of nature. The German, in this poem, is more clear and simple than it is at present: general ideas were not yet introduced into it, and traits of character only are narrated. The German nation might then have been considered as the most warlike of all European nations, and its ancient traditions speak only of castles and beautiful mistresses, to whom they devoted their lives. When Maximilian endeavored at a later period to revive chivalry, the human mind no longer possessed that tendency; and those religious disputes had already commenced, which direct thought towards metaphysics, and place the strength of the soul rather in opinions than in actions.'

1 "The unknown Singer of the Nibelungen, though no Shakspeare, must have had a deep poetic soul; wherein things discontinuous and inanimate shaped themselves together into life, and the Universe with its wondrous purport stood significantly inaged; over-arching, as with heavenly firmaments and eternal harmonies, the little scene where men strut and fret their hour. His Poem, unlike so many old and new pretenders to that name, has a basis and organic structure, a beginning, middle, and end; there is one great principle and idea set forth in it, round which all its multifarious parts combine in living union. remarkable it is, moreover, how long with this essence and primary condition of all poetic virtue, the minor external virtues of what we call Taste, and so forth, are, as it were, presupposed; and the living soul of Poetry being there, its body of incidents, its garment of language, come of their own accord. With

an instinctive art, far different from acquired artifice, this Poet of the Nibelungen, working in the same province with his contemporaries of the Heldenbuch, on the same material of tradition, has, in a wonderful degree, possessed himself of what these could only strive after; and with his 'clear feeling of fictitious truth' avoided as false the errors and monstrous perplexities in which they vainly struggled. The language of the

Heldenbuch was a feeble half-articulate child's speech, the metre nothing better than a miserable doggerel; whereas here in the old Frankish (Oberdutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen, we have a clear decisive utterance, and in a real system of verse, not without essential regularity, great liveliness, and now and then even harmony of rhythm. Doubtless we must often call it a diffuse diluted utterance; at the same time it is genuine, with a certain antique garrulous heartiness, and has a rhythm in the thoughts as well as the words. The simplicity is never silly, even in that perpetual recurrence of epithets, sometimes of rhymes, as where two words, for intance lib (body, life leib) and wip (woman, wife, weip) are indissolubly wedded together, and the one never shows itself without the other followtag-there is something which reminds us not so much of poverty, as of rustfulness and childlike innocence. Indeed a strange charm lies in those ld tones, where, in gay dancing melodies, the sternest tidings are sung to

Luther essentially improved his language by making it subservient to theological discussion: his translation of the Psalms and the Bible is still a fine specimen of it. The poetical truth and conciseness which he gives to his style, are, in all respects, conformable to the genius of the German language, and even the sound of the words has an indescribable sort of energetic frankness, on which we with confidence rely. The political and religious wars, which the Germans had the misfortune to wage with each other, withdrew the minds of men from literature; and when it was again resumed, it was under the auspices of the age of Louis XIV, at the period in which the desire of imitating the French pervaded almost all the courts and writers of Europe.

The works of Hagedorn, of Gellert, of Weiss, etc., were only heavy French, nothing original, nothing conformable to the natural genius of the nation. Those authors endeavored to attain French grace without being inspired with it, either by their habits or their modes of life. They subjected themselves to rule, without having either the elegance or taste which may render even that despotism agreeable. Another school soon succeeded that of the French, and it was in Germanic Switzerland that it was erected: this school was at first

us; and deep floods of Sadness and Strife play lightly in little curling billows, like seas in summer. It is as a meek smile, in whose still, thoughtful depths a whole infinitude of patience, and love, and heroic strength lie revealed." (Carlyle's Essays, 8vo edition, p. 249.)—Ed.

1 "Utz, Gellert, Cramer, Ramler, Kleist, Hagedorn, Rabener, Gleim, and a multitude of lesser men, whatever excellences they might want, certainly are not chargeable with bad taste. Nay, perhaps of all writers they are the least chargeable with it: a certain clear, light, unaffected elegance, of a higher nature than French elegance, it might be, yet to the exclusion of all very deep or genial qualities, was the excellence they strove after, and for the most part, in a fair measure attained. They resemble English writers of the same, or perhaps an earlier period, more than any other foreigners: apart from Pope, whose influence is visible enough, Beattie, Logan, Wilkie, Glover, unknown perhaps to any of them, might otherwise have almost eemed their models. Goldsmith also would rank among them; perhaps, in regard to true poetic genius, at their head, for none of them has left us a Vicar of Wakefield; though, in regard to judgment, knowledge, genera talent, his place would scarcely be so high."-(Ibid.) p. 23.)-Ed.

founded on an imitation of English writers. Bodmer, supported by the example of the great Haller, endeavored to show, that English literature agreed better with the German genius than that of France. Gottsched,' a learned man, without taste or genius, contested this opinion, and great light sprung from the dispute between these two schools. Some men then began to strike out a new road for themselves. Klopstock held the highest place in the English school, as Wieland did in that of the French; but Klopstock opened a new career for his successors, while Wieland was at once the first and the last of the French school in the eighteenth century. The first, because no other could equal him in that kind of writing, and the last, because after him the German writers pursued a path widely different.

As there still exist in all the Teutonic nations some sparks of that sacred fire, which is again smothered by the ashes of time, Klopstock, at first imitating the English, succeeded at last in awakening the imagination and character peculiar to the Germans; and almost at the same moment, Winckelmann in the arts, Lessing in criticism, and Goethe in poetry, founded a true German school, if we may so call that which admits of as many differences as there are individuals or varieties of talent. I shall examine separately, poetry, the dramatic art, novels, and history; but every man of genius constituting, it may be said, a separate school in Germany, it appears to me necessary to begin by pointing out some of the principal traits which distinguish each writer individually, and by personally characterizing their most celebrated men of literature, before I set about analyzing their works.

1 "Gottsched has been dead the greater part of the century; and, for the last fifty years, ranks among the Germans somewhat as Prynne or Alexander Ross does among ourselves. A man of a cold, rigid, perseverant character, who mistook himself for a poet and the perfection of critics, and had skill to pass current during the greater part of his literary life for such. On the strength of his Boileau and Batteux, he long reigned supreme; but It was like Night, in rayless majesty, and over a slumbering people. They awoke, before his death, and hurled him, perhaps too indignantly, into his native abyss.".-(Carlyle's Essays, 8vo edition, p. 18.)—Ed.

CHAPTER IV.

WIELAND.

Of all the Germans who have written after the French manner, Wieland is the only one whose works have genius; and although he has almost always imitated the literature of foreign countries, we cannot avoid acknowledging the great services he has rendered to that of his own nation, by improving its language, and giving it a versification more flowing and harmonious. There was already in Germany a crowd of writers, who endeavored to follow the traces of French literature, such as it was in the age of Louis XIV. Wieland is the first who introduced, with success, that of the eighteenth century. In his prose writings he bears some resemblance to Voltaire, and in his poetry to Ariosto; but these resemblances, which are voluntary on his part, do not prevent him from being by nature completely German. Wieland is infinitely better informed than Voltaire; he has studied the ancients with more erudition than has been done by any poet in France. Neither the defects, nor the powers of Wieland allow him to give to his writings any portion of the French lightness and grace.

In his philosophical novels, Agathon and Peregrinus Proteus, he begins very soon with analysis, discussion, and metaphysics. He considers it as a duty to mix with them passages which we commonly call flowery; but we are sensible that his natural disposition would lead him to fathom all the depths of the subject which he endeavors to treat. In the novels of Wieland, seriousness and gayety are both too decidedly expressed ever to blend with each other; for, in all things, though contrasts are striking, contrary extremes are weari

Come.

In order to imitate Voltaire, it is necessary to possess a sar

castic and philosophical irony, which renders us careless of every thing, except a poignant manner of expressing that irony. A German can never attain that brilliant freedom of pleasantry; he is too much attached to truth, he wishes to know and to explain what things are, and even when he adopts reprehensible opinions, a secret repentance slackens his pace in spite of himself. The Epicurean philosophy does not suit the German mind; they give to that philosophy a dogmatical character, while in reality it is seductive only when it presents itself under light and airy forms: as soon as you invest it with principles it is equally displeasing to all.

The poetical works of Wieland have much more grace and originality than his prose writings. Oberon and the other poems, of which I shall speak separately, are charming, and full of imagination. Wieland has, however, been reproached for having treated the subject of love with too little severity, and he is naturally thus condemned by his own countrymen, who still respect women a little after the manner of their ancestors; but whatever may have been the wanderings of imagination which Wieland allowed himself, we cannot avoid acknowledging in him a large portion of true sensibility: he has often had a good or bad intention of jesting on the subject of love; but his disposition, naturally serious, prevents him from giving himself boldly up to it. He resembles that prophet who found himself obliged to bless where he wished to curse, and he ends in tenderness what was begun in irony.

In our intercourse with Wieland we are charmed, precisely because his natural qualities are in opposition to his philosophy. This disagreement might be prejudicial to him as a writer, but it renders him more attractive in society; he is animated, enthusiastic, and, like all men of genius, still young even in his old age; yet he wishes to be skeptical, and is impatient with those who would employ his fine imagination in the establishment of his faith.

Naturally benevolent, he is nevertheless susceptible of illnumor; sometimes, because he is not pleased with himself, and sometimes because he is not pleased with others he is not