I saw Schiller, for the first time, in the saloon of the Duke and Duchess of Weimar, in the presence of a society as enlightened as it was exalted. He read French very well, but he had never spoken it. I maintained, with some warmth, the superiority of our dramatic system over that of all others; he did not refuse to enter the lists with me, and without feeling any uneasiness from the difficulty and slowness with which he expressed himself in French, without dreading the opinion of his audience, which was all against him, his conviction of being right impelled him to speak. In order to refute him, I at first made use of French arms-vivacity and pleasantry; but in what Schiller said, I soon discovered so many ideas through the impediment of his words; I was so struck with that simplicity of character, which led a man of genius to engage him self thus in a contest where speech was wanting to express his

with full power, only in the high and earnest; in all other provinces ex hibiting a certain inaptitude, an elephantine unpliancy: he too has little Hunor; his coarse invective has in it contemptuous emphasis enough, yet scarcely any graceful sport. Indeed, on the positive side also, these two worthies are not without a resemblance. Under far other circumstances, with less massiveness, and vehement strength of soul, there is in Schiller the same intensity; the same concentration, and towards similar objects, towards whatever is sublime in Nature and in Art, which sublimities, they both, each in his several way, worship with undivided heart. There is not in Schiller's nature the same rich complexity of rhythm, as in Milton's with its depth of linked sweetness; yet in Schiller, too, there is something of the same pure, swelling fora, some tone which, like Milton's, is deep, majestic, solemn.

"It was as a dramatic author that Schiller distinguished himself to the world: yet often we feel as if chance rather than a natural tendency had led him into this province; as if his talent were essentially, in a certain style, lyrical, perhaps even epic, rather than dramatic. He dwelt within himself, and could not without effort, and then only within a certain range, body forth other forms of being. Nay, much of what is called his poetry secins to us oratorical rather than poetical; his first bias might have led him to be a speaker, rather than a singer. Nevertheless, a pure fire dwelt deep in his soul; and only in Poetry, of one or the other sort, could this find utterance. The rest of his nature, at the same time, has a certain prosaic rigor; so that not without strenuous and complex endeavors, long persisted in, could its poctic quality evolve itself. Quite pure, and as the allsovereign element, it perhaps never did evolve itself; and among such complex endeavors, a small accident might influence large portions in its course."— Carlyle's Essays, 8vo edition, p. 238.)-Ed,

thoughts; I found him so modest and so indifferent as to what concerned his own success, so proud and so animated in the defence of what appeared to him to be truth, that I vowed to him, from that moment, a friendship replete with admiration.

Attacked, while yet young, by a hopeless disease, the sufferings of his last moments were softened by the attention of his children, and of a wife who deserved his affection by a thousand endearing qualities. Madame von Wolzogen, a friend worthy of comprehending him, asked him, a few hours before his death, how he felt? "Still more and more easy," was his reply; and, indeed, had he not reason to place his trust in that God whose dominion on earth he had endeavored to promote? Was he not approaching the abode of the just? Is he not at this moment in the society of those who resemble him? and has he not already rejoined the friends who are awaiting us?

CHAPTER IX.

OF STYLE, AND OF VERSIFICATION IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE.

In learning the prosody of a language, we enter more intimately into the spirit of the nation by which it is spoken, than by any other possible manner of study. Thence it follows that it is amusing to pronounce foreign words: we listen to ourselves as if another were speaking; but nothing is so delicate, nothing so difficult to seize, as accent. We learn the most complicated airs of music a thousand times more readily than the pronounciation of a single syllable. A long succession of years, or the first impressions of childhood, can alone render us capable of imitating this pronunciation, which comprehends whatever is most subtle and undefinable in the imagination, and in national character.

The Germanic dialects have for their original a mothertongue, of which they all partake. This common source re

news and multiplies expressions in a mode always conformable to the genius of the people. The nations of Latin origin enrich themselves, as we may say, only externally; they must have recourse to dead languages, to petrified treasures, for the extension of their empire. It is therefore natural that innovations in words should be less pleasing to them, than to those nations which emit shoots from an ever-living stock. But the French writers require an animation and coloring of their style, by the boldest measures that a natural sentiment can suggest, while the Germans, on the contrary, gain by restricting themselves. Among them, reserve cannot destroy originality; they run no risk of losing it but by the very excess of abundance.

:

The air we breathe has much influence on the sounds we articulate the diversity of soil and climate produces very different modes of pronouncing the same language. As we approach the sea-coast, we find the words become softer; the climate there is more temperate; perhaps also the habitual sight of this image of infinity inclines to revery, and gives to pronunciation more of effeminacy and indolence; but when we ascend towards the mountains, the accent becomes stronger, and we might say that the inhabitants of these elevated regions wish to make themselves heard by the rest of the world, from the height of their natural rostra. We find in the Germanic dialects the traces of the different influences I have now had occasion to point out.

The German is in itself a language as primitive, and almost as intricate in structure, as the Greek.' Those who have made

The subject of comparative philology is suggested,—a subject that especially reminds us of German erudition. We can here only refer to those who have devoted themselves to the study of this noble branch of learning, and thus guide the student to sources whence he can obtain all the information he may desire. The leading article in the New Englander, for August, 1858 (by Mr. Dwight), contains a clearly written summary of the History of Modern Philology, from which we take the following: Behold, now, the most important of the different names that we have mentioned, grouped in classes according to their merit.

66

"1. Bopp, Grimm, Pott, Diefenbach, Benary, Schleicher, Curtius, Kuhn, Diez, Mommsen, and Aufrecht.

"2. Eichhoff, Ahrens, Giese, Hoefer, Heyse, Benfey, Donaldson.

researches into the great families of nations, have thought they discovered the historical reasons for this resemblance. It is certainly true, that we remark in the German a grammatical affinity with the Greek; it has all its difficulty, without its charm; for the multitude of consonants of which the words are composed, render them rather noisy than sonorous. It

"3. Kaltschmidt, Rapp, and Winning.

"These writers may also be advantageously divided, for the reader's information, into different classes, according to the subjects that they have investigated.

I. LANGUAGE.

"1st. The Indo-European languages generally: Schleicher (Sprachen Europa's): Max Müller (Survey of Languages, 2d edition).

"2d. Specially,

"(1.) The Græco-Italic: Schleicher (Sprachen, &c.); Mommsen (Rōmische Geschichte); E. Curtius (Griechische Gesch.); Aufrecht and Kirchhoff (Umbrische Sprachdenkmaler); Diez (Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen).

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(2.) The Lettic: Schleicher (Sprachen, &c).

“(3.) The Gothic; Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik und Geschichte); Schleicher; Diefenbach (Gothisches Wörterbuch).

"(4.) Sclavonic: Schafarik; Schleicher; Miklosich.

"(5.) Celtic: Diefenbach (Celtica); Pictet: Charles Meyer; Zoums (Grammatica Celtica); Ebel (Zeitschrift, &c.); Prichard (Celtic Nations).

II. PHONETICS.

66 Benary, Hoefer; Grimm (Deutsche Grammatik und Geschichte); Bopp (Vergleich. Gramm.); Diez (Grammatik, &c.).

III. THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE.

"Becker's various works on Grammar, &c.; Heyse's System der Sprachwissenschaft, Lersch's Sprachphilosophie.

IV. ETYMOLOGY.

66 Bopp (Vergleich. Gramm.); Schleicher (Litanische Grammatik); G. · Curtius (Ciriechische Gramm.); Diez (Lexicon Etymologicum); Fritsch. "In Germany, by far the greatest attention has been paid, from sponta neous impulse, to the claims of comparative philology; while in Russia, the government has as far exceeded all other governments in its patronage of this delightful study, and of those who are devoted to it. This is one of the chief legacies left by the Empress Catharine, in her own zealous example, to her successors ou the throne; and in accepting it, they have not forgotten to put it to good usury. The government publishes, at its own expense, the grammars, dictionaries, and treatises, prepared by the best scholars, and sustains travellers at its own expense, in making explorIng tours for philosophical purposes in the East. Vienna, however, is the most prolific of all single cities in the world, in oriental publications. In

might be said, that the words themselves were more forcible than the things represented by them, and this frequently gives a sort of monotonous energy to the style. We should be careful, nevertheless, not to attempt softening the pronunciation of the German language too much; there always results from it a certain affected gracefulness, which is altogether disagreeable: it presents to our ears sounds essentially rude, in spite of the gentility with which we seek to invest them, and this sort of affectation is singularly displeasing.

J. J. Rousseau has said, that the southern languages were the daughters of pleasure, the northern, of necessity. The Italian and Spanish are modulated like an harmonious song; the French is eminently suited to conversation: their parliamentary debates, and the energy natural to the people, have given to the English something of expression, that supplies the want of prosody. The German is more philosophical by far than the Italian; more poetical, by reason of its boldness, than the French; more favorable to the rhythm of verses than the English; but it still retains a certain stiffness that proceeds, possibly, from its being so sparingly made use of, either in social intercourse or in the public service.

Grammatical simplicity is one of the great advantages of modern languages. This simplicity, founded on logical principles common to all nations, renders them easy to be understood to learn the Italian and English, a slight degree of study is sufficient; but the German is quite a science. The period, in the German language, encompasses the thought; and like the talons of a bird, to grasp it, opens and closes on it again. A construction of phrases, nearly similar to that which existed among the ancients, has been introduced into it with greater facility than into any other European dialect;

France, Prussia, and Denmark also, much more zeal is shown in this cap tivating class of studies than in either England or America. The Sanskrit nus been, indeed, as long taught in England as in Germany, and even longer; but not for classical and philological purposes; for commercial reasons rather, under the patronage of the East India Company, at the College of Haileybury."-(New Englander, August, 1858, pp. 502-8.)-Ed.