sky-hidden lark's. In all the rhetorical gifts, to say nothing of rhetorical attainments, we should pronounce him even poor.

cle he dwelt in, the very ashes remain not: like a fair heavenly Apparition, which indeed he was, he has melted into air, and only the Voice he uttered, in virtue of its inspired gift, yet lives and will live.

To the Germans this Nibelungen Song is naturally an object of no common love; neither if they sometimes overvalue it, and vague antiquarian wonder is more common than just criticism, should the fault be too heavily visited. After long ages of concealment, they have found it in the remote wilderness, still standing like the trunk of some almost antediluvian oak; nay with boughs on it still green, after all the wind and weather of twelve hundred years. To many a patriotic feeling, which lingers fondly in solitary places of the Past, it may well be a rallying-point, and "Lovers' Trysting-Tree."

Nevertheless, a noble soul he must have been, and furnished with far more essential requisites for Poetry, than these are: namely, with the heart and feeling of a Poet. He has a clear eye for the Beautiful and True; all unites itself gracefully and compactly in his imagination: it is strange with what careless felicity he winds his way in that complex narrative, and be the subject what it will, comes through it unsullied, and with a smile. His great strength is an unconscious instinctive strength; wherein truly lies its highest merit. The whole spirit of Chivalry, of Love, and heroic Valour, must have lived in him, and inspired him. Everywhere he shows a noble Sensibility; the sad accents of parting friends, the lamentings of women, the high daring of For us also it has its worth. A creation men, all that is worthy and lovely prolongs it- from the old ages, still bright and balmy, if we self in melodious echoes through his heart. A visit it; and opening into the first History of true old Singer, and taught of Nature herself! Europe, of Mankind. Thus all is not oblivion; Neither let us call him an inglorious Milton, but on the edge of the abyss, that separates the since now he is no longer a mute one. What Old world from the New, there hangs a fair good were it that the four or five Letters com- rainbow-land; which also in (three) curious posing his Name could be printed, and pro- repetitions, as it were, in a secondary, and nounced, with absolute certainty? All that even a ternary reflex, sheds some feeble was mortal in him is gone utterly; of his life, twilight far into the deeps of the primeval and its environment, as of the bodily taberna-Time.

GERMAN LITERATURE OF THE FOURTEENTH
AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.*

[FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW, 1831.]

IT is not with Herr Soltau's work, and its | doubtedly among the most remarkable Books, merits or demerits, that we here purpose to concern ourselves. The old Low-German Apologue was already familiar under many shapes; its versions into Latin, English, and all modern tongues: if it now comes before our German friends under a new shape, and they can read it not only in Gottsched's prosaic Prose, and Goethe's poetic Hexameters, but also "in the metre of the original," namely, in Doggerel; and this, as would appear, not without comfort, for it is "the second edition ;"doubtless the Germans themselves will look to it, will direct Herr Soltau aright in his praiseworthy labours, and, with all suitable speed, forward him from his second edition into a third. To us strangers the fact is chiefly interesting, as another little memento of the indestructible vitality there is in worth, however rude; and to stranger Reviewers, as it brings that wondrous old Fiction, with so much else that holds of it, once more specifically into view.

The Apologue of Reynard the Fox ranks un

not only as a German, but, in all senses, as a European one; and yet for us perhaps its extrinsic, historical character, is even more noteworthy than its intrinsic. In Literary History it forms, so to speak, the culminating point, or highest manifestation of a Tendency which had ruled the two prior centuries: ever downwards from the last of the Hohenstauffen Emperors, and the end of their Swabian Era, to the borders of the Reformation, rudiments and fibres of this singular Fable are seen, among innumerable kindred things, fashioning themselves together; and now, after three other centuries of actual existence, it still stands visible and entire, venerable in itself, and the enduring memorial of much that has proved more perishable. Thus, naturally enough, it figures as the representative of a whole group that historically cluster round it; in studying its significance, we study that of a whole intellectual period.

As this section of German Literature closely connects itself with the corresponding section of European Literature, and indeed offers an *Reinecke der Fuchs, übersetzt von D. W. Soltau. (Rey-expressive, characteristic epitome thereof, some nard the Fox, translated by D. W. Soltau.) 2d edition, insight into it, were such easily procurable,

8vo. Lüneburg, 1830.

might not be without profit. No Literary His- | ourselves to the German aspects of the matter, torian that we know of, least of all any in examine what may lie between. England, having looked much in this direction, either as concerned Germany or other countries, whereby a long space of time, once busy enough, and full of life, now lies barren and void in men's memories,-we shall here endeavour to present, in such clearness as first attempts may admit, the result of some slight researches of our own in regard to it.

The Troubadour Period in general Literature, to which the Swabian Era in German answers, has, especially within the last generation, attracted inquiry enough; the French have their Raynouards, we our Webers, the Germans their Haugs, Gräters, Langs, and numerous other Collectors and Translators of Minnelieder; among whom Ludwig Tieck, the foremost in far other provinces, has not disdained to take the lead. We shall suppose that this Literary Period is partially known to all readers. Let each recall whatever he has learned or figured regarding it; represent to himself that brave young heyday of Chivalry and Minstrelsy, when a stern Barbarossa, a stern Lion-heart, sang sirventes, and with the hand that could wield the sword and sceptre twanged the melodious strings; when knights-errant tilted, and ladies' eyes rained bright influences; and suddenly, as at some sunrise, the whole Earth had grown vocal and musical. Then truly was the time of singing come; for princes and prelates, emperors and squires, the wise and the simple, men, women, and children, all sang and rhymed, or delighted in hearing it done. It was a universal noise of Song; as if the Spring of Manhood had arrived, and warblings from every spray, not indeed without infinite twitterings also, which, except their gladness, had no music, were bidding it welcome. This was the Swabian Era; justly reckoned not only superior to all preceding eras, but properly the First Era of German Literature. Poetry had at length found a home in the life of men; and every pure soul was inspired by it; and in words, or still better, in actions, strove to give it utterance.

"Believers," says Tieck, "sang of Faith; Lovers of Love; Knights described knightly actions and battles; and loving, believing knights were their chief audience. The Spring, Beauty, Gayety, were objects that could never tire; great duels and deeds of arms carried away every hearer, the more surely the stronger they were painted; and as the pillars and dome of the Church encircled the flock, so did Religion, as the Highest, encircle Poetry and Reality; and every heart, in equal love hum

bled itself before her."*

Conrad the Fourth, who died in 1254, was the last of the Swabian Emperors: and Conradin his son, grasping too early at a Southern Crown, perished on the scaffold at Naples in 1268; with which stripling, more fortunate in song than in war, and whose death, or murder, with fourteen years of other cruelty, the Sicilian Vespers so frightfully avenged, the imperial line of the Hohenstauffen came to an end. Their House, as we have seen, gives name to a Literary Era; and truly, if dates alone were regarded, we might reckon it much more than a name. For with this change of dynasty, a great change in German Literature begins to indicate itself; the fall of the Hohenstauffen is close followed by the decay of Poetry; as if that fair flowerage and umbrage, which blossomed far and wide round the Swabian Family, had in very deed depended on it for growth and life; and now, the stem being felled, the leaves also were languishing, and soon to wither and drop away. Conradin, as his father and his grandfather had been, was a singer; some lines of his, though he died in his sixteenth year, have even come down to us; but henceforth no crowned poet, except, long afterwards, some few with cheap laurel crowns, is to be met with: the Gay Science was visibly declining. In such times as now came, the court and the great could no longer patronize it; the polity of the Empire was, by one convulsion after another, all but utterly dismembered; ambitious nobles, a sovereign without power; contention, violence, distress, everywhere prevailing. Richard of Cornwall, who could not so much as keep hold of his sceptre, not to speak of swaying it wisely; or even the brave Rudolf of Hapsburg, who manfully accomplished both these duties, had other work to do than sweet singing. Gay Wars of the Wartburg were now changed to stern Battles of the Marchfield; in his leisure hours, a good Emperor, instead of twanging harps, must hammer from his helmet the dints it had got in his working and fighting hours.* Amid such rude tumults the Minne-Song could not but change its scene and tone; if, indeed, it continued at all, which, however, it scarcely did; for now, no longer united in courtly choir, it seemed to lose both its sweetness and its force, gradually became mute, or in remote obscure corners lived on, feeble and inaudible, till after several centuries, when, under a new title, and with far inferior claims, it again solicits some notice from us.

Let the reader, we say, fancy all this, and moreover that, as earthly things do, it is all passing away. And now, from this extreme verge of the Swabian Era, let us look forward into the inane of the next two centuries, and see whether there also some shadows and dim forms, significant in their kind, may not begin to grow visible. Already, as above indicated, Reinecke de Fos rises clear in the distance, as the goal of our survey: let us now, restricting

* Minnelieder aus dem Schwäbischen Zeitalter. rede, x.)

Doubtless, in this posture of affairs political, the progress of Literature could be little forwarded from without; in some directions, as in that of Court-Poetry, we may admit that it was

* It was on this famous plain of the Marchfield that in 1260; and was himself, in 1278, conquered and slain Ottocar, King of Bohemia, conquered Bela of Hungary, by Rudolf of Hapsburg, at that time much left to his own resources; whose talent for mending helmets, however, it was here again, after more than five centuries, that is perhaps but a poetical tradition. Curious, moreover: the House of Hapsburg received its worst overthrow, and from a new and greater Rudolf, namely, from Na(Vor-poleon, at Wagram, which lies in the middle of this same Marchfield.

will discover; arises in the most secret and most sacred region of man's soul, as it were in our Holy of Holies; and as for external things, depends only on such as can operate in that region; among which it will be found that Acts of Parliament, and the state of the Smithfield markets, nowise play the chief parts.

obstructed or altogether stopped. But why not only Court-Poetry, but Poetry of all sorts should have declined, and as it were gone out, is quite another question; to which, indeed, as men must have their theory on every thing, answer has often been attempted, but only with partial success. To most of the German Literary Historians this so ungenial condition of the With regard to this change in German LiteCourt and Government appears enough: by the rature, especially, it is to be remarked, that the warlike, altogether practical character of Ru- phenomenon was not a German, but a Eurodolf, by the imbecile ambition of his success- pean one; whereby we easily infer, so much at ors, by the general prevalence of feuds and least, that the roots of it must have lain deeper lawless disorder, the death of Poetry seems fully than in any change from Hohenstauffen Empeaccounted for. In which conclusion of theirs, rors to Hapsburg ones. For now the Troubaallowing all force to the grounds it rests on, we dours and Trouveres, as well as the Minnesincannot but perceive that there lurks some fal- gers, were sinking into silence; the world seemed lacy; the fallacy, namely, so common in these to have rhymed itself out; those chivalrous times, of deducing the inward and spiritual ex-roundelays, heroic tales, mythologies, and quaint clusively from the outward and material; of love-sicknesses, had grown unprofitable to the tacitly, perhaps unconsciously, denying all ear. In fact, Chivalry itself was in the wane; independent force, or even life, to the former, and with it that gay melody, like its other pomp. and looking out for the secret of its vicissitudes More earnest business, not sportfully, but with solely in some circumstance belonging to the harsh endeavour, was now to be done. The latter. Now it cannot be too often repeated, graceful minuet-dance of Fancy must give where it continues still unknown or, forgotten, place to the toilsome thorny pilgrimage of Unthat man has a soul as certainly as he has a derstanding. Life and its appurtenances and body; nay, much more certainly; that properly possessions, which had been so admired and it is the course of his unseen, spiritual life, besung, now disclosed, the more they came to which informs and rules his external visible be investigated, the more contradictions. The life, rather than receives rule from it; in which Church no longer rose with its pillars "like a spiritual life, indeed, and not in any outward venerable dome over the united flock;" but, action or condition arising from it, the true more accurately seen into, was a straight prisecret of his history lies, and is to be sought son, full of unclean creeping things; against after, and indefinitely approached. Poetry, which thraldom all better spirits could not but above all, we should have known long ago, is murmur and struggle. Everywhere greatness one of those mysterious things whose origin and littleness seemed so inexplicably blended: and developments never can be what we call Nature, like the Sphinx, her emblem, with her explained; often it seems to us like the wind, fair woman's face and neck, showed also the blowing where it lists, coming and departing claws of a Lioness. Now too her Riddle had with little or no regard to any the most cunning been propounded; and thousands of subtle, theory that has yet been devised of it. Least disputatious School-men were striving earnestof all does it seem to depend on court patron-ly to read it, that they might live, morally live, age, the form of government, or any modifica- that the monster might not devour them. These, tion of politics or economics, catholic as these like strong swimmers, in boundless bottomless, influences have now become in our philosophy: vortices of Logic, swam manfully, but could not it lives in a snow-clad, sulphureous Iceland, and get to land. not in a sunny, wine-growing France; flourishes under an arbitrary Elizabeth, and dies out under a constitutional George; Philip II. has his Cervantes, and in prison; Washington and Jackson have only their Coopers and Browns. Why did poetry appear so brightly after the Battles of Thermopyla and Salamis, and quite turn away her face and wings from those of Lexington and Bunker's Hill? We answer, the Greeks were a poetical people, the Americans are not; that is to say, it appeared because it did appear! On the whole, we could desire that one of two things should happen: Either that our theories and genetic histories of Poetry should henceforth cease, and mankind rest satisfied, once for all, with Dr. Cabanis's theory, which seems to be the simplest, that "Poetry is a product of the smaller intestines," and must be cultivated medically by the exhibition of castor-oil: Or else that, in future speculations of this kind, we should endeavour to start with some recognition of the fact, once well known, and still in words admitted, that Poetry is Inspiration; has in it a certain spirituality and divinity which no dissecting-knife

On a better course, yet with the like aim, Physical Science was also unfolding itself. A Roger Bacon, an Albert the Great, are cheering appearances in this era: not blind to the greatness of Nature, yet no longer with poetic reverence of her, but venturing fearlessly into her recesses, and extorting from her many a secret; the first victories of that long series which is to make man more and more her King. Thus everywhere we have the image of contest, of effort. The spirit of man, which once, in peaceful, loving communion with the Universe, had uttered forth its gladness in Song, now feels hampered and hemmed in, and struggles vehemently to make itself room. Power is the one thing needful, and that Knowledge which is Power: thus also Intellect becomes the grand faculty, in which all the others are well nigh absorbed.

Poetry, which has been defined as "the harmonious unison of Man with Nature,” could not flourish in this temper of the times. The number of poets, or rather versifiers, henceforth greatly diminishes; their style also, and topics, are different and less poetical. Men

epic, or narrative; into which he seems to have introduced this new character in unusual measure. As the Stricker still retains some shadow of a place in Literary History, the following notice of him may be borrowed here. Of his personal history, it may be premised, nothing whatever is known; not even why he bears this title; unless it be, as some have fancied, that Stricker, which now signifies Knitter, in those days meant Schriber, (Writer:)

methods, can instruct us, can more and more | But perhaps the special step of transition may evolve for us the mystery of our Life. How- be still better marked in the works of a rhymer ever, after a certain space, this Didactic Spirit named the Stricker, whose province was the in Literature cannot, as an historical partition and landmark, be available here. At the era of the Reformation, it reaches its acme; and, in singular shapes, steps forth on the high places of Public Business, and amid storms and thunder, not without brightness and true fire from Heaven, conclusively renovates the world. This is, as it were, the apotheosis of the Didactic Spirit, where it first attains a really poetical concentration, and stimulates mankind into heroism of word and of action also. Of the lat- "In truth," says Bouterwek, "this painster, indeed, still more than of the former; for taking man was more a writer than a Poet, yet not till a much more recent time, almost till our not altogether without talent in that latter way. own time, has Inquiry in some measure again Voluminous enough, at least, is his redaction reconciled itself to Belief; and Poetry, though of an older epic work on the War of Charle in detached tones, arisen on us, as a true mu-magne with the Saracens in Spain, the old German sical Wisdom. Thus is the deed, in certain original of which is perhaps nothing more circumstances, readier and greater than the than a translation from the Latin or French. word: Action strikes fiery light from the Of a Poet in the Stricker's day, when the rorocks it has to hew through; Poetry reposes mantic Epos had attained such polish among in the skyey splendour which that rough pas- the Germans, one might have expected that sage has led to. But after Luther's day, this this ancient Fiction, since he was pleased to Didactic Tendency again sinks to a lower remodel it, would have served as the material level; mingles with manifold other tenden- to a new poetic creation; or at least, that he cies; among which, admitting that it still would have breathed into it some new and more forms the main stream, it is no longer so pre- poetic spirit. But such a development of these eminent, positive, and universal, as properly Charlemagne Fables was reserved for the to characterize the whole. For minor Periods Italian Poets. The Stricker has not only left and subdivisions in Literary History, other the matter of the old Tale almost unaltered, more superficial characteristics must, from but has even brought out its unpoetical lineatime to time, be fixed on. ments in stronger light. The fanatical piety with which it is overloaded probably appeared to him its chief merit. To convert these castaway Heathens, or failing this, to annihilate them, Charlemagne takes the field. Next to him, the hero Roland plays a main part there. Consultations are held, ambassadors negotiate; war breaks out with all its terrors: the Hea then fought stoutly: at length comes the well known defeat of the Franks at Ronceval, or Roncevaux; where, however, the Saracens also lose so many men, that their King Marsilies dies of grief. The Narrative is divided into chapters, each chapter again into sections,

Neither, examining the other limit of this Period, can we say specially where it begins; for, as usual in these things, it begins not at once, but by degrees; Kings' reigns and changes in the form of Government have their day and date; not so changes in the spiritual condition of a people. The Minnesinger Period and the Didactic may be said to commingle, as it were, to overlap each other, for above a century: some writers partially belonging to the latter class occur even prior to the times of Friedrich II.; and a certain echo of the Minne-Song had continued down to Manesse's day, under Ludwig the Bavarian.

Thus from the Minnesingers to the Church Reformers, we have a wide space of between two and three centuries; in which, of course, it is impossible for us to do more than point out one or two of the leading appearances; a minute survey and exposition being foreign from our object.

Among the Minnesingers themselves, as already hinted, there are not wanting some with an occasionally didactic character; Gottfried of Strasburg, known also as a translator of Sir Tristrem, and two other Singers, Reinmar von Zweter, and Walter von der Vogelweide, are noted in this respect; the last two especially, for their oblique glances at the Pope and his Monks, the unsound condition of which body could not escape even a Love-minstrel's eye.* *Reinmar Von Zweter, for example, says once:

Har und bart nach Klostersitten gesnitten
Des vind ich gennog,

Ich vinde aber der nit vil dies rehte tragen;
Halb visch halb man ist visch noch man,
Gar visch ist visch, gar man ist man,
Als ich erkennen Kan:

Von hofmunchen und von Klosterrittern
Kan ich niht gesagen:

Hofmunchen, Klosterrittern, diesen beiden
Wolt ich reht ze rehte wol bescheiden,
Ob sie sich wolten lassen vinden,

Da sie ze rehte solten wesen;

In Kloster munche solten genesen,

So suln des hofs sich ritter unterwinden.

Hair and beard cut in the cloister fashion
Of this find I enough,

But of those that wear it well I find not many;
Half-fish balf-man is neither fish nor man,
Whole fish is fish, whole man is man,

As I discover can:

Of court-monks and of cloister-knights
Can I not speak :

Court-monks, cloister-knights, these both
Would I rightly put to rights,

Whether they would let themselves be found
Where they by right should be;

In their cloister monks should flourish,
And knights obey at court.

See also in Flögel, (Geschichte der Romischen Litteratur, b. iii. s. 11,) immediately following this Extract, a formidable dinner-course of Lies,-boiled lies, roasted lies, lies with saffron, forced-meat lies, and other varieties, arranged by this same artist;-farther, (in page 9,) a rather gallant onslaught from Walter von der Vogelweide, on the Babest (Pope, Papst) himself. Al this was before the middle of the thirteenth century.