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 moality 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 boundess galley. This and that may be right and true; but we must not do it. Wouderful "Force of Public Opinion!" We must act and walk in all points as it prescribes; follow the traffic if 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 conidered, 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. the high vocation to which, throughout this his earthly history, he has been appointed. How ever 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 pro. gressive. 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 think ing 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 as These dark features, we are aware, belong suming the character of hopes. Indications more or less to other ages, as well as to ours. we do see, in other countries and in our own, Tha faith in Mechanism, in the all-importance signs infinitely cheering to us, that Mechanism of physical things, is in every age the common is not always to be our hard taskmaster, but refuge of Weakness and blind Discontent; of one day to be our pliant, all-ministering ser all who believe, as many will ever do, that vant; that a new and brighter spiritual era is man's true good lies without him, not within. slowly evolving itself for all men. But on We are aware also, that, as applied to our-these things our present course forbids us to elves in all their aggravation, they form but enter. half a picture; that in the whole picture there are bright lights as well as gloomy shadows. we here dwell chiefly on the latter, let us not be blamed: it is in general more profitable to our defects, than to boast of our at rrison up tainments. 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, blem. There is a deep-lying struggle in the whole all his noole institutions, his faithful endea fabric 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 the parent of this mighty movement, but its On the whole, as this wondrous planet, Earth, offspring. Those two hostile influences, which is journeying with its fellows through infinite always exist in human things, and on the con- space, so are the wondrous destinies embarked stant intercommunion of which depends their on it journeying through infinite time, under a health and safety, had lain in separate masses, higher guidance than ours. For the present, accumulating through generations, and France as our astronomy informs us, its path lies to was the scene of their fiercest explosion; but wards Hercules, the constellation of Physical the final issue was not unfolded in that coun- Power: But that is not our most pressing con try: nay, it is not yet anywhere unfolded. cern. Go where it will, the deep HEAVEN Will Political freedom is hitherto the object of these be around it. Therein let us have hope and efforts; but they will not and cannot stop there. sure faith. To reform a world, to reform a t is towards a higher freedom than mere free- nation, no wise man will undertake and all om from oppression by his fellow-mortal that but foolish men know that the only solid, man dimly aims. Of this higher, heavenly though a far slower reformation, is what each freedom, which is “man's reasonable service," | begins and perfects on himself. JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER AGAIN.* [FOREIGN REVIEW, 1830.] T is some six years since the name "Jean god, with all his thyrsi, cymbals, Phallophori, Paul Friedrich Richter" was first printed with and Manadic women: the air, the earth is English types; and some six-and-forty since it | giddy with their clangor, their Evohes; but, has stood emblazoned and illuminated on all alas! in a little while, the lion-team show! true literary Indicators among the Germans; long ears, and becomes too clearly an ass a fact, which, if we consider the history of team in lion-skins; the Mænads wheel rouad many a Kotzebue and Chateaubriand, within in amazement; and then the jolly god, dragged that period, may confirm the old doctrine, that from his chariot, is trodden into the kennels an the best celebrity does not always spread the a drunk mortal. 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 cor e 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 Paw ) Istes, 2tes, 3tes Bündchen. 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 cireurstance. 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 evinc. ing 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 stil more unusual. He is a Humorist heartily and throughout; not only in low provinces of thought, where this is more common, bat in the loftiest provinces, where it is well nigh unexampled; and thus, in wild sport, "playing bowls with the sun and moon," he fashiont the strangest ideal world, which at first glanes looks no better than a chaos. The Getnam themselves find much to bear with in hum and for readers of any other nation, he is involved in almost boundless complexity; a mighty maze, indeed, but in which the plan, or traces of a plan, are nowhere visible. Far from appreciating and appropriating the spirit of his writings, foreigners find it in the highest difficult to seize their grammatical meaning. Probably there is not, in any modern language, so intricate a writer; abounding, without measure, in obscure allusions, in the most twisted phraseology; perplexed into endless entanglements and dislocations, parenthesis within parenthesis; not forgetting elisions, sudden whirls, quibs, conceits, and all manner of inexplicable crotchets: the whole moving on in the gayest manner, yet nowise in what seem military lines, but rather in huge partycoloured mob-masses. How foreigners must find themselves bested in this case, our readers may best judge from the fact, that a work with the following title was undertaken some twenty years ago, for the benefit of Richter's own countrymen: "K. Reinhold's Lexicon for Jean Paul's works, or explanation of all the foreign words and unusual modes of speech which occur in his writings; with short notices of the historical persons and facts therein alluded to; and plain German versions of the more difficult passages in the context: ―a necessary assistance for all who would read those works with profit!" So much for the dress or vehicle of Richter's thoughts; now let it only be remembered farther, that the thoughts themselves are often of the most abstruse description; so that not till after laborious meditation, can much, either of truth or of falsehood, be discerned in them; and we have a man, from whom readers with weak nerves, and a taste in any degree sickly, will not fail to recoil, perhaps with a sentiment approaching to horror. And yet, as we said, notwithstanding all these drawbacks, Richter already meets with a certain recognition in England; he has his readers and admirers; various translations from his works have been pubIrched among us; criticisms, also, not without clear discernment, and nowise wanting in applause; and to all this, so far as we can see, even the un-German part of the public has Istened with some curiosity and hopeful anteipation. From which symptoms we should Infer two things, both very comfortable to us in our present capacity: First, that the old trait-laced, microscopic sect of Felles-lettreser, whose divinity was "Elegance," a creed of French growth, and more admirable for 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. Our inquiry naturally divides itself into two epartments, 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 feckon more profitable, some rather curious caments to present It does not appear that Richter's life, exterBally considered, differed much in general character from other literary lives, which, for most part, are so barren of incident: the earlier portion of it was straitened enough, but not otherwise distinguished; the latter and busiest portion of it was, in like manner, altogether private; spent chiefly in provincial towns, and apart from high scenes or persons; its princi pal occurrences the new books he wrote, its whole course a spiritual and silent one. He became an author in his nineteenth year; and with a conscientious assiduity, adhered to that employment; not seeking, indeed carefully avoiding, any interruption or disturbance therein, were it only for a day or an hour. Nevertheless, in looking over those sixty volumes of his, we feel as if Richter's history must have another, much deeper interest and worth, than outward incidents could impart to it. For the spirit which shines more or less completely through his writings, is one of perennial excellence; rare in all times and situa tions, and perhaps nowhere and in no time more rare than in literary Europe, at this era. We see in this man a high, self-subsistent, original, and, in many respects, even great character. He shows himself a man of wonderful gifts, and with, perhaps, a still happier combination and adjustment of these: in whom Philosophy and Poetry are not only reconciled; but blended together into a purer essence, into Religion; who, with the softest, most universal sympathy for outward things, is inwardly calm, impregnable; holds on his way through all temptations and afflictions, so quietly, yet so inflexibly; the true literary man, among a thoasand false ones, the Apollo among neatherds; in one word, a man understanding the nineteenth century, and living in the midst of it; yet whose life is, in some measure, an heroic and devout one. No character of this kind, we are aware, is to be formed without manifold and victorious struggling with the world; and the narrative of such struggling, what little of it can be narrated and interpreted, will belong to the highest species of history. The acted life of such a man, it has been said, "is itself a Bible;" it is a "Gospel of Freedom," preached abroad to all men; whereby, among mean unbelieving souls, we may know that nobleness has not yet become impossible; and, languishing amid boundless triviality and despicability, still understand that man's nature is indefeasibly divine, and so hold fast what is the most important of all faith, the faith in ourselves. But if the acted life of a pius Vates is so hig 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 signifi cance 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 deciphere, will be truer than any ther representation of him, it is the task of the Biographer to fill og into an actual coherent figure, and bring home | the editing and completing of it; nc withou to our experience, or at least clear, undoubting sufficient proclamation and assertion, which in admiration, thereby to instruct and edify us in the meanwhile was credible enough, that tc many ways. Conducted on such principles, him only could the post of Richter's biographe the Biography of great men, especially of great belong 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 Promethean 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,"-a certain Apothecary, existing only as hero of one of his last Novels! In this work, which weightier avocations had indeed retarded or uspended, considerable progress was said to have been made; and on Richter's decease, Herr Otto, a man of talents, who had been his ate friend for half a life-time, undertook 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 pected point of view, in that spirit of genia. 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 History," 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 oratorica. 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, nc 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 com mencement. 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 were, beginning. We cannot hut 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 straigh forward method, and spoken out in plain prees, which seems a more natural dialect for litt. what he had to say on this matter. Instead of a multifarious combination, tending so stowly, if at all, towards unity, he might, with wit omitting those "Lectures," or any Note" thx had value, have given us a direct Narrative, which, if it had wanted the line of Beauty, might have had the still more indi-peus: 54, line of Regularity, and been, at all events, far shorter. Till Herr Otto's work is completed, we cannot speak positively; but, in the meanwhile, we must say that it wears an unprosperous aspect, and leaves room to fear that, after all, Richter's Biography may still long continue a problem. As for ourselves, in this state of matters, what help, towards characterizing Jean Paul's practical Life, we can afford, is but a few slight facts gleaned from Herr Otto's and other meaner works; and which, even in our own eyes, are extremely insuffcient. Richter was born at Wonsiedel in Baireuth, in the year 1763; and as his birth-day fell on the 21st of March, it was sometimes wittily said that he and the Spring were born together. He himself mentions this, and with a laudable intention: "this epigrammatic fact," says he, "that I the Professor and the Spring came into the world together, I have indeed brought out a hundred times in conversation, before now; but I fire it off here purposely, like a cannonsalute, for the hundred and first time, that so by printing I may ever henceforth be unable to offer it again as bonmot-bonbon, when, through the Printer's Devil, it has already been presented to all the world." Destiny, he seems to think, made another witticism on him; the word Richter being appellative as well as proper, in the German tongue, where it signifies Judge. His Christian name, Jean Paul, which long passed for some freak of his own, and a pseudonym, he seems to have derived honest ly enough, from his maternal grandfather, Johann Paul Kuhn, a substantial cloth-maker, in Hof; only translating the German Johann into the French Jean. The Richters, for at me, an infant, along with them to his death. bed. He was in the act of departing, when a clergyman (as my father has often told me) said to them: Now, let the old Jacob lay his hand on the child, and bless him. I was held into the bed of death, and he laid his hand on my head.-Thou good old grandfather! Often have I thought of thy hand, blessing as it grew cold,-when Fate led me out of dark hours into clearer,-and already I can believe in thy blessing, in this material world, whose life, foundation, and essence is Spirit!" The father, who at this time occupied the and Organist at Wonsiedel, was shortly afterhumble post of Tertius, (under schoolmaster) wards appointed clergyman in the hamlet of Jodiz; and thence, in the course of years, transferred to Schwarzenbach on the Saale. He too was of a truly devout disposition, though combining with it more energy of character, noted in his neighbourhood as a bold, zealous and, apparently, more general talent; being preacher; and still partially known to the world, we believe, for some meritorious comIn poverty he positions in Church-music. cannot be said to have altogether equalled his bread and beer; yet poor enough he was; predecessor, who through life ate nothing but no less cheerful than poor. The thriving as we guess, brought no money with her, but burgher's daughter, whom he took to wife, had, only habits little advantageous for a schoolmaster, or parson; at all events, the worthy man, frugal as his household was, had conwho in those days was called Fritz, narrates tinual difficulties, and even died in debt. Paul, gaily, how his mother used to despatch him to 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 nished gratis by his grandmother. He was 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 thirty-five years long, and cheerfully drew." Preferment had been slow in visiting him: but at length, "it came to pass," says Paul, "just in my birth-year, that, on the 6th of August, probably through special connections with the Higher Powers, he did obtain one of the most important places; in comparison with which, ruly. Rectorate, and Town, and cave in the Culmberg, were well worth exchanging; a place, namely, in the Neustadt Churchyard.*-His good wife had been promoted thither twenty years before him. My parents had taken 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 number: "In Autumn evenings (and though the weather were bad) the Father used to go in his night-gown, with Paul and Adam, iuto a pota carried a mattock, the other a hand-basket. toe-field lying over the Saale. The one younker Arrived on the ground, the Father set to digging new potatoes, so many as were wanted for supper; Paul gathered them from the bed into the basket, whilst Adam, clambering in the hazel thickets, looked out for the best nuts. 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 plea sure of having run abroad, some mile in space, where, which in his writings he his often occasion harvest-home, by candle light, when they came some hour in time, and then of celebrating the Gottesacker (God's-field,) not Kirchhof, the more ommon term, and exactly corresponding to ours, is the word Richter uses here,-and almost always else @do. |