A- 
 
 k 
 
FRAGMENTS 
 
 FROM 
 
 GERMAN PROSE WRITERS. 
 
Digitized by 
 
 the Internet Archive 
 
 
 
 in 2013 
 
 
 
 http://archive.org/details/fragmentsfromger01aust 
 
FRAGMENTS 
 
 FROM 
 
 GERMAN PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 SARAH AUSTIN. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 1841. 
 
PRINTED BY 
 KICHARD AND JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR. 
 
 RED MON COURT, FLEET STKEET. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I cannot send this little volume into the world with- 
 out cautioning my readers against a misapprehen- 
 sion of its character and purpose. It would be un- 
 just to German literature to regard it as a selection. 
 That word implies more of choice and order than I 
 have been able to bestow. Many of these fragments 
 were translated some years ago from books which 
 chance threw in my way, and without any view to 
 their publication ; they were given to friends, who 
 were curious to know what inducement there was 
 to study the German language, and thus found their 
 way into several numbers of a magazine. It has 
 been frequently suggested to me, that a reprint of 
 them, with additions, in a more convenient and du- 
 rable form, would not be unacceptable to the English 
 public, among whom a curiosity concerning the 
 matter and form of German literature is greatly in- 
 
vi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 creased and increasing. Upon this suggestion I have 
 at length acted, though not without many misgi- 
 vings, 
 
 Germany and its literature open a new world to 
 one accustomed only to the habits and the opinions of 
 England. They present trains of thought as foreign 
 to those with which we are familiar, as their forms of 
 language are to our modes of expression. This great 
 dissimilarity affords, as may readily be imagined, 
 ample scope for the misconceptions and misrepre- 
 sentations of ill-informed, prejudiced, and uncandid 
 readers ; indeed, renders it very difficult for the most 
 candid and enlightened to avoid them, without a far 
 more intimate knowledge of the country than fo- 
 reigners can usually acquire. And accordingly, 
 such misconceptions and misrepresentations do very 
 widely prevail. 
 
 It may be said that this is an inconvenience under 
 which all nations labour with respect to each other. 
 To a certain extent that is true ; but it admits of 
 modifications from the peculiarities of national cha- 
 racter. Few, I imagine, will assert that the ener- 
 getic and practical English mind has that plasticity 
 which enables it to place itself in the very circum- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 VÜ 
 
 stances of another, and, as it were, to adopt trains 
 of thought, associations and images, wholly unlike the 
 accustomed ones. We are astonished at deviations 
 from our own standard, and readily conclude that 
 all that is unwonted is wrong. On the other hand, 
 there is no quality for which Germans are more re- 
 markable, than for their power of complete self- 
 transplantation (if I may use the word) to that point 
 of view whence another looks upon the world, and 
 of fair appreciation of varieties in thought, expres- 
 sion and action. Hence their pre-eminent success as 
 translators; and hence the universality of their litera- 
 ture, in which every nation may find itself candidly 
 judged and faithfully reflected. From these causes 
 it follows that German writers have less chance of 
 being understood here, than ours in Germany. 
 
 I have been the more inclined to submit to the 
 public these slight results of a desultory reading, 
 from the hope that they may contribute a little to 
 correct the extravagant notions which have long 
 been current in this country as to the general cha- 
 racter of German literature. In some places it has 
 been represented as all composed of cloudy philoso- 
 phy, dull pedantry, or romantic horrors ; in others, 
 
viii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 as deformed throughout by whining sentimentality, 
 impurity, or irreligion. That, in the multitudinous 
 offspring of the German press, some of each of these 
 misshapen productions are to be found, we shall be 
 little inclined to doubt, if we consider the disgusting 
 shapes assumed by portions of our own literature ; 
 but that a sound-hearted and intelligent country 
 gives birth to nothing else, is as little consistent with 
 probability as it is with truth. 
 
 These strange misrepresentations are, it is true, no 
 longer listened to by the more instructed portion of 
 society. The translations and criticisms of some of 
 the valuable works which Germany has contributed 
 to every branch of knowledge^ but especially, to 
 philology and history, and still better, the study of th< 
 originals, have produced a vast and increasing change 
 in the more cultivated part of public opinion. But 
 though it is rather the fashion now to talk with a 
 vague admiration of German literature, we are very 
 far as yet from that intimate knowledge of it, upon 
 which alone a just estimate of its merits can be 
 founded. 
 
 It must of course be difficult, if not impossible, 
 to characterize an entire national literature ; and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 I am far from imagining myself in any way qualified 
 for such a task. But if I were called upon to point 
 out the quality which strikes me as the most pro- 
 minent and pervading in that of Germany, I should 
 say, it is earnestness. I have ventured to express 
 an opinion that wit and humour are not the strong 
 points of German writers. Happily for themselves 
 and the world, they are even less successful in persi- 
 flage. Still more happily, they seem conscious of 
 this ; few of them attempt a style of writing in which 
 the French display their inimitable finesse and light- 
 ness of touch, and other nations their bad taste and 
 bitterness of feeling. 
 
 What has elsewhere been said of Goethe's writings 
 is, I think, true of German literature generally — 
 that it is suggestive. Those who wish to close a book 
 with the comfortable feeling that no new idea has 
 been suggested, and no old one disturbed, will regard 
 this as very questionable praise ; but those who read 
 in order to be made to think, will, I hope, derive 
 some satisfaction even from the fragments thus 
 loosely thrown together. 
 
 The choice of these passages has been deter- 
 mined by considerations as various as their character 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 and their subjects. In some it was the value of the 
 matter, in others the beauty of the form, that struck 
 me ; in some the vigorous, unaffected good sense, in 
 others the fantastic or mystical charm. Some re- 
 called familiar trains of thought, which meet one in 
 a foreign literature like old friends in a far country ; 
 others suggested ideas altogether new and strange. 
 My readers must, therefore, apply measures as dif- 
 ferent as those which I have used, and by no means 
 ascribe to me the intention of recommending every 
 opinion to their unqualified assent, or every passage 
 to their unqualified admiration. 
 
 Still less must they imagine that this little collec- 
 tion is intended to serve as a guide for the student 
 in the choice of books. Against such a misconcep- 
 tion I must earnestly protest. Though some of the 
 passages are but samples of the excellence of the 
 store whence they are taken, others may be regarded 
 as the rare flowers plucked from a field otherwise 
 nearly barren or overgrown with weeds. 
 
 I have too much experience of the indulgence of 
 German readers not to feel assured that, if this little 
 book finds its way among them, it will be treated 
 better than it deserves. They will, I hope, discover 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xi 
 
 in it the same anxiety to interpret their writers faith- 
 fully, for which they have already given me credit, 
 and which they will accept as an atonement for many 
 deficiencies. 
 
 But I am perfectly aware how defective and plan- 
 less such a collection must appear to them ; how 
 many of their greatest names they will miss; how 
 painfully the confusion of dates, styles and subjects 
 will strike such methodical compilers. When I see 
 that the names of Winckelmann, Wieland, Men- 
 delssohn, Solger, Steffens, and others of equal or 
 nearly equal celebrity, do not even occur in my 
 list — not to mention a host whose works are 
 worthy of mention, and would afford volumes of 
 striking and agreeable extracts — I feel as if I merited 
 some reproaches from Germany. But, I must re- 
 peat, I have had no extensive access to German 
 books, and have taken what fell in my way. I had 
 translated, or marked for translation, several longer 
 passages, or entire essays ; such as Alex. v. Hum- 
 boldt's ' Physiognomy of Plants ;' the introduction 
 to Grimm's 6 German Mythology ;' J. von Müllers 
 * Battle of Sempach ;' the 1 Death of Conradin ' from 
 Raumer's 'Hohenstauffen ;' the portrait of Charles V. 
 
xii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 from Ranke's 'Fürsten und Völker ' (Sovereigns and 
 Subjects), and others ; but I found that I should far 
 exceed the limits of this little volume, which is all I 
 can venture to recommend to the indulgence of the 
 English public. 
 
 I have added a few notes at the end, which require 
 a more serious apology than any defects of selection 
 or translation, since they contain the expression of 
 some opinions of my own. These I am always re- 
 luctant to intrude on the public. But I was repeat- 
 edly assured that such an index raisonne was abso- 
 lutely necessary to the English reader, unacquainted 
 with the names and characters of the writers I have 
 quoted, or with the tendencies of the schools or 
 classes to which they belong ; and I have been be- 
 trayed into much more of general commentary than 
 I contemplated when I began. 
 
 I have endeavoured to supply the biographical 
 and critical details from sources deserving of credit. 
 
 S. A. 
 
 London, April 21, 1841. 
 
FRAGMENTS 
 
 FROM 
 
 GERMAN PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 GERMANY. 
 
 Surrounded by the nations which have the chief 
 and foremost influence on the condition and desti- 
 nies of mankind, lies our Fatherland ; strong against 
 all, formidable to most, in six hundred thousand 
 warriors, who have seldom been equalled, and never 
 excelled. For whomsoever, or for whatsoever cause, 
 they take up arms, whoever be their leader, with 
 them rests the balance of political power, the liberties 
 of Europe, the welfare of the human race. 
 
 By Germans was the last universal monarchy over- 
 thrown ; from among them proceeded the rulers of 
 the states which arose out of its ruins, in one of whom, 
 chosen by themselves, Europe recognized the title 
 and rank of Caesar ; while the abuse of his power was 
 mainly checked by the spirit of German freedom. 
 
 I 
 
2 
 
 A country, more than twelve thousand square miles 
 in extent; fruitful, yet rather in what ministers to the 
 necessities, than to the luxury and voluptuous ease, 
 of man ; fostering the growth of an active and indus- 
 trious spirit by her numerous towns, and of high cul- 
 ture and civilization by her many capitals ; sufficient- 
 ly furnished with coasts and rivers for commerce, yet 
 not to such a degree as that the mercantile spirit can 
 ever become national and predominant ; lying under 
 a climate neither enervating from heat, nor painful 
 from cold, but of a healthful mean, and thence pro- 
 ducing an organization of the human species equally 
 removed from the extremes of rigid apathy and ef- 
 feminate sensibility : a country peopled by men vi- 
 gorous both in labour and in enjoyment; apt and 
 intelligent in invention ; inclining always to the use- 
 ful, and patient in improving and perfecting ; full of 
 feeling for the beautiful, and in the fine arts second 
 to none, yet still more successful in the investigation 
 of the true and in the accomplishment of the great ; 
 remarkable for good sense and for unwearied perse- 
 verance ; obedient even to the most rigid military 
 subordination, yet ardent at the name of freedom 
 and worthy to enjoy it ; a people capable of any- 
 thing, if they have but sufficient pride to throw aside 
 all imitation, and be content to be German — such is 
 our people — such is Germany. 
 
 Johannes v. Muller. 
 
3 
 
 As with artisans, so with the higher order of art- 
 ists, we see the most striking proofs, that man can 
 least appropriate to himself that which most com- 
 pletely belongs to him. His works leave him, as a 
 bird the nest in which it was hatched. 
 
 The lot of the architect is herein strange above 
 all others. How often does he turn his whole mind 
 and soul to the construction and perfecting of rooms 
 from which he must be for ever shut out ! The royal 
 halls are indebted to him for a splendour, the full 
 effect of which he is never to enjoy. 
 
 In the temple, he fixes an impassable barrier be- 
 tween himself and the Holy of holies. The steps 
 which he has laid for the celebration of the heart- 
 elevating mysteries, he must never venture to ascend ; 
 as the goldsmith looks with distant reverence on the 
 sacred chalice, to the gold and gems of which he has 
 given shape and brilliancy. With the keys of the 
 palace, the architect delivers up to the rich man all 
 its conveniences and enjoyments, of which he is never 
 to share in one. 
 
 Must not this gradually estrange the art from the 
 artist, — that his work, like a full-grown child, no 
 longer reflects its influence on its father? And how 
 much would the art advance if it were occupied al- 
 most exclusively with the external, which belongs to 
 all, and, in common with all, to the artist himself. 
 
 Goethe. {Wahlverwandtschaften.') 
 B<2 
 
4 
 
 The last, best fruit which comes to late perfection, 
 even in the kindliest soul, is, tenderness toward the 
 hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth 
 of heart toward the cold, philanthropy toward the 
 misanthropic. 
 
 Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. (Siebenhäs.) 
 
 It is a coarse but very common misapprehension, 
 that in order to represent the Ideal, an aggregate of 
 virtues as numerous as possible must be packed to- 
 gether under one name : — a whole compendium of 
 morality be exhibited in one man. Nothing is ef- 
 fected by this but the utter extinction of individu- 
 ality and truth. The Ideal consists not in quantity, 
 but in quality. Grandison is exemplary, but not 
 ideal. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 The proper and characteristic duty of an instructor 
 of the people is the affording a good example. The 
 faith of his flock rests mainly upon his own, and is, 
 strictly speaking, little more than a faith in his faith. 
 His precepts ought to be delivered, not as something 
 learnt, as something speculatively discovered, but as 
 something drawn out of his own inward experience, 
 since on this subject every thing must be the result 
 
5 
 
 of such experience. If his life contradicts his per- 
 cepts, no one believes in his experience. And even 
 if he could support them by such theoretical proofs 
 as must compel conviction, nothing of what he says 
 is believed of himself individually. 
 
 Fichte. 
 
 Wherever, O man, God's sun first beamed upon 
 thee, — where the stars of heaven first shone above 
 thee, — where his lightnings first declared his om- 
 nipotence, and his storm-wind shook thy soul with 
 pious awe, — there are thy affections, there is thy 
 country. 
 
 Where the first human eye bent lovingly over thy 
 cradle, — where thy mother first bore thee joyfully 
 on her bosom, — where thy father engraved the words 
 of wisdom in thy heart, — there are thy affections, 
 there is thy country. 
 
 And though it be among bare rocks and desert 
 islands, and though poverty and care dwell there with 
 thee, thou must love that land for ever ; for thou 
 art man, and thou canst not forget it, but it must 
 abide in thine inmost heart. 
 
 And freedom is no empty dream, no barren imagi- 
 nation ; but in her dwell thy courage, and thy pride, 
 and the certainty that thou art of high and heavenly 
 race. 
 
6 
 
 There is freedom where thou canst live according 
 to the customs and fashions and laws of thy fathers ; 
 where that which rejoiced their hearts rejoices thine; 
 where no foreign oppressor can command thee, no 
 foreign ruler drive thee at his will, as cattle at the 
 will of their driver. 
 
 This thy country — thy free country — is a trea- 
 sure which contains within itself indestructible love 
 arid faith ; the noblest good (excepting religion, in 
 which dwells a still higher freedom) that a vir- 
 tuous man can possess, or can covet. 
 
 Arndt. 
 
 . . . .This fickle, uncertain, capricious love of the 
 many, which a ruler often loses when he seeks, and 
 wins when he shuns it, is a thing certainly useless 
 and valueless, if not pernicious, since it always in- 
 volves the inclination to fall into the contrary ex- 
 treme. What is this empty and sentimental exhi- 
 bition of popular affection ? It is an illusion — the 
 blunder of demagogy, which calculates only for the 
 moment, and fancies it can build permanent institu- 
 tions on what is utterly transient. It is not the love, 
 it is the confidence of the people which a prince 
 stands in need of. The assurance that he observes 
 their laws and usages, that he respects the rights of 
 property and the freedom of opinion, that he never 
 
7 
 
 attempts to introduce by force innovations or de- 
 viations from the established and the customary, 
 but only with the consent of those interested ; this 
 assurance is the important thing in our monarchy, 
 and perhaps in every other. 
 
 Rumohr. (Deutsche Denkwürdigkeiten.) 
 
 The party were about to rise, when Manfred 
 
 exclaimed, " Only this one bottle, my friends, of deli- 
 cious Constantia ; let each fill his glass, and give a 
 health, right from his heart!" Ernest raised the 
 liquid gold, and said, not without some solemnity, 
 " Health and long life to the father and liberator 
 of Art among us, to the noble German, to our 
 Goethe, of whom we may well be proud, and whom 
 other nations might envy us ! " All touched glasses ; 
 and when Theodore was about to recall some recent 
 discussion, Manfred exclaimed, " No, my friends, 
 no criticism now. Let us unite all the joys of our 
 youth, all that we have to thank him for, in one re- 
 membrance at this moment!" 
 
 "You are right," said Wilibald ; "the moment 
 of awakened love must be sacred to love alone; 
 and therefore let us unite with the recollection of 
 him that of Schiller, whose earnest and grandly- 
 
8 
 
 aspiring soul should have longer tarried among 
 us !" 
 
 "I drink this glass," said Anton, with emotion, 
 " to the noblest and kindest of spirits — to the most 
 amiable of old men, whom all good and prosperity 
 attend — to the sage who was never a sectary — to the 
 child-like Jacob i ; may a gentle destiny long pre- 
 serve him to us ! " 
 
 " We close our repast solemnly," said Emilia ; " it 
 is impossible not to be touched by the thought of so 
 many beloved absent ones." . 
 
 " Let us give ourselves up to this delightful feel- 
 ing!" exclaimed Manfred with animation; "and 
 therefore fill your glasses, and let us celebrate the 
 memory of our fancy-gifted, witty, and inspired 
 Jean Paul. Not him should ye forget, ye youth 
 of Germany ! Thanks be to him for his flowery 
 mazes and his wondrous imaginings ; may he in this 
 moment think kindly of us, as we recall with emo- 
 tion the time when he joined in our circle with ready 
 and delightful cordiality I " 
 
 " Nor be the twin stars of the German firmament 
 forgotten," exclaimed Theodore, with unwonted ear- 
 nestness, "our Frederic and William Schlegel, 
 who have excited and promoted so much that is beau- 
 tiful ; may the penetration and earnestness of the one, 
 the refined taste and devotion to art of the other, be 
 remembered by grateful Germany to all ages !" 
 
9 
 
 w Be it then permitted," said Lothair, " to invoke 
 a genius who has long since left our sphere, but who 
 may perhaps hover above us, if all hearts call on 
 him with deep longing and veneration ; — the great 
 Englishman, the true and complete Man, the lofty 
 spirit, fresh in ever-during childhood, — the one 
 Shakspere ! Be he, by us and our posterity 
 through all ages, praised, loved, and honoured ! " 
 
 All were strongly excited; and Frederic stood 
 up and said, "Yes, my dearest friends, as it is 
 through friendship and love that we are gathered 
 together, and by them are made one, recollection 
 brings around us all noble and true-hearted friends 
 from afar, and their hearts are, perhaps, even now 
 turned hither. But faith piously invokes the depart- 
 ed also to our social pleasures, to our joys and our 
 festivities with longing affection and with tears of 
 gladness. And this is the worthiest crown and con- 
 summation of our joy ; — death is no separation ; his 
 countenance is not terrible : hallow then these last 
 drops to the beloved Novalis, the apostle of reli- 
 gion, love, and innocence, the prophetic dawn of a 
 better future !" 
 
 " Women," said Rosalie tenderly, " are especially 
 bound to be grateful to him." 
 
 Tieck. (Phantasus.) 
 
 B 5 
 
10 
 
 The French stand in a strange position with re- 
 gard to German literature. They are precisely in 
 the case of the cunning fox, who can get nothing out 
 of the long neck of the jar. With all the good-will 
 in the world, they do not know what to make out 
 of our things ; they treat all our productions as raw 
 material, which must be wrought into shape by them. 
 How wretchedly have they displaced and confused 
 my notes to Rameau ; there is not a thing left in its 
 proper place ! 
 
 The English have put forth their 1 Living Poets' 
 in two thick octavo volumes, with short biographical 
 notices ; I have been very industriously studying this 
 work for some time. It gives occasion to highly - 
 interesting comparisons. The most remarkable ex- 
 cellencies of all these poets are to be traced to de- 
 scent and situation ; the meanest among them has 
 Shakspere for his ancestor, and the Ocean at his 
 feet. 
 
 Goethe. (Briefwechsel mit Zeller.) 
 
 The beau-monde of Paris was delighted with 
 Gessner's Idylls ; just as a palate sated and deadened 
 with high feeding and poignant sauces, is refreshed 
 by a milk diet. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
11 
 
 POPULAR POETRY. 
 
 The position which Burger assumed in the preface 
 to the first edition of his poems, namely, " that popu- 
 lar poetry is the perfect, and, indeed, the only true 
 poetry," he has repeated in the second edition, thus 
 modified — " that the popularity of a poetical work is 
 the proof of its perfection," and has endeavoured to 
 establish it by argument. If we look at all he has 
 said on this subject, in order to come at a clear no- 
 tion of what he means by the word people, we find 
 that we shall obtain it by running a sort of mean line 
 through all classes, comprehending within that word 
 all varieties of natural situation and capacity ; for 
 with reference to the educated and accomplished, 
 there exists no such average : the line between those 
 who participate in scientific and conventional educa- 
 tion and those who are excluded from it, must ever 
 remain sufficiently broad and distinct. It is not, 
 however, easy to perceive why Poetry, to whom it 
 is given to express to men all that is highest and 
 noblest, should be condemned to adapt herself to 
 mediocrity, instead of addressing herself to the most 
 elevated and most richly endowed spirits, and leaving 
 the others to come up with her as they can. Bürger 
 did not understand rightly what he required of poe- 
 try ; he confounded it with the very attainable end 
 
12 
 
 which he proposed to himself in most of his songs ; 
 i. e. to write for readers of various ranks, and espe- 
 cially those of the lower and uninstructed. 
 
 Nor was any such wonderful condescension neces- 
 sary for this purpose, as many have pretended ; for 
 Nature distributes fancy and susceptibility without 
 regard to higher or lower birth : conventional cul- 
 ture is required only for those kinds of literature 
 which represent pictures of polished social life, and 
 scientific attainments may be rendered unnecessary 
 by the choice of the subject. In this sense, it is very 
 possible to be a dignified and noble popular poet. 
 But it is not evident why every poet must invariably 
 address himself to a public so constituted ; why, for 
 instance, he should not occasionally set before him- 
 self readers whom Nature has endowed with a philo- 
 sophical eye, or education made conversant with 
 classical antiquities. What he loses in quantity of 
 effect, would be amply compensated to him by its 
 quality. How narrow would be the sphere of poetry, 
 what magnificent images would be rendered unavail- 
 able, were Burger's position universally acknow- 
 ledged! His assertion, "that all great poets have 
 been popular poets, and that what they did not write 
 popularly was almost forgotten in their life-time, or 
 ever received into the imagination and the memory 
 of their readers," is expressly contradicted by history 
 — at least by that of modern poetry, which is most 
 
13 
 
 to our present purpose. Dante and Petrarch, the two 
 great fathers of modern poetry, are, in every sense 
 of the word, both as to knowledge and genius, as un- 
 popular as it is possible to be. Guarini, the great 
 link between the ancient and modern schools, is no- 
 wise popular ; and Shakspere and Cervantes appear 
 so only because they satisfy the many with strong 
 emotions and gay images, and delude them with a 
 superficial intelligibility, while the deeper sense, and 
 an infinity of delicate allusions, remain hidden from 
 vulgar readers or spectators. 
 
 The question, how far Homer's rhapsodies were 
 originally suited to the taste and comprehension of 
 the people, or sung only for the noble and the great, 
 would lead us too far; but it is indisputable that the 
 Troubadours and Minnesingers are by no means en- 
 titled to the name of popular poets. They cultivated 
 rather a courtly and knightly style of poetry, founded 
 on the manners, views and sentiments of the highest 
 and most cultivated ranks. We have, it is true, some 
 specimens of the same age, evidently composed for 
 the pleasure and approbation of the common people, 
 and these form the most striking contrast with the 
 former ; indeed, we find in more than one noble 
 Minnesinger expressions of the utmost contempt for 
 the lays of peasants and burghers. 
 
 If Biirger, by this sweeping demand for popularity 
 of style, which he subsequently defines to be clear- 
 
n 
 
 ness and perfect intelligibility, only meant that every 
 poem ought to possess these qualities in the highest 
 degree compatible with the nature of its subject- 
 matter, this will readily be admitted ; with the sole 
 exception of those cases in which a veil of intricacy 
 and obscurity contributes to make the desired im- 
 pression, and is thus necessary to complete the effect. 
 In the sense above mentioned, his observation does 
 not seem superfluous or unnecessary, since many of 
 our poets have, by means of dramatic and rhetorical 
 artifices, clothed the most common-place thoughts in 
 a dense mist ; a perversity from which Bürger is al- 
 together free. But if it is contended thatperfect clear- 
 ness is the essential requisite for popular poetry, this 
 may lead the poet into the most fatal errors. Our ex- 
 istence rests on the Incomprehensible, and the aim 
 of poetry, springing as it does out of this " fathomless 
 profound," cannot be to solve all mysteries. The 
 people, for whom he has taken the trouble to versify, 
 on this point, as on many others, have held fast by 
 the true and natural feeling ; the desire to under- 
 stand everything, that is, to embrace everything by 
 the reason, is certainly a most unpopular one. The 
 Bible, such as it at present is in the hands of the 
 people, can be but very imperfectly understood ; nay, 
 must even be very frequently misunderstood, and 
 yet it is in the highest degree a popular book. 
 Adapted to universal comprehension by our modern 
 
15 
 
 Exegetes, it will infallibly lose the greater part of its 
 popularity. The old hymns and psalms, especially 
 the Catholic ones, full of the most daring allegory 
 and mysticism, are highly popular ; the modern ones 
 which have taken their place, stripped of all imagery 
 and all flights, perfectly reasonable, and as clear as 
 water, are not at all so. And why is this ? Because 
 in their mawkish monotony nothing arouses the at- 
 tention, nothing suddenly strikes the feelings and 
 hurries the reader at once to a point which he can 
 never reach by the aid of formal instruction. In 
 a word, he who wishes to write for the people any- 
 thing v/hich rises above their daily wants, must be 
 not wholly unskilled in White Magic, — in the art of 
 painting by words and signs. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 It is only necessary to grow old, to become more 
 indulgent. I see no fault committed that I have not 
 committed myself. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently prac- 
 tises it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, 
 at length comes really to love him to whom he has 
 done good. When, therefore, it is said, < Thou shalt 
 
16 
 
 love thy neighbour as thyself,' it is not meant, thou 
 shalt love him first, and do good to him in conse- 
 quence of that love, but Thou shalt do good to thy 
 neighbour, and this thy beneficence will engender in 
 thee that love to mankind which is the fulness and 
 consummation of the inclination to do good. 
 
 Kant. (Tugendlehre.) 
 
 On the earth lay yellow faded rose-leaves, and 
 
 skeletons of nosegays, in which there was more of 
 sticks and threads than of flowers : it seemed to me 
 as if I saw the summer in which they had grown and 
 blossomed, lying withered at my feet ; and the even- 
 ing joys which Sunday shed among the villages ; and 
 many a youthful, high-breathing bosom, from which 
 (perhaps more brightly blooming than they) they had 
 dropped faded : and gladly would I have put the 
 summer, and its withered joys, by their dead stalks 
 into water and revived them ; and I looked at the 
 tall sexton, to whom the thing was nothing but a 
 vexation, as he took the broom and swept them away 
 among the dry dust. 
 
 As we came down, and I trod, like death, over the 
 breast of many a strong mail-clad knight, and his 
 gently-supplicating lady-wife, I thought deeply, but 
 cheerfully, of the old by-gone Catholic times, whose 
 
17 
 
 rostrum and whose theatre this place had been. A 
 Catholic church, as it now is, presses the near image 
 of the gloomy, ponderous middle ages too heavily 
 on my heart ; but if its service has ceased, then the 
 dim, shadowy picture pleases me ; and I figure 
 to myself indulgently, how many a fevered bosom 
 here caught fresh air ; how many a breathing sigh, 
 how many a sanctifying prayer, were uttered here ; 
 and how the poor people, sunk in the deepest shaft 
 of monkery, beheld, not indeed the quickening sun 
 of our living day, but, like other miners, some star 
 of the second day : — even that is something. And 
 I would rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition, 
 than in air rarifled to nothing by the air-pump of un- 
 belief, in which the panting breast expires, vainly 
 and convulsively gasping for breath. 
 
 In general our century has destroyed rather errors, 
 than the moral sources of errors. Our mental cata- 
 ract is not operated on with the couching instrument, 
 which removes it entirely, but only with the lancet, 
 which pushes it back into the innermost part of the 
 eye. 
 
 Jean Paul. (Titan.) 
 
 There is no more potent antidote to low sensual- 
 ity than the adoration of beauty. All the higher 
 arts of design are essentially chaste, without respect 
 
18 
 
 of the object. They purify the thoughts, as tragedy, 
 according to Aristotle, purifies the passions. Their 
 accidental effects are not worth consideration. There 
 are souls to whom even a vestal is not holy. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 What a conception of art must those theorists 
 have who exclude portraits from the proper province 
 of the fine arts ! It is exactly as if we denied that 
 to be poetry in which the poet celebrates the woman 
 he really loves. Portraiture is the basis and the 
 touchstone of historic painting. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 After all, the noblest and most beautiful monu- 
 ment to the memory of a man, must ever be a like- 
 ness of him. This gives a more perfect idea of what 
 he was than anything else can ; it is the best text to 
 few notes, or to many ; only it ought to be taken in 
 his best years, — and this is commonly neglected. 
 Nobody thinks of seizing the living forms; and even 
 when this is done, it is done imperfectly and inade- 
 quately. As soon as a man dies, there is the greatest 
 eagerness to take a cast of him; this mask is set 
 
19 
 
 upon a block, and the work is called a bust. How 
 rarely is it in the power of the artist to reanimate 
 it! 
 
 The likeness of a man is wholly independent ; 
 wherever it may be placed, it speaks for itself. We 
 do not require that it should indicate the place where 
 his body rests. But shall I confess to you a strange 
 feeling of mine ? Even to portraits I have a sort of 
 aversion ; they always appear to me to breathe silent 
 reproaches; they betoken something distant, de- 
 parted, and remind me how difficult it is to estimate 
 the present as it deserves. Let us but reflect how 
 many men we have seen and known, and acknow- 
 ledge how little they have been to us, how little we 
 to them, — and what must be our feelings ? We meet 
 the man of talent without conversing with him ; the 
 scholar, without learning from him; the traveller, 
 without seeking to gain information from him ; the 
 kind-hearted man, without making one effort to 
 please him. And, alas ! this is not the case in trans- 
 ient intercourse alone. Thus it is that societies and 
 families treat their most valuable members — towns 
 their worthiest citizens — subjects their best princes 
 — nations their most eminent men. I have heard it 
 asked why we speak of the dead with unqualified 
 praise; of the living, always with certain reserva- 
 tions. It may be answered, because we have nothing 
 to fear from the former, while the latter may stand 
 
20 
 
 in our way : so impure is our boasted solicitude for 
 the memory of the dead. If it were the sacred and 
 earnest feeling we pretend, it would strengthen and 
 animate our intercourse with the living. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 The critic of art ought to keep in view not only 
 the capabilities, but the proper objects, of art. Not 
 all that art can accomplish, ought she to attempt. It is 
 from this cause alone, and because we have lost sight 
 of these principles, that art, among us, is become 
 more extensive and difficult, less effective and perfect. 
 
 Lessing. 
 
 Every figure fashioned by the hand of art, every 
 character invented by fiction, has more or less of life, 
 and the claims and hopes of life. Galleries of pic- 
 tures and statues are the dormitories of a future 
 world. The historian, the philosopher, the artist of 
 that world is here at home ; here he forms himself — 
 for this he lives. Let him who is unhappy in the 
 actual world, — who finds not what he seeks, — let him 
 go into the world of books and of art — into Nature, 
 that eternal antique, and yet eternal novelty — let 
 him live in that Ecclesia presset of the better world. 
 
21 
 
 Here he will be sure to find a beloved and a friend, 
 a Fatherland and a God. They slumber — but in 
 prophetic, significant slumbers. At length comes 
 the time when every initiated of that better state 
 sees, like Pygmalion, the world he has created and 
 combined break upon him with the glories of a 
 loftier and lovelier dawning, and his long fidelity 
 and love requited. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 The finest hair casts a shadow. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 The sun sinks — and the earth closes her great 
 eye, like that of a dying god. Then smoke the hills 
 like altars ; — out of every wood ascends a chorus; — 
 the veils of day, the shadows, float around the en- 
 kindled, transparent tree-tops, and fall upon the 
 gay, gem-like flowers. And the burnished gold of 
 the west throws back a dead gold on the east, and 
 tinges with rosy light the hovering breast of the tre- 
 mulous lark, — the evening bell of nature. 
 
 Jean Paul. (Siebenkäs.) 
 
 We are near waking, when we dream that we 
 dream ' Novalis. 
 
22 
 
 If the world is to be held together by lies, the old, 
 
 which are already current, are just as good as the 
 
 new. T 
 
 Lessing. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE TRADER IN SCIENCE. 
 
 Extract from a lecture, introductory to a course on Universal 
 History, delivered at Jena, 1789. 
 
 The plan of study which the trader in science 
 and literature proposes to himself is one ; that of 
 the philosopher is another, and a far different. The 
 former, the only aim of whose industry is to fulfil 
 those conditions under which he may become quali- 
 fied for his post or profession and participant in its 
 advantages, who has set the powers of his mind in 
 activity only for the bettering of his external circum- 
 stances and for the satisfying of a small ambition, — 
 such a man will, on the entrance to his academical 
 career, have no more weighty concern than most 
 carefully to sever those studies which he regards as 
 means of subsistence, from all those which delight 
 the mind as mind alone. All the time devoted to 
 these, he would think subtracted from his future 
 profession, and would never forgive himself for the 
 theft. He would turn his whole industry in the 
 direction of those acquisitions which the future 
 masters of his fortunes would be likely to require at 
 
23 
 
 his hands, and would think he had accomplished 
 everything if he could meet these demands without 
 fear. Has he run through his academical course, and 
 reached the goal of his wishes ? He abandons his 
 guide ; for why should he trouble himself further ? 
 His main object is now to bring to view the trea- 
 sures he has accumulated in his memory, and at the 
 same time to use his utmost endeavours that they 
 may not decline in value. Every extension of the 
 boundaries of the science by which he earns his 
 bread, is regarded by him with anxiety, since it oc- 
 casions him fresh labour, or renders his former 
 labours useless : every important innovation or dis- 
 covery alarms him, for it breaks down those old 
 school-formulae which he had taken so much pains 
 to acquire ; it endangers the entire produce of the 
 toil and trouble of his whole previous life. 
 
 Who have raised so loud an outcry and clamour 
 against reformers as those who turn science and 
 learning into daily bread ? Who so carefully and so 
 effectually obstruct the progress of useful revolu- 
 tions in the empire of science as these men ? Every 
 spark of light which is enkindled by some happy 
 genius, be it in what science it may, renders their 
 barrenness and poverty visible. They fight with 
 bitterness, with malice, with desperation; for the 
 forms and systems which they defend are identified 
 with their very existence. Hence there is no more 
 
24 
 
 implacable enemy, no more envious colleague, no 
 more zealous inquisitor, than the man who has set 
 his talents and knowledge to sale. The less his 
 acquirements reward him in and for themselves, the 
 larger remuneration does he crave from others ; for 
 the merits of the artisan, and for those of the man 
 of science, he has only one standard — labour : hence 
 there are no greater complainers than such men. 
 Not in the deep and hidden treasures of his own 
 thoughts does he seek his reward ; he seeks it in 
 external applause, in titles and posts of honour or 
 authority. Is he disappointed of these ? Who is 
 more unhappy than the man who has cultivated 
 knowledge with no purer and higher aims ? He 
 has lived, he has watched, he has toiled, in vain ; in 
 vain has he searched for truth, if he cannot barter 
 her in exchange for gold, for newspaper applause, 
 for court favour. 
 
 Pitiable man ! who with the noblest of all instru- 
 ments, — Science and Art, — can design, can execute, 
 nothing higher than the artisan, with the meanest ! 
 who, in the empire of perfect freedom, bears about 
 the soul of a slave ! But still more pitiable is the 
 young man of genius, whose natural disposition is 
 turned aside by pernicious doctrine and example 
 into these miserable bye-ways ; who has suffered 
 himself to be persuaded to concentrate his whole 
 mental force upon this merely professional perfec- 
 
25 
 
 tion. He will soon regard his professional attain- 
 ments with loathing, as a mere piece of botch-work ; 
 wishes will arise within him which can never be 
 satisfied ; his genius will rebel against his desti- 
 nation. Every thing he does, now appears to him 
 fragmental ; he sees no aim to his labours, and yet 
 he cannot endure their aimlessness. The irksomeness, 
 the insignificance of his employment, press him to 
 the earth, because he cannot oppose to them that 
 high and cheerful courage which accompanies only 
 a clear insight into the objects of research, — a con- 
 fident anticipation of its success. He feels himself 
 cut off, torn up by the roots, from the universal har- 
 mony and connexion of things, because he has neg- 
 lected to direct his mental activity to the Great 
 Whole. The lawyer abhors law, as soon as a glimmer 
 of better culture throws light upon her nakedness 
 and deformities ; instead of striving, as he ought, to 
 become the creator of a new and more perfect form, 
 and to supply her now discovered wants out of his 
 own internal affluence. The physician becomes dis- 
 gusted with his profession, as soon as important 
 failures show him the uncertainty of his system : 
 the theologian loses his reverence for his sacred 
 calling, as soon as his faith in the infallibility of his 
 own system of doctrine is shaken. 
 
 How far different is the philosophical spirit ! Just 
 as sedulously as the trader in knowledge severs his 
 c 
 
26 
 
 own peculiar science from all others, does the lover 
 of wisdom strive to extend its dominion and restore 
 its connexion with them. I say, to restore ; for the 
 boundaries which divide the sciences are but the 
 work of abstraction. What the empiric separates, 
 the philosopher unites. He has early come to the 
 conviction that in the territory of intellect, as in 
 the world of matter, every thing is enlinked and 
 commingled, and his eager longing for universal 
 harmony and agreement cannot be satisfied by frag- 
 ments. All his efforts are directed to the perfecting 
 of his knowledge; his noble impatience cannot be 
 tranquillized till all his conceptions have arranged 
 themselves into one harmonious whole ; till he stands 
 at the central point of arts and sciences, and thence 
 overlooks the whole extent of their dominion with 
 satisfied glance. New discoveries in the field of 
 his activity, which depress the trader in science, 
 enrapture the philosopher. Perhaps they fill a 
 chasm which the growth of his ideas had rendered 
 more wide and unseemly ; or they place the last 
 stone, the only one wanting to the completion of 
 the structure of his ideas. But even should they 
 shiver it into ruins, — should a new series of ideas, 
 a new aspect of nature, a newly-discovered law in 
 the physical world, overthrow the whole fabric of 
 his knowledge, — he has always loved truth better than 
 his system, and gladly will he exchange her old and 
 
27 
 
 defective form for a new and fairer one. And even 
 if no external shock should disturb his mental struc- 
 ture, yet is he compelled by an ever-active impulse 
 toward improvement, to be the first to pull it down 
 and separate all its parts, that he may rebuild it 
 anew in a more perfect form and order. The phi- 
 losophical mind passes on through new forms of 
 thought, constantly heightening in beauty, to per- 
 fect, consummate excellence ; while the empiric 
 hoards the barren sameness of his school attain- 
 ments in a mind eternally stationary. 
 
 There is no more equitable judge of the merits of 
 others than the philosopher. Acute and inventive 
 enough to take advantage of every kind of active 
 power, he is also reasonable enough to honour the 
 author of the minutest discovery. For him, all 
 spirits labour ; to the empiric, their toils are hostile 
 and ruinous. The former knows how to make all 
 that is done or thought around him, his own ; an 
 intimate community of all intellectual possessions 
 prevails among real thinkers; whatever one con- 
 quers in the empire of truth, he shares with all; 
 while the man whose only estimate of wisdom is 
 profit, hates his contemporaries and grudges them 
 the light and sun which illumine them ; he guards 
 with jealous care the tottering barriers which feebly 
 defend him from the incursions of victorious truth ; 
 for whatever he undertakes, he is compelled to 
 c2 
 
28 
 
 borrow stimulus and encouragement from without, 
 while the philosophical spirit finds in its objects, 
 nay, even in its toils, excitement and reward. 
 
 With how much more ardour can the true lover of 
 knowledge set about his work, how much more lively 
 is his zeal, how much more persevering his courage 
 and activity, since each labour starts in all the fresh- 
 ness of youth from the bosom of its predecessor ! 
 The small acquires magnitude under his creative 
 hand, for he keeps the great steadily in his eye, and 
 all his conceptions are tinctured by it ; while the 
 empiric sees only minute details, — the small, even in 
 the greatest. Not what is his pursuit, but how he 
 handles whatever he pursues, distinguishes the philo- 
 sophical mind. Wherever he takes his station, what- 
 ever is the field of his activity, he always stands in 
 the centre of the Whole ; and, however widely the 
 object of his pursuit separates him from his brethren, 
 he is near arid allied to them by a mind working in 
 harmony with theirs. He meets them on that point 
 where all clear spirits find each other. 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 Salt is a very good condiment, but very bad food 
 This last sentiment comes from my heart. Never do 
 I feel more refreshed by serious passages than when 
 they occur amidst comic ones : as the green spots 
 amid the rocks and glaciers of Switzerland soothe the 
 
29 
 
 eye amid the glare and glitter of snow and ice. Hence 
 it is that the humour of the English, which is en- 
 grafted on the stem of lofty seriousness, has grown so 
 luxuriantly and overtopped that of all other nations. 
 
 A satire on every thing is a satire on nothing ; it 
 is mere absurdity. All contempt — all disrespect — 
 implies something respected, as a standard to which 
 it is referred ; just as every valley implies a hill. 
 The persiflage of the French and of fashionable 
 worldlings, which turns into ridicule the exceptions 
 and yet abjures the rules, is like Trinculo's govern- 
 ment — its latter end forgets its beginning. Can 
 there be a more mortal, poisonous consumption and 
 asphyxy of the mind, than this decline and extinction 
 of all reverence ? 
 
 Jean Paul. [Palingenesien.) 
 
 What are the aims which are at. the same time 
 duties ? They are, the perfecting of ourselves, the 
 happiness of others. 
 
 Kant. {Tugendlehre.) 
 
 Could not a language fettered by convenances 
 like the French, be republicanized by an authorita- 
 tive decree of the universal will ? The dominion of 
 language over mind is manifest, but it does not fol- 
 
30 
 
 low from thence that it is sacred and inviolate. The 
 assertion of such a claim is entitled to no more respect 
 than is now paid to the doctrine of the divine origin 
 of governments, which was formerly maintained to 
 be part of the law of nature. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 Among literary men, the gift of bearing to be con- 
 tradicted is, generally speaking, possessed only by 
 the dead. I will not go so far as to assert that, for 
 the sake of possessing it, we ought to wish ourselves 
 dead, for that is a price at which perhaps even 
 higher perfections would be too dearly purchased. 
 I will only say that it would be well if living authors 
 would learn to be externally somewhat dead. The 
 time will come when they must leave behind them a 
 posterity who will sever every thing accidental from 
 their reputation, and will be withheld by no rever- 
 ence from laughing at their faults. Why can they 
 not learn to endure by anticipation this posterity, 
 which every now and then reveals itself, heedless 
 whether they think it envious or unmannerly ? 
 
 Lessing. 
 
 Hate makes us vehement partisans, but love 
 still more so. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
31 
 
 LUTHER TO HIS COMPANIONS. 
 
 Grace and peace in Christ Jesus our Lord be 
 with you, dear sirs and friends ! I have received 
 all your letters, and understand therefrom how it 
 fares with you all. That you may be aware how it 
 fares with us, I hereby give you to know that we, 
 namely I, Master Veit and Cyriac, do not go to 
 the Diet at Augsburg : we are, however, here at- 
 tending another diet. 
 
 For know that just beneath our window is a 
 rookery in a small wood, and there do the rooks 
 and jackdaws hold their diet. There is such a 
 journeying to and fro, such a cry and clamour day 
 and night without any ceasing, as they were all 
 drunken ; and old and young chatter all at once, 
 that it is a marvel to me how voice and breath can 
 so long hold it ; and I would fain know whether, in 
 your parts, you have any such-like nobles and ca- 
 valiers. It seems to me that they are gathered to- 
 gether here from all the ends of the earth. 
 
 Their emperor I have not yet seen, but their no- 
 bles and their great merchants are for ever strutting 
 before our eyes, not, in truth, in very costly gar- 
 ments, but rather simply clad in one colour ; they 
 are all dressed in black ; all are grey-eyed, and all 
 sing the same song, save with some petty differences 
 
;32 
 
 of old and young, great and small. They reck not 
 of vast palace or stately hall, for their hall is roofed 
 with the fair wide heaven. The floor is the bare 
 field, strewed with dainty green twigs, and its walls 
 are as wide as the world's end. Nor do they need 
 steed or harness ; they have feathered wheels where- 
 with they escape from the fire of their enemies and 
 avoid their rage. There are high and mighty lords 
 amongst them ; but what they resolve I know not. 
 Thus much, however, have I gathered from an in- 
 terpreter ; that they have in hand a mighty expe- 
 dition and war against wheat, barley, oats, rye, and 
 all manner of corn and grain, and herein will many 
 win knighthood, and do great feats of arms. We also 
 sit here assembled in diet, and hear and see, with 
 great pleasure and delight, how the princes and 
 lords, together with the estates of the empire, so 
 gaily sing and make good cheer. But especial joy 
 have we when we see with how knightly an air they 
 strut, clean their bills, and attack the defences ; and 
 how they gain conquest and glory against wheat and 
 barley. We humbly salute them all, and wish that 
 they were all spitted on a hedgestake together. 
 
 I hold, however, that they are most like to the 
 sophists and papists, with their preaching and writing ; 
 for so would I fain have them all in a heap before 
 me, that I might hear all their sweet voices and 
 preachings, and might see how right useful a folk they 
 
3^ 
 
 are to consume all that the earth brings forth, and 
 to while away the heavy time in chattering. 
 
 Today we have heard the nightingale for the 
 first time ; for she would put no trust in April. It 
 has been right glorious weather all day, nor has it 
 rained at all, except yesterday a little. With you it 
 is perchance otherwise. 
 
 Herewith I commend you to God. Fare ye well ! 
 From the Diet of the Cornturks*, April 28, 1530. 
 
 The ideal of ethical perfection has no more dan- 
 gerous rival than the Ideal of the highest strength — 
 the most intense vital energy — which has been called 
 (rightly enough with reference to the literal mean- 
 ing of the term, but very falsely as regards that 
 which we now attach to it,) the Ideal of aesthetic 
 greatness. It is the maximum of barbarians, and 
 has, alas ! in these days of wild irregular culture, 
 obtained very numerous adherents, precisely among 
 the feeblest minds. Man, under the influence of 
 this Ideal, becomes an animal spirit, — a combination 
 whose brute intelligence possesses a brute attraction 
 for the weak. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 * Mälztürken. 
 
 c 5 
 
34 
 
 Ordinary people regard a man of a certain force 
 and inflexibility of character as they do a lion. They 
 look at him with a sort of wonder — perhaps they 
 admire him — but they will on no account house with 
 him. The lap-dog, who wags his tail, and licks the 
 hand, and cringes at the nod of every stranger, is a 
 much more acceptable companion to them. 
 
 Merkel. 
 
 The heart of man is older than his head. The 
 first-born is sensitive, but blind — his younger bro- 
 ther has a cold, but all-comprehensive glance. The 
 blind must consent to be led by the clear-sighted if 
 he would avoid falling. 
 
 Fred. Will. Ziegler. 
 
 The most reckless sinner against his own con- 
 science has always in the background the consola- 
 tion, that he will go on in this course only this 
 time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will 
 amend. We may be assured that we do not stand 
 clear with our own consciences so long as we deter- 
 mine, or project, or even hold it possible, at some fu- 
 ture time to alter our course of action. He who is 
 certain of his own conduct, feels perfectly confident 
 
35 
 
 that he cannot change it, nor the principles upon 
 which it is founded ; — that, on this point, his freedom 
 is gone, — that he is fixed for ever in these resolves. 
 
 FichU. 
 
 One solitary philosopher may be great, virtuous 
 and happy in the depth of poverty, but not a whole 
 people. 
 
 Isaak Iselin. 
 
 Is it then the involuntary sense of something 
 
 untrue which makes the world distrustful and incre- 
 dulous of the genuineness of tender emotions and 
 deep feelings ? Or is it from a general incapacity to 
 understand what love is, that it is generally ridiculed, 
 and never mentioned but with a sort of trivial irony, 
 the vulgarity of which is almost greater than its 
 offensiveness ? The answer I leave. At all events, 
 there is nothing which so cramps every flight of the 
 soul, as the mocking doubt of all that is unusual 
 and elevated. This necessarily begets falsehood, or 
 (what is as bad) that hard pride which contemns 
 public opinion. Offended earnestness, which can 
 never tolerate or forgive frivolous and empty jests, 
 avenges itself on folly and inanity by assuming an 
 attitude of haughty defiance. 
 
 The great world, or, as it is called, polite society, 
 
36 
 
 has put on a countenance of such youthful gaiety, 
 that the smallest cloud of deeper emotion necessarily 
 disturbs it. There is nothing by which a man makes 
 himself more tiresome or more ridiculous than by 
 allowing what passes within him to appear on the 
 surface ; by suffering his real nature to gleam through 
 the forms of society. Now any interference, whe- 
 ther kindly or offensively intended, with a man's per- 
 sonal relations, causes a sudden agitation which 
 makes too forcible an appeal to truth ; it cannot re- 
 main mute, it betrays itself. In order to avoid the 
 ridicule consequent upon this, he must laugh at his 
 own want of self-command. According as that is 
 done with good sense or with grace, social hypocrisy 
 acquires a tinge either of the humorous or the at- 
 tractive. But if timidity and awkwardness are min- 
 gled with false shame, and he endeavours to explain 
 away and to apologize for what was perhaps a solitary 
 indication of something really good, nothing remains 
 but the flattest common -places of the flattest persi- 
 flage. 
 
 Is it to be wondered that men of profound minds 
 withdraw with a contemptuous smile from fashion- 
 able society ? 
 
 Must this be so ? Must the higher classes thus 
 detach themselves from all others, like an isolated 
 piece of merely external life, which knows nothing, 
 and must know nothing, of the internal ? To wrest 
 
37 
 
 things out of their connexion and series, is to destroy 
 them. When the fibres which unite a being are 
 broken, it breathes no living breath, — it becomes a 
 caricature or a lie. 
 
 This state of things everybody has an interest in 
 preventing ; but especially women, whose vocation it 
 is to breathe over society a warm and vivifying breath, 
 and to render all isolation in it impossible. This 
 breath of apprehensiveness and enthusiasm, which 
 discovers and fans every congenial spirit even before 
 it is conscious of its own existence, ought to pervade 
 society, and to form a more genial atmosphere, in 
 which every bud and flower of feeling is not doomed 
 to instant death. If the influence of the female sex 
 is negative, it is yet of immense reality and strength, 
 from the mere fact that it acts by removing the 
 barriers opposed to the positive display of the intel- 
 lectual nature of man. 
 
 Women might at least tolerate the aspirations of a 
 lofty spirit, the development of enlarged and gene- 
 rous opinions, the kindlings of a living vigorous will 
 At least they might abstain from throwing ridicule 
 on the enthusiasm which is possible : at least they 
 might forgive youth if its quick fire flames up above 
 the low enclosures of the conventional. They know 
 not their own power ; they know not how and whence 
 they can elevate existence : they commonly know it 
 not even in detail, though they might, it should seem, 
 
38 
 
 observe how powerfully one single intelligent glance 
 of sympathy — the silent accompaniment and comple- 
 tion of half-formed thoughts, — may act on the gene- 
 ral direction of the mind and character ; how the 
 conviction of being understood and appreciated gives 
 wings to thoughts, and eagle pinions to exertions : 
 what it is to be able to look forward to praise and 
 honour, as a reward for every victory over low de- 
 sires. 
 
 There are eyes which need only to look up, to 
 touch every chord of a breast choked by the stifling 
 atmosphere of stiff and stagnant society, and to call 
 forth tones which might become the accompanying 
 music of a life. 
 
 This gentle transfusion of mind into mind is the 
 secret of sympathy. It is never understood, but ever 
 felt ; and where it is allowed to exert its power, it fills 
 and extends intellectual life far beyond the measure 
 of ordinary conception. 
 
 How many have known and forgotten instances of 
 such awakening ! Why do women present an atti- 
 tude of cold fashionableness to a world which they 
 might win by their sweetness, and inspire by their 
 virtue? Their light footsteps ought to touch the 
 earth, only to mark the track which leads to heaven. 
 
 Madame de la Motte. Fouque. (Die Frau der vornehmen Welt.) 
 
39 
 
 There are souls which fall from heaven like flow- 
 ers ; but ere the pure and fresh buds can open, they 
 are trodden in the dust of earth, and lie soiled and 
 crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 The artist belongs to his work, not the work to 
 the artist. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 Monastery of Sta Scolastica, Subiaco. 
 
 Somewhat more than a day's journey from Rome, 
 opposite to the luxuriantly garlanded ruins of the 
 Therms of Nero, on the barren summit of a rock 
 channelled by primeval waters, stands, in truly claus- 
 tral solitude, the eldest monastery of western Christ- 
 endom, — S. Benedicti ejusque sororis S t£E Scolasticse 
 virginis. Thirteen centuries bear witness to the 
 strength of a young and lowly girl, who, penetrated 
 with a feeling of the vanity of this world even before 
 she could have experienced it, and led by protecting 
 angels, felt herself nearer to God here in her rocky 
 cell, among serpents and young eagles, than amidst 
 all the majestic basilica of Rome. 
 
 Breathing the pure fresh air of the mountains, 
 under the blue sky of the south, you look down on a 
 
40 
 
 valley through which flow the green waters of the 
 Horatian Anio, and beyond it the nearer horizon is 
 girded by a fourfold chain of wooded hills, the loftier 
 tops of which are adorned with picturesque villages. 
 You see the sun go down behind the sere and barren 
 wall of rocks. Here I have once more had occasion 
 to feel how tranquilly life glides on in a cloister. 
 
 (MS. Letter.) 
 
 Be and continue poor, young man, while others 
 around you grow rich by fraud and disloyalty ; be 
 without place or power, while others beg their way 
 upward ; bear the pain of disappointed hopes, while 
 others gain the accomplishment of theirs by flattery ; 
 forego the gracious pressure of the hand, for which 
 others cringe and crawl. Wrap yourself in your own 
 virtue, and seek a friend, and your daily bread. If 
 you have, in such a course, grown gray with un- 
 blenched honour, bless God, and die. 
 
 Heinzelmann. 
 
 The most agreeable of all companions is a simple, 
 frank man, without any high pretensions to an op- 
 pressive greatness : one who loves life and under- 
 stands the use of it ; obliging, alike at all hours ; 
 above all, of a golden temper, and stedfast as an 
 
anchor. For such an one we gladly exchange the 
 greatest genius, the most brilliant wit, the profound- 
 est thinker. 
 
 Lessing. 
 
 Of all thieves fools are the worst, they rob you 
 of time and temper. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 VOYAGE DOWN THE DANUBE. 
 
 Vienna, July 20, 1819. 
 
 I arrived here last Saturday, after a voyage 
 down the Danube from Regensburg which lasted six 
 days. The Danube, especially from Lintz hither, is 
 so rapid that the boat could make the voyage in three 
 days at most, so that we lay to and rested at night. 
 A common passage-boat is detained for days by the 
 custom-house annoyances. From Lintz downwards 
 our boat made thirty miles (German) in two half- 
 days ; but I liked it all the better, as it gave me an op- 
 portunity of looking about and enjoying the view at 
 my leisure. If you have careful sailors, the multi- 
 tude of whirlpools (among which the Saurüssel is the 
 most magnificent) make the voyage a treat which I 
 enjoyed like an imperial banquet. 
 
 The build of such a passage-boat is so ludicrously 
 slight that, even before you know the danger, you 
 
42 
 
 go on board and look at it to see how the joke is to 
 end. It is all of deal cut with axe and saw, like a 
 sort of model ; without iron, cordage, canvas, tar, 
 pitch, anchor, or anything that is generally thought 
 necessary to work a vessel. There is a single cable 
 for mooring ; — mast and sail are out of the question, 
 since the tub imitates the progress of the Israelites 
 into the promised land. The seams are stuffed with 
 moss and regularly sewed together with wire. It is 
 about a hundred tons burthen, a hundred and twenty 
 feet long and sixteen or seventeen broad, and is quite 
 water-tight. Our company consisted of an Irish 
 doctor ; a German engraver, who held extraordinary 
 discourses on art, and was bearded about the mouth 
 and chin after the fashion of the middle ages; an 
 apothecary, a butcher, a sword-cutler, a capuchin 
 monk, women, children, travelling handicraftsmen 
 and your humble servant. The artisans, who were 
 to pay little or nothing for their passage, bound them- 
 selves to stand to the helm two hours at a time in 
 turns, but they were rather lazy about it. In the 
 cool of morning and evening I gave them a hand, 
 which made matters go on better, and at last even 
 the women and girls took a share in this hard labour. 
 A tailor had a dispensation, in consideration of sew- 
 ing on the buttons to our coats and breeches and 
 mending our linings and pockets ; some of the girls 
 washed our stockings and pocket-handkerchiefs. 
 
YS 
 
 This motley company was so gay and joyous that 
 the six days flew like six hours. The boatmen had 
 on board some of the best Bavarian beer ; meat and 
 bread and wine we could lay in fresh every morning ; 
 and in short we might have gone on in this way 
 to Peterwardin and wanted for nothing. For my 
 own particular, I was little tormented with custom- 
 house plagues. 
 
 Zelter. (Briefwechsel mit Goethe.) 
 
 The most perfect specimens of ordinary women 
 have a very acute and distinct perception of all the 
 boundary lines of every-day existence, and guard 
 themselves conscientiously from overstepping them. 
 Hence their well-known and remarkable uniformity. 
 They cannot bear excess, even in refinement, delicacy, 
 truth, virtue, passion. They delight in variety of the 
 common and accustomed. No new ideas — but new 
 clothes. Fundamental monotony — superficial ex- 
 citement. They love dancing, on account of its light, 
 vain and sensual character. The highest sort of wit 
 is insufferable to them — as well as the beautiful, the 
 great, the noble ; middling, or even bad books, actors, 
 pictures, and the like, delight them. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
44 
 
 This Ranz des Vaches at once awaked his 
 
 blooming childhood, and she arose out of the morn- 
 ing dew and out of her bower of rosebuds and slum- 
 bering flowers, and stepped before him in heavenly 
 beauty, and smiled innocently and with her thou- 
 sand hopes upon him, and said, " Look at me — how 
 beautiful I am ! We used to play together. I for- 
 merly gave thee many things — great riches, gay 
 meadows, and bright gold, and a fair long paradise 
 behind the mountains ; but now thou hast nothing 
 of all this left — and how pale thou art ! Oh play 
 with me again ! " 
 
 Before which of us has not childhood been a 
 thousand times called up by music ? and to which 
 of us has she not spoken, and asked — " Are the 
 rosebuds which I gave thee not yet blown ?" Alas ! 
 blown indeed they are — but they were pale, whit 
 roses. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 Shame is a feeling of profanation. Friendship, 
 love and piety, ought to be handled with a sort of 
 mysterious secrecy ; they ought to be spoken of only 
 in the rare moments of perfect confidence — to be mu- 
 tually understood in silence. Many things are too 
 delicate to be thought — many more, to be spoken. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
45 
 
 Extract from a Discourse on the Advantage of Dialects in the 
 Greek Language, spoken at Munich, October 12th, 1808. 
 
 The land of ancient Greece has indeed utterly 
 deserted those boundaries which formerly encircled 
 its free and intelligent inhabitants. The life of the 
 most vivacious and active of all people is extinct. 
 Her cities, once the resort of high and unequalled 
 virtues, the worthy abode of gods, the rich garden 
 of every art, are sunk into melancholy villages, in 
 which an ignorant and needy people heedlessly 
 build their hovels on the ruins of antiquity, without 
 any reverential sentiment — almost without any re- 
 collection of the heroic times of which those stones 
 yet bear witness. The ancient streams, some of 
 which still retain their former names, glide mourn- 
 fully through a desert country ; the gods who dwelt 
 on their banks and in their grottos, have departed 
 from them, and the wondrous songs which recounted 
 the story of every fount and hill and grove, to the 
 ears of a free and susceptible people, are all hushed. 
 
 Their strong and manly, their tender and graceful 
 language survives only in a faint and melancholy 
 dissonance. But what that ancient land and her 
 degenerate inhabitants no longer afford, the me- 
 mory of the days of her glory still affords in rich 
 abundance. Still do the deeds of Grecian antiquity 
 live in all hearts ; still are the remains of her art the 
 
If, 
 
 joy of the world, — the possession of them the pride 
 of the conqueror ; still do the noblest minds drink 
 from the exhaustless fountains of her science ; still 
 are congenial spirits enkindled at the flame of her 
 genius : and as of yore her pious sons sought instruc- 
 tion and comfort at the sanctuary of her oracles, so 
 does every noble mind, whose aspirations the pre- 
 sent fails to satisfy, seek comfort and tranquillity in 
 the calm asylum of Hellenic wisdom. Here does 
 her language still bloom in the immortal charms of 
 its youthful and manly beauty ; and as the spirit of 
 Grecian antiquity reigns over the whole domain of 
 modern art and science, so does her language breathe 
 over us an air of higher and more finished perfection. 
 Wheresoever this vivifying breath has been felt, it 
 has elevated all minds, has unfolded the blossoms of 
 beauty and ennobled the tones of language. 
 
 Fr. Jacobs. 
 
 ROMAN ART. 
 
 As the whole collective history of civilized man 
 (with the exception of India) was now concentred 
 in Rome, so likewise was that of Art. But this was 
 solely the result of the political supremacy of Rome, 
 not of her artistical talent. The Romans, although 
 intimately allied to the Greeks, were made of a sterner, 
 harder and less finely-organized stuff. Their minds 
 
*7 
 
 were constantly turned toward those external rela- 
 tions of men by which their actions are generally 
 regulated and determined (or, as we should say, to 
 practical life) ; at first, more to those which regard 
 the community (i. e. the political) ; afterwards, when 
 freedom had perished, to those which concern in- 
 dividuals in their intercourse with each other, and 
 especially to those grounded on the relation of men 
 to worldly possessions. To maintain, to increase, to 
 secure the res familiaris, was nowhere regarded so 
 strongly in the light of a duty as here. The careless 
 ease, the playful freedom of mind which, abandoning 
 itself absolutely to internal impulses, gives birth to 
 the arts, was a stranger to the Romans. Religion 
 too, in Greece the mother of art, was, among the 
 Romans, both in her earlier form of an emanation 
 from Etruscan discipline, and in her later, when 
 the deification of ethico-political ideas prevailed, 
 systematically practical. This practical spirit was 
 however connected in the Romans with a grandeur 
 of mind which contemned everything petty and half- 
 formed, which met all the necessities of life by vast 
 and effective undertakings, and hence maintained the 
 glory of at least one of the arts — Architecture. 
 
 Ottfried Müller. (Handbuch der Archäologie.) 
 
48 
 
 I know not whether deluding spirits haunt 
 
 this spot, or if it be only my own warm and bright 
 fancy that gives every thing around me the hue of 
 paradise. Just before me is a fountain, to which 
 I am spell-bound, like Melusina and her sisters. 
 You go down a little hill and find yourself in front 
 of an arch, to which you descend by about twenty 
 steps, and there a spring of the most limpid water 
 gushes out from between marble rocks. The low 
 wall which forms its enclosure, the high trees that 
 overshadow it, the coolness of the place, — all con- 
 spire to give it the captivation and the solemnity 
 of enchanted ground. Not a day passes in which I 
 do not sit there an hour. Thither come the maidens 
 of the town to fetch water— the most innocent of 
 occupations, and the most necessary — once the em- 
 ployment of kings' daughters. As I sit there, the 
 images of patriarchal manners live and move before 
 me. The venerable fathers of the race meet and 
 converse, woo and give in marriage, and every 
 fount and rill is the haunt of beneficent spirits. 
 
 He who cannot sympathize with me can never 
 have known what it is to sit by the cool and gushing 
 waters, after the toilsome wanderings of a summer's 
 day. 
 
 Goethe. (Leiden des jungen Werthers.) 
 
49 
 
 THE BLIND GIRL. 
 
 " The blind Agnes was sitting by a clear brook ; — 
 I can never forget that evening ; the brook glittered 
 along the winding valley, and the stars and the moon 
 played in the pearly waves at the feet of the blind 
 girl, and either bank was fringed with a thicket, the 
 bowery home of the nightingales. As I came nearer 
 — how was it, Hermione ? " 
 
 " You heard, then, a friend reading to her by moon- 
 light out of ' Thomson's Seasons.' " 
 
 "And sweetly she read, but soft and low. At 
 my voice — physiognomy to the blind — the dark 
 one knew me and presented her friend to me, who 
 immediately lifted up her long veil. I had seen her 
 once before ; you must know where, reverend sir ? " 
 
 "In a convent at which the emperor after- 
 wards suppressed. The recommendation of an ab- 
 bot, to whom I had introduced a priest who could 
 read mass more rapidly than any other priest living, 
 opened my path to the refectory, where, out of all 
 the nuns, who were generally too fat, only one 
 pleased me; and she was neither the one nor the 
 other, for she was a novice — this very friend of the 
 blind girl. I shall never forget that gentle, pale, 
 serene face, with a wooden trencher on which were 
 only lentils, set before it for mortification's sake." 
 
 " So strange are we men ; I should much more 
 
 D 
 
so 
 
 willingly see a lovely creature suffer, sigh and weep 
 bitter tears from fruitless love of me, for two whole 
 days, than endure that she should have to eat a mi- 
 serable piece of ashen bread, or wear a garment of 
 humiliation or a girdle of hair-cloth, or do penance 
 by a walk of three miles on my account." 
 
 " Do you relate the rest, Hermione ; you had it 
 from me." 
 
 " You told me, further, that the good Agnes was 
 more cheerful than the nun, and willingly alluded to 
 her misfortune, which you would not have expected." 
 
 " Yes, for women speak, while we men are silent, 
 about griefs ; we always turn over the leaves of the 
 romance of our lives, to get at the pleasantest pic- 
 tures and the last chapter. But go on." 
 
 " The good girl hung a black gauze over her dea 
 eyes, out of consideration for others. She always 
 looked at you when you spoke, but it was only the 
 voice she sought. You asked her what the British 
 scene-painter of nature (that was your expression), 
 or, indeed, what a fine evening, could be to her ? 
 She said she enjoyed a cheerful day as much as any 
 one ; that the air was purer and fresher, the song 
 and call of the birds clearer, and the gurgling and 
 rustling of the brook and leaves more pleasant ; and 
 when all this entered her watchful soul, she rejoiced 
 to its inmost depths without knowing wherefore." 
 
 " Who, then, can help being, as I am, ashamed 
 
51 
 
 and repentant at the murmurings in which we often 
 pass a few cloudy days, when he thinks of the con- 
 tented spirit which is blessed even through all its 
 wholly benighted ones ? But blindness, though a 
 polar winter without day, in this resembles the 
 night, — that it softens and stills ; the blind is a 
 a child whom its mother, Nature, has fashioned 
 darkling for the deepest tranquillity. Like a man in 
 a balloon, high above the clouds, the hermit-blind 
 knows only voices and sounds ; but the bewildering, 
 gaudy shows of life, the low, hateful and hating 
 forms, full of wounds and scars, are hidden under the 
 thick cloud which enwraps him." 
 
 Jean Paul. (Titan.) 
 
 The noble merchant character — the genuine spirit 
 of commerce — existed only in the middle ages, espe- 
 cially in the German Hanse towns. The Medici, the 
 Fugger, were merchants ; our merchants, the great- 
 est not excepted, are shop-keepers. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 LETTER FROM JACOBI TO HEINSE. 
 
 " But what I most wish to tell you of, my 
 
 kind-hearted Heinse, and can least find words to de- 
 scribe, is the infinite felicity I felt at being once again 
 d2 
 
52 
 
 in my own Pempelfort. When I drove into the court- 
 yard, it was as if the gates of paradise opened to me. 
 In a moment I saw Betty, and behind her Frank, 
 Max and Clara, flying toward me. The two eldest, 
 whom I brought home with me, threw open the 
 carriage-doors on each side and sprang out to meet 
 their mother. There was such a rush and confusion 
 of kisses and embraces, as if we were all blind. In 
 the midst of it however I could hear my children 
 exclaiming to each other between their kisses, Do 
 you know me ? Do you ? and you ? Yes, you are 
 such-an-one, and you such-an-one. My name is 
 Clara, — I am Max. Meanwhile my brother and 
 sister had joined us; and now the whole troop pro- 
 ceeded to greet the old grandfather, who was deeply- 
 moved and knew not how to support the joy. 
 
 " My delight increased every hour. For eleven 
 weeks I had had neither peace nor rest ; I had been 
 — pardon my impudent comparison — like Orpheus 
 torn in pieces by the Bacchanals. I had longed for 
 freedom and quiet with the most intense, passionate 
 longing. Here I find both — find them, surrounded 
 with every charm. My distracted, exhausted mind 
 is already, as if by a miracle, collected, refreshed, 
 strengthened. Yes, my dearest friend, it was just as 
 if I stood on the spot whither all the departed powers 
 of my life had fled, and they thronged around me in 
 a celestial dance. My cheerful dwelling, which ad- 
 
53 
 
 mits every ray of sunshine — my favourite garden, 
 crowded by the care of the sturdy Louis with all the 
 late-blooming plants of the four quarters of the globe 
 — all, all, enchants me, and the longer I am here the 
 more I am delighted. I have been incessantly re- 
 viewing my possessions, and I could not measure 
 them. The whole world was mine. Even the sun 
 and moon in the high heavens shine with so peculiar 
 a lustre on my own dear home, that it always seems 
 to me as if they belonged to it — as if they were mine 
 — like the ground — like the trees I planted, — and as 
 if the rest of mankind borrowed light of me. Dear 
 friend, and thus has it been with me every day since 
 my return ; and thus is it again today. Even when 
 my flowers are withered and my trees stripped of 
 their leaves, — when a gloomy mist clouds air and 
 earth and robs me of half the already shortened 
 day, — even then I am joyous and cheerful : I see in 
 all these only the quick-revolving year, and the ap- 
 proaching spring which returns to me every time in 
 increased beauty — yes, in increased beauty, dear 
 Heinse : — you shall see it, if you will but come, 
 and you shall find my heart warmer, more frank, 
 more open, stronger, better. Oh ! what a shout of 
 joy, if I could but once more press you to it — once 
 more have you and hold you ! " 
 
 Jacobi. 
 
54 
 
 It is alleged that English and German tragedies 
 contain so many shocks to good taste. French tra- 
 gedies are one single and entire shock. For what 
 can be more repugnant to good taste than to write 
 and to delineate what is completely out of nature ? 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 the artist to his pupil. 
 
 My dear Emilius, 
 
 I am anxious before we part to speak with you 
 once more, and to repeat to you in writing what I 
 have such countless times sought to impress upon 
 your heart still more urgently and distinctly by word 
 of mouth. That you were my pupil, sufficed to in- 
 spire me with a feeling of duty as to your character 
 and conduct generally; for I cannot separate the 
 Art from the Man, who should learn to reverence 
 the whole of an existence dedicated to her. 
 
 You know how I despise that so-called geniality 
 which regards the life of an artist as a letter of license 
 for every extravagance, for every offence against 
 morality and against what is most venerable in civil 
 society. There is no question but that the rejection 
 of all restraint excites the fancy, or that the inten- 
 tional and necessary abandonment of the mind to 
 every gay dream but too easily comes to infect the 
 
55 
 
 whole of practical life. It is but too sweet to float 
 along unresisting with the stream. But here the true 
 strength of the man must be proved ; it must be 
 seen whether he rules the spirits, and only permits 
 them to display their power and activity within the 
 circle he prescribes to. them, or whether he is pos- 
 sessed by them, and whirled about in the frenzied 
 mazes of an Indian fakeer. 
 
 The first and most potent spell by which to ele- 
 vate their promptings into pure inspirations, is per- 
 severing industry. How foolish is it to imagine that 
 the earnest study of means cripples the genius ! It 
 is only from a mastery of them that free creative 
 power can emanate ; it is only when familiar with all 
 the paths which have already been trodden, and 
 moving with ease in them, that the mind can discover 
 new ones. 
 
 For more than two years I gave you instruction. 
 All the experience that heaven had permitted me to 
 acquire I have laid bare before you, with that joy 
 with which one spares a friend the labour one has 
 gone through oneself. Can I now part from you 
 with the tranquillizing assurance that you have 
 thoroughly possessed yourself of all this ? Can I say, 
 here stands one who has learnt his business, and who 
 can answer all the demands that the world and cir- 
 cumstances may make upon his productive talent ? 
 Can I feel secure that the ground-work is firm ? 
 
56 
 
 Dear Emilius, you have so much acuteness, so 
 much ambition, so much talent, — you will sin against 
 God, your parents, art, yourself and me, if you give 
 yourself up longer to this dreamy intoxication ; if 
 you do not learn to live for the world and in the 
 world with stedfast perseverance in good, and with 
 that order which alone gives warrant of a soul truly 
 devoted to honour. Your uncertainty, your disre- 
 gard of every promise and every engagement, is 
 become proverbial among all your acquaintances. It 
 is the grace and glory of a man to be the slave of 
 his word. Delude not yourself with the notion that 
 you may be untrue and uncertain in trifles, and in 
 important things the contrary. Trifles make up ex- 
 istence, and give the observer the measure by which 
 to try us ; and the fearful power of habit, after a 
 time, suffers not the best will to ripen into action. 
 
 My dear Emilius, whatever pain the repetition of 
 all this may give you, it gives me much more. You 
 are become a part of myself — you are so near to me ; 
 and must I again say such things to you ? 
 
 But I commit you to Him who leads all to good. 
 In every life there are critical turns which determine 
 the colour of all the remainder. Let this be such an 
 one. Impose on yourself wants which may call out 
 your art ; place your honour in being independent, 
 and you will feel yourself richly indemnified and re- 
 warded for every privation. 
 
57 
 
 I embrace you from my heart, and give you my 
 sincerest good wishes as companions of your way. 
 May you give the lie to all my fears, and hereafter 
 be able to reach out your hand to me from above 
 me. 
 
 Heaven's best blessings be upon you. 
 
 Your faithful teacher and friend, 
 
 c. M. V. WEBER. 
 
 (Hinterlassene Schriften. ) 
 
 Enthusiasm is always connected with the senses, 
 whatever be the object that excites it. The true 
 strength of virtue is serenity of mind, combined witli 
 a deliberate and stedfast determination to execute 
 her laws. That is the healthful condition of the moral 
 life ; on the other hand, enthusiasm, even when ex- 
 cited by representations of goodness, is a brilliant 
 but feverish glow which leaves only exhaustion and 
 languor behind. 
 
 Kant. (Tugendlehre.) 
 
 Every thing that tends to emancipate us from 
 external restraint, without adding to our own power 
 of self-government, is mischievous. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
58 
 
 Was then the migration of tribes and the 
 
 consequent state of society in the middle ages, a 
 necessary antecedent of our better times ? 
 
 Asia can resolve us this question. Why did not 
 free Greek states flourish in the track of Alexander's 
 expeditions ? Why do we see China, condemned to 
 a melancholy stability, grow old in eternal childhood ? 
 Because Alexander conquered with humanity : be- 
 cause the small band of his Greeks were lost among 
 the millions of the great king. Because the hordes 
 of Mantchu were imperceptible in the huge territory 
 of China. They subjected only men ; laws and 
 manners, religion and the constitution of the state, 
 remained victorious. For countries despotically 
 governed there is no salvation save in complete 
 overthrow. Lenient conquerors only transplant 
 fresh tribes among them, nourish the sickly body, 
 and perpetuate its disease. That the infected land 
 might not poison the healthful conqueror, — that the 
 German in Gaul might not sink into a Roman, as 
 the Greek in Babylon degenerated into a Persian, 
 it was necessary that the form which might be dan- 
 gerous to his imitative spirit should be shivered in 
 pieces, and that he should remain in every respect 
 the strongest, on the new theatre which he now trod. 
 
 Schiller. 
 
59 
 
 GERMANY, AS SEEN BY A POET. 
 
 In those days we had more remains of the 
 
 old times before our eyes. The traveller found mo- 
 nasteries, ecclesiastical principalities, free imperial 
 cities : many ancient buildings were not as yet pulled 
 down or ruined ; many works of elder German art 
 not yet torn away ; many customs handed down 
 from the middle ages yet remaining : the popular 
 festivals had more of character and joyousness; and 
 at every few miles he found different manners, dif- 
 ferent buildings, a different form of society. To 
 see, to feel all these varieties, and to bring them to- 
 gether into one picture, was formerly my project. 
 To investigate what peculiar and characteristic re- 
 mains of painting, sculpture, and architecture our 
 country possesses ; what are the manners and con- 
 stitutions of each province and city ; to correct the 
 misrepresentations of our modern, trivial history- 
 writers, to show what aspect of nature surrounds 
 each race of men, fashions it, and is fashioned by 
 it ; — all this such a work ought to accomplish. 
 
 I would defend, against vulgar jeers and gibes, the 
 noble race of Austrians, who, in their fruitful land 
 and amid their enchanting hills, preserve unchanged 
 their antique joyousness of heart ; I would praise the 
 warlike and pious Bavarians ; paint the friendly, sen- 
 sible, inventive Suabians, in the garden of their beau- 
 
60 
 
 tiful country ; the animated, gay Franconians, in the 
 romantic, varied scenery of their province, of which 
 Bamberg was formerly the German Rome ; the in- 
 telligent dwellers along the banks of the lordly Rhine ; 
 the brave, honest Hessians ; the handsome Thurin- 
 gians, whose forest-clad mountains still wear the 
 character and aspect of knightly times ; the Low 
 Germans, who resemble the true-hearted Hollander 
 and the energetic Englishman: — at every remark- 
 able spot of the land of our fathers would I recall 
 ancient histories. And thus did I think to wander 
 amid all the hills and valleys of our noble country, 
 once so flourishing and so great, watered by the 
 Rhine and the Danube, and the stream of old tradi- 
 tions ; guarded by lofty mountains, frowning castles, 
 and by the brave German heart ; garlanded with 
 green meadows, the abode of love and confidence 
 and single-mindedness. 
 
 Truly he to whom it is given in such a manner to 
 paint the country of his birth and his affections, out 
 of his own most deep and immediate feelings, and 
 wholly without affectation, — such an one will have 
 conceived a work of the most enchanting poetry. 
 
 Tiech. (Phantasus.) 
 
 Modern poets put a great deal of water in their 
 k Goethe. 
 
61 
 
 Not only is it very difficult to find truth, but 
 when we have found, we are forced to deny it. 
 
 Rahel. 
 
 THE HARTZ MINERS. 
 
 Quiet and monotonous as the life of these people 
 appears, it is nevertheless a true living life. The aged 
 palsied woman who sat by the stove, over against 
 the large cupboard, may have sat there a quarter of 
 a century, and her thoughts and feelings have doubt- 
 less grown into every corner of this stove and into 
 every rude carving of this cupboard. And the stove 
 and the cupboard live, for a human being has infused 
 into them a portion of its own soul. 
 
 It was this life of contemplation — of immediate per- 
 ceptions — that gave birth to the German Märchen*, 
 the peculiarity of which consists in this, — that not 
 only animals and plants, but also objects apparently 
 destitute of all life, speak and act. To the thought- 
 ful and simple people in the quiet, contented privacy 
 of their lowly cottages on mountain or in forest, the 
 inward life of such objects revealed itself; they ac- 
 
 * Popular story. We have not a corresponding word. Fairy 
 tale is too exclusive, since in those here especially mentioned 
 there are no fairies. Story or tale is, on the other hand, too gene- 
 ral, for the marvellous is a necessary element of the Märchen. — 
 Translator. 
 
quired an indelible and consistent character, a charm- 
 ing mixture of fantastic humour and thoroughly 
 human dispositions. And so we see them in the 
 Märchen, in which the wildest wonders are told in 
 the easy matter-of-course style of daily occurrences : 
 needles and pins come out of the tailor's shed and 
 lose themselves in the dark ; straws and bits of char- 
 coal try to cross the brook and are cast away ; the 
 shovel and the broom stand upon the step and 
 quarrel and fight ; the questioned looking-glass 
 shows the face of the prettiest girl, and drops of 
 blood begin to speak mysterious fearful words of 
 anxious pity. 
 
 From the same cause is our life in childhood so 
 infinitely significant ; at that age every thing is of 
 importance to us ; we hear every thing, see every- 
 thing, and all our impressions are vivid; whereas 
 at a later age we do every thing with design, and 
 we lose in depth what we gain in extension of im- 
 pressions. Now, we are grown up gentlemen and 
 ladies ; we frequently change our dwelling, the house- 
 maid daily clears every thing away, and alters at her 
 will the position of the furniture, which has little 
 interest for us, as it is either new, or it belongs 
 today to John, tomorrow to Peter ; our very clothes 
 are strangers; we hardly know how many buttons 
 there are on the coat upon our back; we change 
 our clothes as often as possible, so that not one of 
 
63 
 
 them remains connected with our inward or outward 
 history ; — scarcely can we recollect the appearance 
 of that brown waistcoat which once brought so much 
 ridicule upon us, and upon whose broad stripes the 
 dear hand of our beloved rested so kindly. 
 
 The old woman by the stove, over against the great 
 cupboard, wore a flowered petticoat of faded stuff, 
 the wedding garment of her mother. Her great 
 grandson, a fair-haired, bright-eyed boy, dressed as 
 a miner, sat at her feet and counted the flowers on 
 her petticoat ; and she has most likely told him many 
 a grave and pretty story about this petticoat, which 
 the boy will not soon forget, which will often float 
 before his fancy when, as a full-grown man, he is at 
 his dark and solitary work under ground, and which 
 he will perhaps tell, when the dear old grandmother 
 has been long dead, and he, a silver-haired, feeble 
 old man, sits in the midst of his grandchildren, near 
 the stove, over against the great cupboard. 
 
 Heinrich Heine. {Reisebilder.) 
 
 .... But man is higher than his dwelling-place ; 
 he looks up and unfolds the wings of his soul, and 
 when the sixty minutes which we call sixty years 
 have passed, he takes flight, kindling as he rises, 
 and the ashes of his feathers fall back to earth, and 
 
64 
 
 the unveiled soul, freed from its covering of clay, 
 and pure as a tone, ascends on high. Even in the 
 midst of the dim shadows of life, he sees the moun- 
 tains of the future world gilded with the morning 
 rays of a sun which rises not here below. 
 
 So the inhabitant of polar regions looks into the 
 long night in which there is no sun-rise ; but at mid- 
 night he sees a light like the first rosy rays of dawn, 
 gleaming on the highest mountain tops, — and he 
 thinks of his long summer in which it never sets. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 Within these few days the Vicar of Wakefield 
 
 fell accidentally into my hands ; I could not help 
 reading the charming book again from beginning to 
 end, — not a little affected by the lively recollection 
 how much I had been indebted to the author seventy 
 years ago. It is not to be described the effect which 
 Goldsmith and Sterne had upon me, just at the cri- 
 tical moment of mental development. That lofty 
 and benevolent irony — that fair and indulgent view 
 of all errors — that meekness under all calamities — 
 that equanimity under all changes and chances — 
 and the whole train of kindred virtues, whatever 
 names they bear, formed my best education ; and, 
 in the end, these are the thoughts and feelings which 
 have reclaimed us from all the errors of life. 
 
65 
 
 It is remarkable, by the bye, that Yorick inclines 
 to the formless, while Goldsmith is all form ; and 
 accordingly I then gave myself up entirely to him, 
 because the worthy Germans had persuaded them- 
 selves that the peculiar characteristic of true humour 
 was formlessness. 
 
 ***** 
 
 But I must now lead you into opposite regions ; 
 for I must briefly report, that, in the whirlpool of the 
 literature of the day, I have been dragged into the 
 bottomless abyss of horrors of the recent French 
 romance-literature. I will say in one word — it is a 
 literature of despair. In order to produce a momen- 
 tary effect, the very contrary of all that should be 
 held up to man for his safety or his comfort is 
 brought before the reader, who at last knows not 
 whither to fly or how to save himself. To push the 
 hideous, the revolting, the cruel, the base, in short, the 
 whole brood of the vile and abandoned, to impossi- 
 bility, is their Satanic task. One may, and must, say 
 task ; for there is at the bottom a profound study of 
 old times, by-gone events and circumstances, remark- 
 able and intricate plots, and incredible facts ; so that 
 it is impossible to call such a work either empty or 
 bad. And this task even men of remarkable talents 
 have undertaken ; — clever, eminent men, men of mid- 
 dle age, who feel themselves damned henceforward to 
 occupy themselves with these abominations. 
 
66 
 
 ***** 
 Everything true — everything aesthetical, is gradu- 
 ally and necessarily excluded from this literature. 
 Victor Hugo's ' Notre Dame de Paris ' strikes by the 
 merit of industrious, well-applied study of old loca- 
 lities, manners, and events ; but in the acting figures 
 there is not a single trace of natural life. They are 
 lay-men and women, skilfully constructed after due 
 proportions; but, under the skeleton of wood and 
 steel, they are only stuffed dolls, which the author 
 handles most unmercifully — twists and tortures them 
 into the strangest postures — racks and flogs them— 
 tears them, body and mind ; — it is true it is a lifeless, 
 fleshless thing that he mangles so inhumanly. All 
 this is done with extraordinary historical and rhetori- 
 cal talent and an undeniable vivacity of imagination, 
 without which, indeed, he could not produce such 
 atrocities. 
 
 Goethe. {Briefwechsel mit Zelter.) 
 
 Those who completely sacrifice themselves are 
 praised and admired ; that is the sort of character 
 men like to find in others. 
 
 Rahel ; Madame de Farnhagen. 
 
67 
 
 ASPECTS OF NATURE. 
 
 We stand in as many and as immeasurably dif- 
 ferent relations to nature as to man : and as to the 
 child she shows herself childlike and bends benignly 
 down to his infant heart, so to the god she shows her- 
 self godlike and attunes herself to his high spirit. 
 We cannot say that there is one nature, without say- 
 ing something excessive, exaggerated; and all at- 
 tempts to arrive at truth by discussions and conver- 
 sations about nature, do but remove us farther from 
 the natural. Much is already gained, when the effort 
 fully to understand nature ennobles itself into a long- 
 ing — a tender and humble longing, which even the 
 cold, reserved temper soon learns to delight in, if 
 once it feels secure of a more intimate acquaintance 
 with her. There is a secret attraction toward all 
 points, diverging from an infinitely deep centre within 
 us. As wondrous nature, sensible and insensible, 
 lies round about us, we think every one of her fea- 
 tures an exercise of this attractive power, a manifes- 
 tation of the sympathy which exists between her and 
 us ; but behind those blue, distant mountains, one 
 man seeks the home which they veil from his sight, 
 the beloved of his youth, parents, brothers, sisters, 
 old friends, dear recollections ; — another thinks that, 
 far on the other side, unknown glories await him ; he 
 believes that a future, full of life and beauty, lies 
 
68 
 
 hidden there, and he stretches his hands wistfully 
 toward that new world. Some few stand motionless 
 and serene in the midst of the glorious spectacle ; 
 they seek to embrace it in its fulness and concatena- 
 tion, but they forget not in the whole that radiant 
 thread which runs through and enlinks its parts, and 
 forms the holy crown of light ; such spirits are blessed 
 in the contemplation of this living and more than 
 midnight depth of all-pervading beauty. 
 
 Thus arise manifold ways of viewing nature ; and if, 
 in some, sensibility to her beauty is a joyous sensa- 
 tion — a banquet, in others we see it transformed into 
 the most reverential religion, giving direction, support 
 and significancy to the whole of life. Even in the 
 infancy of nations, such deep and earnest spirits have 
 been found, to whom nature wore the countenance 
 of Deity ; while other gay and joyous hearts thought 
 of her only as a host, at whose bounteous table they 
 might freely seat themselves. To them, the free air 
 was a cordial drink ; the stars, lamps to illumine the 
 nightly dance ; plants and animals, costly and deli- 
 cate viands : and thus did nature present herself to 
 their minds, not as a still and awful temple, but as a 
 plenteous kitchen and merry banqueting-hall. 
 
 In an intermediate class between these two were 
 others, whose view of nature, though differing from 
 the last, had yet reference to the senses alone. These 
 saw in actual nature only a vast, but as yet wild and 
 
69 
 
 unreclaimed park or pleasure-ground, and were busied, 
 day and night, in creating patterns of a more refined 
 and perfect nature. They divided themselves into 
 companies for the accomplishment of the great work. 
 Some sought to awaken mute and forgotten tones in 
 air and wood ; others stamped their conceptions and 
 images of more beautiful forms on brass or stone ; 
 built up from the rock more stately piles for dwell- 
 ings ; brought to light hidden treasures from the 
 clefts of the earth ; tamed the wayward and lawless 
 streams ; peopled the inhospitable sea ; carried plants 
 of long-known and excellent virtue into desart zones ; 
 checked the wild overspread of forests and tended 
 the nobler flowers and herbs ; opened the earth to the 
 life-giving motions of generative air and enkindling 
 light ; taught colours to blend and arrange themselves 
 in beautiful pictures, and wood and meadow, foun- 
 tain and rock, to unite in one lovely garden ; breathed 
 tones into the living members, unfolded their my- 
 sterious connexion, and taught them to move in live- 
 lier and more joyous vibrations ; adopted the defence- 
 less animals which were susceptible of some touch of 
 human culture, and cleared the woods of those noxi- 
 ous beasts which seemed like the monstrous births of 
 a distempered fancy. 
 
 Soon did nature assume a kindlier aspect : she was 
 softer, and more refreshing, and willingly hearkened 
 to all the wishes of man. By degrees, her heart be- 
 
70 
 
 gan to have a human motion ; her fancies were 
 brighter ; she became social, and freely replied to the 
 friendly inquirer; and so the golden age appeared to 
 be gradually returning, when she was the friend, the 
 comforter, the priestess of men ; when she lived 
 among them, and her divine society and intercourse 
 raised them into immortals. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 How did he long after the learning and the 
 
 teachers of whose existence he had a dim presen- 
 timent ! But so much the better ! It is only hunger 
 that digests, it is only love that fertilizes ; the sigh of 
 longing is the aura seminalis which must quicken the 
 Orpheus egg of knowledge. This you bethink not 
 yourselves of, you expeditious teachers, who give 
 your children drink before you give them thirst — 
 who grant young souls no quiet hours — but, like un- 
 skilful vine-dressers, are ever busy about the young 
 vines, trimming, manuring, and pruning them even 
 in the season of their blossoming. And now, after 
 having driven them untimely, and with unripe organs, 
 into the great empire of truth and beauty, thus blunt- 
 ing them against lovely nature, can you in any way 
 compensate to them for that Great Year which they 
 would have lived, if they had grown up, like the new- 
 created Adam, and looked around the magnificent 
 intellectual world with open, thirsty mind ? Hence 
 
71 
 
 is it that your pupils are so like footpaths, which 
 in spring are green the earliest, but afterwards are 
 but a sere and yellow track through the blooming 
 meadow. Jean Paul. 
 
 The fact is indisputable. Our popular schools 
 are not only unsatisfactory, and wholly inadequate 
 to the cultivation of those natural powers of which 
 man, in a state of society, stands in need ; they have, 
 in many respects, been positive obstacles in the way 
 of the purely psychological development of those 
 powers. For even the faculties which have been 
 regarded as the most important and valuable have 
 been subjected to a training, in which knowledge is 
 forced into the mind without any exercise of the 
 powers of thought or feeling; the superficial ac- 
 quirement of so-called truths has been preferred to 
 the inculcation of principles, or the practice of the 
 arts of life ; and the true and real development of the 
 innate faculties of man has been rendered subordinate 
 to useless and showy accomplishments. 
 
 Pestalozzi. 
 
 Notes to a poem are like anatomical lectures on 
 a savoury joint. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
72 
 
 A certain degree of solitude seems necessary to 
 the full growth and spread of the highest mind ; and 
 therefore must a very extensive intercourse with men 
 stifle many a holy germ, and scare away the gods, 
 who shun the restless tumult of noisy companies and 
 the discussion of petty interests. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 THE CHURCHYARD. 
 
 They went out. The heavens were un- 
 clouded. All the streets of the city of God, lighted 
 with suns, stretched upwards from the narrow cross- 
 ways of the town to that broad amphitheatre of 
 night in which we breathe the blue aether and drink 
 the night wind. Every social festival ought to be 
 closed and consecrated by a visit to that wide, cool 
 temple, on whose vaulted roof the star-mosaic forms 
 the mighty and sacred image of the Most Holy. 
 
 They sauntered along, refreshed and elevated by 
 the swift-winged, spring-like breezes which sweep 
 the snow from the mountains. All nature gave the 
 promise of a mild winter ; — such a winter as leads 
 the poor gently over the darkest quarter of the year 
 without fuel ; such a winter as the wealthy regret, 
 because it furnishes no snow for their gay sledge- 
 parties. 
 
73 
 
 The two men fell into a discourse suited to the 
 sublime aspect of the night. Lenette said nothing. 
 " How near and how small," exclaimed Firmian, 
 " do those pitiful oyster-beds, the villages, lie toge- 
 ther! yet when we travel from one to the other, 
 the way appears to us as long as to a mite which 
 creeps from one name to another on a map ; perhaps 
 to higher spirits our globe is but as a ball for chil- 
 dren, which their tutor turns about and explains." 
 
 "There may however," said Stiefel, "be still smaller 
 worlds than ours ; and indeed ours must be of some 
 importance, since Christ died for it." 
 
 This remark flowed like warm life-blood into 
 Lenette's heart. Firmian only replied, " For the 
 earth and for them that dwell upon it, more than 
 one redeemer has died ; and I am persuaded that 
 Christ takes many a pious man by the hand, and 
 says, ' Thou too hast suffered under Pilate !' Nay, 
 many a seeming Pilate is, in truth, a Messias." 
 
 Lenette secretly feared that her husband was an 
 atheist, or at least a philosopher. He led them 
 both through winding ways to the church-yard ; but 
 all at once his eyes were moistened, as if he had 
 passed through a heavy dew. He sought to give 
 vent to his melancholy in philosophical musings, 
 and in this vein he said, " Men and clocks stop if 
 they are wound up too forcibly. It seems to me 
 that the dim intervals by which sleep and death 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 distribute and sever our existence, prevent the too 
 strongly increasing brightness of one idea, the burn- 
 ing of never-cooled wishes, and the vehement con- 
 flux of thoughts ; as the planetary systems are di- 
 vided by wide tracts of dim space, and the solar 
 systems by yet wider. The human mind cannot 
 catch the endless stream of knowledge, which sweeps 
 on through all perpetuity, except it drink in the 
 pauses and breaks of the current. Those mid- 
 summer-nights which we sometimes call sleep, some- 
 times death, divide that eternal day which would 
 blind our mental eye, into portions of day, and en- 
 close its noontide between morning and evening." 
 
 He opened the small, creaking, rattling wicket- 
 gate, inscribed with the pious verse and the me- 
 mento of the brief span of life. They reached the 
 more considerable graves which lay round the church 
 — the dyke around this fortress. Here stood many 
 an upright stone above the still, motionless body 
 beneath ; farther off lay only the trap-doors which 
 had closed over prostrate men. He brought a naked 
 skull into their company, and raised up this last case 
 of a many-housed spirit in both his hands, and looked 
 in at the empty casements of the ruined palace, and 
 said, " At midnight, one ought to ascend the pulpit 
 there within, and lay this scalped mask of conscious 
 identity on the desk, instead of the bible and hour- 
 glass, and preach from it to the other heads which 
 
75 
 
 are as yet cased in their skins. If they have a mind, 
 they may cut off mine when I am dead, and hang 
 it in the church to the capital of a pillar, like the 
 angels' heads round a font ; so that foolish mortals 
 may look, some from above and some from beneath, 
 and see how we float between heaven and the grave. 
 In our heads, my friends, the grub is still at work, 
 but out of this he has taken his flight, winged and 
 transformed ; for, look • here are the two holes, and 
 the kernel crumbled to dust* !" 
 
 Lenette was frightened at this irreverend jesting 
 in the neighbourhood and domain of ghosts : — it 
 was, in reality, only a disguised exaltation of spirit. 
 Suddenly she whispered, " See, something is looking 
 at us over the roof of the charnel-house and raising 
 itself up ! " It was only a cloud which the evening 
 wind had driven upwards, and which had rested on 
 the roof in the form of a bier ; and out of it a hand 
 stretched forth, and close above it a star stood in its 
 brightness over the likeness of a body lying on the 
 bier — just at the heart; — like a white flower stuck 
 in the breast of a bride. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 * Two holes in a hazel-nut are said to show that the fly. 
 which in its grub state had eaten away the kernel, has assumed 
 its new form, and taken flight. 
 
76 
 
 As it is in himself alone that man can find true 
 and enduring happiness, so in himself alone can he 
 find true and efficient consolation in misfortune. 
 
 Babo. 
 
 If common-place men, hurried by vulgar per- 
 plexities into a display of passionate fear, extort 
 from us a pitying smile ; on the other hand, we 
 regard with awe a spirit in which the seed of a great 
 destiny is sown ; — which can accelerate neither the 
 good nor the evil, neither the happiness nor the un- 
 happiness, that will spring up from it. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 PAUPERISM. 
 
 I have known a great deal of the indigent. Some 
 wanted only a plank over which to cross the pool and 
 land on dry ground ; others had for ever done with this 
 life, and sought for nothing more in it but a moment- 
 ary resting-place for the sickness and feebleness of 
 age. But by far the greater number were rogues 
 and thieves, who instead of reaching the pockets of 
 their neighbours by means of force or fraud, took the 
 far less dangerous way of stealing into their hearts. 
 
 Undoubtedly it is of great importance to assist up- 
 right industrious men who have a sense of honour 
 and independence, wherever it is evident that they 
 are tottering under the blows of fortune ; to save them 
 
77 
 
 from breaking down, and from falling into despair 
 and moral destruction. But I doubt whether this be 
 the vocation of the authorities of a country. It is 
 difficult, from the point of view taken by a man in 
 public life, to have an accurate insight into the con- 
 dition and relations of individuals. Involuntarily, (I 
 confess it with regard to myself) individuals assume 
 the aspect of masses, abstractions, numbers, calcula- 
 tions. I am therefore inclined to conclude that the 
 relations between man and man, between family and 
 family, must, as a general rule, be left to themselves ; 
 and certainly, if the facts were known, millions of 
 the needy and suffering whose sighs and complaints 
 are the less likely to reach the ears of those in power, 
 the more quiet and modest they are (and therefore 
 the more deserving of respect), are helped through 
 momentary difficulties by those almost imperceptible 
 and transient succours of kinsfolk, friends, or neigh- 
 bours, which leave no permanent traces. But the 
 state has nothing to do with the weak and the failing ; 
 they come within the minus quantity in the calcula- 
 tion of the common weal ; for which reason, I can 
 perfectly explain how in some countries men have 
 fallen into the extreme of putting them entirely out 
 of the way, though, on the other hand, I do not 
 blame individuals, — even rulers, in so far as they act 
 as individuals, — for contributing whatever they see 
 fit to the rescue of those who are ready to perish. 
 
78 
 
 On the other hand, the third, and by far most nu- 
 merous class of the indigent — the many-headed mon- 
 ster of vagabonds, rogues and idlers of all kinds — re- 
 quires the utmost vigilance and activity of the go- 
 vernment. Whoever has entered this corporation 
 becomes a fit object of the preventive vigilance of 
 the police, and the inflexible severity of the magis- 
 trate. But as the superfluous interference of the 
 government in the former cases thwarts the salutary 
 operation of individual benevolence, so in these, the 
 mistaken benevolence of individuals thwarts the wise 
 measures of the government. Those who dwell in 
 lonely places give from fear, the inhabitants of towns 
 and villages from weariness or soft-heartedness ; and 
 in this manner sources of subsistence open them- 
 selves on every side to the vagabond, which make 
 him disregard the hostilities of the police, and render 
 his lot in many respects truly enviable. 
 
 Rumolir. (Deutsche Denkwürdigkeiten.) 
 
 Not alone to know, but to act according to thy 
 knowledge, is thy destination — proclaims the voice 
 in my inmost soul. Not for indolent contemplation 
 and study of thyself, nor for brooding over emotions 
 f pi e ty — no, for action was existence given thee ; thy 
 actions, and thy actions alone, determine thy worth. 
 
 Fichte. (Bestimmung des Metischen.) 
 
79 
 
 The true priest of the Highest is he who brings 
 it nearer to those whose minds seldom reach above 
 the finite and the low ; who sets heavenly and eter- 
 nal things before them as a source of enjoyment and 
 a bond of union, — as the only exhaustless spring of 
 that to which all their efforts are directed. Thus 
 he strives to waken the sleeping germ of a better 
 humanity, to enkindle the love for the lofty, to trans- 
 form the meaner into a nobler life, to reconcile the 
 children of earth to the heaven which is theirs, and 
 to hold the balance against the stupid devotion of 
 the age to mere material good. This is that higher 
 priesthood which reveals the depths of all spiritual 
 mysteries, and whose voice comes down from the king- 
 dom of God ; this is the source of all visions and pro- 
 phecyings, of all holy works and inspired words which 
 are scattered about, as if at random, that the apt 
 spirit may receive them, and may bring forth fruit. 
 
 Oh that the day might come when this function of 
 mediator might cease, and the priesthood of humanity 
 receive a fairer destination ! That the day might 
 come, described by ancient prophecy, " when none 
 shall need that any should teach him, for all shall be 
 taught of God ! " If the sacred fire were everywhere 
 burning, there would be no need of fervent prayer 
 to draw it down from heaven, but only of the calm 
 watching of holy virgins to tend it ; nor would it 
 then break out into those flames which now often 
 
80 
 
 strike terror, but the hidden fire would glow with 
 equal warmth in all hearts. Every man would then 
 silently enlighten himself and others, and the com- 
 munication of holy thoughts and feelings would con- 
 sist only in the easy task of combining or dividing 
 the different rays of this light ; now diffusing it, then 
 again concentrating it on one object. Then would 
 the slightest word be understood, whereas now the 
 clearest expressions do not escape misunderstanding. 
 Then would men press together into the penetralia 
 of the sanctuary, whereas now they are occupied 
 with the preparations of the outer court. 
 
 Schleier macher. (Ueber die Religion.) 
 
 The year is dying away like the sound of bells. 
 The wind passes over the stubble and finds nothing 
 to move. Only the red berries of that slender tree 
 seem as if they would fain remind us of something 
 cheerful ; and the measured beat of the thresher's 
 flail calls up the thought, that in the dry and fallen 
 ear lies so much of nourishment and life. 
 
 Goethe. ( Wahlverwandschaften.) 
 
 He who can take advice is sometimes superior to 
 him who can give it. 
 
 Von Knebel. 
 
si 
 
 We celebrate nobler obsequies to those we love by 
 drying the tears of others, than by shedding our own ; 
 and the fairest funeral wreath we can hang on their 
 tomb, is not so fair as a fruit-offering of good deeds. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 It is impossible to witness the singular and uni- 
 versal gaiety and joyousness of the people of Naples 
 without the greatest sympathy and delight. The 
 many-coloured, brilliant flowers and fruits with which 
 nature decks herself, appear to invite man to adorn 
 his person and all that surrounds him with the 
 brightest possible tints. Silken handkerchiefs and 
 ribbons, and flowers on the hat, are seen on every one 
 who has any means of procuring them. Even in the 
 smallest houses the chairs and sofas are painted with 
 gay flowers on a gold ground ; the one-horse cale- 
 ches are striped with bright red, the carved work is 
 gilded, the horses are decorated with artificial flow- 
 ers, scarlet fringes and tassels and gold tinsel. Many 
 wear on their heads plumes of feathers, others little 
 flags, which flutter in every breeze as they move 
 swiftly along. We usually call the love of gaudy 
 colours barbaric and tasteless ; in some cases it may 
 be so ; but under a perfectly clear and blue sky no- 
 thing is gaudy, for nothing can outshine the splen- 
 dour of the sun and of its reflection on the sea. The 
 e 5 
 
82 
 
 most brilliant colour is deadened by the intense light ; 
 and as all hues, the greens of trees and plants, and 
 the yellow, brown and red earthy tints, crowd upon 
 the eye in their fullest beauty, gay flowers and dresses 
 blend in a universal harmony. The scarlet bodices 
 and petticoats, trimmed with broad bands of gold 
 and silver, of the women of Nettuno, the other na- 
 tional costumes, the gaily-painted boats, — every ob- 
 ject seems to strive to become visible under the daz- 
 zling splendour of sea and sky. 
 
 And as they live, so do they bury their dead. No 
 long sable train there disturbs the harmony of the 
 joyous world. 
 
 I saw a child borne to the grave. A large red 
 velvet pall, richly embroidered with gold, covered 
 a broad bier, on w hich stood a carved chest, highly 
 decorated with gold and silver. In this lay the dead, 
 clad in white garments, adorned with rose-coloured 
 ribbons. At the four corners of the chest were four 
 angels, each holding a large bunch of flowers over 
 the body. As they were only fastened at the feet 
 by wires, they moved with the motion of the bier, 
 and appeared to scatter odours over the dead child. 
 This tremulous motion of the angels was increased 
 by the rapidity with which the procession hastened 
 through the streets, — for the priests and taper-bearers 
 rather ran than walked. 
 
 Goethe. (Ital/'dnische Reise.) 
 
83 
 
 One sweet evening of August, he was in a 
 
 mood of gentler melancholy than usual; over his coun- 
 tenance floated that bright serenity of resignation, that 
 tearless emotion, that smiling gentleness, which we 
 sometimes see when sorrow is rather exhausted than 
 elevated, — as the soft reflection of the rainbow falls 
 back upon the blue heaven. He determined to take 
 a lonely farewell of his beloved scenes. 
 
 Over the light landscape hung (to his mind, not 
 to his eye,) a thin undulating mist, like the fine aerial 
 veil thrown over the pictures of Berghem and Wou- 
 vermans. He visited, he touched, he gazed upon — 
 as if to bid farewell — every bushy shrub, under whose 
 shadow he had been wont to read ; every small dark 
 whirlpool which foamed and gurgled amid the gnarl- 
 ed and bare-washed roots ; every fragrant mossy 
 rock ; every step in the ascent of hill above hill, on 
 which he had artificially multiplied the rising or the 
 setting of the sun ; every spot where the great crea- 
 tion had drawn tears of enthusiasm from his too 
 happy heart. But amidst the high and full-eared 
 harvest, — amidst the manifold stores of creation, — in 
 the life-teeming nest of brooding nature, — in the seed- 
 ground of the rich boundless garden, — a hollow long- 
 drawn voice was heard through the trumpet tones of 
 this festival of nature, asking, " What dead thing 
 wanders amid my universal life, and defiles my fair 
 flowers ? " But the gloomy vision vanished ; and he 
 
84 
 
 thought, It is not the green bark which sustains the 
 Dryad — the spiritus rector, — but, on the contrary, 
 receives from it life and vigour. The life of the 
 body is as dependent on the spirit as that is subject 
 to corporeal influences. Life and power throng 
 around ; the grave — the decaying body — is a world, 
 full of active power : we change our part, but we 
 never quit the stage. 
 
 Jean Paul. {Siebenkäs.) 
 
 At the termination of a war and the signing of a 
 treaty of peace, it might not be unbefitting that the 
 proclamation of a day of thanksgiving should be 
 immediately followed by one of fast and penitence, 
 wherein to implore pardon of Heaven for the grie- 
 vous sin which the race of man is continually com- 
 mitting ; inasmuch as no nation will submit to any 
 legal restraint or agreement in relation to other na- 
 tions, but, proud of its independence, chooses rather 
 to resort to the barbarian expedient of war (by which 
 that which is sought, — viz. the right of each nation 
 — can never in any case be ascertained). 
 
 The thanksgivings and rejoicings on occasion of 
 a victory, the hymns which (in a genuine judaical 
 spirit) are sung to the Lord of Hosts, stand in the 
 strongest contrast to the moral conception of the 
 Father of Men ; since they not only show a total 
 indifference to the nature of the means by which na- 
 
SS 
 
 tions seek to establish their right respectively (which 
 is melancholy enough), but display a positive joy at 
 having destroyed the lives, or ruined the happiness, 
 of multitudes of human beings. 
 
 Kant. (Zum ewigen Frieden.) 
 
 The institutions of a country depend in great mea- 
 sure on the nature of its soil and situation. Many 
 of the wants of man are awakened or supplied by 
 these circumstances. To these wants, manners, laws, 
 and religion must shape and accommodate them- 
 selves. The division of land and the rights attached 
 to it alter with the soil ; the laws relating to its pro- 
 duce, with its fertility. The manners of its inha- 
 bitants are in various ways modified by its position. 
 The religion of a miner is not the same as the faith 
 of a shepherd, nor is the character of the ploughman 
 so warlike as that of the hunter. The observant 
 legislator follows the direction of all these various 
 circumstances. The knowledge of the natural ad- 
 vantages or defects of a country thus form an essen- 
 tial part of political science and history. 
 
 Justus Moser. (Osnabrückische Geschichte.) 
 
 Character is a perfectly educated Will. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
86 
 
 What is there in man so worthy of honour and 
 reverence as this, — that he is capable of contempla- 
 ting something higher than his own reason, — more 
 sublime than the whole universe ; that Spirit which 
 alone is self-subsistent, — from which all truth pro- 
 ceeds — without which is no truth ? 
 
 F. H. Jacobi. 
 
 Master Jacobus Polychorus, who lived in Stras- 
 burg in the 16th century, says, in a little book he 
 wrote, — " The German people is more especially a 
 trustworthy, veracious, constant, bold, and manly 
 people ; likewise liberal, mild, hospitable, undaunt- 
 ed, laborious, temperate, honest, cheerful-minded, 
 and covetous of a good name ; one that in all 
 things seeketh to lead the wits of men, and to be 
 beforehand in all knowledge. And thus Germany 
 yieldeth to no land in all arts, and knowledge of 
 tongues and new inventions. From her have we 
 printing, and the use of fire-arms, and many other 
 arts. And likewise is Germany a right blessed and 
 favoured country, lying under a temperate sky, 
 abounding in all manner of grain, and in all the 
 riches of water or wood ; having sufficiency of va- 
 rious wines, metals, and all materials for useful works. 
 And the Germans are kind-hearted and generous to 
 strangers, gentle and placable to supplicants, prompt 
 and forward in war ; neither on foot nor on horse 
 yielding to any." 
 
87 
 
 handel's messiah. 
 
 Herder has somewhere or other called Handel's 
 Messiah a Christian Epos, — and this is a perfect 
 description of it in one word ; for this work, in its 
 fragmentary compilation, really expresses the entire 
 cycle of Christianity with as much of truth as of in- 
 telligence and poetry. 
 
 I have always thought that the whole, considered 
 as an opus, arose accidentally; nor can I depart 
 from that opinion. 
 
 The great festivals of the Christian church af- 
 forded the composer in Handel's time an opportunity 
 of setting to music verses from the bible, out of 
 which the finest peculiarities of effect must arise. 
 Handel, who had taste and heart enough to reject 
 the vile versions then in use, collected together the 
 verses which relate to the passion, got some clever 
 man to put the hooks and links which are wanted to 
 connect them (if he did not do it himself), and thus 
 has arisen a cyclical work which I distribute into 
 four or five parts. 
 
 Part 1. The annunciation of the Messiah from 
 above, through the mouths of the prophets ; the 
 work or end of redemption ; mysterious, yet like the 
 dawn of morning — * Comfort ye,' etc. — breathing a 
 spring freshness. 
 
 Part 2. The Nativity ; first known to shepherds. 
 
88 
 
 The introduction (Siciliano), a delightful pastoral, 
 ought to precede the chorus ' For unto us a child is 
 born.' In Mozart's score the chorus, very improperly, 
 is put first. The chorus is playful, undulating, child- 
 like — nay childish — at the beginning ; at length, at 
 the words, ' And the government shall be upon his 
 shoulders,' it towers in all its colossal grandeur. 
 
 Pastoral character of life and doctrine : ' He shall 
 feed his flock.' * Come unto me, ye that are weary,' 
 etc. 
 
 Part 3. Suffering and death : denial, mockery, 
 evil intreatment ; ' Behold the Lamb of God ; ' 
 ' Surely he hath borne our griefs ; ' ' All we like 
 sheep have gone astray ;' 'He trusted in God that 
 he would deliver him;' 'Thy rebuke hath broken 
 his heart ;' ' Behold and see/ etc. The suffering is 
 ended by death ; and in this death is the victory. 
 The redemption is accomplished. 
 
 Now the consequences : 
 
 Part 4. Resurrection and eternal life : back to the 
 heavenly — the infinite. Prophecy again proclaims, 
 ' Open the gates, that the King of Glory may come 
 in;' 'The Lord gave the word;' 'Why do the 
 heathen ; ' ' Let us break our bonds asunder ; ' 
 'Hallelujah;' 'I know that my Redeemer liveth;' 
 ' And as through man came death.' 
 
 Part 5. Apotheosis : ' Worthy is the Lamb ; ' 
 1 Glory and honour ;' ' Amen.' 
 
89 
 
 The expression of such a work is to be taken as a 
 whole, though good, nay exquisite workmanship be 
 not wanting in the individual parts. 
 
 The overture belongs to the piece only in so far 
 as it is a foreground — a title-page to the volume, 
 showing the clear blue heaven of prophecy : ' The 
 glory of God, the Lord, shall be revealed.' Clear- 
 ness, power, truth, pervade the whole first part. 
 
 In the second part, warm, bright night ; — one 
 feels the starlight. Pastoral, sweet, pure, serene. 
 
 In the third part, suffering and death : brief, yet not 
 too condensed ; grand, calm, touching ; no torments, 
 no crucifixion or physical horrors. The suffering 
 of the righteous at the degradation of the good and 
 the beautiful, is the ground, the deepest depth, over 
 which flows a crystal stream ; £ Behold and see if 
 there be any sorrow,' etc. 
 
 With this the whole passion is silently concluded, 
 and the work of atonement accomplished. 
 
 Would you like to procure yourself a singular 
 pictorial enjoyment ? Look at the chorus, ' For 
 unto us a child is born.' After the shepherds have, 
 as they kept watch by night in the fields, heard the 
 word of the angels, and have recovered from their 
 alarm, one part begins, ' For unto us a child is born, 
 and plays with the thought; then follows another 
 in the same manner ; then the third, and the fourth ; 
 till at length, at the words 'Wonderful, Counsellor,' 
 
90 
 
 etc. all join ; the flocks and herds on the fields, the 
 starry host through all the heavens, — every thing 
 awakes, and stirs itself with gladness and strength 
 of heart. 
 
 Now, ye muses, enough, — if not too much. If 
 you have heard the Messiah, I should be glad to 
 know something about it from you. I always learn, 
 when you report any thing of the kind. The worthy 
 Rochlitz deserves many thanks, but his history of 
 the rise and progress of the Messiah, ä priori, looks 
 to me very like all histories by profession. The 
 history of a work of art (and every work of art has 
 its individual history) is not to be told on the fingers, 
 since nature requires thousands of years to make an 
 artist — whose existence is itself an accident. 
 
 Zelter. {Briefwechsel mit Goethe.) 
 
 Last among the characteristics of woman, is that 
 sweet motherly love with which Nature has gifted 
 her ; it is almost independent of cold reason, and 
 wholly removed from all selfish hope of reward. 
 Not because it is lovely, does the mother love her 
 child, but because it is a living part of herself — the 
 child of her heart, a fraction of her own nature. 
 Therefore do her entrails yearn over his wailings ; 
 her heart beats quicker at his joy ; her blood flows 
 
91 
 
 more softly through her veins, when the breast at 
 which he drinks knits him to her. In every uncor- 
 rupted nation of the earth, this feeling is the same. 
 Climate, which changes every thing else, changes 
 not that. It is only the most corrupting forms of 
 society which have power gradually to make luxu- 
 rious vice sweeter than the tender cares and toils of 
 maternal love. In Greenland, where the climate 
 affords no food fit for infants, the mother nourishes 
 her child up to the third or fourth year of his life. 
 She endures from him all the nascent indications of 
 the rude and domineering spirit of manhood, with 
 indulgent, all-forgiving patience. The negress is 
 armed with more than manly strength when her 
 child is attacked by savage beasts. We read with 
 astonished admiration the examples of her matchless 
 courage and contempt of danger. But if death 
 robs that tender mother, whom we are pleased to 
 call a savage, of her best comfort — the charm and 
 the care of her existence — where is the heart of 
 man that can conceive her sorrow? Read the 
 lament of the Nadowessee woman, on the loss of 
 her husband and her infant son. The feeling which 
 it breathes is beyond all expression. 
 
 Herder. 
 
 Formerly, it was the fashion to preach the 
 Natural, now it is the Ideal. People too often 
 
92 
 
 forget that these things are profoundly compatible ; 
 that, in a beautiful work of imagination, the Natural 
 should be ideal, and the Ideal, natural. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 There is a fable of former ages which is grave 
 and solemn, and may to some appear awful and 
 terrible. They figured to themselves their fore- 
 fathers sitting on thrones in a circle around large 
 subterranean halls, mutely discoursing. When a 
 new inhabitant entered, if he were worthy, they all 
 arose from their seats and bowed their heads to him 
 in welcome. 
 
 Yesterday, as I sat in the chapel and fixed my 
 eyes on several other carved chairs over against the 
 one on which I was sitting, this thought seemed to 
 me most cheerful and agreeable. " Why canst thou 
 not remain thus seated ? " I asked myself, " Why 
 not calm, motionless, and wholly withdrawn within 
 thyself, remain seated, long, long, — until at length 
 the friends should come, at whose entrance thou 
 wouldst stand up and motion them to their places 
 with a friendly sign ? 
 
 The many-coloured casements turn the day into 
 a dim and solemn twilight, and each must tend an 
 eternal lamp, that the night may not be utterly dark. 
 
 Goethe. ( Wahlverwandtschaften.) 
 
93 
 
 Hypotheses are nets, — only he who throws them 
 out will catch any thing. Was not the discovery 
 of America the result of an hypothesis ? 
 
 The sceptic has contributed just us little (that 
 is, absolutely nothing) as the vulgar empiric, to the 
 enlargement of the field of knowledge. At the 
 most, the sceptic only shakes the very ground on 
 which the individual hypothesis stands : — a strange 
 way of making progress — a very indirect service at 
 the best. The true builder of hypotheses is no 
 other than the inventor, before whose eyes the 
 unknown country often dimly floats before its dis- 
 covery ; who carries this faint image into every 
 observation and every experiment, and at length, 
 by means of bold comparison, of repeated contact 
 and collision of his thoughts with experiment, arrives 
 at the Idea which stood in a negative relation to 
 positive experience. Both are then eternally con- 
 nected, and a new and celestial light surrounds the 
 power which is born into the world. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 NORWEGIAN LEGEND. 
 
 Two little boys were playing by the side of a 
 river, and they saw the Strömkarl or water-spirit 
 sitting on the shore and playing on his harp. Then 
 the children called out to him, and said, " Strömkarl, 
 
94) 
 
 why do you sit here playing ? There is no salvation 
 for you." Thereupon the Strömkarl fell to weeping 
 bitterly, threw his harp away, and sank in the deep 
 waters. When the boys returned home they related to 
 their father, who was a godly man, what had befallen 
 them. The father said, " You have sinned against the 
 Strömkarl, — go back and comfort him, and tell him 
 that he too shall be saved." When they went back 
 to the river, the Strömkarl sat on the shore weeping 
 and lamenting. And the children said, "Weep not 
 so, Strömkarl, our father says that thy Redeemer 
 alsoliveth." Then the Strömkarl joyfully took his 
 harp and played sweetly till sunset *. 
 
 Jacob Grimm. (Deutsche Mythologie.) 
 
 A man may write very good verses, but in spite 
 of that he must not versify the people's stories if he 
 
 * Although the sacrifices offered to water-spirits were for- 
 bidden by Christianity, and these old objects of faith were repre- 
 sented as diabolical, the people retained a certain awe and re- 
 verence for them, and have not, even now, lost all belief in their 
 power and influence; they think of them as unblessed beings 
 who will however in time become partakers of salvation. To 
 this belief we may trace the touching legend that the Strömkarl 
 or Neck requites those who promise him redemption with his 
 enchanting music. 
 
 I do not know that any legend contains so striking an expres- 
 sion of the need of Christianity to the heathen, or of the mild 
 aspect under which it ought to approach them. 
 
95 
 
 has not the true ballad-singer's eye, which sees no- 
 thing in the wide world but adventures, executions, 
 love, murder, and deeds of violence. We want the 
 naive joy and the naive lamentations of the men and 
 women of the days of knights and fairies — men and 
 women whose souls were a canvas for the reception 
 of pictures; who lived with their bodies, thought 
 with their eyes, and argued with their fists. 
 
 Goethe. (Recensionen.) 
 
 Men find it more easy to flatter than to praise. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 " It was well," said Ernest, " for even in our 
 
 emotion we were glad. I understand not the joy of 
 most men : it seems as if they must keep at a di- 
 stance all remembrance of real life, in order with toil 
 and travail, to find in blind dissipation what they 
 call amusement and gaiety. The fulness of life — a 
 healthful, powerful feeling of existence, — stands in 
 need of a certain melancholy to deepen the sense of 
 pleasure ; as this same sound and vigorous state of 
 mind first gave birth to tragedy, and is still neces- 
 sary to the enjoyment of it. The more feeble man 
 becomes — the more weary of life, the less can he find 
 joy in anything but laughter, or the frivolous comedy 
 
96 
 
 of modern times. Shun him who has lost all power 
 and relish for aught but laughter, for with earnest- 
 ness and a lofty melancholy, all the inward stores of 
 his life have vanished ; he is bad, if he is capable of 
 being anything more than a fool. The more our 
 sense of existence is quickened and exalted by plea- 
 sure and by love, the louder our inward shout of 
 triumph in those few and rare moments which a 
 niggard fate deals scantily out to us, the more rich 
 and bounteous ought we in those moments to feel. 
 
 Wherefore then, in these most bright and beautiful 
 passages of our lives, should we drive our departed 
 friends and their love away from us ? Has death 
 made them our enemies ? Or is their state, to our 
 apprehension, so utterly afflicting that their image 
 must needs trouble our joy ? In such felicity of 
 mind I would fain exclaim, let them come to us, let 
 them come into our arms, into our hearts, that our 
 riches may be made richer ! But if you can endure 
 the belief that they are forlorn and helpless, driven 
 out into the wide and weary desart, oh ! let some 
 drops from the overflowings of your joy fall on them. 
 
 But no, beloved, departed one ! in such moments I 
 feel myself transported into thy peace and thy joy ; 
 and thou art more mine than in this earthly life thou 
 ever wast ; for together with all my love, my highest 
 and deepest sorrow now belongs to thee, — that name- 
 less and incomprehensible, anxious wrestling with 
 
97 
 
 the fearful doubt of having lost thee for ever ; then 
 was my love first compelled to call up and to under- 
 stand all its strength ; then did I first win thee in 
 triumph from death, — never more to lose thee ; and 
 from that time thou art mine — mine without change, 
 without sickness, without misunderstanding ; and 
 thou smilest in every smile, and swimmest in every 
 tear of mine. 
 
 Tieck. (Phantasus.) 
 
 The less tenderness a man has in his nature, the 
 more he requires from others. 
 
 Rahel. 
 
 The illusion of a past golden age is one of the 
 greatest hindrances to the approach of the golden 
 age that should come. If the golden age is past, it 
 was not genuine. Gold cannot rust nor decay : it 
 comes out of all admixtures and all decompositions 
 pure and indestructible. If the golden age will not 
 endure it had better never arise, for it can produce 
 nothing but elegies on its loss. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 In youth we think we shall be able to build 
 palaces for men, but when it comes to the point we 
 have our hands full with the business of clearing 
 
 F 
 
98 
 
 away their dirt and rubbish. This disgusting work 
 requires great resignation ; but it must be done. 
 
 Goethe. (Briefe an Lavater.) 
 
 There are ideal trains of events which run par- 
 allel with the real ones. Seldom do they coincide. 
 Men and accidents commonly modify every ideal 
 event, or train of events, so that it appears imperfect, 
 and its consequences are equally imperfect. Thus 
 it was with the Reformation — instead of Protest- 
 antism, arose Lutheranism. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 FREDERIC THE GREAT ON LAW REFORM. 
 
 Extracted from Prüfung der Gutachten der Kbnigl : Preuss. .- 
 Immediat Justiz- Commission. By Grävell. 
 
 My dear Grand Chancellor von Carmer, 
 It cannot be unknown to you, that so early as the 
 year 1746, and even earlier, I had laboured to re- 
 medy the obvious disorders and defects in the ad- 
 ministration of justice in my kingdom and states, 
 and that I especially ordered ; 
 
 1. That the courts of justice should be placed 
 upon a better footing, and provided with skilful and 
 honourable men. 
 
 2. That the procedure should be cleared of use- 
 
99 
 
 less formalities, the possibility of terminating suits 
 within a year secured ; and 
 
 3. That the hitherto scattered, vague, and am- 
 biguous laws should be defined, and collected with 
 the greatest possible precision and clearness. 
 
 With regard to the first article, I have no doubt 
 that, by the introduction of better subordination into 
 the courts ; by more certain and regular order in all 
 branches of business ; and especially by the instruc- 
 tions, according to which the candidates for judicial 
 offices are first subjected to the strictest examina- 
 tions, then by acting as referendaries in the court 
 for several years, familiarized with all kinds of 
 judicial labour, and their sentiments and conduct 
 submitted to thorough investigation, sufficient com- 
 petency may be secured. But these regulations, 
 however well adapted to the case, will be fruitless 
 unless the presidents of each court are strictly held 
 to the most exact and thorough execution of my 
 commands. 
 
 It is, then, your business to see to this, in order 
 that my intentions may be in every particular ex- 
 actly fulfilled ; and to this end you must require from 
 the presidents of the courts of justice a list of the 
 names of all the members and subalterns of such 
 courts, with an authentic, impartial, and full report 
 of the conduct of each individual, and must desire 
 that the most exact inquiries on these points be made 
 f2 
 
100 
 
 by them at every visitation. For it is not enough 
 that a servant of justice guard himself from gross 
 corruption ; in every exercise of his office he must 
 act without the slightest passion, and avoid every 
 appearance of partiality. 
 
 A man of profligate habits and loose morals is 
 easily led to forget his duties : such people must by 
 no means be suffered to have anything to do with 
 the administration of justice. Neither must you be 
 restrained from the dismissal of such unworthy per- 
 sons by any regard to their talents, their family con- 
 nexions, or any other considerations whatever. 
 
 If I can thus make sure of the purity and integrity 
 of my ministers of justice, I, on my part, will leave 
 them the free and unobstructed exercise of their own 
 just and honest authority, and will honour and re- 
 ward each of them according to his worth. On the 
 other hand, 1 know no punishment too severe to be 
 inflicted on men who are capable of so far disregard- 
 ing their duty, as to convert an office destined to the 
 protection of innocence and the maintenance of just- 
 ice, into an instrument for the oppression of the one 
 and the destruction of the other. 
 
 Secondly, as to what regards procedure, I am 
 fully disposed to believe that the abuses which 
 formerly existed have been removed ; nevertheless, 
 the present system of procedure is still, as you must 
 admit, at bottom, the ill-contrived tissue of the canon 
 
101 
 
 law, of which all Germany has for centuries com- 
 plained. 
 
 It is contrary to reason that the parties who have 
 complaints and grievances to allege should not be 
 heard by the judge himself, but must make their 
 wants known through hired advocates. These ad- 
 vocates have the strongest interest in the multiplica- 
 tion and prolongation of suits, since upon them de- 
 pend their gains and their whole prosperity. For if 
 the pleadings, with the evidence taken in the course 
 of them, do not find their way into the hands of the 
 judge until the advocates have in writing wire-drawn, 
 obscured, or mutilated the facts at their own pleasure, 
 it is natural enough that he should lose the right point 
 of view, decide on inadequate evidence, and, as he is 
 compelled to follow in their tortuous and delusive track 
 (often against his own conviction), be at length neces- 
 sitated to pronounce a sentence manifestly unjust. 
 I can hardly believe that any of the plain, judicious 
 lawgivers of old times devised so unnatural a system 
 of procedure. I am much more inclined to suspect 
 that the barbarism of later times, and the conveni- 
 ence and ease of judges, gave birth to this monstrous 
 production. I find nothing in the Roman law which 
 leads me to any opposite conclusion. The Roman 
 judges were obliged first to investigate the facts of 
 the case themselves, before the advocates appointed 
 by the parties could be heard, or judgment pro- 
 nounced ; and if it is true, that even the Papal law 
 
102 
 
 expressly ordains that the judge shall inquire into 
 the facts, and the advocates shall only speak to ques- 
 tions of law, my conjecture will be converted into a 
 certainty. 
 
 Be that, however, as it may — it is my decided 
 and express will ; 
 
 That in future the judge himself hear the parties 
 — their complaints and answers ; that he weigh their 
 statements, and the proofs therewith adduced, one 
 against the other, and thus extract the true con- 
 catenation of the affair which gives occasion to the 
 suit ; and that, after having so done, he lay before 
 them proposals of accommodation consistent with 
 fairness and justice. I feel assured that merely by 
 this arrangement, which will secure that the parties 
 are completely instructed as to the true state and 
 posture of the case, by far the greater number of 
 suits will be settled by compromise. Even in those 
 cases which cannot be disposed of by compromise, 
 that elaborate mode of extracting evidence which has 
 hitherto been the principal source of complexity and 
 delay, will be rendered unnecessary. 
 
 I do not mean by this that parties in a legal pro- 
 ceeding are to be refused legal assistance ; on the 
 contrary, it appears to me necessary both for the 
 plaintiff and defendant, even during the investigation 
 of the facts, to engage an advocate ; in order that if 
 the judge, from negligence, want of penetration, or 
 partiality, do not conduct the investigation satisfac- 
 
103 
 
 torily, the advocate may remind him of his duty, 
 exercise a general control over him, ascertain upon 
 what the rights of the parties are respectively found- 
 ed, and use every possible care and precaution for 
 the security of his client. 
 
 In order, however, that this new sort of advocates 
 be not again seduced into the old tortuous path, the 
 matter must be so arranged that they have no in- 
 terest in the delay and complication of suits, but 
 must look to a totally different source of prosperity 
 and success. The referendaries must therefore, ac- 
 cording to my new system, be more especially em- 
 ployed in the investigation of matters of fact, and be 
 called upon to act as assessors to the counsel therein. 
 Those referendaries who show the greatest ability 
 and penetration on these occasions, shall be kept in 
 view for further advancement ; and out of these shall 
 be chosen the advocates, or as they might be more 
 aptly called, assistant-counsellors ; out of these again, 
 in course of time, the principal counsel of the courts 
 of justice. The assistant-counsel, as w r ell as the 
 chief counsel of the courts, must be paid by fixed 
 salaries ; and to that end, the fees which they receive 
 for their functions as advocates must be formed into 
 a common fee-fund. It is possible that very few of 
 the present advocates will qualify themselves to be- 
 come counsel under the new system, and will thus 
 be left without the means of subsistence. I would, 
 
104 
 
 however, make arrangements, that whatever useful 
 and honourable men are found among them should 
 be employed by preference as magistrates, justicia- 
 ries, and the like. Men of no merit whatever de- 
 serve no attention. 
 
 Lastly, as to the laws. It appears to me perfectly 
 irrational and absurd that they should be for the 
 most part written in a language which is not under- 
 stood by those to whom they ought to serve as a 
 guide and rule. It is not less absurd, that, in a 
 country in which there exists an undisputed legisla- 
 tive power, laws should be endured, which, by their 
 obscurity and ambiguity, give continual occasion to 
 the tedious disputations of lawyers ; or that lengthy 
 suits should arise upon the question, whether or not 
 such a law or custom has ever existed, or has ac- 
 quired legal validity. You must therefore take espe- 
 cial care that all laws for our states and subjects be 
 drawn up in their own language ; that they be per- 
 fectly precise and determinate, and collected into one 
 complete and compact body. 
 
 But as almost every one of my provinces has its 
 peculiar constitution, statutes and customs, which 
 differ widely from each other, a code or compilation 
 of laws proper to each must be framed, whereby the 
 laws and privileges of each province may be di- 
 stinguished from those of every other. But since 
 such provincial statutes and customs are generally 
 
105 
 
 limited to certain topics, and contain no universal 
 or complete rules of law ; and since the Corpus 
 Juris of the Emperor Justinian has for many cen- 
 turies been used as the subsidiary code of almost 
 all European states, and has been so received among 
 us, it cannot be left out of account in the measures 
 now projected. It is, however, well known that 
 this Roman code is, for the most part, merely a col- 
 lection of the opinions and decisions of lawyers in 
 particular cases ; that it chiefly refers to ancient 
 Roman institutions and formalities, now no longer 
 applicable, and that it contains numerous contradic- 
 tions. It will be necessary, therefore, to abstract 
 from it only such parts as are consistent with the law 
 of nature, and with the present form of government 
 and society ; to reject the useless ; to insert my own 
 national laws in the proper places ; and thus will be 
 produced a subsidiary code to which the judge can 
 recur in all cases for which the provincial law con- 
 tains no provision. 
 
 I must here remark that, as it appears to me, the 
 Roman legislators, who were not sparing in their de- 
 cisions on contested questions of law, did not suffi- 
 ciently keep in view whatever might serve to obviate 
 doubts in legal cases, and to prevent suits. 
 
 It is, for instance, well known what an infinite 
 number of suits concerning transactions and contracts 
 relating to immoveables (real property), arise out of 
 f 5 
 
106 
 
 the haste with which people conclude them, and the 
 want of distinctness and precision in their expres- 
 sions. Such suits would be entirely avoided, if all 
 contracts relating to immoveables were made in the 
 presence of the judge, whose business it would be to 
 see that neither party overreached the other, or took 
 unfair advantages : the contract itself, for the greater 
 authentication of its contents, should be signed by 
 the judge. For as law-suits must ever be reckoned 
 among the evils of society — as subtracting from the 
 well-being of the citizens — that is incontestably the 
 best law which contains within itself the prevention 
 of litigation. 
 
 If, which is not to be doubted, I attain my end 
 in the amelioration of the laws and the procedure, 
 it is clear that a vast many lawyers will lose the 
 consideration and authority which they derive from 
 the mystery in which it is now involved, by the sim- 
 plification of their business : their subtilty-shop will 
 be ruined, and the whole corps of advocates of 
 the old school be rendered useless. But, on the 
 other hand, I shall free my faithful subjects from no 
 light burthen, and may therefore expect to have more 
 skilful and industrious merchants, manufacturers, 
 and artisans, from whom the state will receive much 
 better and more useful service. 
 
 Now, as the execution of such a project is not the 
 work of a single man, you must seek out the ablest 
 
107 
 
 and honestest men whom you can possibly find ; di- 
 vide the several sorts of labour among them ; form 
 them into a commission, and make all your regu- 
 lations after common deliberation and agreement. 
 Similar law commissions must in future sit perma- 
 nently, in order that all defects, ambiguities, or vices 
 of the laws may, as they present themselves, be sup- 
 plied, interpreted, or corrected in a fundamental 
 manner. 
 
 On the other hand, I will not allow that any judges, 
 courts of justice, or ministers of state whatsoever, 
 take upon themselves to stretch or contract the laws, 
 much less to make new ones ; but if, in course of time, 
 doubts or deficiencies in the laws or the procedure 
 arise, notice of the same must be given to the ap- 
 propriate law commission ; the case, having regard 
 to the signification and intention of the existing 
 laws, must then be laid before you to be fully 
 weighed, and if a positive change or addition be 
 found necessary, a well-considered report must be 
 presented to me. 
 
 I leave it to you then, to think further on the 
 matter, and to devise the means requisite for its ex- 
 ecution ; and in return I promise to protect you 
 most vigorously against all cabals and all opposition, 
 as your well-affectioned king, 
 
 Frederic. 
 
 Potsdam, April 14, 1780. 
 To the Grand Chancellor von Canner. 
 
108 
 
 FINNISH LEGEND. 
 
 There was once a giantess who had a daughter, 
 and the child saw a husbandman ploughing in the 
 field. Then she ran and picked him up with her 
 finger and thumb, and put him and his plough and 
 his oxen into her apron, and carried them to her 
 mother, and said, " Mother, what sort of beetle is 
 this, that I found wriggling in the ground?" But 
 the mother said, " Put it away, my child, we must 
 be gone out of this land, for these people will dwell 
 in it." 
 
 [The giant race was doomed to retire before the tiller of the 
 ground. Agriculture was odious to them as well as to the 
 dwarfs. The rude innocence of the giant child, to whom man 
 appeared a tiny insect, a beetle grovelling in the earth, and the 
 secret alarm which this small being struck into the mother, can- 
 not be more happily depicted than in these few touches.] 
 
 Grimm. {Deutsche Mythologie.} 
 
 Florence, September 4, 1816. 
 I have seen a great many works of art. My 
 preference for the old masters, down to the time of 
 Rafael, is strongly confirmed. Giovanni Bellini, 
 who was my favourite eight years ago, became so 
 once more at Venice. And at Bologna we saw 
 works of Francia's which amazed us. Masaccio, 
 Mantegna, Vivarini, and Carpaccio can only be 
 known in Italy. I have already seen innumerable 
 
109 
 
 things by Giotto, and I now perfectly understand 
 the history of Italian art. What I saw in Nurem- 
 berg and Munich threw great light on what I have 
 seen here. In the fourteenth century, Giotto form- 
 ed himself after the antique ; then again his school 
 took another direction. Masaccio soars at once to 
 the higher regions. Then art sinks again, and 
 during the first sixty years of the fifteenth century, 
 the Germans are far superior to the Italians. Then 
 the other scale rises. After the time of Rafael and 
 Dürer, the spirit is extinct on both sides the Alps ; — 
 the only difference is, that in Italy, art (i. e. tech- 
 nical art) survived. In architecture the Italians of 
 the middle ages are not be compared to the Ger- 
 mans. In sculpture they surpass them. 
 
 B. G. Niebuhr. (Lebensnachrichten.) 
 
 His portfolio contained, indeed, scarcely anything 
 but outlines, but, as they were traced through on the 
 pictures themselves, they had perfectly preserved 
 their antique character ; and how touching was that ! 
 On every figure and countenance rested the spirit of 
 simple, calm existence. It was impossible not to 
 feel certain that all, if not great and noble, were 
 gentle and good. A cheerful spirit of union, a 
 willing acknowledgment of an object of reverence 
 above us, a calm surrender of the soul to love and 
 faith, sat on every face and breathed in every ges- 
 
110 
 
 ture. The old bald-headed man, the rich-locked 
 boy, the high-spirited youth, the sedate and earnest 
 man, the glorified saint, the hovering angel, all 
 appeared blessed in innocent contentment, in pious 
 acquiescence. The homeliest figure bore traces of 
 a heavenly life, and the service and worship of God 
 seemed the occupation fitted to every nature. 
 
 Goethe. ( Wahlverwandtschaften.) 
 
 Darwin remarks that we are less dazzled by the 
 light at waking, if we have been dreaming of visible 
 objects. Happy are those who have here dreamt 
 of a higher vision ! They will the sooner be able 
 to endure the glories of the world to come. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 There are so many tender and holy emotions 
 Hying about in our inward world, which, like angels, 
 can never assume the body of an outward act ; so 
 many rich and lovely flowers spring up which bear 
 no seed, that it is a happiness poetry was invented, 
 which receives into its limbus all these incorporeal 
 spirits, and the perfume of all these flowers. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 DINNER, A DRAMATIC POEM. 
 
 The party passed through the large folding- 
 doors into the dining-room, which looked imme- 
 
11] 
 
 diately on the garden. Before them lay the oppo- 
 site hills, with their thickets of varied green, and 
 beautiful clumps of wood ; in the foreground was 
 the lawn, belted and perfumed round with beds of 
 the loveliest flowers, while, like the crystal coronet 
 of the green plain, a fountain sparkled and gushed 
 in the middle, and invited equally to silence or to 
 conversation by its sweet and silvery tones. 
 
 All seated themselves at table. Flowers of all hues 
 arranged in beautiful vases, and fresh, ruddy cher- 
 ries in pretty baskets, sparkled over the snowy linen. 
 " Why is it," said Emilia, after a pause of some 
 minutes, " that every dinner party begins in silence ? 
 People are thoughtful, and look down; nobody 
 even expects an animated conversation ; for it seems 
 that the soup brings with it a certain serious and 
 tranquil tone of feeling, which usually contrasts 
 strongly with the conclusion of the dinner and the 
 dessert." 
 
 " The hunger which is generally excited by the 
 proximity of eatables, will explain a good deal," 
 said Wilibald, " especially when dinner is served 
 at a later hour than was fixed." 
 
 ******* 
 
 " To return to the soup, which we have now 
 dispatched," said Lothair ; " I do not think the taci- 
 turnity which accompanies it depends so much on 
 our material wants. It seems to me that every meal 
 
112 
 
 or feast is a drama, —when at its best, a Shaksperian 
 comedy, — and has its rules and necessities, by which 
 it is in most cases unconsciously governed." 
 
 " How can any reasonable man think otherwise ?" 
 said Wilibald, laughing. " How often is the comic 
 poet unconsciously the richest subject for comedy !" 
 
 "Let him speak," said Manfred ; "you may after- 
 wards compare a dinner to a battle, or to the history 
 of the world, if you will. At table, there ought to 
 be the most unqualified freedom of thought and 
 eating." 
 
 " That the changing courses and dishes may most 
 aptly be compared to acts and scenes," continued 
 Lothair, " must strike every body ; nor is it less 
 obvious to the reflecting and refined eater (I ignore 
 those lower natures who doubt of every thing they 
 cannot understand, and in their gross and material 
 stupidity adhere to the belief that eating is nothing 
 more than an expedient for allaying hunger), that a 
 certain pervading sentiment should be expressed, 
 with which nothing in the whole composition of the 
 table should be incongruous or discordant — whether 
 it be the dishes, the wines, or the conversation. For 
 out of all these parts should arise a romantic compo- 
 sition, which should at once amuse, satisfy and de- 
 light ; free from all vehement excitement of the 
 curiosity or the sympathy, from all illusion, and 
 from all bitter recollections. Epigrammatic dishes, 
 
113 
 
 for instance, which have frequently been employed 
 to cheat and delude, are to be condemned as re- 
 pugnant to all good taste." 
 
 " In the north of Germany," said Ernest, " I once 
 saw a sweetmeat representing a heap of turf, which 
 appeared to give extreme delight to the guests." 
 
 " I have read in Vasari of most romantic feasts," 
 said Clara, " given by the Florentine painters to one 
 another. They would have only terrified me, for 
 they pushed these strange distortions of fancy to 
 the very utmost. Not only did they construct and 
 demolish palaces and temples of various meats, but 
 even hell, with all its awful shades, was pressed into 
 the service of their poetical extravagance. Toads 
 and serpents enclosed the choicest dainties, and the 
 dessert consisted of ghosts and skeletons in confec- 
 tionary." 
 
 " I should have liked much to be present at these 
 wild, fantastic entertainments," said Manfred. " I 
 never could read the description of them without 
 the greatest pleasure. Why should not fear, horror, 
 surprise, be brought into action in our most imme- 
 diate and every-day life ? All, even the strangest 
 and the wildest, has its time." 
 
 " But, dear Lothair," said Theodore, " go on with 
 your comparison of a dinner with a drama." 
 
 " To satisfy your curiosity," replied Lothair, " I 
 must begin by pointing out how weighty a part of 
 
114 
 
 a play is the introduction. This may be conceived 
 in three different and principal ways : either, that 
 the situation of affairs be made known in the simplest 
 and most natural manner, by means of a calm nar- 
 ration, as in ' The Comedy of Errors ;' or that the 
 poet plunge us into tumult and confusion, out of 
 which light and distinctness are gradually evolved, 
 as in ' Romeo and Juliet,' which begins with broils ; 
 or, thirdly, that he lead us at once into the midst 
 of the action, but with calmness and deliberation, 
 as in ' Twelfth Night.' It is unquestionable that 
 the last method is to be preferred for a dinner ; and 
 that therefore all civilized nations, and people who 
 do not strive to live and to eat after a strange and 
 fantastic manner, open their repast with a strong, 
 but mild, calmly-digested soup. As all men have 
 an innate propensity to the drama, and the percep- 
 tion that all is drama sleeps darkly within them, they 
 take care, with reason, not to be too witty, too 
 clever, or too talkative, as long as the soup is before 
 them." 
 
 Emilia laughed and nodded assent, and Lothair 
 continued. " As, in the last-mentioned comedy, 
 after the almost elegiac introduction, those pleasant 
 personages Sir Toby, Maria and Sir Andrew Ague- 
 cheek enter as a gay and stimulating episode ; so, 
 the solid viands are preceded by anchovies, caviar, 
 or something highly flavoured, which does not im- 
 
115 
 
 mediately allay hunger. And thus, not to be too 
 diffuse, satisfaction and excitement succeed each 
 other in agreeable alternations up to the time of the 
 dessert, which must be entirely humorous, poetical 
 and unrestrained ; as the comedy in question closes 
 with that most delightfully childish, but significant 
 song of the most delightful of all fools ; — or, as 
 ' Much Ado About Nothing,' and ' As You Like It,' 
 end with a dance, or ' The Winter's Tale ' with the 
 living statue." 
 
 " I see clearly," said Clara, " that we ought to 
 learn eating at school, just as much as any other 
 science." 
 
 " Certainly," said Lothair ; " nothing is so un- 
 becoming an accomplished man as to eat in an 
 injudicious, unscientific and tasteless manner ; for 
 as food is a want of our nature, either the utmost 
 simplicity should reign at our meals, or elegance 
 and mirth should enter into them, and diffuse ease 
 and cheerfulness." 
 
 " In truth," said Ernest, " nothing troubles one's 
 enjoyment so much as a vacillating mixture of fru- 
 gality and unpleasurable profusion ; — as sometimes 
 one is inundated with excellent wine to wash down 
 meagre and ill-cooked viands, — or condemned to 
 gulp down wretched wine with excessively dainty 
 high-flavoured dishes, served on splendid china. 
 These are the true tragi-comedies, such as every 
 
116 
 
 well-regulated and accurate mind which aims at 
 harmony and consistency, will utterly condemn and 
 eschew." 
 
 " Under the same class," said Antony, " may be 
 ranged immoderate drinking from ambition ; or 
 when some host, with all the animation of semi- 
 drunkenness, forcibly obliges you to drink, assuring 
 you with ever-increasing loudness and vehemence, 
 that the wine deserves to be drunk — that this cost 
 so much a bottle, and this so much, but that he 
 does not grudge it to good friends, and that he can 
 stand it, if they should drink twice as much. Such 
 a man, in his pride of purse, does not only reckon 
 the cost of the feast, and the consumption of each 
 guest, but he has no rest till you know the price of 
 every table and chair in his house. If he happen to 
 possess any works of art, or curiosities, he is wholly 
 intolerable. His highest enjoyment is, in all friend- 
 liness, to make his guests feel that compared to him 
 they are poor and bankrupt." 
 
 " It must also be observed," continued Lothair, 
 " that as there ought to be a certain keeping and 
 harmony between the viands and the vessels in which 
 they are served, so the former must not be neglected 
 or injured by an over-proportion of conversation. 
 The introductory soup should, as has already been 
 said, be accompanied by quiet union and attention : 
 after this, a little gentle politics, or short anecdotes, 
 
117 
 
 or light philosophical remarks, are allowable ; if a 
 company is not very sure of its wit and facetious- 
 ness, let it not expend them too early, for at the 
 entrance of the sweets and fruits and fine wines, all 
 seriousness must utterly vanish : that which a quarter 
 of an hour sooner was unseemly and irregular, is 
 now perfectly admissible ; even ladies take courage 
 to laugh out ; love reveals itself more undisguisedly ; 
 jealousy betrays itself by more open sallies — every- 
 body throws himself off his guard, and does not 
 shrink from exposing himself to the hitting jokes 
 of his friend ; even some pungent and rather severe 
 stories may now circulate. Great lords formerly 
 had their fools and jesters enter with the sweet- 
 meats, that at the close of their meal they might feel 
 themselves men, — gay, merry, and unconstrained." 
 
 " Now," said Theodore, " that is the time selected 
 for bringing in all the little children ; if, indeed, 
 they have not been seated, rank and file, at table." 
 
 " Yes," said Manfred, " and the conversation rises 
 to the affecting, on the high ideal virtues of the sweet 
 little creatures and their unutterable love for their 
 parents, and that of the parents for them." 
 
 " And when it takes a very lofty flight," said Theo- 
 dore, " tears are shed, as the last and most precious 
 liquor which is to be produced ; and thus the dinner 
 closes amidst the deepest commotion of heart." 
 
 " It is not enough," resumed Lothair, " that we 
 
118 
 
 avoid such absurdity and ill-breeding; every dinner- 
 conversation should be a work of art, a suitable ac- 
 companiment to the meal, adapted to it according to 
 the rules of thorough bass. I do not make any men- 
 tion of those frightfully large parties which are now, 
 alas ! become almost an universal fashion in our 
 country ; where acquaintances and strangers, friends 
 and foes, men of talent and fools, young girls and 
 old dowagers, are seated at random at a long table : 
 those dinners for which the hostess has thought and 
 bustled, and of which she has dreamt, for a week ; 
 where she has arranged everything with great splen- 
 dour, and still greater bad taste, only that she may 
 at length be quit of an entertainment long expected 
 from her, in return for the dozen or more similar 
 feasts which she has undergone. In addition to these 
 legal claimants, she invites everybody to whom she 
 thinks she owes any civility, and eagerly catches 
 about a dozen travellers in her net, that she may 
 remain discharged of all after-claims to hospitality 
 from them. No ! I do not allude to those tables at 
 which no one speaks, or all talk at once ; at which 
 chaos reigns, and only in few and rare moments 
 some solitary, private pleasantry can struggle into 
 being; where every conversation comes into the world 
 still -born, or must expire in a moment, like a fish on 
 dry land ; those feasts at which the host must set 
 himself on the rack in order to play the host well, 
 
119 
 
 to watch every part of the table, to drink wine 
 with everybody, and to whisper frosty jests into the 
 ears of silly, simpering ladies ; — let us pass over in 
 silence these barbarisms of our times, this death of 
 all social pleasure and of all hospitality, which, like 
 so many other barbarous customs, has been imported 
 and found a place amongst us." 
 
 " The sickly caricature of these great entertain- 
 ments," added Wilibald, " are the still larger tea-par- 
 ties and cold suppers, in which the pleasure is height- 
 ened by the universal bustle and uproar ; — where, 
 in the general confusion of tongues, servants, called 
 and uncalled, balancing trays of all possible refresh- 
 ments, dance in between the talkers ; each sweeps 
 with his load through every room, to seek he knows 
 not what ; and a lover of order is fain to take up a 
 position by the stove or the window, to escape being 
 run down in the universal flight, or seized and car- 
 ried along in the stream of some migratory horde." 
 
 " This," said Manfred, " is the true high style of 
 our social life ; Michael Angelo's Last Judgment to 
 the miniature picture of old hospitality and intimate 
 friendship; the final decree of art, the end of the 
 imagination, the fulfilment of time, of which all the 
 prophets have spoken." 
 
 Tieck. (Phantasus.) 
 
120 
 
 Duclos remarks that few distinguished works 
 have been produced by any but authors by profession. 
 In France, this class has long been held in respect. 
 With us, a man used to be esteemed as less than 
 nothing if he were only an author. This prejudice 
 still shows itself here and there, but the force of 
 honoured examples must in time crush it. Author- 
 ship is, according to the spirit in which it is pursued, 
 an infamy, a pastime, a day-labour, a handicraft, an 
 art, a science, a virtue. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 As to the manner in which history should be 
 studied, the following observations may suffice. 
 
 It must, as a whole, be regarded in the light of an 
 epos, which has no definite beginning nor end. The 
 student must select that point which he regards as 
 the most important or the most interesting, and 
 taking his stand on that, must continue to build and 
 to extend in every direction. 
 
 He must avoid those so-called universal histories, 
 which teach nothing ; at present there are no others. 
 A true universal history must be conceived in the 
 epic style, — that is, in the spirit perceptible in Hero- 
 dotus. What are now so called are compendiums, 
 from which everything extraordinary or important 
 is effaced : let even the reader who does not mean 
 
121 
 
 to addict himself to history as his peculiar depart- 
 ment, recur as much as possible to original sources 
 and particular histories, which will afford him far 
 more instruction. For modern history, let him learn 
 to relish the naive simplicity of chronicles, which 
 make no pretension to elaborate delineations of cha- 
 racter, nor to a psychological analysis of motives. 
 
 He who wishes to cultivate and pursue history 
 as an art, must adhere exclusively to the ancients, 
 who, since the decline of that community and pub- 
 licity which distinguished the life of Greece and 
 Rome, can never again be equalled. Putting aside 
 Gibbon, whose work has the advantage of a vast 
 range of subject, and of the whole force of the 
 transition from ancient to modern civilization (al- 
 though even he is a rhetor and not a historian), 
 there exist only national historians; and among these 
 posterity will mention none but Macchiavelli and 
 Johannes v. Müller. The letters of the latter, 
 written when a young man, will partly enable the 
 aspirant after eminence in this high walk of litera- 
 ture to calculate the steps he has to climb. It may 
 be generally affirmed, that all that science and art 
 — all that a life rich in experience and versed in 
 public affairs can give, — must combine to form the 
 historian. 
 
 The first archetypes of the historical style are the 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 epos in its primitive form, and the tragedy : for if 
 universal history — whose rise, like the sources of the 
 Nile, baffles discovery — loves the epic form and ful- 
 ness, particular history, on the other hand, requires 
 to be arranged concentrically around one common 
 point ; not to mention that, for the historian, tra- 
 gedy is the true source of those grand conceptions 
 and of that elevated mode of thinking to which he 
 ought to form himself. 
 
 Schelling. 
 
 {Vorlesungen über die Methode des ocademischen Studiums.) 
 
 There are two ways of writing history, one for 
 the learned, the other for the unlearned. In the first 
 case, the writer assumes that the reader is thoroughly 
 conversant with the particular facts. His sole pur- 
 pose is by apt suggestions and instructive compari- 
 sons to remind the reader of what he already knows, 
 and thus, in the place of his own desultory know- 
 ledge of facts, to present him with a grand whole, 
 or at least to impress it more vividly on his mind. 
 
 In the other case, the writer, even while adhering 
 to the same unity of design, is compelled to narrate 
 all the particular facts. 
 
 Goethe. {Recensionen.) 
 
123 
 
 The writer, or even the student, of history, ought, 
 if possible, to know all nations in their own tongue. 
 Languages have one inscrutable origin — as have all 
 national peculiarities — , and he has but an imperfect 
 knowledge of a people who does not know their 
 language. 
 
 B. G. Kiebuhr. (Lebensnachrichten.) 
 
 I hate all people who want to found sects. It is 
 not error, but sectarian error — nay, and even secta- 
 rian truth, — which causes the unhappiness of man- 
 kind. 
 
 Lessing. 
 
 Love one human being purely and warmly, and 
 you will love all. The heart in this heaven, like 
 the wandering sun, sees nothing, from the dewdrop 
 to the ocean, but a mirror which it warms and fills. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 THE DROWNED CHILD. 
 
 She sprang into the boat, grasped the oar, and 
 
 pushed off. The boat did not move ; she was com- 
 pelled to use all her strength, and to repeat the 
 effort. The boat rocked, and floated a little from 
 the shore. On her left arm was the child, in her 
 left hand the book, in her right the oar; — she 
 tottered with the motion and fell. The oar dragged 
 g 2 
 
124 
 
 her towards one side of the boat, arid, as she tried 
 to recover herself, the child and the book towards 
 the other ; they fell into the water. 
 
 She grasped the child's clothes, but her own 
 position rendered it impossible for her to rise. Her 
 right hand, now disengaged, was not sufficient to 
 enable her to turn or to stand up ; at length she 
 accomplished it; she drew the child out of the 
 water, but his eyes were closed — he had ceased to 
 breathe. 
 
 At this moment her whole recollection returned, 
 but the greater was her anguish. The boat had 
 drifted almost into the middle of the lake, the oar 
 had floated far away, she saw no one on the shore — 
 and what would it have availed her if she had ? Cut 
 off from every thing, she floated on the faithless, 
 pathless element. 
 
 She sought help from herself. She had often 
 heard the means described of restoring those appa- 
 rently drowned, and had even witnessed their efficacy. 
 She stripped the child, and dried it with her muslin 
 robe. She tore open her bosom, and for the first time 
 laid it bare to the heavens ; for the first time she 
 pressed a living creature to her pure, naked breast. 
 Alas ! it was not living ! 
 
 The cold limbs of the unhappy babe struck a 
 chill to her inmost heart. Streams of tears gushed 
 from her eyes, and gave to the surface of the life- 
 
125 
 
 less body an appearance of warmth and life. She 
 would not give over. She wrapped it round and 
 round in her shawl ; she chafed, pressed and breathed 
 on it, and thus, and by tears and kisses, she felt 
 as if she in some measure compensated for the want 
 of those succours which, in her desolate situation, 
 were denied her. 
 
 All in vain ! Motionless lay the child upon her 
 arm, — motionless lay the boat on the surface of the 
 water. But even now her sweet spirit left her not 
 utterly helpless. She turned to the Helper above. 
 She sank on her knees in the boat, and raised the 
 lifeless babe with both arms across her innocent 
 breast — as white, and, alas ! as cold, as marble. 
 With tearful eyes she looked upward, and called for 
 help from thence, where a tender heart hopes to find 
 it in the greatest abundance when its need is the 
 greatest. 
 
 And not in vain did she turn to the heavens, 
 whence already the stars began to look forth. A 
 soft breeze arose, and wafted the boat close to the 
 landing-place at the plane trees. 
 
 Goethe. ( W ahlverwa?idtschaften.) 
 
 Concerning nothing do we come to more false 
 conclusions and make more false steps, than concern- 
 ing woman's cheerfulness. Ah ! how many of these 
 
126 
 
 affectionate creatures are there who pine unknown, 
 despond smiling, and wither jesting ; who with bright, 
 joyous eyes, flee into a corner, as if behind a fan, 
 that there they may right gladly break out into the 
 tears which oppressed them ; who pay for the day of 
 smiles by a night of tears — just as an unusually trans- 
 parent, clear and mistless day surely foretells rain ! 
 
 Jean Paul. (Cavipaner-Thal.) 
 
 The poet must have the power of bringing before 
 himself the thoughts of others ; likewise thoughts in 
 every kind of series, and in every variety of expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 LETTER FROM AN OLD MARRIED WOMAN TO A 
 SENSITIVE YOUNG LADY. 
 
 You do your husband injustice, dear child, if you 
 think he loves you less than formerly. He is a man 
 of an ardent, active temper, who loves labour and 
 exertion, and finds his pleasure in them ; and as long 
 as his love for you furnished him with labour and 
 exertion he was completely absorbed in it. But this 
 has, of course, ceased ; your reciprocal position — but 
 by no means his love, as you imagine — has changed. 
 
 A love which seeks to conquer, and a love which 
 
127 
 
 has conquered, are two totally different passions. 
 The one puts on the stretch all the virtues of the 
 hero ; it excites in him fear, hope, desire ; it leads 
 him from triumph to triumph, and makes him think 
 every foot of ground that he gains, a kingdom. 
 Hence it keeps alive and fosters all the active powers 
 of the man who abandons himself to it. The happy 
 husband cannot appear like the lover; he has not 
 like him to fear, to hope, and to desire ; he has no 
 longer that charming toil, with all its triumphs, 
 which he had before, nor can that which he has 
 already won be again a conquest. 
 
 You have only, my dear child, to attend to this 
 most natural and inevitable difference, and you will 
 see in the whole conduct of your husband, who now 
 finds more pleasure in business than in your smiles, 
 nothing to offend you. You wish — do you not ? — 
 that he would still sit with you alone on the mossy 
 bank in front of the grotto, as he used to do, look in 
 your blue eyes, and kneel to kiss your pretty hand. 
 You wish that he would paint to you in livelier colours 
 than ever those delights of love which lovers know 
 how to describe with so much art and passion ; that 
 he would lead your imagination from one rapture to 
 another. My wishes, at least for the first year after 
 I married my husband, went to nothing short of this. 
 But it will not do; — the best husband is also the 
 most useful and active member of society ; and when 
 
128 
 
 love no longer demands toil and trouble — when every 
 triumph is a mere repetition of the last — when suc- 
 cess has lost something of its value along with its 
 novelty — the taste for activity no longer finds its 
 appropriate food, and turns to fresh objects of pur- 
 suit. The necessity for occupation and for progress 
 is of the very essence of our souls ; and if our hus- 
 bands are guided by reason in the choice of occu- 
 pation, we ought not to pout because they do not sit 
 with us so often as formerly by the silver brook or 
 under the beech tree. At first I too found it hard 
 to endure the change. But my husband talked to 
 me about it with perfect frankness and sincerity. 
 " The joy with which you receive me," said he, 
 " does not conceal your vexation, and your saddened 
 eye tries in vain to assume a cheerful look ; I see 
 what you want — that I would sit as I used to do on 
 the mossy bank, hang on all your steps, and live on 
 your breath ; but this is impossible. I would bring 
 you down from the top of the church steeple on a 
 rope-ladder, at the peril of my life, if I could obtain 
 you in no other way ; but now, as I have you fast in 
 my arms, as all dangers are passed and all obstacles 
 overcome, my passion can no longer find satisfaction 
 in that way. What has once been sacrificed to my 
 self-love, ceases to be a sacrifice. The spirit of in- 
 vention, discovery and conquest, inherent in man, 
 demands a new career. Before I obtained you I 
 
129 
 
 used all the virtues I possessed as steps by which to 
 reach you ; but now, as I have you, I place you at 
 the top of them, and you are the highest step from 
 which I now hope to ascend higher." 
 
 Little as I relished the notion of the church tower, 
 or the honour of serving as the highest step under 
 my husband's feet, time and reflection on the course 
 of human affairs convinced me that the thing could 
 not be otherwise. I therefore turned my active mind, 
 which would perhaps in time have been tired of the 
 mossy bank, to the domestic business which came 
 within my department ; and when we had both been 
 busy and bustling in our several ways, and could 
 tell each other in the evening what we had been 
 doing, he in the fields, and I in the house or the 
 garden, we were often more happy and contented 
 than the most loving couple in the world. 
 
 And, what is best of all, this pleasure has not left 
 us after thirty years of marriage. We talk with as 
 much animation as ever of our domestic affairs; I have 
 learned to know all my husband's tastes, and I relate 
 to him whatever I think likely to please him out of 
 journals, whether political or literary ; I recommend 
 books to him, and lay them before him ; I carry on 
 the correspondence with our married children, and 
 often delight him with good news of them and our 
 little grandchildren. As to his accounts, I understand 
 them as well as he, and make them easier to him by 
 G 5 
 
130 
 
 having mine of all the yearly outlay which passes 
 through my hands, ready and in order ; if necessary, 
 I can send in a statement to the treasury chamber, 
 and my hand makes as good a figure in our cash- 
 book as his ; we are accustomed to the same order, 
 we know the spirit of all our affairs and duties, and 
 we have one aim and one rule in all our under- 
 takings. 
 
 This would never have been the case if we had 
 played the part of tender lovers after marriage as 
 well as before, and had exhausted our energies in 
 asseverations of mutual love. We should perhaps 
 have regarded each other with ennui, and have soon 
 found the grotto too damp, the evening air too cool, 
 the noontide too hot, the morning fatiguing. We 
 should have longed for visitors, who when they came 
 would not have been amused, and would have im- 
 patiently awaited the hour of departure, or, if we 
 went to them, would have wished us away. Spoiled 
 by effeminate trifling, we should have wanted to con- 
 tinue to trifle, and to share in pleasures we could not 
 enjoy ; or have been compelled to find refuge at the 
 card-table — the last place at which the old can figure 
 with the young. 
 
 Do you wish not to fall into this state, my dear 
 child ? Follow my example, and do not torment 
 yourself and your excellent husband with unreason- 
 able exactions. Don't think, however, that I have 
 
131 
 
 entirely renounced the pleasure of seeing mine at 
 my feet. Opportunities for this present themselves 
 far more frequently to those who do not seek, but 
 seem to avoid them, than to those who allow them- 
 selves to be found on the mossy bank at all times, 
 and as often as it pleases their lord and master. 
 
 I still sometimes sing to my little grandchildren, 
 when they come to see me, a song which, in the 
 days when his love had still to contend with all sorts 
 of obstacles, used to throw him into raptures ; and 
 when the little ones cry, " Ancora ! ancora ! grand- 
 mamma," his eyes fill with tears of joy. I asked him 
 once whether he would not now think it too dan- 
 gerous to bring me down a rope-ladder from the 
 top of the church steeple, upon which he called out 
 as vehemently as the children, " Oh, ancora ! grand- 
 mamma, ancora ! " 
 
 P.S. — One thing, my dear child, I forgot. It 
 seems to me that you trust too entirely to your 
 good cause and your good heart, (perhaps, too, a 
 little to your blue eyes,) and do not deign to try 
 to attract your husband anew. I fancy you are 
 at home, just as you were a week ago in society 
 at our excellent G — s, where I found you all as 
 stiff and silent as if you had met only to tire each 
 other to death. Did you not observe how soon I 
 set the whole company in motion ? This was merely 
 by a few words addressed to each, on the subject I 
 
132 
 
 thought most agreeable or most flattering to him. 
 After a time the others began to feel more happy 
 and at their ease, and we parted in high spirits and 
 good humour. 
 
 What I did there, I do daily at home. I try to 
 make myself and all around me agreeable. It will 
 not do to leave a man to himself till he comes to 
 you, to take no pains to attract him, or to appear 
 before him with a long face. But it is not so diffi- 
 cult as you think, dear child, to behave to a husband 
 so that he shall remain for ever in some measure 
 a lover. I am an old woman, but you can still do 
 what you like ; a word from you at the right time 
 will not fail of its effect. What need have you to 
 play the suffering virtue ? The tear of a loving girl, 
 says an old book, is like a dewdrop on the rose ; but 
 that on the cheek of a wife is a drop of poison to her 
 husband. Try to appear cheerful and contented, 
 and your husband will be so ; and when you have 
 made him happy you will become so, not in appear- 
 ance, but in reality. 
 
 The skill required is not so great. Nothing 
 flatters a man so much as the happiness of his wife ; 
 he is always proud of himself as the source of it. 
 As soon as you are cheerful, you will be lively and 
 alert, and every moment will afford you an opportu- 
 nity of letting fall an agreeable word. Your educa- 
 tion, which gives you an immense advantage, will 
 
133 
 
 greatly assist you ; and your sensibility will become 
 the noblest gift that nature has bestowed on you, 
 when it shows itself in affectionate assiduity, and 
 stamps on every action a soft, kind and tender cha- 
 racter, instead of wasting itself in secret repinings. 
 
 Justus Moser. {Patriotische Fantasien.) 
 
 There are in certain heads a kind of established 
 errors against which reason has no weapons. There 
 are more of these mere assertions current than one 
 would believe. Men are very fond of proving their 
 steadfast adherence to nonsense. 
 
 Von Knebel. 
 
 Innocence and ignorance are sisters. But there 
 are noble and vulgar sisters. Vulgar innocence and 
 ignorance are mortal, they have pretty faces, but 
 wholly without expression, and of a transient beauty ; 
 the noble sisters are immortal, their lofty forms are 
 unchangeable, and their countenances are still ra- 
 diant with the light of paradise. They dwell in 
 heaven, and visit only the noblest and most severely 
 tried of mankind. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
134 
 
 Both love of mankind and respect for their rights 
 are duties ; the former however only a conditional, 
 the latter an unconditional, purely imperative duty, 
 which he must be perfectly certain not to have trans- 
 gressed, who would give himself up to the sweet emo- 
 tions arising from beneficence. 
 
 Kant. (Zum ewigen Frieden.) 
 
 As no censor can found his prohibitions on the 
 exclusive possession and protection of truth, he 
 must maintain his right to a dominion over inquiry 
 on some other ground than the worth or worthless- 
 ness of its results. This other ground is, their in- 
 fluence on the people. The poor people ! Every- 
 where are they invited into the court of the palace 
 when the heaviest burthens of war or of peace are to 
 be carried away ; everywhere are they driven out of 
 it when the greatest treasures are to be distributed, 
 e. g. light, art, pleasure, etc, 
 
 With what right does any one class demand the 
 exclusive possession of light ? — unless indeed it means 
 also to claim exclusive possession of the iniquitous 
 power of ruling more absolutely from its own light 
 over others' darkness. 
 
 Can a state permit the development of the facul- 
 ties of human nature only to certain individuals, as it 
 grants titles and orders ? On the contrary, the claim 
 
135 
 
 on a state for the means of culture is the stronger, 
 the smaller its actual amount; the demand for the 
 primary and simplest education, more urgent than for 
 the highest. 
 
 But upon this matter the old arguments — the 
 hoary satellites of despotism — still exist; namely, 
 that the people, like horses and birds in the mill or 
 the fowling-floor, serve both their own interests and 
 the interests of the state much better when blinded. 
 
 But these decrepit servants of tyranny knavishly 
 assume that the same sunlight which is useful on 
 mountains, is mischievous in valleys ; and that want 
 of education, though it will not protect the high 
 against error and corruption, will the low; that 
 truth misunderstood can never become truth misused, 
 except among the people. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
 .... Such are the desponding conclusions as to 
 human affairs to which we are inevitably driven if we 
 do not cherish a firm conviction that the pure abs- 
 tract principles of right have an objective reality — 
 i. e. are susceptible of execution ; and that the trans- 
 actions either of the people of a state, or of states 
 with one another, must be in accordance with those 
 principles, let empirical policy oppose to them what it 
 may. True policy can therefore take no step with- 
 out first doing homage to morality; and although 
 
136 
 
 policy is certainly in itself a difficult art, yet its 
 union with morality is no art at all ; since, wherever 
 they are opposed, the latter cuts the knot which the 
 former cannot untie. Justice must be held sacred 
 by men, let the sacrifices it may cost the sovereign 
 power be what they may. There can be no acting 
 by halves, nor contriving that intermediate thing 
 between justice and expediency, — a justice subject 
 to conditions of narrow and partial utility ; but all 
 policy, to have any permanent strength, must bow 
 the knee to justice. 
 
 Kant. (Zum ewigen Frieden.) 
 
 RELIGION AND ART. 
 
 The Greeks were in a certain sense fortunate, that 
 long before art had a visible existence, the genius of 
 the people had prepared the way for the artist and 
 had prefigured the whole world of art. That mys- 
 tical element which is so essential a part of religion, 
 — in which we dimly conceive and feel the divine 
 nature as infinite and absolutely different from the 
 human — as incapable of all representation and the 
 subject only of faint and imperfect suggestions, — this 
 element was not wholly excluded indeed — for that 
 is impossible — but thrown into the back-ground, 
 especially by poetry. The ancient legends which 
 describe the secret influences of the universal powers 
 
137 
 
 of nature, had, even as early as the Homeric age, 
 nearly lost all meaning to the Greeks; the festal 
 rites which sprang from this root continued to be ob- 
 served as venerable and traditional ceremonies ; but 
 poetry followed her inevitable course — to fashion 
 everything after the analogy of human life ; and with 
 this a simple piety, which conceived the Deity as a 
 human protector and counsellor, a father and friend 
 in every time of need, was perfectly consistent. 
 The bards, who were themselves only the organs of 
 the universal sentiment, gradually rendered their 
 descriptions more individual and precise ; as we see 
 that Homer did not attain to the same degree of 
 sensible distinctness which characterized the poets 
 of the most flourishing age of plastic art. When, 
 however, plastic art had succeeded in represent- 
 ing the outward forms of life in all their truth 
 and significancy, there remained only for her to 
 give substance to the ideal images which the ima- 
 gination had already individualized. And although 
 this could never be done without an entirely ori- 
 ginal conception, without inspiration, and an ex- 
 ertion of genius on the part of the artist, yet the 
 general conception of the god entertained by the 
 whole nation was there, and served as a criterion of 
 the accuracy of the representation. If the establish- 
 ed and distinct conception of the god, and the ex- 
 quisite sense of the Greeks for the character of forms, 
 
138 
 
 were completely satisfied, a normal image arose, to 
 which all succeeding artists conformed, though with 
 the living freedom of genius ; evincing that peculiar 
 taste and judgment of the Hellenic nations, equally 
 removed from oriental stiffness and servility, and 
 from the modern rage for originality, which is the 
 mere offspring of vanity. Statues of gods and heroes 
 were produced, which possessed not less internal 
 truth and distinctness than if the gods and heroes 
 had actually set to the artists. This state of things 
 the world has beheld but once, because it was only 
 in Greece that art was the business of the nation. 
 
 The foregoing remarks are illustrated chiefly by 
 the statues of those gods who were in the highest 
 degree individualized : i. e. whose nature was the 
 least susceptible of being reduced to an elemental 
 idea. It is not as significant symbols, but as actual 
 existences, that we consider them ; which arises not 
 from their having been the objects of outward per- 
 ception, but from their ideal character having lived 
 through the whole history of the Greek races by 
 which they were worshiped, and received a thou- 
 sand impressions from it. Hence they are in the 
 highest degree corporeal, — they possess the most in- 
 tense personality. 
 
 They are, the gods of Olympus ; the supreme Zeus, 
 with his children and kindred. 
 
 Ottfried Müller. 
 
139 
 
 BERLIN SINGING-SCHOOL. 
 
 My main reason for wishing for you now, is 
 purely ideal. Our chorus is now nothing less than 
 a vast organon, which I can set a-playing or stop, 
 with a movement of my hand ; and can make it, like 
 a telegraph, denote and express great thoughts. 
 
 An organ, every pipe of which is a rational, volun- 
 tary agent, may realize our highest conceptions, but 
 then it demands the highest mind to govern it. 
 Here are the most promising youth of a large and 
 not wholly corrupted capital, gathered together, 
 eagerly receiving every good suggestion, and quietly 
 following it out ; — a school, whose end is wisdom, 
 whose means, poetry, harmony and song. 
 
 Zelter. 
 
 It is as if women made everything with their 
 hands, and men with tools. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 God preserve us the use of our senses, and 
 
 send every beginner a competent master ! But as 
 these are not always and everywhere to be had, we 
 wish that every artist or lover of art would give 
 us a 7repl eavrov of his attempts ; of the difficulties 
 which he found it the hardest to overcome ; of the 
 
140 
 
 powers by which he surmounted those difficulties ; of 
 the accidents which helped him ; of the inspiration 
 that in certain moments came over him and en- 
 lightened him as to his own being, till at length, gra- 
 dually advancing in strength, he gained possession of 
 the mighty empire, and compelled the neighbouring 
 arts — nay, universal nature — to pay tribute to him 
 as king and conqueror. 
 
 Thus — proceeding from the mechanical to the 
 intellectual, from the grinding of colours and the 
 stretching of strings to the true influence of the arts 
 on heart and mind — we might collect a living theory, 
 which might delight and encourage the lover of art, 
 and perhaps afford no inconsiderable help to genius. 
 
 Goethe. (Recensionen.) 
 
 True hope is based on energy of character. A 
 strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to 
 hope, because it knows the mutability of human af- 
 fairs, and how slight a circumstance may change the 
 whole course of events. Such a spirit too rests upon 
 itself ; it is not confined to partial views, or to one 
 particular object. And if at last all should be lost, 
 it has saved itself — its own integrity and worth. 
 
 Hope awakens courage, while despondency is the 
 last of all evils ; it is the abandonment of good, — the 
 giving up of the battle of life with dead nothingness. 
 
14*1 
 
 He who can implant courage in the human soul is 
 its best physician. 
 
 To seek to govern men by their fears and their 
 wants is an unworthy purpose; the desire to rule 
 by means of cowardice is itself cowardice. Love 
 inspires courage and hope, and thus is doubly the 
 giver and the preserver of life. 
 
 Whatever teaches us boldly to combat the ma- 
 nifold doubts and assaults of life, enables us to win 
 the crown of victory. Special care ought therefore 
 to be taken in education to teach what true courage 
 is — as well in social and domestic, as in public af- 
 fairs — and by what means it may best be sustained. 
 
 Von Knebel. 
 
 LETTER TO GOETHE. 
 
 March 5th, 180S. 
 
 Frankfort is wet, cold, odious. If it were not 
 for your mother, winter here would be intolerable — 
 so utterly without consistency — nothing but eternally 
 melting snow. 
 
 I have a rival in her good graces, a squirrel which 
 a handsome French soldier left here in quarters. 
 She lets it do whatever it likes. She calls it Jack 
 (Hänschen), and Jack may gnaw the chairs and 
 tables, — nay, he has even had the audacity to sit 
 upon her state cap, and bite the feathers and 
 flowers. 
 
142 
 
 A day or two ago I called in the evening, and the 
 maid let me in, saying that she was out, but would 
 soon return. The room was dark,* — I sat down by 
 the window and looked out. Suddenly it seemed to 
 me as if something rustled. I listened, and thought 
 I heard breathing ; I was half afraid ; I heard some- 
 thing move again, and asked, willing to put it on 
 the squirrel, " Jack, are you there ?" " It 's not Jack, 
 it 's John," answered a sonorous bass voice in the 
 background, to my great surprise and consternation, 
 and thereupon the ubique malus spiritus cleared 
 his throat. Awestruck, I did not venture from my 
 place ; the spirit gave no other indications of his 
 presence than his breathing and an occasional sneeze. 
 I now heard your mother; she entered with Miss 
 Lieschen behind her, bearing the scarcely lighted 
 candles. " Are you there ?" said she, taking off her 
 cap, which she deposited on its nocturnal stand — a 
 green wine bottle ; " Yes," exclaimed both of us at 
 once, and a bestarred gentleman advanced out of 
 the corner, and said, " Frau Rath *, will you let me 
 eat a ham salad and some pancakes (Eierkuchen) 
 with you tonight?" Hereupon I concluded that 
 John was no other than a prince of Mecklenburg ; 
 for who has not heard your mother tell the pretty 
 story, how, at the emperor's coronation, the present 
 Queen of Prussia, then a little princess, and her bro- 
 
 * Mrs. Councillor — the title by which Goethe's mother was 
 universally known, and peculiar to her. — Translator. 
 
143 
 
 ther saw the Frau Rath going to eat this identical 
 supper, and how their appetite was so inflamed by the 
 sight that they ate it all up to the last leaf ? 
 
 She now related the whole history over again 
 with great glee, and many others besides ; e. g. how 
 she procured for the princesses the pleasure of pump- 
 ing water till they were tired, at the pump in her 
 yard ; how she tried by every possible argument to 
 prevent the governess from calling them away, and 
 at last, finding she could not prevail, used force, and 
 locked her up in a room. " For," said your mother, 
 " I had rather have got into the most serious scrape, 
 than that the dear children should have been disturb- 
 ed in their innocent enjoyment, which they would 
 never have been allowed anywhere but in my house ; 
 and indeed they told me when they took leave, that 
 they should never forget how happy and merry they 
 had been." 
 
 I could write you sheets full of such reminiscences. 
 
 Bettina. {Frau v. Arnim.) 
 Briefwechsel Goethes mit einem Kinde. 
 
 The censor of political and religious books should 
 remember the Cayba spider Don Antonio de Ulloa 
 talks of, which gives out a mortal poison if seized 
 and crushed, but is perfectly innoxious when blown 
 off the skin. T D , 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
144 
 
 PESTALOZZI. 
 
 Pestalozzi places himself before us in his own 
 writings with the most genuine and touching frank- 
 ness. I might cite him, like Luther, as exhibiting 
 the distinctive features of the German heart, and 
 might draw the cheering inference, that this heart, 
 with all its wonder-working powers, still beats within 
 the wide circle where the German tongue is spoken. 
 Pestalozzi, too, lived a whole life of toil, struggling 
 with every possible obstacle ; internally, with his own 
 obstinate confusion and awkwardness of mind, and 
 his very slender stock of the ordinary appliances fur- 
 nished by a learned education ; externally, with un- 
 ceasing misapprehensions ; he struggled forward to- 
 wards a dim and shadowy object, of which he had 
 no distinct knowledge whatever, yet was sustained 
 and borne along by an unconquerable and all-power- 
 ful impulse — love for the poor, destitute, neglected 
 people. This all-powerful love made him, like Lu- 
 ther, (only in another manner, and one more suited 
 to his age) its instrument ; it was the life of his 
 life ; it was, unconsciously to himself, the strong 
 and unbroken clue which guided his whole course 
 through all the clouds that surrounded it, and which 
 crowned its evening — for it was impossible that such 
 a love should depart from earth unrequited — with a 
 triumph of what may be truly called his intellectual 
 
145 
 
 discovery, far beyond his most daring hopes. He 
 had wished only to help the people ; but his discovery, 
 taken in its widest extension, abolishes the people — 
 abolishes the distinction between them and the edu- 
 cated classes ; gives, instead of popular education 
 (which was the object of his efforts), national educa- 
 tion, and may in time become the instrument of 
 raising the masses, and the whole human race, out of 
 the depths of that misery in which he found them. 
 
 Fichte. {Reden an die deutsche Nation.) 
 
 Siebenkas pored over a fatal iron-mould — 
 
 a pock-mark or wart in his wife's heart : he could 
 never raise her to a lyrical enthusiasm of love, in 
 which she might forget heaven and earth and all 
 things. She could count the strokes of the clock 
 between his kisses, — and listen to the pot boiling 
 over and run to take it off, with the big tears, which 
 he had drawn forth by a beautiful story or a dis- 
 course from the outpourings of his heart, yet stand- 
 ing in her eyes. She sat in the adjoining room and 
 sang to herself quavering psalms, and in the middle of 
 a verse she interpolated the prosaic question, " What 
 shall I cook this evening ?" And he could never get 
 it out of his head, that once, in the midst of the most 
 moved attention to a closet-sermon of his on death 
 and eternity, she looked thoughtfully downwards, 
 
 H 
 
14-6 
 
 and at length said, " Don't put on your left stocking 
 tomorrow morning ; I must first mend a hole in it." 
 
 The author of this history hereby asserts that he 
 has often gone nearly out of his mind in consequence 
 of such-like feminine interludes. It is in truth to 
 be wished that the said author, in case he enter into 
 the estate of matrimony, may find a woman to whom 
 he can read the most essential principles and dic- 
 tate of metaphysics and astronomy, and who will not, 
 in his most towering flights, cast up his stockings at 
 him. He will however be satisfied if one fall to 
 his lot who has humbler merits, but who is capable 
 of soaring with him to a certain height : — one on 
 whose opened eyes and heart the flowery earth and 
 beaming heavens strike not in infinitesimals, but in 
 large and towering masses ; for whom the great 
 \Yhole is something more than a nursery or a ball- 
 room ; one who, with a feeling at once tender and 
 discriminating, and with a heart at once pious and 
 large, for ever improves the man whom she has 
 wedded. This it is, and no more, to which the au- 
 thor of this history limits his wishes. 
 
 Jean Paul. (Siebenk'ds.) 
 
 To have freedom, is only to have that which 
 is absolutely necessary to enable us to be what we 
 ought to be, and to possess what we ought to possess. 
 
147 
 
 This is clear, if we ask ourselves what are the grounds 
 and objects of our aspirations and wishes, and reflect 
 what are the obstacles to their fulfilment. This in- 
 quiry leads us to the root of all lying. The first 
 privation of freedom consists in this — that we must 
 not say what we wish, nor what we think. In the 
 secrecy of prayer we say it to our heavenly Father, 
 indeed he knows it without our confessions ; but in 
 the world we lie and conceal. Yet he alone is worthy 
 to be called a friend, to whom we dare to show our- 
 selves as we are. If lies are told us, we must look 
 to ourselves as the cause ; we must not only deserve 
 confidence by our integrity, but inspire and invite it 
 by our kindness and indulgence. To repose such 
 confidence is the profoundest of all social wants ; 
 the end and the foundation of speech. 
 
 Rakel. 
 
 .... Many among you may think it inexpedient 
 to speak frequently, or indeed ever, except on occa- 
 sions of great solemnity, of religion, — and to this I 
 shall not attempt to reply. But the world cannot 
 forbid you to manifest the spirit of religion in a 
 holy life. You may therefore show forth its essence 
 in every act and deed ; even the most ordinary 
 and trivial affairs and relations of life need not be 
 devoid of the expression of a pious heart. Let 
 the deep and sacred feeling which inspires and go- 
 verns all your actions, show that even in those trifles 
 h2 
 
148 
 
 over which a profane mind passes with levity, the 
 music of a lofty sentiment echoes in your heart ; let 
 the majestic serenity with which you estimate the 
 great and the small, prove that you refer everything 
 to the Immutable — that you perceive the Godhead 
 alike in everything ; let the bright cheerfulness with 
 which you encounter every proof of our transitory 
 nature, reveal to all men that you live above time 
 and above the world ; let your easy and graceful 
 self-denial prove how many of the bonds of egotism 
 you have already broken ; and let the ever quick 
 and open spirit from which neither what is rarest nor 
 most ordinary escapes, show with what unwearied 
 ardour you seek for every trace of the Godhead — 
 with what eagerness you watch for its slightest mani- 
 festation. If your whole life, and every movement 
 of your outward and inward being, is thus guided 
 by religion, perhaps the hearts of many will be 
 touched by this mute language, and will open to the 
 reception of that spirit which dwells within you. 
 
 Schhiermacher. {lieber die Religion.) 
 
 As to the value of conversions, God alone can 
 judge. God alone can know how wide are the steps 
 which the soul has to take before it can approach to 
 a community with Him, to the dwelling of the per- 
 fect, or to the intercourse and friendship of higher 
 natures. 
 
 Goethe. (Recensionen.) 
 
149 
 
 PROGRESS AND PERMANENCY. 
 
 Breslau, Dec. 23, 1S03. 
 Your letter of the 20th, which I have just read a 
 second time, contains something which I cannot for 
 a moment leave unanswered ; for I cannot bear to be 
 misunderstood by a man like you on so important a 
 point. 
 
 That " I hate intellectual progress," I never said, 
 or at least never meant. How could I do myself such 
 injustice ? What I meant is nearly as follows : — 
 
 Two principles govern the moral and intellectual 
 world. One is perpetual progress, the other, the 
 necessary limitations to that progress. If the former 
 alone prevailed, there would be nothing steadfast 
 and durable on earth, and the whole of social life 
 would be the sport of winds and waves. If the 
 latter had exclusive sway, or even if it obtained a 
 mischievous preponderancy, everything would petrify 
 or rot. The best ages of the world are always those 
 in which these two principles are the most equally 
 balanced. In such ages every enlightened man ought 
 to adopt both principles into his whole mind and 
 conduct, and with one hand develope what he can, 
 with the other restrain and uphold what he ought. 
 
 But in wild and stormy times, when this balance 
 is destroyed by attacks on the conservative princi- 
 ple ; or in dark and barbarous times, when the prin- 
 
150 
 
 ciple of progress is unduly checked, it appears to me 
 that every individual should take a part, and should 
 become to a certain extent one-sided, in order to 
 form a sort of counterpoise to the disorder that 
 reigns around him. When fear of truth, persecu- 
 tion for opinions, and stupid persistency weigh clown 
 the human mind, the best men of their age must 
 strive, even unto martyrdom, for progress. When, 
 on the other hand, — as in our times, — destruction of 
 every kind is become the ruling and preponderant 
 tendency, all distinguished men must attach them- 
 selves obstinately to old opinions and institutions. 
 
 Thus alone did I understand the question. And 
 even now, even in these times of dissolution, very 
 many must of course labour at the mental culture 
 of the human race ; but some must devote themselves 
 to the more difficult, the more thankless, the more 
 dangerous task of struggling against the excessive 
 tendency to change. That these men must, above 
 all things, be highly cultivated, I assume as indis- 
 pensable. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I am as little inclined to extremes as you. The 
 difference between us lies mainly in this : you have 
 the principle of progress, as aim, constantly before 
 your eyes ; but too great and too wise to rush 
 blindly forward, you have learned and have admi- 
 rably taught others, how necessary it is to hold the 
 
151 
 
 rein even while you urge forward. I have chosen 
 the conservative principle as my polar star ; but I 
 never forget that we must urge onward, even while 
 we keep a steady rein. 
 
 In tranquil times we should stand precisely on the 
 same line ; even in the storms of these tremendous 
 days we are in a state of perpetual approximation ; 
 both extremely near to the centre, though starting 
 from a different point of the periphery. 
 
 Genz. {Briefe an Johannes v. Müller.) 
 
 They came, saw, and conquered — all who were 
 at table expecting them. Heavens ! they were en- 
 lightened, eighteenth-century men. They stood up 
 stoutly for moderate freedom, and good amusing 
 reading, and moderate deism, and moderate philo- 
 sophy. They delivered themselves most clearly 
 against the apparition of spirits, — against all illu- 
 sions and all extremes. They liked very well to 
 read their poets — as models of style to be advan- 
 tageously used in business, and as relaxations from 
 solid affairs ; they relished nightingales — roasted ; 
 and liked myrtles, as Spanish bakers do — to heat 
 their ovens with ; they had killed the great sphynx, 
 who sets us the riddle of life, and carried off the 
 stuffed hide, and they held it for a wonder that any- 
 
152 
 
 body else would now submit to be puzzled. Genius, 
 said they, we would certainly not throw away ; we 
 would keep it for sale. And their icy souls burn but 
 for one object — for the body; this is solid and real ; 
 this is the true state, and religion, and art. 
 
 Jean Paul. (Titan.) 
 
 THE HARTZ. 
 
 The mountains were here steeper, the pine 
 
 forests waved beneath like a deep green sea, and 
 white clouds floated across the blue heavens. The 
 wildness of the scene was, as it were, tamed by its 
 unity and simplicity. Nature, like a good poet, 
 loves no abrupt transitions. The clouds, however 
 fantastic be their forms, have a pure and tender 
 colouring which harmonizes with the blue sky and 
 the green earth, so that all the hues of a region melt 
 into each other like soft music, and nature, under 
 each of her aspects, has a tranquillizing and sooth- 
 ing influence. 
 
 Like a great poet too, nature can produce the 
 greatest effects with the fewest means. There are 
 only a sun, trees, flowers, water — and love. It is 
 true, if this is wanting in the heart of the spectator, 
 the whole may present but a poor uninteresting 
 spectacle ; and the sun is then only so many miles 
 in diameter, and the trees are good for firewood, and 
 
153 
 
 the flowers are classified according to the number of 
 their stamina, and the water is wet. 
 
 A little boy, who was gathering brushwood in 
 the forest for his sick uncle, pointed out to me the 
 village of Leerbach. He seemed to be upon a foot- 
 ing of the greatest intimacy with the trees ; he 
 greeted them as old acquaintances, and they rustled 
 their greetings in reply. He whistled like a linnet, 
 and the other birds all around answered him ; and 
 before I was well aware, he had disappeared in the 
 thicket with his naked feet and his bundle of brush- 
 wood. 
 
 Children, thought I, are younger than we, and 
 can still remember the time when they were trees or 
 birds, and can therefore understand and speak their 
 language ; but we are grown old, and have too many 
 cares, and too much jurisprudence and bad poetry 
 in our heads. 
 
 Heinrich Heine. (Reisebilder.) 
 
 It is indifferent in what condition we are, if we 
 are not in that we wish for. 
 
 Rahe l. 
 
 How rarely do men accurately weigh what they 
 have to sacrifice against what they have to gain ! 
 How hard is it to will the end, and not to turn with 
 h5 
 
154- 
 
 repugnance from the means ! Many transpose them, 
 and delight themselves in the means, while they 
 lose sight of the end. They seek to cure every 
 disease topically on the spot where it first shows 
 itself, and take no care to discover the point where 
 it really has its origin, and whence it acts. Hence is 
 it so difficult to profit by advice, — especially for the 
 many, who are intelligent enough about their every- 
 day affairs, but seldom see beyond the morrow. 
 Thus it happens, that when, in any popular insti- 
 tution or scheme, one man loses and another gains, 
 it is impossible to come at a fair comparison of the 
 respective portions of good and evil. All truly 
 common good must be the result of an act of the 
 uncontrolled sovereign will. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 Liane stood in the moonlight behind the plashy 
 water. Albano tore asunder the branches which ob- 
 structed his view, and looked, uncovered and breath- 
 less, on the holy beauty of the vision. With the 
 unearthly station and look of a Grecian god, Liane 
 stood resplendent in the moonbeams, and the en- 
 tranced youth beheld the young, open, serene Ma- 
 donna brow, on which none of the world's sorrows 
 and disturbances had traced a furrow or thrown a 
 shade — and the small delicate, scarcely-arched eye- 
 brow — and the face like a perfect pearl, oval and 
 
155 
 
 white — and the loosened locks lying on the lilies 
 of the valley at her heart — and the slender graceful 
 form, which, with her white garments, gave a di- 
 viner air to her beauty — and the ideal stillness of 
 her whole being, as she stood laying only her fingers, 
 and not her arm, on the balcony, as if the Psyche 
 only hovered over the lily-bell of her body, and 
 shook or bowed it never— and the large blue eyes 
 which, while her head sank a little, unclosed with 
 inexpressible beauty, and seemed to lose themselves 
 in dreams, and in distant plains glowing in the even- 
 ing red. 
 
 Thrice happy man ! The only visible goddess, 
 Beauty, appears to thee suddenly in all her might 
 and majesty, and accompanied by all her heavens. 
 
 Jean Paul. (Titan.) 
 
 LOUISA, QUEEN OF PRUSSIA, TO HER FATHER, THE 
 DUKE OF MECKLENBURG STRELITZ. 
 
 Memel,June \lth, 1807. 
 With the deepest emotion and tears of the ten- 
 derest gratitude, I have read your letter of April 
 last. How can I thank you, best and kindest of 
 fathers, for all the proofs I have received of your 
 love, your favour, your indescribable goodness to 
 me ? What a consolation, what a support are they 
 to me in my afflictions ! The object of such love 
 cannot be utterly unhappy. 
 
156 
 
 Another enormous calamity has overtaken us, and 
 we are now on the point of leaving the kingdom. You 
 may think what is my state — what are my feelings. 
 Yet in the name of God I conjure you, do not misun- 
 derstand your daughter ! Believe not that any pu- 
 sillanimous sorrow bows down my head. There are 
 two main sources of courage that raise me above all 
 that fate can do : the first is the thought that we are 
 no sport of a blind chance, but that we abide in 
 God's hand, and under the guidance of his provi- 
 dence ; the second, that we fall with honour. The 
 king has proved — to the whole world he has proved 
 — that he prefers honour to a shameful submission. 
 Prussia will not wear the chains of a voluntary 
 slavery. Nor is there a single point on which the 
 king could have acted otherwise, without being false 
 to his own character, and a traitor to his people. 
 What strength the consciousness of this gives, he 
 alone can know through whose whole being the feel- 
 ing of honour flows like life-blood. 
 
 But to the point. 
 
 By the disastrous battle of Friedland, Königsberg 
 has fallen into the hands of the French. The enemy 
 presses hard upon us, and if this danger approaches 
 but a little nearer, I shall be compelled to leave 
 Memel with my children. The king will rejoin the 
 emperor. I go, as soon as the peril becomes immi- 
 nent, to Riga: — God will help me to endure the 
 
157 
 
 moment when I must pass the frontier of Prussia. 
 There I shall stand in need of strength ; but I look- 
 up to Heaven, whence come both good and evil, and 
 my fast faith is that it sends not more than we can 
 bear ! Once more, best of fathers, we fall with 
 honour, respected by other nations, and we shall 
 never cease to have friends, because we deserve them. 
 How tranquillizing this thought is, it is impossible 
 to say. I bear all with a calmness and composure 
 which only a peaceful conscience and pure intentions 
 can give. 
 
 Be assured therefore, dearest father, that we can 
 never be completely unhappy, and that many who 
 are loaded with crowns and successes are not so 
 cheerful as we. God send every virtuous man peace 
 in his own breast, and he will ever find cause of re- 
 joicing. Yet one thing more for your consolation — 
 nothing will ever be done on our side that is not 
 consistent with the strictest honour, and with fidelity 
 to the common cause. Think not of the possibility of 
 any pitiful concessions for our own peculiar interest. 
 This will be a comfort to you, I know, and to all who 
 belong to me. 
 
 I am ever your true, dutiful and most loving daugh- 
 ter, and, God be thanked, I can say — since your 
 gracious kindness permits me — 
 
 Your Friend, 
 
 Louisa. 
 
158 
 
 Extracts from Niebuhr's letters, during the retreat of the 
 Prussian Court before the French. 
 
 Stettin, Oct. 20, 1806. 
 I hope, my dearest parents, you received the letter 
 in which I informed you of our arrival here. This 
 will have tranquillized you as to our personal safety. 
 Concerning our future destiny you must not be un- 
 easy. We regard it without dismay ; and for this I 
 have, in these awful times, to thank the education 
 which you gave me, my dearest father, and the prin- 
 ciples which I have ever followed out in my subse- 
 quent life. I shall always be able to gain a subsist- 
 ence. If, as is probable, all those brilliant prospects 
 which lately seemed to open before us have for ever 
 vanished*, I shall be able to make my way as a 
 man of letters or a merchant, and if I cannot succeed 
 in one country, I shall not fail to do so in another. 
 A place of refuge and bread we shall always find ; 
 and I entreat you to be persuaded that the thought 
 that the horrible calamities which overwhelm the 
 country have also ruined our own nattering prospects, 
 does not for one moment mingle with our profound 
 affliction for the fate of Prussia and of Europe. My 
 social position would, in happier times, have become 
 very fortunate. I might, under a most excellent 
 minister!, have been able to introduce and to ex- 
 
 * Niebuhr's career under the Prussian government, 
 f Von Stein. 
 
159 
 
 ecute many beneficial measures. I should have 
 worked with satisfaction and pleasure, and might 
 have reckoned on all those honours and advantages 
 which are the rewards of a life devoted to public 
 business. All this is over ; but even for all this I 
 should not lament. 
 
 We set out tomorrow for Danzig. As the French 
 have entered Berlin, and will probably soon proceed 
 hither, we can no longer postpone our departure. 
 It is a long way to Danzig, and the season is far 
 advanced. In Lower Pomerania we shall be wretch- 
 edly off for the accommodations or even the neces- 
 saries of life. For me this is nothing ; may God 
 only preserve my Amelia's health ! 
 
 Whether Danzig will be the end of our flight, or 
 whether we shall have to go yet further to the north- 
 east, time will show. I endeavour not to think of it ; 
 but we will bear whatever comes with fortitude. Do 
 not fear that we should be in want of money ; we 
 are abundantly provided. 
 
 You will probably have a tolerably correct idea 
 from the Hamburg papers of the frightful condition 
 of our army. A light now begins to break upon us, 
 and gradually to illumine the dreadful chaos ; it ex- 
 hibits a picture which I must summon courage to 
 contemplate. 
 
 Adieu ! best of parents ! I say it with a heavy heart. 
 
160 
 
 Perhaps even our correspondence will be interrupted. 
 Farewell — once more farewell, dearest parents, dear 
 sister, kind aunt ! 
 
 Barthold G. Niebuhr. 
 
 Oct. 22nd, 1806. 
 
 If you knew this people, you would find them 
 
 worthy of your love. I never expected in our days 
 to find so much vigour, earnestness, truth and kind- 
 liness combined. Led by a great spirit, they would 
 have remained unconquerable by the whole world ; 
 and even now, though the torrent overspread the 
 land with the rapidity of a whirlwind, yet such a spirit 
 might drive it back again. 
 
 But where is it — that great spirit ? 
 
 Königsberg, Nov. 12th. 
 
 Our life here is a cheerless one, from the time 
 
 of year, the impassable roads, and the general confu- 
 sion. We are almost prisoners — without tidings of 
 you, of our other friends, or of threatened Denmark. 
 
 Farewell ! Perhaps a long farewell. We will neg- 
 lect no opportunity of writing. An interchange of 
 thoughts and feelings will subsist between us, even 
 should all means of embodying them in words be 
 denied us. 
 
161 
 
 Bartenstein, May 5th, 1807. 
 
 Our journey from Königsberg hither was 
 
 very interesting, but the most melancholy of my life. 
 Even close to Königsberg you see some ruined and 
 deserted houses ; in the villages more than half are 
 uninhabited ; there are no cattle in the fields — here 
 and there, but very rarely, a scanty flock of sheep 
 or swine ; scarcely any people to be seen ; — every- 
 thing bespeaks misery and fear. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Landsberg an der Warthe, Dec. 13, 1807. 
 
 My worst fears could not have pictured to 
 
 me a more melancholy and painful journey, accom- 
 panied with all the distressing anxieties caused by the 
 season and the circumstances 
 
 Late at night of the 28th we reached Brauns- 
 berg, and could not get post-horses till the following 
 day at noon. We now reached a part of the country 
 which has suffered the most grievously from devas- 
 tation and disease. The country from Braunsberg to 
 beyond the Prussian march is for ten miles (German) 
 magnificent, stretching away in hills of considerable 
 height ; a very fruitful soil, inhabited, before these 
 disastrous times, by opulent peasants in pretty vil- 
 lages, scarcely exceeded by those of the finest parts 
 of Holstein. But the roads are in the most deplorable 
 state, from the passage of troops and the transport 
 of artillery, since which it has been impossible to 
 
162 
 
 mend them. For there are scarcely any men, and 
 still less horses, to be found in the country. The 
 land all lies fallow, and bears, as our hostess sadly 
 said, only flowers. 
 
 Barthold Georg Niebuhr. (Lebensnachrichten.) 
 
 The plays of natural lively children are the in- 
 fancy of art. Children live in the world of imagina- 
 tion and feeling. They invest the most insignificant 
 object with any form they please, and see in it what- 
 ever they wish to see. 
 
 OehlenschUiger. 
 
 1 would fain know what music is ; I seek it as 
 man seeks eternal wisdom. Yesterday evening I 
 walked late in the moonlight in the beautiful avenue 
 of lime-trees on the banks of the Rhine, and I heard 
 a tapping noise and soft singing. At the door of a 
 cottage, under the blossoming lime-tree, sat a mother 
 with her twin babes ; the one lay at her breast, the 
 other in a cradle, which she rocked with her foot, 
 keeping time to her singing. 
 
 In the very germ then, when the first trace of life 
 scarce begins to stir, music is the nurse of the soul ; 
 it murmurs in the ear, and the child sleeps ; the tones 
 are the companions of his dreams, — they are the world 
 
163 
 
 in which he lives. He has nothing ; the babe, al- 
 though cradled in his mother's arms, is alone in the 
 spirit ; but tones find entrance into this half-conscious 
 soul, and nourish it as the earth nourishes the life of 
 plants. 
 
 Bettina. {Briefwechsel Goethes mit einem Kinde.) 
 
 Sebastian Bach is esteemed the greatest of 
 harmonists, and with justice. That he is a poet of 
 the highest order, one can scarcely venture to assert ; 
 and yet he belongs to those who, like your Shak- 
 speare, are elevated far above childish clap-traps. 
 As a servant of the church, he wrote for the church 
 alone, and yet not in what is commonly called a 
 church style. His style, like all that is his, is 
 Bachish. That he used the common signs and 
 names, sonata, concerto, etc., is no more than that 
 a man is called Joseph or Christopher. Bach's 
 native and prime element is solitude ; and this you 
 instinctively felt, when you said, " I lie down in my 
 bed and get our organist from Berka to play Sebas- 
 tiana." Such is he ; he will be hearkened to with 
 silent watchfulness. * * * But he ought to be 
 followed on the organ. This is the living soul, into 
 which he breathes the immediate breath of life. 
 His theme is the new-born thought or feeling which, 
 
164 
 
 like the spark from the flint, springs out of the 
 first accidental pressure of the pedal ; by degrees 
 he works himself into it, till he abstracts himself 
 from the whole world, and then an exhaustless 
 stream flows onward to the infinite ocean. His 
 great organ compositions leave off, but they are 
 not done ; in them is no end. 
 
 Zelter. 
 
 (answer.) 
 
 Well do I remember the good organist of Berka ; 
 for then, for the first time, — in perfect tranquillity of 
 mind and free from outward interruptions, I gain- 
 ed an idea of your great master, Sebastian Bach. I 
 expressed it to myself thus ; — that it was as if the 
 Eternal Harmony held converse with itself, as it 
 might be imagined to have done in the bosom of the 
 Deity just before creation. Thus, too, it moved in 
 my inmost being ; and it seemed to me as if I had 
 no ears, still less eyes ; and that I neither had, nor 
 wanted, any outward sense. 
 
 Goethe. (Briefwechsel.) 
 
 Friendship requires actions : love requires not so 
 much proofs, as expressions, of love. Love demands 
 little else than the power to feel and to requite love. 
 
 Jean Paul. [Palingenesien.') 
 
165 
 
 The style of writing required in the great world 
 is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless 
 security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and per- 
 fect taste ; while that fitted for the people is charac- 
 terized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound 
 depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete. We do 
 not now speak of a still higher region — that of genius 
 — for which there exist no boundaries of high and 
 low ; which embraces the most polished cosmopoli- 
 tanism and the homeliest nationality. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 ARABIA. 
 
 Arabia, the land of the West, was so called by the 
 Chaldeans because its higher deserts lie to the west, 
 while the Syrians called its inhabitants Saracens — 
 easterns. The name Barbar, son of the desert, was 
 of native origin, and a title of honour ; they looked 
 with disdain on the dwellers in cities. 
 
 Two deep gulfs define the peninsula of Arabia ; 
 the desert stretches from the ancient empire of Persia 
 to that of Rome. The whole country is said to con- 
 tain fifty-five thousand square miles. Nature in 
 the desert seems dead. The sun glares fiercely in 
 an ever dry and cloudless sky ; the naked hills ap- 
 pear flayed and seared by the winds, and disclose 
 
166 
 
 boundless plains where no shadow refreshes the 
 wanderer, where no object affords a resting-place for 
 his eye. Between him and all living creatures lies a 
 space across which the sight cannot travel; at far 
 intervals a spring rises under the shade of a solitary 
 cluster of palms, and soon is lost again in the sand. 
 The Arab alone knows these resting-places ; he 
 dwells alone in their shades ; free, and possessed of 
 more than enough to satisfy his few and simple wants, 
 hither he bears the slaves and treasures, the spoil of 
 caravans which had imprudently entered into con- 
 flict with the followers of the Great Emir of the 
 desert. 
 
 These islands in the sandy ocean are connected 
 only by the camel. Like the inhabitants, this animal 
 learns from his earliest days to bear thirst, hunger, 
 and watching ; he traverses three or four hundred 
 leagues without drinking more than once in eight or 
 ten days — without eating more than a few thistles, 
 roots of wormwood and nettles ; he carries a burthen 
 of twelve or thirteen hundred pounds for a week 
 together without ever being unloaded ; in him is 
 the Arab's safety, wealth, and most faithful compa- 
 nion ; a nod directs his steps, and a song renews his 
 vigour. 
 
 Johannes v. Müller. 
 
167 
 
 I have been very industrious during the 
 
 last few weeks, and have studied much. You may 
 think of me at my writing-table during the greater 
 part of the day. I know not by what train of cir- 
 cumstances a great thirst for knowledge suddenly, 
 and as if afresh, has been awakened within me, but 
 it is very long since I have felt it in an equal degree. 
 I abandon myself to this inclination so much the 
 more readily, as I have no heart, so long as I am 
 away from you, to produce anything of value. And 
 my views and purposes are generally too firmly 
 established for me to fear that I should fall into the 
 vague and desultory reading for which I have a 
 peculiar contempt. Everything that I set about has 
 a definite purpose, and I never quit it without draw- 
 ing from the materials I have collected the results 
 answerable to that purpose. With this condition, 
 I can scarcely resist my desire to endeavour to see, 
 to know, to examine as much as is possible. 
 
 Man appears to me to be here in order that he 
 may make all that surrounds him his own — the pro- 
 perty of his understanding; — and life is short. I 
 would fain, when I must depart hence, leave behind 
 me as little as possible which I have not brought 
 into contact with my own mind. This desire has 
 always been part of my nature, and has, alas ! often 
 led me astray, so as to defeat its own ends. In 
 knowledge, as well as in life, I have ever suffered 
 
168 
 
 for too wide a dispersion of myself. I have grasped 
 at everything, and have forgotten that, while steady 
 application to one object leaves permanent results, 
 attention to many consumes the mental vigour and 
 faculties in vain. 
 
 With life, I have arrived at greater tranquillity ; 
 and with knowledge, the conflict is, God be praised, 
 less perilous. 
 
 Wilhelm v. Humboldt. (Briefwechsel mit Schiller.) 
 
 justinian's attempt to prevent comments on 
 his compilations. 
 
 The means resorted to by Justinian with a view 
 to put an end to all the difficulties and controversies 
 arising on the application of scientific law, were as 
 new as they were arbitrary. He caused all that was 
 necessary to a complete view of the existing law, and 
 especially to the administration of the law, to be ex- 
 tracted from the whole mass of jurisprudential lite- 
 rature, without reference to the limits prescribed by 
 Valentinian III. The matter so extracted was col- 
 lected in a book and promulgated as law, while all 
 the rest was abrogated- But he entirely forbade the 
 rise of a new jurisprudential literature for the future. 
 Only Greek translations of the Latin text, and (by 
 way of mechanical aid) short sketches of the con- 
 tents of the title, were to be allowed ; if any book 
 
169 
 
 properly so called, any commentary on these laws, 
 were written, it was to be destroyed, and the author 
 subjected to the punishment inflicted on forgery. 
 
 The only means for ensuring the maintenance and 
 propagation of legal knowledge, was therefore oral 
 teaching in the schools of law, which were conse- 
 quently provided with a new plan of instruction. 
 If, however, we consider this plan in conjunction 
 with the above-mentioned prohibition, the design of 
 it cannot be doubtful. It was unquestionably not 
 intended as a means of subjecting those books 
 to the free investigation and discussion of the 
 teacher, which would have excited a kindred activity 
 of mind in the learner, and thus have perpetuated a 
 science of law independent of the matter they con- 
 tained ; for such a proceeding would have been ob- 
 viously at variance with the purpose of the prohi- 
 bition. The instruction must, on the contrary, have 
 consisted in a mechanical learning by rote, and the 
 functions of the teacher must have been restricted 
 to helping the learner over those difficulties which 
 are inherent in new matter of such enormous extent. 
 One thought, therefore, lay at the bottom of all these 
 edicts ; viz. that this selection from the legal science 
 and wisdom of former ages was adequate to all the 
 wants of society, and could only be impaired by 
 any new work. 
 
 To many, such a thought, thus literally expressed, 
 I 
 
170 
 
 may appear extravagant, and they may therefore seek 
 to give it a figurative or a milder interpretation ; — 
 erroneously, as I think. 
 
 When Justinian came to the throne, he probably 
 heard as loud complaints of the disastrous confusion 
 of the law, and the urgent need for a thorough re- 
 form, as Frederic II. of Prussia, in the year 1740. A 
 happy accident surrounded him with jurists of such 
 perspicacity as had not appeared for more than a 
 century, nor was he himself deficient either in legal 
 knowledge, or in energy and desire of fame. He 
 endeavoured, therefore, to apply a remedy to the 
 evil which was felt to be the most pressing, — the un- 
 manageable mass of jurisprudential literature and the 
 numerous contradictions it contained. There was no 
 example of any undertaking of a similar nature by 
 which to measure that now contemplated, and hence 
 the opinion might honestly be entertained at the im- 
 perial court, that an admirable state of the law might 
 thus be produced, and that there was no other way 
 of effectually preventing a relapse into the old evil, 
 but by legal prohibition. Nor was there the smallest 
 ground for fearing that any existing intellectual acti- 
 vity would be crushed by this prohibition (as was the 
 case when Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius entertain- 
 ed a similar project); for the degree of vigour and 
 intelligence which the present time had to offer were 
 obvious to every one, and were manifestly little sus- 
 
171 
 
 ceptible of deterioration. The threat of criminal 
 punishment, and even the prohibition to write books, 
 is indeed wholly alien from our manners ; and, since 
 the invention of printing, and the active intercourse 
 of the several states of Europe, all such schemes 
 would be absurd and extravagant. But if we pass 
 over this despotical manner of executing the pro- 
 ject, as merely accidental, the fundamental idea 
 which prompted it is, in fact, the same self-delusion 
 which, deeply rooted in human nature, is continu- 
 ally recurring in every part of the domain of opi- 
 nion, and especially in the religious part : i. e. we 
 believe ourselves permitted to impose on others, 
 as exclusively right and authoritative, that particu- 
 lar formula of thought which we have constructed 
 by the honest and conscientious exertion of our own 
 powers, thus (as we think) for ever banishing error ; 
 — and with it, it is true, freedom of thought. 
 
 Justinian established this sort of jurisprudential 
 concordat, and no one was to dare to disturb the 
 peace which it was intended to secure. Shall we 
 judge him severely for this ? Our mental horizon is 
 extended by the experience of nearly two thousand 
 years, and yet the essence of this idea of Justinian's 
 still dwells in those who entertain visionary hopes 
 from the construction of new codes; though they 
 are without the power, and indeed without the will, 
 i 2 
 
172 
 
 to execute their project by the stern compulsion re- 
 sorted to by Justinian. 
 
 Von Savigny. {System des heutigen römischen Rechts.) 
 
 There are days in which we are in a most felicitous 
 vein for the conception of new images and projects, 
 but can neither communicate nor mature any of 
 them. These are not thoughts, they are only the 
 ghosts of thoughts. 
 
 A. W. v. Schlegel. 
 
 Many men live better with past or with future 
 ages than with the present. 
 
 Novalis. 
 
 In the bloom of youth and beauty, on the pin- 
 nacle of victory, of strength and of pleasure, man is 
 often seized by a profound feeling of the fleeting 
 nothingness of this state, which he calls his life. 
 
 Fred. Schlegel. 
 
 And so he stayed — as he would — as he must. 
 But the delight of being with her, near her, was like 
 no other delight. And in her, also, this same feeling 
 remained unchangeable ; she too could not withdraw 
 herself from the dominion of this sweet necessity. 
 
173 
 
 After the resolution which for ever divided them, no 
 less than before it, an indescribable, almost magical 
 power of attraction, exerted itself in each towards 
 the other. If they were in the same room, it was 
 not long ere they stood, they sat, near each other. 
 Nothing but the nearest nearness could tranquillize 
 them — and this tranquillized them fully. It was 
 enough that they were near : not a look — not a word 
 — not a gesture — not a movement was needed ; 
 nothing — but to be together. For they were not two 
 human beings ; they were one — one, lapped in an 
 unconscious, absolute delight, satisfied with itself and 
 with the world. Nay, had one of them been forcibly 
 detained at a remote part of the house, the other 
 would have followed, step by step, without plan or 
 premeditation. To them, life was a riddle, whose 
 solution they could only find when they were to- 
 gether. 
 
 Goethe. (Wahlverwandschaf ten.) 
 
 THE LAST NIGHT OF THE YEAR. 
 
 In a sort of mental death, Firmian seated himself 
 in the old chair, and covered his eyes with his 
 hands. The mist was now withdrawn from the 
 future, and discovered a long arid tract covered 
 with the traces and ashes of burnt-out fires ; full of 
 sear and withered bushes, and scattered with bones 
 
174 
 
 whitening in the sand. He saw that the chasm 
 which divided his heart from hers would become 
 wider and wider; — he saw it distinctly and deso- 
 lately ; his old, beautiful love would never return. 
 Lenette would never lay aside her obstinacy, her 
 sullenness, her habits ; the narrow inclosures of her 
 heart and of her head would remain impenetrably 
 shut ; she could as little learn to understand him 
 as to love him. On the other hand, the absence of 
 his friend aggravated the bitterness of her coldness ; 
 he looked mournfully along the dreary vista of long 
 silent days, full of stifled sighs and mute accusations. 
 
 Lenette sat silently at work in the chamber, for 
 her wounded heart shrank from words and looks 
 as from chill and cutting winds. It was already 
 very dark — but she wanted no light. 
 
 All at once a wandering ballad-singer with a harp, 
 and her little boy with a flute, began to play under 
 the window. 
 
 It was with our friends as if their swollen and 
 tightened hearts received a thousand punctures, and 
 then gently collapsed. As nightingales sing sweetest 
 where there is an echo, so do our hearts speak 
 most audibly where music is around them. Oh ! as 
 the many-stringed tones brought back to him his 
 old hopes — hopes, the very aspect of which he could 
 scarcely recognize; as he looked clown into the 
 Arcadia now lying deep, deep beneath the stream 
 
175 
 
 of years, and saw himself there with his young fresh 
 wishes, his long -lost joys, his glad eyes which gazed 
 around full of confidence, and his expanding heart 
 which husbanded and fostered all its love and truth 
 for some future loving one ; and as he now cried 
 in a deep inward discord, " And such an one have 
 I not found, and all is over;" and as the sounds 
 passed like the shifting pictures of gay meadows, 
 flowery thickets and loving groups in a camera 
 obscura, before this lonely one who had nothing — 
 not one soul in this land that loved him ; — his firm 
 spirit fell prostrate within him, and laid itself down 
 upon the earth as if to its eternal rest — and now 
 nothing had power to heal or to soothe it but its 
 own sorrows. 
 
 Suddenly the tones, wandering on the night- 
 wind, died away, and the pauses, like a burial in 
 silence and darkness, struck deeper into the heart. 
 In this melodious stillness he went into the chamber, 
 and said to Lenette, " Take this trifle down to 
 them." But he could only falter out the last words, 
 for in the light reflected from the opposite house, 
 he saw her flushed face covered with streaming un- 
 regarded tears : at his entrance she had affected to 
 be busied in wiping off the mist which her warm 
 breath had left upon the window-pane. 
 
 He said, in a still softer tone, " Lenette, take it 
 directly, or they will be gone." She took it ; her 
 
176 
 
 heavy eyes turned away as they met his, no less 
 tear-swollen than her own, yet they met dry and 
 tearless, — so severed, so estranged were their souls 
 already. They had reached that wretched state in 
 which the hour of common emotion no longer recon- 
 ciles or warms. His whole breast swelled with a 
 torrent of love, but hers no longer belonged to 
 him ; he was oppressed at the same moment by the 
 wish and the impossibility of loving her — by the 
 certainty of the barrenness and coldness of her na- 
 ture. He seated himself in a window recess, and 
 leaned down his head and touched, by chance, the 
 pocket handkerchief she had left. The afflicted 
 creature, after the long constraint of a whole day, 
 had refreshed herself by this gentle overflowing — as 
 a hurt by pressure is relieved by opening a vein. 
 
 At the touch of the handkerchief a cold shudder 
 ran through his frame, like a sting of conscience. 
 And now the voice and the flute without the harp 
 were heard again, and flowed on together in a slow, 
 mournful ditty, every verse of which ended, " Gone 
 is gone, dead is dead!"* Grief clasped him round 
 like the mantle-fish in its dark stifling shroud. He 
 pressed Lenette's tear-steeped handkerchief hard 
 upon his eyeball?, and in darkness he felt, " Gone 
 is gone, dead is dead ! " Then suddenly his whole 
 
 * See Biirger's Leonore. 
 
177 
 
 spirit melted within him at the thought that his 
 throbbing heart would perhaps be at rest before the 
 entrance of any other year than that which was to 
 break upon him on the morrow ; and he fancied 
 himself departing, and the cold handkerchief lay 
 steeped in double tears on his burning face ; and the 
 notes marked every point of time, like the beats of 
 a clock, and he felt, sensibly, the passage and motion 
 of time, and he saw himself at length sleeping in the 
 quiet grave. 
 
 The music ceased. He heard Lenette go into the 
 room and light a candle. He went to her and gave 
 her the handkerchief. But his inner man was so 
 bruised and bleeding that he felt as if he longed to 
 embrace any outward being— be it what it would. 
 He felt as if he must press, if not his present, yet 
 his former — if not his loving, yet his suffering Le- 
 nette to his fainting, famished heart. But he neither 
 wished nor tried to utter the word love. Slowly, 
 and without bending down, he folded his arms 
 around her, and drew her to his heart; but she 
 turned her head coldly and abruptly from his offered 
 kiss. This pained him acutely, and he said, " Am 
 I happier than thou ? " and he laid his face down on 
 her averted head, and pressed her once more to him, 
 and then released her. And as the vain embrace was 
 over, his whole heart exclaimed, " Gone is gone, 
 dead is dead ! " 
 
 i 5 
 
178 
 
 As he laid himself down to rest, he thought, the 
 old year closes, as if for ever, in sleep ; out of sleep 
 the new one arises, like the beginning of existence, 
 and I slumber over a fearful, formless, thickly- 
 shrouded future. Thus do we go to sleep at the 
 very gateway of imprisoned dreams, and we know 
 not, although our dreams lie but at the distance of 
 a few minutes, a few steps from the gate, whether 
 when they issue forth, they will surround us in the 
 likeness of crouching, glaring beasts of prey, or of 
 fair children, smiling and sporting in their little 
 sinless night ; — whether we ought to strangle or to 
 embrace the compacted air. 
 
 Jean Paul. (Siebenkäs.) 
 
 Those extraordinary and violent measures which, 
 when put in execution, so easily become atrocious, 
 whether they spring from the principle of liberty 
 or from the principle of absolutism, are invariably 
 characterized by the impossibility of arresting their 
 progress : — crime once established and active, as- 
 sumes the character of an independent power ; it no 
 longer depends on the will of the tyrant, whether he 
 shall be a tyrant or not; an invisible force, like an 
 inexorable destiny, hurries him forward. 
 
 F. Schlegel. 
 
179 
 
 EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 
 
 " In this secluded situation," said the mistress, " I 
 have been obliged to dispense entirely with the in- 
 struction of masters." 
 
 " Perhaps," thought I, " because they sometimes 
 insinuate themselves into the good graces of their 
 unsuspecting pupils." 
 
 But the Domina, who read this suspicion in my 
 eyes, had totally other reasons in her mind. 
 
 " No," said she, " that excessive anxiety to keep 
 young girls from the flatteries of men is far more 
 dangerous than the most reprehensible heedlessness. 
 It is as if one were to rear in a hothouse, plants 
 which are afterwards to be exposed to the open air. 
 As the vigorous plant can resist the assaults of the 
 weather, so a sound judgment, and feelings not pam- 
 pered into mawkish sensibility, can offer a steady 
 resistance to the suggestions of folly or vice." 
 
 It was, therefore, not any moral timorousness 
 which determined her to dispense with the lessons 
 of masters, but the superficiality of their teaching, 
 and the entire uselessness of most of the so-called ac- 
 complishments, the only tendency of which is to rob 
 young women of valuable time, and to inspire them 
 with ludicrous and tiresome pretensions. 
 
 " The formation of the moral character," she con- 
 tinued, " is the main thing in female education, and 
 
180 
 
 I have therefore to object to so-called accomplish- 
 ments, that they afford dangerous food to vanity 
 and egotism. But my chief objection to masters 
 is their superficiality. If one finds in the world 
 a half-honest teacher who has something like a 
 profound and accurate knowledge of language and 
 science, he will not devote himself to the instruc- 
 tion of women ; — or, if he wishes to do so, people 
 will not have him. The pride of men regards our 
 sex as unworthy of serious and profound studies. 
 But how does this determination to condemn us to 
 indistinctness of ideas and frivolity of mind, avenge 
 itself on them ! Have you ever happened to be a 
 witness of domestic brawls ? — of genuine feminine 
 altercations ? Where do you hear a single argu- 
 ment? Where is a particle of reason evinced in 
 the replies ? Senseless contradiction, endless repe- 
 titions, are, to the despair of all belonging to them, 
 the arguments of obstinate and shrewish women. 
 Whence is this, if it does not arise from the superfi- 
 ciality of their education ? Believe me, if women 
 were taught to think, reason would not be so entirely 
 thrown away upon them. 
 
 " This tyrannical denial of solid instruction re- 
 coils, however, in various ways on men, with whom 
 it originates. For the nature of the lot they draw 
 when they marry, depends not on the principles of 
 their wives, but solely on their temperament, which 
 
181 
 
 it is very difficult to ascertain beforehand. Now a 
 man educates even his domestic animals ; he will have 
 his dog intelligent, his horse docile, his ox steady ; — 
 how can it then be a matter of such indifference to 
 him, whether his wife, in the conduct of her house- 
 hold, in the early education of his children, in the 
 intimate conversation of domestic life, displays rea- 
 son, reflection, and clearness of mind ? Married 
 people want to talk with each other in a reason- 
 able manner on various subjects, and of these, many 
 can only be brought to any conclusion by infer- 
 ences clearly deduced from principles. Now talk of 
 principles with women, as they are generally edu- 
 cated ! 
 
 " And then domestic life — what resources of hap- 
 piness might it afford if women were capable of 
 furnishing more food to the conversation of in- 
 structed men ! Is it not melancholy to see that 
 each sex has its own separate society ? Really, as I 
 have a taste for whatever is decided, I should prefer 
 the harem of the Turks to these assemblies of both 
 sexes, in which the women talk scandal in one 
 corner and the men politics in another; — as if there 
 could be no community of interests or pleasures 
 between them. 
 
 " These things would arrange themselves naturally 
 if the groundwork were put upon a good footing. 
 In order to accomplish this, I have devised a new 
 
182 
 
 system, in which the reason is constantly exercised. 
 You will not deny, that without grammar there is no 
 such thing as logic. Now let any one try to teach 
 the grammar of the modern tongues without the 
 help of the ancient. My young pupils certainly 
 learned the most colloquial phrases of French, they 
 tortured German after the fashion of our part of 
 the country ; but in all this there was no precision, 
 clearness nor coherence, any more than in the books 
 which we are forced to use in education. But as I 
 perceived the meaning of what learned men have 
 more than once explained to me, as to the causes 
 of the want of all distinctness and accuracy in 
 women's language, I esteemed myself fortunate in 
 the discovery that my excellent assistant is a school- 
 master's daughter and a good Latin scholar. To 
 avoid frightening my young girls with learning, or 
 exciting the derision of men, I gave out that the 
 Latin was only subsidiary to music, — for this too we 
 study fundamentally or not at all, and therefore 
 we sing the old Corali with the Latin text. This 
 pretext answers very well ; and, to give my young 
 ladies courage, I put my own hand to the work, and 
 learned my musa, musce like the least of them. 
 
 " But you are going to ask what I mean to do as 
 to Latin books, to most of which I believe some ob- 
 jections may justly be urged. 
 
 " I answer, that the important matter for us women 
 
183 
 
 is not so much to read Latin books, as to learn a 
 language which possesses so many forms, so much 
 certainty and precision." 
 
 Rumohr. (Deutsche Denkwürdigheiten.) 
 
 What is the best government ? That which 
 teaches us to govern ourselves. 
 
 Goethe* 
 
 WILHELM V. HUMBOLDT AND SCHILLER. 
 
 Rome, October 22nd, 1803. 
 
 From one passage in your letter, my dear 
 
 friend, it appears to me that you imagine my situa- 
 tion different from what it really is. You seem to 
 think that it has withdrawn me from my former 
 accustomed pursuits. This is not the case; the 
 nature of my post here gives me little to do with 
 politics. If I have hitherto worked but little, it is 
 because Rome is itself a long and singular study. 
 
 I do not despair therefore, — nay, I confidently 
 hope to be as industrious in my scientific pursuits 
 here as elsewhere, and at least, my dear friend, be 
 persuaded that my tastes, my inclinations, can never 
 change. The standard of things within me remains 
 firm and unaltered ; the highest subjects of con- 
 templation and of interest are and must ever be — 
 
184- 
 
 ideas. For these I have hitherto lived, to these I 
 will now and ever remain true ; and had I a sphere 
 of action as vast as that of him who now virtually 
 rules over Europe. I should always regard it as sub- 
 ordinate to that higher sphere. I will not, however, 
 deny that a man who accepts a post of public busi- 
 ness sacrifices something. But I did so not without 
 deliberation. For some years I had not been in a 
 felicitous state of mind for production ; I had ac- 
 quired a vast variety of knowledge, I knew many 
 things better than most men, and yet all this did 
 not combine firmly to form any result, and I could 
 by no means be satisfied with the active part of 
 my existence. It appeared to me, therefore, better 
 to give to my activity a determinate, even though 
 an ordinary course, and I only sought for one which 
 might lead me to some interesting place of abode. 
 And I think I have not miscalculated. Rome has al- 
 ready had an awakening, animating effect on me, and 
 I feel greater fertility of mind than before I came. 
 
 These are confessions, dear friend, which I am 
 always ready to make to you, yet which I should 
 not have made but for a passage in your letter. For 
 even to the most intimate friend I do not willingly 
 speak of myself, since it is so much easier to judge 
 obliquely of oneself than of another. Continue, 
 kind and dear friend, to be to me what you are ; and 
 be assured, that whatever distance may separate us, 
 
185 
 
 my interest is ever near you, and that the slightest 
 pursuit of yours is more important in my eyes than 
 all that I shall ever have power to attempt. 
 
 For — I must close as I began — you are the hap- 
 piest of men ; you have grasped the highest, and 
 you have strength to hold it fast. It is become your 
 region ; and not only has ordinary life no power to 
 trouble you in it, but you bring down from that 
 empyrean a kindness, a gentleness, a clearness and 
 a warmth into this lower world, which renders it 
 impossible to mistake your descent. For you, one 
 has nothing to pray for but life. Strength and youth 
 are yours beyond the power of change. 
 
 Wilhelm v. Humboldt. 
 
 (answer.) 
 
 Weimar, April 2nd, 1805. 
 
 In spite of the time which has passed since I 
 
 sent you even a line, it seems to me as if our spirits 
 had always been together, and it rejoices me to think 
 that I can throw myself on your heart with the same 
 confidence after this long silence as I did when we 
 lived together. For our union there is no time and 
 no space. Your sphere of action cannot so dis- 
 tract you, and mine cannot render me so one-sided 
 and narrow, that we should cease to meet in the 
 region of the noble and the true. And, come what 
 
186 
 
 may, we are both of us idealists, and should be 
 ashamed to allow it to be said of us, that circum- 
 stances formed us, and not we circumstances. 
 
 You know that, during the long period of inter- 
 ruption to our correspondence, I have been busy 
 after my fashion. I wish to hear from yourself how 
 you like my Tell — a justifiable wish, for whatever I 
 do, I think how it will please you. You are still, to 
 my thoughts, the counsellor and the judge you so 
 often were ; and whenever I endeavour to get out of 
 my subject, and put myself in the place of a critic of 
 my own works, it is in your person and in your spirit 
 that I wish to do so. 
 
 In my poetical labours I hope I have not gone 
 back, — sidewards, perhaps I have, — for I may per- 
 haps have conceded something to the material de- 
 mands of the world and the age. The dramatic poet 
 is more readily hurried along by the stream of the 
 time than any other. He comes, even against his 
 will, into contact in various ways with the mass, 
 and then it is impossible to escape some contamina- 
 tion. At first it gratifies one to play the ruler of 
 spirits ; but what ruler does not find himself com- 
 pelled to become the servant of his servants, in order 
 to preserve his sovereignty ? And so it may easily 
 have happened, that while I filled the German stage 
 with the noise of my tragedies, I have caught some- 
 thing from that stage in return. 
 
187 
 
 I embrace you a thousand times, my dear friend, 
 and wish that this letter may bring me before you 
 exactly such as you knew me formerly. 
 
 Schiller. (Briefwechsel.) 
 
 Origen says that his contemporaries believed 
 warm springs to be fed by the hot tears of fallen 
 angels. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 When the heart of man is serene and tranquil, he 
 wants to enjoy nothing but himself ; every move- 
 ment — even corporeal movement — shakes the brim- 
 ming nectar-cup too rudely. 
 
 Jean Paul. (Titan.) 
 
 There were once some birds who lived in a spa- 
 cious aviary. A bullfinch said to his neighbour 
 the goldfinch, who was gaily fluttering from bush to 
 bush, " Do you know, friend, that we are shut up in 
 a cage ? " " What do you talk of a cage ? " said the 
 goldfinch ; " see how we fly about ! That is a cage 
 indeed in which neighbour canary is sitting." " But 
 I tell you we are in a cage too. Don't you see 
 there, the wire grating?" " Yes, I see one there, 
 certainly ; but look, as far as I can see on every side 
 there is none." " You cannot see to all sides." 
 
188 
 
 " No more can you." " But consider then," con- 
 tinued the bullfinch, " does not our master bring us 
 water every morning, and put it in our trough, and 
 stgew seed on the ground ? Would he do that if he 
 did not know that we are shut up and cannot fly 
 where we will?" "But," said the goldfinch, "I 
 tell you I can fly where I will." 
 
 Thus they disputed for a long time, till at length 
 the canary called out from his corner, " Children, if 
 you cannot settle it whether you are in a cage or 
 not, it's just as good as if you were not in one." 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 The system of freewill satisfies, the contrary 
 deadens and annihilates my heart. To stand by, 
 cold and dead, a mere spectator of the change of 
 events, an idle mirror of the forms which fleet across 
 its surface — such an existence is intolerable to me. 
 I despise and loathe it. I will love, I will lose my- 
 self in sympathy, I will rejoice and be sad. The 
 highest object of this sympathy to me, is myself, and 
 the only means by which I can perpetually satisfy 
 it are my actions. I will do my best in all things. 
 I will rejoice when I have acted aright ; I will la- 
 ment over myself when I have done wrong ; and even 
 this sorrow shall be sweet to me, for it is sympathy 
 with myself, and a pledge of future amendment. 
 
 Fichte. {Bestimmung des Menschen.) 
 
189 
 
 To regard a whole people and a whole country 
 only as a source of amusement for oneself, — to see 
 nothing in the world and nature but a vast and vary- 
 ing scenery and decoration for the drama of one's 
 own miserable life, — to look on all intellectual and 
 moral greatness, on all that speaks to the heart, 
 with the polished indifference of a mere spectator, 
 or, when it is crushed and overpowered by folly 
 and baseness, to make merry with the ludicrous 
 side which these present — to me this is revolting; — 
 perhaps more so to me individually than I can 
 expect it to be to others ; but the spirit which it 
 betrays I can tolerate in no man. I know very 
 well that I go into the other extreme ; that my poli- 
 tico-historical taste is satisfied with what would have 
 no interest for the merely curious observer; and that 
 not only in the divine Tyrol, but on moor or heath, 
 I could live happy, and feel no want of the arts, 
 among a free peasantry who had a history. But 
 the truth, though it certainly lies between two ex- 
 tremes, does not always lie in the middle. 
 
 I maintain too that there can be no such 
 
 thing as a genuine and unerring sentiment for art 
 without that for history, — for the arts have no sepa- 
 rate existence ; that the feeling for historical truth 
 will reveal itself where it really exists, without any 
 erudition — as, for example, in our painter Cornelius ; 
 that even Carlo Maratta — nay more, even Mengs — is 
 
190 
 
 not without relative beauties which correspond to 
 the times in which they lived — only that those times 
 are utterly worthless, and the works they produced 
 belong to an absolutely bad whole. 
 
 Were I but " qualis Prasneste sub alta," 1 would 
 write much more at length on this subject. 
 
 B. G. Niebuhr. (Lebensnachrichten.) 
 
 " Dream out your lovely dream," said An- 
 tony ; " intoxicate yourself with your happiness, for 
 you belong not now to the earth : hereafter we shall 
 find each other again ; for, sooner or later, poor man 
 must awake and become sober." 
 
 " No, my dear, timorous-hearted friend," exclaimed 
 Frederic, with sudden animation, " suffer not your- 
 self to be persuaded by the prate of this shallow 
 pretended wisdom, for it is despair itself. Can that 
 love die which now shines in the deepest depth of my 
 existence, and enlightens the darkest chambers and 
 all the strange treasures of my heart ? It is not the 
 beauty alone of my beloved that transports me ; it is 
 not alone her gentle engaging character, but, above 
 all, her love ; and this my love, which goes forth to 
 meet her, is my most holy and imperishable will, — 
 my soul itself, which in this feeling breaks loose from 
 the bonds of darkening matter. In this love, I see 
 and feel faith and immortality, nay, even the Nameless 
 
191 
 
 himself and all the wonders of his manifestation, in 
 the very centre of my being. Beauty may fade and 
 vanish ; it only goes before us, thither where we shall 
 find it again ; but faith abides with us. Oh ! my 
 brother, Isalda and Syguna are, as men say, long 
 since dead : you smile, — well, they never existed ; — 
 but the race of man lives on ; and every spring, and 
 every love, kindles anew the celestial fire ; and there- 
 fore in all ages have the holiest tears been shed for 
 the most beautiful, which in appearance only has with- 
 drawn itself from us, and still looks forth and smiles 
 upon us (calling up some dim and secret recollec- 
 tions) out of the eyes of children, out of the lips of 
 young virgins, out of the flowers and brooks ; and 
 therefore is that poetical fiction undying. In this 
 holy state did I first find myself ; and I must lose 
 myself again, I must be annihilated, if this rapture 
 can, at any time, die. 
 
 Tieck. (Phantasus.) 
 
 We may try to fancy ourselves as we will ; we 
 think of ourselves always as seeing. I think we 
 dream only that we may not cease to see. Is it not 
 possible that the inward light may in time break 
 forth, so that we should no longer stand in need of 
 the outer? 
 
 Goethe. ( Wahlverwandschaf ten.) 
 
192 
 
 ANCIENT FORM OF HOMAGE IN CARINTHIA. 
 
 When a new lord of Austria comes to reign, the 
 Carinthians have the following customs. 
 
 There is a block of marble set up in the toll-field 
 not far from the town of St. Veit ; upon this stands 
 a peasant, one of the race called the Edlinger, or 
 noble, to whom belongs the office of hereditary right, 
 and around him stand the people and the whole 
 peasantry. 
 
 And then comes the prince towards him with all 
 his nobles ; these are richly clad, and carry a banner 
 on which are the prince's arms. But the count of 
 Görtz goes foremost between two small banners, and 
 the rest of the nobles follow after, richly and bravely 
 adorned — only the prince comes in the fashion of a 
 peasant, with a peasant's coat, shoes and hat, and a 
 shepherd's staff in his hand, and with him come an 
 ox and a plough-horse. And as soon as the peasant 
 on the marble seat sees the prince, he calls out in 
 the Wendish language and says, " Who is he that 
 comes hither with such high and stately bearing ? " 
 Then answer the people around, " The prince of the 
 land comes." Then says the peasant, <; Is he an up- 
 right judge, and a lover of the welfare of our land, 
 and of our free customs ? Is he also a defender of 
 the Christian faith ? " Then they answer, " Yes, 
 such he is and will be ! " Then must the prince pro- 
 
193 
 
 mise him these two things by his faith and honour ; 
 that he will maintain justice, and for that cause, if 
 need be, become so poor that he must support him- 
 self by means of these cattle, the ox and the plough- 
 horse. Thereupon asks the peasant again, " How, 
 and by what right, will he move me from this seat ?" 
 Then answers the lord of Görtz, " He will buy thee 
 away from thence with sixty pfennigs ; the two chief 
 among cattle, the ox and the horse, shall be thine, 
 and thou shalt take the prince's garment, and thy 
 house shall be free and untaxed." 
 
 Upon that the peasant gives the prince a light pat 
 on the cheek, and bids him that he be an upright 
 judge. Therewith he arises and drives his cattle 
 away with him, and the prince steps up on the stone 
 with a naked sword, turns himself round, and pro- 
 mises the people good and equal justice. After this 
 the prince goes to St. Peter's church, which stands 
 hard by upon a hill, and, after God's worship, he 
 takes off his peasant's clothing, puts on the princely 
 raiment and ornaments, holds a feast with his nobles 
 and knights, and then rides back into the field, seats 
 himself in a chair of judgment, and allows each and 
 every one of the people to come to him, that he may 
 hear and allow claims, grant fiefs, and the like. The 
 lord of Görtz seats himself behind the prince as here- 
 ditary count palatine of Carinthia, and also makes 
 such grants as lie within his competence and juris- 
 
 K 
 
194 
 
 diction. The lord marshal takes the duke's horse, 
 the lord high butler the golden cup, and the lord 
 high sewer the silver dish. And as long as the prince 
 sits on the chair of state and hears petitions, the 
 Gradnecker have from old times the right and power 
 to take possession of as much hay as they can mow 
 within the time, and this the owners must redeem 
 from them as they can. 
 
 These privileges and customs were maintained ba- 
 king Ottocar of Bohemia, by count Meinhard of 
 Tyrol, by all his sons, and by duke Ernest of Au- 
 stria, emperor Frederic's father, in 14:23. Emperor 
 Frederic would not take his seat or give audience on 
 the chair of state, by reason of his being emperor ; 
 but he gave a writing, sealed with his own seal, to 
 the country, that their privileges and usages should 
 not thereby suffer any detriment. Emperor Henry 
 the Holy was he who established these ceremonies. 
 
 Miinster's Kosmographie. 
 
 VIENNA. 
 
 Saturday, immediately after my arrival, I went 
 to the theatre at the Kärnther Thor (Carinthian 
 gate); the opera was Rossini's 'Otello', — new, brilliant 
 music, which I now heard well got up and executed 
 for the first time. The composer did not trouble 
 himself about Shakspere, but has set to music a poem 
 
195 
 
 which one can manage to connect together by means 
 of that music. He is unquestionably a man of 
 genius, and knows how to use the means he has at 
 hand, without, like Gluck, first setting to work to 
 invent instruments to play his music. Rossini has 
 Crescendos that reach even to grandeur ; he gives 
 himself the rein, and at last the thought comes out 
 with great success. He plays with sounds, and sounds 
 play with him. 
 
 Sunday, in the Marinelli theatre : there were three 
 pieces — first, 4 Die Werber ;' second, ' Die Damenhüte 
 im Theater ; ' and third, a pantomime, * Schulmeister 
 Beystrich, oder das Donnerwetter.' My sides are 
 still sore with laughing. The pieces were somewhat 
 of the vulgar sort ; the actors and the people together 
 are what constitute the performance. The slightest 
 success finds loud applause, and what won't succeed 
 is scrambled over. The players are in continual mo- 
 tion and enjoy as much as the audience, and more. 
 Such a gipsy frolic is not to be described ; the 
 children begin to screech and clap, and all join in and 
 screech and clap too. After the piece, everybody 
 that has a leg to stand on is called for ; meanwhile a 
 fresh piece begins ; the players make their obeisances 
 and thanks while they go on with their parts, and 
 openly appear in their individual, proper persons. 
 The theatre is always full ; if not at first, certainly 
 toward the end, when everybody leaves the Prater. 
 k2 
 
196 
 
 The first comic actor is called Signor Schuster — 
 a man made expressly for his art, from head to heel. 
 In this fellow there is not a word that does not tell ; 
 a voice as broad as a plank, as sharp as vinegar, and 
 as smooth as an eel. 
 
 It is easily seen here why these people are not 
 political ; what they want is, to live every minute and 
 to enjoy every minute, — and that they do. Politics 
 begin in ennui, and in ennui they end. From the 
 theatre they go to supper — next morning to mass 
 — then to work, every man his own way — then out 
 of one play into another. Wiser they will never be, 
 and never were. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The Prater is a pleasure-garden ; — indeed, this 
 whole land is a pleasure-garden : they tell me it is 
 not what it was — and what was it then ? A foreigner 
 brings with him no senses nor understanding for such 
 views of things, and I am glad when I can shake off 
 the Berliner. * * 
 
 Monday, July 26th. — Yesterday I saw the Prater 
 in its Sunday glory. Four rows of the finest chest- 
 nut trees form three avenues, which begin from the 
 Leopold-stadt and lead along the side of the Danube 
 a league and a half. The middle one, for carriages, 
 is forty-five feet wide ; the two sides, for walkers, 
 are twenty-four feet. You see several hundred equi- 
 pages, some of them extremely splendid, and fiacres, 
 
197 
 
 all in motion in the centre ; and at the sides groups, 
 couples, or solitary walkers in such pretty confusion, 
 that it is a pleasure to see so many handsome, well- 
 dressed men and women, with the greatest variety of 
 character and countenance, flitting by you like co- 
 loured shadows. At the sides are coffee-houses and 
 seats under the shade of the most beautiful clumps 
 of trees, all exquisitely neat and clean. You sit down. 
 Out of the thicket behind you comes the sound of 
 music. You are now at the opera — now at a ball — 
 now on the parade. Coffee comes, and cakes with 
 it. A child presents flowers ; a pretty girl offers 
 crystal water ; an old woman toothpicks : all these 
 are fee'd with copper kreuzers, which you are glad 
 to get rid of in so pleasant a way, for they are as 
 heavy as a bad conscience, and weigh your pockets 
 down to your heels. 
 
 But these avenues by no means constitute the 
 whole Prater. A second and a third of the same kind 
 extend like a fan, from the Leopold-stadt to the Da- 
 nube (it is properly an arm of the Danube). Here is 
 the other pole of the planet; — here is the real genuine 
 people. The spaces between the trees grow wider as 
 they approach the river, and are filled with places of 
 refreshment, where beer, wine, eatables and (except 
 coffee) drinkables of all sorts, ice, &c. may be had. 
 (The three coffee-houses, par excellence, in the grand 
 avenue have the exclusive privilege of selling coffee.) 
 
198 
 
 These places of refreshment are in such number and 
 so near together, that you cannot distinguish the 
 customers of one host from those of another, and you 
 run a risk of eating what your neighbour has paid for. 
 
 This, then, is the true Vienna. Here, in the midst of 
 all this serving, and sitting, and pouring, and smoking, 
 and carousing, and fiddling, the universal stream and 
 movement flow gaily and comfortably on. People go 
 or stay, come, speak to one another, — it is unbroken 
 quiet and ceaseless motion at the same time. No 
 inclosures, no impediments ; for though the houses 
 are the property of the inhabitants, the ground is the 
 emperor's and nobody may inclose it. The impres- 
 sion made by this moving scene, — tumult I can't call 
 it, — is an easy, gentle forgetfulness. I could not re- 
 collect what I had thought or observed ; and though 
 I write all this, I can hardly affirm, so it is — so it was. 
 What makes the thing a real sunshine, is the multi- 
 tude of happy faces of every kind, which, today 
 reconciled with their Maker, see the world as they 
 wish to see it. 
 
 Zelter. (Briefwechsel mit Goethe.) 
 
 When princes weep, their people bleed. Rulers 
 should remember that tears are more easily staunched 
 than wounds. 
 
 Jean Paul. 
 
199 
 
 The affections and the will know nothing of a 
 future ; the mind — the judgement — calls it up and 
 gives it the force and life of the present. The mind 
 alone is free, self-acting, and directed toward the 
 unknown ; the heart is bound to what is before it. 
 
 Rahel. 
 
 In busy, troublous times, amid the eagerjaess of 
 pursuit and the storm of conflicting passions, the 
 bright stars of supermundane hopes are veiled from 
 sight — as the starry firmament is hidden from us by 
 the glare of day. It is in peace and in silence alone 
 that Religion, that gentle divinity, opens her lips and 
 her heart. This comforter and guardian angel of 
 the unhappy must now herself seek refuge with the 
 unhappy. 
 
 To thy heart, which she has so often refreshed and 
 soothed, thou patient sex ! does she now lie closely 
 pressed ; and as the drawn swords, and glaring eyes, 
 and blood-stained hands of men, and the whole long 
 storm of the times, sweep by before thy solitude, thy 
 immortal guest weeps and condoles with thee, and 
 ye cling more closely to each other. 
 
 Jean Paul. (Palivgencsien.) 
 
200 
 
 BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE. 
 
 " How can you women," continued Manfred with 
 great vehemence, " endure to have your maternal 
 affection, your love, your tender devotedness, your 
 conjugal virtues, your chastity, stuck up or hawked 
 about like bad pictures ? For that is the plain truth, 
 however these gentlemen may affect to exalt and 
 glorify your 4 vocation.' And look at the novels ! 
 
 " I will suffer no ' Book for Mothers,' or 1 Book for 
 Wives,' or 'Whole Duties of Woman,' or any trash of 
 that kind, engendered by the absurdity of our views, 
 and nurtured by the vanity of the age, to come into 
 my house. And the very people who write and praise 
 this really immoral stuff, are those who want to take 
 from the working man his Siegfried, his Octavian, 
 and his Eulenspiegel, that the morals of the lower 
 classes may not be corrupted ! Can there be anything 
 sillier or more preposterous ? " 
 
 Tieck. (Phantasus.) 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 I am extremely struck with what you say of archi- 
 tecture. It appears to me, however, that this art, un- 
 like all others,contains something in its nature which 
 prevents it from being, properly speaking, Art, — 
 or anything more than decoration in the highest sense 
 
20] 
 
 of the word. Architecture alone, of all the arts, has 
 no subject furnished by nature. To what end the most 
 beautiful building, if it were not for use ? In what- 
 ever way you consider it, the idea of utility, in the 
 most extensive sense, is inseparable from this art ; yet 
 this is an idea utterly at variance with art. 
 
 On the other hand, buildings give a pleasure which 
 we should seek elsewhere in vain. As colossal works 
 of man, the enormous mass of which is invested 
 with a beautiful and intelligible form, they stand mid- 
 way between the productions of nature — mountains, 
 rocks, etc., and the mere offspring of the human 
 fancy — statues, and combine the advantages of both. 
 Even the idea of utility, which instantly attracts men, 
 perhaps conspires to produce this result. So mixed, 
 it appears to me, is the common impression which a 
 building makes. The artistical impression is, indeed, 
 very different ; but even this cannot be perfectly 
 pure ; and the question remains, whether architecture 
 is to be treated as a perfectly pure art, and utility 
 to be sacrificed. Hardly, I think. The utmost it 
 can attain to is, as it seems to me, the aesthetic treat- 
 ment of a subject belonging to a totally different do- 
 main. This however applies only to ornamental ar- 
 chitecture. 
 
 Wilhelm v. Humboldt. (Briefwechsel mit Schiller.) 
 
202 
 
 SICILY. 
 Palermo, Monday, April 2, 1787. 
 At length, with great exertion, at three o'clock in 
 the afternoon, we got into the harbour,where the most 
 lovely and enchanting view met our eyes. The city 
 lying to the north, at the foot of a high mountain, 
 beneath a sun just past its meridian lustre ; the side 
 of the buildings opposite to us in shadow, clearly de- 
 fined and illumined by the reflected lights. On the 
 right, Monte Pellegrino, with its graceful forms, in 
 the most intense light ; on the left, the wide, out- 
 stretched shore, with its bays, promontories and head- 
 lands. What farther gave the most delicious charac- 
 ter to the scene, was the young green of the graceful 
 trees, whose tops, lit up from behind, waved to and 
 fro, sparkling over a background of dark grey build- 
 ings, like large clusters of vegetable glow-worms. A 
 transparent atmosphere gave a blue tone to all the 
 shadows. 
 
 Instead of hastening impatiently on shore, we re- 
 mained on deck till we were driven from it : where 
 could we have found such a point of view ? when 
 could we have hoped again for so favourable a mo- 
 ment ? 
 
 We were conducted into the city through its won- 
 derful gates, supported by two enormous door-posts, 
 which are left open at the top, to let the tower-like 
 
203 
 
 car of Santa Rosalia pass through on the day of her 
 celebrated festival. We were then conducted to the 
 inn, which lay on our left. The host, a hearty, cheer- 
 ful old man, accustomed to see strangers of all nations, 
 led us into a large room, from the balcony of which 
 we looked over the sea, the strait, the mountain of 
 Santa Rosalia, and the shore : we could distinguish 
 our vessel, and judge of the position from which we 
 first beheld Palermo. 
 
 We were so delighted with the situation of our 
 room that we scarcely remarked a raised alcove, con- 
 cealed by curtains, at one end of it. In it stood a 
 most spacious bed, decorated with a splendid silken 
 canopy, with which the remains of a somewhat anti- 
 quated, but magnificent furniture, fully corresponded. 
 The sight of such a state-chamber rather startled us, 
 and we thought it desirable to make some preliminary 
 conditions. The old man replied that no conditions 
 were necessary — that he only wished we might be 
 satisfied with our reception ; and that we might also 
 have the use of the anti-room. This was a cool, airy 
 room, enlivened by several balconies, and immedi- 
 ately adjoining our apartment. 
 
 We enioyed the infinitely varied prospect, and 
 sought to sever and dissect it into parts suited to the 
 draughtsman or the painter ; for we saw before us a 
 boundless harvest for every variety of art. In the 
 evening the bright moonlight allured us out again 
 
204 
 
 to the straits, and after our return, still detained us 
 for a long while lingering on the balcony. The light 
 was most extraordinary — the repose most profound 
 and delicious. 
 
 Palermo, April 3, 1787. 
 
 A few more words, after reflection and an attempt 
 to collect these scattered images 
 
 We sailed on the 29th of March, at sunset, from 
 Naples, and landed at three o'clock on the 2nd of 
 April at Palermo. I never felt such tranquillity when 
 travelling — even in my narrow bed, to which I was 
 confined by violent sickness. Now my thoughts 
 wander silently back to you. If anything was ever 
 eventful, decisive in my life, it is this journey. 
 
 A man who has never looked out upon an un- 
 broken horizon of sea, has no conception of the world, 
 and of his own connection with the world. As a 
 landscape painter, this vast, simple line awakened in 
 me a completely new train of thoughts. 
 
 In this short voyage we have had many vicissi- 
 tudes, and have experienced the fate of sailors on a 
 small scale. 
 
 No words can express the aerial brilliancy which 
 floated around the coasts, as, on the loveliest after- 
 noon, we approached Palermo. The clearness of 
 contour, the softness of the whole, the tender blending 
 of tones, the harmony of heaven, earth and sea — 
 he who has once seen it possesses it for life. Now 
 
205 
 
 I understand Claude Lorraine, and have some hope, 
 even in my northern home, of being able to bring 
 before my mind some faint shadowy images of this 
 delicious abode. Were but everything mean effaced 
 from it as completely as the meanness of our thatch- 
 roofed hovels from my pictorial conceptions ! We 
 shall see what this queen of islands will do. 
 
 How she received us no words can express ; with 
 fresh-budding mulberry-trees, ever-green oleanders, 
 hedges of orange and lemon, etc. In a public garden 
 there are wide beds of ranunculuses and anemones. 
 The air is soft, warm, and fragrant ; the wind tepid 
 and balmy. To add to the enchantment, the moon 
 stood at her full, behind a headland, and threw her 
 bright reflection in the sea ; and all this after rock- 
 ing four days and nights on the waves. Forgive me 
 for scrawling to you with a stump of a pen out of a 
 shell of indian ink, with which my companion is 
 tracing his outline. Receive it as a mere lisping, till 
 I can prepare some better memorial of these happy 
 hours for all who love me. What it will be I shall 
 not say, nor can I say when you will receive it. 
 ***** 
 
 When I seek to write words, pictures crowd before 
 my eyes ; — the fruitful land, the expanded sea, the 
 fragrant, balmy islands, the smoking mountain: — 
 and I want the organ necessary to bring all these 
 before you. 
 
 Goethe. (Italiänische Reise.) 
 
206 
 
 FEMALE DOMINION. 
 
 Armidoro. — I think, Eulalia, you have taken 
 
 great pains in your writings to defend your sex from 
 the reproach of love of power. 
 
 Eulalia. — In so far as that is a reproach, I had 
 rather that my sex would answer it by their con- 
 duct; but, in so far as we have a right to power, I 
 would not willingly renounce it. We desire power 
 only inasmuch as we are human beings ; for what is 
 power, in the sense in which it is so often applied to 
 women, but the liberty to employ one's faculties in 
 one's own way unobstructed, — the liberty to make 
 the best of one's existence ? Of this power every un- 
 civilized man demands the arbitrary, every civilized, 
 the regulated exercise ; and perhaps the struggle for 
 it in women appears the more vehement, because 
 nature, law and custom seem to oppress us as much 
 as they favour men. What they possess, we must 
 acquire ; and one contends more strenuously for what 
 one has laboured for, than for what one has inherited. 
 
 Seyton. — And yet women now-a-days cannot com- 
 plain, for they inherit as much or more than men ; 
 and I maintain that it is far more difficult to become 
 an accomplished man than an accomplished woman. 
 The expression, " He shall be thy master," is the for- 
 mula of a barbarous age, which is long past. Men 
 could not make any great advance in civilization with- 
 out conceding the same right to women; from the 
 
207 
 
 time women were educated, the balance stood even ; 
 and since they are more susceptible of education 
 than men, the balance has, as experience shows, 
 inclined in their favour. 
 
 Armidoro. — There is no question that in all civili- 
 zed nations the women must on the whole gain the 
 ascendency ; for the effect of the mutual influence of 
 the sexes is to render the man more effeminate, and 
 then he loses, — since his pre-eminency consists, not 
 in diminished, but in compressed force ; on the con- 
 trary, if the woman borrows something from the man, 
 she gains ; for when her other gifts and graces are 
 exalted by energy, a being is formed than which it is 
 impossible to conceive one more perfect. 
 
 Seyton. — I have not gone into such profound spe- 
 culations ; it is, however, I think, well known that 
 women rule and must rule ; when, therefore, I make 
 the acquaintance of one, I only observe where she 
 rules ; — somewhere, I assume beforehand. 
 
 Amelia, — And do you find what you seek? 
 
 Seyton. — Why not? Experiments in physical 
 science are not much more easy to make. I find, 
 universally, that the active woman, formed to acquire 
 and to uphold, is master in the house ; the beauty, 
 with her light and superficial graces and talents, 
 master in large circles; the more profoundly in- 
 structed, in small ones. 
 
 Amelia. — So we are divided into three classes. 
 
 Sinclair. — Which are all, I think, honourable 
 
208 
 
 enough ; but they do not exhaust the subject. There 
 is a fourth, of which we had better not speak, that 
 you may not reproach us with ending our praise with 
 blame. 
 
 Henrietta. — Our first three classes contain influ- 
 ence in the house, in large, and in small circles. 
 What room remains for the exercise of our activity ? 
 
 Sinclair. — Abundance. But I have the contrary 
 in my head. 
 
 Henrietta. — Inactivity ? And how ? An inactive 
 woman rule ? 
 
 Sinclair. — Why not ? 
 Henrietta. — But how ? 
 
 Sinclair. — By passive resistance. Any one who, 
 either from temper or from system, stubbornly 
 maintains an attitude of negation, has a greater 
 power than people think. 
 
 Amelia. — I am afraid we are falling into the usual 
 tone in which men speak of women. 
 
 Henrietta. — Let him alone, Amelia ; nothing is 
 more innocuous than such opinions, and one always 
 gains by hearing what others think of one. Well 
 then — the negationers — what of them ? 
 
 Sinclair. — I may speak here without reserve. In 
 our dear Fatherland there are few; in France, none ; 
 and precisely because, both with us and our gallant 
 neighbours, women enjoy a rational freedom ; but in 
 countries where they are greatly constrained, where 
 external proprieties are anxiously and timorously 
 
209 
 
 observed and public recreations rare, they are more 
 common. 
 
 The sort of woman I mean is mistress of 
 
 the art of completely embittering the life of the 
 person on whom she depends, by mere indifference, 
 coldness and reserve, which are often clothed with 
 
 an air of languor and illness. 
 
 Goethe. {Die guten Weiber.) 
 
 A sky resplendent with stars hung over the land- 
 scape. The gushing of the fountains, the rustling 
 of the woods, resounded in the calm solitude of the 
 garden, in which Theodore sauntered up and down, 
 and admired the effects which the light of the stars 
 and the last golden streaks of the western horizon 
 produced in the dancing waters. And now Man- 
 fred's bugle was heard from the window of his 
 chamber, and its melancholy penetrating tones came 
 trembling back from the distant mountains, as Ernest, 
 who came down from the hills behind the garden, 
 opened the gate and joined the solitary Theodore. 
 
 " How beautifully," he began, " does this serene 
 and brilliant night close the enjoyments of the day ! 
 The sun and our sweet friends are gone to rest ; the 
 woods and waters rustle and gush in the night- 
 breeze ; the earth dreams ; and Manfred pours forth 
 an affectionate farewell to slumbering nature. 
 
 " See, my dear friend, how the lamps of those frail, 
 
210 
 
 fleeting beings flicker in the balmy air ! how they 
 sparkle like diamonds through the deep green of the 
 bushes, and now in quivering clouds, now in solitary 
 orilliancy, awaken such feelings in us as soft tones 
 excite — And then above us, the splendour of the 
 everlasting firmament ! Does not the sky hang over 
 the dusky earth like a friend from whose eyes beam 
 love and confidence ? — whom one would trust with 
 one's whole heart in all the dangers and vicissitudes of 
 life? 
 
 " This sacred, sober calm awakens all our slum- 
 bering sorrows, and turns them to serene, sedate joys. 
 And even thus grand, thus mild, does the noble 
 Novalis seem now to look upon me with his mortal 
 glance ; and he recalls to me that night in which, 
 after a gay festival, I wandered over the mountains 
 with him in the loveliest scenery, and we, little 
 anticipating so near a separation, discoursed of all 
 that is beautiful in nature and godlike in friendship. 
 Perhaps even now, while I think of him with such 
 deep and intense remembrance, his heart hangs over 
 me lovingly like that starry heaven. Sleep sweetly. 
 I will lay me down to rest that I may meet him in 
 my dreams." 
 
 Tieck. (Phantasus.) 
 
 Exalted and living Will, whom no name can 
 express and no idea embrace, I yet may raise my 
 
211 
 
 heart to thee ! for thou and I are not divided. Thy 
 voice is audible within me. In thee, the Incompre- 
 hensible, my own nature and the whole world become 
 intelligible to me ; every riddle of my existence is 
 solved, and perfect harmony reigns in my soul. I 
 veil my face before thee, and lay my hand upon my 
 lips. Such as thou really art — such as thou ap- 
 pearest unto thyself — I can no more behold thee 
 than I can become like thee. After thousands of 
 thousands of lives such as superior spirits live, I 
 should be as little able to understand thee as in 
 this house of clay. What I understand is, from my 
 very understanding it, finite, and by no progression 
 can ever be transformed into the infinite. Thou 
 ditferest from the finite, not in degree, but in kind. 
 I will not attempt that which my finite nature 
 forbids. I will not seek to know the nature and 
 essence of thy being. But thy relations to myself 
 and to all that is finite lie open before my eyes. 
 Thou createdst in me the consciousness of my duty 
 — of my destination in the series of rational beings ; 
 how, I know not, nor need I to know. Thou know- 
 est my thoughts and acceptest my intentions. In 
 the contemplation of this thy relation to my finite 
 nature, I will be tranquil and happy. Of myself I 
 know not what I ought to do. I will do it simply, 
 joyfully, and without cavil, for it is thy voice that 
 commands me, and the strength with which I per- 
 
212 
 
 form my duty is thy strength. I am tranquil under 
 every event of the world, for it is thy world. What- 
 ever happens forms part of the plan of the eternal 
 world and of thy goodness. What in this plan is 
 positive good, and what only means of removing 
 existing evil, I know not. In thy world all will end 
 in good, — this is enough for me, and in this faith I 
 stand fast ; but what in thy world is mere germ, 
 what blossom, and what the perfect fruit, I know 
 not. The only thing which is important to me, is 
 the progress of reason and of morality through all 
 the ranks of rational beings. 
 
 When my heart is closed to all earthly desires, 
 the universe appears to my eye in a glorified aspect. 
 The dead cumbrous masses which served only to 
 fill space, disappear, and in their place the eternal 
 stream of life and strength and action flows on from 
 its source — primeval life ; from thy life, thou Ever- 
 lasting One ! 
 
 Fichte. (Bestimmung des Menschen.) 
 
 OLD ITALIAN ART. 
 
 These old severe masters are succeeded by some 
 whose pictures bloom on the canvas like flowers on 
 their stalk. They are radiant with the glory of a 
 transparent, golden, blessed world — with an unearth- 
 ly expression of love and brightness and felicity. 
 But one must see the pictures of Giovanni da Fie- 
 
213 
 
 sole, and Gentile da Fabriano, to understand what 
 I mean ; now-a-days we have no conception of such 
 painting — which is nothing else than a soul rendered 
 outwardly visible — for the very simple reason that 
 we have no conception of such souls, whose hope 
 was never clouded by despondency, whose faith 
 never troubled by doubt. I can never help smiling 
 when I look at Fiesole's pictures — as a child smiles 
 in its sleep at the splendour of its dreams. Fra Gio- 
 vanni was a Dominican monk in the monastery of 
 St. Mark, Florence. Even during his life he was 
 called Angelico, and after his death Beato. He 
 painted incessantly, and never for money ; painting 
 was with him but another form of prayer. He com- 
 monly painted on a gold ground, and ornamented 
 the walls and carpets of his pictures with graceful 
 arabesques, which have a charming effect on the 
 bright colours he so loved. His heads are like minia- 
 tures for delicacy ; they have not much variety, — 
 for of passion he knew nothing, and even sorrow 
 lost its sting by the consoling foresight of the bless- 
 edness to come. Into the anxieties of life, into the 
 restless troubles of the world, into the longing of 
 infinite unappeased desires, he had never even 
 looked, far less ventured ; he knew heaven, but 
 not earth ; hence his pictures are monotonous, and 
 he succeeds best in those of paradise, of the coro- 
 nation of the Virgin, and the like. There is a 
 
214 
 
 ' Paradise' in the Academy, glowing in a rosy light, 
 like the dawn, in which float countless beautiful 
 little angels. He painted the whole history of 
 Christ on four small panels. But where any vio- 
 lent movement of mind or body is required, — as, 
 for instance, in the wrathful Christ in the last judg- 
 ment, passing sentence on the wicked — it is a fright- 
 ful mask ; he understood only the benign Christ. 
 
 Gräfin Ida Hahn-Hahn. (Jenseits der Berge.) 
 
 COUNT BERNSTORF. 
 
 Bernstorf did not please at the first moment ; 
 his eye was clouded with care, and deep thought 
 sat upon his brow ; but as soon as you approached 
 him, you saw the soul which beamed through every 
 feature, the philanthropy which glowed in his eye, 
 and the cordial affability which played around his 
 mouth. You perceived that he was a good, and, 
 as soon as he began to speak, a great and a bril- 
 liant man. His eloquence flowed like a soft stream, 
 and won its way through rocks — the expression was 
 always exactly fitted to the end, the word to the 
 thing ; his whole presence beamed with truth, and 
 stood before you in the visible colours of nature. 
 
 He spoke with peculiar force on affairs of govern- 
 ment, on revolutions in the history of mankind, on 
 the future effects of causes as yet scarcely in ex- 
 
215 
 
 istence, and on the expectations to be formed from 
 various political systems. He painted men and states 
 to the life, and drew from history with light but 
 distinct sketches, whose resemblance struck, and 
 whose arrangement, light and shadow showed, the 
 creative hand of a master. Examples of virtue ani- 
 mated him ; every noble action, every thought of 
 benevolence or of patriotism, struck a kindred chord 
 in his heart. 
 
 A man who to brilliant endowments unites power 
 and influence, generally predominates over silent 
 and obsequious crowds ; they listen and admire' 
 and the charm of conversation vanishes with its 
 equality. But Bernstorf did not humble or oppress 
 by his intellectual superiority ; he invited to reply 
 by his affability, and knew how to choose his subject 
 according to the talents and acquirements of his 
 company. He understood the art of asking a wel- 
 come question, of giving an encouraging answer. 
 He had a word, a look, a mark of respect ready 
 for all, so that even the timid were inspired with 
 courage. Every man found the fit opportunity to dis- 
 play his peculiar talent, the arena on which he could 
 appear to advantage. In this alone consists true 
 courtesy, which is never successful when it is accom- 
 panied by a visible consciousness of the gracious con- 
 descension with which the great man waives his 
 claims to superiority. 
 
216 
 
 Bernstorf was master even of his natural disposi- 
 tions. He was of a warm temper, and so peculiarly 
 sensible to the ridiculous, that satire often rose to 
 his lip and sparkled in his eye, but he gave it no 
 utterance. He was too kind to be sarcastic. 
 
 The last hour of evening was the most agreeable 
 time of his day. He spent it amidst his family and 
 intimate friends, and a few men of letters. Here 
 he unfolded all the treasures of his heart and mind ; 
 the veil of dignity fell, and his soul beamed forth 
 in all its native beauty ; we never left him without 
 feeling a warmer love of virtue, without being in- 
 structed, improved. 
 
 Seldom does a man who has taken a share in im- 
 portant public affairs wish to live over again his 
 whole life without the omission of a single period or 
 event ; but Bernstorf often acknowledged with grati- 
 tude that he would receive back from the hands of 
 Providence all his past days, without exception or 
 condition, were he not travelling toward a better 
 futurity. 
 
 His life was illustrated by every sort of 
 
 fame. When at the helm of state, he was successful, 
 and beloved by all virtuous men ; when stripped of 
 power, he was still the object of their reverence. 
 
 Helfrich Peter Sturz. 
 {Erinnerungen des Grafen J. H. E. von Bernstorf.) 
 
217 
 
 ON THE SUPERSTITIONS OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 
 
 So much is said about the superstitions of our 
 forefathers, and so many inferences unfavourable to 
 the strength of their understandings are drawn from 
 them, that I cannot resist saying a few words, if not 
 of justification, yet of apology. According to my 
 view of the matter, the only object of their so-called 
 superstitious fictions was to express certain truths 
 in figures or symbols (which have still a peculiar 
 name in popular language — Wahrzeichen — sign or 
 token), as aids to the memory ; just as they tied a 
 bit of wood to a key to distinguish it. 
 
 Thus, for example, they told a child who laid his 
 knife with the edge upwards, or in such a manner 
 as to be perilous to himself or his neighbours, that 
 the holy angels would wound their feet when they 
 walked upon the table ; not that they actually be- 
 lieved this, but that they wished to impress the 
 child's memory through his imagination. They 
 taught that everybody would have to wait at the 
 gates of paradise as many hours as he had wantonly 
 scattered grains of salt ; by which they gave their 
 children or their servants a lively and lasting im- 
 pression of the evil effects of carelessness and waste 
 in trifles, the total amount of which would become 
 considerable. 
 
 They told a vain girl who could not pass the 
 
 L 
 
218 
 
 jooking-glass without casting a furtive glance into 
 it, that the devil peeped over the shoulder of those 
 who looked at themselves in a glass at night; and 
 many other things of the same kind, by which they 
 endeavoured to imprint a good precept on the mind 
 by the aid of imagery. In a word, they drew from 
 the world of spirits, as we do from the animal world 
 instructive fables, as a means of making a deep 
 impression on the minds of children. 
 
 Justus Moser. 
 
 To the toiling Englishman, unremittingly occu- 
 pied with worldly business and worldly cares, the 
 strict observance of the Sunday must be most salu- 
 tary ; the less busy catholic (especially in the South) 
 requires not only this day of rest, but also holidays 
 to give variety and interest to his life. The German 
 Protestant, who, whatever be his obvious duties or 
 his outward calling, is ever prone to reflection on 
 inward things, stands less in need of such a fre- 
 quently returning day of rest, since his creed enjoins 
 upon him the duty of devoting a portion of every 
 day to serious and spiritual contemplation. Hence 
 it happens that the institution of the Sabbath is 
 observed in a totally different spirit in different 
 countries. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
219 
 
 In a sound sleep the soul goes home to recruit 
 her strength, which could not else endure the wear 
 and tear of life. 
 
 Rahel. 
 
 PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 
 
 The principal sources from which we derive our 
 knowledge of the most ancient Greek philosophy are 
 Plato and Aristotle ; although no books on that sub- 
 ject have come down to us from the hand of the 
 former, and only a lew fragments from that of the 
 latter. But, as it was the vocation of each of them 
 to collect together the previous isolated efforts of 
 speculative minds, and, after excluding such as led 
 to no result, to give to these materials the unity 
 and completeness of a philosophical system, both 
 were compelled to begin by examining what had 
 already been produced by the light of criticism, 
 which each employed according to his own peculiar 
 views : so that in this respect, as well as in their se- 
 veral systems, each reciprocally forms, as it were, the 
 complement of the other. 
 
 Aristotle introduces his own researches by histo- 
 rico-critical discussions, whose comprehensiveness 
 and accuracy we shall have frequent occasion to 
 admire ; besides which, he also treated, in separate 
 and special books, of the Pythagorean philosophy — 
 of Archytas — of Alcmason — of the Eleatic school — 
 l 2 
 
220 
 
 of Gorgias — of the Platonic ideas — of the doctrines 
 of Plato on the Supreme Good ; and, in his books 
 on the republic and on laws, of Speusippus and of 
 Xenocrates. 
 
 From Plato we learn more especially the spirit 
 and tendency of the earlier philosophical theories, 
 and gain glimpses of the personal characteristics of 
 the speculators, painted with the dramatic talent pe- 
 culiar to himself. From Aristotle we obtain many 
 details of earlier opinions and methods. 
 
 The reason why Plato often does not reproduce 
 the doctrines of earlier philosophers with the same 
 distinctness in which they are to be found in their 
 original authors, was, not that he was deficient in 
 historical impartiality and faithful apprehension of 
 the recorded past, but that his plan required him ra- 
 ther to describe the spirit and aim of any given phi- 
 losophical tendency, than the exact manner in which 
 that tendency exhibited itself. Hence his represent- 
 ations may sometimes require to be completed and 
 filled out, but never to be corrected. 
 
 The industry and the power displayed by Ari- 
 stotle in comprehending with precision what was 
 before him, are not less conspicuously displayed in 
 his sketches of the doctrines of the elder philoso- 
 phers, than in his other works. It is by the com- 
 parison with them that he tests his own conclusions ; 
 starting from the supposition that later philosophical 
 
221 
 
 inquiries are essentially predetermined by earlier, and 
 that these, even when they have failed of their end, 
 have materially contributed to the discovery of 
 truth, were it only by the exercise they have given 
 to the faculties. For this reason we ought to verify 
 the accuracy of our own assumptions by those of 
 our predecessors ; but, for the purpose of thoroughly 
 eliciting all the truth embodied in them, we must 
 proceed like impartial arbitrators, not in the style of 
 antagonists*. Aristotle has been most unjustly re- 
 proached with pretending in every case to be him- 
 self the first discoverer of the truth, and with misre- 
 presenting preceding speculators, in order to conceal 
 his own plagiarisms. There is some ground for the 
 accusation that Aristotle was too much inclined to 
 generalization, and to referring all preceding opi- 
 nions and systems to his own ; — but a corrective to 
 any misunderstanding is generally to be found in his 
 own statements. 
 
 C. A. Brandis. 
 
 {Handbuch der Geschichteder Griechisch-Römischen Philosophie.) 
 
 ROMAN JURISTS. 
 
 The method of treating law which was pursued 
 by the Roman jurists had a certain degree of uni- 
 formitv. Proceeding from positive legal rules, they 
 
 * De Ccelo, 1, 10. 
 
222 
 
 combined them in the most skilful and refined manner 
 with that part of every system of law which is not 
 positive, and worked up both elements into one co- 
 herent and consistent whole. Sometimes analysing 
 a given maxim of law, sometimes supplying its de- 
 fects by implication from itself, and sometimes cre- 
 ating new legal maxims by the process of scientific 
 construction, they dealt with their materials after 
 the manner of a logician or mathematician, and 
 thus elevated their science into a logic applied to 
 the matter of law. Notwithstanding their decided 
 fondness for the subtle development of an assumed 
 fundamental principle, their sound practical sense 
 preserved them from useless refinements. To rigor- 
 ous philosophical forms they attached no great value : 
 hence in their general definitions and divisions, and 
 in the arrangement of their materials, they often ex- 
 hibit some inaccuracy and carelessness ; but in the 
 analysis of the matter itself, they never failed to hit 
 the right idea and expression. Their language and 
 style, like that of men of varied acquirements and 
 experience in life, was pure, simple, distinct, dig- 
 nified, free from all tincture of pedantry, suggestive 
 and vivid ; and it escaped the common degeneracy 
 for a longer time than that of any other class of 
 writers. The Greek philosophy, by means of its 
 general influence upon their mental cultivation, in- 
 directly influenced the jurisprudence of the Romans ; 
 
223 
 
 but so far was it from exercising any direct or special 
 influence, that the Roman jurists, in their enthusiasm 
 for their study, showed an inclination to exalt it into 
 a science embracing ethics as well as law. 
 
 Walter. (Geschichte des Römischen Rechts.) 
 
 SCENE ON THE VISTULA. 
 
 Sixty or seventy years ago, Danzig might be re- 
 garded as the terminal stone of the civilized world ; 
 since then the inarch of civilization has trodden all 
 such boundaries into the dust ; but my paternal 
 city, independently of its singular style of building, 
 has still enough of its earlier originality remaining 
 to interest the intelligent stranger. One of the most 
 striking features is the arrival of the vessels laden 
 with corn, which still present a strange spectacle, 
 though not so much so as formerly. 
 
 In our northern clime, spring starts up, and at 
 one bound throws off the white shroud, and breaks 
 the crystal covering, under which she lay concealed. 
 Then the waters in the interior of Poland swell, and, 
 towards the end of May, the Vistula, which is often 
 too shallow even for the flat Polish craft which 
 navigate it, becomes deep enough to bear on its 
 bosom the golden gifts of Ceres to my native city, 
 which in former times was justly called the granary 
 of Europe. 
 
224 
 
 The small sea-craft lying at anchor by the Long 
 Bridge over the Mottlau, like the return carriages 
 in Frankfort, with the place of their destination writ- 
 ten on a black board, — ' God willing, to Königsberg,' 
 (Will's Gott, nach Königsberg,) < God willing, to 
 Petersburg,' ' God willing, to Memel,' and so forth, 
 are forced to crowd more closely together to make 
 room for the strange fleet which now covers the 
 Mottlau. 
 
 Boats or barges these ill-built craft can hardly be 
 called ; their appearance is so shapeless and rickety, 
 that one wonders how they can have made their 
 long voyage in safety ; at the end of it they are 
 broken up and sold as timber, and the crews find 
 their way home on foot, over moor and heath, and 
 through primeval forests. They are most like a small 
 raft, only that they taper to each end like a boat, and 
 have a sort of low deck, at the end of which is a hut, 
 serving as the cabin of the master ; they have no masts 
 or sails, but are steered by a clumsy sort of rudder, 
 and rowed down stream by more than a hundred 
 sturdy arms of Schimkys, seated on benches, and 
 keeping time with their oars. The whole of the re- 
 maining space is filled with wheat or rye. The enor- 
 mous heap, piled up as high as possible, lies open, 
 without the smallest shelter from wind or weather. 
 
 Before the first partition of Poland, when the 
 corn-trade was almost a monopoly of Danzig, in 
 
225 
 
 years when the crops were abundant and the waters 
 high, the whole surface of the broad stream was 
 often covered with these vessels, steering their diffi- 
 cult course as through a crowded street. If a 
 stranger could suddenly have been placed on the 
 Long Bridge, he must have thought himself on one 
 of the South Sea Islands, which had just then been 
 discovered, in the midst of the canoes of savages ; so 
 thoroughly un-European was the appearance of the 
 Schimkys and the whole flotilla. That such a scene 
 should still exist in a civilized country so near to 
 Germany, seems incredible; a galerien of Toulon, 
 compared with a Schimky, is a dandy. 
 
 Spite of their wild aspect, there is however no- 
 thing disgusting or hideous in these large-boned, 
 bronzed, and meagre forms ; a fat, thriving Schimky 
 is an idea beyond the region of possibility. With 
 the exception of the natural moustachio, bleached 
 to a sort of yellow by sun and rain, the whole 
 head is close shorn, and covered with a large straw 
 hat of home manufacture, or a flat fur cap ; the 
 back of the neck and breast are bare. The dress 
 consists of trowsers girt round the waist, and a slop 
 (kittel) of the very coarsest unbleached linen. 
 Wooden soles, thickly studded with strong iron nails, 
 and bound under the naked foot, are the general sub- 
 stitutes for shoes. 
 
 The horrible clatter made by this chanssure, when 
 l 5 
 
226 
 
 a party of Schimkys came down the street, always 
 drove us children into the house ; and even when al- 
 most grown up, I never came near them without a 
 beating heart. I was frightened at their wild looks, 
 but without cause ; they harmed nobody, nor did I 
 every hear of a Schimky being accused of theft or 
 any other crime. 
 
 They were serfs, and are mostly so still, except in 
 the part of Poland subject to Prussia. Their life 
 is hardly rated so high as that of a dog or a horse. 
 The nobleman who from recklessness or anger killed 
 one, paid a fine of ten dollars, without any legal pro- 
 ceedings, and so the matter was concluded and for- 
 gotten. And yet there existed not a more con- 
 tented, I might say joyous, people, than these serfs 
 in their deepest depth of poverty ; they missed not 
 what they never had — what they hardly knew by 
 name. 
 
 How they get through the winter I know not ; in 
 summer their life is nearly that of a savage. Day 
 and night under the open sky, they lie on the shore 
 of the river near the enormous heaps of wheat, which 
 they watch and constantly turn over to keep it from 
 damage till it is housed in the granaries. 
 
 A thick porridge of pease or buckwheat, which 
 they cook in a huge pot hung on a stake laid over 
 two crotched sticks, is their daily food ; if a party 
 has been so fortunate as to get possession of two or 
 
227 
 
 three tallow candles to flavour the unsavoury mess, 
 they think their meal delicious. At midday they 
 may be seen sitting in picturesque groups around 
 the smoking pot, dipping in the large wooden spoons 
 (which are also a favourite article of manufacture 
 and commerce with them), and swallowing down vast 
 quantities, accompanied with an incessant chatter. 
 
 A draught of brandy is a still greater treat to 
 them than a tallow candle ; but even when the in- 
 tellects of these poor half-human children are a little 
 clouded, they retain their good nature, and never is 
 such a thing heard of as violence or murder. 
 
 Johanna Schopenhauer. 
 {Jugendlehen und Wanderbilder.) 
 
 WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?* 
 
 A man is enlightened when he emerges from a 
 state of self-imposed pupilage. Pupilage is the in- 
 ability to use one's own understanding without the 
 guidance of another. This state is self-imposed when 
 the cause, of it lies, not in a deficiency of under- 
 standing, but of determination and courage to use it 
 
 * It is impossible, without greater deviation from the original 
 than I feel myself justified in making, to avoid the use of this 
 very awkward word, which is the exact translation of Aufklä- 
 rung. A more significant title would be, "A plea for the liberty 
 of philosophizing." — Translator. 
 
228 
 
 without the guidance of another. Sapere aude ! 
 — have the courage to use your own understanding, 
 is therefore the motto of enlightenment. 
 
 Indolence and cowardice are the causes why so 
 large a portion of mankind, long after nature has 
 emancipated them from the guidance of others (na- 
 turaliter majorennes), voluntarily remain in a state 
 of pupilage during their whole lives ; and why it 
 is so easy for others to assume the character of their 
 guardians. It is so convenient to be under guardian- 
 ship. If I have a book that possesses an understand- 
 ing for me, a guardian of souls that has a conscience 
 for me, a physician that prescribes my diet, and so 
 forth, I need take no trouble myself. So long as I 
 can pay, I need not think ; others will undertake that 
 toilsome business for me. By far the larger half of 
 the human race (including the whole of the fair sex) 
 regard the step to majority not only as laborious and 
 difficult, but also as extremely dangerous ; an idea 
 which the guardians who have so benevolently taken 
 upon themselves the supervision and guidance of 
 their conduct, have assiduously inculcated. After 
 they have first made their domestic animal sufficiently 
 stupid, and have carefully prevented the quiet crea- 
 ture from venturing to set a step without the go-cart 
 into which they have put it, they next proceed to 
 point out the danger which threatens it, if it should 
 attempt to go alone. Now in truth this danger is not 
 
229 
 
 so very great ; it would learn to go alone at the ex- 
 pense of a few tumbles; but one fall generally makes it 
 timorous, and frightens it from any further attempt. 
 
 It is difficult for any individual human being to 
 apply the labour necessary to extricate himself from 
 the pupilage which is become a second nature. He 
 has grown to like it, and is really incapable of using 
 his own understanding at once, because he has never 
 been permitted to try. Maxims and formulae — those 
 mechanical tools of the use, or rather abuse, of his 
 natural faculties — are the gyves which keep him in 
 a perpetual pupilage. He who throws them away 
 will make but a feeble and unsteady leap over the 
 narrowest ditch, because he is wholly unaccustomed 
 to unrestrained movement. Hence there are but 
 few who have succeeded in extricating themselves 
 from pupilage by their own efforts, and have yet re- 
 tained a steady gait. 
 
 But that a public should enlighten itself is far 
 more possible, — indeed, if freedom be granted it, is 
 nearly inevitable : for there will always be some few 
 independent thinkers, even among the guardians of 
 the multitude, who, when they themselves have thrown 
 off the yoke of pupilage, will diffuse around them 
 a rational sense of individual dignity, and of the ob- 
 ligation which lies on every human being to think 
 for himself. It is remarkable that the public (at the 
 instigation of some of its guardians, who are them- 
 
230 
 
 selves incapable of enlightenment) forces the very 
 men who at first placed it under the yoke to con- 
 tinue to bear it ; so mischievous is it to implant pre- 
 judices, since they recoil on those, or on the suc- 
 cessors of those, who were their authors. Hence it 
 is that a public attains slowly to a state of enlighten- 
 ment. A deliverance from personal despotism, or 
 from rapacious or domineering oppression, may be 
 brought about by revolution : but a real reform in 
 opinion will never be effected by such means; new 
 prejudices will only take the place of the old, 
 as leading-strings of the unthinking, unreasoning 
 mass. 
 
 In order to enlightenment nothing is wanted but 
 liberty ; the safest and most innocuous that can be 
 called by that name — i. e. liberty to make a public 
 use of one's reason on all subjects. But I hear 
 exclamations from every side against the use of 
 reason. The officer says, " Don't reason, but obey 
 orders ;" the financier, " Don't reason, but pay ;" the 
 priest, " Don't reason, but believe." These are so 
 many restrictions of freedom. It is therefore neces- 
 sary to inquire, what restrictions are adverse to en- 
 lightenment ; what, not only not adverse, but favour- 
 able to it. I answer, the public exercise of reason 
 must be constantly and invariably free ; this is the 
 sole means by which mankind can be enlightened : 
 but the private exercise of it may often be subjected 
 
231 
 
 to very rigorous restrictions, without much prejudice 
 to the progress of enlightenment. It is necessary to 
 explain, that by the public use which each man 
 makes of his own reason, I understand that which 
 every man of science, in that capacity, makes of it 
 in addressing the whole reading public. By the 
 private use, I mean that which a man makes of his 
 reason in any civil post confided to him, or as mem- 
 ber of a political community. 
 
 Now in order to the interests of the community, 
 it is necessary that such a degree of consentaneity of 
 action should prevail among its members, as that 
 each should promote, or at least should not obstruct, 
 the accomplishment of certain ends ; and that he 
 should, as regards those ends, be a passive instrument 
 of the government. It is clear that, considered as 
 a part of the great machine of political society, a 
 man must not reason, but obey. 
 
 So far, however, as any one part of this machine 
 is to be regarded as simply one of the units com- 
 posing the community (and even the community of 
 the whole human race), and so far as, in his quality 
 of man of science, he addresses himself to the public 
 at large, he may unquestionably use his reason, with- 
 out prejudice to the business which is committed to 
 him. 
 
 Thus, it would be very mischievous if an officer 
 were to question the utility of an order of his supe- 
 
232 
 
 rior ; he must obey. But no one can justly contest 
 his right, as man of science, to criticise errors in 
 the military art, or to submit his criticisms to the 
 judgement of the public. 
 
 The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed 
 on him ; nay, any indiscreet censure of such taxes 
 at the time of their collection, calculated to excite 
 general resistance, may be punished as dangerous to 
 the public peace. But the same individual does 
 nothing inconsistent with the character of a good 
 citizen, if he publicly expresses his thoughts on the 
 inexpediency or the injustice of such taxes. 
 
 In the same manner, a clergyman is bound to in- 
 struct his catechumens and parishioners according to 
 the creed of the church of which he is a minister ; for 
 this was the condition upon which he was received 
 into it as such. But, as a theologian and a scholar, he 
 has full liberty — indeed it is his vocation — to commu- 
 nicate to the public the results of his careful exami- 
 nation and conscientious opinion of what is erroneous 
 in that creed, together with suggestions tending to 
 a reform in the affairs . of the church and of religion. 
 There is nothing in this which needs oppress the con- 
 science ; for that which he teaches in pursuance of 
 his office as minister of the church, he represents as 
 something which he is not at liberty to teach ac- 
 cording to his own way of thinking, but which he is 
 appointed to teach according to the prescription and 
 
233 
 
 in the name of others. He says, our church teaches 
 this or that ; these are the proofs it adduces. He 
 then extracts for his hearers all the practical utility 
 possible, from premises which he could not himself 
 subscribe with full conviction, but to the exposition 
 of which he may pledge himself, because it is not 
 entirely impossible that truth may lie concealed in 
 them, and at all events they contain nothing repug- 
 nant to the essence of religion. If, indeed, he thought 
 he discovered in them anything having this tendency, 
 he could not conscientiously continue to perform 
 his function — he must resign it. The use therefore 
 that an appointed teacher makes of his reason before 
 his flock, is a private use ; since he is not, in his cha- 
 racter of priest, free, and ought not to be so, being 
 charged with a commission. On the other hand, as a 
 theologian and scholar addressing the public properly 
 so called (i. e. the world), the clergyman, in this the 
 public use of his reason, enjoys, in common with other 
 men, an unlimited freedom to use his own reason and 
 to speak in his own person. For, that the guardians 
 of the people, in spiritual things, should be them- 
 selves in a state of pupilage, is an absurdity which 
 goes to the perpetuation of all absurdities. 
 
 But is not an association of clergymen, — a 
 church assembly, or a venerable classis (as they 
 call themselves in Holland), — justified in binding 
 itself by oath to certain immutable articles of faith, 
 
234. 
 
 in order to exercise a perpetual supreme guardian- 
 ship over each of its members, and, indirectly through 
 them, over the people ? I answer, such a thing is 
 totally inadmissible. A compact of this kind, which 
 is entered into with a view to conclude the human 
 race from all further enlightenment, is simply null 
 and void, even though it be confirmed by the sove- 
 reign power, by diets and the most solemn treaties. 
 One age cannot bind itself ; nor can it conspire to 
 place the following one in a condition in which it 
 would be impossible for it to extend its knowledge, 
 to purge itself from error, and to advance in the 
 career of enlightenment. This were a crime against 
 human nature, whose highest destination consists 
 emphatically in intellectual progress ; and posterity 
 is therefore fully justified in rejecting all such at- 
 tempts to bind it, as invalid and mischievous. 
 
 A combination to maintain an unalterable re- 
 ligious system, which no man should be permitted 
 to call into doubt, would, even for the term of one 
 man's life, be wholly intolerable. It would be to 
 blot out, as it were, one generation in the progress 
 of the human species towards a better condition ; to 
 render it barren, and hence noxious to posterity. 
 A man can indeed retard his own intellectual pro- 
 gress, though even then only for a time, as regards 
 things which it is incumbent on him to know ; but 
 utterly to renounce it for himself, and far more for 
 
235 
 
 posterity, is an outrage on the most sacred rights of 
 humanity. Now what a people ought not to deter- 
 mine for itself, a monarch ought still less to deter- 
 mine for it ; for his legislative character and dignity 
 rests on his being the depositary and organ of the 
 collective will of his people. If he does but ascer- 
 tain that every real or supposed spiritual improve- 
 ment consists with the existing order and tranquil- 
 lity of society, he may safely leave his subjects to do 
 what they think necessary for the good of their own 
 souls : in that he has no right to interfere ; his busi- 
 ness is to take care that none of them forcibly ob- 
 struct their neighbours in their endeavours to settle 
 their own opinions, or to promote their own spi- 
 ritual welfare by any means within their reach. It 
 is even derogatory to his majesty to occupy the 
 attention of his government with the writings by 
 means of which his subjects are striving to adjust 
 their opinions ; whether he does this of his own judg- 
 ment, (in which case he subjects himself to the re- 
 proach, " Caesar non est supra grammaticos,") or so 
 deeply degrades his sovereign power, as to sustain 
 the spiritual despotism of a few tyrants in his state 
 against the rest of his subjects. 
 
 If it is asked, Is the age we live in an enlightened 
 one ? the answer is, No ; but it is an age of enlighten- 
 ment. That, as things now stand, the mass of man- 
 kind are capable, or can be rendered capable, of 
 
236 
 
 using their own understandings safely and usefully, 
 without the guidance of another, is far from being 
 the fact. But that the road to self-culture is now 
 opened to them, and that the obstacles to an uni- 
 versal enlightenment, or to an emancipation from a 
 self-imposed pupilage, are gradually becoming fewer, 
 we have clear and abundant indications. In this 
 sense this is the age of enlightenment — the age of 
 Frederic. 
 
 A prince who does not disdain to declare that he 
 esteems it his duty to prescribe nothing to men in 
 matters of religion, and who, leaving them full free- 
 dom of opinion, rejects the arrogant name of tole- 
 ration, is himself enlightened : he deserves to be 
 esteemed by a grateful world and by posterity as 
 the first who released the human race from pupilage 
 (in so far, at least, as it is in the power of govern- 
 ments to do so) and left every one free to follow 
 the guidance of his own reason in matters of con- 
 science. Nor is the benefit confined to his own sub- 
 jects ; the spirit of free inquiry has much less oppo- 
 sition to encounter, now that men have before them 
 a proof that the public tranquillity and the union 
 of society are not in the slightest degree endangered 
 by its diffusion. Men gradually extricate them- 
 selves from a state of barbarism, if they are not 
 purposely and artificially kept in it. 
 
 In considering the enlightenment by which men 
 
237 
 
 emerge from their self-imposed pupilage, I have in- 
 sisted mainly on religion ; because in science and art 
 rulers have no interest in assuming the part of guard- 
 ians over their subjects; and because pupilage in 
 this matter is not only the most mischievous, but the 
 most degrading of any. But the views of an en- 
 lightened ruler go still further, and tend to this — 
 that even as regards his government, there is no 
 danger in allowing his subjects to make a public use 
 of their own reason, and frankly to lay before the 
 world their opinions as to any practicable improve- 
 ments in it, or their criticisms of its present state and 
 acts ; — of this we have before us a splendid and hi- 
 therto unequalled example. 
 
 But it is only a monarch too enlightened to trem- 
 ble at shadows, and having at his disposal a well- 
 disciplined army as a security for the public peace, 
 who can say, — what a popular government could not 
 venture to say, — " Reason as much as you will, and 
 on what you will, — but obey." And here we find a 
 strange and unexpected contradiction in human 
 affairs, which indeed, when regarded as a whole, 
 are full of paradoxes. A higher degree of civil free- 
 dom would appear favourable to freedom of opinion, 
 yet does, in fact, impose insuperable barriers to it; 
 while a lower degree, on the contrary, gives opinion 
 room to diffuse itself. But when, under the protec- 
 tion of a strong government, the desire and the duty 
 
238 
 
 of free thought has developed itself, it gradually 
 renders the people more capable of political freedom. 
 Finally, it influences the principles of the government 
 itself, which finds it conducive to its own interest 
 and prosperity to treat men in a manner consonant 
 to the dignity of their nature. 
 
 Kant. (Kleine Schriften.) 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO THE HIS- 
 TORY OF THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 The establishment of freedom in the Netherlands 
 appears to me one of the most remarkable of those 
 political events which distinguished the sixteenth 
 century. If the glittering deeds inspired by the lust 
 of fame and of dominion claim our admiration, how 
 much more does a conflict, in which oppressed hu- 
 manity strove for its noblest rights ; in which the 
 good cause was sustained by unequalled vigour, and 
 the weapons of resolute despair prevailed, in an 
 unequal struggle against the fearful arts of tyranny ! 
 Grand and tranquillizing is the thought, that there 
 exists a check to the arrogant pretensions of princes ; 
 that their best-laid plans are wrecked on the stead- 
 fast love of freedom ; that the intrepid resistance of 
 a people can beat down the outstretched arm of a 
 despot, and heroic persistency can exhaust his most 
 formidable resources. 
 
 Never have I been so forcibly struck with this 
 
239 
 
 truth as in contemplating the history of that memo- 
 rable revolt which for ever severed the United 
 Netherlands from the crown of Spain; and there- 
 fore I have thought the attempt not unprofitable, to 
 place before the world this noble monument of civil 
 strength, with a view to awaken in the breast of 
 my reader an animating feeling of his own dignity, 
 and to exhibit a new and incontestable example of 
 what men can dare for the good cause — of what they 
 can accomplish by union. 
 
 It is not the romantic or the heroic character of 
 this event which has led me to describe it. The 
 annals of the world contain records of similar achieve- 
 ments which appear still more daring in conception, 
 still more brilliant in execution. Many states have 
 fallen with a sudden and splendid ruin ; others have 
 risen with a no less rapid and brilliant elevation. 
 Nor are we here to expect any of those prominent 
 and colossal figures, any of those astounding deeds, 
 which the history of ancient time presents us with. 
 Those times are past — those men exist no longer. 
 The people whom we shall here behold on the scene 
 were the most peaceful in the world, and less capa- 
 ble than their neighbours of that heroic spirit which 
 gives a loftier character even to the most trivial 
 action. The pressure of circumstances surprised 
 them with its own peculiar might, and forced upon 
 them a transient greatness which they did not seem 
 
240 
 
 formed to display, and will probably never display 
 again. It is therefore precisely the want of heroic 
 grandeur which renders the event so singular and 
 so instructive ; and while others make it their aim 
 to show the superiority of genius to accident, I de- 
 sign to exhibit a picture in which necessity created 
 genius, and accident made heroes. 
 
 Were it ever allowable, in treating of human 
 things, to assert the interposition of a higher pro- 
 vidence, it would be so with regard to this passage 
 of history, so completely does it seem to contradict 
 reason and experience. Philip the Second was the 
 mightiest sovereign of his time : his dreaded power 
 threatened to overwhelm all Europe ; his treasures 
 outnumbered those of the combined monarchs of 
 Christendom; his fleets rode triumphant over every 
 sea ; his tyrannous and ambitious projects were se- 
 conded by countless armies, — armies which, hardened 
 by long and bloody wars and by a Roman discipline, 
 intoxicated with national pride and heated with the 
 memory of successful battles, thirsted for glory and 
 for plunder, and obeyed every impulse given to 
 them by the daring genius of their leader — that 
 formidable man devoted to the execution of a re- 
 lentless project which formed the unwearied labour 
 of his long regency. All these resources were di- 
 rected to a single object, and this object Philip was 
 compelled in the evening of his days to abandon. 
 
241 
 
 Philip II. in conflict with a few feeble provinces, 
 and unable to terminate that conflict! 
 
 And with what provinces ? Here, a peaceful po- 
 pulation of fishermen and shepherds, in a forgotten 
 "corner of Europe, which it had laboriously won 
 from the waves; — the sea at once its occupation, its 
 wealth, and its calamity — a free poverty its highest 
 good, its glory and its virtue. There, a good-natured 
 and orderly trading people, revelling in the fruits of 
 successful industry, watchful in the maintenance of 
 beneficent laws. In the happy leisure of compe- 
 tence they emerged from the narrow circle of anxious 
 cares, and learned to thirst after higher enjoyments. 
 The new truth, whose glad dawn now broke over 
 Europe, cast a fructifying ray on this favouring soil ; 
 — free citizens joyfully received the light from which 
 
 slaves averted their eyes 
 
 Simple in their policy as in their manners, 
 
 they ventured to point to an antiquated contract, 
 and to remind the lord of both Indies of their rights. 
 A name decided the whole issue of the thing. 
 That which in Brussels was called lawful petition, 
 in Madrid was called rebellion ; the troubles in Bra- 
 bant demanded a prudent mediator, — Philip sent 
 an executioner, and the signal for war was given. 
 A tyranny without example assailed life and pro- 
 perty. The despairing citizen, to whom nothing 
 was left but the choice of a death, preferred the 
 nobler on the field of battle. An opulent luxu- 
 
 M 
 
242 
 
 rious people loves peace, but in proportion as it 
 is impoverished it becomes warlike; it ceases to 
 tremble for a life robbed of everything which can 
 render life desirable. The fury of rebellion extends 
 to the remotest provinces, manufactures and com-* 
 merce are prostrate, the ships disappear from the 
 ports, the artisan from his workshop, the husband- 
 man from the untilled fields. Thousands flee to 
 foreign lands, thousands fall victims on the scaffold, 
 and thousands press again to fill the vacant ranks, 
 persuaded that the doctrine for which men can die 
 so triumphantly must needs be divine. 
 
 There is yet wanting the last hand to complete the 
 work — the clear and enterprising spirit which watch- 
 ed for the great political moment, and improved the 
 offspring of chance into the plan of wisdom. 
 
 William the Taciturn * * * * 
 ****** 
 
 The history of the world is consistent with itself 
 as the laws of nature, and single as the soul of man. 
 
 The same conditions bring back the same events. 
 On this very soil, where the Netherlanders now 
 offered resistance to their Spanish tyrant, fifteen 
 hundred years before did their ancestors, the Batavi 
 and the Belgae, engage in fierce and stubborn con- 
 flict with those of Rome. Like them the unwilling 
 subjects of a haughty ruler, like them a prey to ra- 
 pacious satraps, they cast away their fetters with the 
 same disdain, and tempted the fortune of as unequal 
 
243 
 
 a field. The same pride of conquest, the same as- 
 sumption of superiority in the Spaniard of the six- 
 teenth century and in the Roman of the first ; the 
 same valour in either army, the same terror of their 
 invading troops. Then, as now, we see cunning 
 contend with despotism, and constancy sustained by 
 union weary out a gigantic power enfeebled by di- 
 spersion. Then, as now, private hate armed a nation ; 
 a single man, born for his age, revealed to her the 
 awful secret of her strength, and gave to her mute 
 discontent a bloody utterance. 
 
 " Say, Batavi," said Claudius Civilis to his country- 
 men in the sacred grove, " are we still treated by 
 these Romans as allies and friends, or rather as useful 
 slaves ? We are given over to their officers and 
 agents, and these, when they are sated with our spoils 
 and our blood, are replaced by others, who repeat 
 the same acts of violence and rapacity under new 
 names. If it ever happens that Rome sends us a 
 governor, he oppresses us with a pompous and costly 
 retinue and with a yet more insufferable arrogance. 
 The levies are at hand again, which tear children 
 from their parents, and brothers from brothers for 
 ever. Now, Batavi, the moment is yours. Never 
 was Rome so enfeebled as now. Let not the name 
 of legions strike terror into you, — their camp con- 
 tains only old men and booty. We have foot-soldiers 
 and horsemen. Germany is ours, and Gaul burns 
 m 2 
 
244 
 
 to throw off her yoke. Let Syria serve them, and 
 Asia, and the East, patient of kings. There are 
 still among us many who were born before Gaul 
 paid tribute to Rome. The Gods are on the side 
 of the bravest *." 
 
 Peaceful sacraments sanctified this conspiracy, as 
 they did that of the Gueux, and like that, it artfully 
 sheltered itself under the veil of subordination — 
 under the majesty of a great name. The cohorts 
 of Civilis on the Rhine took the oath to Vespasian 
 in Syria, as the Compromissi did to Philip the Se- 
 cond in Spain. The same field of warfare produced 
 the same plan of defence — the same last refuge of 
 despair. Both committed their desperate fortunes 
 to a succouring element. Civilis saved his island, as, 
 fifteen hundred years later, William of Orange saved 
 the city of Leyden, by an artificial inundation. The 
 valour of the Batavi revealed the impotence of the 
 ruler of the world, as the magnificent courage of 
 their posterity disclosed to the eyes of all Europe the 
 decay of the Spanish power. The same fertility of 
 mind in the leaders of either age rendered the war 
 equally obstinate, and its close equally doubtful. One 
 difference, however, strikes us : the Romans and the 
 Batavi warred with humanity, for they warred not 
 for religion. 
 
 Schiller. (Abfall der Niederlande.) 
 * Tacitus, Hist., IV. V. 
 
245 
 
 SCENES FROM THE TRAGEDY OF EGMONT. 
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 
 
 The Regent's Palace; Margaret of Parma in a hunting-dress ; 
 Courtiers, Pages, Servants. 
 
 Regent. — Send away the horses and huntsmen ; I 
 shall not ride today. Tell Machiavelli to come to me. 
 
 \_Exeunt omnes. 
 
 The thought of these dreadful events leaves me 
 no peace. Nothing gladdens me — nothing amuses 
 me. Fearful images and anxious forebodings are 
 ever with me. The king will say that these are 
 the consequences of my leniency — my connivance ; 
 and yet my conscience tells me that I did what 
 was most expedient and best. Ought I to have 
 fanned these flames, and scattered them abroad with 
 the tempest of wrath ? I hoped to turn their course 
 — to allow them to burn out. Yes, — the reasons 
 which have swayed me, the facts which have come 
 to my knowledge, justify me to myself ; but how will 
 my brother view them ? For it cannot be denied 
 that the insolence of the foreign teachers has daily 
 increased; they have blasphemed our holiest rites, 
 they have bewildered the stupid and the ignorant, 
 and have turned the heads of the populace. Un- 
 clean spirits have mingled with these troublers of 
 the peace, these preachers of sedition, and deeds have 
 
246 
 
 been committed which are fearful to think upon, and 
 of which I must now report some to the court, 
 promptly and distinctly, that common fame may not 
 outrun my messenger — that the king may not think 
 there is yet more behind which I seek to conceal. I 
 can discover no means — neither severe nor mild — 
 to remove or avert the evil. Oh what are we great 
 ones on this stormy sea of life ? We think we rule 
 its tides — and we are but its sport, tossed hither and 
 thither by every wave. 
 
 {Enter Machiavelli.) 
 
 Regent. — Are the letters to the king written ? 
 
 Machiavelli. — In an hour they may be signed. 
 
 Regent. — Have you made the report sufficiently 
 distinct and circumstantial ? 
 
 Machiavelli. — Circumstantial and minute — as the 
 king likes to have them. I have related how the 
 iconoclast fury first broke out at St. Omer ; how a 
 fierce multitude with staves and hatchets, hammers, 
 ladders and cords, accompanied by a few armed men, 
 first attacked the chapels, churches and convents, 
 drove out the pious worshipers, broke open the 
 doors, tore down the altars, destroyed the statues of 
 the saints, defaced the pictures ; ruined, dashed in 
 pieces and trod under foot whatever fell in their 
 way that was consecrated and holy ; how the crowd 
 increased as it proceeded on its course, and the in- 
 habitants of Ypres opened their gates to it; how 
 
247 
 
 they laid waste the cathedral, and burned the library 
 of the bishop with incredible rapidity ; how a great 
 multitude of people, inflamed with a like madness, 
 spread themselves abroad through Menin, Comines, 
 Verwich and Lille, and found no resistance ; and how 
 throughout nearly the whole of Flanders the mon- 
 strous conspiracy burst forth, and was in activity in 
 a moment. 
 
 Regent. — Oh how are all my griefs renewed at 
 your recital ! And now they are aggravated by the 
 fear that the evil will become greater and greater. 
 Tell me your thoughts, Machiavel. 
 
 Machiavelli. — Your highness will excuse me. My 
 thoughts are too like dreams — fancies ; and though 
 you have ever been satisfied with my services, you 
 have seldom been willing to follow my advice. You 
 have often said in jest, " You see too far, Machiavel 
 — you should be a writer of history ; people who have 
 to act must provide for the emergency of the mo- 
 ment." And yet did I not foretell all this tremendous 
 history ? Did I not foresee it all ? 
 
 Regent. — I can foresee many things which I can 
 neither alter nor avert. 
 
 Machiavelli. — In one word then — you will not 
 suppress the new religion. Tolerate it — recognize 
 it — sever its professors from those of the true faith ; 
 give them churches, include them within the pale of 
 civil order and authority, and you will at once reduce 
 
248 
 
 the rebels to quiet. All other expedients are vain, 
 and you devastate the land. 
 
 Regent. — Do you forget with what horror my bro- 
 ther rejected the very question whether the new re- 
 ligion might be tolerated ? Do you not know that 
 every letter of his contains the most earnest exhorta- 
 tions to me to uphold the true faith ? that he will not 
 hear of peace or unity which are to be purchased at 
 the expense of religion ? Does he not maintain, even 
 in the provinces, spies whom we know not of, to re- 
 port to him who inclines to the new opinions ? Has 
 he not, to our amazement, named to us individuals 
 living here under our own eye, who were privily 
 guilty of heresy ? Does he not enjoin severity and 
 rigour ? And am I to be indulgent ? Am I to offer 
 him counsels of leniency and toleration ? Should I 
 not lose all his confidence in me — all his reliance 
 upon me? 
 
 Machiavelli. — I know it well. The king com- 
 mands, and informs you fully of his views. You are 
 to restore peace and tranquillity by means which 
 must increase the general exasperation, — which must 
 inevitably kindle war in every corner of the land. 
 Think what you are doing. The great merchants are 
 infected, — the nobles, the people, the soldiers. What 
 boots it to cling pertinaciously to our own opinion 
 when all changes around us ? Oh that some good 
 spirit would but whisper to Philip, that it is nobler 
 
24*9 
 
 for a king to rule over subjects of two different reli- 
 gions, than to convert them into instruments of mu- 
 tual annoyance and destruction ! 
 
 Regent Let me never hear a word like that 
 
 again. I know full well that policy can seldom hold 
 faith and truth; that it banishes frankness, kindliness, 
 forbearance and generosity from the heart. In tem- 
 poral affairs this is, alas ! too true ; but are we to 
 sport with God as we do with each other ? Are we 
 to be indifferent to our established faith, for which 
 so many lives have been sacrificed ? Are we to yield 
 it up to these intruders, these uncertain and self- 
 contradicting innovators ? 
 
 Machiavelli. — Do not think the worse of me, I 
 beseech you. 
 
 Regent. — I know you and your fidelity, and I 
 know that a man may be honest and intelligent, even 
 though he may have missed the straight and better 
 way to secure the salvation of his soul. There are 
 other men beside you, Machiavel, whom I am com- 
 pelled at once to respect and to blame. 
 
 Machiavelli. — To whom do you allude ? 
 
 Regent. — I must confess that Egmont has today 
 inflicted on me the severest pain. 
 
 Machiavelli. — By what ? 
 
 Regent. — By nothing new, — by the indifference 
 and levity of his manner. I received the most fear- 
 ful tidings just as I left the church, accompanied by 
 him and by many others. I could not restrain my 
 
250 
 
 grief ; [ gave way to complaints loud and deep, and 
 turning to him, I said, " See what is taking place in 
 your province ! Do you suffer this, Count, you, in 
 whom the king placed such boundless trust ? " 
 
 Machiavelli. — And what did he reply ? 
 
 Regent. — As if it were nothing — a trifling in- 
 cident — he said, " I wish the Netherlanders were but 
 tranquillized about your government ! All the rest 
 would be easily settled." 
 
 Machiavelli. — Perhaps he spoke with more truth 
 than prudence or piety. How is it possible that 
 confidence can arise or endure while the Nether- 
 lander sees that it is his substance rather than his 
 welfare, or his salvation, that is so eagerly coveted? 
 Do the souls saved by the new bishops outnumber 
 the fat benefices they have clutched and revelled 
 in ? And are they not almost all foreigners ? The 
 lieutenancies of all the provinces are as yet filled 
 by Netherlanders ; let not the Spaniards show too 
 clearly their greedy, insatiable longing for those 
 places. Will not a people rather be governed ac- 
 cording to its own usages, and by its own country- 
 men, than by strangers to the soil, who seek to possess 
 themselves of it at the cost of all — who try every- 
 thing by a foreign standard, and who rule without 
 kindliness or sympathy? 
 
 Regent. — You take the side of our enemies. 
 
 Machiavelli. — My heart is certainly not on their 
 side ; would that my reason were wholly on ours ! 
 
251 
 
 Regent. — If you counsel, or necessity enjoins it, I 
 will resign my regency, for both Egmont and Orange 
 cherish high hopes of obtaining that post. They 
 would then be rivals ; now they are allied against me, 
 and are become friends — inseparable friends. 
 
 Machiavelli. — A dangerous pair. 
 
 Regent. — To be plain with you, I fear Orange — 
 I fear for Egmont. Orange meditates no good. His 
 thoughts are far-reaching ; he is secret, appears to 
 assent to everything, never contradicts, and with the 
 profoundest respect, with the most infinite care not 
 to offend, he does what pleases him. 
 
 Machiavelli. — Egmont, on the contrary, walks with 
 as free and firm a tread as if the world were his own. 
 
 Regent. — He bears his head as high as if the hand 
 of majesty were not above him. 
 
 Machiavelli. — The eyes of the people are all turn- 
 ed to him ; on him hang all their hearts. 
 
 Regent. — Never did he abstain from an act be- 
 cause its appearance might offend others or prejudice 
 himself; — as if there lived not the man who could 
 call him to account for aught he did. He still retains 
 the name of Egmont — Count Egmont, he loves to 
 hear himself called — as if he disdained to forget that 
 his ancestors were possessors of Gueldres. Why 
 does he not call himself Prince of Gaure — his proper 
 title ? What is his purpose in this ? Does he mean 
 to revive forgotten claims ? 
 
252 
 
 MachiaveUi. — I hold him for a faithful servant of 
 the king. 
 
 Regent. — How valuable he might render himself 
 to the government, if he would ! instead of which 
 he has given us unspeakable vexation, and without 
 profit to himself. His festivals and banquets have 
 knit the hearts of the nobles to him in stronger 
 bonds than all the perilous oaths of secret societies. 
 His guests have drunk in with his toasts a perpetual 
 excitement, — a lasting intoxication. How often does 
 he move the hearts of the people by his jests ! How 
 the mob were startled at the new liveries, and the 
 absurd badges of his people ! 
 
 MachiaveUi. — I am persuaded he had no evil de- 
 sign. 
 
 Regent. — Be that as it may, the thing is bad 
 enough. As I said, it injures us and does not serve 
 him. What is serious he treats as a jest, and we, 
 not to appear supine and negligent, must treat his 
 jests as serious. Thus does the one irritate the 
 other, and what we seek to avert becomes fixed and 
 inevitable. He is more dangerous than a declared 
 head of a conspiracy, and I am greatly mistaken if 
 all that has happened is not attributed to him at 
 court. I cannot deny that he is very rarely long with- 
 out giving me some fresh cause of bitter irritation. 
 
 MachiaveUi. — He seems to me to act in all things 
 according to his conscience. 
 
253 
 
 Regent. — His conscience has a very flattering mir- 
 ror. His manner is often offensive. His very look 
 often seems to bespeak an entire and intimate per- 
 suasion that he is master, and abstains from making 
 us feel it only out of condescension and politeness ; 
 as if he would not absolutely drive us out of the 
 country, but that it must come to that. 
 
 Machiavelli. — I entreat you, interpret not his frank 
 carriage, his joyous and debonnaire nature, that 
 treats everything lightly, too perilously. You in- 
 jure him and yourselves. 
 
 Regent — I interpret nothing. I speak only of in- 
 evitable results, and I know him. His high Nether- 
 land blood and the Golden Fleece upon his breast, 
 increase his confidence and audacity. Both may 
 protect him from any sudden capricious disgust of 
 the king's. Examine well into the facts — you will 
 find that he alone is responsible for all the misery 
 that has befallen Flanders. He first connived at 
 the presence of the foreign teachers, treated their 
 proceedings lightly, and perhaps rejoiced that we 
 had so much employment on our hands. Let me 
 speak freely ; — on this occasion I will give vent to all 
 I have on my heart, and I will not shoot my arrow 
 in the air. I know his sensitive point — he is sensi 
 tive. 
 
 Machiavelli. — Have you convened the Council ? 
 Will Orange attend ? 
 
254 
 
 Regent. — I have sent to Antwerp for him. I will 
 throw their full share of the responsibility upon them; 
 they shall either lend me their earnest aid to resist 
 this evil, or openly join the rebels. Make haste to 
 finish the letters and bring them to me to sign. Then 
 despatch the trusty Vasca to Madrid ; he is as faith- 
 ful as he is indefatigable, and it is important that my 
 brother should learn the intelligence first from him, 
 that common fame may not outstrip him. I will 
 speak to him myself before he departs. 
 
 Machiavelli. — Your highness's commands shall be 
 promptly and punctually obeyed. 
 
 ACT III. SCENE II. 
 
 Clara's House ; Clara and her Mother. 
 
 Mother. — Such a love as Brackenburg's I never 
 saw. I did not believe there were such, except in 
 romance books. 
 
 (Clara walks up and down the room, hum- 
 ming an air between her lips.) 
 
 "Happy alone 
 Is the soul that loves." 
 
 Mother. — He suspects your love for Egmont, and 
 yet I do believe, if you would but appear a little 
 
255 
 
 kind to him, he would marry you, if you would have 
 
 him. 
 
 Clara (singing), 
 " To be full of joy, 
 And of sorrow, 
 
 And of thick-coming thoughts; 
 To float painfully 
 From passionate longing 
 To anxious fear ; 
 
 Now sending shouts of exultation to the skies, 
 
 Now sad unto death — 
 
 Happy alone 
 
 Is the soul that loves*." 
 
 Mother. — Leave off that rockaby-baby stuff. 
 
 Clara. — Don't despise it ; it is a song of wonder- 
 ful virtue. Many 's the time I have lulled a great 
 child to sleep with it. 
 
 Mother. — Ay, you have nothing in your head but 
 your love ; I wish you did not forget all for one. 
 You ought to have more respect for Brackenburg, 
 say I. He may make you happy some day or other. 
 
 Clara. — He ? 
 
 Mother. — Oh, yes ! there '11 come a time ; — you 
 children don't look forward, and you turn a deaf ear 
 to our experience. Youth and bright love — all come 
 
 * I had hoped, by the kind assistance of some poetical friend, 
 to be able to enrich my pages with a metrical translation of this 
 song ; but it has as yet eluded every hand, however practised 
 and successful, that has tried to grasp it. I am therefore forced 
 to content myself with the most accurate version I can give. — 
 Translator. 
 
256 
 
 to an end, and the time comes when we thank God if 
 we have any hole to creep into. 
 
 Clara (shudders, is silent, and walks away). 
 Mother, let that time come — when it must — like 
 death. To think of it beforehand is horrible ! And 
 if it should come — if we must — then — we will bear 
 ourselves as we may. Egmont, I live without thee ? 
 (Weeping.) No, never — never. 
 
 (Enter Egmont in a soldier s cloak, xoiili his hat 
 slouched over his face.) 
 
 Clara ! 
 
 ( Clara cries out and steps back.) — Egmont ! (she 
 flies to him,) Egmont ! (embraces him and rests her 
 head on his bosom.) Oh you kind, dear, sweet one ! 
 Are you come ? Are you there ? 
 
 Egmont. — Good evening, good mother. 
 
 Mother. — God bless you, noble sir. My poor 
 child has nearly fretted herself to death because you 
 have stayed away so long. She has been talking 
 and singing about you again, the live -long day. 
 
 Egmont. — But you will give me some supper, 
 won't you ? 
 
 Mother. — You do us too much honour. If we 
 had but anything to offer you — 
 
 Clara. — Be at ease about that, mother. I have 
 taken care of all that already. I have prepared 
 something. (Aside.) Don't betray me, mother. 
 
 MotJier. — (Aside.) There 's little enough. 
 
257 
 
 Clara, — (Aside.) Stay. — And then — when he is 
 with me I am never hungry, so that I think he can- 
 not have much appetite when I am with him. 
 
 Egmont. — What are you saying ? 
 
 (Clara stamps with her foot, and turns away 
 pettishly.) 
 
 Egmont. — What is the matter with you ? 
 
 Clara. — How cold you are today ! You have not 
 offered me one kiss yet. Why do you keep your arms 
 swathed in your mantle, like those of a babe a week 
 old. It ill becomes either soldier or lover to have 
 his arms muffled. 
 
 Egmont. — Sometimes, darling, sometimes; when 
 the soldier stands in ambush, watching to fall upon 
 the enemy, he gathers himself together, folds his 
 arms, and ruminates on his attack. And a lover — 
 
 Mother. — Won't you be seated ? won't you make 
 yourself comfortable ? I must go into the kitchen. 
 Clara thinks of nothing when you are by. You must 
 take the will for the deed. 
 
 Egmont. — Your good will is the best sauce. 
 
 \_Mother goes. 
 
 Clara. — And what then is my love ? 
 Egmont. — Whatever you please. 
 Clara. — Come, liken it to something, if you have 
 the heart. 
 
 Egmont. — First — there — (throws off his mantle 
 and stands disclosed in his splendid dress). 
 
258 
 
 Clara. — Ah me ! 
 
 Eymont. — Now my arms are free ! ( Clasps her to 
 his heart.) 
 
 Clara. — Don't; you will spoil yourself. (Steps 
 back.) How splendid ! I dare not touch you now. 
 
 Egmont. — Well, are you satisfied ? I promised 
 you that I would come once dressed in the Spanish 
 fashion. 
 
 Clara. — I have never reminded you of your pro- 
 mise. I thought you did not like it. Ah ! and the 
 Golden Fleece ! 
 
 Egmont. — Ay, now you see it. 
 
 Clara. — And did the Emperor hang that round 
 your neck ? 
 
 Egmont. — Yes, dear child ; and this chain and de- 
 vice invest their wearer with the noblest privileges. 
 I acknowledge no judge of my actions on earth, save 
 the Grand-master of the Order and the assembled 
 chapter of knights. 
 
 Clara. — Oh, you might let the assembled world 
 judge you ! How magnificent the velvet is ! and the 
 fringe-work ! and the embroidery ! One can't tell 
 where to begin. 
 
 Egmont. — Well, now look your fill. 
 
 Clara. — And the Golden Fleece ! You told me 
 the whole story ; and you said it was a badge of 
 everything grand and precious — everything that 
 man can deserve or win by labour and industry. It is 
 
259 
 
 very precious. It seems to me like your love. I bear 
 that, just so, upon my heart — and yet — 
 
 Egmont. — Well — what ? 
 
 Clara. — And yet — again it is not like. 
 
 Egmont. — How so ? 
 
 Clara. — It is not by labour or pains that I have 
 won your love — nor deserved it. 
 
 Egmont. — In love the case is different. You de- 
 served it, because you did not strive for it ; those 
 people are generally most sure to win love, who do 
 not hunt about for it. 
 
 Clara. — Did you learn that from yourself? Was 
 it from yourself you drew that proud reflection ? 
 yourself, whom all the people love ? 
 
 Egmont* — Oh ! that I had, indeed, done some- 
 thing for them ! that I could do something for them ! 
 It is their good pleasure to love me. 
 
 Clara. — You have been with the Regent today 
 doubtless, — have you not ? 
 
 Egmont. — I have. 
 
 Clara. — Are you on good terms with her? 
 
 Egmont. — It seems so. W T e are friendly and 
 civil to each other. 
 
 Clara. — And in your heart ? 
 
 Egmont. — I like her. Every one has his own 
 peculiar views — but that is nothing. She is an ex- 
 cellent woman, knows the people she has to deal 
 with, and would see deeply enough if she were not 
 
260 
 
 somewhat suspicious. I give her plenty of occupa- 
 tion ; for she always searches for some mystery be- 
 hind my conduct, and I have none. 
 Clara. — What, none at all ? 
 
 Egmont. — Why, true, dear — one little exception. 
 All wine leaves lees in the cask, if it stands long 
 enough. Orange is, however, a more interesting 
 study to her, and an ever-new problem. He has got 
 credit for having always some secret design, and 
 now she is constantly trying to read on his brow what 
 he is thinking, — in his step, whither he is going. 
 
 Clara. — Does she dissemble ? 
 
 Egmont. — A regent, — and you ask that ? 
 
 Clara. — Pardon me, I meant is she false ? 
 
 Egmont. — Neither more nor less so than every one 
 who seeks to obtain his ends. 
 
 Clara. — I should not know what to do in the great 
 world. But she has a manly spirit ; she is another 
 sort of woman than we sempstresses and housewives. 
 She is great, brave-hearted, resolute. 
 
 Egmont. — Yes, perhaps a little too much so ; she 
 is a perfect Amazon. 
 
 Clara. — A majestic woman ! I should dread to 
 come into her presence. 
 
 Egmont. — And yet you are not generally so timid! 
 It would not be fear — only maidenly shame. 
 
 ( Clara casts down her eyes, takes his hand, and 
 leans her head upon him.) 
 
261 
 
 Egmont. — I understand you, dear girl ! — you may 
 raise your eyes. (He kisses her eyes.) 
 
 Clara. — Let me be silent ! — let me hold you fast ! 
 . — let me gaze in your eyes, and find in them every- 
 thing — comfort, and hope, and joy, and sorrow. (She 
 embraces, and looks at him.) Tell me — tell me — I 
 cannot conceive it — are you Egmont ? — Count Eg- 
 mont ? — the great Egmont, who is so famous, whose 
 name is in every newspaper, on whom the Provinces 
 place their whole reliance ? 
 
 Egmont. — No, my Clara, I am not. 
 
 Clara.— What ? 
 
 Egmont. — Look you, Clara, — let me sit down. 
 (He sits down — she kneels before him on a footstool, 
 leans her arms on his knees, and looks up in his face.) 
 That Egmont is a morose, unbending, cold Egmont, 
 compelled to shut himself up, and to assume now one 
 aspect, and now another — fretted, misunderstood — 
 constrained, when people think him gay and joyous — 
 beloved by a people which knows not what it wishes 
 — honoured and exalted by an impracticable multi- 
 tude — surrounded by friends to whom he dares not 
 commit himself unreservedly — watched by men who 
 would avail themselves of any means to rival him 
 — labouring and toiling, often without aim, generally 
 without reward — Oh, let me not say how it fares 
 with him — what are his feelings ! But this Egmont, 
 Clara, the tranquil, open, happy, — beloved and un- 
 
262 
 
 derstood by the best of hearts, that heart which 
 he fully understands, and with entire love and con- 
 fidence presses to his own — {embracing her) — this is 
 your Egmont. 
 
 Clara. — So — let me die ! The world has no joy 
 after this ! 
 
 Goethe. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 ARNDT (MORITZ ERNST). — Page 5. 
 
 Professor Arndt was born in 1768, in the island of 
 Rügen. He distinguished himself by the ardour and elo- 
 quence with which he incited his countrymen to throw off 
 the French yoke. Some of his * Vaterlandslieder ' are 
 very noble and spirited lyrics. They breathe a hatred to 
 the French which was justifiable then, but of which it 
 is to be hoped we shall hear no more. In 1818 he was 
 appointed professor of history at Bonn ; but in the follow- 
 ing year was suspended from the exercise of his functions 
 on the ground of '* demagogical intrigues." He continued, 
 however, to live there, and to receive his salary. 
 
 One of the first liberal acts of the present king of 
 Prussia (among the many which have raised high the 
 hopes of his subjects) was to reinstate Arndt in his chair. 
 This gave rise to great rejoicing at Bonn, especially among 
 that singular Völkchen, the students, who greeted him 
 with the honours always decreed to popular professors — 
 the Fackelzug (torch-procession), etc. etc. 
 
 I had the pleasure of seeing the venerable man again at 
 Bonn last year in undiminished vivacity and vigour. His 
 chief works are ' Geist der Zeit ' (Spirit of the Age), and 
 
264 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 ' Reisen durch Deutschland, Ungarn, Italien und Frank- 
 reich ' (Travels through Germany, Hungary, Italy and 
 France). He published last year his recollections of the 
 part he took in stirring up Europe, and especially Russia, 
 to that combined effort which ended in the emancipation 
 of Prussia (' Erinnerungen aus dem äusseren Leben'). It 
 seemed to a cursory glance very entertaining. 
 
 BABO (JOSEPH MARIA). — Page 76. 
 
 A dramatic writer of merit, born at Ehrenbreitstein in 
 1756, professor of ^Esthetics, and director of the Theatre 
 at Munich. Died in 1822. 
 
 BETTINA (FRAU VON ARNIM). — Pages 141, 162. 
 
 Frau von Arnim is sister of Clemens Brentano, and wife 
 of Achim von Arnim, two distinguished poets and romance 
 writers. Frau von Arnim translated her correspondence 
 with Goethe into English herself, and it might therefore 
 seem unnecessary for me to give any extracts from it ; but 
 as I do not think the book is extensively known, nor very 
 well suited to the English palate, nor, lastly, that Frau 
 von Arnim can handle our language with sufficient skill 
 to do justice to her mastery over her own, I have ven- 
 tured on a few passages. The scene with the squirrel 
 and prince John of Mecklenburg — the poor little prin- 
 cesses, disenchanted by the ' Frau Raths ' powerful wand 
 
NOTES. 
 
 265 
 
 from the bonds of court etiquette and the tyranny of the 
 cruel Hofmeisterin, and restored to the charming liberty 
 of pumping to their heart's content — the ' Frau Raths ' 
 cap-stand — the ham salad eaten by the little royalties 
 with the naivete and heartiness of a German appetite — 
 all this forms a picture intensely national ; ludicrous 
 to people who believe themselves and their manners the 
 standard of human excellence, and in whom the rein 
 menschlich (the purely human element) is fairly crushed 
 under rules as factitious and narrow as those of the Celes- 
 tial Empire ; but to those who delight in glimpses of 
 genuine human nature, as agreeable as it is new. The 
 princesses were, I conclude, Louisa, Queen of Prussia, and 
 the present Queen of Hanover ! Let the reader turn to 
 the letter of the beautiful and unfortunate Louisa to her 
 father, and he will find matter for moralizing. 
 
 Of the general character of Frau von Arnim's book it 
 is unnecessary for me to speak, as it is accessible to the 
 English public. Frau von Arnim has more recently pub- 
 lished the correspondence of Fraulein von Gunderode, the 
 young nun, or chanoinesse, whose tragical death is men- 
 tioned in her letters to Goethe. 
 
 BRANDIS (CHRISTIAN ALBERT). — Page 219. 
 
 Professor Brandis was born at Copenhagen. His fa- 
 ther, who is still living at a very advanced age, is phy- 
 sician to the king of Denmark. Professor Brandis was 
 N 
 
266 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 one of Niebuhr's secretaries at Rome, and was valued 
 and loved by that illustrious man, as he must be by all 
 who have the happiness of knowing him. On this subject 
 I shall say no more, because I do not think it fair either 
 to one's friends or one's readers to make a book the chan- 
 nel for effusions of private friendship. 
 
 Professor Brandis has for many years held the chair of 
 philosophy at Bonn. In the year 1836 he was invited 
 to Athens to superintend the institutions for public edu- 
 cation in that city, and also to read with the young king. 
 In 1839 he returned to his chair at Bonn. He has pub- 
 lished a short but interesting pamphlet on the present 
 state of the Christian Church in Greece. His edition of 
 Aristotle is well known to scholars. 
 
 The work from which the passage in the text is taken 
 is not yet completed. 
 
 FICHTE (JOHANN GOTTLIEB). — Pages 4, 34, 78, 144, 
 188, 216. 
 
 Born in Upper Lusatia, in 1762. He lived some years 
 in Prussia, where he enjoyed the advantage of personal 
 intercourse with Kant. In 1792 he published his 'Kritik 
 aller Offenbarung,' which excited the attention of all 
 Germany, and led to his appointment to the chair of Phi- 
 losophy at Jena, which he quitted in consequence of dif- 
 ferences with the government, arising from the supposed 
 heterodoxy of his opinions. He was afterwards professor 
 at Erlangen, and, during the war, at Königsberg. To 
 elevate the mind above sensual enjoyments, to represent 
 
NOTES. 
 
 267 
 
 a spiritual life as the only true life, and every other as a 
 mere semblance, and thus to excite his hearers to the 
 highest purity, virtue and self-denial, was his daily en- 
 deavour; his eminent success in which on youthful minds 
 was not the effect only of his singular vigour of thought 
 and language, but of the force of his whole character ; 
 for he was what he told others to be. The crown of 
 his extraordinary genius was a heart true, pure, and sus- 
 ceptible of everything great and good ; an inviolable in- 
 tegrity, a fervent love of truth, and heroic courage in 
 its defence. His Address to the German nation (Reden 
 an die Deutsche Nation), published in Berlin, while that 
 capital was in the possession of the French (1808), proved 
 the intrepidity of his patriotism, and gave presage of the 
 struggle which was afterwards so gloriously maintained. 
 In 1809 he was appointed Professor in the newly-formed 
 University of Berlin, which was henceforward the scene 
 of his labours. His lectures were partly delivered to 
 mixed audiences. 
 
 Fichte's death was worthy of his life. His wife, partly 
 of her own will, partly at his suggestion, devoted her- 
 self to the service of the military hospitals at Berlin ; 
 she was attacked by the hospital fever, of which she 
 recovered ; but her husband caught it of her, and died in 
 the 51st year of his age. 
 
 The few fragments I have given from the only works 
 of Fichte which I have read, are, I think, in harmony with 
 the description of him. His eloquence is grave and lofty, 
 and at the same time ardent ; his exhortations to high 
 thoughts and a holy life are like those of a prophet. 
 n 2 
 
268 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 His philosophy succeeded in public estimation to that 
 of Kant, and was succeeded by that of Schelling and 
 Hegel. 
 
 FOUQUE (BARONESS DE LA MOTTE). — Page 35. 
 
 Baron de la Motte Fouque's romances are pretty ex- 
 tensively known in this country, especially the wild, grace- 
 ful, and touching Undine. Madame de la Motte Fouque 
 also wrote romances of considerable merit, I believe, but 
 they never fell in my way. My extract is from a little 
 book called the ' Woman of the Fashionable World/ or 
 ' of High Society.' 
 
 I think it is not too much to say, that it is impossible 
 to write in a better tone. The thoughts are elevated and 
 refined, the language free from exaggeration or affectation, 
 yet ardent and spirited. Though soaring out of the flat 
 and barren regions of common-place and narrow con- 
 vention, there is nothing that is not strictly practical ; 
 nothing extravagant or startling, or inconsistent with un- 
 affected delicacy and dignified repose of manner. 
 
 The only wonder is that anybody could write this 
 passage who had not seen England. It seems, however, 
 that ' Vornehmheit ' manifests itself by the same sym- 
 ptoms in all countries. So much the better. Madame 
 de la Motte Fouque's graceful and earnest eloquence may 
 be of wider application than she intended. 
 
 The influence of women on society, however, will never 
 be worth much as long as the reign of the sneerers, whose 
 
NOTES. 
 
 '269 
 
 express business (mission, to use a fashionable word) it is 
 to crush aspirations and to keep society at a dead-level, 
 lasts. Women of the leisure classes, unfortunately for 
 them, come within the department of aesthetics rather than 
 of ethics. They are objects of taste. This evil is inse- 
 parable from their nature and destiny. But it might be 
 extremely mitigated if the taste by which they are tried 
 were elevated, refined, and subjected to reason. At pre- 
 sent it operates as a check on all the higher qualities of 
 the mind. The poor bird must not spread its wings, for 
 fear the free winds and the fertilizing rains of heaven 
 should ruffle its pretty plumage. Whenever women are 
 permitted to think justly and to feel truly; whenever 
 they are taught to consider that, whatever their station 
 or their gifts, they are bound to pay in, each her own 
 particular contribution to the great fund of human im- 
 provement and human happiness ; whenever they cease 
 to regard '* the Great Whole as a nursery or a ball-room," 
 then, and not till then, they will become the nurses of 
 great thoughts and noble actions in men — they will really 
 refine and elevate, and harmonize, society. 
 
 Then too the world will hear no more of the " emanci- 
 pation of women," or of preposterous schemes for bring- 
 ing them into a sort of competition with men — God knows 
 at what disadvantage ! The completeness of the human 
 being rests upon that " most unlike resemblance" which 
 Jeremy Taylor speaks of. Hitherto men have delighted 
 to cultivate the 'unlike' qualities, to the almost entire ex- 
 clusion of the resembling. Now, by one of those re- 
 actions which are in the common course of human affairs, 
 
270 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 there are indications of a desire to obliterate the unlike- 
 ness, and to try to force an unnatural resemblance. 
 
 Whenever the equipoise is found, the great problem of 
 social life will, I think, be solved. But that can only be 
 effected by the consent of reason ; and not by the conflict 
 of love of power with vanity, of a determination to main- 
 tain established rights with a passionate sense of sup- 
 posed wrongs ; and — in short, by the conflict of those who 
 have, with those who want to have, power, which is now 
 stirring society in all its deepest depths. 
 
 FREDERIC THE GREAT. — Page 98. 
 
 This very remarkable document is, I believe, little 
 known ; yet it is one of the most characteristic letters 
 that ever was written, and interesting enough in that point 
 of view, independently of the importance of the subject. 
 Dr. Grävell calls it " one of the most curious and import- 
 ant documents to be found in history." 
 
 In England little is known of that part of Frederic's 
 character and reign which he himself regarded as esta- 
 blishing by far his highest and strongest claim to the ad- 
 miration and reverence of mankind. " Frederic's chief 
 greatness," says Johannes von Müller, in his Universal 
 History, "lies in qualities scarcely known to the foreigner ; 
 one thing distinguishes him from the herd of heroes — he 
 gains by the nearest approach, the nicest scrutiny. His 
 power," adds he, "was like his glance— quick, firm, re- 
 
NOTES. 
 
 271 
 
 solute ; his government the despotism of a father, severe 
 and formidable to idle children alone." 
 
 Frederic carried on a struggle with the hydra of legal 
 corruption, which would have worn out any man less in- 
 tensely and resolutely bent on ameliorating the condition 
 of those whose servant, no less than sovereign, he was. 
 He was descended of a family in which a strong percep- 
 tion of the duty of sovereigns as legislators seems to have 
 been almost hereditary. " There is no sovereign family in 
 the world," says Dr. Grävell, " the members of which 
 have so fully and earnestly recognised the duty of rulers 
 to provide for their subjects a prompt, impartial, and ef- 
 fective administration of justice, or have so zealously la- 
 boured to fulfil that duty, as the house of Hohenzollern." 
 
 The Elector John Cicero, in his will, admonished his 
 son and successor as follows : — 
 
 " Take the poor under your especial protection : you 
 cannot better strengthen your throne than by succouring 
 the oppressed, by never conniving at any attempt of the 
 rich to overbear the lowly, and by seeing that right and 
 justice are done to every man." 
 
 King Frederic William the First, in his edict for accele- 
 rating the progress of law-reform, published in the year 
 1713, makes use of these remarkable words : 
 
 " A bad administration of justice cries to heaven, and 
 if I do not remedy it, I make myself answerable for it." 
 
 The work of law-reform went on, though slowly, under 
 Frederic's predecessors ; but it was reserved for his pene- 
 trating acuteness, unwearied energy and immoveable 
 firmness to complete it. It is much to be regretted that 
 
272 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 the part of Lord Dover's life of this illustrious man, rela- 
 ting to his law-reforms, is inaccurate and defective. No 
 mention whatever is made of Suarez, one of the most 
 extraordinary men that ever lived. The Code compiled 
 under the supervision of Von Carmer, which Lord Dover 
 calls the Code Frederique, was and is called the Allge- 
 meines Landrecht, or General Law of the Land. The pro- 
 ject framed by Cocceji was indeed called the Corpus Juris 
 Fredericianum, but this never had the force of law. In 
 1780, when Von Carmer proposed to retain that title, 
 Frederic wrote in the margin these remarkable and cha- 
 racteristic words, " The title is indifferent, so the thing 
 itself be but useful/' 
 
 The Code was not promulgated with the force of law 
 till 1794. 
 
 Frederic is accused by his biographer of dismissing his 
 chancellors capriciously. The truth is, he was greatly 
 irritated at the various pretexts invented by the succes- 
 sors of the illustrious Cocceji for defeating or delaying 
 measures of general utility. " He was," says Dr. Grä- 
 vell, " resolved rather to be harsh to a few individuals, 
 than to risk the welfare of his people." Surely such mo- 
 tives are not to be confounded with the personal caprices 
 and resentments of princes. 
 
 An edict published by Von Carmer, then minister of 
 justice in Silesia, showed that, in some details of procedure, 
 he had actually effected the simplification and abbrevia- 
 tion which the king had so long been striving at. Fre- 
 deric, whose vigilance nothing escaped, commanded him 
 to undertake a project for a complete reform of the laws. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 273 
 
 The following year, 1775, Frederic held a personal con- 
 ference with Von Carmer, Von Fürst, then chancellor, 
 and Von Rebner, President of the Council of Justice, at 
 which both the latter strenuously opposed the king's pro- 
 ject. It was however followed by an edict commanding 
 that oral pleadings should be received. Still Frederic was 
 far from attaining his end. On the contrary, his dissatis- 
 faction continued to increase, and in the year 1779 he 
 dismissed Von Fürst and appointed Von Carmer his chan- 
 cellor. This distinguished man immediately set about 
 amending the system of procedure. The satisfaction with 
 which Frederic viewed his labours soon manifested itself 
 in the Cabinets- Ordre, which I have improperly called a 
 letter, authorizing him to undertake a complete reform of 
 the laws. 
 
 I have thought it necessary to give an outline of the 
 facts, abstracted from Dr. Grävell's work, to throw light 
 on this singular document, than which few perhaps can be 
 found more striking, from the union of acute perspicacity, 
 large unprejudiced views, benevolent intentions and un- 
 conquerable will which it displays. 
 
 The world may well look with interest to the result of 
 the labours of the Commission appointed by the present 
 king of Prussia for arranging and publishing the works 
 and papers of his illustrious predecessor. The names of 
 A. v. Humboldt, Ranke, Raumer and Boeckh are suffi- 
 cient guarantees that the enlightened views of the king 
 will be punctually carried out. 
 
 n5 
 
274 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 GENTZ (FRIEDRICH). — Page 149. 
 
 Gentz (Friedrich v.) was bora at Breslau in 1764. He 
 studied at Königsberg, obtained a post under the govern- 
 ment at Berlin, and soon distinguished himself as a jour- 
 nalist. In 1793 he published a translation of Burke's 
 remarks on the French revolution, and of some works of 
 Mallet du Pin and Monier. His essay ' On the Admini- 
 stration of the Finances of Great Britain (1801) attracted 
 the attention of Mr. Pitt. His essay * On the state of 
 Europe before and after the French Revolution,' was also 
 translated into English ; and he accompanied Mr. Elliot, 
 then minister at the court of Dresden, to England. He 
 returned to Dresden, and published other political works, 
 among which was one on the relations between England 
 and Spain. He was a constant opponent of peace with 
 France. At the Congress of Vienna, and at the Confer- 
 ences at Paris in 1815, he drew up the protocols, as also 
 at the succeding Conferences, the last of which was held 
 at Verona. In 1818 articles from his pen appeared in the 
 ' Wiener Jahrbücher der Literatur/ on the freedom of the 
 press in England, and on the author of Junius's letters. 
 
 My extract is from some letters of Gentz to Johannes v. 
 Müller. Some of them are striking, from the vivacity 
 and passion with which they are written. His despair 
 at seeing Austria fall under the reiterated blows of France, 
 is expressed with a vehemence that carries thi reader 
 along with him. From his account of the matter, it 
 seems that the government and army of that country 
 were thoroughly rotten, and their fall inevitable. He 
 
NOTES. 
 
 275 
 
 says he warned Mr. Pitt of what would happen if Austria 
 took the field without Prussia, but that the English go- 
 vernment was intensely ignorant of continental affairs. 
 
 Gentz had talents and eloquence ; but there is nothing 
 in his moral character to inspire the smallest respect, nor, 
 I believe, is he held in any, in Germany. 
 
 I believe he enjoyed a pension from this country, grant- 
 ed him by Mr. Pitt, up to the time of his death. 
 
 GOETHE (WOLFGANG von).— Pages 3, 10, 15, 18, 21, 30, 
 41,48, 57, 60, 64, 76, 80, 81, 92, 94, 97, 109, 122, 123, 139, 
 148, 153, 164, 172, 183, 187, 191, 202, 206, 218, 245. 
 
 These extracts will give some idea of Goethe's endless 
 variety, though a very imperfect one. There still remain 
 untouched the whole of his productions as a poet, and as 
 a man of science (using these two words in the improperly 
 restricted sense in which we use them). What I especially 
 wished to show, was his good sense and practical wisdom; 
 the acuteness and clearness of his judgment when he chose 
 to exert it. There are a sort of people in this country 
 who continue to speak, and even write, about Goethe and 
 Kotzebue, which to a German ear sounds very much as 
 Shakspeare and Colman would to ours. Others talk of 
 Werther, that fruitful subject of ridicule, as if Goethe had 
 written nothing else. Others, again, think of him only 
 as the author of Faust — that untranslateable poem which 
 every Englishman translates. But in order to form any 
 dea of Goethe's merits, it is necessary to read his criti- 
 
276 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 cisms on literature and art, and his remarks on men and 
 events. How perfectly, for example, does he characterize 
 Goldsmith in a few words, and how striking the transi- 
 tion to the equally true and vivid description of modern 
 French literature ! But it is no part of my plan to pro- 
 nounce an eulogium on the pieces I have chosen, — they 
 must speak for themselves. I only meant to say that my 
 choice had often been determined, not by the merit of a 
 passage alone, but by its presenting the author in some 
 less familiar light. This is no place for entering into the 
 question of Goethe's merits generally. Some of his works 
 are open to serious objections, and though they do not 
 want able and conscientious defenders, it is a discussion 
 in which I have no desire to engage. My own impres- 
 sion is, that there are none from which a mature and 
 disciplined mind may not draw lessons of wisdom of a 
 very high order ; but I am aware that the question is not 
 answered so, — nor do I mean it as an answer. 
 
 The letters from Sicily give some faint idea of his power 
 of painting by words. To those who have seen that en- 
 chanting island, the picture will, I think, appear at once 
 true and ideal as the finest of Claude's. 
 
 I must likewise beg my readers to look at the passage 
 quoted at page 1 23, though no words that I could find 
 can do justice to its melancholy beauty. 
 
 I have ventured on two scenes from his noble tragedy 
 of Egmont : the one for its sagacity and calm wisdom, 
 the other for its grace, pathos and passion. The reader 
 will not fail to perceive that Sir Walter Scott borrowed 
 the idea of a passage in ' Kenilworth ' from the scene 
 between Egmont and Clärchen. But the resemblance is 
 
NOTES. 
 
 277 
 
 only external. The incident is copied, but the characters 
 are totally different. Amy Robsart has no resemblance 
 to Clara, who, though of the humblest birth and the 
 sweetest and tenderest nature, is a creature of proud, 
 heroic spirit, and loves in Egmont not only her lover, but 
 the champion of the freedom of her country. The clo- 
 sing scene of Egmont is one of the grandest efforts of 
 Goethe's genius. I had thought of attempting a trans- 
 lation of the whole play, and indeed have partly comple- 
 ted it, but better judges than I tell me it will not succeed. 
 Yet I cannot help thinking that faithful translations of 
 Egmont, Götz of Berlichingen, and Clavigo, would be 
 worth the notice of the English public. 
 
 I shall have to speak of the difficulties of translating 
 Jean Paul. They are great, and I think obvious ; for 
 they arise from the uncouthness, irregularity and oddness 
 of his style (sometimes, I ought to add, from its powerful 
 eloquence) — the chaotic profusion and confusion of ima- 
 ges and the deep-dyed local colour — to borrow a French 
 phrase. But in Goethe's style it is not quaintness or sin- 
 gularity that reduces his translator to despair ; it is its 
 perfection : one sees that every change of form must be for 
 the worse. He was, I think, the most consummate mas- 
 ter of form the world has seen since the days of Virgil 
 and Catullus ; and how difficult is it to reproduce form ! 
 The perfectly apposite words, which hang together like a 
 string of pearls ; the ease, the euphony ; the adaptation 
 of the style to each of the innumerable subjects he wrote 
 on — these are merits which elude the hand of the most 
 scrupulous or the most successful translator. 
 
278 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Clara's song is as follows : 
 
 Freudvoll, 
 
 Und leidvoll, 
 
 Gedankenvoll seyn ; 
 
 Langen, 
 
 Und bangen, 
 
 In schwebender Pein, 
 
 Himmelhoch jauchzend, 
 
 Zum Tode betrübt — 
 
 Glücklich allein 
 
 Ist die Seele die liebt. 
 
 To analyse the merits of this beautiful song would re- 
 quire an essay ; and, after all, who can define that name- 
 less grace, that exquisite fitness of expression, which makes 
 it what it is — Clärchen's song — just as the still more beau- 
 tiful ' Meine Ruh' ist hin,' in Faust, is Gretchen's ? Both 
 are the utterance of simple, earnest passion in the homely 
 language of low-born girls. Yet how different ! 
 
 GRIMM (JACOB). — Pages 93, 108. 
 
 Born at Hanau in 1785. The brothers Grimm are 
 known to this country chiefly by the lightest of their 
 works, their charming collection of stories {Kinder und 
 Haus -Märchen), and by the proceedings of the king of 
 Hanover which led to their expulsion from the University 
 of Göttingen, together with five other of its most illustri- 
 ous professors. The two Grimms have recently been in- 
 
NOTES. 
 
 279 
 
 vited to Berlin by the present king, who has munificently 
 provided them with the means of pursuing their labours. 
 Jacob Grimm's ' German Grammar,' ' German Legends 
 and Stories/ ' German M ythology,' ' German Legal An- 
 tiquities,' a number of dissertations on various points of 
 early German literature, and, lastly, the ' German Dic- 
 tionary,' which is to crown this vast structure, will form 
 such a complete body of philological, archaeological, and 
 antiquarian science as never before proceeded from the 
 same hand. His literary reputation rests, in Germany, 
 chiefly on his admirable ' Deutsche Grammatik,' which 
 throws the whole light of historical and philological re- 
 search on the original structure and gradual development 
 of the German language, and, collaterally, of all the Teu- 
 tonic tongues. He published, in conjunction with his 
 brother Wilhelm Karl, the 'Deutsche Sagen,' and the 
 above-mentioned ' Kinder und Haus- Märchen,' which 
 have been so admirably translated by the late Mr. Edgar 
 Taylor. 
 
 The ' Deutsche Mythologie,' from which my extracts are 
 taken, is a work of vast and profound learning, and these 
 little legends occur only as illustrations. I was greatly 
 tempted to take others ; but I regretted still more not to 
 have room for the whole introduction. The gradual re- 
 cession of the primitive religion before Christianity ; the 
 degree to which the new religion was coloured by the 
 old ; the tenacity with which old superstitions clung to 
 the hearts and imaginations of the people ; the vestiges 
 of them that still remain ; analogies with other countries 
 where a similar process went on ; — all this is traced in the 
 
280 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 most interesting manner. The book itself presents a mass 
 of erudition such as no country but Germany can produce 
 or tolerate. 
 
 HAHN-HAHN (GRÄFIN IDA von).— Page 212. 
 
 Countess Hahn-Hahn is one of the most popular of 
 living German authoresses. She has written some novels, 
 a volume of poems, which are highly spoken of, and the 
 little book on Italy, called ' Across the Alps' (Jenseits der 
 Berge), from which this extract is taken. Her descrip- 
 tions of the cities of Italy have remarkable individuality 
 and life. The aspect and character of each is distinctly 
 and vividly traced. The account of the poverty of Naples 
 is one of the most striking things of the kind I ever read, 
 and does credit to the author's humanity, as well as to 
 the accuracy of her observation. 
 
 The faults of the book seem to arise from an exces- 
 sive dread of common-place or imitation. By way of 
 avoiding this, the lively writer sometimes runs into dar- 
 ing singularities, which nothing short of genius and ac- 
 quirements of the very highest order can justify. The 
 affectation of differing from everybody is certainly less 
 tiresome, though less safe, than the affectation of echoing 
 thousand-times-re-echoed raptures ; but while we admire 
 the intrepidity with which Countess Hahn-Hahn judges 
 for herself, and even avows her heresies of taste, undis- 
 mayed by great names, we may be permitted to wish that 
 this trampling on received opinions were done with a less 
 
NOTES. 
 
 281 
 
 peremptory air. The tone of the work is rather (to use 
 a German distinction) 'subjective* than 'objective'; — in 
 other words, things seem to be described, not so much for 
 their own sakes, as for their effect in eliciting some pecu- 
 liarity in the character or circumstances of the writer. This 
 is so much the fashion of the times, that perhaps it hardly 
 demands a comment. 
 
 HEINE (HEINRICH). — Pages 61 and 152. 
 
 Born at Düsseldorf in 1799. Author of ' Reisebilder,' 
 and several other works. Some of his songs are beau- 
 tiful, especially those written in Heligoland, the imagery 
 of which is drawn from the northern seas and their 
 various aspects. Their lyrical sweetness is not sur- 
 passed by anything in the German language, except by 
 some of Goethe's songs. Heine's prose style is also re- 
 garded in Germany as admirable, even by those who the 
 least admire the matter of his writings. As a proof of his 
 artistical merit, I might mention the pretty sort of echo of 
 the beginning with which the ' Hartz-miners ' closes. 
 
 HEINZELMANN. — Page 40. 
 
 HERDER (JOHANN GOTTFRIED von).— Page 90. 
 
 Born 1744. Was the son of a poor schoolmaster and 
 cantor (parish-clerk) in the little town of Morungen, in 
 
282 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 East Prussia. His father would not allow him to read 
 any other book than the Bible and hymn-book ; but, 
 urged by an insatiable desire of knowledge, he contrived 
 to read by stealth. At length a clergyman, named 
 Frescho, took him as secretary, and struck with his 
 moral and intellectual qualities, allowed him to profit by 
 the instructions in Greek and Latin which his son was 
 receiving. Here Herder became acquainted with a Rus- 
 sian surgeon, who offered to take him to Königsberg 
 and teach him his profession, and, as he had no hope of 
 prosecuting his favourite studies, he accepted the pro- 
 posal. Having fainted, however, at the first dissection he 
 was present at, he abandoned surgery and determined to 
 study theology. He became known to some distinguished 
 men who helped him to prosecute his studies, and enjoyed 
 the acquaintance of Kant and the friendship of Hermann. 
 He now pursued the study of theology with that eleva- 
 tion of thought and feeling which characterized his whole 
 life, and rendered tributary to it his vast and profound 
 acquirements in philosophy, science, and history, his 
 knowledge of various nations and tongues. In 1764 he 
 went to Riga as usher at the cathedral school. Both 
 in the pulpit and the school he inspired enthusiastic 
 attachment. His eloquence as a preacher was charac- 
 terized by evangelical simplicity, earnestness and purity. 
 He was appointed travelling tutor to the Prince of Hol- 
 stein Oldenburg, and had reached Strasburg, when a 
 disorder of the eyes prevented him from pursuing his 
 journey. This accident led to his acquaintance with 
 Goethe, over whom he acquired great influence. He had 
 
NOTES. 
 
 283 
 
 already gained considerable reputation by his ' Fragmente 
 über die deutsche Literatur/ his ' Kritischen Wälder/ 
 etc. In 1775 he was invited (through Goethe's means) 
 to Weimar, as chaplain to the Court, general superintend- 
 ent, and councillor of the Consistory. If there was a 
 place in the whole world favourable to the development 
 of all the treasures of Herder's mind, a place where his 
 useful labours would be not only unimpeded, but encou- 
 raged and aided, it was Weimar, during the regency of 
 the Grand-duchess Amelia, and the reign of her son Charles 
 Augustus. The fairest fruits of his genius were matured 
 here ; and his memory will long be held in grateful ve- 
 neration as a most persuasive preacher, as the promoter of 
 public education, the fosterer of talent, and the founder of 
 many useful institutions. Beloved and honoured both by 
 the people and their enlightened rulers, he continued his 
 career of beneficent activity till his death in 1803. His 
 works fill forty-five octavo volumes, and embrace theology, 
 philosophy, history, literature and the fine arts. Among 
 them we may mention his beautiful Romances of the 
 Cid, from the Spanish, and his 'Spirit of Hebrew Poetry.' 
 But his great work is the ' Ideas towards a Philosophy of 
 the History of the Human Race,' a book full of the ge- 
 nuine, fervent, sincere expression of love to God and man. 
 His views of the nature and destinies of man are be- 
 nign, indulgent, consolatory. Those who read only to be 
 informed or amused will be disappointed in the book ; 
 but those who wish to cultivate all the most elevating 
 and soothing sentiments, to attain to a state of mind se- 
 rene, hopeful and benevolent ; to be reconciled to the world 
 
284 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 and to life, will return to it for repose and for comfort 
 when disturbances, perplexities and sorrows beset them. 
 
 It has been translated into English, I believe from a 
 French translation, — at any rate badly enough, as I am 
 told. But as it may be known to the English reader, 
 even through this imperfect medium, I have not been 
 solicitous to give many extracts from it. 
 
 HUMBOLDT (WILHELM FREIHERR von).— 
 Pages 167, 183, 200. 
 
 Of the two bearers of this illustrious name, Alexander, 
 the younger and surviving brother, is so much the best 
 known to the English public, that I the less regret not 
 having adorned my pages with any passages from his 
 works. I had fully intended to insert a charming essay 
 of his, called the ' Physiognomy of Plants,' but unfortu- 
 nately it is too long for my little volume, and I could 
 not bear to mutilate it. I know nothing like it in our 
 language. It combines the views of the man of science 
 and the artist, in a new and very agreeable manner. 
 
 I am not aware that any of Baron Wilhelm von Hum- 
 boldt's works have been translated into English ; yet he 
 is one of the men of whom Germany has most reason to 
 be proud. The noble simplicity of his character, his con- 
 scientious and ardent zeal for truth and knowledge, the 
 fidelity and tenderness of his friendship, are apparent in 
 the few little fragments I have given. His learning was 
 as profound as it was extensive. His career as a states- 
 
NOTES. 
 
 285 
 
 man was honourable to himself, and useful to his country. 
 In short his reputation, either as a scholar or a states- 
 man, would have sufficed to constitute him a great man. 
 
 He was born at Berlin in 1767, and received a careful 
 and profound education. In 1799 he published a criti- 
 cism on Goethe's poem of Hermann and Dorothea {JE- 
 sthetische Versuche), than which I believe it would be 
 hardly possible to point out a more finished piece of 
 criticism. It contains not only a refined analysis of 
 the poem, but is full of profound and acute remarks on 
 poetry in general. He was likewise author of ' Inquiries 
 into the Basque Language,' which threw light on that 
 obscure subject, and a translation of the ' Agamemnon ' 
 of ^Eschylus, which contain the results of the most ab- 
 struse researches into the Greek language and metres. 
 Wilhelm v. Humboldt lived for many years in Jena, where 
 he contracted that friendship with Schiller which is so 
 nobly and touchingly expressed by these great men in the 
 letters I have quoted. 
 
 Chancellor v. Müller, in his little essay called ' Goethe 
 considered as a Man of Action,' says, "Wilhelm and 
 Alexander von Humboldt were long domesticated at Jena. 
 Affectionate regard, unconquerable zeal in investigating 
 and establishing facts and principles, and in advancing the 
 noblest interests of civilization, bound them firmly and 
 closely to Goethe and Schiller, who, on the other hand, 
 found refreshment and reward in a free interchange of 
 ideas with the noble brothers. 
 
 " It is well known how much the world is indebted to 
 that harmonious co-operation, in which everything that 
 
286 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 was attained called forth fresh and more ardent desire for 
 further attainment, and every triumph of the one was 
 most deeply and intensely enjoyed by the other." 
 
 He began his diplomatic career as Prussian resident in 
 Rome, where he was afterwards ambassador extraordi- 
 nary. In 1810 he was sent as ambassador to Vienna, at 
 that momentous period when Europe was like an ava- 
 lanche, which needed only some slight shock to make 
 it fall with annihilating force on the power which op- 
 pressed it. Humboldt's services were so highly estimated 
 by his sovereign, that he sent him as his plenipoten- 
 tiary to the Congress at Prague. He was also one of 
 those who signed the treaty of peace at Paris in 1814, 
 and that between Prussia and Saxony, at the Congress 
 of Vienna, in 1815. In 1816 he was minister at Paris, 
 and in 1818 at London, whence he was recalled to occupy 
 a distinguished post in the Prussian ministry. He died 
 in the year 1834, and has left a reputation for learning, 
 wisdom and virtue such as has seldom been equalled in 
 any age or country. 
 
 ISELIN (ISAAK). — Page 35. 
 
 JACOBS (FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN WILHELM). — 
 Page 45. 
 
 Born at Gotha, 1764. Studied theology at Jena and 
 afterwards at Göttingen. In 1785 he was chosen teacher 
 of the gymnasium in his native city, and soon began to 
 
NOTES. 
 
 287 
 
 distinguish himself in the literary world. In conjunction 
 with some friends he published ' Characters of the Poets 
 of all Nations,' and subsequently ' Exercitationes criticse 
 in scriptores veteres,' the ' Greek Anthology/ and other 
 works, chiefly on Greek literature. He received from Duke 
 Ernest II. that support and encouragement which the 
 princes of Germany are so remarkable for affording to 
 letters. While there he published, among other works, 
 'Elementarbuch der griechischen Sprache.' In 1807 he 
 was invited by the king of Bavaria to become professor of 
 Ancient Literature in the Lyceum at Munich, and mem- 
 ber of the newly-established Academy of Sciences, where 
 he delivered the eloquent discourse from which the pas- 
 sage in the text is extracted. In three years he returned 
 to Gotha as chief librarian and director of the numis- 
 matic cabinet. Here he published the ' Anthologia Grseca 
 ad fidem Codicis Vaticani edita.' The chances of war, and 
 the altered situation of the Pope, which had brought back 
 to Heidelberg the invaluable manuscripts given by the 
 Emperor Maximilian to Gregory XV greatly aided his 
 labours. 
 
 Jacobs was a favourite disciple of Heyne, and belongs 
 to his school of philology, the main difference between 
 which and the later critico-historical school is adverted to 
 in the notice of Otfried Müller. 
 
 Jacobs's philological works would appear full occupa- 
 tion for a life ; but he has also produced numerous works 
 of fiction, which are in the hands of all persons of educa- 
 tion, and are unexceptionable in their moral tendency. 
 
 * See Ranke's History of the Popes, ii. 482, and Appendix. 
 
288 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 He has recently published some account of his life, 
 called " Personalien, gesammelt von F. Jacobs : " Leipsig, 
 1840. 
 
 JACOBI (FRIED. HEINRICH). — Pages 51 and 86. 
 
 Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, born at Düsseldorf in 1743. 
 He went to school at Frankfurt, where his deep feeling 
 of religion manifested itself even at that early age, and 
 often rendered him an object of ridicule to his compa- 
 nions. From Frankfurt he went to Geneva, where he 
 remained three years. During this time his mind had 
 made such progress, that he returned home with heavy 
 heart, to enter on the management of his father's busi- 
 ness. He carried it on for several years, without, how- 
 ever, neglecting literature. He became acquainted with 
 many of the most distinguished persons of his time. His 
 brother Johann Georg, the poet, introduced him to Wie- 
 land ; but Goethe produced a still stronger effect upon 
 his mind. He married a wife richly endowed in body 
 and mind, and inheriting a fortune which rendered him 
 independent. In 1779 he was invited to Munich, and 
 appointed privy councillor, but soon fell into disfavour, 
 on account of the frankness with which he commented on 
 the Bavarian custom-house system. He retired from 
 public life and lived in the bosom of his amiable family, at 
 his beautiful residence at Pempelsfort, happy in his inter- 
 course with the greatest spirits of the age. A severe ill- 
 ness, and the death of his beloved wife, interrupted this 
 
NOTES. 
 
 289 
 
 felicity. He devoted himself with the more ardour to 
 science ; a journey to Weimar, where he saw Goethe, 
 and formed a friendship with Herder, tended to recruit 
 his spirits. His earlier works, ' Allwill ' and ' Wolde- 
 mar,' were a sort of philosophical novels. In 1785 he 
 published his 'Letters on Spinoza' (Briefe über Spinoza), 
 and from that time devoted himself chiefly to metaphy- 
 sical and religious speculations. Among these may be 
 mentioned ' David Hume on Belief, or Idealism and Rea- 
 lism/ and his ' Letter to Fichte/ The French revolution 
 drove him from Düsseldorf to Holstein. In 1804 he was 
 invited to the newly-formed Academy of Sciences at 
 Munich, of which he was afterwards appointed president. 
 On attaining his seventieth year he relinquished this post, 
 the salary of which was continued to him till his death, 
 which took place in 1819. 
 
 As a writer of fiction he is distinguished for vigorous 
 painting, admirable delineation of nature and the human 
 heart, warmth and depth of feeling, and a lively, bold, yet 
 correct turn of expression. As a philosopher, he is ad- 
 mired for his rare depth of thought, for the fervour of his 
 religious feelings, and the originality and beauty of his 
 style. At the same time, there are few authors concern- 
 ing whom opinions vary more, than concerning Jacobi. 
 It seems as if his works of imagination injured him with 
 the philosophers, and his philosophy with the poets. 
 
 Jacobi's polemical merits were great. He pointed out 
 the chasms, the unconnectedness, and the mischievous 
 results of the prevalent opinions, with critical acuteness, 
 and with all the eloquence of a just aversion. With his 
 o 
 
290 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 peculiar modes of thinking, it was natural that he should 
 not become the disciple of any other philosopher, and that 
 he should come into conflict, alternately, with the dogma- 
 tic Mendelssohn, the critical Kant, the idealistical Fichte, 
 and the pantheistical Schelling; against the latter of whom, 
 indeed, he expressed himself with too much bitterness. 
 Jacobi's place among the pure searchers after truth 
 must, however, remain for ever uncontested, and his cha- 
 racter is rich in all that can attract the wise and the good. 
 Hegel has given a character of him in the Heidelberger 
 Jahrbücher, 1817. 
 
 Jacobi's correspondence, published about ten years ago, 
 is very interesting. 
 
 There is a good deal of information about him in Goethe's 
 ' Dichtung«und Wahrheit*.' 
 
 KANT (IMMANUEL). — Pages 15, 29, 57, 84, 134, 135, 227. 
 Born in 1724, at Königsberg. 
 
 Kant is one of those writers whose name has become a 
 representative of a class. In this country and in France 
 there is scarcely a writer who does not feel himself on 
 firm ground in talking of " the cloudy metaphysics of 
 Kant." " Kant's philosophy," with a part of the world 
 so large that the other is not worth talking of, stands for 
 German philosophy ; and that again for unintelligible 
 mystical jargon, which everybody is at liberty to laugh 
 
 * For a translation of this see ' Characteristics of Goethe,' vol. 
 ii. 189, and vol. iii. 265. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 291 
 
 at, and nobody bound to attempt to understand. This 
 view of the matter will not be controverted here. Never- 
 theless, as the wildest lunatic has lucid intervals, it 
 may not be wholly uninteresting to the curious reader 
 to see that Kant could write like a man of this world if 
 he liked. The little passages extracted from his ' Tu- 
 gendlehre ' (Doctrine of Virtue), and his ' Zum Ewigen 
 Frieden' (On the Possibility of Permanent Peace), are 
 surely intelligible enough. And is it possible to find sen- 
 timents more noble, pure, just and humane ? 
 
 The essay, ' What is enlightenment ? ' is entire, and is 
 almost the only thing in the volume to which the name 
 ' fragment ' does not apply. It was chosen not only for 
 its intrinsic value, but as peculiarly characteristic of the 
 author. 
 
 The compatibility between the duty of the individual 
 human being to use his reason freely and intrepidly, and 
 the duty of the citizen, or member of a social commu- 
 nity, to conform to established laws and rules, is very 
 clearly and happily shown. Perhaps the conviction of 
 this compatibility, on the part of the great Frederic, 
 stamped its peculiar character on Prussia, where freedom 
 of thought is combined with obedience to, and respect for, 
 authority, in a degree rarely, if ever, witnessed, 
 
 Kant's personal character was singular. He was the 
 son of a cooper at Königsberg, in which place he passed 
 the whole of a life exclusively devoted to science. He 
 lived to the age of 80, never having been more than 
 thirty miles from home ; yet his knowledge was of the 
 most varied and extensive kind. Nor did his pure and 
 o 2 
 
292 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 severe morality impair his social cheerfulness. Reichardt 
 says he was as dry in body as in mind. A more attenu- 
 ated, withered frame perhaps never existed ; nor perhaps 
 did ever eastern sage live a life more pure and passionless. 
 Yet he loved a good table in cheerful society, where his 
 extensive reading, the fund of amusing anecdotes which 
 he told in his own grave, dry manner, and the genuine 
 humour of his repartees and observations, rendered him 
 a most entertaining and diverting companion. Kant's 
 society was sought in the most distinguished houses ; 
 not only on account of his unblemished honour and 
 superior intelligence, but because he had that proper 
 sense of his own pre-eminent merit which enabled him 
 to claim the respect due to him, and to bear himself 
 with dignity. He loved cards, which he maintained 
 were the only unfailing means of abstracting and quiet- 
 ing the thoughts after severe study ; and he did not 
 like to pass an evening without his game at ombre. He 
 had neither skill in, nor taste for, the fine arts. His me- 
 mory was prodigious, and enabled him to give singular 
 interest to his lectures. He generally delivered them in a 
 morning, leaving himself twenty minutes between each. 
 The subjects on which he lectured were logic and meta- 
 physics, and occasionally the law of nature, morals, an- 
 thropology, physics and physical geography. The latter 
 were peculiarly amusing and instructive to young people, 
 from the boundless range of his reading in history, travels, 
 biography, romances, and in short every branch of litera- 
 ture that could afford materials with which to enrich his 
 elucidations of those sciences. Here his memory displayed 
 
NOTES. 
 
 293 
 
 all its strength ; for though he had his lecture written 
 before him, he seldom looked at it, and often repeated 
 long series of names and dates from his head. Even his 
 lectures on abstract philosophy were rendered clear and 
 distinct by the treasure of illustrations and examples with 
 which his memory furnished him ; and the obscurity 
 which many have found in his writings arose, in great 
 measure, from his omission of these, which he thought 
 superfluous. His principal works are, * Kritik der reinen 
 Vernunft,' * Kritik der praktischen Vernunft,' ' Kritik der 
 Urtheilskraft,' ' Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Na- 
 turwissenschaft,' ' Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der 
 Rechtslehre/ ' Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht,' 
 ' Physische Geographie,' 'Vorlesungen der Religionslehre,' 
 etc., etc. 
 
 I am not aware that any of these have been translated, 
 except the ' Critic of Pure Reason,' the title of which, it 
 is to be feared, is not very attractive or intelligible to the 
 English reader. Indeed hardly any of the above titles 
 can «convey any meaning to the mind through a literal 
 translation, and I have therefore not attempted to give 
 one. 
 
 Among Kant's chief antagonists were Herder and 
 Jacobi, whose names we have just mentioned. 
 
 Kant's life and philosophy form the subject of several 
 works :' Borowski's 'Life and Character of Kant ;' Wa- 
 sianski's ' Kant during the last years of his life ;' Jach- 
 mann's ' Kant pourtrayed in letters,' etc., etc. 
 
 He was unquestionably one of the most remarkable and 
 interesting men the world ever produced — perhaps, for the 
 
NOTES. 
 
 absolute devotion of a mind untroubled by passion to the 
 advancement of science, he is without an equal. 
 
 KNEBEL (KARL LUDWIG von).— Pages 133, 140. 
 
 Born in 1744, at Wallerstein, in Franconia; he was 
 descended of an old Netherland family, driven into exile 
 by religious persecution. His father was chancellor of the 
 Margravate of Anspach. Knebel studied law at Halle, 
 but was disgusted by the dryness of the pursuit ; and 
 being invited by his brother, who was page to Frederic 
 II., he went to Potsdam, where he entered the regiment 
 of the Prince of Prussia. Here he formed intimacies with 
 many distinguished men, Ramler, Gleim, Moses Mendels- 
 sohn, Nicolai, etc. Knebel's health induced him to quit 
 the service, and to return to his home. Weimar, which 
 lay but little out of his way, was then the residence of 
 Wieland, the charm of whose works attracted Knebel. 
 He was favourably received by that distinguished pa- 
 troness of learning, the Grand-duchess Amelia, then re- 
 gent, and by the whole court, and a proposal was soon 
 made to him, to fix himself there as tutor to the second 
 prince, Constantine. After some hesitation, arising from 
 a feeling of his unfitness for a court life, he accepted the 
 offer, and became a resident at Weimar, at the time of 
 its remarkable brilliancy. In 1774 he accompanied the 
 Hereditary Prince in the journey mentioned by Goethe in 
 his life*. At Karlsruhe he became acquainted with 
 
 * Dichtung und Wahrheit, 15 ter Buch. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 295 
 
 Klopstock. At Paris he fell into the society of young 
 men, among whom he heard much talk of a revolution in 
 the state, which he could then but obscurely and imper- 
 fectly understand. After his return, and the early death 
 of his princely pupil, he received a pension for life. He 
 remained in Weimar, an ornament of the circle which 
 then rendered that little court the most eminent resort of 
 intellect and genius in Europe ; a friend of Wieland and 
 Herder, a daily and welcome guest of their illustrious 
 patroness, an acute observer of the signs of a time big 
 with mighty events ; living in philosophical serenity in 
 his little garden, a stranger to artificial wants, a contented 
 sage of the school of Aristippus. Herr von Knebel married 
 late in life, and retired to the romantic village of Ilmenau; 
 afterwards, when his children grew up, he removed to 
 Jena, where he continued, to the time of his death, to 
 occupy himself with classical literature, and retained to 
 the last his frank good-humour, and his true sense of 
 everything good and noble in human nature. 
 
 He published but little original poetry. His transla- 
 tions of Propertius and Lucretius are much esteemed. 
 He died in 1834. 
 
 LESSING (GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM). — Pages 20, 22, 30, 40. 
 
 Lessing is, in every sense of the word, so admirable a 
 writer, that it is with great regret I see how few extracts 
 from his works I have found place for. But I have been 
 less anxious to give specimens of those writers already 
 well known to the English public by translations, criti- 
 
296 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 cisms, or quotations, than of others less familiar and 
 accessible. There is a full and interesting account of Les- 
 sing's life and works in Mr. William Taylor's ' Survey 
 of German Poetry/ which also contains his excellent 
 translation of ' Nathan der Weise/ There is also a long 
 note on Lessing in another place, which I should only 
 repeat myself by inserting here. The ' Laocoon/ a work 
 which has done perhaps more than any other toward 
 introducing clearer and sounder views on art than had 
 ever before been expounded, has been recently translated. 
 Lessing, as a critic, occupies the first place in literature, 
 — as a poet, a secondary one ; indeed it may be doubted 
 whether the nice and accurate spirit of analysis which 
 characterized him, are often found combined with the 
 imagination and fervour of a poet. 
 
 Lessing first opened to his country the treasures of 
 English, Spanish, and Italian literature, and delivered it 
 from the shackles of French taste and criticism by which 
 it had been cramped. 
 
 His style may be regarded as a model of German 
 prose — pure, luminous, easy, and vigorous. He appears 
 rather to impart his speculations to the reader, as they 
 arise in his own mind, than to put them into a didactic 
 form ; and this gives to his style great vivacity, and a 
 suggestiveness which stimulates to independent thought. 
 Lessing's polemical writings are regarded as a perfect 
 model as to form. He may be called an artist in pole- 
 mics. 
 
 Lessing was born in 1729, at Kamenz, in Upper Lusatia, 
 of which place his father was Lutheran minister. He 
 
NOTES. 
 
 297 
 
 went to school at Meissen, and thence to the University 
 of Leipsig, whence he was recalled by his parents in con- 
 sequence of his taste for the theatre, and for society and 
 pursuits which, to their severely religious minds, ap- 
 peared corrupting and ruinous. He, however, returned 
 to Leipsig, and thence removed to Berlin (1750), where 
 he entered into a correspondence with Voltaire. At the 
 request of his parents he went to Wittenberg, where he 
 pursued his studies in company with his younger bro- 
 ther, and took a degree of M.A. From this time he led 
 an unsettled life, but continued to produce numerous 
 works, among which are his dramas ' Miss Sara Sampson,' 
 ' Emilia Galotti,' and ' Minna von Barnheim,' and his 
 'Treatise on the Laocoon' ; till, in 1767, he removed to 
 Hamburg, where the manager of the theatre had made him 
 advantageous offers. Here he produced his admirable 
 
 * Dramaturgie/ and his essays ' On the Study of the 
 Ancients,' and 'On the Use of Antique Gems.' He be- 
 came disgusted with his situation, and had resolved to go 
 to Italy, when an invitation to undertake the post of 
 librarian at Wolfenbüttel caused him to abandon his de- 
 sign. The court of Brunswick was then almost the only 
 one in Germany where German literature was cultivated, 
 as well as French, Here he published the celebrated 
 
 * Wolfenbüttel Fragments. ' He accompanied Prince 
 Leopold of Brunswick to Italy in 1775, and, in passing 
 through Vienna, had an interview with the Empress 
 Maria Theresa. 
 
 On his return, his theological controversies subjected 
 him to suspicion and persecution, which destroyed his 
 o5 
 
298 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 cheerfulness and serenity. To this circumstance, however, 
 the world owes the noble play of ' Nathan the Wise.' 
 
 His health had been for some time declining, and in 
 1781 he ended his active life- 
 
 LUTHER (MARTINUS). — Page 31. 
 
 It would be worse than superfluous to say anything 
 about the character of this remarkable man. It is easy to 
 understand the irresistible effect of his naive, robust, viva- 
 cious style on the people. He spoke their language, but 
 with tenfold force. He is without an equal, that I know 
 of, in vernacular freedom and energy, which of course it 
 is most difficult to represent in another language. 
 
 LOUISA (QUEEN OF PRUSSIA). — Page 155. 
 
 Born Princess of Mecklenburg Strelitz, a.d. 1776. 
 The beauty and grace of the late Queen of Prussia, her 
 virtues, sorrows, and early death, are too well known 
 to need further mention here. It is said that the singular 
 grace which adorned her person was not less conspicuous 
 in the turn of her expressions, and that she has transmit- 
 ted this gift to her eldest son. 
 
 There is a little volume called ' Louise die Königin,' by 
 Frau v. Berg (Berlin, 1814), which contains several of her 
 letters, and the history of her eventful life. 
 
 I insert the extracts from Niebuhr's letters immedi- 
 ately after this striking and heroic letter of the queen's, 
 
NOTES. 
 
 299 
 
 as illustrating the state of Prussia during the French 
 invasion. Such is war! "When princes shed tears," 
 says Jean Paul, "their subjects shed blood." And here, 
 by the side of the sorrows of the queen, we behold the 
 desolation of the peasant. 
 
 MERKEL. — Page 34. 
 
 MOSER (JUSTUS). — Page 85. 
 
 The writings of Moser are little known in this country ; 
 yet they are distinguished by a vigorous, homely good- 
 sense, a freedom from all affectation, a knowledge of the 
 condition of the labouring classes, and a zeal for their im- 
 provement and happiness, which obtained for him, not 
 unjustly, the name of the Franklin of Germany. He 
 was born in 1720, at Osnabrück, where his father filled 
 high offices under the government. He early gave proofs 
 of great talents, which were judiciously cultivated by his 
 mother. He studied law at Jena and Göttingen ; but 
 the open book of human life was his favourite and most 
 important study. As a man of business, he was the able 
 and zealous defender of oppressed innocence, and resisted 
 alone the arbitrary will of the then ruler of Osnabrück. 
 The confidence of his countrymen raised him, in 1747, to 
 the honourable post of ' Advocatus Patriae,' and the Land- 
 stände appointed him Secretary and Syndic of the Order 
 of Knights. His noble character was put to the test 
 
300 NOTES. 
 w 
 
 during the troubles of the seven years' war, and secured 
 him the respect of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick. He 
 was employed for eight months in London in transacting 
 the affairs of the troops subsidized by England, and his 
 residence in this country added much to his practical ex- 
 perience. He was for twenty years (during the minority 
 of the English prince, who, in 1761, was acknowledged 
 Protestant bishop and sovereign of Osnabrück), virtually, 
 though not nominally, chief-councillor of the regent. 
 Nothing but Moser 's great talents, knowledge of business, 
 and industry, united to his unswerving integrity, fairness 
 and disinterestedness, would have enabled him to steer 
 his course, free from all suspicion or reproach, between 
 the conflicting interests of the sovereign and the states, 
 both of whom he served. For six years he was justiciary 
 of the criminal court of Osnabrück ; and, on his resigna- 
 tion, was appointed privy referendary of the government, 
 which post he held till his death. 
 
 Möser's objects in writing were far higher than the 
 gratification of the vanity, or the acquisition of the fame, 
 of an author ; yet there is no writer whose works have 
 a more enduring reputation. They may serve as a model 
 for all who are inspired with the noble desire of render- 
 ing intelligible to the people their own true interests ; — 
 the highest office in which genius, wit, learning, or elo- 
 quence can ever be employed. 
 
 Gifted in an eminent degree with a sound mind in a 
 sound body, he devoted both to the service of his country 
 and of mankind, and he closed a happy, useful and ho- 
 nourable life at the age of 74, " having had much to re- 
 
NOTES. 
 
 301 
 
 joice, little to sadden, and nothing to offend him," as he 
 himself thankfully acknowledged. There is a beautiful 
 passage in Goethe's life*, of which I subjoin an abridged 
 translation. 
 
 " The little essays or papers of this admirable man, 
 relating to matters of social and political interest, had 
 been printed some years before in the Osnabrück news- 
 paper, and had been pointed out to me by Herder, who 
 suffered nothing of merit to pass unobserved. Möser's 
 daughter was now occupied in collecting them. 
 
 " They were all conceived in one spirit, and are all di- 
 stinguished for their intimate knowledge of the condition of 
 the middle and lower classes, and indeed of the whole fabric 
 of society. The author, with a perfect freedom from pre- 
 judice, analyses the relations of the several classes to each 
 other, and also those existing between the several towns 
 and villages of the country. The public revenues and ex- 
 penditure, the advantages and disadvantages of the various 
 branches of industry, are brought distinctly before us, and 
 old times compared and contrasted with new. 
 
 " The internal condition of Osnabrück, and its rela- 
 tion to other countries, particularly England, are clearly 
 stated, and practical consequences deduced. Though he 
 calls them ' Patriotic Fantasies,' their contents are in fact 
 true and practicable. 
 
 " And as the whole structure of society rests on the 
 basis of family, he devotes his especial attention to that. 
 He treats, seriously or sportively, of the changes in man- 
 
 * Dichtung und Wahrheit, book xiii. 
 
302 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 ners and habits, dress, diet, domestic life, and education. 
 It would be necessary to make an inventory of every inci- 
 dent of social life, if we would exhaust the subjects which 
 he handles. And how inimitable is the handling! It is 
 a thorough man of business speaking to the people in a 
 weekly paper, in order to render intelligible to all the 
 intentions and projects of a wise and benevolent govern- 
 ment ; by no means in a merely didactic style, but in a 
 variety of forms which we might almost call poetical, 
 and which certainly deserve to be called rhetorical, in the 
 best sense of the word. He is always master of his sub- 
 ject, and has the art of giving a lively colour to the 
 most serious ; sometimes assuming one mask, some- 
 times another, sometimes speaking in his own person, 
 with a gay and tempered irony ; vigorous and true, some- 
 times even rough and almost coarse ; but in every case 
 so appropriate, that it is impossible not to admire the 
 talents, the good sense, the facility, lightness, taste and 
 originality of the writer. In the choice of his subjects, 
 his profound knowledge of them, enlarged views, skilful 
 and appropriate handling, deep and yet gay humour, I 
 can compare him to none but Franklin." 
 
 Nothing can be added to this just and beautiful descrip- 
 tion of Möser's ' Patriotische Fantasien.' It remains 
 only to say, that his ' History of Osnabrück ' is equally re- 
 markable for the accurate antiquarian knowledge it exhi- 
 bits. He left some other works, among which is a defence 
 of the German language and literature, in answer to 
 Frederic the Great. 
 
 In the paper I have given, the author's admirable good 
 
NOTES. 
 
 303 
 
 sense is applied to one of the points in human life on 
 which the greatest dearth of it has hitherto been displayed. 
 How many a heart-ache, how many a misunderstanding, 
 how much disgust and alienation, how much secret and 
 blank despair — nay, even despairing guilt — may be traced 
 to the want of sane notions, chastised hopes, and rational 
 expectations, at the beginning of married life ! 
 
 MÜLLER (JOHANNES von). — Page 1, 165. 
 
 Was born in 1752, at Schaffhausen, where his fathei 
 was pastor and teacher in the Latin school. Müller is 
 one of the most remarkable examples on record of the 
 force and value of early impressions. From his mother, 
 who was a woman of superior understanding, he imbibed 
 the piety which never deserted him ; and from her father, 
 a clergyman, who had a great knowledge of history, the 
 taste which decided the occupation and pursuit of his 
 whole future life. Before the child could read, he had 
 learned from the lips of his kind grandfather all the most 
 remarkable events in the history of Switzerland ; and 
 from him he inherited his expansive benevolence, his 
 cheerful view of the destinies of mankind, and his pas- 
 sionate love of historical research. His short sight and 
 slight fragile body unfitted him for the society and sports 
 of boys of his own age ; but his active mind and eager 
 desire of knowledge excited the hopes of his parents and 
 teachers. At nine years old he gave proof of his singular 
 gifts of rapid and just apprehension, faithful memory, and 
 
304 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 admirable power of compilation, in an attempt he made to 
 write the history of Schaffhausen. At thirteen he began to 
 read by stealth the ancient classics, to whom he was in- 
 debted for the enthusiasm for freedom and formoral gran- 
 deur, the clearness and order of his thoughts, and the ele- 
 gance and vigour of expression which distinguished him. In 
 1772 he wrote his 'Bellum Cimbricum,' and about the same 
 time preached successfully as candidate for holy orders, 
 and became professor of Greek in the gymnasium atSchaff- 
 hausen. He had already begun to devote his attention to 
 the original sources of Swiss history, and had entered into 
 correspondences with several learned men, above all, 
 with Bonstetten, to whom he addressed his admirable 
 ' Letters of a Student to his Friend.' At Bonstetten's 
 request he went to Geneva as private tutor ; but he 
 soon exchanged this for a freer and more congenial situa- 
 tion in the house of Francis Kinloch, of South Carolina. 
 In the society of this young man, with whom, and with 
 whose relations in England, he formed a lasting friendship, 
 he passed what he always regarded as the happiest years 
 of his life. In 1776, when Kinloch returned to America, 
 Müller became an inmate in the house of Bonnet, the 
 celebrated naturalist. With a view to realize a small in- 
 dependence, he afterwards gave lectures on history, which 
 were attended principally by young Englishmen, among 
 whom was Charles Abbott (afterwards Lord Colchester). 
 
 These lectures formed the substance of his * Twenty- 
 four books of Universal History,' and were much admired 
 by his hearers for their vivid descriptions and historical 
 impartiality. In 1779 he published the first volume of his 
 
NOTES. 
 
 305 
 
 - History of Switzerland,' and after a short residence at 
 Berlin removed to Cassel, where he was appointed pro- 
 fessor of history. Here he published several essays 
 among which were the ' Reisen der Päpste/ a small but 
 valuable work, showing the protection afforded by the 
 hierarchy against the violence of temporal princes. In 
 1785 he was invited by the Elector Friedrich Karl Joseph 
 to Mainz, where he published several works relating to 
 the events of the times. Here he remained, in spite of the 
 most advantageous offers from the courts of Vienna and 
 Berlin, the former of which conferred on him the dignity 
 of noble and knight of the empire. In 1792 Mainz 
 fell into the hands of the French, and Müller was invited 
 by Custine to take part in the new administration. He 
 refused, and afterwards went to Vienna, where he again 
 employed his pen on subjects of present interest, in which 
 he displayed great eloquence. In 1804 he left Vienna, 
 and passing through Geneva, where he saw for the last 
 time his friend Kinloch, went to Berlin. He assisted in 
 the publication of Herder's works, to which he contri- 
 buted notes on the history of the Cid, and published the 
 fourth volume of his 'History of Switzerland,' which he had 
 worked at during eight troubled years. He was in Berlin 
 when the French entered it, and w r as treated with great 
 kindness and consideration by Napoleon. He was not 
 insensible to this, and in 1807 accepted the invitation of 
 the conqueror to Fontainbleau, and was appointed secre- 
 tary of state in the new kingdom of Westphalia, and de- 
 corated by king Jerome with the Order of the Lion. He 
 was ill at ease and unhappy in his new situation, lost his 
 
306 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 health, and on some occasions his memory and utterance. 
 The king accepted his resignation, but made him councillor 
 of state and minister of public instruction. Here he had 
 the same vexations to endure, till at length the spectacle 
 of what was passing around him broke down the powers 
 of his mind, the last sparks of which gleam forth in the 
 introduction to the fifth volume of his ' History of Switzer- 
 land' (1808). His letters written at this time are touching 
 proofs of the conflict going on in a heart once so joyous. 
 In 1809 he died. 
 
 Opinions are divided as to the merits of Johannes v. 
 Müller, both as a citizen and as a writer. His reputation 
 suffered, as well as his peace of mind, from taking office 
 under the French. 
 
 He belongs to a class of historians who deal rather in 
 philosophical speculations, than in that intimate know- 
 ledge of all the sources of history which enables the writer 
 to present a period to the mind of the reader as an organic 
 whole. The new historical school has introduced a mode of 
 studying and writing history so far more profound and com- 
 prehensive, that writers of Müller's class are in some re- 
 spects superseded. Yet nobody can deny him the merits 
 of a strong love of truth, an eloquent style, stately ca- 
 dence, and singular power of description. His battle- 
 scenes are highly dramatic, and all the local incidents and 
 colouring are portrayed with great vividness and fidelity. 
 I had translated one of the most celebrated, the battle of 
 Sempach, and intended to add it to my little collection, 
 but I found it would occupy too much space. 
 
 Müller has been called the German Tacitus. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 307 
 
 MÜLLER (KARL OTFRIED). — Pages 46, 136. 
 
 The death of this eminent scholar and historian last 
 year was the subject of deep and universal regret in Ger- 
 many. Even in places far from his home, and among 
 persons to whom he was known only by reputation, his 
 loss was spoken of as a national calamity. Such a senti- 
 ment did honour not only to the man who could inspire 
 it, but to the people sufficiently enlightened to appreciate 
 the value of men engaged in pursuits necessarily beyond 
 the comprehension of the mass. 
 
 Müllerwas professor at Göttingen, and married a daugh- 
 ter of the venerable and eminent jurist Hugo. His name 
 was, I believe, first made known to the English public by 
 the translation of his 'History of the Dorians*/ The 
 history of Greek literature published by the Useful Know- 
 ledge Society was also by him. It was written expressly 
 for that society, and sent over to this country in manu- 
 script. It is unfortunately incomplete. 
 
 A friend who knew him at the University of Berlin 
 says, " Müller worked from fifteen to seventeen hours a- 
 day. His only recreation was change of pursuits, or 
 learned discussions with Boeckh and Buttmann. What 
 Tieck says of Novalis, applies to him, " Never was he seen 
 languid or exhausted, never out of spirits or out of hu- 
 mour." Study did not corrode his strength or impair his 
 bloom. Goethe's maxim, " Always to attend to the thing 
 
 * Translated by H. Tufnell and G. C. Lewis. First edition 
 published in 1830. Second edition published in 1839. 
 
308 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 immediately before him," enabled him so soon to reach the 
 summit. He was extremely attached to Boeckh. From 
 him he learned to make Herodotus the basis of his study. 
 " I devote all my leisure minutes to him," he used to say, 
 for he seldom reckoned by hours. 
 
 He went to Greece, so long the subject of his research 
 and meditation, last year. Though warned by his friends 
 of the dangers of that treacherous climate during the heats, 
 nothing could induce him to suspend his labours; he 
 trusted to his robust constitution, which unhappily afford- 
 ed him no security, and fell a victim to fever in the prime 
 of life, and in all the vigour of his faculties. 
 
 The following is an extract from one of the last letters 
 he wrote, dated June 27, 1840. 
 
 " We have terminated our ramble over the Peloponnesus, 
 which occupied forty days, without any disaster, and with 
 great enjoyment. We saw snow-covered mountains, 
 smiling valleys, romantic glens, all full of gushing brooks 
 and of the richest vegetation, and discovered some ruins 
 of temples and cities, of which no mention has been made 
 (as far as I know) by others. The main thing, however, 
 to me was the clear perception one gains of the conforma- 
 tion and natural predestination of the most remark- 
 able districts and spots of Greece; the features of nature 
 are here so sharply defined, that they stamp this percep- 
 tion on the mind in a manner which I hope can never be 
 effaced. . . 
 
 " I spent the whole of this morning with Mr. Fellows, 
 an Englishman, who has made two successive tours in 
 Lycia, and has brought the most interesting inscriptions 
 
NOTES. 
 
 309 
 
 and drawings from that small country, which has hitherto 
 been a terra incognita. Happy is the classical traveller 
 who can limit his researches to so narrow a region and so 
 virgin a soil ! For me, the East is all in the future." 
 
 A ' future ' which was not granted him. He had begun 
 excavations at Delphi, and had discovered the roof of a 
 Greek temple. A few days after he was carried to Athens, 
 where he expired. 
 
 It is a curious coincidence that his will was dated Aug. 
 1, 1839 ; on that day twelvemonth he expired. On the 
 map of Athens which he used in his lectures at Göttingen, 
 he made a cross to mark the Academy, where he now lies 
 buried. 
 
 The funeral oration pronounced over his coffin by Phi- 
 lippos Joannou breathes the eloquence of genuine grief. 
 It concludes with these words : 
 
 " Too soon has inexorable death torn him from us — torn 
 him from the country and the university of which he was 
 the pride and ornament. Hellas, which through his whole 
 life had occupied his mind, was destined to receive and 
 to enshrine within her bosom his mortal remains. He 
 was doomed to sleep the last sleep in glorious Athens, 
 and to rest from his labours on the hill of Plato's Aca- 
 demy, around which, when living, his spirit so often 
 hovered, and where his ashes are mingled with the ashes 
 of the great and the wise who were the objects of his 
 imitation. Accept, O departed spirit ! the tears of this 
 assembly ; accept this last farewell ; and live on to eternity ! 
 The just live for all times, and their recompense is in the 
 Lord, and their spirit abideth with the Most High." 
 
310 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 The following epitaph was written upon him : 
 
 " He lies on the earth of Greece, as a hero on his shield." . 
 
 His intimate friend Jacob Grimm wrote thus : 
 " Müller stands before my mind's eye all day long — 
 his person, his voice, and all the old recollections which 
 were kept alive by his letters, are always present to me. 
 It may indeed be said that he died a beautiful death, and 
 lies gloriously interred; — nay, that even the delirium of 
 fever brought before him only the magnificent and lovely 
 images of Greece, and spared him all the pain of longing 
 after home. But what slender comfort is this for the 
 great calamity of his death ! And what a sorrow is ours, 
 that he returns no more ! After the lapse of years, when 
 we too are no more, this may seem a sufficient consola- 
 tion, and he most fortunate ; but to us, and to the just 
 grief of the present, what avails it ? I would rather his 
 grave had been dug in barbarian earth, after he had lived 
 to enlighten the world by his labours, and to earn the full 
 harvest of his fame." 
 
 Otfried Müller was a pupil of Boeckh and belongs to 
 the same school — a school entirely the growth of this age. 
 Formerly the province of the historian and the philolo- 
 gist were perfectly distinct ; nobody thought of reading 
 the works of Bentley or Heyne with a view to obtain a 
 knowledge of the institutions, character or history of the 
 Greeks ; while, on the other hand, historians like Rollin, 
 Gillies and others, were content to compile from the more 
 direct and obvious sources, to arrange traditional facts in 
 an interesting narrative, or to use them plausibly in the 
 
NOTES. 
 
 311 
 
 support of preconceived theories. Histories of this kind 
 may now be said to have completely lost their authority 
 among scholars, especially in Germany. The German 
 school, of which Otfried Müller was one of the brightest 
 ornaments, has introduced far more extensive views of 
 historical criticism and research. 
 
 Müller was remarkable for the comprehensiveness and 
 accuracy of his knowledge of antiquity : it was not con- 
 fined to the languages and institutions of the ancients, 
 but extended to every branch of ancient art. The grand 
 object of his labours was to gain a distinct view of antiquity 
 as an organic whole, endowed with all the warmth of 
 individuality. 
 
 i( That the author," say his translators, " has by long, 
 patient and sober investigation penetrated into the depths 
 of ancient Grecian history ; that he has removed much 
 which was false, and substituted what is true ; and fre- 
 quently found the master-key to the windings and intri- 
 cacies of mythology, must be acknowledged even by those 
 who will not assent implicitly to all his conclusions*." 
 
 His principal works are 'iEginetica,' ' Orchomenos und 
 die Minyer/ * Die Dorier/ * Prolegomena zu einer wissen- 
 schaftlichen Mythologie/ ' Die Etrusker,' and ' Handbuch 
 der Archäologie der Kunst/ from the last of which my ex- 
 tracts are taken. It is much to be wished that this and 
 the ' Etrusker ' (a work of much originality and learn- 
 ing) were rendered into English. Miiller's edition of the 
 
 * Translator's Preface to the ' History and Antiquities of the 
 Doric Race.' 
 
312 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 ' Eurnenides ' of ^Eschylus, with copious notes, is trans- 
 lated into English. 
 
 Müller was born in Silesia in 1797- He visited France 
 and England in 1822, in the prosecution of his studies. 
 
 NIEBUHR (BARTHOLD GEORG). — Pages 180, 123, 
 158, 189. 
 
 There is perhaps no German writer whose character 
 and works are so well known in England as those of Nie- 
 buhr. It is therefore the less necessary for me to attempt 
 to describe them. The translation of his Roman history 
 by the Rev. Connop Thirlwall * and the Rev. Julius 
 Hare had already excited the attention and admiration of 
 the instructed part of the public ; when the melancholy 
 circumstances attending his death, and the singular way 
 in which that event was said to be connected with the 
 great convulsions then agitating the political world, awa- 
 kened a strong interest in his personal history. This feel- 
 ing was gratified by the appearance of the three volumes 
 of biography and letters from which the foregoing extracts 
 are taken. A notice of them appeared a short time ago 
 in the Athenaeum, and another in the Quarterly Review. 
 To these I refer my readers. 
 
 From my own recollection of him I may venture to add 
 a few words. His person was diminutive, almost to mean- 
 ness, but his presence very imposing— so at least I felt 
 it. His head and eye were grand, austere, and command- 
 
 * Now Bishop of St. David's. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 313 
 
 ing. He had all the authority of intelligence, and looked 
 and spoke like one not used to contradiction. He lived a 
 life of study and domestic seclusion, but he conversed 
 freely and unreservedly. 
 
 He had a singular attachment to the place of his birth, 
 and a profound reverence for his father, and for the race 
 from which he sprang — the free peasants of Ditmarsch. 
 Though no man had more the art of keeping at an immea- 
 surable distance those whom he regarded as the vulgar, 
 and though I do not remember ever to have seen an air 
 more expressive of conscious superiority, he had a lively 
 sympathy with the people, and a disdain of those petty 
 distinctions behind which men of inferior merit entrench 
 themselves. Niebuhr neither needed nor desired any 
 but what he could confer on himself. His manner of 
 living was the most simple possible. He was untitled, 
 and left to his children only that " more enduring nobi- 
 lity," of which he so proudly speaks in his memoir of his 
 father*. On the 1st of January 1828, he brought methat 
 little pamphlet as a new year's gift, and I hardly saw him 
 after. 
 
 The present king of Prussia has erected a monument, 
 to record his attachment to his former instructor and 
 friend. 
 
 * Published in English by the Useful Knowledge Society. 
 
 P 
 
314 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOVALIS (FRIEDRICH von HARD E N B E RG) . — Pages 20, 
 21, 33, 39, 43, 44, 51, 67, 72, 85, 93, 98, 110, 126, 133, 172. 
 
 Novalis is not likely to be popular in England : he left 
 little more than fragments, — beginnings of undertakings 
 which he did not live to complete. He deserves perhaps 
 more than any other writer the character of mystical, 
 which we are so fond of applying indiscriminately to Ger- 
 man writers. Some of his poems are extremely beautiful, 
 and even sublime, particularly one called ' The Dead to 
 the Living,' and some of the ' Hymus to Night but I 
 confess that he does not appear to me free from affected 
 cloudiness and mysticism, or from far-fetched conceits 
 and obscurantist prejudices. 
 
 The moral tone of his writings is throughout pure and 
 lofty ; the feeling of religion (Religiosität) is profoundly im- 
 pressed on every sentence, but in characters unintelligible 
 to persons in whose minds dogmatical and polemical theo- 
 logy take the place of that sentiment. In short, neither 
 the merits nor the faults of Novalis fit him for England. 
 
 Friedrich von Hardenberg, for that was his name, was 
 born in 1772, at the seat of his family in the territory 
 of the Counts of Mansfeld, and died at Meissenfels in 
 1801. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle's article on Novalis in the Foreign Quar- 
 terly Review makes it unnecessary for me to go into any 
 details concerning his life and works. The reader may also 
 find a biographical and critical notice of him, translated 
 from the German, in a compilation on German literature 
 
NOTES. 
 
 315 
 
 published some time ago*. Above all, I may refer the 
 reader of German to the beautiful memoir prefixed to his 
 works by his friend Tieck. 
 
 OEHLENSCHLÄGER (ADAM). — Page 162. 
 
 Oehlenschläger is a native of Denmark, and most of his 
 works are written both in Danish and in German. He is 
 chiefly known as a dramatic poet, and especially by his 
 beautiful tragedy of ' Coreggio.' This is one of the ro- 
 mances and dramas of art which followed the appearance 
 of Goethe's 'Wilhelm Meister/ and ' Torquato Tasso ;' 
 their purpose was to trace not only the external incidents in 
 the life of an artist, but his artistical development — a kind 
 of literature nearly confined, I believe, to Germany. 
 
 ' Coreggio ' is among the very best specimens of it. 
 Though Oehlenschläger's genius is decidedly northern, it 
 has been tinged by the South, in which he travelled. His 
 ' Coreggio' breathes the warm and melancholy repose of an 
 Italian night, combined with the most pure and lofty ten- 
 derness. There is no fierce passion, still less any violent 
 action. The tragedy is the silent and unequal conflict of 
 genius with the world. But the reader will do well to 
 refer to an account, and, I think, a translation of it, which 
 appeared in Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 Oehlenschläger has likewise written 'Aladdin,' ' Hakon 
 Jarl,' 'Axel und Walburg,' and several other dramas. 
 
 * Characteristics of Goethe, i. 307. 
 
 p2 
 
316 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 PESTALOZZI (JOHANN HEINRICH).— Page 71. 
 
 Fichte's noble eulogium on Pestalozzi*, which I have 
 inserted in the text, renders it unnecessary to say more 
 of the merits of that singular man. He was the most 
 original and efficient of the leaders in the great move- 
 ment, which is now almost universally recognized as irre- 
 sistible, in favour of the moral and mental culture of the 
 people. What was done in this country by Joseph Lan- 
 caster is by no means to be undervalued ; he called atten- 
 tion to the subject. But though he saw the necessity for 
 doing something, he had not the smallest idea what to do, 
 and his methods are almost universally superseded by 
 better. Pestalozzi, on the contrary, was a man of genius 
 as well as of boundless benevolence, and threw out a vast 
 quantity of the most prolific suggestions, on which all suc- 
 ceeding labourers in the same field have continued to 
 work ; — and must continue, since they are founded on 
 the nature of the human mind. 
 
 Pestalozzi was born at Zürich in 1746, and died in 
 1827. His long life was one of ceaseless struggle — an 
 unbroken series of ill-requited services to mankind. 
 
 His chief works are ' Leonhard and Gertrude/ * Chris- 
 topher and Else/ ' Evenings of a Recluse/ * Inquiries 
 into the Course of Nature in the Development of the 
 Human Race,' ' How Gertrude teaches her Children/ ' The 
 Mother's Book/ and many other elementary works. 
 
 * Page 144. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 31T 
 
 RAHEL (FRAU von VARNHAGEN).— Pages 61, 66, 97, 
 146, 153, 199, 219. 
 
 There is an article of Mr. Carlyle's on this remarkable 
 woman, which of course leaves me little to say. 
 
 She ought not to be regarded as an authoress, for it 
 does not appear that she ever wrote for the press. Her 
 letters, together with a memoir of her, were published by 
 her husband, Varnhagen von Ense, one of the most di- 
 stinguished German writers now living. The works by 
 which he is chiefly known are his biographical sketches, 
 or rather, I should say, finished portraits, for they have 
 not only striking resemblance, but skilful handling and 
 appropriate colour. It is strange that some of them have 
 not found their way into the English language ; though 
 indeed it would be difficult to do justice to the correctness 
 and finish with which Herr von Varnhagen writes his own. 
 Not less perfect in their way are his criticisms. They 
 have exactly the qualities which both author and public 
 ought to desire. They are written in the most courteous 
 and gentlemanlike tone, entirely superior to all the vul- 
 garities of personal spite or party warfare, yet with a con- 
 scientious determination to point out whatever either the 
 author or the public ought to be told. I have always re- 
 garded them as models of that kind of writing, and ex- 
 tremely useful as studies. 
 
 Rahel's writings cannot be disjoined from her life. 
 They are letters, and chiefly filled with outpourings of the 
 thoughts and feelings of the moment. 
 
318 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 She was unquestionably a woman of great talents and 
 extraordinary qualities, as the influence she exercised over 
 the eminent men who formed her circle abundantly proves. 
 I must confess, however, that her letters do not appear 
 to me entirely to justify her fame. They contain pro- 
 found and sagacious reflections ; but there is a sort of 
 parade of originality and depth which wearies and puzzles. 
 In order to seem new, things are said unintelligibly. 
 The style is disjointed, even beyond all precedent in these 
 days of dashes. The letters contain evidence of an active 
 and vigorous mind ; but they are deficient in nature, re- 
 pose, simplicity, and ease. Mr. Carlyle's test of genius — 
 unconsciousness, could certainly not be successfully ap- 
 plied in this case. But Rahel had suffered much, and 
 pondered much on her sufferings. A woman who does 
 this, comes at length to regard her own feelings as an 
 artist does his subject. They are an ever-present mate- 
 rial, on which her imagination works. This is apt to lead 
 to all manner of voluntary and involuntary exaggerations, 
 from which men in active life are saved by the necessity 
 they lie under of attending strenuously to external things. 
 
 RICHTER, JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH (commonly called 
 JEAN PAUL). — Pages 4, 16, 17, 21, 28, 39, 44, 49, 63, 70, 
 72, 81, 83, 95, 110, 126, 134, 145, 151, 154, 164, 173, 187, 
 198, 199. 
 
 I have perhaps given an undue portion of my small 
 space to Jean Paul ; but there is no author who offers so 
 
NOTES. 
 
 319 
 
 many passages which it is easy and tempting to detach, 
 as the innumerable selections from him published in 
 Germany will bear witness. Whether this is praise or 
 censure, I leave it to the reader to decide. 
 
 Jean Paul is so popular a writer in his own country, 
 that it seemed desirable to give something like an ade- 
 quate sample of his manner — the more so, as few of his 
 works will, I should think, be translated entire. They 
 require far too much familiarity with German life, far too 
 much toleration for oddness and extravagance, to be 
 popular in England. 
 
 Among his countrymen, Jean Paul's humour is ex- 
 tremely admired. Comparing it with the genuine, un- 
 conscious humour of Cervantes and of several English 
 writers, I confess it seems to me often forced and gro- 
 tesque. The charm of Jean Paul lies in the ardour of 
 his philanthropy, his minute knowledge of the human 
 heart, his tender indulgence for human weakness, his 
 scorn and detestation of pharisaical pretensions and hard- 
 ness ; in a sympathy as excitable and as boundless as his 
 fancy ; I should venture to add — what sounds like a para- 
 dox — in the good sense, the soundness of judgment and 
 feeling, which lie at the bottom of his rhapsodies. The 
 most unsound and fantastic views of human life may, as 
 we daily see, be expressed in the most prosaic and com- 
 mon-place language ; and so Jean Paul has overlaid a 
 world of genuine and humane wisdom with bewildering 
 conceits, and far-fetched, unintelligible illustrations. But 
 the reader who will look below the surface will, I think, 
 find that his knowledge of actual human nature was pro- 
 
320 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 found, and his views as to what human nature should be, 
 benevolent, elevated, and consistent with the soundest 
 reason and morality. 
 
 The novel of ' Siebenkäs, ' from which I have quoted so 
 largely, seems to me to afford evidence of this. Nothing 
 can be more true, just, and of every-day application, than 
 his view of the sufferings of an ill-assorted union, and of 
 the illusions which lead simple and virtuous hearts into 
 that abyss of misery. There is no resort to the vulgar ex- 
 pedient of crime or vice ; the whole evil lies in the unequal 
 compass and culture of their minds. If anything de- 
 serves to be called practical, surely it is this. 
 
 Firmian, the hero, is a man of great genius and learn- 
 ing,- and of the gentlest and noblest nature; living in 
 poverty, not in English poverty — the privation of cer- 
 tain articles of splendour and luxury, but in that desti- 
 tution of all but absolute necessaries, and precarious pos- 
 session even of them, which, in Germany, it is not un- 
 common to find combined with the highest moral and 
 intellectual culture. His wife, our unhappy Lenette, 
 he has loved and married, for her innocence, simplicity, 
 agreeable person, tranquil temper, and for the possession 
 of those arts and qualities most needful in the helpmate 
 of a poor man. Unfortunately he has, in the housewife, 
 forgotten the wife ; and though it is the habit of his 
 countrymen to require from women the virtues rather of 
 attached and industrious servants, than of equal, intelli- 
 gent, and sympathizing friends, Firmian gradually wakes 
 to the dreariness and misery of his most ill-matched com- 
 panionship. It is thus we see him in the scene called the 
 
NOTES. 
 
 321 
 
 * Last Night of the Year.' The character of Lenette is 
 drawn with inimitable truth and finish. The inveterate 
 prejudice, the irremediable obtuseness and. contraction of 
 mind and heart, the machine-like return to one set of as- 
 sociations and thoughts and feelings, are all drawn from 
 the life. 
 
 ' Siebenkäs ' is one of Jean Paul's shortest as well as best 
 novels, and perhaps the most characteristic, both of the 
 individual author and of his country. It is partly because 
 it is so, that it has been so largely drawn upon for speci- 
 mens ; though I fear they will be hardly intelligible to 
 readers unacquainted with Germany. 
 
 I have ventured to omit some of the allusions with 
 which Jean Paul superabounds. The multitude, variety 
 and strangeness of his illustrations form one of the pecu- 
 liarities, and, I think, the defects of his style. There is no 
 language, art or science, no region or history, that does 
 not furnish him with images and allusions. They prove 
 the vast extent of his reading, and the readiness and ex- 
 cursiveness of his fancy ; but a pure taste would have en- 
 joined a far more sparing use of them. 
 
 Occasionally he works up a picture by minute touches 
 with singular felicity (as for instance that of poor Lenette, 
 p. 145) ; and then, after this Dutch painting, how doubly 
 striking is the eloquence to which he rises at the close ! 
 
 His works are so numerous, that I should fill a page 
 with their strange untranslatable titles. The English 
 public are indebted to Mr. Carlyle for a translation of the 
 novel of ' Quintus Fixlein ' (the only one, I believe, at 
 present translated), and for an account of Jean Paul, 
 p 5 
 
322 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 worthy of the subject, in his ■ Miscellanies/ to which I 
 refer the reader who wishes to appreciate so singular and 
 popular a writer. 
 
 RUMOHR (KARL FRIEDRICH FELIX, FREIHERR ton).— 
 Pages 6, 76, 179. 
 
 Is descended from an ancient family of Holstein, pos- 
 sessed also of estates on the confines of Saxony and Bohe- 
 mia, where he was born in 1785. His education was as 
 narrow and defective as that of most young nobles of his 
 time, and seemed little fitted to produce the extensive 
 learning and accurate taste for which he is so remark- 
 able. 
 
 Baron von Rumohr early turned his attention to Art, 
 for which he was gifted by nature with a delicacy and 
 accuracy of perception that no education can supply. 
 When only fifteen, and without any historical knowledge, 
 he is said to have detected a Coreggio, the genuineness of 
 which had been denied by high authorities ; and other 
 examples might be given of his extraordinary accuracy of 
 eye and judgment. During the French domination he 
 gave some offence to the authorities, and withdrew to a 
 voluntary exile at his estates in the North, till the fall of 
 Napoleon. After the deliverance of Germany he went to 
 Italy, and in 1827 gave to the world the result of his in- 
 quiries. His great work, ' Italienische Forschungen' 
 (Italian researches), is now universally recognized as pos- 
 sessing the highest authority in Art. It contains, in the 
 
NOTES. 
 
 323 
 
 first place, a most valuable discussion on the principle of 
 the beautiful and the ideal in Art. He maintains that it is 
 from individual objects only that the artist can derive his 
 forms ; and provided those forms are properly selected, 
 with reference to the subject treated, the closer the imi- 
 tation is to nature the better. He then passes from the 
 theoretical to the historical part of his subject, and in 
 that he gives some most accurate and striking details as 
 to the remains of early Italian sculpture. The light thrown 
 on the works of the Sienese painters, and on the charac- 
 ter of Giotto, is also most important. The real merit and 
 value of the school of Siena has been obscured by the 
 subsequent renown of that of Florence, and by the fact 
 that the historians of Art were principally Florentines. 
 The third volume mostly treats of the works and genius 
 of Raffael : this is published separately, and is excellent. 
 Rumohr's acuteness as a connoisseur of pictures gives 
 great weight and authority to his remarks. 
 
 Herr v. Rumohr is author of several other works, 
 among which the most remarkable are the * Geist der 
 Kochkunst' (Spirit of the Art of Cookery) and the 
 'Deutsche Denkwürdigkeiten' (German Memorabilia), 
 from which the foregoing extracts are taken. 
 
 The former I have not seen ; it is said to be extremely 
 amusing, and full of wit. The latter is a singular book, 
 both in plan and execution. The hero is a German old 
 bachelor, naif, pedantic and formal, with a great deal of 
 good sense, and a sort of benevolent quixotism which 
 leads him into a variety of strange situations. The book 
 presents a minute picture of German life in the middle of 
 
324 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 the last century, and a glimpse of that of France. It 
 may easily be imagined how many interesting subjects 
 come under discussion. 
 
 The passages I have chosen show the clearness and 
 soundness of the author's understanding, and his supe- 
 riority to popular prejudice or sentimental cant. His 
 opinions on the education of women are, I am sorry to 
 say, very un- German. The intellectual place assigned to 
 them, not only by common opinion, but by great writers, 
 is the barbarian spot on the high civilization of Germany. 
 
 It cannot perhaps be affirmed that the women who 
 have come forward as representatives of the intelligence 
 of their sex have always made the most discreet use of 
 that much-abused instrument, the pen ; or that reason- 
 able men might not fairly enough object to entrust the 
 business of their households to 'des etres exceptionelles.' 
 But this is one of those vicious circles in which human 
 affairs are apt to revolve for ages. A woman who finds 
 herself regarded either as a paria or a wonder, naturally 
 falls into affectations of a still bolder singularity, and loses 
 all sobriety in her views of herself and of her social posi- 
 tion. But when she sees that the modest and conscien- 
 tious application of her faculties and industry to letters is 
 regarded simply as the performance of one of the various 
 duties variously allotted, she learns to think herself by no 
 means an extraordinary person ; by no means exempted 
 from the homeliest business, or the most ordinary pro- 
 prieties and observances of life ; by no means superior 
 to her neighbour who employs her time and understand- 
 ing on other and not less useful occupations ; in short, 
 
NOTES. 
 
 325 
 
 as neither deserving to be stared at, contemned, nor ad- 
 mired ; but as entitled to just so much indulgence as her 
 inferior means of acquiring knowledge may fairly crave, 
 and just so much respect as the excellence and utility of 
 her work may deserve. Things are approaching to this 
 sane and sober state in England. In no country, I be- 
 lieve, do women enjoy more of the highest, purest, safest, 
 and most precious of all liberties — that out of which all 
 others which they ought to desire must grow — the liberty 
 to use their faculties without other control than what good 
 taste, reason, morality and religion impose on all ; in the 
 way, and for the purposes, which they may deem most 
 useful to themselves, to those to whom they owe their 
 first and most sacred duty, and to society at large. It is 
 true, an immense deal remains to be done for the culture 
 of those faculties ; but the door is open — there is no lion 
 in the way. 
 
 Ruraohr shows his sagacity in pointing out the vague 
 and incorrect use of language as leading, by inevitable con- 
 sequence, to vague and incoherent thinking. It is so easy 
 to deraisonner in words to which no precise ideas are at- 
 tached. His remedy is good, as far as it goes ; but far 
 from complete, as melancholy experience shows. 
 
 The 'Deutsche Denkwürdigkeiten' reminds me more of 
 the best of Gait's novels than of any other work in the 
 English language. There is the same dry, quiet, natural 
 humour, the same formality and naivete, the same shrewd- 
 ness and good sense. Rumohr's range of subjects is, 
 however, much wider. The work is written in the purest 
 and most vernacular German. The numerous Germanized 
 
326 NOTES. 
 
 foreign words which are found in even the best writers, 
 are entirely excluded from Rumohr's style, which accord- 
 ingly affords an admirable study in the language. 
 
 Baron Rumohr is still living, and resides, I believe, 
 chiefly at Berlin. 
 
 SAVIGNY (FRIEDRICH KARL von).— Page 168. 
 
 Born at Frankfürt a.M., February 21st, 1779, is de- 
 scended from a respectable French family, which settled 
 in Germany early in the seventeenth century. At the age 
 of thirteen he became an orphan, and was taken under 
 the protection of Herr v. Neurath, an intimate friend of 
 his father, and assessor of the Reichskammergericht at 
 Wetzlar. He was educated by him with his own son ; 
 and at the age of fifteen, made to learn, by question and 
 answer, long treatises on the Roman law and that of other 
 nations. This barren and dry mode of instruction was 
 ill-suited to the mind of young Savigny, and he was 
 glad to substitute for it the lectures on the Pandects, 
 which he attended, in 1795, at the University of Marburg. 
 About this time he seems to have acquired that love for 
 the study of the Civil Law, for which he has since been 
 so distinguished. 
 
 In October 1796 he went to the University of Göt- 
 tingen, and attended the lectures of Spittler on Universal 
 History, and of Hugo on Roman Law. During 1799 
 and 1800 he travelled over Germany, visiting, among other 
 universities, those of Leipsig and Jena. In 1800 he took 
 
NOTES. 
 
 327 
 
 the degree of doctor, at Marburg, and became Privat- 
 docent at the same place. From this year to 1804 he de- 
 livered lectures, as professor extraordinary, on the Pan- 
 dects, Ulpian, and Hugo's ' History of Roman Law.' 
 Among his pupils were Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who 
 speak in terms of great admiration of his powers and 
 skill as a teacher. Wilhelm Grimm, in his 'Autobio- 
 graphy,' says, " It appears to me, that what so powerfully 
 attracted and captivated his auditors was, the facility 
 and vivacity of his language, united to his singular calm- 
 ness and moderation. Savigny spoke with great fluency, 
 and rarely consulted his notes. His clear style, the pro- 
 foundness of his convictions, and, at the same time, a 
 sort of reserve and caution in his language, made an im- 
 pression which no eloquence would have produced ; an im- 
 pression which his whole aspect and character contributed 
 to strengthen." 
 
 He began at this time to devote himself more than ever 
 to his favourite pursuit, directing his attention entirely to 
 the sources of the Roman law, and forming his opinions 
 without the aid of commentators. The fruit of these la- 
 bours was the essay on the ' Right of Possession ' {Recht 
 des Besitzes), published in 1803. In 1804, after leaving 
 Marburg, he married Cunigunda Brentano, sister of Bet- 
 tina and Clemens Brentano. Having refused the liberal 
 offers made to him by the Universities of Heidelberg and 
 Greifswald, he visited the libraries of Heidelberg, Stutt- 
 gart, Tübingen, Strasburg, and, finally, Paris; examining 
 all the authors they contained relating to his researches. 
 In 1808 he accepted an invitation to the University of 
 
328 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Landshut, where he was universally beloved, and became 
 intimate with Sailer, the great theologian. 
 
 He quitted this place* after a short stay of a year and 
 ahalf; wishing to withdrawhimself from the French power, 
 and having been invited to the newly-formed University 
 of Berlin by Wilhelm v. Humboldt, then minister of public 
 instruction in Prussia. Here he commenced the lectures 
 on the Pandects and the Institutes, which he continues to 
 give to this day. The most eminent jurists of Germany 
 have been among his pupils. At Berlin, Savigny became 
 acquainted with Niebuhr, and the friendship of these two 
 eminent men, engaged in kindred studies, was of the most 
 intimate kind. In 1811 he was appointed member of the 
 Berlin Academy, and contributed some interesting articles 
 to their memoirs. In 1813 he assisted his friend Eichhorn 
 in the organization of the Landwehr and Landsturm of 
 Berlin. In 1814 he gave instructions in law and political 
 science to the Crown Prince of Prussia, and in that year 
 published his treatise ' On the Vocation of our Age for 
 Legislation and the Science of Lawf.' 
 
 In the following year appeared the first volume of the 
 ' History of the Roman Law in the Middle Ages/ a 
 sixth edition of which was published in 1831. 
 
 The first volume of the work from which the extract 
 
 * An interesting account of his parting-scene at Landshut, 
 and of the enthusiasm of the students on that occasion, is given 
 by Frau von Arnim in her ' Correspondence with Goethe.' — 
 Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde, vol. ii. pp. 171-188. 
 2nd edition. 
 
 f Translated by Mr. Kayward. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 329 
 
 in the text was taken was published last year, the second 
 and third have been published since. 
 
 The number of Englishmen who interest themselves 
 in the subjects of which Herr v. Savigny is so eminent a 
 master, is so extremely small, that his reputation is not 
 likely to be very widely diffused in this country ; but the 
 few who are competent to judge of his proficiency, en- 
 tertain the highest admiration for his ability and learning. 
 
 His style, both as a lecturer and a writer, is regarded 
 by his countrymen as a model of purity, clearness and 
 elegance. 
 
 SCHELLING (FRIEDRICH WILHELM JOSEPH von).— 
 Page 120. 
 
 Born at Leonberg, inWürtemberg, in 1775. He studied 
 at Leipsig and Jena, was a disciple of Fichte, and his 
 successor in the chair of philosophy in the latter univer- 
 sity. He was appointed secretary of the Academy of 
 Arts at Munich, and ennobled by the King of Bavaria ; 
 and in 1827 he was appointed professor of philosophy in 
 the newly- established university of Munich. Schelling's 
 system of philosophy is opposed to that of Fichte, and 
 displaced it in popular estimation. As a lecturer, his 
 eloquence is of the highest order. The greater part of 
 his writings are controversial, and have appeared in va- 
 rious philosophical journals, or as detached essays. His 
 ' Philosophische Schriften,' in one volume, were published 
 at Landshut in 1809. His doctrines have been attacked 
 
330 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 as pantheistical, a charge from which he defended him- 
 self in his treatise 'Über die Freiheit.' Schelling has 
 given occasion to many misunderstandings, by using forms 
 of speech peculiar to himself, without explanation. His 
 philosophy is said to have had a great influence on the 
 actual state of natural science, its tendency being to lead 
 inquirers to regard nature as an organic and living whole, 
 and to investigate the connexion between the various phe- 
 nomena subject to our observation. On the other hand, 
 its ethical side is said to be weaker, and his admirers re- 
 gard his system as still incomplete. 
 
 Schelling has recently received an invitation to Berlin, 
 from the munificent patron of letters and art now on the 
 throne, which it is understood he means to accept. 
 
 SCHILLER (FRIEDRICH vox).— Pages 22, 58, 185, 239. 
 
 Schiller is, of all German writers, the one best known 
 to Europe. It is unnecessary, therefore, for me to extend 
 this note. The English reader who wishes to know more 
 of him has only to refer to Mr. Carlyle's life, of which 
 Goethe thought so highly, that he caused it to be trans- 
 lated into German. The nobleness and earnestness of 
 Schiller's character, his zeal for knowledge, his pure taste 
 and conscience, and his affectionate heart, are beautifully 
 revealed in his correspondence with Wilhelm v. Hum- 
 boldt, which indeed inspires love and veneration for both 
 these remarkable men. 
 
 Schiller is emphatically the poet of the German nation. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 331 
 
 Goethe is, both as a man and a writer, too difficult a 
 problem for the many. Schiller's merits are far more 
 within the compass of popular apprehension ; his genius 
 never soars out of reach, and his character presents no 
 difficulties or stumbling-blocks. 
 
 One of Schiller's most remarkable characteristics was 
 his progressiveness. I cannot resist again quoting the 
 striking words which Goethe uttered to Mr. Felix Men- 
 delsohn, from whom I had them. 
 
 " Er hatte ein furchtbares Fortschreiten. Wenn ich 
 ihn einmal acht Tage lang nicht gesehen hatte, so staunte 
 ich, und wusste nicht wo ich ihn anfassen sollte, und 
 fand ihn schon wieder weiter geschritten. Und so ging er 
 immer vorwärts bis sechs und vierzig Jahre ; — da war er 
 denn freilich weit genug." 
 
 ['• He strode forward with awful rapidity. If I was a 
 week without seeing him, when we met I was astounded, 
 and knew not where to lay hold on him, I found him so 
 much further advanced. And so he went on, — ever for- 
 wards, for forty-six years ; — then indeed he had gone far 
 enough."] 
 
 SCHLEGEL (A. W. vox).— Pages 4, 10, 11, 17, 29, 54, 71, 
 91, 97, 120, 139, 172. 
 
 SCHLEGEL (FRIEDRICH von).— Pages 172, 178. 
 
 These two eminent brothers come of a family remark- 
 able for poetical talent and literary attainments. Their 
 father, Johann Adolf, was distinguished for his eloquence 
 in the pulpit, and wrote fables in verse and hymns of con- 
 
332 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 siderable merit. He translated from the French a work 
 of criticism on art — the department of literature which 
 his son was destined to carry to such perfection. Another 
 brother, Johann Heinrich, was professor of history at 
 Copenhagen, and left some works on Danish history ; 
 he was the successful translator of some English plays — 
 another line, in which his nephew is without a rival. 
 A third, Johann Elias, was the oldest and most highly 
 gifted of this elder generation of poets. When a boy, he 
 attempted a translation of Horace and of Xenophon's 
 ' Cyropsedia/ and wrote a tragedy called ' The Trojan 
 Women.' He settled in Copenhagen, and the services he 
 rendered to the literature both of his native and adoptive 
 country were very great. He is almost the first German 
 dramatic writer worthy of mention. It would perhaps 
 be difficult to find a family which, in two generations, 
 had furnished five such industrious and able labourers in 
 the field of art and literature. 
 
 August- Wilhelm, the only surviving member of this 
 distinguished race, has done so much for the diffusion 
 and illustration of English literature, that it would be 
 strange if it were necessary to recount his services here. 
 His translations of Shakspeare's plays are consummate 
 works of art. Such is Herr v. Schlegel's masterly handling 
 of his own language, and the exquisite nicety of his ear, 
 that he has in many cases (for example, Hamlet's soliloquy) 
 caught the very cadence of the original. With no other 
 living language than the German, perhaps, would this be 
 possible ; and even in that it is a wonderful achievement. 
 This translation was begun in 1797 ■ Nine volumes 
 
NOTES. 
 
 333 
 
 have been published, and Tieck has undertaken a re- 
 vision of it, and the addition of the wanting plays. Cal- 
 deron presented still greater difficulties of a metrical kind ; 
 these Herr v. Schlegel has triumphantly overcome ; he 
 has adhered to the original even in metre, rhyme and 
 assonance, and has combined this exact imitation of form 
 with an equally faithful interpretation of the meaning. 
 The translation of the two greatest dramatic poets of two 
 nations so unlike in genius, shows a talent for discrimina-, 
 ting, and a power of handling all the forms and resources 
 of language, which have never been surpassed. 
 
 Herr v. Schlegel's merits as a critic are such as might 
 be expected from a poet accustomed to the nice analysis 
 which the reproduction of the highest works of art re- 
 quires. His lectures on the Drama have long been known 
 to the English public through a translation which has 
 reached a second edition. In 1807 he wrote, in French, 
 a comparison between the 'Phaedra' of Euripides and that 
 of Racine, which excited great attention among the critics 
 of France. His two volumes of 'Kritische Schriften' 
 (1828) contain a mass of ingenious criticism, especially 
 an article on 'Romeo and Juliet,' which, I think, is known 
 to the English public. 
 
 His fame as an original poet, though considerable, is 
 eclipsed by that which he has earned as a critic and trans- 
 lator. His beautiful elegy called ' Rome,' dedicated to 
 Madame de Stael, is among the choicest specimens of 
 German poetry. Since the year 1818 he has been living at 
 Bonn as professor, and has devoted himself to the study 
 and elucidation of ancient and modern art, and still more 
 
334 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 to oriental literature- Since 1820 he has published the 
 ' Indische Bibliothek,' and a Latin translation of an epi- 
 sode from the epic poem ' Maha-Bharata.' In 1823 his 
 oriental pursuits brought him to France and England. 
 In 1827 he gave a course of lectures on the fine arts at 
 Berlin ; and in the winter of the same year he repeated 
 these at his own house at Bonn, to an invited audience, 
 among whom I was so fortunate as to be admitted. My 
 ear was then wholly unaccustomed to German, and I was 
 able to appreciate the important help which a learner de- 
 rives from the distinct and finished elocution, for which 
 Herr v. Schlegel is celebrated. 
 
 Friedrich, his younger brother, was also chiefly distin- 
 guished as a critic. His first large work was the ' Griechen 
 und Römer,' which contains a discussion on the female 
 characters in the Greek poets. It received the praise of 
 Heyne, then the highest authority on ancient literature, 
 but unfortunately remained incomplete. His works con- 
 sist chiefly of detached essays and fragments, which 
 suffice to prove his great learning and originality. 
 
 In 1799 he published his 'Lucinde,' a novel, concern- 
 ing which the greatest diversity of opinions exists — disap- 
 probation being, I believe, the prevailing sentiment. At 
 that time he was living at Berlin, whence he removed to 
 Jena. Here he first appeared before the public as a poet, 
 and published his ' Hercules Musagetes,' and a drama 
 called ' Alarkos.' In 1802 he went to Paris, where he gave 
 lectures on philosophy, and published a monthly paper 
 called 1 Europa.' Like his brother, he devoted himself to 
 oriental literature, and also to the old romances of France. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 335 
 
 He published a collection of the poetry of the middle ages 
 in two volumes ; and a translation of the ballad of Roland, 
 from Turpin. He returned to Germany, and not long 
 after became a member of the Roman Catholic Church — a 
 change which made a great sensation in Germany. In 
 1808 he went to Vienna, and was appointed imperial 
 secretary at the head-quarters of the Archduke Charles. 
 His spirited proclamations had a great effect in exciting 
 the popular feeling. After the political wreck of Austria, 
 he returned to his literary labours, and gave lectures on 
 modern history, and on the history of the literature of all 
 nations, which were published. They evince a thorough 
 acquaintance with literature, and great skill in analysing 
 its characteristic peculiarities. Prince Metternich sent 
 him as Councillor of Legation to the Diet at Frankfürt, 
 whence he returned to Vienna, and continued his literary 
 labours till his death. 
 
 The Schlegels were the heads of a literary party, whose 
 controversies were sometimes carried on, like all other 
 party warfare, with poisoned weapons. The acrimony 
 which characterizes political discussions in representative 
 and debating countries, seems in Germany to be transferred 
 to literary questions. Let us hope that the wounds in- 
 flicted on both sides are by this time healed and nearly 
 forgotten. 
 
336 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 SCHLEIERMACHER (FRIEDRICH DANIEL ERNST).— 
 Pages 79, 147. 
 
 One of the most learned and eloquent divines of this 
 age, was born at Breslau in 1768. He studied theology 
 at Halle, and after living as tutor in the family of Count 
 Dohna, he entered the seminary for schoolmasters at 
 Berlin. In 1794 he was ordained, and two years later 
 was appointed preacher to the House of Charity at Berlin. 
 He began his literary career by translating Blair's, and 
 afterwards Fawcett's, Sermons. He however soon took a 
 higher flight, and published his magnificent ' Discourses 
 on Religion' (Reden über die Religion), from which the 
 two short extracts in the text are taken. In 1804 he un- 
 dertook the translation of Plato, which unhappily the 
 stormy times, and his consequent disturbed life, prevented 
 him from finishing ; five volumes are published. It is 
 deeply to be regretted that his promised essay on the cha- 
 racter and philosophy of Plato is among the portions of 
 the work which he did not live to complete, since few men 
 in modern times have been qualified as he was to fathom 
 the depths of the greatest philosophical genius the world 
 has produced. Three volumes of Schleiermacher's ser- 
 mons have appeared at different times. All of them are 
 models of clear, solid, impressive eloquence, addressed 
 less to the feelings than the reason of his audience. 
 
 He declined an invitation to Würzburg, and went as 
 preacher to the university, and professor of theology at 
 Halle ; but both the studies and religious services of that 
 university were soon interrupted by war. During those 
 
NOTES. 
 
 337 
 
 frightful times he felt the evils under which his country 
 groaned like a true patriot, and spoke from the pulpit ' for 
 king and fatherland/ with an intrepidity which the pre- 
 sence of Davoust's bayonets could not daunt. About this 
 time he published his ' Grundlinien einer Kritik der 
 bisherigen Sittenlehre/ his ' Essay on Universities,' and 
 other works. In 1809 he was appointed preacher at 
 Trinity church in Berlin, and married. In 1810 he was 
 appointed professor in the new university of that capital. 
 Here he displayed all the brilliancy of his eloquence. In 
 the great and coherent rhetorical structure which was 
 adorned with all the evanescent graces of an extempore 
 delivery, he grasped the most abstruse and pregnant 
 questions of science with acuteness and precision, and 
 followed them out into the minutest details with lumi- 
 nous order and distinctness. In 1811 he became mem- 
 ber of the Academy of Sciences, the Memoirs of which 
 contain several papers by him relating to the history of 
 ancient philosophers (Anaximander, Diogenes of Apollo- 
 nia, Socrates) . He also published ' Darstellung des theo 
 logischen Studiums.' His last work is the ' Christliche 
 Glaubenslehre.' 
 
 Schleiermacher visited England in the autumn of 1833, 
 and opened the new German church at the Savoy. His 
 opinions on the religious condition of this country are 
 to be found in the introduction to his ' Discourses on 
 Religion.' His person, like that of his friend Niebuhr, was 
 extremely small. Schleiermacher was even deformed ; but 
 this want of physical advantages perhaps only added to 
 the reverence which the refined and intellectual character 
 Q 
 
338 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 of his countenance inspired. His treatise on the Gospel 
 of St. Luke was translated into English by the Rev. Con- 
 nop Thirlwall, now Bishop of St. David's. 
 
 Schleiermacher was a man of ardent piety and unsullied 
 purity of character, and his death was worthy of his life. 
 
 There is a very interesting memoir of him by Lücke in 
 the 'Theologische Studien' for 1834, entitled ' Erinne- 
 rungen an Dr. F. Schleiermacher. ' A most touching and 
 impressive account of his death is also to be found in the 
 * Journal of Education/ No. XX. It was communicated 
 by his widow to one who is remembered with affectionate 
 regret by all who knew him, — the late learned and amiable 
 Dr. Frederic Rosen. 
 
 I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of adding it, 
 slightly abridged, to this imperfect record of so much 
 learning, piety and worth. 
 
 " During the whole of his last illness (which terminated 
 fatally in February 1834), his mind remained clear ; his 
 manner was calm and collected, his submissiveness to 
 every arrangement most punctilious. Not a word of 
 complaint or murmur escaped his lips ; he was patient, 
 kind to all, and at all moments, though an air of deep 
 thoughtfulness constantly overspread his features. One 
 day, waking out of a slumber induced by opium, he called 
 his beloved wife to his side, and said, ' I am in a state 
 which wavers between consciousness and insensibility, but 
 internally I experience inexpressible ecstasy ; my mind is 
 occupied with the deepest speculations, mingled with re- 
 ligious feelings of the most glowing fervour.' His last 
 days and hours, indeed, were brightened by the holiest of 
 
NOTES. 
 
 339 
 
 religious influences ; even his dreams were the reflexion 
 of his Christian bearing through life. 
 
 " His thoughts were filled with love toward his chil- 
 dren and friends, and the nearer his end approached the 
 more did the fervency of his affection display itself; it was 
 the indwelling breath of his life. ' Children,' said he, ' I 
 bequeath to you the counsel of St. John, * Love one an- 
 other ;' and I charge you,' he added, turning to his wife, 
 'to bear my farewell to all my friends, and to tell them 
 how heartfelt was the love I bore them.' 
 
 '* He knew that his last moments were drawing near ; 
 he was anxious to have been spared to his own yet a little 
 longer, and he was conscious that he had many struggles 
 to endure before he passed into eternity ; yet he was 
 wholly resigned to the dispensations of eternal love, and 
 looked forward to the hour of his closing conflict with a 
 courageous heart. The last morning of his life brought 
 with it a great increase of bodily suffering ; he complained 
 of burning heat in the inside, and for the first and last 
 time throughout his protracted pains, a murmur escaped 
 his lips, * Gracious Father, I suffer grievously.' He then 
 turned to his family, who were standing round his bed, 
 and said to them, ' My dear children, leave me — leave me. 
 I would not have you witness this scene of anguish.' The 
 hand of death was on his features ; his eye was dim ; he 
 had wrestled with death." 
 
 But the departing spirit received strength and light 
 from above to perform once more the most solemn act of 
 the Christian ministry. Having asserted his firm faith in 
 the expiatory death of Christ, and received the assurance 
 Q 2 
 
340 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 of that of his assembled family, he called hastily for the 
 sacred emblems ; then sitting up in his bed, with a 
 clear and solemn voice, " with a countenance brightening 
 with increasing animation, a glow of more than mortal 
 benevolence, a radiance such as never shone upon it before, 
 and such as no words can describe, he began to pray and 
 to exhort them briefly in terms befitting the occasion. 
 He then delivered the bread and wine to each separately ; 
 after which he administered them to himself, saying di- 
 stinctly and audibly, * On these words of Holy Scripture I 
 place my assured trust ; they are the corner-stone of my 
 faith.' Having pronounced the blessing, he turned his eyes 
 on his wife with an expression of inmost love, and gazed 
 upon each of his children with a look of unutterable sym- 
 pathy, adding, ' In this love and communion of souls, then, 
 we are and shall be one, and undivided.' He sank back 
 upon his pillow, and a heavenly smile beamed across his 
 features. After a few minutes he gently exclaimed, ' My 
 spirit can no longer abide with you on earth.' He spoke 
 once more, and requested we would change his position ; 
 we laid him upon his side ; he drew a few breaths more, 
 and his eyes closed on the things of this world." 
 
 SCHOPENHAUER (JOHANNA).— Page 223. 
 
 Madame Schopenhauer was, as this passage from her 
 memoirs shows, a native of Dantzig. She lived for many 
 years with her husband at Hamburg ; after his death she 
 removed to Weimar, where she enjoyed the intimate 
 
NOTES. 
 
 341 
 
 friendship of the late excellent Grand Duchess Louisa and 
 of Goethe. Her house was the resort of that singular 
 constellation of eminent men who were then collected 
 there, as well as of all distinguished strangers. 
 
 She wrote several novels, which still enjoy a high re- 
 putation ; especially 'Gabriele' and 'Die Tante;' also 
 ' Travels in England, France and Belgium/ an Essay on old 
 German Art, called 'Johann van Eyck and his followers,' 
 of which I have heard the highest praises ; and, lastly, 
 these ' Memoirs,' published, since her death, by her accom- 
 plished daughter. It is one of the most agreeable little 
 books I ever read. At seventy-one Madame Schopenhauer 
 sits down to record the recollections of her varied life, and 
 she does it with so clear, bright and true a pen, that we 
 live in the midst of the objects and habits of the last cen- 
 tury. From the system of education to that of ladies' 
 patches, from religious observances to the scarlet coats and 
 three-tailed perukes of physicians, the whole moving pic- 
 ture of the free city and its burghers is before us. Human 
 life, too, is there ; not inflated with exaggerations, or 
 shrouded in mists of sentimentality, or falsified by a spu- 
 rious originality ; but true, human, chequered life, with 
 its common allotment of smiles and tears, its quick-mov- 
 ing lights and shadows, its present good, and its better 
 hopes. Madame Schopenhauer is not one of the writers 
 who seem to regard the world as interesting to their readers 
 only in its effects on their own mind and feelings. We find 
 none of those descriptions of the emotions and the idio- 
 syncrasies of the author, with which we are now so often 
 entertained. Not that the study of a simple and true hu- 
 
342 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 man heart is not the most interesting of all studies ; but 
 simple and true hearts do not occupy themselves with 
 themselves. 
 
 The attempt to make the feelings and affections, the il- 
 lusions or the aspirations, of one's youth a source of 
 amusement and interest to the public, is one which were 
 better discouraged. Such disclosures of what Germans 
 call the inward life, are not only destructive of the reserve 
 which it is neither safe nor graceful for a woman to lay 
 aside, but are apt, in either sex, to degenerate into false- 
 hood ; and more apt in the one in which the desire to 
 please and to interest is the strongest. It is not the 
 height or abstruseness of a subject which renders it dan- 
 gerous to domestic usefulness or feminine reserve ; we 
 have before us an example of one whose attainments in a 
 most profound science are only equalled by her various 
 skill in all domestic accomplishments, and the blameless 
 beauty of her unobtrusive life. It is the desire of being the 
 heroine of an interesting romance, of astonishing by flights 
 of originality, that seems likely to indispose a woman for 
 the retirement of domestic life, the homely monotony of 
 every-day duties, and the small acts of undramatic self- 
 sacrifice, which it is so important to her peace to be able 
 to perform without even a feeling of reluctance. 
 
 The more we wish to see the sphere of her mental acti- 
 vity enlarged and elevated, the more careful ought we to 
 be not to give to that activity an unsound direction. Of 
 imagination and sensibility, women, generally speaking, 
 are sure to have enough : sobriety of judgment, well- 
 directed energy, extensive and, if they please, profound 
 
NOTES. 
 
 343 
 
 acquirements, would be far safer possessions. There is, 
 indeed, a sort of sensibility which cannot be too pro- 
 found, a sort of enthusiasm which cannot be too pas- 
 sionate ; but these are not encouraged by watching the 
 beatings of one's own heart, nor by recording them for the 
 amusement of the public. Their legitimate and salutary 
 food is to be drawn from the far higher and more copious 
 sources of Piety and Charity. Let the heart weary of 
 seeking what it finds not, drink at these springs, and it 
 will be refreshed, strengthened and satisfied. The culture 
 of the reason, together with that of the larger and higher 
 affections, is the true cure for the most serious defects of 
 women in domestic life, and for their most serious suffer- 
 ings in a life of isolation. If their tenderness and sym- 
 pathy were guided by reason, by steady religious princi- 
 ple, and by a knowledge of the structure and laws of 
 the moral world (without which nobody can possibly 
 serve mankind), they might not only escape or disarm the 
 bitterest sorrows to which they are liable, and improve 
 their domestic condition and influences, but might bring 
 to bear an almost resistless force against many of the evils 
 that desolate the earth. 
 
 I have enlarged too long on this ' fatale Subjectivität,' 
 to use a German lady's words ; but it forms so promi- 
 nent a feature in the literature of our times, that I hope 
 I may be excused. I am afraid the morbid demand for 
 admiration, and still more for sympathy, which is a disease 
 very incident to my sex, is at the bottom of a vast deal of 
 the internal history now entrusted to that tender and 
 equitable confidant, the public. I cannot help thinking 
 
344 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 that a woman's heart is best revealed in her life ; and if 
 she writes, in the tendency of her works ; and that she, 
 of whose healthy sensibility much is to be said, will not 
 need to say anything about it herself. Those who agree 
 with me, will be delighted with the brief and graceful touch 
 with which Madame Schopenhauer passes over the tender 
 sorrows of her youth, — the Herzensangelegenheiten, about 
 which it is so easy to be eloquent. 
 
 It is extremely to be regretted that the ' Memoirs ' are 
 imperfect and fragmentary. The first partition of Poland, 
 the American war, the French revolution, the general war, 
 including the frightful siege of her paternal city, and the 
 entrance of the French army into Weimar — these events, 
 and the actors in them, Catherine, Frederic the Great, 
 Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, and many 
 of lesser note, pass before our eyes like giant forms, which 
 throw a shadow over her pretty domestic pictures. The 
 remarks are, throughout, those of a sound, clear mind — 
 the morality is practical and pure. 
 
 STURZ (HELFRICH PETER). — Page 214. 
 
 Born in 1737, at Darmstadt. He studied jurisprudence 
 at Göttingen, and at the same time cultivated aesthetics 
 and rhetoric. He filled the office of secretary to some di- 
 stinguished men, and went strongly recommended to Co- 
 penhagen, where he soon mastered the Danish language, 
 and became private secretary to the elder Bernstorf. He 
 
NOTES. 
 
 345 
 
 lived most happily in Bernstorf's house. Here, under the 
 eye of that great statesman and philanthropist, he en- 
 joyed ample means of acquiring knowledge of men as well 
 as of books, and he rapidly became a man of the world 
 and a statesman, as well as a poet and a man of letters. 
 His ' Recollections of the Life of Bernstorf,' written in 
 1777, are a monument of the gratitude which he evinced 
 toward his benefactor on every occasion. In 1768 he 
 accompanied Christian VII. on his visit to France and 
 England ; this journey enlarged the sphere of his know- 
 ledge, procured him the acquaintance of the most eminent 
 men of both countries, and gave occasion to his excellent 
 'Letters of a Traveller.' The confusion consequent on 
 the fall of Struensee was fatal to Sturz. On the very day 
 appointed for his marriage he was thrown into prison, 
 where he was detained four months. On his liberation he 
 received a pension, on which he lived for a time at Glück- 
 stadt and Altona. He was afterwards appointed by the 
 Danish Court Regierungsrath at Oldenburg ; and after the 
 exchange of that province and Delmenhorst for Russian 
 Holstein, he was created Councillor of State of the Duchy 
 of Oldenburg, with a lucrative appointment. But neither 
 this advancement, nor the society of an amiable wife, nor 
 the reputation he acquired as an author, nor the sincere 
 respect of his friends, could make him forget that dark 
 period of his life. The recollection of his sufferings had 
 sunk too deeply into his mind, and had destroyed his 
 health and cheerfulness. He died at Bremen in 1779- 
 
 He was one of the most elegant prose-writers of his time 
 in Germany, remarkable for refined taste, sound judg- 
 Q 5 
 
'M6 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 ment, and an agreeable flow of wit. His style is, how- 
 ever, somewhat deficient in ease and simplicity, and his 
 letters and lighter works are deformed by the frequent use 
 of foreign words. The best edition of his works is 
 ' Schriften von H. P. Sturz,' Leipsig, 1786. 
 
 The eulogium of Bernstorf in my text, high as it is, 
 was deserved. He was one of the few men who have 
 shown themselves capable of using power solely with a 
 view to the interests of the governed. One of the most 
 interesting monuments of gratitude in the world is the 
 column voluntarily erected to him by the peasants on his 
 estate, whom he had freed from serfage, and whose con- 
 dition he had laboured to raise. Bernstorfs fall, alluded 
 to in the text, was the result of the intrigues of Struen- 
 see. He retired to Hamburg, where he died in 1772. 
 
 He must not be confounded with his equally great and 
 philanthropic nephew, Andreas Peter, to whose enlighten- 
 ed views and moderation Denmark owed so much during 
 the stormy period of the French Revolution ; and at 
 whose funeral the late king, Frederic VI., then Crown 
 Prince, took his place among the sons of the departed. 
 
 These two eminent statesmen wanted only a wider and 
 more conspicuous field of action to have been as illustrious 
 as they were truly great. They were the enlightened 
 patrons of literature and art ; the zealous promoters of 
 everything that can raise or benefit mankind. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 347 
 
 TIECK (LUDWIG). — Pages 7, 59, 95, 110, 200, 209. 
 
 One of the most eminent and most original poets of 
 Germany, was born at Berlin in 1773, and is brother of 
 the celebrated sculptor of that name. He studied at Halle 
 and Göttingen, where he devoted himself chiefly to his- 
 tory and to ancient and modern literature, and early began 
 to display the genius which he has cultivated with such 
 eminent success. During a visit to Jena and Weimar he 
 became acquainted with the Schlegels and Novalis, who, 
 with him, were afterwards the heads of the Romantic 
 school, and the authors of that great revolution in poetry 
 and art which has produced such wide-spread and lasting 
 effects in Europe. We have seen, in a former note, how 
 much A. W. Schlegel, by his translations of Shakspeare 
 and Calderon, and by his critical works, contributed to 
 overthrow the French despotism in literature (already 
 shaken by Lessing) and the taste of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. Tieck brought into the field yet more powerful 
 weapons ; rich productive genius, wit, boundless fertility 
 and brilliancy of imagination, poetical diction, and a vast 
 acquaintance with the models of what he thought a purer 
 and grander style of art. 
 
 At a very early age he produced his ' Abdallah,' ' Wil- 
 liam Lovel,' and other works of imagination. These, as 
 may be supposed, are very inferior to his later works. 
 
 Tieck's services to art have not been confined to one 
 branch of it. In conjunction with his friend Wachenroder, 
 he produced the ' Herzensergiessungen eines kunstlieben- 
 
348 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 den Klosterbruders/ ' Phantasien über die Kunst,' These 
 relate chiefly to painting and sculpture, and he applies to 
 them the principles of the poetical school of which he was 
 the able champion. He also wrote 'Franz Sternbalds 
 Wanderungen,' a history of the life of a young artist, un- 
 der the influence of Italian or southern life, contrasted 
 with that of Germany. Tieck's opinions on art were 
 afterwards rendered more distinct and profound by his 
 residence in Rome, Dresden and Munich. 
 
 In 1799-1801 appeared his translation of 'Don Quix- 
 otte.' This period of his life was fertile both in original and 
 in critical works ; the most interesting among the latter 
 were his ' Letters on Shakspeare,' which unfortunately 
 were not long continued. He likewise published a trans- 
 lation of the 'Tempest,' and an 'Essay on Shakspeare's 
 Treatment of the Marvellous.' In 1814-16 he published 
 his 'Old English Theatre' in two volumes ; and in 1818 
 came to London to collect materials for his great work on 
 Shakspeare, to which ' Shakspeare's Vorschule ' (Leipsig, 
 1823) may be regarded as an introduction. It may be 
 hoped, that whenever this distinguished poet and critic 
 shall have completed his labours on a subject so inte- 
 resting to the English public, they will be translated. 
 
 So many English travellers are indebted to Tieck's 
 courteous hospitality for the enjoyment of hearing him 
 read Shakspeare, that I need hardly mention the well- 
 known beauty of his elocution, and his singular dramatic 
 talent. The vivacity, variety and truth of his expression 
 are never to be forgotten. His fine capacious head, and 
 brilliant eye, add not a little to the effect of his reading. 
 
NOTES» 
 
 349 
 
 There is a very beautiful portrait of him by his friend 
 Vogel of Dresden ; one of the few which leave an inde- 
 lible impression, and show that the painter has received 
 the mind of the poet into his own. 
 
 Tieck's stories appear to me so enchanting, that their 
 small success in England is a riddle I cannot explain upon 
 any hypothesis flattering to the taste of the country. 
 
 The ' Pictures ' and * The Betrothing ' were translated 
 and published in one volume by the Rev. Connop Thirl- 
 wall, the present Bishop of St. David's. 'The Old Man 
 of the Mountain,' ' The Love Charm,' and ' Pietro of 
 Albano,' in another, by the Rev. Julius Hare, now Arch- 
 deacon of Sussex. Several, if not all, of the tales in the 
 'Phantasus' are to be found in Mr. Carlyle's 'German 
 Romances.' Yet in spite of these efforts of the most ac- 
 complished translators to make Tieck known in England, 
 his popularity is very far from approaching to his merits. 
 These are altogether peculiar. The fantastic grace, the 
 mysterious charm, of his 'Märchen' are unrivalled. They 
 seem written not only about, but by, fairies, and ' creatures 
 of the element.' He manages to combine a sort of infan- 
 tine simplicity with the gorgeousncss of eastern imagery, 
 or the dimness of gothic superstition. They have the en- 
 gaging naivete and the daring invention of the old stories 
 that lived in the hearts and on the lips of the people. 
 Higher praise than this it is not in the power of words 
 to express ; though the unfortunate children of these days 
 are taught to consider them as beneath their notice. I 
 know few writers who more powerfully stir the fancy than 
 Tieck. In this respect he reminds one of Chaucer. His 
 
350 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 descriptions of nature, like those of our great poet, 
 "breathe a spring freshness." All that makes up the 
 charm of a wood, for instance, — its verdure, coolness, 
 fragrance and dreamy music, seem brought before our 
 very senses by an art which it is extremely difficult to de- 
 fine. The musical element in nature is, indeed, the one 
 which seems to predominate in his soul ; it flows, like the 
 murmuring of water, through all his works. As Goethe's 
 genius manifested itself preeminently in the plastic, so 
 does Tieck's in the musical ; his words bring sounds to 
 the ear, as Goethe's do form to the eye. 
 
 I might mention however, as an illustration of his power 
 of painting, the scene in the ' Pokal,' where the enchanter 
 shows the enamoured youth the face of his beloved. The 
 rising of the rosy vapour out of the cup, and its gradual 
 condensation into the sweet features of the beautiful girl, 
 is a piece of the most exquisite sorcery. 
 
 My extracts do not present the author under this aspect. 
 I did not choose to mutilate his charming stories, and 
 therefore took fragments of conversations from what must, 
 after all, be regarded as his masterpiece, the 'Phantasus,' 
 which is a sort of Decameron. A party of friends are 
 assembled in a country house, where they talk and tell 
 stories. The main object of the author seems to be to 
 make war on the shallow pretension to superior lights 
 and virtues, on fashionable affectations, and on cant of 
 all sorts. There is a great deal of ' polemical poetry,' as 
 the Germans call it, in his dramas, which are founded on 
 old stories, such as his 'Bluebeard,' 'Puss in Boots,' 
 ' Emperor Octavian,' etc. I must confess, however, that 
 
NOTES. 
 
 351 
 
 Tieck's wit seems to me less admirable than his fancy 
 and his tenderness. But I am aware that it is more diffi- 
 cult to appreciate the wit of another nation, than any 
 other quality. 
 
 The list of Tieck's * Novellen,' or Tales, is too long to 
 insert here. Among the most beautiful of them I may 
 mention the ' Dichterleben ' (Poet's Life), — a Trilogy 
 illustrating the life of Shakspeare. The scene of the 
 first story lies at Kenilworth, and introduces us to the 
 infant poet and to Queen Elizabeth. The second repre- 
 sents his youth, his friendship for Southampton, and the 
 development of his genius. The third, his maturer age. 
 The characters of Greene and Marlowe, in the latter, are 
 drawn with the hand of a master. The death of Camoens 
 forms the subject of another not less beautiful tale. All 
 this class of Tieck's novels are vehicles for refined specu- 
 lations on art and its subjects, which perhaps unfit them 
 for England. 
 
 His longest and, as many think, best novel, the ' War 
 in the Cevennes,' is unhappily not finished. He published 
 last year ' Vittoria Accorombona,' which I have not read. 
 
 I believe it was this novel which furnished the King of 
 Prussia with an occasion for one of those acts which ex- 
 cite the gratitude of all who care for letters or art. While 
 I was in Germany last year, I had the pleasure of hear- 
 ing, that, on receiving a copy of it from the author, the 
 king wrote him a very kind letter, assuring to him a pen- 
 sion of a thousand dollars a year for his life, and, with a 
 grace which doubled the value of his bounty, annexed the 
 condition that the poet should visit him once a year at 
 
352 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Sans-Souci, allotting two hundred Friedrichs-d'or for the 
 expenses of each journey. 
 
 I will not vouch for the accuracy of the sums ; but I can 
 speak to the general satisfaction which such a tribute to 
 the greatest living poet of Germany, and such a solicitude 
 for the comfort of his declining years, diffused. 
 
 WALTER (FERDINAND). — Page 223. 
 
 Professor Walter is an eminent jurist at the university 
 of Bonn, where his lectures on Canon Law are much ad- 
 mired. The book from which the extract is taken is said 
 to contain a remarkably clear history of the origin and 
 growth of the Roman law. 
 
 "WEBER (KARL MARIA vox).— Page 54. 
 
 Karl Maria, son of Major v. Weber, was born at Eutin 
 in Holstein in 1"S6. He early divided the leisure left him 
 from severer studies between painting and music, in the 
 former of which he made considerable progress. But, un- 
 consciously, music gained exclusive possession of the young 
 artist ; and his father, perceiving the strong bent of his 
 genius, sedulously cultivated it, at the expense of great 
 personal sacrifices, and in all the changes of residence 
 which his profession occasioned, sought out the best mas- 
 
NOTES. 
 
 353 
 
 ters for his son. When the little Karl was only twelve 
 years of age he composed six fughetti, which his father, to 
 encourage him, caused to be printed. They were favourably 
 noticed in the Leips. Musikal. Zeitung. His father then 
 took him to Munich, and placed him under the tuition of 
 a singing master, and the eminent organist Kalcher, to 
 whose instructions he was greatly indebted for his future 
 command of the resources of his art. Weber's labours 
 were unremitting. His taste for dramatic music now 
 began to manifest itself, and he wrote, under the eye of 
 his instructor, an opera called ' Die Macht der Liebe und 
 des Weins.' At the age of fourteen he composed his 
 opera of the - Waldmädchen,' which was performed in the 
 year 1800 at Prague, Vienna, Petersburg, etc. with great 
 success ; he himself afterwards regarded it as a crude at- 
 tempt, though not wholly deficient in originality. Weber's 
 active, excitable mind was now called off from music by 
 the invention of the art of printing on stone, which he 
 thought he had shared with Sennefelder, and even that he 
 had discovered a more convenient process. In order to 
 prosecute his schemes he went to Freyberg, where the 
 materials were at hand ; but the mechanical part of the 
 employment soon disgusted him, and he returned with 
 double zest to composition. 
 
 In 1302 he made a musical tour with his father to 
 Leipsig, Hamburg and Holstein, collecting and studying 
 with indefatigable zeal theoretical works on music. 
 
 He now for the first time in his life took his place alone 
 in the musical world of Vienna, where he made the ac- 
 quaintance of Haydn, and of the Abbe Vogler, who, capti- 
 
354 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 vated by his earnest desire for improvement, cordially un- 
 locked to him all the treasures of his knowledge. By his 
 advice, the young artist gave up, for the present, the com- 
 position of great works, and devoted himself for nearly two 
 years to the incessant and unwearied study of the great 
 masters, whose works he subjected to the most accurate 
 analysis. He also perfected himself in pianoforte-playing. 
 He was now invited to Breslau as music director, and com- 
 posed there his opera of ' Rübezahl.' In 1806 Duke Eu- 
 gene of Würtemberg attracted him to Karlsruhe in Silesia, 
 where he produced various works. The pretty theatre 
 and excellent chapel being ruined by the common de- 
 stroyer, war, he set out on an artistical tour, whence he 
 returned to the house of his patron, Duke Eugene, at 
 Stuttgard. We cannot follow him through all the steps 
 of his progress. In 1816 he was at Berlin, where he 
 composed his three splendid pianoforte sonatas. In 1817 
 he undertook the management of the German opera in 
 Dresden, and composed various works, among which we 
 can only particularize the ' Freyschütz/ which was first 
 performed at Berlin in 1821. Here too he composed 
 ' Preziosa/ The enormous success of the ' Freyschütz ' 
 brought him a commission to compose a new opera for 
 Vienna, and Frau v. Chezy wrote the libretto of ' Eury- 
 anthe ' from an old French story. It occupied him for 
 nearly two years, at the end of which he went to Vienna, 
 and directed the performance of it himself. In 1824 he 
 received the commission to compose 'Oberon' for the 
 London stage. In order to fit himself for this work he 
 applied himself to the study of the English language. Al- 
 
NOTES. 
 
 355 
 
 ready, however, the incessant activity and labour of his 
 mind had begun the work of destruction on his delicate 
 frame. In 1825 he went to Ems, but without any per- 
 manent good result. In 1826 he came, already suffering 
 from disease in the lungs, to London, finished his beau- 
 tiful work, and on the very day when the ' Freyschütz ' 
 was to be performed for his benefit, his pure and melo- 
 dious soul took its flight. 
 
 He was attended in his last illness by Dr. Kind, a young 
 German physician resident in London, now also no more, 
 and nephew of Weber's friend Kind the poet. From him 
 I heard many particulars of the affecting and beautiful 
 close of Weber's blameless life. His conscience was as 
 delicate as his taste ; his affections as overflowing as his 
 genius. He was meek and unoffending, and exact in the 
 performance of all his duties. 
 
 The two little volumes from which the letter in the 
 text is taken, contain other proofs of Weber's exquisite 
 moral sensibility. I hesitated between this and a letter to 
 a man who had brought unjust charges against him. The 
 truly Christian temper, the scrupulous veracity, the humi- 
 lity and charity that it breathes, are inexpressibly touch- 
 ing. 
 
 But it is not alone as showing the sweetness, purity and 
 rectitude which marked the character of the composer of 
 the ' Frey schütz ' and the ' Oberon,' that this letter is in- 
 teresting ; the views it contains of the character, vocation 
 and duties of an artist are well worthy of serious consi- 
 deration. The establishment of singing-schools, and the 
 general cultivation of music, will not, it is to be feared, 
 
356 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 realize the expectations of those who look to them for 
 important moral results, until the opinions and conduct 
 of the public are changed as to the province of Art, and 
 the place allotted to artists. I am far, indeed, from think- 
 ing that a currency in what is called good society would 
 be for the advantage of either. Society ought to reverence 
 the possessors of that sublime secret called genius too 
 highly to imagine that they can have anything to gain 
 by its intercourse. But though its flattery and caresses 
 can do them nothing but harm, it ought to abstain from 
 destroying their independence of spirit by its caprices, or 
 their self-respect by its contempt. Much is said about the 
 humanizing and elevating effect of Art. But what empty 
 talk is this, if the artist — if he who alone can give form, 
 vitality and motion to this mighty instrument of civiliza- 
 tion, is to be regarded as the inferior of the very men 
 whom he is to lift out of the bonds of matter and of 
 custom, as often as they happen to possess some extrinsic 
 advantages which he wants. 
 
 We ought to try to come to a clear understanding with 
 ourselves on this matter, and to establish a consistent 
 theory and practice. Either, as it is now the fashion to 
 repeat. Art has an elevating and purifying effect on the 
 morals of a country, or it has not. If it has, by what pro- 
 cess of reasoning are the depositories of so high a ministry 
 talked of and treated, as if they moved in the society of the 
 undistinguished and undistinguishable many on sufferance? 
 
 If it has not, why all this labour to get up a taste for it. 
 among the people ? We hear constant allusions to Ger- 
 many—and with reason ; but Germany is consistent with 
 
NOTES. 
 
 357 
 
 herself. Art is there honoured in its ministers. The 
 people are not told, here is a man who can create that, 
 the mere contemplation of which will lift you above the 
 sordid part of your nature, — who carries within him the 
 type of that beauty which has power to raise and refresh 
 your souls ; and the next moment practically taught to 
 regard him as belonging to a class whose position and 
 claims to respect are doubtful. 
 
 It cannot be that he is degraded by receiving remune- 
 ration for his labours ; for do the ministers of justice, in 
 their various degrees, give their services to society gra- 
 tuitously ? Do the ministers of religion found their claim 
 to the respect of mankind, and to their station in society, 
 on the gratuitous character of their ministry ? Why then 
 should the ministers of Art be subjected to so absurd a 
 demand ? Why should Art be consigned to the half- 
 knowledge, the half-zeal, the half-practice of a feeble di- 
 lettantism ? 
 
 And if not the pay, it must be the pursuit itself that is de- 
 grading. It must be that we regard Art as fitted to amuse, 
 and not to instruct mankind, and allot its professors their 
 place accordingly. I do not mean to express an opinion 
 which of these views is right ; but I wish to see something 
 like consistency ; and either that the present theory and 
 practice about Art as a moral engine should be abandoned, 
 or the past and present theory and practice about artists 
 brought into conformity with it. Till then we may be 
 perfectly assured that there can be no high standard of 
 Art, for the plain reason that there can be no high artisti- 
 cal culture. 
 
358 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 If any one doubts as to the state of public opinion on 
 this subject, let him ask himself whether the parents who 
 train up physicians, lawyers, soldiers, and clergymen, 
 would see with complacency any intention on the part of 
 their sons to devote themselves to music or painting, as a 
 profession ? 
 
 ZELTER. — Pages 41, 87, 139, and 163. 
 
 This extraordinary man was for years the friend and 
 correspondent of Goethe. The correspondence from which 
 these extracts are taken was published at Berlin in 1834, 
 and consists of six volumes. It was reviewed in the 
 Athenseum not long after its appearance. 
 
 Zelter was brought up an architect, but his love for 
 music was unconquerable, and he pursued it with pas- 
 sion to the end of his life. The celebrated singing- school 
 at Berlin, to which he refers in the passage quoted (p. 139), 
 was in part established, and long directed by him. His 
 letters abound with criticisms on art and literature, ex- 
 pressed in vigorous and almost coarse language, but full 
 of acuteness and originality, and remarkably illustrative 
 of Goethe's great axiom, that 'Art is one.' The same 
 principles which guided his practice in his own peculiar 
 branch, directed his judgment in the others. 
 
 His attachment to Goethe seems to have been the 
 strongest feeling of his energetic and vehement mind. 
 It was a sort of idolatry. The news of Goethe's death 
 was a shock he had not strength to resist, and in a fort- 
 night he followed him to the grave. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 359 
 
 ZIEGLER (FRIEDRICH WILHELM). — Page 34. 
 
 Born at Brunswick in 1760, was forty years an actor 
 of great celebrity at Vienna, where he enjoyed the espe- 
 cial favour and patronage of Joseph IL He was also a 
 very fertile dramatic poet, and his pieces divided the 
 favour of the public of Vienna, and of southern Germany 
 in general, with those of Iffland and Kotzebue. 
 
 Ziegler also wrote some political pamphlets, which had 
 considerable success. His sesthetical works are of no 
 value. He died at Vienna in 1827. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 151, line 10, for Genz read Gentz. 
 Tage 225, line 18, for natural read national. 
 
PRINTED BY 
 RICHARD AND JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, 
 
 RED r,ION COURT, FLEET STREET. 
 
Just published, in Two Volumes, Post Octavo, Price 17*. 
 {The Volumes may be had separately), 
 
 LETTERS FROM ITALY 
 
 TO 
 
 A YOUNGER SISTER, 
 
 "WITH SKETCHES OF HISTORY, LITERATURE AND ART : 
 
 BY 
 
 CATHARINE TAYLOR. 
 VOLUME L 
 
 TURIN — GENOA PISA LEGHORN — FLORENCE — SIENA 
 
 — ROME. 
 
 VOLUME II. 
 
 NAPLES — ROME FLORENCE BOLOGNA FERRARA 
 
 PADUA VENICE V1CENZA VERONA BRESCIA — 
 
 BERGAMO — MILAN. 
 
In One Volume, Small Oclavo, Price hs. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 
 
 CONSIDERED AS 
 
 A PHILOSOPHIC POET; 
 
 WITH TRANSLATIONS : 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR.