lished, is undoubtedly a proof of his disinterestedness. He leaves no fortune, but directs his manuscripts to be sold in order to pay his debts. He adds, that if the produce is sufficient to discharge them, he bequeathes his watch to his servant, "who will not," he says, “receive without tender emotion, the watch which he has daily wound up for twenty years." The poverty of a man possessed of such distinguished talents is always an honorable circumstance of his life: a thousandth part of the genius which confers a high literary reputation. would certainly be sufficient to insure the success of all the calculations of covetousness. It is a fine thing to devote one's talents to the pursuit of fame, and we always feel esteem for those who ardently aspire after an object which lies beyond the grave.

CHAPTER XXX.

IERDER.

THE literary men of Germany, as a united body, form in many respects the most respectable assemblage which the enlightened world can present to us; and among these, Herder' deserves a distinguished place: his mind, his genius, and his morality united, have rendered his life illustrious. His writings may be considered in three different points of view, those of history, literature, and theology. He was much occupied

1 "John Godfrey Herder, the friend and early patron of Goethe, was born, in 1744, at Mohrungen, a small place in East-Prussia, where his father was sexton and schoolmaster. He received from him the rudiments of his education, and at a very early age showed great diligence. But the small means of his parents, and a defect in one of his eyes, seemed a bar to his ever being sent to a university. The clergyman of the place took him into his house in the capacity of a menial, but he had access to his library, and employed all his leisure time in reading. During the Seven Years' War, he became acquainted with an army surgeon who prevailed on him to accompany him to Königsberg, to study surgery; but some short time

n the study of antiquity in general, and of the oriental languages in particular. His book entitled the Philosophy of History has more fascination in it than almost any other German production. We do not indeed find that it contains the same depth of political observation as the work written by Montesquieu on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decline of the Romans; but as Herder's object was to penetrate the genius of the earliest times, perhaps the quality he most eminently pos sessed, which was imagination, proved more serviceable to him in that pursuit than any other would have done. That sort of torch is necessary when we walk in darkness: Herder's various chapters on Persepolis and Babylon, on the Hebrews and Egyptians, form a delightful kind of reading; it seems as if we were walking in the midst of the old world with an historical poet, who touches the ruins with his wand, and erects anew before our eyes all the fallen edifices.

In Germany, so extensive a degree of information is expected even from men of the greatest genius, that some critics have accused Herder of not possessing a sufficient depth of learning. But what strikes us, on the contrary, is the variety of his knowledge; all the languages were familiar to him, and his Essay on the Poetry of the Hebrews,' is the work in which he

afterwards he determined to embrace the profession of theology, and was appointed minister of the Lutheran church and rector of the high-school in Riga. He soon, however, resigned that situation, and, desirous to see the world, travelled through Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, to France. In Paris he had an offer of travelling as tutor with the Prince of Holstein, whom he went to meet at Eutin. After having accompanied him through a great part of Germany, he left him to accept an appointment as court-preacher at Bückeburg (1770). Five years afterwards, the professorship of theology in the University of Göttingen was offered to him; but on his arrival there he received the disagreeable intelligence that his nomination had not been confirmed by the King of England. In 1789, the rank of vice-president of Consistory was bestowed on him by the Duke of Weimar, in whose capital he took his final abode. He died in 1803, in his fifty-ninth year.

"His principal works are: Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache; Geist der hebräischen Poesie; Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit; Briefe über die Fortschritte der Humanität; Vernunft und Menschlichkeit.” —Ed. 1 It has been well translated in this country by Professor Marsh.—Ed.

most readily discovers how far he could adopt the spirit of foreign nations. The genius of a prophetic people, with whom poetical inspiration was an emanation from the Deity, was never better expressed. The wandering life of that nation, the manners of its people, the thoughts of which they were capable, the imagery habitual to it, are all pointed out by Herder with great sagacity. By the help of the most ingenious combinations, he endeavors to give us an idea of the symmetry of Hebrew versification, of that return of the same sentiment and of the same image in different terms of which every stanza offers us an example. Sometimes he compares this striking regular. ity to two rows of pearls which surround the hair of a beautiful woman. "Art and nature," says he, "through all their varieties, still preserve an astonishing uniformity." Unless we were able to read the Hebrew Psalms in the original language, it is impossible to acquire a better idea of the charm with which. they are accompanied, than by what Herder says of them. His imagination was straitened in the countries of the West; he delighted in breathing the perfumes of Asia, and in transfusing into his works the pure incense which his soul had collected. It was he who first made Spanish and Portuguese poetry known in Germany; the translations of W. Schlegel have since naturalized them. Herder published a collection entitled Popular Songs. It contains ballads and detached pieces, on which the national character and imagination of the people are strongly impressed. We may study in them that natural poetry which precedes cultivation. Cultivated literature becomes so speedily factitious, that it is good, now and then, to have recourse to the origin of all poetry, that is to say, to the impression made by nature on man before he had analyzed both the universe and himself. The flexibility of the German language alone, perhaps, admits a translation of those naïvetés peculiar to that of different countries, without which we cannot enter into the spirit of popular poetry; the words in those poems have in themselves a certain grace, which affects us like a flower we have before seen, like an air that we have heard in our childhood: these peculiar impressions contain not only the secrets

of the art, but those of the soul, from which art originally derived them. The Germans, in literature, analyze their sensations to the very utmost, even to those delicate shades which no language can convey to our ideas; and we may reproach them with attaching themselves too much, in every respect, to the endeavor of making us comprehend what can never be expressed.

I shall speak, in the fourth part of this work, of Herder's theological writings; history and literature are often found united in them. A man of genius so sincere as Herder, must naturally mingle religion with all his thoughts, and all his thoughts with religion. It has been said that his writings resemble an animated conversation: it is true that he has not made use of that methodical form in his works, which is given to books in general. It was under the porticos, and in the gardens of the Academy, that Plato explained to his disciples the system of the intellectual world. We find in Herder that noble negligence of genius ever impatient to acquire new ideas. What we call a well-made book is a modern invention. The discovery of the art of printing has made necessary divisions, recapitulations, in short all the apparatus of logic. The greatest number of ancient works of philosophy, are treatises or dialogues, which we consider as written conversations. Montaigne also gave himself up to the natural course of his thoughts. To be allowed such a privilege, however, we should possess a decided superiority of intellect. Order supplies the want of that superiority; for if mediocrity were thus to deviate at random, we should commonly be brought back to the point. from which we begun, with the fatigue of having taken many a wearisome step; but a man of genius interests us the more, by showing himself as he is, and by making his books appear rather as extemporaneous effusions than labcred compositions. Herder1 possessed, it is said, admirable powers of conversa

1 "Herder is the lineal descendant of Lessing, imitating his revolutiony efforts, helping to disseminate his ideas, and succeeded in carrying hem further by reason of the very qualities which distinguished him from Lessing. The works published about this period, namely, Fragmente zur

tion, and from his writings we are sensible that it must have been so. We also perceive from them what indeed all his friends attest the truth of, that there never was a better man. When literary genius inspires those who do not know us with a disposition to love us, it is that gift of heaven from which on earth we gather the most delightful fruit.

Deutschen Literatur, 1767; the Kritische Wälder, 1769; and Von Deutscher Art und Kunst, 1773, show Lessing's influence as the groundwork, with Hamann's and his own rhetorical and theologico-poetical tendencies as variations. If Lessing is now best known by his Laokoön and Nathan, Herder is almost exclusively known by his Ideas towards a History of Mankind. The contrast between these works is all the greater because of the evident parentage. Herder had something of the Hebrew Prophet in him, but the Hebrew Prophet fallen upon Deistical times, with Spinoza and Lessing for teachers. To complete the contrast between Lessing and Herder, it may be added that both were critics rather than poets; but the clear rational poetry of Lessing survives, while the rhetoric of Herder is altogether forgotten. Both greatly influenced their nation, Herder perhaps more than Lessing at the time; but as the waves of time roll on they leave Herder more and more behind, scarcely washing any thing away of the great Lessing.

"Herder's merit, according to Gervinus, is, that he gave an impulse to poetic activity, less through his own example than through his union of imagination and fancy with æsthetical criticism, thus throwing a bridge over from criticism to poetry. From youth upwards there was something in him solitary, visionary, and sensitive: he was never seen to leap and play like other boys, but wandered lonely with his thoughts. A vast ambition, resting on a most predominating vanity, made him daring in literature, bitter, and to many unendurable in intercourse. His sensitive nerves forbidding the study of medicine, he chose that of theology. He became one of Germany's most renowned preachers; but although his loved wife weaned him from the early 'freethinking,' he never to the last became what could be called orthodox; he was, so to speak, a rhetorical Spinoza in orders.'

"Although Herder was not more a poet than Lessing, he had more of the poetical element in his nature; but it was confused, and instead of ripening into fruit, ran to seed in rhetoric. This fault, which was also a quality, brought him nearer to his age and nation. It gave a charm to his teaching. It roused enthusiasm. It aided his efforts towards the dissemination of Ossian, Hebrew poetry, and old German literature, especially old ballads."-(Lewes, Life and Works of Goethe, vol. i. pp. 258, 259.)—Ed.