CHAPTER II.

OF THE JUDGMENT FORMED BY THE ENGLISH ON THE SUBJECT OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

1

GERMAN literature is much better known in England than in France. In England, the foreign languages are more studied, and the Germans are more naturally connected with the English, than with the French; nevertheless, prejudices exist. even in England, both against the philosophy and the literature of Germany. It may be interesting to examine the cause of them.

The minds of the people of England are not formed by a taste for society, by the pleasure and interest excited by conversation. Business, parliament, the administration, fill all heads, and political interests are the principal objects of their meditations. The English wish to discover consequences immediately applicable to every subject, and from thence arises their dislike of a philosophy, which has for its object the beautiful rather than the useful.

The English, it is true, do not separate dignity from utility, and they are always ready, when it is necessary, to sacrifice the useful to the honorable; but they are not of those, who, as it is said in Hamlet, "with the incorporal air do hold discourse -a sort of conversation of which the Germans are very fond. The philosophy of the English is directed towards results beneficial to the cause of humanity: the Germans pursue truth for its own sake, without thinking on the advantages which men may derive from it. The nature of their different governments having offered them no great or splendid oppor

1 It is now much better known in both countries than when Madame de Staël wrote.-Ed.

tunity of attaining glory, or of serving their country, they at tach themselves to contemplation of every kind; and, to indulge it, seek in heaven that space which their limited destiny denies to them on earth. They take pleasure in the ideal, because there is nothing in the actual state of things which speaks to their imagination. The English, with reason, pride themselves in all they possess, in all they are, and in all that they may become; they place their admiration and love on their laws, their manners, and their forms of worship. These noble sentiments give to the soul more strength and energy; but thought, perhaps, takes a bolder flight, when it has neither limit nor determinate aim, and when incessantly connecting itself with the immense and the infinite, no interest brings it back to the affairs of this world.

Whenever an idea is consolidated, or, in other words, when it is changed into effect, nothing can be better than to examine attentively its consequences and conclusions, and then to circumscribe and fix them; but when it is merely in theory, it should be considered in itself alone. Neither practice nor utility are the objects of inquiry; and the pursuit of truth in philosophy, like imagination in poetry, should be free from all restraint.

The Germans are to the human mind what pioneers are to an army they try new roads, they try unknown means: how can we avoid being curious to know what they say on their return from their excursions into the infinite? The English, who have so much originality of character, have nevertheless generally a dread of new systems. Justness of thought has been so beneficial to them in the affairs of life, that they like to discover it even in intellectual studies; and yet it is in these that boldness is inseparable from genius. Genius, provided it respect religion and morality, should be free to take any flight it chooses: it aggrandizes the empire of thought.

Literature, in Germany, is so impressed with the reigning philosophy, that the repugnance felt for the one will influence the judgment we form of the other. The English have, however, for some time, translated the German poets with pleasure,

and do not fail to perceive that analogy which ought to result. from one common origin. There is more sensibility in the English poetry, and more imagination in that of Germany. Domestic affections holding great sway over the hearts of the English, their poetry is impressed with the delicacy and permanency of those affections: the Germans, more independent in all things, because they bear the impress of no political institution, paint sentiments as well as ideas through a cloud: it might be said that the universe vacillates before their eyes; and even, by the uncertainty of their sight, those objects are multiplied, which their talent renders useful to its own purposes.

The principle of terror, which is employed as one of the great means in German poetry, has less ascendency over the imagination of the English in our days. They describe nature with enthusiasm, but it no longer acts as a formidable power which incloses phantoms and presages within its breast; and holds, in modern times, the place held by destiny among the ancients. Imagination in England is almost always inspired by sensibility; the imaginations of the Germans is sometimes. rude and wild the religion of England is more austere, that of Germany more vague; and the poetry of the two nations must necessarily bear the impression of their religious sentiments. In England conformity to rule does not reign in the arts, as it does in France; nevertheless, public opinion holds a greater sway there than in Germany. National unity is the cause of it. The English wish, in all things, to make principles and actions accord with each other. Theirs is a wise and well-regulated nation, which comprises glory in wisdom, and liberty in order; the Germans, with whom these are only sub'ects of reverie, have examined ideas independent of their application, and have thus attained a higher elevation in theory.

It will appear strange, that the present men of literature in Germany, have shown themselves more averse than the English to the introduction of philosophical reflections in poetry. It is true, that men of the highest genius in English literature, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden in his Odes, etc., are poets, who

do not give themselves up to a spirit of argumentation; but Pope, and many others, must be considered as didactic poets and moralists. The Germans have renewed their youth, the English are become mature.' The Germans profess a doctrine which tends to revive enthusiasm in the arts as well as in philosophy, and they will merit applause if they succeed; for this age lays restraints also on them, and there was never a period in which there existed a greater inclination to despise all that is merely beautiful; none in which the most common of all questions, What is it good for? has been more frequently repeated.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE PRINCIPAL EPOCHS OF GERMAN LITERATURE.

GERMAN literature has never had what we are accustomed to call a golden age; that is, a period in which the progress of letters is encouraged by the protection of the sovereign power. Leo X, in Italy, Louis XIV, in France, and, in ancient times, Pericles and Augustus, have given their names to the age in which they lived. We may also consider the reign of Queen Anne as the most brilliant epoch of English literature; but this nation, which exists by its own powers has never owed its great men to the influence of its kings. Germany was divided; in Austria no love of literature was discovered, and in Frederick II (who was all Prussia in himself alone), no interest whatever for German writers. Literature, in Germany, has then never been concentrated to one point, and has never found support in the State. Perhaps it owes to this

'The English poets of our times, without entering into concert with the Germans, have adopted the same system. Didactic poetry has given place to the fictions of the middle ages, to the empurpled colors of the East; easoning, and eloquence itself, are not sufficient to an essentially creative

art.

abandonment, as well as to the independence consequent on it, much of its originality and energy.

"We have seen poetry," says Schiller, "despised by Frederick, the favored son of his country, fly from the powerful throne which refused to protect it; but it still dared to call itself German; it felt proud in being itself the creator of its own glory. The songs of German bards, resounded on the summits of the mountain, were precipitated as torrents into the valleys; the poet, independent, acknowledged no law, save the impressions of his own soul-no sovereign, but his own genius."

It naturally followed from the want of encouragement given by government to men of literary talent in Germany, that their attempts were made privately and individually in different directions and that they arrived late at the truly remarkable period of their literature.

The German language, for a thousand years, was at first cultivated by monks, then by knights, and afterwards by artisans, such as Hans-Sachs, Sebastian Brand, and others, down to the period of the Reformation; and latterly, by learned men, who have rendered it a language well adapted to all the subtleties of thought.

In examining the works of which German literature is composed, we find, according to the genius of the author, traces of these different modes of culture; as we see in mountains strata of the various minerals which the revolutions of the earth have deposited in them. The style changes its nature almost entirely, according to the writer; and it is necessary for foreigners to make a new study of every new book which they wishto understand.

The Germans, like the greater part of the nations of Europe in the times of chivalry, had also their troubadours and warriors, who sung of love and of battles. An epic poem has lately been discovered, called the Nibelungen Lied, which was composed in the thirteenth century; we see in it the heroism and fidelity which distinguished the men of those times, when all was as true, strong, and determinate, as the primitive colors