: cient materials, than to the author's way of treating them. The primitive tradition often serves him only as a vehicle for interesting description, shrewd sarcastic speculation, and gay fanciful pleasantry, extending its allusions over all things past and present, now rising into comic humour, now sinking into drollery, often tasteless, strained, or tawdry, but never dull. The traces of poetry and earnest imagination, here and there discernible in the original fiction, he treats with levity and kind sceptical derision: nothing is required of the reader but what all readers are prepared to give. Since the publication of this work, the subject of popular tradition has been handled to triteness; Volksmährchen have been written and collected without stint or limit; and critics, in admitting that Musäus was the first to open this mine of entertainment, have lamented the incongruity between his subject and his style. But the faculty of laughing has been given to all men, and the feeling of imaginative beauty has been given only to a few: the lovers of primeval poetry, in its unadulterated state, may censure Musäus; but they join with the public at large in reading him. This book of Volksmährchen established the character of its author for wit and general talent, and forms the chief support of his reputation with posterity. A few years after, he again appeared before the public with a humorous performance, entitled Friend Hein's Apparitions, in the style of Holberg, printed in 1785. Friend Hein is a name under which Musäus, for what reason his commentator Wieland seems unable to inform us, usually personifies Death: the essay itself, which I have never seen, may be less irreverent and offensive to pious feeling than its title indicates, and it is said to abound with wit, humour and knowledge of life," as much as any of his former works. He had also begun a second series of Tales, under the title of Straussfedern (Ostrich-feathers): but only the first volume had appeared, when death put a period to his labours. He had long been in weakly health; often afflicted with violent headaches: his disorder was a polypus of the heart, which cut him off on the 28th of October, 1787, in the fifty-second year of his age. The Straussfedern was completed by another hand; and a small volume of Remains, edited by Kotzebue in 1791, concludes the list of his writings. A simple but tasteful memorial, we are told, was erected over his grave by some unknown friend. Musäus was a practical believer in the Horatian maxim, Nil admirari: of a jovial heart, and a penetrating, well-cultivated understanding, he saw things as they were, and had little disposition or aptitude to invest them with any colours but their own. Without much effort, therefore, he stood aloof from every species of cant; and was the man he thought himself, and wished others to think him. Had his temper been unsocial and melancholic, such a creed might have rendered him spiteful, narrow and selfish but nature had been kinder to him than education; he did not quarrel with the world, though he saw its barrenness, and knew not how to make it solemn any more than lovely; for his heart was gay and kind; and an imperturbable good-humour, more potent than a panoply of brass, defended him from the stings and arrows of outrageous Fortune to the end of his pilgrimage. Few laughers have walked so circumspectly, and acquired or merited so much affection. By profession a Momus, he looked upon the world as little else than a boundless Chase, where the wise were to recreate themselves with the hunting of Follies; and perhaps he is the only satirist on record of whom it can be said, that his jesting never cost him a friend. His humour is, indeed, untinctured with bitterness; sportful, ebullient and guileless as the frolics of a child. He could not reverence men; but with all their faults he loved them; for they were his brethren, and their faults were not clearer to him than his own. He inculcated or entertained no lofty principles of generosity; yet though never rich in purse, he was always ready to divide his pittance with a needier fellowman. Of vanity, he showed little or none: in obscurity he was contented; and when his honours came, he wore them meekly, and was the last to see that they were merited. In society he was courteous and yielding; a universal favourite; in his chosen circle, the most fascinating of companions. From the slenderest trifle, he could spin a boundless web of drollery; and his brilliant mirth enlivened without wounding. With the foibles of others, he abstained from meddling; but among his friends, we are informed, he could for hours keep the table in a roar, when, with his dry inimitable vein, he started some banter on himself or his wife; and, in trustful abandonment, laid the reins on the neck of his fancy to pursue it. Without enthusiasm of character, or any pretension to high or even earnest qualities, he was a well-conditioned, laughter-loving, kindly man; led a gay, jestful life; conquering by contentment and mirth of heart the long series of difficulties and distresses with which it assailed him; and died regretted by his nation, as a forwarder of harmless pleasure; and, by those that knew him better, as a truthful, unassuming, affectionate, and, on the whole, very estimable person. His intellectual character corresponds with his moral and social one; not high or glorious, but genuine so far as it goes. He does not approach the first rank of writers; he attempts not to deal with the deeper feelings of the heart; and for instructing the judgment, he ranks rather as a sound, well-informed, common-sense thinker, than as a man of high wisdom or originality. He advanced few new truths, but he dressed many old ones in sprightly apparel; and it ought to be remembered, that he kept himself unspotted from the errors of his time; a merit which posterity is apt to underrate; for nothing seems more stolid than a past delusion; and we forget that delusions, destined also to be past, are now present with ourselves, about us and within us, which, were the task so easy, it is pity that we do not forthwith convict and cast away. Musäus had a quick, vigorous intellect, a keen eye for the common forms of the beautiful, a fancy ever prompt with allusions, and an overflowing store of sprightly and benignant humour. These natural gifts he had not neglected to cultivate by study both of books and things; his reading distinguishes him even in Germany; nor does he bear it about him like an ostentatious burden, but in the shape of spiritual strength and plenty derived from it. As an author, his beauties and defects are numerous and easily discerned. His style sparkles with metaphors, sometimes just and beautiful, often new and surprising; but it is laborious, unnatural, and diffuse. Of his humour, his distinguishing gift, it may be remarked, that it seems copious rather than fine, and originates rather in the understanding than in the character: his heart is not delicate, or his affections tender; but he loves the ludicrous with true passion; and seeing keenly, if he feels obtusely, he can choose with sufficient skill the point of view from which his object shall appear distorted, as he requires it. This is the humour of a Swift or a Voltaire, but not of a Cervantes, or even of a Sterne in his best passages; it may produce a Zadig or a Battle of the Books; but not a Don Quixote or a Corporal Trim. Musäus is, in fact, no poet; he can see, and describe with rich graces what he sees; but he is nothing, or very little, of a Maker. His imagination is not powerless it is like a bird of feeble wing, which can fly from tree to tree; but never soars for a moment into the æther of Poetry, to bathe in its serene splendour, with the region of the Actual lying far below, and brightened into beauty by radiance not its own. He is a man of fine and varied talent, but scarcely of any genius. These characteristics are apparent enough in his Popular Tales ; they may be traced even in the few specimens of that work, by which he is now introduced to the English reader. As has been already stated, his Volksmährchen exhibit himself much better than his subject. He is not admitted by his critics to have seized the finest spirit of this species of fiction, or turned it to the account of which it is capable in other hands. Whatever was austere or earnest, still more, whatever bordered upon awe or horror, his riant fancy rejected with aversion the rigorous moral sometimes hid in these traditions, the grim lines of primeval feeling and imagination to be traced in them, had no charms for him. These ruins of the remote time he has not : attempted to complete into a perfect edifice, according to the first simple plan; he has rather pargetted them anew, and decorated them with the most modern ornaments and furniture; and he introduces his guests, with a roguish smile at the strange, antic contrast they are to perceive between the movables and the apartment. Sometimes he rises into a flight of simple eloquence, and for a sentence or two, seems really beautiful and affecting; but the knave is always laughing in his sleeve at our credulity, and returns with double relish to riot at will in his favourite domain. : Of the three Tales here offered to the reader,1 nothing need be said in explanation for their whole significance, with all their beauties and blemishes, lies very near the surface. I have selected them, as specimens at once of his manner and his materials; in the hope, that, conveying some impression of a gifted and favourite writer, they may furnish a little entertainment both to the lovers of intellectual novelty, and of innocent amusement. To neither can I promise very much: Musäus is a man of sterling powers, but no literary monster; and his Tales, though smooth and glittering, are cold; they have beauty, yet it is the beauty not of living forms, but of wellproportioned statues. Meanwhile, I have given him as I found him, endeavouring to copy faithfully; changing nothing, whether I might think it good or bad, that my skill enabled me to keep unchanged. With all drawbacks, I anticipate some favour for him: but his case admits no pleading; being clear by its own light, it must stand or fall by a first judgment, and without the help of advocates. FRIEDRICH DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ. THE Baron Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué is of French extraction, but distinguished for the true Germanism of his character, both as a writer and a man; and ranks, for the last twenty years, among the most popular and productive authors of his country. His family, expelled from France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantz, appears to have settled at the Hague; from which this branch of it was transferred to Prussia by the fortunes of our Author's grandfather, whose name and title the present Baron has inherited. This first Friedrich, born in the early part of last century, had been sent in boyhood to the Court of Anhalt Dessau, in the character of Page: he soon quitted this station; entered the Prussian 1 1. Dumb Love; 2. Libussa; 3. Melechsala. army as a private volunteer; by merit, or recommendation, was gradually advanced; and became acquainted with the Prince Royal, then a forlorn, oppressed and discontented youth, but destined afterwards to astonish and convulse the world, under the name of Frederick the Great. Young La Motte stood in high favour with Frederick; and seems likewise to have shown some prudence in humouring the jealous temper of the old King; for during the Prince's arrest, which had followed his projected elopement from paternal tuition, the royal Shylock, instead of beheading La Motte, as he had treated poor De Catt, permitted him to visit the disconsolate prisoner, and without molestation to do him kind offices. On his accession to the throne, Frederick the King did not fail, in this instance, to remember the debts of Frederick the Prisoner: the friend of his youth continued to be the friend of his manhood and age; La Motte rose rapidly from post to post in the army, till, having gained the rank of General, he had opportunity, by various gallant services in the Seven-Years' War, to secure the prosperity of his household, and earn for himself a place in the military history of his new country With his Sovereign he continued in a kindly and honest relation throughout his whole life. His Letters, preserved in Frederick's Works, are a proof that he was not only favoured but esteemed: the imperious King is said to have respected his upright and truthful nature; and, though himself a sceptic and a scoffer, never to have interfered in word or deed with the piety and strict religious persuasions of his servant. The General became the founder of that Prussian family, which has since acquired a new and fairer distinction in the person of his grandson. The present Friedrich, our Author, was born on the 11th of February, 1777. Of his early history or habits we have no account, except that he was educated by Hülse; and soon sent to the army as an officer in the Royal Guards. In this capacity he served, during his nineteenth year, in the disastrous campaign of the Rhine. One of his brother-officers and intimates here was Heinrich von Kleist, a noble-minded and ill-fated man of genius, whom the mismanagement of a too impetuous and feeling heart has since driven to suicide, before the world had sufficiently reaped the bright promise of his early years. The misfortunes of his country drove Fouqué back into retirement while Prussia languished in hopeless degradation under the iron sway of France, he kept himself apart from military life; settled in the country, and hanging up his ineffectual sword, devoted himself to domestic cares and joys, and in the Kingdoms of Imagination sought refuge from the aspect of actual oppression and distress. Of a temper susceptible, lively and devout, his faculties had been quick |