
how  every  machine  must  have  its  moving  power,  in  some  of 
the  great  currents  of  society  ;  every  little  sect  among  us, 
Unitarians,  Utilitarians,  Anabaptists,  Phrenologists,  must  have 
its  Periodical,  its  monthly  or  quarterly  Magazine ;  —  hanging 
out,  like  its  windmill,  into  the  popularis  aura,  to  grind  meal 
for  the  society. 

With  individuals,  in  like  manner,  natural  strength  avails 
little.  No  individual  now  hopes  to  accomplish  the  poorest 
enterprise  single-handed  and  without  mechanical  aids  ;  he  must 
make  interest  with  some  existing  corporation,  and  till  his 
field  with  their  oxen.  In  these  days,  more  emphatically  than 
ever,  "  to  live,  signifies  to  unite  with  a  party,  or  to  make  one." 
Philosophy,  Science,  Art,  Literature,  all  depend  on  machinery. 
No  Xewton,  by  silent  meditation,  now  discovers  the  system 
of  the  world  from  the  falling  of  an  apple ;  but  some  quite 
other  than  Newton  stands  in  his  Museum,  his  Scientific  Insti- 
tution, and  behind  whole  batteries  of  retorts,  digesters  and 
galvanic  piles  imperatively  "  interrogates  Nature,"  —  who,  how- 
over,  shows  no  haste  to  answer.  In  defect  of  Raphaels,  and 
Angelos,  and  Mozarts,  we  have  Royal  Academies  of  I'ainting, 
Sculpture,  Music;  whereby  the  languishing  spirit  of  Art  may 
hv  strengthened,  as  by  the  more  generous  diet  of  a  Public 
Kitchen.  Literature,  too,  has  its  Paternoster-row  mechanism, 
its  Trade-dinners,  its  Editorial  conclaves,  and  huge  subterra- 
nean, puffing  bellows  ;  so  that  books  are  not  only  ])rinted,  but, 
in  a  great  measure,  written  and  sold,  by  machinery. 

National  culture,  spiritual  beneiit  of  all  sorts,  is  under  the 
same  management.     No  Queen  Christina,  in  these  times,  needs 


4G8        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

to  send  for  her  Descartes ;  no  King  Frederick  for  his  Voltaire, 
and  painfully  nourish  him  with  pensions  and  flattery :  any 
sovereign  of  taste,  who  wishes  to  enlighten  his  people,  has  only 
to  impose  a  new  tax,  and  with  the  proceeds  establish  Philo- 
sophic Institutes.  Hence  the  Royal  and  Imperial  Societies, 
the  Bibliotheques,  Glyptotheques,  Technotheques,  which  front 
us  in  all  capital  cities ;  like  so  many  well-finished  hives,  to 
which  it  is  expected  the  stray  agencies  of  Wisdom  will  swarm 
of  their  own  accord,  and  hive  and  make  honey.  In  like  man- 
ner, among  ourselves,  when  it  is  thought  that  religion  is  de- 
clining, we  have  only  to  vote  half-a-million's  worth  of  bricks 
and  mortar,  and  build  new  churches.  In  Ireland  it  seems  they 
have  gone  still  farther,  having  actually  established  a  "  Penny- 
a-week  Purgatory-Society  "  I  Thus  does  the  Genius  of  Mechan- 
ism stand  by  to  help  us  in  all  difficulties  and  emergencies,  and 
with  his  iron  back  bears  all  our  burdens. 

These  things,  which  we  state  lightly  enough  here,  are  yet  of 
deep  import,  and  indicate  a  mighty  change  in  our  whole  man- 
ner of  existence.  For  the  same  habit  regulates  not  our  modes 
of  action  alone,  but  our  modes  of  thought  and  feeling.  Men 
are  grown  mechanical  in  head  and  in  heart,  as  well  as  in  hand. 
They  have  lost  faith  in  individual  endeavor,  and  in  natural 
force,  of  any  kind.  Not  for  internal  perfection,  but  for  external 
combinations  and  arrangements,  for  institutions,  constitutions, 
—  for  Mechanism  of  one  sort  or  other,  do  they  hope  and 
struggle.  Their  whole  efforts,  attachments,  opinions,  turn  on 
mechanism,  and  are  of  a  mechanical  character. 

We  may  trace  this  tendency  in  all  the  great  manifestations 
of  our  time ;  in  its  intellectual  aspect,  the  studies  it  most  fa- 
vors and  its  manner  of  conducting  them ;  in  its  practical  as- 
pects,  its  politics,  arts,  religion,  morals  ;  in  the  whole  sources, 
and  throughout  the  whole  currents,  of  its  spiritual,  no  less 
than  its  material  activity. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  state  of  Science  generally,  in 
Europe,  at  this  period.  It  is  admitted,  on  all  sides,  that  the 
Metaphysical  and  Moral  Sciences  are  falling  into  decay,  while 
the  Physical  are  engrossing,  every  day,  more  respect  and  atten- 
tion.   In  most  of  the  European  nations  there  is  now  no  such 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  469 

thing  as  a  Science  of  Mind  ;  only  more  or  less  advancement  in 
the  general  science,  or  the  special  sciences,  of  matter.  The 
French  were  the  first  to  desert  Metaphysics;  and  though  they 
have  lately  affected  to  revive  their  school,  it  has  yet  no  signs 
of  vitality.  The  land  of  Malebranche,  Pascal,  Descartes  and 
Fenelon,  has  now  only  its  Cousins  and  Villemains ;  while,  in 
the  department  of  Physics,  it  reckons  far  other  names.  Among 
ourselves,  the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  after  a  rickety  infancy, 
which  never  reached  the  vigor  of  manhood,  fell  suddenly  into 
decay,  languished  and  finally  died  out,  with  its  last  amiable 
cultivator.  Professor  Stewart,  In  no  nation  but  Germany  has 
any  decisive  effort  been  made  in  psychological  science ;  not  to 
speak  of  any  decisive  result.  The  science  of  the  age,  in  short, 
is  physical,  chemical,  physiological ;  in  all  shapes  mechanical. 
Our  favorite  Mathematics,  the  highly  prized  exponent  of  all 
these  other  sciences,  has  also  become  more  and  more  mechani- 
cal. Excellence  in  what  is  called  its  higher  departments  de- 
pends less  on  natural  genius  than  on  acquired  expertness  in 
wielding  its  machinery.  Without  undervaluing  the  wonderful 
results  which  a  Lagrange  or  Laplace  educeS'  by  means  of  it,  we 
may  remark,  that  their  calculus,  differential  and  integral,  is 
little  else  than  a  more  cunningly  constructed  arithmetical  mill ; 
where  the  factors  being  put  in,  are,  as  it  were,  ground  into  the 
true  product,  under  cover,  and  without  other  effort  on  our 
part  than  steady  turning  of  the  handle.  AVe  have  more  Mathe- 
matics than  ever ;  but  less  Mathesis.  Archimedes  and  Plato 
could  not  have  read  the  Mecanique  Celeste;  but  neither  would 
tlie  whole  French  Institute  see  aught  in  that  saying,  "God 
geometrizes  ! "  but  a  sentimental  rhodomontade. 

Nay,  our  whole  Metaphysics  itself,  from  Locke's  time  down- 
wards, has  been  physical;  not  a  spiritual  philosophy,  but  a 
niatorial  one.  The  singular  estimation  in  which  his  Essay  was 
so  long  held  as  a  scientific  work  (an  estimation  groinaded,  in- 
deed, on  the  estimable  character  of  the  man)  will  one  day  be 
thought  a  curious  indication  of  the  spirit  of  these  times.  His 
whole  doctrine  is  mechanical,  in  its  aim  and  origin,  in  its 
method  and  its  results.  It  is  not  a  philosophy  of  the  mind : 
it  is  a  mere  discussion  concerning  the  origin  of  our  conscious- 


470        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

ness,  or  ideas,  or  whatever  else  they  are  called;  a  genetic 
history  of  what  we  see  in  the  mind.  The  grand  secrets  of 
Necessity  and  Free-will,  of  the  Mind's  vital  or  non-vital  de- 
pendence on  Matter,  of  our  mysterious  relations  to  Time  and 
Space,  to  God,  to  the  Universe,  are  not,  in  the  faintest  degree, 
touched  on  in  these  inquiries;  and  seem  not  to  have  the 
smallest  connection  with  them. 

The  last  class  of  our  Scotch  Metaphysicians  had  a  dim  no- 
tion that  much  of  this  was  wrong;  but  they  knew  not  how  to 
right  it.  The  school  of  Eeid  had  also  from  the  first  taken  a 
mechanical  course,  not  seeing  any  other.  The  singular  con- 
clusions at  which  Hume,  setting  out  from  their  admitted 
premises,  was  arriving,  brought  this  school  into  being;  they 
let  loose  Instinct,  as  an  undiscriminating  bandog,  to  guard 
them  against  these  conclusions ;  —  they  tugged  lustily  at  the 
logical  chain  by  which  Hume  was  so  coldly  towing  them  and 
the  world  into  bottomless  abysses  of  Atheism  and  Fatalism. 
But  the  chain  somehow  snapped  between  them ;  and  the  issue 
has  been  that  nobody  now  cares  about  either,  —  any  more 
than  about  Hartley's,  Darwin's  or  Priestley's  contemporaneous 
doings  in  England.  Hartley's  vibrations  and  vibratiuncles, 
one  would  think,  were  material  and  mechanical  enough ;  but 
our  Continental  neighbors  have  gone  still  farther.  One  of 
their  philosophers  has  lately  discovered,  that  "as  the  liver 
secretes  bile,  so  does  the  brain  secrete  thought ; "  which  as- 
tonishing discovery  Dr.  Cabanis,  more  lately  still,  in  his 
Rapports  du  Physique  et  du  Morale  de  V Homme,  has  pushed 
into  its  minutest  developments. 

The  metaphysical  philosophy  of  this  last  inquirer  is  cer- 
tainly no  shadowy  or  unsubstantial  one.  He  fairly  lays  open 
our  moral  structure  with  his  dissecting-knives  and  real  metal 
probes ;  and  exhibits  it  to  the  inspection  of  mankind,  by  Leu- 
wenhoek  microscopes,  and  inflation  with  the  anatomical  blow- 
pipe. Thought,  he  is  inclined  to  hold,  is  still  secreted  by  the 
brain ;  but  then  Poetry  and  Keligion  (and  it  is  really  worth 
knowing)  are  "  a  product  of  the  smaller  intestines "  I  We 
have  the  greatest  admiration  for  this  learned  doctor:  with 
what  scientific  stoicism  he  walks  through  the  land  of  wonders, 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  471 

unwondering ;  like  a  wise  man  through  some  huge,  gaudy,  im- 
posing Vauxhall,  whose  fire-works,  cascades  and  symphonies, 
the  vulgar  may  enjoy  and  believe  in,  —  but  where  he  finds 
nothing  real  but  the  saltpetre,  pasteboard  and  catgut.  His 
book  may  be  regarded  as  the  ultimatum  of  mechanical  meta- 
physics in  our  time;  a  remarkable  realization  of  what  in 
Martinus  Scriblerus  was  still  only  an  idea,  that  "as  the  jack 
had  a  meat-roasting  quality,  so  had  the  body  a  thinking  qual- 
ity," —  upon  the  strength  of  which  the  Xurembergers  were  to 
build  a  wood-and-leather  man,  "  who  should  reason  as  well  as 
most  country  parsons."  Vaucanson  did  indeed  make  a  wooden 
duck,  that  seemed  to  eat  and  digest ;  but  that  bold  scheme  of 
the  Nurembergers  remained  for  a  more  modern  virtuoso. 

This  condition  of  the  two  great  departments  of  knowledge, 
—  the  outward,  cultivated  exclusively  on  mechanical  princi- 
ples ;  the  inward,  finally  abandoned,  because,  cultivated  on 
such  principles,  it  is  found  to  yield  no  result,  —  sufficiently 
indicates  the  intellectual  bias  of  our  time,  its  all-pervading  dis- 
positiun  towards  that  line  of  inquiry.  In  fact,  an  inward  per- 
suasion has  long  been  diffusing  itself,  and  now  and  then  even 
comes  to  utterance.  That,  except  the  external,  there  are  no 
true  sciences;  that  to  the  inward  world  (if  there  be  any)  our 
only  conceivable  road  is  through  the  outward  ;  that,  in  short, 
what  cannc/t  be  investigated  and  understood  mechanically, 
cannot  be  iavestigated  and  understood  at  all.  We  advert  the 
more  partic  3larly  to  these  intellectual  propensities,  as  to  prom- 
inent symp'/oms  of  our  age,  because  Opinion  is  at  all  times 
doubly  rela-.ed  to  Action,  first  as  cause,  then  as  effect;  and 
the  speculal  ve  tendency  of  any  age  will  therefore  give  us,  on 
the  whole,  t  'le  best  indications  of  its  practical  tendency. 

Nowhere,  for  example,  is  the  deep,  almost  exclusive  faith 
we  have  in  ^Mechanism  more  visible  than  in  the  Politics  of 
this  time.  Civil  government  does  by  its  nature  include  much 
that  is  mechanical,  and  must  be  treated  accordingly.  We 
term  it  indeed,  in  ordinary  language,  the  Machine  of  Society, 
and  talk  of  it  as  the  grand  working  wheel  from  which  all 
private  machines  must  derive,  or  to  which  they  must  adapt, 
their  movements.     Considered  merely  as  a  metaphor,  all  this 


472        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  well  enough ;  but  here,  as  in  so  many  other  eases,  the  "  foam 
hardens  itself  into  a  shell,"  and  the  shadow  we  have  wantonly 
evoked  stands  terrible  before  us  and  will  not  depart  at  our 
bidding.  Government  includes  much  also  that  is  not  mechan- 
ical, and  cannot  be  treated  mechanically ;  of  which  latter 
truth,  as  appears  to  us,  the  political  speculations  and  exertions 
of  our  time  are  taking  less  and  less  cognizance. 

Nay,  in  the  very  outset,  we  might  note  the  mighty  interest 
taken  in  mere  political  arrangements,  as  itself  the  sign  of  a 
mechanical  age.  The  whole  discontent  of  Europe  takes  this 
direction.  The  deep,  strong  cry  of  all  civilized  nations,  —  a 
cry  which,  every  one  now  sees,  must  and  will  be  answered,  is : 
Give  us  a  reform  of  Government !  A  good  structure  of  legis- 
lation, a  proper  check  upon  the  executive,  a  wise  arrangement 
of  the  judiciary,  is  all  that  is  wanting  for  human  happiness. 
The  Philosopher  of  this  age  is  not  a  Socrates,  a  Plato,  a 
Plooker,  or  Taylor,  who  inculcates  on  men  the  necessity  and 
infinite  worth  of  moral  goodness,  the  great  truth  that  our  hap- 
piness depends  on  the  mind  which  is  within  us,  and  not  on 
the  circumstances  which  are  without  us  ;  but  a  Smith,  a  De 
Lolme,  a  Bentham,  who  chiefly  inculcates  th-e  reverse  of  this, 
—  that  our  happiness  depends  entirely  on  external  circum- 
stances ;  nay,  that  tlie  strength  and  dignity  of  the  mind  with- 
in us  is  itself  the  creature  and  consequence  of  these.  Were 
the  laws,  the  government,  in  good  order,  all  were  well  with 
us ;  the  rest  would  care  for  itself !  Dissentients  from  this 
opinion,  expressed  or  implied,  are  now  rarely  to  be  met  with  ; 
widely  and  angrily  as  men  differ  in  its  application,  the  prin- 
ciple is  admitted  by  all. 

Equally  mechanical,  and  of  equal  simplicity,  are  the  meth- 
ods proposed  by  both  parties  for  completing  or  securing  this 
all-sufficient  perfection  of  arrangement.  It  is  no  longer  the 
moral,  religious,  spiritual  condition  of  the  people  that  is 
our  concern,  but  their  physical,  practical^  economical  condi- 
tion, as  regulated  by  public  laws.  Thus  iii  the  Body-politic 
more  than  ever  worshipped  and  tendered ;  but  the  Soul-poli- 
tic less  than  ever.  Love  of  country,  in  any  high  or  generous 
sense,  in  any  other  than  an  almost  animal  sense,  or  mera 


SIGNS  OP  THE  TIMES.  473 

habit,  has  little  importance  attached  to  it  in  such  reforms 
or  in  the  opposition  shown  them.  Men  are  to  be  guided  only 
by  their  self-interests.  Good  government  is  a  good  balancing 
of  these ;  and,  except  a  keen  eye  and  appetite  for  self-interest, 
requires  no  virtue  in  any  quarter.  To  both  parties  it  is  em- 
phatically a  machine:  to  the  discontented,  a  ''taxing-ma- 
chine; "  to  the  contented,  a  "machine  for  securing  property." 
Its  duties  and  its  faults  are  not  those  of  a  father,  but  of  an 
active  parish-constable. 

Thus  it  is  by  the  mere  condition  of  the  machine,  by  pre- 
serving it  untouched,  or  else  by  reconstructing  it,  and  oiling 
it  anew,  that  man's  salvation  as  a  social  being  is  to  be  insured 
and  indefinitely  promoted.  Contrive  the  fabric  of  law  aright, 
and  without  farther  effort  on  your  part,  that  divine  spirit  of 
Freedom,  which  all  hearts  venerate  and  long  for,  will  of  her- 
self come  to  inhabit  it;  and  under  her  healing  wings  every 
noxious  influence  will  wither,  every  good  and  salutary  one 
more  and  more  expand.  Kay,  so  devoted  are  we  to  this  prin- 
ciple, and  at  the  same  time  so  curiously  mechanical,  that  a 
new  trade,  specially  grounded  on  it,  has  arisen  among  us, 
under  the  name  of  "Codification,"  or  code-making  in  the 
abstract ;  whereby  any  people,  for  a  reasonable  consideration, 
may  be  accommodated  with  a  patent  code;  —  more  easily  than 
curious  individuals  with  patent  breeches,  for  the  people  does 
not  need  to  be  measured  first. 

To  us  who  live  in  the  midst  of  all  this,  and  see  continually 
tlie  faith,  hope  and  practice  of  evei-y  one  founded  on  Mechan- 
ism of  one  kind  or  other,  it  is  apt  to  seem  quite  natural,  and 
as  if  it  could  never  have  been  otherwise.  Nevertheless,  if  we 
recollect  or  reflect  a  little,  we  shall  find  both  that  it  has  been, 
and  might  again  be  otherwise.  The  domain  of  Mechanism  — 
meaning  thereby  political,  ecclesiastical  or  other  outward 
establislimeiits  —  was  once  considered  as  embracing,  and  we 
are  persuaded  can  at  any  time  embrace,  l)ut  a  limited  portion 
of  man's  intei'ests,  and  by  no  means  the  highest  portion. 

To  speak  a  little  pedantically,  there  is  a  science  of  Dt/n/imt/'s 
in  man's  fortunes  and  nature,  as  well  as  of  Mechanics.     There 


474       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

is  a  science  which  treats  of,  and  practically  addresses,  the 
primary,  unmodified  forces  and  energies  of  man,  the  myste- 
rious springs  of  Love,  and  Fear,  and  Wonder,  of  Enthusiasm, 
Poetry,  Religion,  all  which  have  a  truly  vital  and  infinite 
character ;  as  well  as  a  science  which  practically  addresses 
the  finite,  modified  developments  of  these,  when  they  take  the 
shape  of  immediate  "motives,"  as  hope  of  reward,  or  as  fear 
of  punishment. 

Now  it  is  certain,  that  in  former  times  the  wise  men,  the 
enlightened  lovers  of  their  kind,  who  appeared  generally  as 
Moralists,  Poets  or  Priests,  did,  without  neglecting  the  Me- 
chanical province,  deal  chiefly  with  the  Dynamical ;  applying 
themselves  chiefly  to  regulate,  increase  and  purify  the  inward 
primary  powers  of  man  ;  and  fancying  that  herein  lay  the  main 
difficulty,  and  the  best  service  they  could  undertake.  But  a 
wide  difference  is  manifest  in  our  agoi^  Por  the  wise  men, 
who  now  appear  as  Political  Philosophers,  deal  exclusively 
with  the  Mechanical  province;  and  occupying  themselves  in 
counting  up  and  estimating  men's  motives,  strive  by  curious 
checking  and  balancing,  and  other  adjustments  of  Profit  and 
Loss,  to  guide  them  to  their  true  advantage  :  while,  unfor- 
tunately, those  same  "motives"  are  so  innumerable,  and  so 
variable  in  every  individual,  that  no  really  useful  conclusion 
can  ever  be  drawn  from  their  enumeration.  But  though 
Mechanism,  wisely  contrived,  has  done  much  for  man  in  a 
social  and  moral  point  of  view,  we  cannot  be  persuaded  that 
it  has  ever  been  the  chief  source  of  his  worth  or  happiness. 
Consider  the  great  elements  of  human  enjoyment,  the  attain- 
ments and  possessions  that  exalt  man's  life  to  its  present 
height,  and  see  what  part  of  these  he  owes  to  institutions,  to 
Mechanism  of  any  kind ;  and  what  to  the  instim^tive,  un- 
bounded force,  which  Nature  herself  lent  him,  and  still  con- 
tinues to  him.  Shall  we  say,  for  example,  that  Science  and 
Art  are  indebted  principally  to  the  founders  of  Schools  and 
Universities  ?  Did  not  Science  originate  rather,  and  gain 
advancement,  in  the  obscure  closets  of  the  Roger  Bacons, 
Keplers,  Newtons ;  in  the  workshops  of  the  Fausts  and  the 
Watts ;  wherever,  and  in  what  guise  soever  Nature,  from  the 


SIGNS   OF  THE  TIMES.  475 

first  times  downwards,  had  sent  a  gifted  spirit  upon  the  earth  ? 
Again,  were  Homer  and  Shakspeare  members  of  any  beneficed 
guild,  or  made  Poets  by  means  of  it  ?  Were  Painting  and 
Sculpture  created  by  forethought,  brought  into  the  world  by 
institutions  for  that  end  ?  No ;  Science  and  Art  have,  from 
first  to  last,  been  the  free  gift  of  Nature  ;  an  unsolicited, 
unexpected  gift ;  often  even  a  fatal  one.  These  things  rose 
up,  as  it  were,  by  spontaneous  growth,  in  the  free  soil  and 
sunshine  of  Nature.  They  were  not  planted  or  grafted,  nor 
even  greatly  multiplied  or  improved  by  the  culture  or 
manuring  of  institutions.  Generally  speaking,  they  have 
derived  only  partial  help  from  these  ;  often  enough  have  suf- 
fered damage.  They  made  constitutions  for  themselves. 
They  originated  in  the  Dynamical  nature  of  man,  not  in  his 
Mechanical  nature. 

Or,  to  take  an  infinitely  higher  instance,  that  of  the  Chris- 
tian Religion,  which,  under  every  theory  of  it,  in  the  believing 
or  unbelieving  mind,  must  ever  be  regarded  as  the  crowning 
glory,  or  rather  the  life  and  soul,  of  our  whole  modern  culture  : 
How  did  Christianity  arise  and  spread  abroad  among  men  ? 
Was  it  by  institutions,  and  establishments  and  well-arranged 
systems  of  mechanism  ?  Not  so  ;  on  the  contrary,  in  all  past 
and  existing  institutions  for  those  ends,  its  divine  spirit  has 
invariably  been  found  to  languish  and  decay.  It  arose  in  the 
mystic  deeps  of  man's  soul ;  and  was  spread  abroad  by  the 
"preaching  of  the  word,"  by  simple,  altogether  natural  and 
individual  efforts ;  and  flew,  like  hallowed  fire,  from  heart  to 
heart,  till  all  were  purified  and  illuminated  by  it ;  and  its 
heavenly  light  shone,  as  it  still  shines,  and  (as  sun  or  star) 
will  ever  sliine,  through  the  whole  dark  destinies  of  man. 
Here  again  was  no  Mechanism  ;  man's  highest  attainment  was 
accomplished  Dynamically,  not  Mechanically. 

Nay,  Ave  will  venture  to  say,  that  no  high  attainment,  not 
even  any  far-extending  movement  among  men,  was  ever  ac- 
complished otherwise.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  if  we  read 
History  with  any  degree  of  thoughtfulness,  we  shall  find  that 
the  checks  and  balances  of  Profit  and  Loss  have  never  been 
the  grand  agents  with  men ;  that  they  have  never  been  roused 


476         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

into  deep,  thorough,  all-pervading  efforts  by  any  computable 
prospect  of  Profit  and  Loss,  for  any  visible,  finite  object ;  but 
always  for  some  invisible  and  infinite  one.  The  Crusades 
took  their  rise  in  Religion ;  their  visible  object  was,  commer- 
cially speaking,  worth  nothing.  It  was  the  boundless  Invisi- 
ble world  that  was  laid  bare  in  the  imaginations  of  those 
men ;  and  in  its  burning  light,  the  visible  shrunk  as  a  scroll. 
Not  mechanical,  nor  produced  by  mechanical  means,  was  this 
vast  movement.  Ko  dining  at  Freemasons'  Tavern,  with  the 
other  long  train  of  modern  machinery  ;  no  cunning  reconcilia- 
tion of  '*  vested  interests,"  was  required  here  :  only  the  passion- 
ate voice  of  one  man,  the  rapt  soul  looking  through  the  eyes 
of  one  man ;  and  rugged,  steel-clad  Europe  trembled  beneath 
his  words,  and  followed  him  whither  he  listed.  In  later  ages 
it  was  still  the  same.  The  Reformation  had  an  invisible, 
mystic  and  ideal  aim ;  the  result  was  indeed  to  be  embodied 
in  external  things ;  but  its  spirit,  its  worth,  was  internal,  in- 
visible, infinite.  Our  English  Revolution  too  originated  in 
Religion.  Men  did  battle,  in  those  old  days,  not  for  Purse- 
sake,  but  for  Conscience-sake.  Nay,  in  our  own  days  it  is  no 
way  different.  The  French  Revolution  itself  had  something 
higher  in  it  than  cheap  bread  and  a  Habeas-corpus  act.  Here 
too  was  an  Idea ;  a  Dynamic,  not  a  Mechanic  force.  It  was 
a  struggle,  though  a  blind  and  at  last  an  insane  one,  for  the 
infinite,  divine  nature  of  Right,  of  Freedom,  of  Country. 

Thus  does  man,  in  every  age,  vindicate,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, his  celestial  birthriglit.  Thus  does  Nature  hold 
on  her  wondrous,  unquestionable  course  ;  and  all  our  systems 
and  theories  are  but  so  many  froth-eddies  or  sand-banks,  which 
from  time  to  time  she  casts  up,  and  washes  away.  When  we 
can  drain  the  Ocean  into  mill-ponds,  and  bottle  up  the  Force 
of  Gravity,  to  be  sold  by  retail,  in  gas-jars ;  then  may  we  hope 
to  comprehend  the  infinitudes  of  man's  soul  under  formulas  of 
Profit  and  Loss  ;  and  rule  over  this  too,  as  over  a  patent  engine, 
by  checks,  and  valves,  and  balances. 

Nay,  even  with  regard  to  Government  itself,  can  it  be 
necessary  to  remind  any  one  that  Freedom,  without  which 
indeed  all  spiritual  life  is  impossible,  depends  on  infinitely 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  477 

more  complex  influences  than  either  the  extension  or  the 
curtailment  of  the  "  democratic  interest  "  ?  Who  is  there  that 
"taking  the  high  priori  road,"  shall  point  out  what  these 
influences  are ;  what  deep,  subtle,  inextricably  entangled  in- 
fluences they  have  been  and  may  be  ?  For  man  is  not  the 
creature  and  product  of  Mechanism  ;  but,  in  a  far  truer  sense, 
its  creator  and  producer :  it  is  the  noble  People  that  makes 
the  noble  Government ;  rather  than  conversely.  On  the  whole, 
Institutions  are  much ;  but  they  are  not  all.  The  freest  and 
highest  spirits  of  the  world  have  often  been  found  under 
strange  outward  circumstances :  Saint  Paul  and  his  brother 
Apostles  were  politically  slaves ;  Epictetus  was  personally 
one.  Again,  forget  the  influences  of  Chivalry  and  Religion, 
and  ask  :  What  countries  produced  Columbus  and  Las  Casas  ? 
Or,  descending  from  virtue  and  heroism  to  mere  energy  and 
spiritual  talent :  Cortes,  Pizarro,  Alba,  Ximenes  ?  The  Span- 
iards of  the  sixteenth  century  were  indisputably  the  noblest 
nation  of  Europe ;  yet  they  had  the  Inquisition  and  Pliilip  II. 
They  have  the  same  government  at  this  day ;  and  are  the  lowest 
nation.  The  Dutch  too  have  retained  their  old  constitution ; 
but  no  Siege  of  Leyden,  no  William  the  Silent,  not  even  an 
Egmont  or  De  Witt  any  longer  appears  among  thera.  With 
ourselves  also,  where  much  has  changed,  elfect  has  nowise 
followed  cause  as  it  should  have  done  :  two  centuries  ago,  the 
Commons  Speaker  addressed  Queen  Elizabeth  on  bended  knees, 
happy  that  the  virago's  foot  did  not  even  smite  him ;  yet  the 
people  were  then  governed,  not  by  a  Castlereagh,  but  by  a 
Ijurghley ;  they  had  their  Shakspeare  and  Philip  Sidney, 
where  we  have  our  Sheridan  Knowles  and  Beau  Bruuimel. 

These  and  the  like  facts  are  so  familiar,  the  truths  which 
they  preach  so  obvious,  and  have  in  all  past  times  been  so 
universally  believed  and  acted  on,  that  we  should  almost  feel 
ashamed  for  repeating  them ;  were  it  not  that,  on  every  hand, 
the  memory  of  them  seems  to  have  passed  away,  or  at  best 
died  into  a  faint  tradition,  of  no  value  as  a  practical  principle. 
To  judge  by  the  loud  clamor  of  our  Constitution-builders, 
Statists,  E,">u()itiists,  directors,  creators,  reformers  of  Public 
Societies  ;    in  a  word,  all   manner  of  Mechanists,  from  the 


478         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

Cartwright  up  to  the  Code-maker;  and  by  the  nearly  total 
silence  of  all  Preachers  and  Teachers  who  should  give  a  voice 
to  Poetry,  Eeligion  and  Morality,  we  might  fancy  either  that 
man's  Dynamical  nature  was,  to  all  spiritual  intents,  extinct, 
or  else  so  perfected  that  nothing  more  was  to  be  made  of  it 
by  the  old  means ;  and  henceforth  only  in  his  Mechanical 
contrivances  did  any  hope  exist  for  him. 

To  define  the  limits  of  these  two  departments  of  man's 
activity,  which  work  into  one  another,  and  by  means  of  one 
another,  so  intricately  and  inseparably,  were  by  its  nature  an 
impossible  attempt.  Their  relative  importance,  even  to  the 
wisest  mind,  will  vary  in  different  times,  according  to  the 
special  wants  and  dispositions  of  those  times.  Meanwhile,  it 
seems  clear  enough  that  only  in  the  right  co-ordination  of  the 
two,  and  the  vigorous  forwarding  of  both,  does  our  true  line 
of  action  lie.  Undue  cultivation  of  the  inward  or  Dynamical 
province  leads  to  idle,  visionary,  impracticable  courses,  and, 
especially  in  rude  eras,  to  Superstition  and  Fanaticism,  with 
their  long  train  of  baleful  and  well-known  evils.  Undue  cul- 
tivation of  the  outward,  again,  though  less  immediately  preju- 
dicial, and  even  for  the  time  productive  of  many  palpable 
benefits,  must,  in  the  long-run,  by  destroying  Moral  Force, 
which  is  the  parent  of  all  other  Force,  prove  not  less  certainly, 
and  perhaps  still  more  hopelessly,  pernicious.  This,  we  take 
it,  is  the  grand  characteristic  of  our  age.  By  our  skill  in 
Mechanism,  it  has  come  to  pass,  that  in  the  management  of 
external  things  we  excel  all  other  ages;  while  in  whatever 
respects  the  pure  moral  nature,  in  true  dignity  of  soul  and 
character,  we  are  perhaps  inferior  to  most  civilized  ages. 

In  fact,  if  we  look  deeper,  we  shall  find  th  it  this  faith  in 
Mechanism  has  now  struck  its  roots  down  into  man's  most 
intimate,  primary  sources  of  conviction;  and  is  thence  sending 
up,  over  his  whole  life  and  activity,  innumerable  stems,  — 
fruit-bearing  and  poison-bearing.  The  truth  is,  men  have  lost 
their  belief  in  the  Invisible,  and  believe,  and  hope,  and  work 
only  in  the  Visible;  or,  to  speak  it  in  other  words:  This  is 
not  a   Religious   age.      Only  the  material,  the  immediately 


SIGNS  OP  THE  TIMES.  479 

practical,  not  the  divine  and  spiritual,  is  important  to  us. 
The  infinite,  absolute  character  of  Virtue  has  passed  into  a 
finite,  conditional  one ;  it  is  no  longer  a  worship  of  the  Beau- 
tiful and  Good;  but  a  calculation  of  the  Profitable.  Wor- 
ship, indeed,  in  any  sense,  is  not  recognized  among  us,  or  is 
mechanically  explained  into  Fear  of  pain,  or  Hope  of  plea- 
sure. Our  true  Deity  is  Mechanism.  It  has  subdued  external 
Nature  for  us,  and  we  think  it  will  do  all  other  things.  "We 
are  Giants  in  physical  power :  in  a  deeper  than  metaphorical 
sense,  we  are  Titans,  that  strive,  by  heaping  mountaiu  on 
mountain,  to  conquer  Heaven  also. 

The  strong  Mechanical  character,  so  visible  in  the  spiritual 
pursuits  and  methods  of  this  age,  may  be  traced  much  farther 
into  the  condition  and  prevailing  disposition  of  our  spiritual 
nature  itself.  Consider,  for  example,  the  general  fashion  of 
Intellect  in  this  era.  Intellect,  the  power  man  has  of  know- 
ing and  believing,  is  now  nearly  synonymous  with  Logic,  or 
the  mere  power  of  arranging  and  communicating.  Its  imple- 
ment is  not  Meditation,  but  Argument.  "Cause  and  effect" 
is  almost  the  only  category  under  which  we  look  at,  and  work 
with,  all  Nature.  Our  first  question  with  regard  to  any  object 
is  not,  What  is  it  ?  but,  How  is  it  ?  We  are  no  longer  in- 
stinctively driven  to  apprehend,  and  lay  to  heart,  what  is 
Good  and  Lovely,  but  rather  to  inquire,  as  on-lookers,  how  it 
is  jiroduced,  whence  it  comes,  whither  it  goes.  Our  favorite 
Philosophers  have  no  love  and  no  hatred ;  they  stand  among 
us  not  to  do,  nor  to  create  anything,  but  as  a  sort  of  Logic- 
mills  to  grind  out  the  true  causes  and  effects  of  all  that  is 
done  and  created.  To  the  eye  of  a  Smith,  a  Hume  or  a  Con- 
stant, all  is  well  that  works  quietly.  An  Order  of  Ignatius 
Loyola,  a  Presbyterianism  of  John  Knox,  a  Wickliffe  or  a 
Henry  the  Eighth,  are  simply  so  many  mechanical  phe- 
nomena, caused  or  causing. 

The  Eupladst  of  our  day  differs  much  from  his  pleasant 
predecessors.  An  intellectual  dapperling  of  these  times  boasts 
chiefly  of  his  irresistible  perspicacity,  his  "dwelling  in  the 
daylight  of  trnth,"  and  so  forth  ;  which,  on  examination,  turns 
out  to  be  a  dwelling  iu  the  ru^/i-light  of  "  closet-logic,"  and  a 


480        CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

deep  unconsciousness  that  there  is  any  other  light  to  dwell  in 
or  any  other  objects  to  survey  with  it.  Wonder,  indeed,  is,  on 
all  hands,  dying  out :  it  is  the  sign  of  uncultivation  to  wonder. 
Speak  to  any  small  man  of  a  high,  majestic  Reformation,  of 
a  high,  majestic  Luther,  and  forthwith  he  sets  about  "account- 
ing "  for  it ;  how  the  *'  circumstances  of  the  time  "  called  for 
such  a  character,  and  found  him,  we  suppose,  standing  girt 
and  road-ready,  to  do  its  errand ;  how  the  "  circumstances  of 
the  time  "  created,  fashioned,  floated  him  quietly  along  into 
the  result ;  how,  in  short,  this  small  man,  had  he  been  there, 
could  have  performed  the  li^-e  himself  1  For  it  is  the  "  force 
of  circumstances  "  that  does  everything  ;  the  force  of  one  man 
can  do  nothing.  Kow  all  this  is  grounded  on  little  more  than 
a  metaphor.  We  figure  Society  as  a  "  Machine,"  and  that  mind 
is  opposed  to  mind,  as  body  is  to  body ;  whereby  two,  or  at 
most  ten,  little  minds  must  be  stronger  than  one  great  mind. 
Notable  absurdity !  For  the  plain  truth,  very  plain,  we  think, 
is,  that  minds  are  opposed  to  minds  in  quite  a  different  way  ; 
and  one  man  that  has  a  higher  Wisdom,  a  hitherto  unknown 
spiritual  Truth  in  him,  is  stronger,  not  than  ten  men  that  have 
it  not,  or  than  ten  thousand,  but  than  all  men  that  have  it 
not ;  and  stands  among  them  with  a  quite  ethereal,  angelic 
power,  as  with  a  sword  out  of  Heaven's  own  armory,  sky- 
tempered,  which  no  buckler,  and  no  tower  of  brass,  will 
finally  withstand. 

But  to  us,  in  these  times,  such  considerations  rarely  occur. 
We  enjoy,  we  see  nothing  by  direct  vision ;  but  only  by  re- 
flection, and  in  anatomical  dismemberment.  Like  Sir  Hudi- 
bras,  for  every  Why  we  must  have  a  Wherefore.  We  have 
our  little  theory  on  all  human  and  divine  things.  Poetry,  the 
workings  of  genius  itself,  which  in  all  times,  with  one  or  an- 
other meaning,  has  been  called  Inspiration,  and  held  to  be 
mysterious  and  inscrutable,  is  no  longer  without  its  scientific 
exposition.  The  building  of  the  lofty  rhyme  is  like  any  other 
masonry  or  bricklaying  :  we  have  theories  of  its  rise,  height, 
decline  and  fall,  —  which  latter,  it  would  seem,  is  now  near, 
among  all  people.  Of  our  "  Theories  of  Taste,"  as  they  are 
called,  wherein  the  deep,  inuuite,  unspeakable  Love  of  Wis- 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  481 

dom  and  Beauty,  which  dwells  in  all  men,  is  "explained," 
made  mechanically  visible,  from  "  Association  "  and  the  like, 
why  should  we  say  anything  ?  Hume  has  written  us  a  "  Natu- 
ral History  of  Religion ; "  in  which  one  Natural  History  all 
the  rest  are  included.  Strangely  too  does  the  general  feeling 
coincide  with  Hume's  in  this  wonderful  problem  ;  for  whether 
his  "  Natural  History  "  be  the  right  one  or  not,  that  Religion 
must  have  a  Natural  History,  all  of  us,  cleric  and  laic,  seem 
to  be  agreed.  He  indeed  regards  it  as  a  Disease,  we  again  as 
Health  ;  so  far  there  is  a  difference  ;  but  in  our  first  principle 
we  are  at  one. 

To  what  extent  theological  Unbelief,  we  mean  intellectual 
dissent  from  the  Church,  in  its  view  of  Holy  Writ,  prevails 
at  this  day,  would  be  a  highly  important,  were  it  not,  under 
any  circumstances,  an  almost  impossible  inquiry.  But  the 
Unbelief,  which  is  of  a  still  more  fundamental  character, 
every  man  may  see  prevailing,  with  scarcely  any  but  the 
faintest  contradiction,  all  around  him;  even  in  the  Pulpit 
itself.  Religion  in  most  countries,  more  or  less  in  every 
country,  is  no  longer  what  it  was,  and  should  be,  —  a  thou- 
sand-voiced psalm  from  the  heart  of  Man  to  his  invisible 
Father,  the  fountain  of  all  Goodness,  Beauty,  Truth,  and 
revealed  in  every  revelation  of  these ;  but  for  the  most  part, 
a  wise  prudential  feeling  grounded  on  mere  calculation ;  a  ^ 
matter,  as  all  others  now  are,  of  Expediency  and  Utility; 
whereby  some  smaller  quantum  of  earthly  enjoyment  may 
be  exchanged  for  a  far  larger  quantum  of  celestial  enjoy- 
ment. Thus  Religion  too  is  Profit,  a  working  for  wages ; 
not  Reverence,  but  vulgar  Hope  or  Fear.  Many,  we  know, 
very  many  we  hope,  are  still  religious  in  a  far  different  sense ; 
were  it  not  so,  our  case  were  too  desperate :  but  to  witness 
that  such  is  the  temper  of  the  times,  we  take  any  calm  ob- 
servant man,  who  agrees  or  disagrees  in  our  feeling  on  the 
matter,  and  ask  him  whether  our  view  of  it  is  not  in  general 
well-founded. 

Literature  too,  if  we  consider  it,  gives  similar  testimony. 
At  no  former  era  has  Literature,  the  printed  communication 
of  Thought,  been  of  such  importance  as  it  is  now.     "We  often 

VOL.    XIII.  '^l 


482         CRITICAL  AIS'D  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

hear  that  the  Church  is  iu  danger ;  and  truly  so  it  is,  —  in  a 
danger  it  seems  not  to  know  of :  for,  with  its  tithes  in  the 
most  perfect  safety,  its  functions  are  becoming  more  and 
more  superseded.  The  true  Church  of  England,  at  this  mo- 
ment, lies  in  the  Editors  of  its  Newspapers.  These  preach 
to  the  people  daily,  weekly ;  admonishing  kings  themselves ; 
advising  peace  or  war,  with  an  authority  which  only  the 
first  Reformers,  and  a  long  past  class  of  Popes,  were  pos- 
sessed of ;  inflicting  moral  censure ;  imparting  moral  encour- 
agement, consolation,  edification ;  in  all  ways  diligently  "  ad- 
ministering the  Discipline  of  the  Church."  It  may  be  said 
too,  that  in  private  disposition  the  new  Preachers  somewhat 
lesemble  the  Mendicant  Friars  of  old  times :  outwardly  full 
of  holy  zeal ;  inwardly  not  without  stratagem,  and  hunger 
for  terrestrial  things.  But  omitting  this  class,  and  the  bound- 
less host  of  watery  personages  who  pipe,  as  they  are  able,  on 
so  many  scrannel  straws,  let  us  look  at  the  higher  regions  of 
Literature,  where,  if  anywhere,  the  pure  melodies  of  Poesy 
and  Wisdom  should  be  heard.  Of  natural  talent  there  is  no 
deficiency :  one  or  two  richly  endowed  individuals  even  give 
us  a  superiority  in  this  respect.  But  what  is  the  song  they 
sing?  Is  it  a  tone  of  the  Memnon  Statue,  breathing  music 
as  the  light  first  touches  it?  A  "liquid  wisdom,"  disclosing 
to  our  sense  the  deep,  infinite  harmonies  of  Nature  and  man's 
soul  ?  Alas,  no !  It  is  not  a  matin  or  vesper  hymn  to  the 
Spirit  of  Beauty,  but  a  fierce  clashing  of  cymbals,  and  shout' 
ing  of  multitudes,  as  children  pass  through  the  fire  to  Moloch ! 
Poetry  itself  has  no  eye  for  the  Invisible.  Beauty  is  no  longer 
the  god  it  worships,  but  some  brute  image  of  Strength ;  which 
we  may  well  call  an  idol,  for  true  Strength  is  one  and  the 
same  with  Beauty,  and  its  worship  also  is  a  hymn.  The 
meek,  silent  Light  can  mould,  create  and  purify  all  Nature ; 
but  the  loud  Whirlwind,  the  sign  and  product  of  Disunion, 
of  Weakness,  passes  on,  and  is  forgotten.  How  widely  this 
veneration  for  the  physically  Strongest  has  spread  itself 
through  Literature,  any  one  may  judge  who  reads  either 
criticism  or  poem.  We  praise  a  work,  not  as  "true,"  but  as 
"  strong ;  "  our  highest  praise  is  that  it  has  "  affected "  us, 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  488 

has  "terrified"  us.  All  this,  it  has  been  well  observed,  is  the 
"  maximum  of  the  Barbarous,"  the  symptom,  not  of  vigorous 
refinement,  but  of  luxurious  corruption.  It  speaks  much,  too, 
for  men's  indestructible  love  of  truth,  that  nothing  of  this 
kind  will  abide  with  them ;  that  even  the  talent  of  a  Byron 
cannot  permanently  seduce  us  into  idol-worship ;  that  he  too, 
with  all  his  wild  siren  charming,  already  begins  to  be  dis- 
regarded and  forgotten. 

Again,  with  respect  to  our  Moral  condition:  here  also,  he 
who  runs  may  read  that  the  same  physical,  mechanical  in- 
fluences are  everywhere  busy.  For  the  "superior  morality," 
of  which  we  hear  so  much,  we  too  would  desire  to  be  thank- 
ful: at  the  same  time,  it  were  but  blindness  to  deny  that 
this  "  superior  morality  "  is  properly  rather  an  "  inferior  crimi- 
nality," produced  not  by  greater  love  of  Virtue,  but  by 
greater  perfection  of  Police ;  and  of  that  far  subtler  and 
stronger  Police,  called  Public  Opinion.  This  last  watches 
over  us  with  its  Argus  eyes  more  keenly  than  ever ;  but  the 
"  inward  eye  "  seems  heavy  with  sleep.  Of  any  belief  in  in- 
visible, divine  things,  we  find  as  few  traces  in  our  Morality 
as  elsewhere.  It  is  by  tangible,  material  considerations  that 
we  are  guided,  not  by  inward  and  spiritual.  Self-denial,  the 
parent  of  all  virtue,  in  any  true  sense  of  that  word,  has  perhaps 
seldom  been  rarer :  so  rare  is  it,  that  the  most,  even  in  their  ab- 
stract speculations,  regard  its  existence  as  a  chimera.  Virtue  is 
Pleasure,  is  Profit ;  no  celestial,  but  an  earthly  thing.  Virtu- 
ous men,  Philanthropists,  Martyrs  are  happy  accidents ;  their 
"  taste  "  lies  the  right  way !  In  all  senses,  we  worship  and 
follow  after  Power ;  which  may  be  called  a  physical  pursuit. 
No  man  now  loves  Truth,  as  Truth  must  be  loved,  with  an 
infinite  love ;  but  only  with  a  finite  love,  and  as  it  were  par 
amours.  Nay,  properly  speaking,  he  does  not  believe  and 
know  it,  but  only  "  thinks  "  it,  and  that  "  there  is  every  prob- 
ability " !  He  preaches  it  aloud,  and  rushes  courageously 
forth  with  it,  —  if  there  is  a  multitude  huzzaing  at  his  back; 
yet  ever  keeps  looking  over  his  shoulder,  and  the  instant  the 
huzzaing  languishes,  he  too  stops  short. 

In  fact,  what  morality  we  have  takes  the  shape  of  Ambition, 


484       CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

of  "  Honor : "  beyond  money  and  money's  worth,  our  only 
rational  blessedness  is  Popularity.  It  were  but  a  fool's  trick 
to  die  for  conscience.  Only  for  "  character,"  by  duel,  or,  in 
case  of  extremity,  by  suicide,  is  the  wise  man  bound  to  die. 
By  arguing  on  the  "  force  of  circumstances,"  we  have  argued 
away  all  force  from  ourselves ;  and  stand  leashed  together, 
uniform  in  dress  and  movement,  like  the  rowers  of  some 
boundless  galley.  This  and  that  may  be  right  and  true  ;  but 
we  must  not  do  it.  Wonderful  "  Force  of  Public  Opinion  "  ! 
We  must  act  and  walk  in  all  points  as  it  prescribes ;  follow 
the  traffic  it  bids  us,  realize  the  sum  of  money,  the  degree  of 
"  influence  "  it  expects  of  us,  or  we  shall  be  lightly  esteemed ; 
certain  mouthfuls  of  articulate  wind  will  be  blown  at  us,  and 
this  what  mortal  courage  can  front  ?  Thus,  while  civil  liberty 
is  more  and  more  secured  to  us,  our  moral  liberty  is  all  but 
lost.  Practically  considered,  our  creed  is  Fatalism ;  and,  free 
in  hand  and  foot,  we  are  shackled  in  heart  and  soul  with  far 
straiter  than  feudal  chains.  Truly  may  we  say,  with  the 
Philosopher,  "  the  deep  meaning  of  the  Laws  of  Mechanism 
lies  heavy  on  us ; "  and  in  the  closet,  in  the  market-place,  in 
the  temple,  by  the  social  hearth,  encumbers  the  whole  move- 
ments of  our  mind,  and  over  our  noblest  faculties  is  spreading 
a  nightmare  sleep. 

These  dark  features,  we  are  aware,  belong  more  or  less  to 
other  ages,  as  well  as  to  ours.  This  faith  in  Mechanism,  in 
the  all-importance  of  physical  things,  is  in  every  age  the  com- 
mon refuge  of  Weakness  and  blind  Discontent;  of  all  who 
believe,  as  many  will  ever  do,  jthat  man's  true  good  lies  with- 
out him,  not  within.  We  are  aware  also,  that,  as  applied  to 
ourselves  in  all  their  aggravation,  they  form  but  half  a  picture; 
that  in  the  whole  picture  there  are  bright  lights  as  well  as 
gloomy  shadows.  If  we  here  dwell  chiefly  on  the  latter,  let 
us  not  be  blamed :  it  is  in  general  more  profitable  to  reckon 
up  our  defects  than  to  boast  of  our  attainments. 

Neither,  with  all  these  evils  more  or  less  clearly  before  us, 
have  we  at  any  time  despaired  of  the  fortunes  of  society. 
Despair,  or  even  despondency,  in  that  respect,  appears  to  us. 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  485 

in  all  cases,  a  groundless  feeling.  We  have  a  faith  in  the 
imperishable  dignity  of  man ;  in  the  high  vocation  to  which, 
throughout  this  his  earthly  history,  he  has  been  appointed. 
However  it  may  be  with  individual  nations,  whatever  melan- 
cholic speculators  may  assert,  it  seems  a  well-ascertained  fact 
that  in  all  times,  reckoning  even  from  those  of  the  Heraclides 
and  Pelasgi,  the  happiness  and  greatness  of  mankind  at  large 
have  been  continually  progressive.  Doubtless  this  age  also  is 
advancing.  Its  very  unrest,  its  ceaseless  activity,  its  discon- 
tent contains  matter  of  promise.  Knowledge,  education  are 
opening  the  eyes  of  the  humblest ;  are  increasing  the  number 
of  thinking  minds  without  limit.  This  is  as  it  should  be  ;  for 
not  in  turning  back,  not  in  resisting,  but  only  in  resolutely 
struggling  forward,  does  our  life  consist. 

Nay,  after  all,  our  spiritual  maladies  are  but  of  Opinion ; 
we  are  but  fettered  by  chains  of  our  own  forging,  and  which 
ourselves  also  can  rend  asunder.  This  deep,  paralyzed  sub- 
jection to  physical  objects  comes  not  from  Nature,  but  from 
our  own  unwise  mode  of  viewing  Nature.  Neither  can  we 
understand  that  man  wants,  at  this  hour,  any  faculty  of  heart, 
soul  or  body,  that  ever  belonged  to  him.  "  He,  who  has  been 
born,  has  been  a  First  Man ; "  has  had  lying  before  his  young 
eyes,  and  as  yet  unhardened  into  scientific  shapes,  a  world  as 
plastic,  infinite,  divine,  as  lay  before  the  eyes  of  Adam  him- 
self. If  Mechanism,  like  some  glass  bell,  encircles  and  im- 
prisons us ;  if  the  soul  looks  forth  on  a  fair  heavenly  country 
which  it  cannot  reach,  and  pines,  and  in  its  scanty  atmosphere 
IS  ready  to  perish,  —  yet  the  bell  is  but  of  glass ;  "  one  bold 
stroke  to  break  the  bell  in  pieces,  and  thou  art  delivered ! " 
NTot  the  invisible  world  is  wanting,  for  it  dwells  in  man's  soul, 
iud  this  last  is  still  here.  Are  the  solemn  temples,  in  which 
the  Divinity  was  once  visibly  revealed  among  us,  crumbling 
away  ?  We  can  repair  them,  we  can  rebuild  them.  The  wis- 
dom, the  heroic  worth  of  our  forefathers,  which  we  have  lost, 
we  can  recover.  That  admiration  of  old  nobleness,  which  now 
so  often  shows  itself  as  a  faint  dilettantism,  will  one  day 
become  a  generous  emulation,  and  man  may  again  be  all  that 
he  has  been,  and  more  than  he  has  been.     Nor  are  these  the 


486         CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 

mere  day-dreams  of  fancy ;  they  are  clear  possibilities ;  nay,  in 
this  time  they  are  even  assuming  the  character  of  hopes.  Indi- 
cations we  do  see  in  other  countries  and  in  our  own,  signs  infi- 
nitely cheering  to  us,  that  Mechanism  is  not  always  to  be  our 
hard  taskmaster,  but  one  day  to  be  our  pliant,  all-ministering 
servant ;  that  a  new  and  brighter  spiritual  era  is  slowly,  evolv- 
ing itself  for  all  men.  But  on  these  things  our  present  course>. 
forbids  us  to  enter.  '  ■'  "  "•       ...  V 

Meanwhile,  that  great  outward  changes  are  in  progress  can 
be  doubtful  to  no  one.  The  time  is  sick  and  out  of  joint. 
Many  things  have  reached  their  height ;  and  it  is  a  wise  adage 
that  tells  us,  "  the  darkest  hour  is  nearest  the  dawn."  Wher- 
ever we  can  gather  indication  of  the  public  thought,  whether 
from  printed  books,  as  in  France  or  Germany,  or  from  Carr 
bonari  rebellions  and  other  political  tumults,  as  in  Spain, 
Portugal,  Italy  and  Greece,  the  voice  it  utters  is  the  same. 
The  thinking  minds  of  all  nations  call  for  change.  There  is 
a  deep-lying  struggle  in  the  whole  fabric  of  society  ;  a  bound- 
less grinding  collision  of  the  New  with  the  Old.  The  French 
Ke volution,  as  is  now  visible  enough,  was  not  the  parent  of 
this  mighty  movement,  but  its  offspring.  Those  two  hostile 
influences,  which  always  exist  in  human  things,  and  on  the 
constant  intercommunion  of  which  depends  their  health  and 
safety,  had  lain  in  separate  masses,  accumulating  through  gen- 
erations, and  France  was  the  scene  of  their  fiercest  explosion ; 
but  the  final  issue  was  not  unfolded  in  that  country :  nay  it  is 
not  yet  anywhere  unfolded.  Political  freedom  is  hitherto  the 
object  of  these  efforts;  but  they  will  not  and  cannot  stop 
there.  It  is  towards  a  higher  freedom  than  mere  freedom  from 
oppression  by  his  fellow-mortal,  that  man  dimly  aims.  Of 
this  higher,  heavenly  freedom,  which  is  "man's  reasonable 
service,"  all  his  noble  institutions,  his  faithful  endeavors  and 
loftiest  attainments,  are  but  tlie  body,  and  more  and  more 
approximated  emblem. 

On  the  whole,  as  this  wondrous  planet.  Earth,  is  journeying 
with  its  fellows  through  infinite  Space,  so  are  the  wondrouq 
destinies  embarked  on  it  journeying  through  infinite  Time^ 
under  a  higher  guidance  than  ours.    For  the  present,  as  out 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  487 

astronomy  informs  us,  its  path  lies  towards  Hercules,  tlie  con- 
stellation of  Physical  Power :  but  that  is  not  our  most  press- 
ing concern.  Go  where  it  will,  the  deep  Heaven  will  be 
around  it.  Therein  let  us  have  hope  and  sure  faith.  To 
reform  a  world,  to  reform  a  nation,  no  wise  man  will  under- 
take; and  all  but  foolish  men  know,  that  the  only  solid, 
though  a  far  slower  reformation,  is  what  each  begins  and 
perfects  on  himself. 


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