rare is it, that the most, even in their abstract | the high vocation to which, throughout this his speculations, regard its existence as a chimera. earthly history, he has been appointed. HowVirtue is Pleasure, is Profit; no celestial, but ever it may be with individual nations, whatan earthly thing. Virtuous men, Philanthro- ever melancholic speculators may assert, it pists, Martyrs, are happy accidents; their seems a well-ascertained fact that, in all times, "taste" lies the right way! In all senses, we reckoning even from those of the Heracleids worship and follow after Power; which may and Pelasgi, the happiness and greatness of be called a physical pursuit. No man now mankind at large have been continually proloves Truth, as Truth must be loved, with an gressive. Doubtless this age also is advancing. infinite love; but only with a finite love, and as Its very unrest, its ceaseless activity, its disit were par amours. Nay, properly speaking, content, contains matter of promise. Knowhe does not believe and know it, but only "thinks" ledge, education, are opening the eyes of the it, and that "there is every probability!" He humblest,-are increasing the number of thinkpreaches it aloud, and rushes courageously ing minds without limit. This is as it should forth with it,-if there is a multitude huzzaing be; for, not in turning back, not in resisting, at his back! yet ever keeps looking over his but only in resolutely struggling forward, does shoulder, and the instant the huzzaing lan- our life consist. Nay, after all, our spiritual guishes, he too stops short. In fact, what mo- maladies are but of Opinion; we are but fetrality we have takes the shape of Ambition, of tered by chains of our own forging, and which Honour; beyond money and money's worth, our ourselves also can rend asunder. This deep, only rational blessedness is popularity. It were paralyzed subjection to physical objects comes but a fool's trick to die for conscience. Only for not from Nature, but from our own unwise mode "character," by duel, or in case of extremity, of viewing Nature. Neither can we understand by suicide, is the wise man bound to die. By that man wants, at this hour, any faculty of arguing on the "force of circumstances," we heart, soul, or body, that ever belonged to him. have argued away all force from ourselves; "He, who has been born, has been a First and stand leashed together, uniform in dress Man;" has had lying before his young eyes, and movement, like the rowers of some bound- and as yet unhardened into scientific shapes, a less galley. This and that may be right and world as plastic, infinite, divine, as lay before true; but we must not do it. Wonderful "Force the eyes of Adam himself. If Mechanism, like of Public Opinion!" We must act and walk some glass bell, encircles and imprisons us, if in all points as it prescribes; follow the traffic the soul looks forth on a fair heavenly country it bids us, realize the sum of money, the degree which it cannot reach, and pines, and in its of “influence” it expects of us, or we shall be scanty atmosphere is ready to perish,-yet the lightly esteemed; certain mouthfuls of articu- bell is but of glass; "one bold stroke to break late wind will be blown at us, and this, what the bell in pieces, and thou art delivered?” mortal courage can front? Thus, while civil Not the invisible world is wanting, for it dwells Liberty is more and more secured to us, our in man's soul, and this last is still here. Are moral Liberty is all but lost. Practically con- the solemn temples in which the Divinity was sidered, our creed is Fatalism: and, free in once visibly revealed among us, crumbling hand and foot, we are shackled in heart and away? We can repair them, we can rebuild soul, with far straiter than Feudal chains. them. The wisdom, the heroic worth of our Truly may we say with the Philosopher, "the forefathers, which we have lost, we can recover. deep meaning of the laws of Mechanism lies That admiration of old nobleness, which now heavy on us;" and in the closet, in the market- so often shows itself as a faint dilettantism, will place, in the temple, by the social hearth, en- one day become a generous emulation, and cumbers the whole movements of our mind, man may again be all that he has been, and and over our noblest faculties is spreading a more than he has been. Nor are these the night-mare sleep. 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.

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

Meanwhile, that great outward changes are in progress can be doubtful to no one. The 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 in dication 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. The thinking minds of all nations call for change.

There is a deep-lying struggle in the whole fabric of society; a boundless, grinding collision of the New with the Old. The French Revolution, as is now visible enough, was not 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. 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 concern. Go 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 Manads 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 rau..) 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 trueř: 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;

.

and for readers of any other nation, he is in- | character from other literary lives, which, for volved in almost boundless complexity; a most part, are so barren of incident: the earlier mighty maze, indeed, but in which the plan, or portion of it was straitened enough, but not traces of a plan, are nowhere visible. Far otherwise distinguished; the latter and busiest from appreciating and appropriating the spirit portion of it was, in like manner, altogether of his writings, foreigners find it in the highest private; spent chiefly in provincial towns, and difficult to seize their grammatical meaning. apart from high scenes or persons; its princiProbably there is not, in any modern language, pal occurrences the new books he wrote, its so intricate a writer; abounding, without whole course a spiritual and silent one. He measure, in obscure allusions, in the most became an author in his nineteenth year; and twisted phraseology; perplexed into endless with a conscientious assiduity, adhered to that entanglements and dislocations, parenthesis employment; not seeking, indeed carefully within parenthesis; not forgetting elisions, avoiding, any interruption or disturbance sudden whirls, quibs, conceits, and all manner therein, were it only for a day or an hour. of inexplicable crotchets: the whole moving Nevertheless, in looking over those sixty voon in the gayest manner, yet nowise in what lumes of his, we feel as if Richter's history seem military lines, but rather in huge party- must have another, much deeper interest and coloured mob-masses. How foreigners must worth, than outward incidents could impart to find themselves bested in this case, our readers it. For the spirit which shines more or less may best judge from the fact, that a work with completely through his writings, is one of pethe following title was undertaken some twenty rennial excellence; rare in all times and situayears ago, for the benefit of Richter's own tions, and perhaps nowhere and in no time countrymen: "K. Reinhold's Lexicon for Jean more rare than in literary Europe, at this era. Paul's works, or explanation of all the foreign words | We see in this man a high, self-subsistent, and unusual modes of speech which occur in his original, and, in many respects, even great writings; with short notices of the historical persons character. He shows himself a man of wonand facts therein alluded to and plain German derful gifts, and with, perhaps, a still happier versions of the more difficult passages in the context: combination and adjustment of these: in whom ―a necessary assistance for all who would read Philosophy and Poetry are not only reconciled; those works with profit!" So much for the but blended together into a purer essence, into dress or vehicle of Richter's thoughts; now let Religion; who, with the softest, most universal it only be remembered farther, that the thoughts sympathy for outward things, is inwardly calm, themselves are often of the most abstruse impregnable; holds on his way through all description; so that not till after laborious temptations and afflictions, so quietly, yet so meditation, can much, either of truth or of inflexibly; the true literary man, among a thoufalsehood, be discerned in them; and we have sand false ones, the Apollo among neatherds; a man, from whom readers with weak nerves, in one word, a man understanding the nineand a taste in any degree sickly, will not fail teenth century, and living in the midst of it; to recoil, perhaps with a sentiment approach- yet whose life is, in some measure, an heroic ing to horror. And yet, as we said, notwith- and devout one. No character of this kind, standing all these drawbacks, Richter already we are aware, is to be formed without manimeets with a certain recognition in England; fold and victorious struggling with the world; he has his readers and admirers; various and the narrative of such struggling, what littranslations from his works have been pub- tle of it can be narrated and interpreted, will lished among us; criticisms, also, not without belong to the highest species of history. The clear discernment, and nowise wanting in ap- acted life of such a man, it has been said, is plause; and to all this, so far as we can see, itself a Bible;" it is a Gospel of Freedom," even the un-German part of the public has preached abroad to all men; whereby, among listened with some curiosity and hopeful an- mean unbelieving souls, we may know that ticipation. From which symptoms we should nobleness has not yet become impossible; and, infer two things, both very comfortable to us languishing amid boundless triviality and desin our present capacity: First, that the old picability, still understand that man's nature strait-laced, microscopic sect of Belles-lettres- is indefeasibly divine, and so hold fast what is men, whose divinity was "Elegance," a creed the most important of all faith, the faith in of French growth, and more admirable for ourselves. men-milliners than for critics and philosophers, must be rapidly declining in these Islands; and, secondly, which is a much more personal consideration, that, in still farther investigating and exhibiting this wonderful Jean Paul, we have attempted what will be, for many of our readers, no unwelcome service.

But if the acted life of a pius Vates is so high a matter, the written life, which, if properly written, would be a translation and interpretation thereof, must also have great value. It has been said that no Poet is equal to his Poem, which saying is partially true; but, in a deeper sense, it may also be asserted, and with still greater truth, that no Poem is equal to its Poet. Now, it is Biography that first gives us both Poet and Poem; by the significance of the one, elucidating and completing that of the other. That ideal outline of himself, which a man unconsciously shadows forth in his writings, and which, rightly deciphered, It does not appear that Richter's life, exter- will be truer than any other representation of nally considered, differed much in generall him, it is the task of the Biographer to fill up

Our inquiry naturally divides itself into two departments, the Biographical and the Critical; concerning both of which, in their order, we have some observations to make; and what, in regard to the latter department at least, we reckon more profitable, some rather curious documents to present.

the editing and completing of it; not without sufficient proclamation and assertion, which in the meanwhile was credible enough, that to him only could the post of Richter's biographer belong

Three little Volumes of that Wahrheit au Jean Paul's Leben, published in the course of as many years, are at length before us. The First volume, which came out in 1826, oc casioned some surprise, if not disappointment yet still left room for hope. It was the com mencement of a real Autobiography, and writ ten with much heartiness and even dignity of manner, though taken up under a quite unex

into an actual coherent figure, and bring home to our experience, or at least clear, undoubting admiration, thereby to instruct and edify us in many ways. Conducted on such principles, the Biography of great men, especially of great Poets, that is, of men in the highest degree noble minded and wise, might become one of the most dignified and valuable species of composition. As matters stand, indeed, there are few Biographies that accomplish any thing of this kind; the most are mere Indexes of a Biography, which each reader is to write out for himself, as he peruses them; not the living body, but the dry bones of a body, which should have been alive. To expect any such Prome-pected point of view, in that spirit of genial thean virtue in a common Life-writer were unreasonable enough. How shall that unhappy Biographic brotherhood, instead of writing like Index-makers and Government-clerks, suddenly become enkindled with some sparks of intellect, or even of genial fire; and not only collecting dates and facts, but making use of them, look beyond the surface and economical form of a man's life, into its substance and spirit? The truth is, Biographies are in a similar case with Sermons and Songs: they have their scientific rules, their ideal of perfection and of imperfection, as all things have; but hitherto their rules are only, as it were, unseen Laws of Nature, not critical Acts of Parliament, and threaten us with no immediate penalty: besides, unlike Tragedies and Epics, such works may be something without being all their simplicity of form, moreover, is apt to seem easiness of execution; and thus, for one artist in those departments, we have a thousand bunglers.

With regard to Richter, in particular, to say that his biographic treatment has been worse than usual, were saying much; yet worse than we expected it has certainly been. Various "Lives of Jean Paul," anxiously endeavouring to profit by the public excitement, while it lasted, and communicating, in a given space, almost a minimum of information, have been read by us, within the last four years, with no great disappointment. We strove to take thankfully what little they had to give; and looked forward, in hope, to that promised "Autobiography," wherein all deficiencies were to be supplied. Several years before his death, it would seem, Richter had determined on writing some account of his own life; and with his customary honesty, had set about a thorough preparation for this task. After revolving many plans, some of them singular enough, he at last determined on the form of composition; and with a half-sportful allusion to Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit aus meinem Leben, had prefixed to his work the title Wahrheit aus meinem Leben (Truth from my Life); having relinquished, as impracticable, the strange idea of writing, parallel to it, a Dichtung (Fiction) also, under cover of "Nicolaus Margraf,"certain Apothecary, existing only as hero of one of his last Novels! In this work, which weightier avocations had indeed retarded or suspended, considerable progress was said to have been made; and on Richter's decease, Herr Otto, a man of talents, who had been his jutimate friend for half a life-time, undertook

humour, of gay earnestness, which, with all its strange fantastic accompaniments, often sat on Jean Paul so gracefully, and to which, at any rate, no reader of his works could be a stranger. By virtue of an autocratic ukase, Paul had appointed himself" Professor of his own His tory," and delivered to the Universe three beautiful "Lectures" on that subject; boasting, justly enough, that, in his special department. he was better informed than any other mar whatever. He was not without his oratorical secrets and professorial habits: thus, as Mr. Wortley, in writing his parliamentary speech to be read within his hat, had marked, in va rious passages, "Here cough," so Paul with greater brevity, had an arbitrary hieroglyph introduced here and there, among his papers, and purporting, as he tells us, Meine Herren, niemand scharre, niemand gähne!" Gentlemen, no scraping, no yawning!". -a hieroglyph, we must say, which many public speakers might stand more in need of than he.

Unfortunately, in the Second volume, no other Lectures came to light, but only a string of disconnected, indeed quite heterogeneous Notes, intended to have been fashioned into such; the full free stream of oratory dissipated itself into unsatisfactory drops. With the Third volume, which is by much the longest, Herr Otto appears more decidedly in his own person, though still rather with the scissors than with the pen; and, behind a multitude of circumvallations and outposts, endeavours to advance his history a little; the Lectures having left it still almost at the very commencement. His peculiar plan, and the too manifest purpose to continue speaking in Jean Paul's manner, greatly obstruct his progress; which, indeed, is so inconsiderable, that at the end of this third volume, that is, after some seven hundred small octavo pages, we find the hero, as yet, scarcely beyond his twentieth year, and the history proper still only, as it were, beginning. We cannot but regret that Herr Otto, whose talent and good purpose, to say nothing of his relation to Richter, demand regard from us, had not adopted some straightforward method, and spoken out in plain prose, which seems a more natural dialect for him, what he had to say on this matter. Instead of a multifarious combination, tending so slowly, if at all, towards unity, he might, without omitting those "Lectures," or any "Note" that had value, have given us a direct Narrative, which, if it had wanted the line of Beauty, might have had the still more indispensabie

line of Regularity, and been, at all events, far | me, an infant, along with them to his deathshorter. Till Herr Otto's work is completed, bed. He was in the act of departing, when a we cannot speak positively; but, in the mean- clergyman (as my father has often told me) while, we must say that it wears an unpros- said to them: Now, let the old Jacob lay his perous aspect, and leaves room to fear that, hand on the child, and bless him. I was held after all, Richter's Biography may still long into the bed of death, and he laid his hand on continue a problem. As for ourselves, in this my head.-Thou good old grandfather! Often state of matters, what help, towards character- have I thought of thy hand, blessing as it grew izing Jean Paul's practical Life, we can afford, | cold,-when Fate led me out of dark hours is but a few slight facts gleaned from Herr into clearer,-and already I can believe in thy Otto's and other meaner works; and which, blessing, in this material world, whose life, even in our own eyes, are extremely insuf- foundation, and essence is Spirit !” ficient.

་

The father, who at this time occupied the Richter was born at Wonsiedel in Baireuth, and Organist at Wonsiedel, was shortly afterhumble post of Tertius, (under schoolmaster) in the year 1763; and as his birth-day fell on wards appointed clergyman in the hamlet of the 21st of March, it was sometimes wittily Jodiz; and thence, in the course of years, said that he and the Spring were born together.transferred to Schwarzenbach on the Saale. He himself mentions this, and with a laudable He too was of a truly devout disposition, though intention: "this epigrammatic fact," says he, "that I the Professor and the Spring came into combining with it more energy of character, the world together, I have indeed brought out noted in his neighbourhood as a bold, zealous and, apparently, more general talent; being a hundred times in conversation, before now; but I fire it off here purposely, like a cannon-world, we believe, for some meritorious compreacher; and still partially known to the salute, for the hundred and first time, that so positions in Church-music. In poverty he by printing I may ever henceforth be unable to offer it again as bonmot-bonbon, when, through cannot be said to have altogether equalled his the Printer's Devil, it has already been pre-bread and beer; yet poor enough he was; predecessor, who through life ate nothing but sented to all the world." Destiny, he seems The thriving to think, made another witticism on him; the no less cheerful than poor. word Richter being appellative as well as pro- as we guess, brought no money with her, but burgher's daughter, whom he took to wife, had, per, in the German tongue, where it signifies Judge. His Christian name, Jean Paul, which only habits little advantageous for a schoollong passed for some freak of his own, and a master, or parson; at all events, the worthy pseudonym, he seems to have derived honest- man, frugal as his household was, had conly enough, from his maternal grandfather, who in those days was called Fritz, narrates tinual difficulties, and even died in debt. Paul, Johann Paul Kuhn, a substantial cloth-maker, in Hof; only translating the German Johann gaily, how his mother used to despatch him to into the French Jean. The Richters, for at Hof, her native town, with a provender bag least two generations, had been schoolmasters, strapped over his shoulders, under pretext of or very subaltern churchmen, distinguished purchasing at a cheaper rate there; but in for their poverty and their piety; the grand-reality to get his groceries and dainties furfather, it appears, is still remembered in his little circle, as a man of quite remarkable innocence and holiness; "in Neustadt," says his descendant," they will show you a bench behind the organ, where he knelt on Sundays, and a cave he had made for himself in what is called the Little Culm, where he was wont to pray." Holding, and laboriously discharging, three school or church offices, his yearly income scarcely amounted to fifteen pounds: "and at this Hunger-fountain, common enough for Baireuth school-people, the man stood "In Autumn evenings (and though the thirty-five years long, and cheerfully drew." Preferment had been slow in visiting him: but weather were bad) the Father used to go in his at length, “it came to pass," says Paul, "just toe-field lying over the Saale. The one younker night-gown, with Paul and Adam, into a potain my birth-year, that, on the 6th of August, carried a mattock, the other a hand-basket. probably through special connections with the Higher Powers, he did obtain one of the most Arrived on the ground, the Father set to digimportant places; in comparison with which, ging new potatoes, so many as were wanted truly, Rectorate, and Town, and cave in the into the basket, whilst Adam, clambering in supper; Paul gathered them from the bed Culmberg, were well worth exchanging; a the hazel thickets, looked out for the best nuts. place, namely, in the Neustadt Churchyard.*— -His good wife had been promoted thither twenty years before him. My parents had taken

* Gottesacker (God's-field,) not Kirchhof, the more common term, and exactly corresponding to ours, is the word Richter uses here,-and almost always elsewhere, which in his writings he has often occasion to do.

nished gratis by his grandmother. He was wont to kiss his grandfather's hand behind the loom, and speak with him; while the good old lady, parsimonious to all the world, but lavish to her own, privily filled his bag with the good things of this life, and even gave him for a friend. One other little trait, quite new almonds for himself, which, however, he kept in ecclesiastical annals, we must here communicate. Paul, in summing up the joys of existence at Jodiz, mentions this among the existence at Jodiz, mentions this among the

number:

for

After a time, Adam had to come down from his boughs into the bed, and Paul in his turn ascended. And thus, with potatoes and nuts, they returned contentedly home; and the pleasure of having run abroad, some mile in space, some hour in time, and then of celebrating the harvest-home, by candle light, when they came