CHAPTER XXXI.

OF THE LITERARY TREASURES OF GERMANY, AND OF ITS MOST RENOWNED CRITICS, A. W. AND F. SCHLEGEL.

In the picture which I have now given of German literature, I have endeavored to point out the principal works; but I have been obliged to omit naming a great number of men, whose writings, being less known, conduce more to the instruction of those who read them, than to the reputation of the authors themselves.

Treatises on the fine arts, works of erudition and philosophy, though they do not immediately belong to literature, must, however, be counted among its treasures. There is in Germany a fund of ideas and knowledge which the other nations of Europe will not for a long time be able to exhaust.

The poetical genius, if Heaven ever restores it to us, may also receive a happy impulse from the love of nature, of arts, and philosophy, which is kindled in the countries of Germany; but at least, I dare affirm that any man who now wishes to devote himself to a serious work of whatever sort, whether history, philosophy, or antiquities, cannot excuse himself from becoming acquainted with the German writers, who have been. occupied with the study of those subjects.

France may boast of a great number of learned men of the first rank, but they have seldom united knowledge and philosophical sagacity, while in Germany they are now almost inseparable. Those who plead in favor of ignorance, as a pledge of grace, mention many very sensible men who have had no instruction; but they forget that those men have deeply studied he human heart, such as it shows itself in the world, and that their ideas are derived from that source. But if those men, learned in society, would judge of literature without being act

quainted it, they would be as tiresome as citizens are when they talk of the court.

When I began the study of German literature, it seemed as if I was entering on a new sphere, where the most striking light was thrown on all that I had before perceived only in a confused manner. For some time past, little has been read in France except memoirs and novels, and it is not wholly from frivolity that we are become less capable of more serious reading, but because the events of the revolution have accustomed us to value nothing but the knowledge of men and things: we find in German books, even on the most abstract subjects, that kind of interest which confers their value upon good novels, and which is excited by the knowledge which they teach us of our own hearts. The peculiar character of German literature is to refer every thing to an interior existence; and as that is the mystery of mysteries, it awakens an unbounded curiosity.

Before we proceed to philosophy, which always makes a part of learning in countries where the empire of literature is free and powerful, I will say a few words on what may be considered as the legislation of that empire-I mean criticism. There is no branch of German literature which has been carried to a greater extent, and as in certain cities there are more physicians than sick people, there are sometimes in Germany more critics than authors; but the analyses of Lessing, who was the creator of style in German prose, are made in such a manner, that they may themselves be considered as works.

Kant, Goethe, J von Müller, the greatest German writers of every kind, have inserted in the periodicals, what they call recensions of different publications, and these recensions contain the most profound philosophical theory, and positive knowledge. Among the younger writers, Schiller and the two Schlegels have shown themselves very superior to all other critics. Schiller is the first among the disciples of Kant who applied his philosophy to literature; and indeed, to judge from the soul, of exterior objects, or from exterior objects to know what passes in the soul, is so different a progress, that all con

nected with either, must be sensible of it. Schiller has written two treatises on the naif and the sentimental, in which, genius. unconscious of its own powers, and genius which is self-observant, are analyzed with great sagacity; but in his Essay on Grace and Dignity, and in his letters on Esthetics, that is, the theory of the beautiful, there is too much of metaphysics. When we mean to speak of that enjoyment of the arts of which all men are susceptible, we should dwell on the impressions they have received, instead of permitting the use of abstract forms, which make us lose the trace of those impressions. Schiller was a man of literature by his genius, and a philosopher by his inclination to reflection; his prose writings border on the confines of the two regions; but he often treads a little. forward on the highest, and returning incessantly to what is. more abstract in theory, he disdains the application as a useless consequence of the principles he has laid down.

Animated descriptions of the chefs-d'œuvre of literature give much more interest to criticism, than general ideas which skim over all subjects without characterizing any. Metaphysics may be termed the science of what is immutable; but all that is subjected to the course of time, is explained only by the mixture of facts and reflections: the Germans would attain complete theories, independent of circumstances, on all subjects; but as that is impossible, we must not give up facts from a fear lest they should circumscribe ideas; and examples alone in theory, as well as in practice, engrave precepts deeply in the memory.

The quintessence of thoughts which some German works present to us, does not, like that of flowers, concentrate the most odoriferous perfumes; on the contrary, we may say with greater truth, that it is only a cold remnant of emotions that were full of life. We might, however, extract from those works a multitude of very interesting observations; but they are confounded with each other. The author, by great exertion of mind, leads his readers to that point where his ideas are too fine and delicate for him to attempt transmitting them o others.

The writings of A. W. Schlegel are less abstracted than those of Schiller; as his knowledge of literature is uncommon even in Germany, he is led continually to application by the pleasure which he finds in comparing different languages and different poems with each other; so general a point of view ought almost to be considered as infallible, if partiality did not sometimes impair it; but this partiality is not of an arbitrary kind, and I will point out both the progress and aim of it; nevertheless, as there are subjects in which it is not perceived, it is of those that I shall first speak.

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W. Schlegel has given a course of dramatic literature at Vienna, which comprises every thing remarkable that has been composed for the theatre from the time of the Grecians to our own days it is not a barren nomenclature of the works of the various authors; he seizes the spirit of their different sorts of literature with all the imagination of a poet; we are sensible that to produce such consequences extraordinary studies are required; but learning is not perceived in this work except by his perfect knowledge of the chefs-d'œuvre of composition. In a few pages we reap the fruit of the labor of a whole life; every opinion formed by the author, every epithet given to the writers of whom he speaks, is beautiful and just, concise and animated. W. Sehlegel has found the art of treating the finest pieces of poetry as so many wonders of nature, and of painting them in lively colors which do not injure the justness of the outline; for we cannot repeat too often, that imagination, far from being an enemy to truth, brings it forward more than any other faculty of the mind, and all those who depend upon. it as an excuse for indefinite terms or exaggerated expressions, are at least as destitute of poetry as of good sense.

An analysis of the principles on which both tragedy and comedy are founded, is treated in W. Schlegel's course of dramatic literature with much depth of philosophy; this kind of merit is often found among the German writers; but Schlegel has no equal in the art of inspiring enthusiasm for the great geniuses he admires; in general he shows himself attached to A simple taste, sometimes bordering on rusticity, but he devi

ates from his usual opinions in favor of the opinions of the inhabitants of the South. Their jeux de mots and their concetti are not the objects of his censure; he detests the affectation which owes its existence to the spirit of society, but that which is excited by the luxury of imagination pleases him in poetry as the profusion of colors and perfumes would do in nature. Schlegel, after having acquired a great reputation by his translation of Shakspeare, became equally enamored of Calderon, but with a very different sort of attachment from that with which Shakspeare had inspired him; for while the English author is deep and gloomy in his knowledge of the human heart, the Spanish poet gives himself up with pleasure and delight to the beauty of life, to the sincerity of faith, and to all the brilliancy of those virtues which derive their coloring. from the sunshine of the soul.

I was at Vienna when W. Schlegel gave his public course of lectures. I expected only good sense and instruction where the object was only to convey information; I was astonished to hear a critic as eloquent as an orator, and who, far from falling upon defects, which are the eternal food of mean and little jealousy, sought only the means of reviving a creative genius.

Spanish literature is but little known, and it was the subject of one of the finest passages delivered during the sitting at which I attended. W. Schlegel gave us a picture of that chivalrous nation, whose poets were all warriors, and whose warriors were poets. He mentioned that Count Ercilla, "who composed his poem of the Araucana in a tent, as now on the shores of the ocean, now at the foot of the Cordilleras, while he made war on the devoted savages. Garcilasso, one of the descendants of the Incas, wrote love-poems on the ruins of Carthage, and perished at the siege of Tunis. Cervantes was dangerously wounded at the battle of Lepanto; Lope de Vega escaped miraculously at the defeat of the Invincible Armada; and Calderon served as an intrepid soldier in the wars of Flanders and Italy.

"Religion and war were more frequently united among the Spaniards than in any other nation; it was they who, by per