into an actual coherent figure, and bring home | the editing and completing of it; not without 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 to many ways. Conducted on such principles, him only could the post of Richter's biographer 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 Dichtu_g (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 imate 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 genial 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 oratorical secrets and professorial habits: thus, as Mr Wortley, in writing his parliamentary speech to be read within his hat, had marked, in va rious passages, "Here cough," so Paul with greater brevity, had an arbitrary hieroglyph introduced here and there, among his papers, and purporting, as he tells us, Meine Herren, niemand scharre, niemand gühne!—“ Gentlemen, no scraping, no yawning!"-a hieroglyph, we must say, which many public speakers might stand more in need of than he. Unfortunately, in the Second volume, no other Lectures came to light, but only a string of disconnected, indeed quite beterogeneous Notes, intended to have been fashioned into such; the full free stream of oratory dissipated itself into unsatisfactory drops. With the Third volume, which is by much the longest, Herr Otto appears more decidedly in his own person, though still rather with the scissors than with the pen; and, behind a multitude of circumvallations and outposts, endeavours to advance his history a little; the Lectures having left it still almost at the very commencement. His peculiar plan, and the too manifest purpose to continue speaking in Jean Paul's manner, greatly obstruct his progress. which, indeed, is so inconsiderable, that at the end of this third volume, that is, after some seven hundred small octavo pages, we find the hero, as yet, scarcely beyond his twentieth year, and the history proper still only, as it were, beginning. We cannot but regret that Herr Otto, whose talent and good purpose, to say nothing of his relation to Richter, demand regard from us, had not adopted some straightforward method, and spoken out in plain prose, which seems a more natural dialect for him, what he had to say on this matter. Instead of a multifarious combination, tending so slowly, if at all, towards unity, he might, without omitting those "Lectures," or any "Note" that had value, have given us a direct Narrative, which, if it had wanted the line of Beauty, might have had the still more indispensabie line of Regularity, and been, at all events, far | me, an infant, along with them to his deathshorter. Till Herr Otto's work is completed, bed. He was in the act of departing, when a we cannot speak positively; but, in the 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 insufficient. 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 Richter was born at Wonsiedel in Baireuth, and Organist at Wonsiedel, was shortly afterhumble post of Tertius, (under schoolmaster) in the year 1763; and as his birth-day fell on the 21st of March, it was sometimes wittily Jodiz; and thence, in the course of years, wards appointed clergyman in the hamlet of said that he and the Spring were born together. transferred to Schwarzenbach on the Saale. He himself mentions this, and with a laudable He too was of a truly devout disposition, though intention: "this epigrammatic fact," says he, "that I the Professor and the Spring came into combining with it more energy of character, the world together, I have indeed brought out noted in his neighbourhood as a bold, zealous and, apparently, more general talent; being a hundred times in conversation, before now; preacher; and still partially known to the but I fire it off here purposely, like a cannon- world, we believe, for some meritorious comsalute, for the hundred and first time, that so In poverty he by printing I may ever henceforth be unable positions in Church-music. to offer it again as bonmo-bonbon, when, through cannot be said to have altogether equalled his the Printer's Devil, it has already been pre-bread and beer; yet poor enough he was; predecessor, who through life ate nothing but sented to all the world." Destiny, he seems to think, made another witticism on him; the burgher's daughter, whom he took to wife, had, no less cheerful than poor. The thriving word Rich er being appellative as well as pro- as we guess, brought no money with her, but per, in the German tongue, where it signifies Judge. His Christian name, Jean Paul, which only habits little advantageous for a schoollong passed for some freak of his own, and a master, or parson; at all events, the worthy pseudonym, he seems to have derived honest-man, frugal as his household was, had conly enough, from his maternal grandfather, who in those days was called Fritz, narrates tinual difficulties, and even died in debt. Paul, Johann Paul Kuhn, a substantial cloth-maker, in Hof; only translating the German Johann gaily, how his mother used to despatch him to into the French Jeun. The Richters, for at Hof, her native town, with a provender bag least two generations, had been schoolmasters, strapped over his shoulders, under pretext of or very subaltern churchmen, distinguished purchasing at a cheaper rate there; but in for their poverty and their piety; the grand-reality to get his groceries and dainties furfather, it appears, is still remembered in his little circle, as a man of quite remarkable innocence and holiness; "in Neustadt," says nished gratis by his grandmother. He was wont to kiss his grandfather's hand behind the loom, and speak with him; while the good old lady, parsimonious to all the world, but lavish to her own, privily filled his bag with the good things of this life, and even gave him for a friend. One other little trait, quite new almonds for himself, which, however, he kept in ecclesiastical annals, we must here com municate. Paul, in summing up the joys of existence at Jodiz, mentions this among the number: 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, truly. Rectorate, and Town, and cave in the Culmoerg, were well worth exchanging; a the hazel thickets, looked out for the best nuts. place, namely, in the Neustadt Churchyard.*-His good wife had been promoted thither twenty years before him. My parents had taken * Gottesacker (iod's-field,) not Kirchhof, the more common term, and exactly corresponding to ours, is the word Richter uses here, and almost always elsewhere, which in his writings he has often occasion 1 do. "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 toe-field lying over the Saale. The one younker carried a mattock, the other a hand-basket. 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 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, some hour in time, and then of celebrating the harvest-home, by candle light, when they came back,-let every one paint to himself as brit- and capillary tubes; and has only five strait liantly as the receiver thereof." world-windows, of Senses, to open for the To such persons as argue that the respecta-boundless, round-eyed, round-sunned All;~ bility of the cloth depends on its price at the and yet it discerus and reproduces an All! clothier's, it must appear surprising that a "Soarcely do I know with which of the four Protestant clergyman, who not only was in no quarterly Idyls to begin; for each is a little case to keep fox-hounds, but even saw it con-heaven y forecourt to the next: however, the venient to dig his own potatoes, should not climax of joys, if we start with Winter and have fallen under universal odium, and felt his January, will perhaps be most apparent. In the usefulness very considerably diminished. No-cold, our Father had commonly, like an Alpine thing of this kind, however, becomes visible herdsman, come down from the upper altitude in the history of the Jodiz Parson: we find him of his study; and, to the joy of the children, a man powerful in his vocation; loved and was dwelling on the plain of the general famivenerated by his flock; nay, associating at ly-room. In the morning, he sat by a window, will, and ever as an honoured guest, with the committing his Sunday's sermon to memory; gentry of Voigtland, not indeed in the cha- and the three sons, Fritz, (who I myself am,) racter of gentleman, yet in that of priest, and Adam, and Gottlieb, carried, by turns, the which he reckoned far higher. Like an old full coffee-cup to him, and still more gladly Lutheran, says his son, he believed in the carried back the empty one, because the cargreat, as he did in ghosts; but without any rier was then entitled to pick the unmelted reshade of fear. The truth is, the man had a mains of the sugar-candy (taken against cheerful, pure, religious heart; was diligent cough) from the bottom thereof. Out of doors, in business, and fervent in spirit: and, in all truly, the sky covered all things with silence; the relations of his life, found this well-nigh the brook with ice, the village with snow: but sufficient for him. in our room, there was life: under the stove a pigeon-establishment; on the windows, finch cages; on the floor the invincible bull brach, our Bonne, the night-guardian of the courtyard; and a poodle, and the pretty Scharmantel, (Poll,) a present from the Lady von Plotho;and close by, the kitchen, with two maids; and farther off, against the other end of the house, our stable, with all sorts of bovine, swinish, and feathered cattle, and their noises: the threshers, with their flails, also at work within the court-yard, I might reckon as another item. In this way, with nothing but society on all hands, the whole male portion of the house hold easily spent their fore-noon in tasks of memory, not far from the female portion, as busily employed in cooking. To our Professor, as to Poets in general, the recollections of childhood had always something of an ideal, almost celestial character. Often, in his fictions, he describes such scenes, with a fond minuteness; nor is poverty any deadly, or even unwelcome ingredient in them. On the whole, it is not by money, or money's worth, that man lives and has his being. "Is not God's Universe within our head, whether there be a torn scull-cap or a king's diadem without?" Let no one imagine that Paul's young years were unhappy; still less that he looks back on them in a lachrymose, sentimental manner, with the smallest symptom either of boasting or whining. Poverty of a far sterner sort than this would have been a light matter to him; for a kind mother, Nature her- Holidays occur in every occupation; thus self, had already provided against it; and, like I too had my airing holidays,-analogous to wa the mother of Achilles, rendered him invul- tering holidays,--so that I could travel out in the nerable to outward things. There was a bold, snow of the court-yard, and to the barn with its deep, joyful spirit looking through those young threshing. Nay, was there a delicate embassy tc eyes; and to such a spirit the world has no-be transacted in the village,-for example, to the thing poor, but all is rich, and full of loveli-schoolmaster, to the tailor,-I was sure to be de ness and wonder. That our readers may glance with us into this foreign Parsonage, we shall translate some paragraphs from Paul's second Lecture, and thereby furnish, at the same time, a specimen of his professorial style and temper. "To represent the Jodiz life of our Hans Paul, for by this name we shall for a time distinguish him, yet ever changing it with others, our best course, I believe, will be to conduct him through a whole Idyl-year; dividing the normal year into four seasons, as so many quarterly Idyls; four Idyls exhaust his happiness. 46 For the rest, let no one marvel at finding an Idyl-kingdom and pastoral-world in a little hamlet and parsonage. In the smallest bed you can raise a tulip-tree, which shall extend its flowery boughs over all the garden; and the life-breath of joy can be inhaled as well through a window, as in the open wood and sky. Nay, is not Man's Spirit (with all its infinite celestial-spaces) walled in within a six-feet Body, with integuments, and Malpighian mucuses, spatched thither in the middle of my lessons: and thus I still got forth into the open air and the cold, and measured myself with the new snow. At noon, before our own dinner, we children might also, in the kitchen, have the hungry satisfaction to see the threshers fall to and consume their victuals. "The afternoon, again, was still more important, and richer in joys. Winter shortened and sweetened our lessons. In the long dusk, our Father walked to and fro; and the chil dren, according to ability, trotted under his night-gown, holding by his hands. At sound of the Vesper bell, we placed ourselves in a circle, and in concert devotionally chanted the hymn, Die finstre Nacht bricht stark herrin, (The gloomy Night is gathering round.) Only in villages, not in towns, where properly there is more night than day labour, have the evening chimes a meaning and beauty, and are the swan-song of the day: the evening-bell is as it were the muffle of the over loud heart, and like a rance des vaches of the plains, ca.is men from their running and toiling, into the land of silence and dreams. After a pleasant watching about the kitchen door, for the moonrise of candle-light, we saw our wide room at once illuminated and barricaded; to wit, the window shutters were closed and bolted; and behind these window bastions and breast-works, the child felt himself snugly nestled, and well secured against Knecht Ruprecht, who on the outside could not get in, but only in vain keep growling and humming. on a Latin grammar and a Latin vocabulary: and the two boys sat all day, and all year, at home, without other preceptorial nourishment than getting by heart long lists of words. Fritz learned honestly nevertheless, and in spite of his brother Adam's bad example. For the rest, he was totally destitute of books, except such of his Father's theological ones as he could come at by stealth: these, for want of better, he eagerly devoured; understanding, as he says, nothing whatever of their contents. "About this period too it was that we chil- With no less impetuosity, and no less profit, dren might undress, and in long train-shirts he perused the antiquated sets of Newspapers, skip up and down. Idyllic joys of various which a kind patroness, the Lady von Plotho, sorts alternated: our Father either had his already mentioned, was in the habit of furnishquarto Bible, interleaved with blank folio ing to his Father, not in separate sheets, but in sheets, before him, and was marking, at each sheaves monthly. This was the extent of his verse, the book wherein he had read any thing reading. Jodiz too was the most sequestered concerning it; or more commonly he had his of all hamlets; had neither natural nor artifi ruled music-paper; and, undisturbed by this cial beauty; no memorable thing could be seen racketting of children, was composing whole there, in a lifetime. Nevertheless, under an concerts of church-music, with all their divi-immeasurable Sky, and in a quite wondrous sions; constructing his internal melody with- World it did stand; and glimpses into the inout any help of external tones, (as Reichard finite spaces of the Universe, and even into too advises,) or rather, in spite of all external the infinite spaces of Man's Soul, could be had mistones. In both cases, in the last with the there as well as elsewhere. Fritz had his own more pleasure, I looked on as he wrote; and thoughts, in spite of schoolmasters: a little rejoiced specially, when, by pauses of various heavenly seed of Knowledge, nay of Wisdom, instruments, whole pages were at once filled had been laid in him, and with no gardener, up. The children all sat sporting on that long but Nature herself, it was silently growing. writing and eating table, or even under it. *** To some of our readers, the following circum"Then, at length, how did the winter even-stance may seem unparalleled, if not unintel ing, once a week, mount in worth, when the ligible; to others nowise so: ald errand-woman, coated in snow, with her fruit, flesh, and general ware basket, entered the kitchen from Hof; and we all, in this case, had the distant town in miniature before our eyes, nay, before our noses, for there were pastry cakes in it!" "In the future Literary History of our hero, it will become doubtful whether he was not born more for Philosophy than for Poetry. In earliest times, the word Weltweisheit, (Philosophy, World-wisdom,)-yet also another word, Morgenland, (East, Morning-land,)—was to me an open Thus in dull winter imprisonment, among Heaven's-gate, through which I looked in, over all manner of bovine, swinish, and feathered long, long gardens of joy.-Never shall I forget cattle, with their noises, may Idyllic joys be that inward occurrence, till now narrated to no found, if there is an eye to see them, and a mortal, wherein I witnessed the birth of my heart to taste them. Truly happiness is cheap, Self-consciousness, of which I can still give did we apply to the right merchant for it. Paul the place and time. One forenoon, I was warns us elsewhere not to believe, for these standing, a very young child, in the outer door, Idyls, that there were no sour days, no chidings, and looking leftward at the stack of fuel wood, and the like, at Jodiz: yet, on the whole, he-when, all at once the internal vision,-I am had good reason to rejoice in his parents. They a ME, (ich bin ein Ich,) came like a flash from loved him well; his Father, he says, would heaven before me, and in gleaming light ever "shed tears" over any mark of quickness or afterwards continued: then had my ME, for the talent in little Fritz: they were virtuous also, first time, seen itself, and for ever. Deceptions and devout, which, after all, is better than being of memory are scarcely conceivable here; for, rich. "Ever and anon,' says he, "I was in regard to an event occurring altogether in hearing some narrative from my Father, how the veiled Holy-of-Holies of man, and whose he and other clergymen had taken parts of novelty alone has given permanence to such their dress and given them to the poor; he re-everyday recollections accompanying it, no lated these things with joy, not as an admoni-posterior description from another party would tion, but merely as a necessary occurrence: have mingled itself with accompanying cirO God! I thank Thee for my Father!" Richter's education was not of a more sumptuous sort than his board and lodging. Some disagreement with the Schoolmaster at Jodiz had induced the Parson to take his sons from school, and determine to teach them himself. This determination he executed faithfully indeed, yet in the most limited style; his method being no Pestalozzian one, but simply the old scheme of task-work and force-work, operating • The Rawhead (with bloody bones) of Germany. cumstances at all." It was in his thirteenth year that the family removed to that better church-living at Schwarzenbach; with which change, so far as school education was concerned, prospects considerably brightened for him. The public Teacher there was no deep scholar or thinker, yet a lively, genial man, and warmly interested in his pupils; among whom he soon learned to distinguish Fritz, as a boy of altogether superior gifts. What was of still more importance, Fritz now got access to books; entered into a course of highly miscellaneous, self-selected | geographical Conrector (Second Master) no good On one tragireading; and what with Romances, what with understanding could subsist. Belles-Lettres works, and Hutchesonian Phi- comical occasion, of another sort, they came losophy, and controversial Divinity, saw an into still more decided collision. The zealous astonishing scene opening round him on all Conrector, a most solid, painstaking man, hands. His Latin and Greek were now better desirous to render his Gymnasium as like a taught; he even began learning Hebrew. Two University as possible, had imagined that a clergymen of the neighbourhood took pleasure series of “Disputations," some foreshadow of in his company, young as he was; and were those held at College, might be a useful, as of great service now and afterwards: it was certainly enough it would be an ornamental under their auspices that he commenced com-thing. By ill luck, the worthy PresideL. nad position, and also speculating on Theology, wherein he inclined strongly to the heterodox side." selected some church-article for the theme of In the family room." however, things were not nearly so flourishing. The Professor's three Lectures terminate before this date; but we gather from his Notes that surly clouds hung over Schwarzenbach, that "his evil days began there." The Father was engaged in more complex duties than formerly, went often from home, was encumbered with debt, and lost his former cheerfulness of humour. For his sons he saw no outlet except the hereditary craft of School-keeping; and let the matter rest there, taking little farther charge of them. In some three years, the poor man, worn down with manifold anxieties, departed this life; leaving his pecuniary affairs, which he had long calculated on rectifying by the better in-rector's tongue threatened cleaving to the roof come of Schwarzenbach, sadly deranged. of his mouth; for his brain was at a stand, or whirling in eddies, only his gall was in active play. Nothing remained for him but to close the debate abruptly by a "Silence, Sirrah!"— and leave the room, with a face (like that of the much more famous Subrector Hans von Füchslein) "of a mingled colour, like red bole, green chalk, tinsel-yellow, and vomissement de la reine." Meanwhile, Friedrich had been sent to the Hof Gym asium, (Town-school,) where, notwithstanding this event, he continued some time, two years in all, apparently the most profitable period of his whole tuition; indeed, the only period when, properly speaking, he had any tutor but himself. The good old clothmaking grandfather and grandmother took With his studies in the Leipzig University, charge of him. under their roof; and he had a body of teachers, all notable in their way. whither he proceeded in 1781, begins a far Herr Oto represents him as a fine, trustful, more important era for Paul; properly, the era kindly, yet resolute youth, who went through of his manhood, and first entire dependence on his persecutions, preferments, studies, friend-him-elf. In regard to literary or scientific ships, and other school-destinies in a highly culture, it is not clear that he derived much creditable manner; and demonstrates this, at furtherance from Leipzig; much more, at least, great length, by various details of facts, far too than the mere neighbourhood of libraries and minute for losertion here. As a trait of Paul's fellow-learners might anywhere else have af intelectual habitudes, it may be mentioned forded him. Certain professorial courses he that, at this time, he scarcely made any pro- did attend, and with diligence; but too much gress in History or Geography, much as he in the character of critic, as well as of pupil: profied in all other branches; nor was the he was in the habit of "measuring minds" dull teacher entirely to blame, but also the in- with men so much older and more honourable disposed pupii: indeed, it was not til long than he; and ere long, his respect for many of afterwards, that he overcame or suppressed them had not a littie abated. What his orihis contempt for those studies, and with anginal plan of studies was, or whether he had effort of his own acquired some skill in them. The ke we have heard of other Poets and Philos phers, especially when their teachers chanced to be prosaists and unphilosophical. Richter boasts that he was never punished at school; yet between him and the Historico *All History," thus he writes in his thirty-second year, in so far as it is an affair of memory, can only be reckoned as less, heartless, thistle for pedantic chaffinches; but, on the other hand like Nature, it has hi es: value, in as far as we, by means of it, as by means of Nature, con divine and read the Infinite Sp rit, who, with Nature and History, as with letters, legib y writes to us. He who finds a God in the physical world, will also and one in the moral, which is History. Nature orces on our heart a Creator; liistory, a Providence.' ," any fixed plan, we do not learn; at Hof, without election or rejection on his own part, he had been trained with some view to Theology; but this and every other professional view soon faded away in Leipzig, owing to a variety of causes; and Richter, now still more decidedly a self-teacher, broke loose from all corporate guilds whatsoever, and in intellectual culture, as in other respects, endeavoured to seek out a basis of his own. He read multitudes of books, and wrote down whole volumes of excerpts, and private speculations; labouring in all directions with insatiable eagerness; but *See Quintus Fixlein, c. 7. |