measures by the scale of perfection the meagre | a possession recallable at all times in the sam

product of reality, let him leave to mere Un- shape to his view, and a component part of derstanding, which is here at home, the province his personality: in that case he is a completed of the actual; while he strives, by uniting the and equipt Literary Man, a man who has possible with the necessary, to produce the studied. Or else, he is still struggling and ideal. This let him imprint and express in striving to make the Idea in general, or that fiction and truth; imprint it in the sport of his particular portion and point of it, from which imagination and the earnest of his actions; onwards he for his part means to penetrate the imprint it in all sensible and spiritual forms, | whole,-entirely clear to himself; detached and cast it silently into everlasting time."* sparkles of light already spring forth on him from all sides, and disclose a higher world be fore him; but they do not yet unite themselves into an indivisible whole; they vanish from hit view as capriciously as they came; he canno yet bring them under obedience to his freedom in that case he is a progressing and self-unfold tually the Idea, which is possessed or striven after, is common to both. Should the striving aim merely at the outward form, and the letter of learned culture, there is then produced, when the circle is gone round, the completed, when it is not gone round, the progressing Bungler (Stümper). The latter is more tolera ble than the former; for there is still room to hope that, in continuing his travel, he may at some future point be seized by the Idea; but of the first all hope is over."

From this bold and lofty principle the duties of the Literary man are deduced with scientific precision; and stated, in all their sacredness and grandeur, with an austere brevity more impressive than any rhetoric. Fichte's metaphysical theory may be called in question, and readily enough misapprehended; but the sublime stoicism of his sentiments will find some response in many a heart. We must add the conclusion of his first Discourse, as a farther illustration of his manner:

Still higher are Fichte's notions on this subject; or rather expressed in higher terms, for the central principle is the same both in the philosopher and the poet. According to Fichte, there is a "Divine Idea" pervading the visible Universe; which visible Universe is indeed but its symbol and sensible manifestation, having literary man, a Student. That it be ac ing in itself no meaning, or even true existence independent of it. To the mass of men this Divine Idea of the world lies hidden: yet to discern it, to seize it, and live wholly in it, is the condition of all genuine virtue, knowledge, freedom; and the end, therefore, of all spiritual effort in every age. Literary Men are the appointed interpreters of this Divine Idea; a perpetual priesthood, we might say, standing forth, generation after generation, as the dispensers and living types of God's everlasting wisdom, to show it and imbody it in their writings and actions, in such particular form as their own particular times require it in. For each age, by the law of its nature, is different from every other age, and demands a different representation of this Divine Idea, the essence of which is the same in all; so that the literary man of one century is only by mediation and re-interpretation applicable to the wants of another. But in every century, every man who labours, be it in what province he may, to teach others, must first have possessed himself of this Divine Idea, or, at least, be with his whole heart and his whole soul striving after it. If, without possessing it or striving after it, he abide diligently by some material practical department of knowledge, he may indeed still be (says Fichte, in his usual rugged way,) a "useful hodman;" but should he attempt to deal with the Whole, and to become an architect, he is, in strictness of language, "Nothing;"-" he is an ambiguous mongrel between the possessor of the Idea, and the man ho feels himself solidly supported and carried on by the common Reality of things; in his fruitless endeavour after the Idea, he has neglected to acquire the craft of taking part in this Reality; and so hovers between two worlds, without pertaining to either." Elsewhere he adds:

"There is still, from another point of view, another division in our notion of the Literary Man, and one to us of immediate application. Namely, either the Literary Man has already laid hold of the whole Divine Idea, in so far as it can be comprehended by man, or perhaps of a special portion of this its comprehensible part--which truly is not possible without at least a clear oversight of the whole, he has already laid hold of it, penetrated, and made it entirely clear to himself, so that it has become

• Ueber die Hesthetische Erziehun☛ des Menschen. (On the Esthetic Education of Man.)

"In disquisitions of the sort like ours of today, which all the rest, too, must resemble, the generality are wont to censure: First, their se verity; very often on the good-natured suppo sition that the speaker is not aware how much his rigour must displease us; that we have but frankly to let him know this, and then doubtless he will reconsider himself, and soften his statements. Thus, we said above, that a man whe, after literary culture, had not arrived at know. ledge of the Divine Idea, or did not strive towards it, was in strict speech Nothing; and farther down, we said that he was a Bungler. This is in a style of those unmercial expressions by which philosophers give such offence.Now looking away from the present case, that we may front the maxim in its general shape, I remind you that this species of character, without decisive force to renounce all respect for Truth, seeks merely to bargain and cheap en something out of her, whereby itself on easier terms may attain to some consideration. But truth, which once for all is as she is, and cannot alter aught of her nature, goes on her way; and there remains for her, in regard to those who desire her not simply because she is true, nothing else but to leave them standing as if they had never addressed her.

"Then farther, discourses of this sort are wont

• Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten; (On the Nature of the Literary Man;) a Course of Lectures delivered Jena, in 1805.

e

STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE

27

from watered hollows and river valleys mounts up grayer and mistier, and indicates their wind. ings. No less is the master's art to be praised in views from valleys lying nearer the high Alpine ranges, where declivities slope down, luxuriantly overgrown, and fresh streams roll hastily along by the foot of rocks.

"With exquisite skill, in the deep shady trees of the foreground, he gives the distinctive cha racter of the several species, satisfying us in the form of the whole, as in the structure of the branches, and the details of the leaves; no less so in the fresh green with its manifold shadings, where soft airs appear as if fanning us with benignant breath, and the lights as if thereby put in motion.

to be censured as unintelligible. Thus I figure to myself,-nowise you, Gentlemen, but some completed Literary Man of the second species, whose eye the disquisition here entered upon chanced to meet, as coming forward, doubting this way and that, and at last reflectively exclaiming: The Idea, the Divine Idea, that which lies at the bottom of Appearance: what depray may this mean?' Of such a questioner I o inquire in turn: What pray may this question mean?'-Investigate it strictly, it means in most cases nothing more than this, 'Under what other names and in what other formulas, do I already know this same thing, which thou expressest by so strange and to me so unknown a symbol?' And to this again in most cases the only suitable reply were, 'Thou "In the middle-ground, his lively green tone knowest this thing not at all, neither under this, grows fainter by degrees; and at last, on the nor under any other name; and wouldst thou more distant mountain-tops, passing into weak arrive at the knowledge of it, thou must even violet, weds itself with the blue of the sky. But now begin at the beginning to make study our artist is above all happy in his paintings thereof; and then, most fitly, under that name of high Alpine regions; in seizing the simple which it is first presented to thee !'" greatness and stillness of their character; the With such a notion of the Artist, it were a wide pastures on the slopes, where dark solistrange inconsistency did Criticism show it-tary firs stand forth from the grassy carpet; self unscientific or lax in estimating the products of his Art. For light on this point, we might refer to the writings of almost any individual among the German critics: take, for instance, the Charakteristiken of the two Schlegels, a work 100 of their younger years; and say whether in depth, clearness, minute and patient fidelity, these Characters have often been surpassed, or the import and poetic worth of so many poets and poems more vividly and accurately brought to view. As an instance of a much higher kind, we might refer to Goethe's criticism of Hamlet in his Wilhelm Meister. This truly is what may be called the poetry of criticism; for it is in some sort also a creative art; aiming, at least to reproduce under a different shape the existing product of the poet painting to the intellect what already lay painted to the heart and the imagination. Nor is it over poetry alone that criticism watches with such loving strictness: the mimic, the pictorial, the musical arts, all modes of representing or addressing the highest nature of man, are acknowledged as younger sisters of Poetry, and fostered with the like care. Winkelmann's History of Plastic Art is known by repute to all readers and of those who know it by inspection, many may have wondered why such a work has not been added to our own literature, to instruct our own statuaries and painters. On this subject of the plastic arts, we cannot withhold the following little sketch of Goethe's, as a specimen of pictorial criticism in what we consider a superior style. It is of an imaginary landscape-painter, and his views of Swiss scenery; it will bear to be studied minutely, for there is no word without its meaning:

He succeeds in representing the cheerful repose of lake prospects, where houses in friendly approximation, imaging themselves in the clear wave, seem as if bathing in its depths; shores encircled with green hills, bebind which rise forest mountains, and icy peaks of glaciers. The tone of colouring in such scenes is gay, mirthfully clear; the distances an if overflowed with softening vapour, which

and from high cliffs, foaming brooks rush down. Whether he relieves his pasturages with grazing cattle, or the narrow winding rocky path with mules and laden pack-horses, he paints all with equal truth and richness; still, introduced in the proper place, and not in too great copiousness, they decorate and enliven these scenes, without interrupting, without lessening their peaceful solitude. The execution testifies a master's hand; easy, with a few sure strokes, and yet complete. In his later pieces, he employed glittering English permanent-colours on paper: these pictures, accordingly, are of preeminently blooming tone; cheerful, yet, at the same time, strong and sated.

"His views of deep mountain chasms, where, round and round, nothing fronts us but dead rock, where, in the abyss, overspanned by its bold arch, the wild stream rages, are, indeed, of less attraction than the former: yet their truth excites us; we admire the great effect of the whole, produced at so little cost, by a few expressive strokes, and masses of iocal colours.

"With no less accuracy of character can he represent the regions of the topmost Alpine ranges, where neither tree nor shrub any more appears; but only amid the rocky teeth and snow summits, a few sunny spots clothe them selves with a soft sward. Beautiful, and balnıy and inviting as he colours these spots, he has here wisely forborne to introduce grazing herds; for these regions give food only to the chamois, and a perilous employment to the wild-hay-men."*

We have extracted this passage from Wil helm Meister's Wanderjahre, Goethe's last Novel. The perusal of his whole Works would show, among many other more important facts, that Criticism also is a science of which he is master; that if ever any man had studied Art in all its branches and bearings, from its origin in

The poor wild-hay-man of the Rigiberg,
Whose trade is, on the brow of the abyss,
To mow the common grass from nooks and sheives,
To which the cattle dare not climb.

SCHILLER's Wilhelm Ti3.

the depths of the creative spirit, to its minutest | characters as men, something of that sterling finish on the canvas of the painter, on the lips of the poet, or under the finger of the musician, he was that man. A nation which appreciates such studies, nay, requires and rewards them, cannot, wherever its defects may lie, be defective in judgment of the arts.

nobleness, that union of majesty with meek ness, which we must ever venerate in those our spiritual fathers? And do their works, in the new form of this century, show forth that old nobleness, not consistent only, with the science, the precision, the skepticism of these days, bu wedded to them, incorporated with them, and shining through them like their life and soul! Might it in truth almost seem to us, in reading the prose of Goethe, as if we were reading tha of Milton; and of Milton writing with the cul

with old English depth? And of his poetry may it indeed be said that it is poetry, and yet the poetry of our own generation; an ideal world, and yet the world we even now live in

studious inquirers to answer for themselves; premising only, that the secret is not to be found on the surface; that the first reply is likely to be in the negative, but with inquirers of this sort, by no means likely to be the final one.

But a weightier question still remains. What has been the fruit of this its high and just judgment on these matters? What has criticism profited it, to the bringing forth of good works? How do its poems and its poets correspond with so lofty a standard? We an-ture of this time; combining French clearness swer, that on this point also, Germany may rather court investigation than fear it. There ere poets in that country who belong to a nobler class than most nations have to show in these days; a class entirely unknown to some-These questions we must leave candid and nations; and, for the last two centuries, rare in all. We have no hesitation in stating, that we see in certain of the best German poets, and those too of our own time, something which associates them, remotely or nearly we ray not, but which does associate them with the Masters of Art, the Saints of Poetry, long To ourselves, we confess, it has long so ap since departed, and, as we thought, without peared. The poetry of Goethe, for instance, successors, from the earth; but canonized in we reckon to be Poetry, sometimes in the very the hearts of all generations, and yet living to hignest sense of that word; yet it is no remi all by the memory of what they did and were. niscence, but something actually present and Glances we do seem to find of that ethereal before us; no looking back into an antique glory, which looks on us in its full brightness Fairy-land, divided by impassable abysses from from the Transfiguration of Rafaelle, from the the real world as it lies about us and within us Tempest of Shakspeare; and in broken, but but a looking round upon that real world itself, purest and still heart-piercing beams, strug-now rendered holier to our eyes, and once gling through the gloom of long ages, from the tragedies of Sophocles and the weather-worn sculptures of the Parthenon. This is that heavenly spirit, which, best seen in the aeria! embodiment of poetry, but spreading likewise over all the thoughts and actions of an age, has given us Surreys, Sydneys, Raleighs in court and camp, Cecils in policy, Hookers in divinity, Bacons in philosophy, and Shakspeares and Spensers in song. All hearts that know this, know it to be the highest; and that, in poetry or elsewhere, it alone is true and imperishable. In affirming that any vestige, however feeble, of this divine spirit, is discernible in German poetry, we are aware that we place it above the existing poetry of any other nation.

To prove this bold assertion, logical arguments were at all times unavailing; and, in the present circumstances of the case, more than usually so. Neither will any extract or specimen help us; for it is not in parts, but in whole poems, that the spirit of a true poet is to be seen. We can, therefore, only name such men as Tieck, Richter, Herder, Schiller, and, above all, Goethe; and ask any reader who has learned to admire wisely our own literature of Queen Elizabeth's age, to peruse these writers also; to study them till he feels hat he has understood them, and justly estimated both their light and darkness; and then to pronounce whether it is not, in some degree, as we have said. Are there not tones here of that old melody! Are there not glimpses of that serene soul, that calm harmonious strength, hat smiling carnestness, that Love and Faith and Humanity of nature? Do these foreign contemporaries of ours still exhibit, in their

more become a solemn temple, where the spirit of Beauty still dwells, and, under new emblems, to be worshipped as of old. With Goethe, the mythologies of bygone days pass only for what they are; we have no witchcraft or magic in the common acceptation; and spirits no longer bring with them airs from heaven or blasts from hell; for Pandemonium and the steadfast Empyrean have faded away, since the opinions which they symbolized no longer are. Neither does he bring his heroes from remote Oriental climates, or periods of Chivalry, or any section either of Atlantis or the Age of Gold? feeling that the reflex of these things is cold and faint, and only hangs like a cloud-picture in the distance, beautiful but delusive, and which even the simplest know to be delusion. The end of Poetry is higher she must dwell in Reality, and become manifest to men in the forms among which they live and move. And this is what we prize in Goethe, and more or less in Schiller and the rest; all of whom, each in his own way. are writers of a similar aim] The coldest skeptic, the most callous worldling, sees r0: the actual aspects of life more sharply than they are here delineated: the nineteenth century stands before us, in all its contradiction and perplexity; barren, mean, and baleful, as we have all known it; yet here no longer mean or barren, but enamelled into beauty in the poet's spirit; for its secret significance is laid open, and thus, as it were, the life-giving fire that slumbers in it is called forth, and flowers and foliage, as of old, are springing on ns bleakest wildernesses, and overmant ing its sternest cliffs. For these men have not onl

he clear eye, but the loving heart. They have
penetrated into the mystery of Nature; after
long trial they have been initiated: and, to
unwearied endeavour, Art has at last yielded
her secret and thus can the Spirit of our Age,
imbodied fair imaginations, look forth on
us, earnest and full of meaning, from their
works. As the first and indispensable condi-
tion of good poets, they are wise and good men:
much they have seen and suffered, and they
have conquered all this, and made it all their
own; they have known life in its heights and
depths, and mastered it in both, and can teach
others what it is, and how to lead it rightly.
Their minds are as a mirror to us, where the
perplexed image of our own being is reflected
back in soft and clear interpretation. Here
mirth and gravity are blended together; wit
rests on deep devout wisdom, as the green-
sward with its flowers must rest on the rock,
whose foundations reach downward to the
centre. In a word, they are believers but
their faith is no sallow plant of darkness; it is
green and flowery, for it grows in the sunlight.
And this faith is the doctrine they have to
teach us, the sense which, under every noble
and graceful form, it is their endeavour to set
forth:

As all nature's thousand changes
But one changeless God proclaim,
So in Art's wide kingdoms ranges
One sole meaning, still the same;
This is Truth, eternal Reason,
Which from Beauty takes its dress,

And, serene through time and season,
Stands for aye in loveliness.

Buch indeed is the end of Poetry at all times;
yet in no recent literature known to us, except
the German, has it been so far attained; nay,
perhaps, so much as consciously and stead-
fastly attempted.

with what might be called the Scotch: Cra mer was not unlike our Blair; Von Croneg might be compared with Michael Bruce; and Rabener and Gellert with Beattie and Logan. To this mild and cultivated period, there suc ceeded, as with us, a partial abandonment of poetry, in favour of political and philosophical Illumination. Then was the time, when hot war was declared against Prejudice of all sorts; Utility was set up for the universal measure of mental as well as material value; poetry, except of an economical and precep. torial character, was found to be the product of a rude age; and religious enthusiasm was but derangement in the biliary organs. Then did the Prices and Condorcets of Germany indulge in day-dreams of perfectibility; a new social order was to bring back the Saturnian era to the world; and philosophers sat on their sunny Pisgah, looking back over dark savage deserts, and forward into a land flowing with milk and honey.

This period also passed away, with its good and its evil; of which chiefly the latter seems to be remembered; for we scarcely ever find the affair alluded to, except in terms of contempt, by the title Aufklärerey (Illuminationism); and its partisans, in subsequent satirical controversies, received the nickname of Philistern (Philistines), which the few scattered remnants of them still bear, both in writing and speech. Poetry arose again, and in a new and singular shape. The Sorrows of Werter, Goetz von Berlichingen, and The Robbers, may stand as patriarchs and representatives of three separate classes, which, commingled in various proportions, or separately coexisting, now with the preponderance of this, now of that, occupied the whole popular literature of The reader feels that if this our opinion be Germany, till near the end of the last century. in any measure true, it is a truth of no ordinary These were the Sentimentalists, the Chivalry. moment. It concerns not this writer or that; play-writers, and other gorgeous and outrage but it opens to us new views on the fortune ous persons; as a whole, now pleasantly de of spiritual culture with ourselves and all na-nominated the Kraftmänner, literally, Powertions. Have we not heard gifted men complaining that Poetry had passed away without return; that creative imagination consorted not with vigour of intellect, and that in the cold light of science there was no longer room for faith in things unseen? The old simplicity of heart was gone; earnest emotions must no unger be expressed in earnest symbols; beauty must recede into elegance, devoutness of character be replaced by clearness of thought, and grave wisdom by shrewdness and persiflage. Such things we have heard, but hesitated to believe them. If the poetry of the Germans, and this not by theory but by example, have proved, or even begun to prove, the contrary, it will deserve far higher encomiums than any we have passed upon it.

In fact, the past and present aspect of Geraan literature illustrates the literature of England in more than one way. Its history keeps pace with that of ours; for so closely are all European communities connected, that the phases of mind in any one country, so far as these represent its general circumstances and intellectual position, are but modified repetitions of its phases in every other. We hinted above, that the Saxon School corresponded

men. They dealt in skeptical lamentation, mysterious enthusiasm, frenzy and suicide: they recurred with fondness to the Feudal Ages, delineating many a battlemented keep, and swart buff-belted man-at-arms; for in reflection as in action, they studied to be strong, vehement, rapidly effective; of battle-tumult, love-madness, heroism, and despair, there was no end. This literary period is called the Sturm-und-Drang-Zeit, the Storm-and-Stress Period; for great indeed was the wo and fury of these Power-men. Beauty, to their mind, seemed synonymous with Strength. All pas sion was poetical, so it were but fierce enough. Their head moral virtue was Pride: their beau idéal of manhood was some transcript of Milton's Devil. Often they inverted Bolingbroke's plan, and instead of "patronizing Providence," did directly the opposite; raging with extreme animation against Fate in general, because it enthralled free virtue; and with clenched hands, or sounding shields, hurling defiance towards the vault of heaven.

These Power-men are gone too; and, with few exceptions, save the three originals above named, their works have already followed them. The application of all this to our own