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knowledge; by whose light alone, consciously | from which, if taken for the real Book, more or unconsciously employed, can the Present error than insight is to be derived. and the Future be interpreted or guessed at. For though the whole meaning lies far beyond our ken; yet in that complex Manuscript, covered over with formless, inextricably entangled, unknown characters,-nay, which is a Palympsest, and had once prophetic writing, still dimly legible there,-some letters, some words, may be deciphered; and if no complete Philosophy, here and there an intelligible precept, available in practice, be gathered; well understanding, in the mean while, that it is only a little portion we have deciphered, that much still remains to be interpreted; that history is a real prophetic Manuscript, and can be fully interpreted by no man.

But the Artist in History may be distinguished from the Artisan in History; for here, as in all other provinces, there are Artists and Artisans; men who labour mechanically in a department, without eye for the Whole, not feeling that there is a Whole; and men who inform and ennoble the humblest department with an Idea of the Whole, and habitually know that only in the Whole is the Partial to be truly discerned. The proceedings, and the duties of these two, in regard to History, must be altogether different. Not, indeed, that each has not a real worth, in his several degree. The simple Husbandman can till his field, and by knowledge he has gained of its soil, sow it with the fit grain, though the deep rocks and central fires are unknown to him: his little crop hangs under and over the firmament of stars, and sails through whole untracked celestial spaces, between Aries and Libra; nevertheless, it ripens for him in due season, and he gathers it safe into his barn. As a husbandman he is blameless in disregarding those higher wonders; but as a Thinker, and faithful inquirer into nature, he were wrong. So, likewise, is it with the Historian, who examines some special aspect of history, and from this or that combination of circumstances, political, moral, economical, and the issues it has led to, infers that such and such properties belong to human society, and that the like circumstance will produce the like issues; which inference, if other trials confirm it, must be held true and practically valuable. He is wrong only, and an artisan, when he fancies that these properties, discovered or discoverable, exhaust the matter, and sees not at every step that it is inexhaustible.

However, that class of cause-and-effect speculators, with whom no wonder would remain wonderful, but all things in Heaven and Earth must be "computed and accounted for;" and even the Unknown, the Infinite, in man's life, had, under the words Enthusiasm, Superstition, Spirit of the Age, and so forth, obtained, as it were, an algebraical symbol, and given value,―have now well-nigh played their part in European culture; and may be considered, as in most countries, even in England itself, where they linger the latest, verging towards extinction. He who reads the inscrutable Book of Nature, as if it were a Merchant's Ledger, is justly suspected of having never seen that Book, but only some school Synopsis thereof;

Doubtless, also, it is with a growing feeling of the infinite nature of history, that in these times, the old principle, Division of Labour, has been so widely applied to it. The political Historian, once almost the sole cultivator of History, has now found various associates, who strive to elucidate other phases of human Life; of which, as hinted above, the political conditions it is passed under, are but one; and though the primary, perhaps not the most important, of the many outward arrangements. Of this historian himself, moreover, in his own special department, new and higher things are now beginning to be expected. From of old, it was too often to be reproachfully observed of him, that he dwelt with disproportionate fondness in Senate-houses, in Battle-fields, nay, even in King's Antechambers; forgetting, that far away from such scenes, the mighty tide of Thought, and Action, was still rolling on its wondrous course, in gloom and brightness: and in its thousand remote valleys, a whole world of Existence, with or without an earthly sun of Happiness to warm it, with or without a heavenly sun of Holiness to purify and sanctify it, was blossoming and fading, whether the "famous victory" were won or lost. The time seems coming when much of this must be amended; and he who sees no world but that of courts and camps; and writes only how soldiers were drilled and shot, and how this ministerial conjurer out-conjured that other, and then guided, or at least held, something which he called the rudder of government, but which was rather the spigot of Taxation, wherewith, in place of steering, he could tap, and the more cunningly the nearer the lees,-will pass for a more or less instructive Gazetteer, but will no longer be called an Historian.

However, the Political Historian, were his work performed with all conceivable perfection, can accomplish but a part, and still leaves room for numerous fellow-labourers. Foremost among these comes the Ecclesiastical Historian; endeavouring with catholic or sectarian view, to trace the progress of the Church, of that portion of the social establishment, which respects our religious condition, as the other portion does our civil, or rather, in the long run, our economical condition. Rightly conducted, this department were undoubtedly the more important of the two; inasmuch as it concerns us more to understand how man's moral well-being had been and might be promoted, than to understand in the like sort his physical well-being; which latter is ultimately the aim of all political arrangements. For the physically happiest is simply the safest, the strongest; and in all conditions of Government, Power (whether of wealth as in these days, or of arms and adherents as in old days) is the only outward emblem and purchase-money of Good. True Good, however, unless we reckon Pleasure synonymous with it, is said to be rarely, or rather never, offered for sale in the market where that even passes current. So that, for man's true advantage, not the outward condition of his life, but the inward and

many unhappy Enfields who have treated of that latter department, been more than barren reporters, often unintelligent and unintelligible reporters, of the doctrine uttered, without force to discover how the doctrine originated, or what

spiritual position of mankind there and then. Nay, such a task did not perhaps lie before them, as a thing to be attempted.

spiritual, is of prime influence; not the form of government he lives under, and the power he can accumulate there, but the Church he is a member of, and the degree of moral Elevation he can acquire by means of its instruction. Church History, then, did it speak | reference it bore to its time and country, to the wisely, would have momentous secrets to teach us: nay, in its highest degree, it were a sort of continued Holy Writ; our sacred books being, indeed, only a History of the primeval Church, as it first arose in man's soul, and symbolically imbodied itself in his external life. How far our actual Church Historians fall below such unattainable standards, nay, below quite attainable approximations thereto, we need not point out. Of the Ecclesiastical Historian we have to complain, as we did of his Political fellow-craftsman, that his inquiries turn rather on the outward mechanism, the mere hulls and superficial accidents of the object, than on the object itself; as if the church lay in Bishop's Chapter-houses, and Ecumenic Council Halls, and Cardinals' Conclaves, and not far more in the hearts of Believing Men, in whose walk and conversation, as influenced thereby, its chief manifestations were to be looked for, and its progress or decline ascertained. The history of the Church is a History of the Invisible as well as of the Visible Church; which latter, if disjoined from the former, is but a vacant edifice; gilded, it may be, and overhung with old votive gifts, yet useless, nay, pestilentially unclean; to write whose history is less important than to forward its downfall.

Art, also, and Literature are intimately blended with Religion; as it were, outworks and abutments, by which that highest pinnacle in our inward world gradually connects itself with the general level, and becomes accessible therefrom. He who should write a proper History of Poetry, would depict for us the successive Revelations which man had obtained of the Spirit of Nature; under what aspects he had caught and endeavoured to body forth some glimpse of that unspeakable Beauty, which in its highest clearness is Religion, is the inspira tion of a Prophet, yet in one or the other degree must inspire every true Singer, were his theme never so humble. We should see by what steps men had ascended to the Temple; how near they had approached; by what ill hap they had, for long periods, turned away from it, and grovelled on the plain with no music in the air, or blindly struggled towards other heights. That among all our Eichhorns and Wartons there is no such Historian, must be too clear to every one. Nevertheless let us not despair of far nearer approaches to that excellence. Above all, let us keep the Ideal of it ever in our eye; for thereby alone have we even a chance to reach it.

Of a less ambitious character are the Histories that relate to special separate provinces Our histories of Laws and Constitutions, of human Action; to Sciences, Practical Arts, wherein many a Montesquieu and Hallam has Institutions, and the like; matters which do not laboured with acceptance, are of a much simimply an epitome of man's whole interest and pler nature, yet deep enough, if thoroughly inform of life; but wherein, though each is still vestigated; and useful, when authentic, even connected with all, the spirit of each, at least with little depth. Then we have Histories of its material results, may be in some degree Medicine, of Mathematics, of Astronomy, Comevolved without so strict reference to that of the merce, Chivalry, Monkery; and Goguets and others. Highest in dignity and difficulty, under Beckmanns have come forward with what this head, would be our histories of Philosophy, might be the most bountiful contribution of all, of man's opinions and theories respecting the a History of Inventions. Of all which sorts, nature of his Being, and relations to the Uni- and many more not here enumerated, not yet verse, Visible and Invisible; which History, in- devised and put in practice, the merit and the deed, were it fitly treated, or fit for right treat-proper scheme may require no exposition. ment, would be a province of Church History; the logical or dogmatical province of it; for Philosophy, in its true sense, is or should be the soul, of which Religion, Worship, is the body; in the healthy state of things the Philosopher and Priest were one and the same. But Philosophy itself is far enough from wearing this character; neither have its Historians been men, generally speaking, that could in the smallest degree approximate it thereto. Scarcely since the rude era of the Magi and Druids has that same healthy identification of Priest and Philosopher had place in any country: but rather the worship of divine things, and the scientific investigation of divine things, have been in quite different hands, their relations not friendly but hostile. Neither have the Brückers and Bühles, to say nothing of the

In this manner, though, as above remarked, all Action is extended three ways, and the general sum of human Action is a whole Universe, with all limits of it unknown, does History strive by running path after path, through the Impassable, in manifold directions and intersections, to secure for us some oversight of the Whole; in which endeavour, if each Historian look well around him from his path, tracking it out with the eye, not, as is more common, with the nose, he may at last prove not altogether unsuccessful. Praying only that increased division of labour do not here, as elsewhere, aggravate our already strong Mechanical tendencies, so that in the manual dexterity for parts we lose all command over the whole; and the hope of any Philosophy of History be farther off than ever; let us all wish her great, and greater success.

LUTHER'S PSALM.

[FRASER'S MAGAZINE, 1831.]

AMONG Luther's Spiritual Songs, of which various collections have appeared of late years, the one entitled Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott is universally regarded as the best; and indeed still retains its place and devotional use in the Psalmodies of Protestant Germany. Of the Tune, which also is by Luther, we have no copy, and only a second-hand knowledge: to the original Words, probably never before printed in England, we subjoin the following translation; which, if it possesses the only merit it can pretend to, that of literal adherence to the sense, will not prove unacceptable to our readers. Luther's music is heard daily in our churches, several of our finest Psalm-tunes being of his composition. Luther's sentiments, also, are, or should be, present in many an English heart; the more interesting to us is any the smallest articulate expression of these. The great Reformer's love of music, of poetry, it has often been remarked, is one of the most significant features in his character. But, indeed, if every great man, Napoleon himself, is intrinsically a poet, an idealist, with more or less completeness of utterance, which of all our great men, in these modern ages, had such an endowment in that kind as Luther? He it was, emphatically, who stood based on the Spiritual World of man, and only by the footing and miraculous power he had obtained there, could work such changes in the Material World. As a participant and dispenser of divine influences, he shows himself among human affairs a true connecting medium and visible Messenger between Heaven and Earth; a man, therefore, not only permitted to enter the sphere of Poetry, but to dwell in the purest centre thereof: perhaps the most inspired of all Teachers since the first apostles of his faith; and thus not a poet only but a Prophet and God-ordained Priest, which is the highest form of that dignity, and of all dignity.

Unhappily, or happily, Luther's poetic feeling did not so much learn to express itself in fit Words that take captive every ear, as in fit Actions, wherein truly, under still more impressive manifestation, the spirit of spheral Melody resides, and still audibly addresses us. In his written Poems we find little, save that Strength of one "whose words," it has been said, "were half-battles" little of that still Harmony and blending softness of union which is the last perfection of Strength; less of it than even his conduct often manifested. With words he had not learned to make pure music; it was by deeds of Love, or heroic Valour, that he spoke freely; in tones, only through his Flute, amid tears, could the sigh of that strong soul find

utterance.

For example: Luther's geistliche Lieder nebst dessen Gedanken über die musica, (Berlin, 1817): Die Lieder Luther's gesammelt von Kosegarten und Rambach, &c.

Nevertheless, though in imperfect articula tion, the same voice, if we will listen well, is to be heard also in his writings, in his Poems. The following, for example, jars upon our ears; yet is there something in it like the sound of Alpine avalanches, or the first murmur of Earthquakes; in the very vastness of which dissonance a higher unison is revealed to us. Luther wrote this Song in a time of blackest threatenings, which, however, could in no wise become a time of Despair. In those tones, rugged, broken as they are, do we not recognise the accent of that summoned man, (summoned not by Charles the Fifth, but by God Almighty also,) who answered his friend's warning not to enter Worms in this wise: "Were there as many devils in Worms as there are roof-tiles, I would on ;"-of him who, alone in that assemblage, before all emperors, and principalities, and powers, spoke forth these final and for ever memorable words: "It is neither safe nor prudent to do aught against conscience. Here stand I, I cannot otherwise. God assist me. Amen!"* It is evident enough that to this man all Popes' conclaves, and imperial Diets, and hosts and nations were but weak; weak as the forest, with all its strong Trees, may be to the smallest spark of electric Fire.

EINE FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT.

Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein' gute Wehr und Waffen;
Er hilft uns frey aus aller Noth,
Die uns jetzt hat betroffen.
Der alte böse Fiend,

Mit Ernst ers jetzt meint;
Gross Macht und viel List
Sein grausam' Rüstzeuch ist,
Auf Erd'n ist nicht seins Gleichen.

Mit unsrer Macht ist nichts gethan,
Wir sind gar bald verloren :
Es streit't für uns der rechte Mann,
Den Gott selbst hat erkoren.
Fragst du wer er ist?
Er heisst Jesus Christ,
Der Herre Zebaoth,

Und ist kein ander Gott,
Das Feld muss er behalten.

Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär,
Und wollt'n uns gar verschlingen,
So fürchten wir uns nicht so sehr,
Es soll uns doch gelingen.
Der Fürste dieser welt,
Wie sauer er sich stellt,
Thut er uns doch nichts;
Das macht er ist gerichtt,
Ein Wörtlein kann ihn fällen.

"Till such time, as either by proofs from Holy Scripture, or by fair reason and argument, I have been confuted and convicted, I cannot and will not recant, weil weder sicher noch gerathen ist, etwas wider Gewissen zu thun. Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen!"

Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn
Und Keimen Dank dazu haben
Er ist bey uns wohl auf dem Plan

Mit seinen Geist und Gaben.
Nehmen sie uns den Leib,

Gut', Ehr', Kind und Weib,
Lass fahren dahin.

Sie haben's kein Gewinn,

Das Reich Gottes muss uns bleiben.

A safe stronghold our God is still,
A trusty shield and weapon;
He'll help us clear from all the ill
That hath us now o'ertaken.
The ancient Prince of Hell,
Hath risen with purpose fell;
Strong mail of Craft and Power
He weareth in this hour,
On Earth is not his fellow.

With force of arms we nothing can,
Full soon were we down-ridden;
But for us fights the proper Man,
Whom God himself hath bidden.

Ask ye, Who is this same?
Christ Jesus is his name,

The Lord Zebaoth's Son,
He and no other one

Shall conquer in the battle.

And were this world all Devils o'er
And watching to devour us,

We lay it not to heart so sore,
Not they can overpower us.
And let the Prince of Ill
Look grim as e'er he will,
He harms us not a whit,
For why His doom is writ,
A word shall quickly slay him.

God's Word, for all their craft and force,
One moment will not linger,

But spite of Hell, shall have its course,
'Tis written by his finger.

And though they take our life,
Goods, honour, children, wife,
Yet is their profit small;
These things shall vanish all,
The City of God remaineth.

SCHILLER.*

[FRASER'S MAGAZINE, 1831.]

if every secret-history, every closed-door's conversation, how trivial soever, has an interest for us, then might the conversation of a Schiller with a Goethe, so rarely do Schillers meet with Goethes among us, tempt Honesty itself into eaves-dropping.

To the student of German Literature, or consider the boundless ocean of Gossip (im. of Literature in general, these volumes, pur-perfect, undistilled Biography) which is emitporting to lay open the private intercourse of ted and imbibed by the human species daily;→→ two men eminent beyond all others of their time in that department, will doubtless be a welcome appearance. Neither Schiller nor Goethe has ever, that we have hitherto seen, written worthlessly on any subject, and the writings here offered us are confidential Letters, relating moreover to a highly important period in the spiritual history, not of the parties themselves, but of their country likewise; full of topies, high and low, on which far meaner talents than theirs might prove interesting. We have heard and known so much of both these venerated persons; of their friendship, and true co-operation in so many noble endeavours, the fruit of which has long been plain to every one and now are we to look into the secret constitution and conditions of all this; to trace the public result, which is Ideal, down to its roots in the Common; how Poets may live and work poetically among the Prose things of this world, and Fausts and Tells be written on rag-paper, and with goose-quills, like mere Minerva Novels, and songs by a Person of Quality! Virtuosos have glass bee-hives, which they curiously peep into; but here truly were a far stranger sort of honey-making. Nay, apart from virtuosoship, or any technical object, what a hold have such things on our universal curiosity as men! If the sympathy we feel with one another is infinite, or nearly so,-in proof of which, do but

Unhappily the conversation flits away for ever with the hour that witnessed it; and the Letter and Answer, frank, lively, genial as they may be, are only a poor emblem and epitome of it. The living dramatic movement is gone; nothing but the cold historical net-product remains for us. It is true, in every confidential Letter, the writer will, in some measure, more or less directly depict himself: but nowhere is Painting, by pen or pencil, so inadequate as in delineating spiritual Nature. The Pyramid can be measured in geometric feet, and the draughtsman represents it, with all its environment, on canvas, accurately to the eye; nay Mont-Blanc is embossed in coloured stucco; and we have his very type, and miniature fac-simile, in our museums. But for great Men, let him who would know such, pray that he may see them daily face to face: for, in the dim distance, and by the eye of the imagination, our vision, do what we may, will be too imperfect. How pale, thin, ineffectual do the great figures we would fain summon from History rise before us! Scarcely as palpable men does our utmost effort body them forth; oftenest only like Ossian's ghosts, in *Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller und Goethe, in den jah-hazy twilight, with "stars dim twinkling ren 1794 bis 1805. (Correspondence between Schiller through their forms." Our Socrates, our Luand Goethe in the years 1794-1805.) 1st-3d Volumes (1794-1797.) Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1828, 1829. ther, after all that we have talked and argued

of them, are to most of us quite invisible; the view, the "Correspondence of Schiller and Sage of Athens, the Monk of Eisleben: not] Goethe" may have, we shall not attempt dePersons but Titles. Yet such men, far more termining here; the rather as only a portion than any Alps or Coliseums, are the true of the work, and to judge by the space of time world-wonders, which it concerns us to behold included in it, only a small portion, is yet beclearly, and imprint for ever on our remem-fore us. Nay, perhaps its full worth will not brance. Great men are the Fire-pillars in this become apparent till a future age, when the dark pilgrimage of mankind; they stand as persons and concerns it treats of shall have heavenly Signs, ever-living witnesses of what assumed their proper relative magnitude and has been, prophetic tokens of what may still stand disencumbered, and for ever separated be, the revealed, imbodied Possibilities of hu- from contemporary trivialities, which, for the man nature; which greatness he who has present, with their hollow, transient bulk, so never seen, or rationally conceived of, and mar our estimate. Two centuries ago, Leiwith his whole heart passionately loved and cester and Essex might be the wonders of reverenced, is himself for ever doomed to be England; their Kenilworth festivities and Calittle. How many weighty reasons, how many diz Expeditions seemed the great occurrences innocent allurements attract our curiosity to of that day; but what should we now give, such men! We would know them, see them were these all forgotten and some "Correvisibly, even as we know and see our like: spondence between Shakspeare and Ben Jonno hint, no notice that concerns them is super- son" suddenly brought to light! fluous or too small for us. Were Gulliver's conjurer but here, to recall and sensibly bring back the brave Past, that we might look into it, and scrutinize it at will! But, alas, in Nature there is no such conjuring: the great spirits that have gone before us can survive only as disembodied Voices; their form and distinctive aspect, outward and even in many respects inward, all whereby they were known as living, breathing men, has passed into an other sphere; from which only History, in scanty memorials, can evoke some faint resemblance of it. The more precious, in spite of all imperfections, is such History, are such memorials, that still in some degree preserve what had otherwise been lost without recovery.

One valuable quality these letters of Schiller and Goethe everywhere exhibit, that of truth: whatever we do learn from them, whether in the shape of fact or of opinion, may be relied on as genuine. There is a tone of entire sincerity in that style: a constant natural courtesy nowhere obstructs the right freedom of word or thought; indeed, no ends but honourable ones, and generally of a mutual interest, are before either party; thus neither needs to veil, still less to mask himself from the other; the two self-portraits, so far as they are filled up, may be looked upon as real likenesses. Perhaps, to most readers, some larger intermixture of what we should call domestic interest, of ordinary human concerns, and the hopes, fears, and other feelings these excite, For the rest, as to the maxim, often enough in- would have improved the work; which as it is, culcated on us, that close inspection will abate not indeed without pleasant exceptions, turns our admiration, that only the obscure can be sub- mostly on compositions, and publications, and lime, let us put small faith in it. Here, as in other philosophies, and other such high matters. provinces, it is not knowledge, but a little know- This, we believe, is a rare fault in modern ledge, that puffeth up, and for wonder at the Correspondences; where generally the oppothing known substitutes mere wonder at the site fault is complained of, and except mere knower thereof: to a sciolist, the starry hea- temporalities, good and evil hap of the corre vens revolving in dead mechanism, may be sponding parties, their state of purse, heart, less than a Jacob's vision; but to the Newton and nervous system, and the moods and huthey are more; for the same God still dwells mours these give rise to,-little stands recordenthroned there, and holy Influences, like An- ed for us. It may be too that native readers gels, still ascend and descend; and this clearer will feel such a want less than foreigners do, vision of a little but renders the remaining whose curiosity in this instance is equally mimystery the deeper and more divine. So like-nute, and to whom so many details, familiar wise is it with true spiritual greatness. On the whole, that theory of "no man being a hero to his valet," carries us but a little way into the real nature of the case. With a superficial meaning which is plain enough, it essentially holds good only of such heroes as are false, or else of such valets as are too genuine, as are shoulder-knotted and brass-lackered in soul as well as in body: of other sorts it does not hold. Milton was still a hero to the good Elwood. But we dwell not on that mean doctrine, which, true or false, may be left to itself the more safely, as in practice it is of little or no immediate import. For were it never so true, yet, unless we preferred huge bug-bears to small realities, our practical course were still the same: to inquire, to investigate by all methods, till we saw clearly.

What worth in this biographical point of

enough in the country itself, must be unknown. At all events, it is to be remembered that Schiller and Goethe are, in strict speech, Literary Men; for whom their social life is only as the dwelling-place and outward tabernacle of their spiritual life; which latter is the one thing needful; the other, except in subserviency to this, meriting no attention, or the least possi ble. Besides, as cultivated men, perhaps even by natural temper, they are not in the habit of yielding to violent emotions of any kind, still less of unfolding and depicting such, by letter, even to closest intimates; a turn of mind which, if it diminished the warmth of their epistolary intercourse, must have increased their private happiness, and so, by their friends, can hardly be regretted. He who wears his heart on his sleeve, will often have to lament aloud that daws peck at it: he who does

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