“Then shrieked the Dissonances still louder, the quivering walls of the Temple parted asunder; and the Temple and the Children sank down, and the whole Earth and the Sun sank after it, and the whole Universe sank with its immensity before us; and above, on the summit of immeasurable Nature, stood Christ, and gazed down into the Universe checkered with its thousand Suns, as into the Mine bored out of the Eternal Night, in which the Suns run like mine-lamps, and the Galaxies. like silver veins.

"And as he saw the grinding press of Worlds, the torchdance of celestial wildfires, and the coral-banks of beating hearts; and as he saw how world after world shook off its glimmering souls upon the Sea of Death, as a water-bubble. scatters swimming lights on the waves, then majestic as the Highest of the Finite, he raised his eyes towards the Nothingness, and towards the void Immensity, and said: 'Dead, dumb Nothingness! Cold, everlasting Necessity! Frantic Chance! Know ye what this is that lies beneath you? When will ye crush the Universe in pieces, and me? Chance, knowest thou what thou doest, when with thy hurricanes thou walkest through that snow-powder of Stars, and extinguishest Sun after Sun, and that sparkling dew of heavenly light goes out as thou passest over it? How is each so solitary in this wide. grave of the All! I am alone with myself! O Father, O Father! where is thy infinite bosom, that I might rest upon it? Ah, if each soul is its own father and creator, why can it not be its own destroyer too?

"Is this beside me yet a Man? Unhappy one! Your little life is the sigh of Nature, or only its echo; a convex-mirror throws its rays into that dust-cloud of dead men's ashes down on the Earth, and thus you, cloud-formed wavering phantoms, arise! Look down into the Abyss, over which clouds of ashes are moving; mists full of Worlds reek up from the Sea of Death; the Future is a mounting mist, and the Present is a falling one. Knowest thou thy Earth again?'

"Here Christ looked down, and his eye filled with tears, and he said: 'Ah, I was once there; I was still happy then;

I had still my Infinite Father, and looked up cheerfully from the mountains into the immeasurable Heaven, and pressed my mangled breast on his healing form, and said, even in the bitterness of death, Father, take thy son from this bleeding hull, and lift him to thy heart! Ah, ye too happy inhabitants of Earth, ye still believe in Him. Perhaps even now your Sun is going down, and ye kneel amid blossoms, and brightness, and tears, and lift trustful hands, and cry with joy-streaming eyes to the opened Heaven: "Me too thou knowest, Omnipotent, and all my wounds; and at death thou receivest me, and closest them all!" Unhappy creatures, at death they will not be closed! Ah, when the sorrow-laden lays himself, with galled back, into the Earth, to sleep till a fairer Morning full of Truth, full of Virtue and Joy, he awakens in a stormy Chaos, in the everlasting Midnight, and there comes no Morning, and no soft healing hand, and no Infinite Father! Mortal, beside me! if thou still livest, pray to Him; else hast thou lost him forever!'

"And as I fell down, and looked into the sparkling Universe, I saw the upborne Rings of the Giant-Serpent, the Serpent of Eternity, which had coiled itself round the All of Worlds,—and the Rings sank down, and encircled the All doubly;-and then it wound itself, innumerable ways, round Nature, and swept the Worlds from their places, and crashing, squeezed the Temple of Immensity together, into the Church of a Buryingground,—and all grew strait, dark, fearful,—and an immeasurably extended Hammer was to strike the last hour of Time, and shiver the Universe asunder, WHEN I AWOKE.

"My soul wept for joy that I could still pray to God; and the joy, and the weeping, and the faith on him were my prayer. And as I arose, the Sun was glowing deep behind the full purpled corn-ears, and casting meekly the gleam of its twilightred on the little Moon, which was rising in the East without an Aurora; and between the sky and the earth a gay, transient air-people was stretching out its short wings and living, as I did, before the Infinite Father; and from all Nature around me flowed peaceful tones as from distant evening-bells."

I shall add no observations on this singular essay, the effect of which must depend entirely on the species of imagination possessed by the reader. I was struck by the gloomy cast of the talents it displays, and it appeared to me a fine idea, thus to carry beyond the grave the horrible despair which every creature would necessarily feel if deprived of God.'

I should never lay down my pen if I were to analyze the multitude of witty and affecting romances to be found in Germany. Those of La Fontaine in particular, which are read at least once by every one with so much pleasure, are frequently

"Richter's intellectual and Literary character is, perhaps, in a singular degree the counterpart and image of his practical and moral character: his Works seem to us a more than usually faithful transcript of his mind; written with great warmth direct from the heart, and, like himself, wild, strong, original, sincere. Viewed under any aspect, whether as Thinker, Moralist, Satirist, Poet, he is a phenomenon; a vast, many-sided, tumultuous, yet noble nature; for faults, as for merits, 'Jean Paul the Unique.' In all departments, we find in him a subduing force; but a lawless, untutored, as it were, half-savage force. Thus, for example, few understandings known to us are of a more irresistible character than Richter's; but its strength is a natural, unarmed, Orson-like strength: he does not cunningly undermine his subject, and lay it open, by syllogistic implements, or any rule of art; but he crushes it to pieces in his arms, he treads it asunder, not without gay triumph, under his feet; and so in almost monstrous fashion, yet with piercing clearness, lays bare the inmost heart and core of it to all eyes. In passion, again, there is the same wild vehemence: it is a voice of softest pity, of endless, boundless wailing, a voice as of Rachel weeping for her children; or the fierce bellowing of lions amid savage forests. Thus, too, he not only loves Nature, but he revels in her; plunges into her infinite bosom, and fills his whole heart to intoxication with her charms. He tells us that he was wont to study, to write, almost to live, in the open air; and no skyey aspect was so dismal that it altogether wanted beauty for him. We know of no Poet with so deep and passionate and universal a feeling towards Nature: 'from the solemn phases of the starry heaven to the simplest floweret of the meadow, his eye and his heart are open for her charms and her mystic meanings.' But what most of all shadows forth the inborn, essential temper of Paul's mind, is the sportfulness, the wild heartfelt Humor, which, in his highest as in his lowest moods, ever exhibits itself as a quite inseparable ingredient. His Humor, with all its wildness, is of the gravest and kindliest, a genuine Humor; 'consistent with utmost earnestness, or rather, inconsistent with the want of it.' But on the whole, it is impossible for him to write in other than a humorous manner, be his subject what it may. His Philosophical Treatises, nay, his Autobiography itself, every thing tha

more interesting in the detail than of the general plan or conception of the subject. To invent becomes daily more uncommon; and besides, romances which delineate manners, can with difficulty be rendered pleasing in different countries. The great advantage, therefore, which may be derived from the study of German literature, is the spirit of emulation which it imparts; we should rather seek in it the means of writing well ourselves, than expect from it works already written which may be worthy of being transmitted to other nations.

CHAPTER XXIX.

OF GERMAN HISTORIANS, AND OF J. VON MÜLLER IN PARTICULAR.

HISTORY is the portion of literature most nearly connected with the knowledge of public affairs; a great historian is almost a statesman; for it is scarcely possible to form a right judgment of political events, without being, in a certain degree, able also to conduct them; thus we see that the greater number of historians are well acquainted with the government of their country, and write only as they might have acted. In the first rank of historians we must reckon those of antiquity, because there is no period in which men of superior talents have exerted more influence over their country. The English historians occupy the second rank; but the appellation of great belongs rather to their nation, than to any particular individ

comes from him, is encased in some quaint fantastic framing; and roguish eyes (yet with a strange sympathy in the matter, for his Humor, as we said, is heartfelt and true) look out on us through many a grave delineation. In his Novels, above all. this is ever an indispensable quality, and, indeed, announces itself in the very entrance of the business, often even on the title-page. Think, for instance, of that Selection from the Papers of the Devil; Hesperus, OR the Dog-post-days; Siebenkas's Wedded-life, Death AND Nuptials!"-(Carlyle's Essays, p. 212.)-Ed.

ual; and its historians are therefore less dramatic, but more philosophical than those of ancient times. The English affix more importance to general than to particular ideas. In Italy, Machiavelli is the only historian who has considered the events of his country in a comprehensive, though in a terrible manner; all the others have seen the world in their own city;, but this patriotism, confined as it is, still imparts interest and spirit to the writings of Italy. It has been always remarked that in France, memoirs are much better than histories; courtintrigues formerly determined the fate of the kingdom, it was therefore very natural that in such a country private anecdotes should contain the secret of history.

1

It is under a literary point of view that we should consider the German historians; the political existence of the country has not hitherto had power to give a national character to that class of writers. The talent peculiar to each individual, and the general principles of the historic art, have alone influenced this sort of production of the human mind. It appears to me that the various historical writings published in Germany, may be divided into three principal classes: learned history, philosophical history, and classical history, as far as the acceptation of that word is confined, as the ancients understood it to be, to the art of narration.

Germany abounds with learned historians, such as Mascou, Schöpflin, Schlözer, Gatterer, Schmidt, etc. They have made profound researches, and have given us works where every thing is to be found by those who know how to study them; but such writers are fit only to refer to, and their works would be beyond all others estimable and liberal, if their only object had been to spare trouble to men of genius, who are desirous of writing history.2

1 M. de Sismondi has, in his writings, revived the partial interests of the talian republics, by connecting them with the great subjects of inquiry which are interesting to the whole human race.

• Niebuhr, Ranke, Neander, Bunsen, Mommsen, etc., are new names that indicate great changes in historical studies since Madame de Staë wrote.-Ed.