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have passed away, or at best died into a faint age, may be traced much farther into the contradition, of no value as a practical principle. dition and prevailing disposition of our spiritual To judge by the loud clamour of our Constitu- nature itself. Consider, for example, the genetion builders, Statists, Economists, directors, ral fashion of Intellect in this era. Intellect, creators, reformers of Public Societies; in a the power man has of knowing and believing, word, all manner of Mechanists, from the Cart- is now nearly synonymous with Logic, or the wright up to the Code-maker; and by the mere power of arranging and communicating. nearly total silence of all Preachers and Teach- Its implement is not Meditation, but Argument. ers who should give a voice to Poetry, Reli- "Cause and effect" is almost the only category gion, and Morality, we might fancy either that under which we look at, and work with, all man's Dynamical nature was, to all spiritual Nature. Our first question with regard to any intents, extinct, or else so perfected, that no- object is not, What is it? but, How is it? We thing more was to be made of it by the old are no longer instinctively driven to appre means; and henceforth only in his Mechanical hend, and lay to heart, what is Good and Love contrivances did any hope exist for him. ly, but rather to inquire, as onlookers, how it To define the limits of these two departments is produced, whence it comes, whither it goes. of man's activity, which work into one another, Our favourite Philosophers have no love and and by means of one another, so intricately | no hatred; they stand among us not to do, nor and inseparably, were by its nature an impos- to create any thing, but as a sort of Logic-mills sible attempt. Their relative importance, even to grind out the true causes and effects of all to the wisest mind, will vary in different times, that is done and created. To the eye of a according to the special wants and dispositions Smith, a Hume, or a Constant, all is well that of these times. Meanwhile, it seems clear works quietly. An Order of Ignatius Loyola, enough that only in the right co-ordination of a Presbyterianism of John Knox, a Wickliffe, the two, and the vigorous forwarding of both, or a Henry the Eighth, are simply so many does our true line of action lie. Undue culti-mechanical phenomena, caused or causing. vation of the inward or Dynamical province The Euphuist of our day differs much from leads to idle, visionary, impracticable courses, and, especially in rude eras, to Superstition and Fanaticism, with their long train of baleful and well-known evils. Undue cultivation of the outward, again, though less immediately prejudicial, and even for the time productive of many palpable benefits, must, in the long run, by destroying Moral Force, which is the parent of all other Force, prove not less certainly, and perhaps still more hopelessly, pernicious. This, we take it, is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass that, in the management of external things, we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilized ages.

In fact, if we look deeper, we shall find that this faith in Mechanism has now struck its roots deep into men's most intimate, primary sources of conviction; and is thence sending up, over his whole life and activity, innumerable stems,-fruit-bearing and poison-bearing. The truth is, men have lost their belief in the Invisible, and believe, and hope, and work only in the Visible; or, to speak it in other words, This is not a Religious age. Only the material, the immediately practical, not the divine and spiritual, is important to us. The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable. Worship, indeed, in any sense, is not recognised among us, or is mechanically explained into Fear of pain, or Hope of pleasure. Our true Deity is Mechanism. It has subdued external Nature for us, and, we think, it will do all other things. We are Giants in physical power: in a deeper than a metaphorical sense, we are Titans, that strive, by heaping mountain on mountain, to conquer Heaven also.

The strong mechanical character, so visible in the spiritual pursuits and methods of this

his pleasant predecessors. An intellectual dapperling of these times boasts chiefly of his irresistible perspicacity, his "dwelling in the daylight of truth," and so forth; which, on examination, turns out to be a dwelling in the rush-light of "closet-logic," and a deep unconsciousness that there is any other light to dwell in; or any other objects to survey with it. Wonder indeed, is, on all hands, dying out: it is the sign of uncultivation to wonder. Speak to any small man of a high, majestic Reformation, of a high, majestic Luther to lead it, and forthwith he sets about "accounting for it! how the "circumstances of the time" called for such a character, and found him, we suppose, standing girt and road-ready, to do its errand; how the "circumstances of the time" created, fashioned, floated him quietly along into the result; how, in short, this small man, had he been there, could have performed the like himself! For it is the "force of circumstances" that does every thing; the force of one man can do nothing. Now all this is grounded on little more than a metaphor. We figure Society as a "Machine," and that mind is opposed to mind, as body is to body; whereby two, or at most ten, little minds must be stronger than one great mind. Notable absurdity! For the plain truth, very piain, we think, is, that minds are opposed to minds in quite a different way; and one man that has a higher Wisdom, a hitherto unknown spiritual Truth in him, is stronger, not than ten men that have it not, or than ten thousand, but than all men, that have it not; and stands among them with a quite ethereal, angelic power, as with a sword out of Heaven's own armory, sky-tempered, which no buckler, and no tower of brass, will finally withstand.

But to us, in these times, such considerations rarely occur. We enjoy, we see nothing by direct vision; but only by reflection, and in anatomical dismemberment. Like Sir Hu dibras, for every Why, we must have a Where

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fore. We have our little theory on all human long-past class of Popes were possessed of; and divine things. Poetry, the workings of inflicting moral censure; imparting moral engenius itself, which in all times, with one or couragement, consolation, edification; in all another meaning, has been called Inspiration, ways, diligently “administering the Discipline and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is of the Church." It may be said, too, that in no longer without its scientific exposition. The private disposition, the new Preachers somebuilding of the lofty rhyme is like any other what resemble the Mendicant Friars of old masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of times: outwardly full of holy zeal; inwardly its rise, height, decline, and fall,-which latter, not without stratagem, and hunger for terresit would seem, is now near, among all people. trial things. But omitting this class, and the Of our Theories of Taste," as they are call-boundless host of watery personages who pipe, ed, wherein the deep, infinite, unspeakable as they are able, on so many scrannel straws, Love of Wisdom and Beauty, which dwells let us look at the higher regions of Literature, in all men, is "explained," made mechanically where, if anywhere, the pure melodies of Poevisible, from "Association," and the like, why sy and Wisdom should be heard. Of natural should we say any thing? Hume has written talent there is no deficiency: one or two richlyus a "Natural History of Religion;" in which endowed individuals even give us a superiority one Natural History, all the rest are included in this respect. But what is the song they Strangely, too, does the general feeling coin-sing? Is it a tone of the Memnon Statue, cide with Hume's in this wonderful problem; breathing music as the light first touches it? for whether his “Natural History" be the right a "liquid wisdom," disclosing to our sense the one or not, that Religion must have a Natural deep, infinite harmonies of Nature and man's History, all of us, cleric and laic, seem to be soul? Alas, no! It is not a matin or vesper agreed. He indeed regards it as a Disease, we hymn to the Spirit of all Beauty, but a fierce again as Health; so far there is a difference; clashing of cymbals, and shouting of multibut in our first principle we are at one. tudes, as children pass through the fire to MoTo what extent theological Unbelief, we lech! Poetry itself has no eye for the Invisimean intellectual dissent from the Church, in ble. Beauty is no longer the god it worships, its view of Holy Writ, prevails at this day, but some brute image of Strength; which we would be a highly important, were it not, un- may well call an idol, for true Strength is one der any circumstances, an almost impossible and the same with Beauty, and its worship also inquiry. But the Unbelief, which is of a still is a hymn. The meek, silent Light can mould, more fundamental character, every man may create, and purify all Nature; but the loud see prevailing, with scarcely any but the faint- Whirlwind, the sign and product of Disunion, est contradiction, all around him; even in the of Weakness, passes on, and is forgotten. Pulpit itself. Religion in most countries, more How widely this veneration for the physically or less in every country, is no longer what it Strongest has spread itself through Literature, was, and should be,—a thousand-voiced psalm any one may judge, who reads either criticism from the heart of Man to his invisible Father, or poem. We praise a work, not as "true," the fountain of all Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and but as "strong;" our highest praise is that it revealed in every revelation of these; but for has "affected" us, has "terrified" us. All this, the most part, a wise, prudential feeling it has been well observed, is the "maximum grounded on a mere calculation; a matter, as of the Barbarous," the symptom, not of vigorall others now are, of Expediency and Utility:ous refinement, but of luxurious corruption. whereby some smaller quantum of earthly en-It speaks much, too, for men's indestructible joyment may be exchanged for a far larger love of truth, that nothing of this kind will quantum of celestial enjoyment. Thus Religion, too, is Profit; a working for wages; not Reverence, but vulgar Hope or Fear. Many, we know, very many, we hope, are still religious in a far different sense; were it not so, our case were too desperate: But to witness that such is the temper of the times, we take any calm observant man, who agrees or disagrees in our feeling on the matter, and ask him whether our view of it is not in general wellfounded.

abide with them; that even the talent of a Byron cannot permanently seduce us into idol-worship; but that he, too, with all his wild syren charming, already begins to be disregarded and forgotten.

Again, with respect to our Moral condition: here also, he who runs may read that 'he same physical, mechanical influences are every where busy. For the "superior morality," of which we hear so much, we too, would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindLiterature, too, if we consider it, gives simi- ness to deny that this "superior morality” is lar testimony. At no former era has Litera- properly rather an "inferior criminality," proture, the printed communication of Thought, duced not by greater love of Virtue, but by been of such importance as it is now. We greater perfection of Police; and of that far often hear that the Church is in danger; and subtler and stronger Police, called Public truly so it is, in a danger it seems not to Opinion. This last watches over us with its know of: For, with its tithes in the most per- Argus eyes more keenly than ever; but the fect safety, its functions are becoming more "inward eye" seems heavy with sleep. Of any and more superseded. The true Church of belief in invis ble, divine things, we find as few England, at this moment, lies in the Editors traces in our Morality as elsewhere. It is by of its Newspapers. These preach to the peo-tangible, material considerations that we are ple daily, weekly; admonishing kings them-guided, not by inward and spiritual. Self-denial, selves; advising peace or war, with an au- the parent of all virtue, in any true sense of thority which only the first Reformers and a that word, has perhaps seldom been rarer: so

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; and stand leashed together, uniform in dress and movement, like the rowers of some boundless galley. This and that may be right and true; but we must not do it. Wonderful "Force of Public Opinion!" We must act and walk in all points as it prescribes; follow the traffic it 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 considered, 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.

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 reckou 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

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 dile tantism, 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 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 ser vant; 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.

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.

all his noble institutions, his faithful endeavours, and loftiest attainments, are but the body, and more and more approximated emblem.

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 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 towas 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 contry: 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 It is towards a higher freedom than mere free- nation, no wise man will undertake; and all dom 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.]

It is some six years since the name "Jean 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

god, with all his thyrsi, cymbals, Phallophori, 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 Mænads wheel round in amazement; and then the jolly god, dragged from his chariot, is trodden into the kennels as a drunk mortal.

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 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 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 The Germans looks no better than a chaos.

*Wahrheit aus Jean Paul's Leben. (Biography of Jean Paw ) Istes, 2tes, 3tes Bändchen. Breslau, 1826, 27, 28. I themselves find much to bear with in him;

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 principal 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 situations, 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, inte 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.

and for readers of any other nation, he is in- | character from other literary lives, which, for volved 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 published 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 listened with some curiosity and hopeful anticipation. From which symptoms we should infer two things, both very comfortable to us in our present capacity: First, that the old strait-laced, microscopic sect of Felles-lettresmen, 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.

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 general 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.

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