ture created by forethought, brought into the | Purse sake, but for Conscience sake. Nay, world by institutions for that end? No; Sci- in our own days, it is no way different. The ence and Art have, from first to last, been the French Revolution itself had something higher free gift of Nature; an unsolicited, unexpected gift: often even a fatal one. These things rose up, as it were by spontaneous growth, in the free soil and sunshine of Nature. They were not planted or grafted, nor even greatly multiplied or improved by the culture or manuring of institutions. Generally speaking, they have derived only partial help from these: often have suffered damage. They made constitutions for themselves. They originated in the Dynamical nature of man, and not in his Mechanical nature. in it than cheap bread and a Habeas-corpus act. Here, too, was an Idea; a Dynamic, not a Mechanic force. It was a struggle, though a blind and at last an insane one, for the infinite, divine nature of Right, of Freedom, of Country. Thus does man, in every age, vindicate, consciously or unconsciously, his celestial birthright. Thus does nature hold on her wondrous, unquestionable course; and all our systems and theories are but so many froth-eddies or sand-banks, which from time to time she casts up and washes away. When we can drain the Ocean into our mill-ponds, and bottle up the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in our gas-jars; then may we hope to compre hend the infinitudes of man's soul under formulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and valves, and balances. Nay, even with regard to Government itself, can it be necessary to remind any one that Freedom, without which indeed all spiritual life is impossible, depends on infinitely more complex influences than either the extension or the curtailment of the "democratic interest?" Who is there that, "taking the high priori road," shall point out what these influences are; what deep, subtle, inextricably entangled influences they have been, and may be? For man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer: it is the noble people that makes the noble Government; rather than conversely. On the whole, Institutions are much; but they are not all. The freest and highest spirits of the world have often been found under strange outward circumstances: Saint Paul and his brother Apostles were politically slaves; Epictetus was personally one. Again, forget the influences of Chivalry and Religion, and ask, Or, to take an infinitely higher instance, that of the Christian Religion, which, under every theory of it, in the believing or the unbelieving mind, must be ever regarded as the crowning glory, or rather the life and soul, of our whole modern culture: How did Christianity arise and spread abroad among men? Was it by institutions, and establishments, and well-arranged systems of mechanism? Not so; on the contrary, in all past and existing institutions for those ends, its divine spirit has invariably been found to languish and decay. It arose in the mystic deeps of man's soul; and was spread abroad by the "preaching of the word," by simple, altogether natural and individual efforts; and flew, like hallowed fire, from heart to heart, till all were purified and illuminated by it; and its heavenly light shone, as it still shines, and as sun or star will ever shine, through the whole dark destinies of man. Here again was no Mechanism; man's highest attainment was accomplished, Dynamically, not Mechanically. Nay, we will venture to say, that no high attainment, not even any far-extending movement among men, was ever accomplished otherwise. Strange as it may seem, if we read History with any degree of thoughtfulness, we shall find, that the checks and balances of Profit and Loss have never-what countries produced Columbus and Las been the grand agents with man; that they have Casas? Or, descending from virtue and heronever been roused into deep, thorough, all-per- ism, to mere energy and spiritual talent: Corvading efforts by any computable prospect of tes, Pizarro, Alba, Ximenes? The Spaniards Profit and Loss, for any visible, finite object; of the sixteenth century were indisputably the but always for some invisible and infinite one. noblest nation of Europe; yet they had the InThe Crusades took their rise in Religion; quisition, and Philip II. They have the same their visible object was, commercially speak- government at this day; and are the lowest ing, worth nothing. It was the boundless, In- nation. The Dutch, too, have retained their visible world that was laid bare in the imagi- old constitution; but no Siege of Leyden, no nations of those men; and in its burning William the Silent, not even an Egmont or light, the visible shrunk as a scroll. Not me- De Witt, any longer appears among them. chanical, nor produced by mechanical means, With ourselves, also, where much has changed, was this vast movement. No dining at Free-effect has nowise followed cause, as it should masons' Tavern, with the other long train of modern machinery; no cunning reconciliation of "vested interests," was required here: only the passionate voice of one man, the rapt soul looking through the eyes of one man; and rugged, steel-clad Europe trembled beneath his words, and followed him whither he listed. In later ages, it was still the same. The Reformation had an invisible, mystic, and These and the like facts are so familiar, the ideal aim; the result was indeed to be embo- truths which they preach so obvious, and have died in external things; but its spirit, its in all past times been so universally believed worth, was internal, invisible, infinite. Our and acted on, that we should almost feel English Revolution, too, originated in Reli- ashamed for repeating them; were it not that, gion. Men did battle, in those days, not for on every hand, the memory of them seems to have done: two centuries ago, the Commons' Speaker addressed Queen Elizabeth on bended knees, happy that the virago's foot did not even smite him; yet the people were then governed, not by a Castlereagh, but by a Burghley; they had their Shakspeare and Philip Sidney, where we have our Sheridan Knowles and Beau Brummel. have passed away, or at best died into a faint tradition, of no value as a practical principle. To judge by the loud clamour of our Constitution builders, Statists, Economists, directors, creators, reformers of Public Societies; in a word, all manner of Mechanists, from the Cartwright up to the Code-maker; and by the nearly total silence of all Preachers and Teachers who should give a voice to Poetry, Religion, and Morality, we might fancy either that man's Dynamical nature was, to all spiritual intents, extinct, or else so perfected, that nothing more was to be made of it by the old means; and henceforth only in his Mechanical contrivances did any hope exist for him. To define the limits of these two departments of man's activity, which work into one another, and by means of one another, so intricately and inseparably, were by its nature an impossible attempt. Their relative importance, even to the wisest mind, will vary in different times, according to the special wants and dispositions of these times. Meanwhile, it seems clear enough that only in the right co-ordination of the two, and the vigorous forwarding of both, does our true line of action lie. Undue culti vation of the inward or Dynamical province leads to idle, visionary, impracticable courses, and, especially in rude eras, to Superstition and Fanaticism, with their long train of baleful and well-known evils. Undue cultivation of the outward, again, though less immediately prejudicial, and even for the time productive of many palpable benefits, must, in the long run, by destroying Moral Force, which is the parent of all other Force, prove not less certainly, and perhaps still more hopelessly, pernicious. This, we take it, is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass that, in the management of external things, we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilized ages. In fact, if we look deeper, we shall find that this faith in Mechanism has now struck its roots deep into men's most intimate, primary sources of conviction; and is thence sending up, over his whole life and activity, innumerable stems, fruit-bearing and poison-bearing. The truth is, men have lost their belief in the Invisible, and believe, and hope, and work only in the Visible; or, to speak it in other words, This is not a Religious age. Only the material, the immediately practical, not the divine and spiritual, is important to us. The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable. Worship, indeed, in any sense, is not recognised among us, or is mechanically explained into Fear of pain, or Hope of pleasure. Our true Deity is Mechanism. It has subdued external Nature for us, and, we think, it will do all other things. We are Giants in physical power: in a deeper than a metaphorical sense, we are Titans, that strive, by heaping mountain on mountain, to conquer Heaven also. The strong mechanical character, so visible in the spiritual pursuits and methods of this age, may be traced much farther into the condition and prevailing disposition of our spiritual nature itself. Consider, for example, the general fashion of Intellect in this era. Intellect, the power man has of knowing and believing, is now nearly synonymous with Logic, or the mere power of arranging and communicating. Its implement is not Meditation, but Argument. "Cause and effect" is almost the only category under which we look at, and work with, all Nature. Our first question with regard to any object is not, What is it? but, How is it? We are no longer instinctively driven to apprehend, and lay to heart, what is Good and Lovely, but rather to inquire, as onlookers, how it is produced, whence it comes, whither it goes. Our favourite Philosophers have no love and no hatred; they stand among us not to do, nor to create any thing, but as a sort of Logic-mills to grind out the true causes and effects of all that is done and created. To the eye of a Smith, a Hume, or a Constant, all is well that works quietly. An Order of Ignatius Loyola, a Presbyterianism of John Knox, a Wickliffe, or a Henry the Eighth, are simply so many mechanical phenomena, caused or causing. The Euphuist of our day differs much from his pleasant predecessors. An intellectual dapperling of these times boasts chiefly of his irresistible perspicacity, his "dwelling in the daylight of truth," and so forth; which, on examination, turns out to be a dwelling in the rush-light of "closet-logic," and a deep unconsciousness that there is any other light to dwell in; or any other objects to survey with it. Wonder indeed, is, on all hands, dying out: it is the sign of uncultivation to wonder. Speak to any small man of a high, majestic Reformation, of a high, majestic Luther to lead it, and forthwith he sets about "accounting" for it! how the "circumstances of the time" called for such a character, and found him, we suppose, standing girt and road-ready, to do its errand; how the "circumstances of the time" created, fashioned, floated him quietly along into the result; how, in short, this small man, had he been there, could have performed the like himself! For it is the "force of circumstances" that does every thing; the force of one man can do nothing. Now all this is grounded on little more than a metaphor. We figure Society as a "Machine," and that mind is opposed to mind, as body is to body; whereby two, or at most ten, little minds must be stronger than one great mind. Notable absurdity! For the plain truth, very plain, we think, is, that minds are opposed to minds in quite a different way; and one man that has a higher Wisdom, a hitherto unknown spiritual Truth in him, is stronger, not than ten men that have it not, or than ten thousand, but than all men, that have it not; and stands among them with a quite ethereal, angelic power, as with a sword out of Heaven's own armory, sky-tempered, which no buckler, and no tower of brass, will finally withstand. But to us, in these times, such considerations rarely occur. We enjoy, we see nothing by direct vision; but only by reflection, and in anatomical dismemberment. Like Sir Hudibras, for every Why, we must have a Where fore. We have our little theory on all human | long-past class of Popes were possessed of; and divine things. Poetry, the workings of inflicting moral censure; imparting moral engenius itself, which in all times, with one or couragement, consolation, edification; in all another meaning, has been called Inspiration, ways, diligently "administering the Discipline and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is of the Church." It may be said, too, that in no longer without its scientific exposition. The private disposition, the new Preachers somebuilding of the lofty rhyme is like any other what resemble the Mendicant Friars of old masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of times: outwardly full of holy zeal; inwardly its rise, height, decline, and fall,-which latter, not without stratagem, and hunger for terresit would seem, is now near, among all people. trial things. But omitting this class, and the Of our "Theories of Taste," as they are call- boundless host of watery personages who pipe, ed, wherein the deep, infinite, unspeakable as they are able, on so many scrannel straws, Love of Wisdom and Beauty, which dwells let us look at the higher regions of Literature, in all men, is "explained," made mechanically where, if anywhere, the pure melodies of Poevisible, from "Association," and the like, why sy and Wisdom should be heard. Of natural should we say any thing? Hume has written talent there is no deficiency: one or two richlyus a "Natural History of Religion;" in which endowed individuals even give us a superiority one Natural History, all the rest are included. in this respect. But what is the song they Strangely, too, does the general feeling coin- sing? Is it a tone of the Memnon Statue, cide with Hume's in this wonderful problem; breathing music as the light first touches it? for whether his "Natural History" be the right a "liquid wisdom," disclosing to our sense the one or not, that Religion must have a Natural deep, infinite harmonies of Nature and man's History, all of us, cleric and laic, seem to be soul? Alas, no! It is not a matin or vesper agreed. He indeed regards it as a Disease, we hymn to the Spirit of all Beauty, but a fierce again as Health; so far there is a difference; clashing of cymbals, and shouting of multibut in our first principle we are at one. tudes, as children pass through the fire to MoTo what extent theological Unbelief, we lech! Poetry itself has no eye for the Invisimean intellectual dissent from the Church, in ble. Beauty is no longer the god it worships, its view of Holy Writ, prevails at this day, but some brute image of Strength; which we would be a highly important, were it not, un- may well call an idol, for true Strength is one der any circumstances, an almost impossible and the same with Beauty, and its worship also inquiry. But the Unbelief, which is of a still is a hymn. The meek, silent Light can mould, more fundamental character, every man may create, and purify all Nature; but the loud see prevailing, with scarcely any but the faint- Whirlwind, the sign and product of Disunion, est contradiction, all around him; even in the of Weakness, passes on, and is forgotten. Pulpit itself. Religion in most countries, more How widely this veneration for the physically or less in every country, is no longer what it Strongest has spread itself through Literature, was, and should be,—a thousand-voiced psalm any one may judge, who reads either criticism from the heart of Man to his invisible Father, or poem. We praise a work, not as “true," the fountain of all Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and but as "strong;" our highest praise is that it revealed in every revelation of these; but for has "affected " us, has "terrified" us. All this, the most part, a wise, prudential feeling it has been well observed, is the "maximum grounded on a mere calculation; a matter, as of the Barbarous," the symptom, not of vigorall others now are, of Expediency and Utility: ous refinement, but of luxurious corruption. whereby some smaller quantum of earthly en-It speaks much, too, for men's indestructible joyment may be exchanged for a far larger quantum of celestial enjoyment. Thus Religion, too, is Profit; a working for wages; not Reverence, but vulgar Hope or Fear. Many, we know, very many, we hope, are still religious in a far different sense; were it not so, our case were too desperate: But to witness that such is the temper of the times, we take any calm observant man, who agrees or disagrees in our feeling on the matter, and ask him whether our view of it is not in general wellfounded. love of truth, that nothing of this kind will abide with them; that even the talent of a Byron cannot permanently seduce us into idol-worship; but that he, too, with all his wild syren charming, already begins to be disregarded and forgotten. Again, with respect to our Moral condition: here also, he who runs may read that the same physical, mechanical influences are every where busy. For the "superior morality," of which we hear so much, we too, would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindness to deny that this "superior morality” is properly rather an "inferior criminality," pro Literature, too, if we consider it, gives similar testimony. At no former era has Literature, the printed communication of Thought,duced not by greater love of Virtue, but by been of such importance as it is now. We often hear that the Church is in danger; and truly so it is, in a danger it seems not to know of: For, with its tithes in the most perfect safety, its functions are becoming more and more superseded. The true Church of England, at this moment, lies in the Editors of its Newspapers. These preach to the people daily, weekly; admonishing kings themselves; advising peace or war, with an authority which only the first Reformers and a greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion. This last watches over us with its Argus eyes more keenly than ever; but the "inward eye" seems heavy with sleep. Of any belief in invisible, divine things, we find as few traces in our Morality as elsewhere. It is by tangible, material considerations that we are guided, not by inward and spiritual. Self-denial, the parent of all virtue, in any true sense of that word, has perhaps seldom been rarer: so rare is it, that the most, even in their abstract speculations, regard its existence as a chimera. Virtue is Pleasure, is Profit; no celestial, but an earthly thing. Virtuous men, Philanthropists, Martyrs, are happy accidents; their taste" lies the right way! In all senses, we worship and follow after Power; which may be called a physical pursuit. No man now loves Truth, as Truth must be loved, with an infinite love; but only with a finite love, and as it were par amours. Nay, properly speaking, he does not believe and know it, but only" thinks" it, and that "there is every probability!" He preaches it aloud, and rushes courageously forth with it,-if there is a multitude huzzaing at his back! yet ever keeps looking over his shoulder, and the instant the huzzaing languishes, he too stops short. In fact, what morality we have takes the shape of Ambition, of Honour; beyond money and money's worth, our only rational blessedness is popularity. It were but a fool's trick to die for conscience. Only for "character," by duel, or in case of extremity, by suicide, is the wise man bound to die. By arguing on the "force of circumstances," we have argued away all force from ourselves; and stand leashed together, uniform in dress and movement, like the rowers of some boundless galley. This and that may be right and true; but we must not do it. Wonderful "Force of Public Opinion!" We must act and walk in all points as it prescribes; follow the traffic it bids us, realize the sum of money, the degree of "influence" it expects of us, or we shall be lightly esteemed; certain mouthfuls of articulate wind will be blown at us, and this, what mortal courage can front? Thus, while civil Liberty is more and more secured to us, our moral Liberty is all but lost. Practically considered, our creed is Fatalism: and, free in hand and foot, we are shackled in heart and soul, with far straiter than Feudal chains. Truly may we say with the Philosopher, "the deep meaning of the laws of Mechanism lies heavy on us ;" and in the closet, in the marketplace, in the temple, by the social hearth, encumbers the whole movements of our mind, and over our noblest faculties is spreading a night-mare sleep. These dark features, we are aware, belong more or less to other ages, as well as to ours. This faith in Mechanism, in the all-importance of physical things, is in every age the common refuge of Weakness and blind Discontent; of all who believe, as many will ever do, that man's true good lies without him, not within. We are aware also, that, as applied to our selves in all their aggravation, they form but half a picture; that in the whole picture there are bright lights as well as gloomy shadows. If we here dwell chiefly on the latter, let us not be blamed: it is in general more profitable to reckon up our defects, than to boast of our attainments. Neither, with all these evils more or less clearly before us, have we at any time despaired of the fortunes of society. Despair, or even despondency, in that respect, appears to us, in all cases, a groundless feeling. We have a faith in the imperishable dignity of man; in the high vocation to which, throughout this his earthly history, he has been appointed. However it may be with individual nations, whatever melancholic speculators may assert, it seems a well-ascertained fact that, in all times, reckoning even from those of the Heracleids and Pelasgi, the happiness and greatness of mankind at large have been continually progressive. Doubtless this age also is advancing. Its very unrest, its ceaseless activity, its discontent, contains matter of promise. Know. ledge, education, are opening the eyes of the humblest,-are increasing the number of thinking minds without limit. This is as it should be; for, not in turning back, not in resisting, but only in resolutely struggling forward, does our life consist. Nay, after all, our spiritual maladies are but of Opinion; we are but fettered by chains of our own forging, and which ourselves also can rend asunder. This deep, paralyzed subjection to physical objects comes not from Nature, but from our own unwise mode of viewing Nature. Neither can we understand that man wants, at this hour, any faculty of heart, soul, or body, that ever belonged to him. "He, who has been born, has been a First Man;” has had lying before his young eyes, and as yet unhardened into scientific shapes, a world as plastic, infinite, divine, as lay before the eyes of Adam himself. If Mechanism, like some glass bell, encircles and imprisons us, if the soul looks forth on a fair heavenly country which it cannot reach, and pines, and in its scanty atmosphere is ready to perish, yet the bell is but of glass; "one bold stroke to break the bell in pieces, and thou art delivered!" Not the invisible world is wanting, for it dwells in man's soul, and this last is still here. Are the solemn temples in which the Divinity was once visibly revealed among us, crumbling away? We can repair them, we can rebuild them. The wisdom, the heroic worth of our forefathers, which we have lost, we can recover. That admiration of old nobleness, which now so often shows itself as a faint dilettantism, will one day become a generous emulation, and man may again be all that he has been, and more than he has been. Nor are these the mere daydreams of fancy; they are clear possibilities; nay, in this time, they are even assuming the character of hopes. Indications we do see, in other countries and in our own, signs infinitely cheering to us, that Mechanism is not always to be our hard taskmaster, but one day to be our pliant, all-ministering servant; that a new and brighter spiritual era is slowly evolving itself for all men. But on these things our present course forbids us to enter. The Meanwhile, that great outward changes are in progress can be doubtful to no one. time is sick and out of joint. Many things have reached their height; and it is a wise adage that tells us, "the darkest hour is nearest the dawn." Whenever we can gather any indication of the public thought, whether from printed books, as in France or Germany, or from Carbonari rebellions and other political tumults, as in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, the voice it utters is the same. thinking minds of all nations call for change. The There is a deep-lying struggle in the whole | all his noble institutions, his faithful endeafabric of society; a boundless, grinding colli-vours, and loftiest attainments, are but the sion of the New with the Old. The French body, and more and more approximated emRevolution, as is now visible enough, was not blem. the parent of this mighty movement, but its offspring. Those two hostile influences, which always exist in human things, and on the constant intercommunion of which depends their health and safety, had lain in separate masses, accumulating through generations, and France was the scene of their fiercest explosion; but the final issue was not unfolded in that country: nay, it is not yet anywhere unfolded.cern. Political freedom is hitherto the object of these efforts; but they will not and cannot stop there. It is towards a higher freedom than mere freedom from oppression by his fellow-mortal that man dimly aims. Of this higher, heavenly freedom, which is "man's reasonable service," On the whole, as this wondrous planet, Earth, is journeying with its fellows through infinite space, so are the wondrous destinies embarked on it journeying through infinite time, under a higher guidance than ours. For the present, as our astronomy informs us, its path lies towards Hercules, the constellation of Physical Power: But that is not our most pressing conGo where it will, the deep HEAVEN Will be around it. Therein let us have hope and sure faith. To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER AGAIN.* [FOREIGN REVIEW, 1830.] and Manadic women: the air, the earth is giddy with their clangor, their Evohes; but, alas! in a little while, the lion-team shows long ears, and becomes too clearly an assteam in lion-skins; the Mænads wheel round in amazement; and then the jolly god, dragged from his chariot, is trodden into the kennels as a drunk mortal. It is some six years since the name "Jean | god, with all his thyrsi, cymbals, Phallophori, Paul Friedrich Richter" was first printed with English types; and some six-and-forty since it has stood emblazoned and illuminated on all true literary Indicators among the Germans; a fact, which, if we consider the history of many a Kotzebue and Chateaubriand, within that period, may confirm the old doctrine, that the best celebrity does not always spread the fastest; but rather, quite contrariwise, that as blown bladders are far more easily carried than metallic masses, though gold ones, of equal bulk, so the Playwright, Poetaster, Philosophe, will often pass triumphantly beyond seas, while the Poet and Philosopher abide quietly at home. Such is the order of nature a Spurzheim flies from Vienna to Paris and London, within the year; a Kant, slowly advancing, may, perhaps, reach us from Königsberg within the century: Newton, merely to cross the narrow Channel, required fifty years; Shakspeare, again, three times as many. It is true there are examples of an opposite sort; now and then, by some rare chance, a Goethe, a Cervantes, will occur in literature, and Kings may laugh over Don Quixote while it is yet unfinished, and scenes from Werter be painted on Chinese tea-cups, while the author is still a stripling. These, however, are not the rule, but the exceptions; nay, rightly interpreted, the exceptions which confirm it. In general, that sudden tumultuous popularity comes more from partial delirium on both sides, than from clear insight; and is of evil omen to all concerned with it. How many loud Bacchus-festivals of this sort have we seen prove to be Pseudo-Bacchanalia, and end in directly the inverse of Orgies! Drawn by his team of lions, the jolly god advances as a real * Wahrheit aus Jean Paul's Leben. (Biography of Jean Paul.) Istes, 2tes, 3tes Bändchen. Breslau, 1826, 27, 28. That no such apotheosis was appointed for Richter in his own country, or is now to be anticipated in any other, we cannot but regard as a natural, and nowise unfortunate circumstance. What divinity lies in him requires a calmer worship, and from quite another class of worshippers. Neither, in spite of that forty years' abeyance, shall we accuse England of any uncommon blindness towards him: nay, taking all things into account, we should rather consider his actual footing among us, as evincing not only an increased rapidity in literary intercourse, but an intrinsic improvement in the manner and objects of it. Our feeling of foreign excellence, we hope, must be becoming truer: our Insular taste must be opening more and more into a European one. For Richter is by no means a man whose merits, like his singularities, force themselves on the general eye; indeed, without great patience, and some considerable catholicism of disposition, no reader is likely to prosper much with him. He has a fine, high, altogether unusual talent; and a manner of expressing it perhaps still more unusual. He is a Humorist heartily and throughout; not only in low provinces of thought, where this is more common, but in the loftiest provinces, where it is well nigh unexampled; and thus, in wild sport, "playing bowls with the sun and moon," he fashions the strangest ideal world, which at first glance looks no better than a chaos. The Germans themselves find much to bear with in him; |