CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

ESSAYS.

JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.1

[1827.]

DR. JOHNSON, it is said, when he first heard of Boswell's intention to write a life of him, announced, with decision enough, that, if he thought Boswell really meant to write his life, he would prevent it by taking Boswell's! That great authors should actually employ this preventive against bad biographers is a thing we would by no means recommend: but the truth is, that, rich as we are in Biography, a well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one; and there are certainly many more men whose history deserves to be recorded, than persons willing and able to record it. But great men, like the old Egyptian kings, must all be tried after death, before they can be embalmed: and what, in truth, are these "Sketches," "Anas," "Conversations," "Voices," and the like, but the votes and pleadings of so many ill-informed advocates, jurors and judges; from whose conflict, however, we shall in the end have a true verdict? The worst of it is at the first; for weak eyes are precisely the fondest of glittering objects. Accordingly, no sooner does a great man depart, and

1 EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. 91.-Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Leben, nebst Characteristik seiner Werke; von Heinrich Döring. (Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of his Works; by Heinrich Döring.) Gotha; Hennings, 1826. 12mo, pp. 208.

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leave his character as public property, than a crowd of little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavoring, by all arts, to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of Himself; though, many times, this mirror is so twisted with convexities and concavities, and, indeed, so extremely small in size, that to expect any true image, or any image whatever from it, is out of the question.

Richter was much better-natured than Johnson; and took many provoking things with the spirit of a humorist and philosopher; nor can we think that so good a man, had he even foreseen this Work of Döring's, would have gone the length of assassinating him for it. Döring is a person we have known for several years, as a compiler, and translator, and balladmonger; whose grand enterprise, however, is his Gallery of Weimar Authors; a series of strange little Biographies, beginning with Schiller, and already extending over Wieland and Herder; now comprehending, probably by conquest, Klopstock also; and lastly, by a sort of droit d'aubaine, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter; neither of whom belonged to Weimar. Authors, it must be admitted, are happier than the old painter with his cocks for they write, naturally and without fear of ridicule, the name of their work on the title-page; and thenceforth the purport and tendency of each volume remains indisputable. Döring is sometimes lucky in this privilege; otherwise his manner of composition, being so peculiar, might occasion difficulty now and then. Biographies, according to Döring's method, are a simple business. You first ascertain, from the Leipsic Conversationslexicon, or Jördens's Poetical Lexicon, or Flögel, or Koch, or other such Compendium or Handbook, the date and place of the proposed individual's birth, his parentage, trade, appointments, and the titles of his works; the date of his death you already know from the newspapers: this serves as a foundation for the edifice. You then go through his writings, and all other writings where he or his pursuits are treated of, and wherever you find a passage with his name in it, you cut it out, and carry it away. In this

manner a mass of materials is collected, and the building now proceeds apace. Stone is laid on the top of stone, just as it comes to hand; a trowel or two of biographic mortar, if perfectly convenient, being spread in here and there, by way of cement; and so the strangest pile suddenly arises; amorphous, pointing every way but to the zenith, here a block of granite, there a mass of pipe-clay; till the whole finishes, when the materials are finished; - and you leave it standing to posterity, like some miniature Stonehenge, a perfect architectural enigma.

To speak without figure, this mode of life-writing has its disadvantages. For one thing, the composition cannot well be what the critics call harmonious: and, indeed, Herr Döring's transitions are often abrupt enough. The hero changes his object and occupation from page to page, often from sentence to sentence, in the most unaccountable way; a pleasurejourney, and a sickness of fifteen years, are despatched with equal brevity; in a moment you find him married, and the father of three fine children. He dies no less suddenly; — he is studying as usual, writing poetry, receiving visits, full of life and business, when instantly some paragraph opens under him, like one of the trap-doors in the Vision of Mirza, and he drops, without note of preparation, into the shades below. Perhaps, indeed, not forever; we have instances of his rising after the funeral, and winding up his affairs. The time has been that, when the brains were out, the man would die; but Döring orders these things differently.

After all, however, we have no pique against poor Döring: on the contrary, we regularly purchase his ware; and it gives us true pleasure to see his spirits so much improved since we first met him. In the Life of Schiller his state did seem rather unprosperous: he wore a timorous, submissive and downcast aspect, as if, like Sterne's Ass, he were saying, "Don't thrash me; - but if you will, you may!" Now, however, comforted by considerable sale, and praise from this and the other Litteraturblatt, which has commended his diligence, his fidelity, and, strange to say, his method, he advances with erect countenance and firm hoof, and even recalcitrates contemptuously against

such as do him offence. Glück auf dem Weg! is the worst we wish him.

Of his Life of Richter these preliminary observations may be our excuse for saying but little. He brags much, in his Preface, that it is all true and genuine; for Richter's widow, it seems, had, by public advertisement, cautioned the world against it; another biography, partly by the illustrious deceased himself, partly by Otto, his oldest friend and the appointed Editor of his Works, being actually in preparation. This rouses the indignant spirit of Döring, and he stoutly asseverates that, his documents being altogether authentic, this biography is no pseudo-biography. With still greater truth he might have asseverated that it was no biography at all. Well are he and Hennings of Gotha aware that this thing of shreds and patches has been vamped together for sale only. Except a few letters to Kunz, the Bamberg Bookseller, which turn mainly on the purchase of spectacles, and the journeyings and freightage of two boxes that used to pass and repass between Richter and Kunz's circulating library; with three or four notes of similar importance, and chiefly to other booksellers, there are no biographical documents here, which were not open to all Europe as well as to Heinrich Döring. Indeed, very nearly one half of the Life is occupied with a description of the funeral and its appendages, how the "sixty torches, with a number of lanterns and pitchpans," were arranged; how this Patrician or Professor followed that, through Friedrich Street, Chancery Street, and other streets of Bayreuth; and how at last the torches all went out, as Dr. Gabler and Dr. Spatzier were perorating (decidedly in bombast) over the grave. Then, it seems, there were meetings held in various parts of Germany, to solemnize the memory of Richter; among the rest, one in the Museum of Frankfort-onMayn; where a Doctor Börne speaks another long speech, if possible in still more decided bombast. Next come threnodies from all the four winds, mostly on very splay-footed metre. The whole of which is here snatched from the kind oblivion of the newspapers, and "lives in Settle's numbers one day more."

We have too much reverence for the name of Richter to think of laughing over these unhappy threnodists and panegyrists; some of whom far exceed anything we English can exhibit in the epicedial style. They rather testify, however maladroitly, that the Germans have felt their loss, which, indeed, is one to Europe at large; they even affect us with a certain melancholy feeling, when we consider how a heavenly voice must become mute, and nothing be heard in its stead but the whoop of quite earthly voices, lamenting, or pretending to lament. Far from us be all remembrance of Döring and Company, while we speak of Richter! But his own Works give us some glimpses into his singular and noble nature; and to our readers a few words on this man, certainly one of the most remarkable of his age, will not seem thrown away.

Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country, is his saying, imported by Madame de Staël, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics : :"Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of the air!" Of this last element, indeed, his own genius might easily seem to have been a denizen; so fantastic, many-colored, far-grasping, every way perplexed and extraordinary is his mode of writing. To translate him properly is next to impossible; nay, a dictionary of his works has actually been in part published for the use of German readers! These things have restricted his sphere of action, and may long restrict it, to his own country: but there, in return, he is a favorite of the first class; studied through all his intricacies with trustful admiration, and a love which tolerates much. During the last forty years, he has been continually before the public, in various capacities, and growing generally in esteem with all ranks of critics; till, at length, his gainsayers have either been silenced or convinced; and Jean Paul, at first reckoned half-mad, has long ago vindicated his singularities to nearly universal satisfaction, and now combines popularity with real depth of endowment, in perhaps a greater degree