in the long run, all speculation turns, may in truth afford such a nature matter for poetic play, but can never become serious concerns and necessities for it."-II. 131.

This last seems a singular opinion; and may prove, if it be correct, that Schiller himself was no "healthy poetic nature;" for undoubt

concerns and necessities;" as many portions of his works, and various entire treatises, will testify. Nevertheless, it plays an important part in his theories of Poetry; and often, under milder forms, returns on us there.

be forgiven for lightly esteeming every thing but Proofs. Nor am I terrified to think that the law of Change, from which no human and no divine work finds grace, will operate on this Philosophy, as on every other, and one day its Form will be destroyed: but its Foundations will not have this destiny to fear; for ever since mankind has existed, and any Rea-edly with him those three points were "serious son among mankind, these same first principles have been admitted, and on the whole acted upon."-Correspondence with Goethe, I. 58. Schiller's philosophical performances relate chiefly to matters of Art; not, indeed, without significant glances into still more important But, without entering farther on those comregions of speculation: nay, Art, as he viewed plex topics, we must here for the present take it, has its basis on the most important interests leave of Schiller. Of his merits we have all of man, and of itself involves the harmonious along spoken rather on the negative side; and adjustment of these. We have already un- we rejoice in feeling authorized to do so. That dertaken to present our readers, on a future any German writer, especially one so dear to occasion, with some abstract of the Esthetic us, should already stand so high with British Letters, one of the deepest, most compact pieces of reasoning we are anywhere acquainted with by that opportunity, the general character of Schiller, as a Philosopher, will best fall to be discussed. Meanwhile, the two following brief passages, as some indication of his views on the highest of all philosophical questions, may stand here without commentary. He is speaking of Wilhelm Meister, and in the first extract, of the Fair Saint's Confessions, which occupy the Fifth Book of that work:

"The transition from Religion in general to the Christian Religion, by the experience of sin, is excellently conceived.*** I find virtually in the Christian System the rudiments of the Highest and Noblest; and the different phases of this System, in practical life, are so offensive and mean, precisely because they are bungled representations of that same Highest. If you study the specific character of Christianity, what distinguishes it from all monotheistic Religion, it lies in nothing else than in that making dead of the Law, the removal of that Kantean Imperative, instead of which Christianity requires a free Inclination. It is thus, in its pure form, a representing of Moral Beauty, or the Incarnation of the Holy; and in this sense, the only @sthetic Religion: hence, too, I explain to myself why it so prospers with female natures, and only in women is now to be met with under a tolerable figure." -Correspondence, I. 195.

"But in seriousness," he says elsewhere, "whence may it proceed that you have had a man educated, and in all points equipt, without ever coming upon certain wants which only Philosophy can meet? I am convinced, it is entirely attributable to the aesthetic direction you have taken through the whole Romance. Within the aesthetic temper there arises no want of those grounds of comfort, which are to be drawn from speculation: such a temper has self-subsistence, has infinitude, within itself; only when the Sensual and the Moral in man strive hostilely together, need help be sought of pure Reason. A healthy poetic nature wants, as you yourself say, no Moral Law, no Rights of Man, no Political Metaphysics. You might have added as well, it wants no Deity, no Immortality, to stay and uphold self withal. Those three points round which,

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readers that, in admiring him, the critic may also, without prejudice to right feeling on the subject, coolly judge of him, cannot be other than a gratifying circumstance. Perhaps there is no other true Poet of that nation with whom the like course would be suitable.

Connected with this there is one farther observation we must make before concluding. Among young students of German Literature, the question often arises, and is warmly mooted whether Schiller or Goethe is the greater Poet? Of this question we must be allowed to say that it seems rather a slender one, and for two reasons. First, because Schiller and Goethe are of totally dissimilar endowments and endeavours, in regard to all matters intellectual, and cannot well be com pared together as Poets. Secondly, because if the question mean to ask, which Poet is on the whole the rarer and more excellent, as probably it does, it must be considered as long ago abundantly answered. To the clear-sighted and modest Schiller, above all, such a question would have appeared surprising. No one knew better than himself, that as Goethe was a born Poet, so he was in great part a made Poet; that as the one spirit was intuitive, allembracing, instinct with melody, so the other was scholastic, divisive, only partially and as it were artificially melodious. Besides, Goethe has lived to perfect his natural gift, which the less happy Schiller was not permitted to do. The former, accordingly, is the national Poet; the latter is not, and never could have been. We once heard a German remark that readers till their twenty-fifth year usually preferred Schiller; after their twenty-fifth year, Goethe. This probably was no unfair illustration of the question. Schiller can seem higher than Goethe only because he is narrower. Thus to unpractised eyes, a Peak of Teneriffe, nay, a Strasburg Minster, when we stand on it, may seem higher than a Chimborazo; because the former rise abruptly, without abutment or environment; the latter rises gradually, carrying half a world aloft with it; and only the deeper azure of the heavens, the widened horizon, the "eternal sunshine," disclose to the geographer that the "Region of Change" lies far below him.

However, let us not divide these two Friends, who in life were so benignantly united. With

out asserting for Schiller any claim that even | Schiller be forgotten. “His works, too, the enemies can dispute, enough will remain for memory of what he did and was, will arise him. We may say that, as a Poet and Thinker, afar off like a towering landmark in the solihe attained to a perennial Truth, and ranks tude of the Past, when distance shall have among the noblest productions of his century dwarfed into invisibility many lesser people and nation. Goethe may continue the German that once encompassed him, and hid him from Poet, but neither through long generations can the near beholder."

THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.*

[WESTMINSTER REVIEW, 1831.]

In the year 1757, the Swiss Professor Bod-| gress. The Nibelungen has now been investimer printed an ancient poetical manuscript, gated, translated, collated, commented upon, under the title of Chriemhilden Ruche und die with more or less result, to almost boundless Klage, (Chriemhilde's Revenge, and the La- lengths: besides the Work named at the head ment;) which may be considered as the first of this Paper, and which stands there simply of a series, or stream of publications, and as one of the latest, we have Versions into the speculations still rolling on, with increased modern tongue by Von der Hagen, by Hinscurrent, to the present day. Not, indeed, that berg, Lachmann, Büsching, Zeune, the last in all these had their source or determining cause Prose, and said to be worthless; Criticisms, in so insignificant a circumstance; their Introductions, Keys, and so forth, by innumer source, or rather thousand sources, lay far able others, of whom we mention only Docen elsewhere. As has often been remarked, a and the Brothers Grimm. certain antiquarian tendency in Literature, a fonder, more earnest looking back into the Past, began about that time to manifest itself in all nations, (witness our own Percy's Reliques:) this was among the first distinct symptoms of it in Germany: where, as with ourselves, its manifold effects are still visible enough.

Some fifteen years after Bodmer's publication, which, for the rest, is not celebrated as an editorial feat, one C. H. Müller undertook a Collection of German Poems from the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Centuries; wherein, among other articles, he reprinted Bodmer's Chricmhilde and Klage, with a highly remarkable addition prefixed to the former, essential indeed to the right understanding of it; and the whole now stood before the world as one Poem, under the name of the Nibelungen Lied, or Lay of the Nibelungen. It has since been ascertained that the Klage is a foreign inferior appendage; at best, related only as epilogue to the main work: meanwhile out of this Nibelungen, such as it was, there soon proceeded new inquiries, and kindred enterprises. For much as the Poem, in the shape it here bore, was defaced and marred, it failed not to attract observation to all open-minded lovers of poetry, especially where a strong patriotic feeling existed, this singular, antique Nibelungen was an interesting appearance. Johannes Müller, in his famous Swiss History, spoke of it in warm terms: subsequently, August Wilhelm Schlegel, through the medium of Das Deutsche Museum, succeeded in awakening something like a universal popular feeling on the subject; and, as a natural consequence, a whole host of Editors and Critics, of deep and of shallow endeavour, whose labours we yet see in pro

By which means, not only has the Poem ítself been elucidated with all manner of researches, but its whole environment has come forth in new light; the scene and personages it relates to, the other fictions and traditions connected with it, have attained a new importance and coherence. Manuscripts, that for ages had lain dormant, have issued from their archives into public view; books that had circulated only in mean guise for the amusement of the people, have become important, not to one or two virtuosos, but to the general body of the learned: and now a whole System of antique Teutonic Fiction and Mythology unfolds itself, shedding here and there a real though feeble and uncertain glimmer over what was once the total darkness of the old Time. No fewer than Fourteen ancient Traditionary Poems, all strangely intertwisted, and growing out of and into one another, have come to light among the Germans; who now, in looking back, find that they too, as well as the Greeks, have their Heroic Age, and round the old Valhalla, as their Northern Pantheon, a world of demi-gods and wonders.

Such a phenomenon, unexpected till of late, cannot but interest a deep-thinking, enthusiastic people. For the Nibelungen especially, which lies as the centre and distinct keystone of the whole too chaotic System,-let us say rather, blooms as a firm sunny island in the middle of these cloud-covered, ever-shifting, sand-whirlpools,-they cannot sufficiently testify their love and veneration. Learned professors lecture on the Nibelungen, in public schools, with a praiseworthy view to initiate the German youth in love of their fatherland; from many zealous and nowise ignorant critics we hear talk of a "great Northern Epos," of a "German Iliad;" the more saturnine are shamed into silence, or hollow mouth-homage; thus from all quarters comes a sound of joyfu!

acclamation: the Nibelungen is welcomed as a | of Substance that casts such multiplied im precious national possession, recovered after measurable Shadows? The primeval Mythus six centuries of neglect, and takes undisputed place among the sacred books of German literature.

were it at first philosophical truth, or were it historical incident, floats too vaguely on the breath of men: each successive Singer and Redactor furnishes it with new personages, new scenery, to please a new audience; each has the privilege of inventing, and the far wider privilege of borrowing and new-modelling from all that have preceded him. Thus though Tradition may have but one root, it grows like a Banian, into a whole overarching labyrinth of trees. Or rather might we say, it is a Hall of Mirrors, where in pale light each

Of these curious transactions, some rumour has not failed to reach us in England, where our minds, from their own antiquarian disposition, were willing enough to receive it. Abstracts and extracts of the Nibelungen have been printed in our language; there have been disquisitions on it in our Reviews; hitherto, however, such as nowise to exhaust the subject. On the contrary, where so much was to be told at once, the speaker might be some-mirror reflects, convexly or concavely, not what puzzled where to begin: it was a much readier method to begin with the end, or with any part of the middle, than like Hamilton's Pam (whose example is too little followed in literary narrative) to begin with the beginning. Thus has our stock of intelligence come rushing out on us quite promiscuously and pell-mell; whereby the whole matter could not but acquire a tortuous, confused, altogether inexplicable, and even dreary aspect; and the class of "well-informed persons" now find themselves in that uncomfortable position, where they are obliged to profess admiration, and at the same time feel that, except by name, they know not what the thing admired is. Such a position towards the venerable Nibelungen, which is no less bright and graceful than historically significant, cannot be the right one. Moreover, as appears to us, it might be somewhat mended by very simple means. Let any one that had honestly read the Nibelungen, which in these days is no surprising achievement, only tell us what he found there, and nothing that he did not find: we should then know something, and, what were still ter, be ready for knowing more. To search out the secret roots of such a production, ramified through successive layers of centuries, and drawing nourishment from each, may be work, and too hard work, for the deepest philosopher and critic; but to look with natural eyes on what part of it stands visibly above ground, and record his own experiences thereof, is what any reasonable mortal, if he will take heed, can do.

only some real Object, but the Shadows of this in other mirrors; which again do the like for it: till in such reflection and re-reflection the whole immensity is filled with dimmer and dimmer shapes; and no firm scene lies round us, but a dislocated, distorted chaos, fading away on all hands, in the distance, into utter night. Only to some brave Von der Hagen, furnished with indefatigable ardour, and a deep, almost a religious love, is it given to find sure footing there, and see his way. All those Dukes of Aquitania, therefore, and Etzel's Court-holdings, and Dietriche and Sigenots, we shall leave standing where they are. Such as desire farther information, will find an intelligible account of the whole Series or Cycle, in Messrs. Weber and Jamieson's Illustrations of Northern Antiquities; and all possible furtherance, in the numerous German works above alluded to; among which Von der Hagen's writings, though not the readiest, are probably the safest guides. But for us, our business here is with the Nibelungen, the inhabited poetic country round which all these wildernesses lie; only as enbet-vironments of which, as routes to which, are they of moment to us. Perhaps our shortest and smoothest route will be through the Heldenbuch, (Hero-book ;) which is greatly the most important of these subsidiary Fictions, not without interest of its own, and closely related to the Nibelungen. This Heldenbuch, therefore, we must now address ourselves to traverse with all despatch. At the present stage of the business, too, we shall forbear any historical inquiry and argument concerning the date and local habitation of those Traditions; reserving what little is to be said on that matter till the Traditions themselves have become better known to us. Let the reader, on trust, for the present, transport himself into the twelfth or thirteenth century; and therefrom looking back into the sixth or fifth, see what presents itself.

Some such slight service we here intend proffering to our readers: let them glance with us a little into that mighty maze of Northern Archæology; where, it may be, some pleasant prospects will open. If the Nibelungen is what we have called it, a firm sunny island amid the weltering chaos of antique tradition, it must be worth visiting on general grounds; nay, if the primeval rudiments of it have the antiquity assigned them, it belongs especially to us English Teutones as well as to the German.

Of the Heldenbuch, tried on its own merits, and except as illustrating that other far worthier Poem, or at most as an old national, and still Far be it from us, meanwhile, to venture in some measure popular book, we should have rashly or farther than is needful, into that same felt strongly inclined to say, as the curate in traditionary chaos, fondly named the "Cycle Don Quixote so often did, Al corral con ello, Out of Northern Fiction," with its Fourteen Sectors, of window with it! Doubtless there are touches (or separate Poems,) which are rather Four-of beauty in the work, and even a sort of teen shoreless Limbos, where we hear of pieces containing "a hundred thousand verses," and "seventy thousand verses," as of a quite natural affair! How travel through that inane country; by what art discover the little grain

heartiness and antique quaintness in its wildest follies; but on the whole that George-andDragon species of composition has long ceased to find favour with any one; and except for its groundwork, more or less discernible, of old