Pagi DEATH OF GOETHE New Monthly Magazine.-Vol. XXXIV. No. CXXXVIII. 1832. Fraser's Magazine.-Vol. XV. Nos. LXXXV. and LXXXVI. 1837. London and Westminster Review.-Nos. VIII. and LI. 1837. CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. [EDINBURGH Review, 1827.] DR. JOHNSON, it is said, when he first heard | monger, whose grand enterprise, however, is of Boswell's intention to write a life of him, his Gallery of Weimar Authors; a series of announced, with decision enough, that, if he strange little biographies, beginning with Schilthought Boswell really meant to write his life, ler, and already extending over Wieland and he would prevent it by taking Boswell's! That Herder,—now comprehending, probably by great authors should actually employ this pre- conquest, Klopstock also, and lastly, by a sort ventive against bad biographers is a thing we of droit d'aubaine, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, would by no means recommend; but the truth neither of whom belonged to Weimar. Auis, that, rich as we are in biography, a well- thors, it must be admitted, are happier than the written life is almost as rare as a well-spent old painter with his cocks: for they write, naone; and there are certainly many more men turally and without fear of ridicule or offence, whose history deserves to be recorded than the name and description of their work on the persons willing and able to furnish the record. title-page; and thenceforth the purport and But great men, like the old Egyptian kings, tendency of each volume remains indisputable. must all be tried after death, before they Doering is sometimes lucky in this privilege; can be embalmed: and what, in truth, are for his manner of composition, being so pecuthese "Sketches," "Anas," 66 Conversations," liar, might now and then occasion difficulty, "Voices," and the like, but the votes and plead- but for this precaution. His biographies he ings of the ill-informed advocates, and jurors, works up simply enough. He first ascertains, and judges, from whose conflict, however, we from the Leipzig Conversationslericon or Jörshall in the end have a true verdict? The worst den's Poetical Lexicon, Flögel, or Koch, or other of it is at the first; for weak eyes are precisely such Compendium or Handbook, the aate and the fondest of glittering objects. And, accord-place of the proposed individual's birth, his ingly, no sooner does a great man depart, and leave his character as public property, than a crowd of little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavouring, by all arts, to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of himself; though, many times, this mirror is so twisted with convexities and concavities, and, indeed, so extremely small in size, that to expect any true image, or any image whatever from it, is out of the question. parentage, trade, appointments, and the titles of his works; (the date of his death you already know from the newspapers ;) this serves as a foundation for the edifice. He then goes through his writings, and all other writings where he or his pursuits are treated of, and whenever he finds a passage with his name in it, he cuts it out, and carries it away. In this manner a mass of materials is collected, and the building now proceeds apace. Stone is laid on the top of stone, just as it comes to hand; a trowel or two of biographic mortar, if perfectly convenient, being perhaps spread in Richter was much better-natured than John- here and there, by way of cement; and so the son; and took many provoking things with the strangest pile suddenly arises; amorphous, spirit of a humorist and philosopher; nor can pointing every way but to the zenith,-here a we think that so good a man, even had he fore-block of granite, there a mass of pipe-clay; seen this work of Doering's, would have gone the length of assassinating him for it. Doering is a person we have known for several years, as a compiler, and translator, and ballad Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Leben, nebst Characteristik seiner Werke; von Heinrich Doering: (Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of his Works; by Heinrich Doering) Gotha. Hennings, 1826. 12mo. Pp. 208. till the whole finishes, when the materials are finished, and you leave it standing to posterity, like some miniature Stonehenge, a perfect architectural enigma. To speak without figure, this mode of lifeWriting has its disadvantages. For one thing, the composition cannot well be what the critics call harmonious; and, indeed, Herr Doering's transitions are often abrupt enough. His hero 7 changes his object and occupation from page | rating (decidedly in bombast) over the grave. to page, often from sentence to sentence, in the most unaccountable way; a pleasure journey, and a sickness of fifteen years, are despatched with equal brevity; in a moment you find him married, and the father of three fine children. He dies no less suddenly; he is studying as usual, writing poetry, receiving visits, full of life and business, when instantly some paragraph opens under him, like one of the trapdoors in the Vision of Mirza, and he drops, without note of preparation, into the shades below. Perhaps, indeed, not for ever: we have instances of his rising after the funeral, and winding up his affairs. The time has been, that when the brains were out the man would die; but Doering orders these matters differently. Then, it seems, there were meetings held in various parts of Germany, to solemnize the memory of Richter; among the rest, one in the Museum of Frankfort on the Maine; where a Doctor Börne speaks another long speech, if possible in still more decided bombast. Next come threnodies from all the four winds, mostly on very splay-footed metre. Thewhole of which is here snatched from the kind oblivion of the newspapers, and "lives in Settle's numbers one day more." We have too much reverence for the name of Richter to think of laughing over these unhappy threnodies and panegyrists; some of whom far exceed any thing we English can exhibit in the epicedial style. They rather testify, however maladroitly, that the Germans have felt their loss,—which, indeed, is one to Europe at large; they even affect us with a certain melancholy feeling, when we consider how a heavenly voice must become mute, and nothing be heard in its stead but the whoop of quite earthly voices, lamenting, or pretending to lament. Far from us be all remembrance of Doering and Company, while we speak of Richter! But his own works give us some glimpses into his singular and noble nature; and to our readers a few words on this man, certainly one of the most remarkable of his age, will not seem thrown away. We beg leave to say, however, that we really have no private pique against Doering: on the contrary, we are regular purchasers of his ware; and it gives us true pleasure to see his spirits so much improved since we first met him. In the Life of Schiller, his state did seem rather unprosperous: he wore a timorous, submissive, and downcast aspect, as if like Sterne's Ass, he were saying, "Don't thrash me ;-but if you will, you may!" Now, however, comforted by considerable sale, and praise from this and the other Literaturblatt, which has commended his diligence, his fidelity, and, strange to say, his method, he advances with erect countenance and firm hoof, and even re-ter is little known out of Germany. The only calcitrates contemptuously against such as do him offence. Glück auf dem Weg! is the worst we wish him. Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Rich thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country, is his saying, imported by Madame de Staël, and thankfully pocketed Of his Life of Richter, these preliminary ob- by most newspaper critics: "Providence has servations may be our excuse for saying but given to the French the empire of the land, to little. He brags much, in his preface, that it the English that of the sea, to the Germans that is all true and genuine; for Richter's widow, of-the air!" Of this last element, indeed, his it seems, had, by public advertisement, cau- own genius might easily seem to have been a tioned the world against it; another biography, denizen: so fantastic, many-coloured, far-grasp partly by the illustrious deceased himself, part-ing, every way perplexed and extraordinary in ly by Otto, his oldest friend and the appointed his mode of writing, that to translate him is next editor of his works, being actually in prepara- to impossible; nay, a dictionary of his works tion. This rouses the indignant spirit of Doer- has actually been in part published for the use ing, and he stoutly asseverates, that, his docu- of German readers! These things have rements being altogether authentic, this biogra- stricted his sphere of action, and may long rephy is no pseudo-biography. With greater truth strict it to his own country: but there, in rehe might have asseverated that it was no bio-turn, he is a favourite of the first class; studied graphy at all. Well are he and Hennings of through all his intricacies with trustful admiGotha aware that this thing of shreds and ration, and a love which tolerates much. Durpatches has been vamped together for sale ing the last forty years, he has been continually only. Except a few letters to Kunz, the Bam- before the public, in various capacities, and berg bookseller, which turn mainly on the pur-growing generally in esteem with all ranks of chase of spectacles, and the journeyings and critics; till, at length, his gainsayers have freightage of two boxes that used to pass and been either silenced or convinced; and Jean repass between Richter and Kunz's circulating Paul, at first reckoned half-mad, has long ago library; with three or four notes of similar im-vindicated his singularities to nearly universal portance, and chiefly to other booksellers, there satisfaction, and now combines popularity with are no biographical documents here, which real depth of endowment, in perhaps a greater were not open to all Europe as well as to Hein-degree than any other writer; being second in rich Doering. Indeed, very nearly one-half of the latter point to scarcely more than one of the Life is occupied with a description of the his contemporaries, and in the former second funeral and its appendages,-how the "sixty to none. torches, with a number of lanterns and pitchpans," were arranged; how this patrician or professor followed that, through Friedrich-street, Chancery-street, and other streets of Bayreuth; and how at last the torches all went out, as Doctor Gabler and Doctor Spatzier were pero The biography of so distinguished a person could scarcely fail to be interesting, especially his autobiography; which, accordingly, we wait for, and may in time submit to our readers, if it seem worthy: meanwhile, the history of his life, so far as outward events characterize |