us, that the growth of German Poetry must be | us that it is by a nameless writer, and worth construed and represented by the historian: nothing. Not only Mr. Taylor's own Transla these are the general phenomena and vicissi- tions, which are generally good, but contribu tudes, which, if elucidated by proper indivi- tions from a whole body of labourers in that dual instances, by specimens fitly chosen, pre- department, are given: for example, near sented in natural sequence, and worked by sixty pages, very ill rendered by a Miss Plumphilosophy into union, would make a valuable tre, of a Life of Kotzebue, concerning whom, or book; on any and all of which the observa- whose life, death, or burial, there is now no tions and researches of so able an inquirer as curiosity extant among men. If in that “EngMr. Taylor would have been welcome. Sorry lish Temple of Fame," with its hewn and are we to declare that of all this, which con- sculptured stones, those Biographical-Dictionstitutes the essence of any thing calling itself ary fragments and fractions are so much dry Historic Survey, there is scarcely a vestige in rubble-work of whinstone, is not this quite des the book before us. The question, What is picable Autobiography of Kotzebue a rood or the German mind; what is the culture of the two of mere turf, which, as ready-cut, our ar German mind; what course has Germany fol- chitect, to make up measure, has packed in lowed in that matter; what are its national among his marble ashlar, whereby the whole characteristics as manifested therein? appears wall will the sooner bulge? But indeed, ge not to have presented itself to the author's nerally speaking, symmetry is not one of his thought. No theorem of Germany and its in- architectural rules. Thus, in volume First, tellectual progress, not even a false one, has we have a long story translated from a Gerhe been at pains to construct for himself. We man Magazine, about certain antique Hyperbelieve, it is impossible for the most assidu- borean Baresarks, amusing enough, but with ous reader to gather from these three Volumes no more reference to Germany than to Engany portraiture of the national mind of Ger- land; while, in return, the Nibelungen Lied is many, not to say in its successive phases despatched in something less than one line, and the historical sequence of these, but in and comes no more to light. Tyll Eulenspieany one phase or condition. The work is gel, who was not an "anonymous Satire, entimade up of critical, biographical, bibliogra- tled the Mirror of Owls," but a real flesh-andphical dissertations, and notices concerning blood hero of that name, whose tombstone is this and the other individual poet; inter- standing to this day near Lubeck, has some spersed with large masses of translation: and four lines for his share; Reineke de Vos about except that all these are strung together in the as many, which also are inaccurate. Again, order of time, has no historical feature what-if Wieland have his half-volume, and poor ever. Many literary lives as we read, the nature of literary life in Germany,-what sort of moral, economical, intellectual element it is that a German writer lives in and works in, will nowhere manifest itself. Indeed, far from depicting Germany, scarcely on more than one or two occasions does our author even look at it, or so much as remind us that it were capable of being depicted. On these rare occasions, too, we were treated with such philosophic insight as the following: "The Germans are not an imitative, but they are a listening people: they can do nothing without directions, and any thing with them. As soon as Gottsched's rules for writing German correctly had made their appearance, everybody began to write German." Or we have theoretic hints, resting on no basis, about some new tribunal of taste which at one time had formed itself" in the mess-rooms of the Prussian officers!" In a word, the "connecting sections," or indeed by what alchymy such a congeries could be connected into an Historic Survey, have not become plain to us. Considerable part of it consists of quite detached little Notices, mostly of altogether insignificant men; heaped together as separate fragments; fit, had they been unexceptionable in other respects, for a Biographical Dictionary, but nowise for an Historic Survey. Then we have dense masses of Translation, sometimes good, but seldom of the characteristic pieces; an entire Iphigenia, an entire Nathan the Wise: nay worse, a Sequel to Nathan, which when we have conscientiously struggled to pursue, the Author turns round, without any apparent smile and tells Ernest Schulze, poor Zacharias Werner, and numerous other poor men, each his chapter; Luther also has his two sentences, and is in these weighed against-Dr. Isaac Watts. Ulrich Hutten does not occur here; Hans Sachs and his Master-singers escape notice, or even do worse; the poetry of the Reformation is not alluded to. The name of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter appears not to be known to Mr. Taylor; or if want of Rhyme was to be the test of a Prosaist, how comes Salomon Gesner here? Stranger still, Ludwig Tieck is not once mentioned; neither is Novalis ; neither is Maler Müller. But why dwell on these omissions and commissions? is not all included in this one well-nigh incredible fact, that one of the largest articles in the Book, a tenth part of the whole Historic Survey of Ger man Poetry, treats of that delectable genius, August von Kotzebue ? The truth is, this Historic Survey has not any thing historical in it; but is a mere aggie gate of Dissertations, Translations, Notices and Notes, bound together indeed by the cir cumstance that they are all about German Poetry, "about it and about it;" also by the sequence of time, and still more strongly by the Bookbinder's packthread; but by no other sufficient tie whatever. The authentic title were not some mercantile varnish allowable in such cases, might be: "General Jail-delivery of all Publications and Manuscripts, original or translated, composed or borrowed, on the subject of German Poetry; by," &c. To such Jail-delivery, at least when it is from the prison of Mr. Taylor's Desk at Nor wich, and relates to a subject in the actual predicament of German Poetry among us, we have no fundamental objection: and for the name, now that it is explained, there is nothing in a name; a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. However, even in this lower and lowest point of view, the Historic Survey is liable to grave objections: its worth is of no unmixed character. We mentioned that Mr. Taylor did not often cite authorities: for which doubtless he may have his reasons. If it be not from French Prefaces, and the Biographie Universelle, and other the like sources, we confess ourselves altogether at a loss to divine whence any reasonable individual gathered such notices as these. Books indeed are scarce; but the most untoward situation may command Wachler's Vorlesungen, Horn's Poesie und Beredsamkeit, Meister's Characteristiken, Koch's Compendium, or some of the thousand and one compilations of that sort, numerous and accurate in German, more than in any other literature: at all events, Jörden's Lexicon Deutscher und Prosaisten, and the world-renowned Leipsic Conversations-Lexicon. No one of these appears to have been in Mr. Taylor's possession;-Bouterwek alone, and him he seems to have consulted perfunctorily. A certain proportion of errors in such a work is pardonable and unavoidable: scarcely so the proportion observed here. The Historic Survey abounds with errors, perhaps beyond any book it has ever been our lot to review. Of these, many, indeed, are harmless enough: as, for instance, where we learn that Görres was born in 1804, (not in 1776;) though in that case he must have published his Shah-Nameh at the age of three years; or where it is said that Werner's epitaph "begs Mary Magdalene to pray for his soul," which it does not do, if indeed any one cared what it did. Some are of a quite mysterious nature; either impregnated with a wit which continues obstinately latent, or indicating that, in spite of Railways and Newspapers, some portions of this Island are still impermeable. For example, "It (Goetz von Berlichingen) was admirably translated into English, in 1799, at Edinburgh, by William Scott, Advocate; no doubt, the same person who, under the poetical but assumed name of Walter, has since become the most extensively popular of the British writers."-Others again are the fruit of a more culpable ignorance; as when we hear that Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit is literally meant to be a fictitious narrative, and no genuine Biography; that his Stella ends quietly in Bigamy, (to Mr. Taylor's satisfaction,) which, however the French Translation may run, in the original it certainly does not. Mr. Taylor likewise complains that his copy of Faust is incomplete: so, we grieve to state, is curs. Still worse is it when speaking of distinguished men, who probably have been at pains to veil their sentiments on certain subjects, our author takes it upon him to lift such veil, and with perfect composure pronounces this to be a Deist, that a Pantheist, that other an Atheist, often without any due foundation. It is quite erroneous, for example, to describe Schiller by any such unhappy term as that of Deist: it is very particularly erroneous to say that Goethe any where "avows himself an Atheist," that he "is a Pantheist;"-indeed, that he is, was, or is like to be any ist to which Mr. Taylor would attach just meaning. But on the whole, what struck us most in these errors, is their surprising number. In the way of our calling, we at first took pencil, with intent to mark such transgressions; but soon found it too appalling a task, and so laid aside our black-lead and our art (cæstus artemque.) Happily, however, a little natural invention, assisted by some tincture of arithmetic, came to our aid. Six pages, studied for that end, we did mark; finding therein thirteen errors: the pages are 167-173 of Volume Third, and still in our copy, have their marginal stigmas, which can be vindicated before a jury of Authors. Now if 6 give 13, who sees not that 1455, the entire number of pages, will give 3152, and a fraction? Or, allowing for translations, which are freer from errors, and for philosophical Discussions, wherein the errors are of another sort; nay, granting with a perhaps unwarranted liberality, that these six pages may yield too high an average, which we know not that they do,-may not, in round numbers, Fifteen Hundred be given as the approximate amount, not of Errors, indeed, yet of Mistakes and Misstatements, in these three octavos? Of errors in doctrine, false critical judgments, and all sorts of philosophical hallucination, the number, more difficult to ascertain, is also unfortunately great. Considered, indeed, as in any measure a picture of what is remarkable in German Poetry, this Historic Survey is one great Error. We have to object to Mr. Taylor on all grounds; that his views are often partial and inadequate, sometimes quite false and imaginary; that the highest productions of German Literature, those works in which properly its characteristic and chief worth lie, are still as a sealed book to him; or, what is worse, an open book that he will not read, but pronounces to be filled with blank paper. From a man of such intellectual vigour, who has studied his subject so long, we should not have expected such a failure. Perhaps the main principle of it may be stated, if not accounted for, in this one circumstance, that the Historic Survey, like its Author, stands separated from Germany by "more than forty years." During this time Germany has been making unexampled progress; while our author has either advanced in the other direction, or continued quite stationary. Forty years, it is true, make no difference in a classical Poem; yet much in the readers of that Poem, and its position towards these. Forty years are but a small period in some Histories, but in the history of German Literature, the most rapidly extending, incessantly fluctuating object even in the spiritual world, they make a great period. In Germany, within these forty years, how much has been united, how much has fallen asunder! Kant has superseded Wolfe; Fichte, Kant; Schelling, Fichte; and now, it seems, Hegel is bent on superseding Schelling. Baumgarten has given place to Schlegel; the Deutsche Eibliothek to the Berlin Hermes: Lessing still towers in the distance like an Earthborn Atlas; but in the poetical Nevertheless it is still at the distance of Indeed, quite apart from his inacquaintance with actual Germany, there is that in the structure or habit of Mr. Taylor's mind, which singularly unfits him for judging of such matters well. We must complain that he reads German Poetry, from first to last, with English eyes; will not accommodate himself to the spirit of the Literature he is investigating, and do his utmost, by loving endeavour, to win its secret from it; but plunges in headlong, and silently assuming that all this was written for him and for his objects, makes short work with it, and innumerable false conclusions. It is sad to see an honest traveller confidently gauging all foreign objects with a measure that will not mete them; trying German Sacred Oaks by their fitness for British shipbuilding; walking from Dan to Beersheba, and finding so little that he did not bring with him. This, we are too well aware, is the commonest of all errors, both with vulgar readers, and with vulgar critics; but from Mr. Taylor we had expected something better; nay, let us confess, he himself now and then seems to attempt something better, but too imperfectly succeeds in it. 37 289 Ac talent, as we have often admitted, and as the The truth is, Mr. Taylor, though a man of world well knows, though a downright, independent, and to all appearance most praiseworthy man, is one of the most peculiar critics to be found in our times. As we construe him from these volumes, the basis of his view of the world, of its Poetry, and whatever nature seems to be polemical; his whole else it holds, has a militant character. cording to this philosophy, the whole duty of man, it would almost appear, is to lay aside the opinion of his grandfather. Doubtless, it is natural, it is indispensable, for a man to lay aside the opinion of his grandfather, when it will no longer hold together on him; but we had imagined that the great and infinitely harder duty was-To turn the opinion that does hold together, to some account. However, it is not in receiving the New, and creating good with it, but solely in pulling to pieces the Old, that Mr. Taylor will have us employed. Often, in the course of these pages, might the British reader sorrowfully exclaim: we still here? Armed with the hatchet and "Alas! is this the year of grace 1831, and are tinder-box; still no symptom of the sower'ssheet and plough?" These latter, for our Author, are implements of the dark ages; the ground is full of thistles and jungle; cut down and spare not. something like a natural horror and hydropho A singular aversion to Priests, bia, gives him no rest night nor day: the gist of all his speculations is to drive down more of persons; nothing that he does but they or less effectual palisades against that class interfere with or threaten; the first question he asks of every passer-by, be it German Poet, Philosopher, Farce-writer, is, “Arian or Trinitarian? Long as he has now laboured, and though callWilt thou help me or not?" ing himself Philosopher, Mr. Taylor has not yet succeeded in sweeping this arena clear; but still painfully struggles in the questions of and Servilism. Naturalism and Supernaturalism, Liberalism fear, it is that he goes through Germany; widely as is commonly apprehended from those while he teaches that rational conduct will indulge the hypothesis of a God, a revelation, and a future state, (this, we presume is meant by calling them inferences of Practical Reason,) he pretends that Theoretical Reason can adduce no one satisfactory argument in their behalf: so that his morality amounts to a defence of the old adage, Think with the wise, and act with the vulgar;' a plan of behaviour which secures to the vulgar an ultimate victory over the wise. Philosophy is to be withdrawn within a narrower circle of the initiated; and these must be induced to conspire in favouring a vulgar superstition. This can best be accomplished by enveloping with enigmatic jargon the topics of discussion; by employing a cloudy phraseology, which may intercept from below the war-whoop of impiety, and from above the evulgation of infidelity; by contriving a kind of cipher of illuminism,' in which public discussions of the most critical nature can be carried on from the press, without alarming the prejudices of the people, or exciting the precautions of the magistrate. Such a cipher, in the hands of an adept, is the dialect of Kant. Add to this, the notorious Gallicanism of his opinions, which must endear him to the patriotism of the philosophers of the Lyceum; and it will appear probable that the reception of his forms of syllogising should extend from Germany to France; should completely and exclusively establish itself on the Continent; entomb with the Reasonings the Reason of the modern world; and form the tasteless fretwork which seems about to convert the halls of liberal Philosophy into churches of mystical Supernaturalism." of a corrupt but instructed refinement, which are likely to rebuild the morality of the Ancients on the ruins of Christian Puritanism." Such retrospections and prospections bring to mind an absurd rumour which, confounding our author with his namesake, the celebrated translator of Plato and Aristotle, represented him as being engaged in the repair and re-establishment of the Pagan religion. For such rumour, we are happy to state, there is not, and was not, the slightest foundation. Wieland may, indeed, at one time, have put some whims into his disciple's head; but Mr. Taylor is too solid a man to embark in speculations of that nature. Prophetic day-dreams are not practical projects; at all events, as we here see, it is not the old Pagan gods that we are to bring back, but only the ancient Pagan morality, a refined and reformed Paganism;— as some middle-aged householder, if distressed by tax-gatherers and duns, might resolve on becoming thirteen again, and a bird-nesting schoolboy. Let no timid Layman apprehend any overflow of Priests from Mr. Taylor, or even of Gods. Is not this commentary on the hitherto so inexplicable conversion of Friedrich Leopold, Count Stolberg, enough to quiet every alarmist? law. "On the Continent of Europe, the gentleman, and Frederic Leopold was emphatically so, is seldom brought up with much solicitude for any positive doctrine: among the Catholics, the moralist insists on the duty of conforming to the religion of one's ancestors; among the Protestants, on the duty of conforming to the religion of the magistrate; but Frederic Leopold seems to have invented a new point of These are, indeed, fearful symptoms, and honour, and a most rational one, the duty of enough to quicken the diligence of any recruit-conforming to the religion of one's father-ining officer that has the good cause at heart. Reasonably may such officer, beleagured with "witchcraft and demonology, trinitarianism, intolerance," and a considerable list of et-ceteras, and, still seeing no hearty followers of his flag, but a mere Falstaff regiment, smite upon his thigh, and, in moments of despondency, lament that Christianity had ever entered, or, as we here have it, "intruded" into Europe at all; that, at least, some small slip of heathendom, "Scandinavia, for instance," had not been "left to its natural course, unmisguided by ecclesiastical missionaries and monastic institutions. Many superstitions, which have fatigued the credulity, clouded the intellect, and impaired the security of man, and which, alas! but too naturally followed in the train of the sacred books, would there, perhaps, never have struck root; and in one corner of the world, the inquiries of reason might have found an earlier asylum, and asserted a less circumscribed range." Nevertheless, there is still hope, preponderating hope. "The general tendency of the German school," it would appear, could we but believe such tidings, "is to teach French opinions in English forms." Philosophy can now look down with some approving glances on Socinianism. Nay, the literature of Germany, "very liberal and tolerant," is gradually overflowing even into the Slavonian nations, "and will found, in new languages and climates, those latest inferences "A young man is the happier, while single, for being unencumbered with any religious restraints; but when the time comes for submitting to matrimony, he will find the precedent of Frederic Leopold well entitled to consideration. A predisposition to conform to the religion of the father-in-law facilitates advantageous matrimonial connections; it produces in a family the desirable harmony of religious profession; it secures the sincere education of the daughters in the faith of their mother; and it leaves the young men at liberty to apostatize in their turn, to exert their right of private judgment, and to choose a worship for themselves. Religion, if a blemish in the male, is surely a grace in the female sex: courage of mind may tend to acknowledge nothing above itself; but timidity is ever disposed to look upwards for protection, for consolation, and for happiness." With regard to this latter point, whether Religion is "a blemish in the male, and surely a grace in the female sex," it is possible judg ments may remain suspended. Courage of mind, indeed, will prompt the squirrel to set itself in posture against an armed horseman, yet whether for men and women, who seem to stand, not only under the Galaxy and Stellar system, and under Immensity and Eternity, but even under any bare bodkin or drop of prussic acid, "such courage of mind as may tend to acknowledge nothing above itself," | ference to Mr. Taylor; he, as we said, is To a German we might have compressed all this long description into a single word: Mr. Taylor is simply what they call a Philister; every fibre of him is Philistine. With us such men usually take into Politics, and become Code-makers and Utilitarians: it was only in Germany that they ever meddled much with Literature; and there worthy Nicolai has long since terminated his Jesuit-hunt; no Adelung now writes books, Ueber die Nützlichkeit der Empfindung, (On the Utility of Feeling.) Singular enough, now, when that old species had been quite extinct for almost half a century in their own land, appears a native-born English Philistine, made in all points as they were. With wondering welcome we hail the Strongboned; almost as we might a resuscitated Mammoth. Let no David choose smooth stones from the brook to sling at him: is he not our own Goliath, whose limbs were made in England, whose thews and sinews any soil might be proud of? Is he not, as we said, a man that can stand on his own legs without collapsing when left by himself? in these days one of the greatest rarities, almost prodigies. Mr. Taylor promulgates many other strange articles of faith, for he is a positive man, and has a certain quiet wilfulness; these, however, cannot henceforth much surprise us. He still calls the Middle Ages, during which nearly all the inventions and social institutions, whereby we yet live as civilized men, were originated or perfected, "a Millennium of Darkness;" on the faith chiefly of certain long-past Pedants, who reckoned every thing barren, because Chrysolaras had not yet come, and no Greek Roots grew there. Again, turning in the other direction, he criticizes Luther's Reformation, and repeats that old, and indeed quite foolish, story of the Augustine Monk's having a merely commercial grudge against the Dominican; computes the quantity of blood shed for Protestantism; and, forgetting that men shed blood, in all ages, for any cause, and for no cause, for Sansculottism, for Bonapartism, thinks that, on the whole, the Reformation was an error and failure. Pity that Providence (as King Alphonso wished in the Astronomical case) We cheerfully acquitted Mr. Taylor of Rehad not created its man three centuries sooner, ligion; but must expect less gratitude when and taken a little counsel from him! On the we farther deny him any feeling for true Poother hand, "Voltaire's Reformation" was suc-etry, as indeed the feelings for Religion and cessful; and here, for once, Providence was right. Will Mr. Taylor mention what it was that Voltaire reformed? Many things he deformed, deservedly and undeservedly, but the thing that he formed or re-formed is still unknown to the world. for Poetry of this sort are one and the same. Of Poetry, Mr. Taylor knows well what will make a grand, especially a large, picture in the imagination: he has even a creative gift of this kind himself, as his style will often testify; but much more he does not know. How It is perhaps unnecessary to add, that Mr. indeed should he? Nicolai, too, "judged of Taylor's whole Philosophy is sensual; that is, Poetry as he did of Brunswick Mum, simply he recognises nothing that cannot be weighed, by tasting it." Mr. Taylor assumes, as a fact measured, and, with one or the other organ, known to all thinking creatures, that Poetry is eaten and digested. Logic is his only lamp of neither more nor less than "a stimulant." life; where this fails, the region of Creation Perhaps above five hundred times in the Histerminates. For him there is no Invisible, In-toric Survey we see this doctrine expressly acted comprehensible; whosoever, under any name, on. Whether the piece to be judged of is a believes in an invisible, he treats, with leniency Poetical Whole, and has what the critics have and the loftiest tolerance, as a mystic and luna- named a genial life, and what that life is, he tic; and if the unhappy crackbrain has any inquires not; but, at best, whether it is a lo handicraft, literary or other, allows him to go gical Whole, and for most part, simply, whether at large, and work at it. Withal he is a great- it is stimulant. The praise is, that it has fine hearted, strong-minded, and, in many points, situations, striking scenes, agonizing scenes, interesting man. There is a majestic com- harrows his feelings, and the like. Schiller's posure in the attitude he has assumed; mas- Robbers he finds to be stimulant; his Maid of sive, immovable, uncomplaining, he sits in a Orleans is not stimulant, but “among the weakworld of Delirium; and for his Future looks est of his tragedies, and composed apparently with sure faith,-only in the direction of the in ill health." The author of Pizarr: is su Past. We take him to be a man of sociable premely stimulant; he of Torquato Tasso is turn, not without kindness; at all events of "too quotidian to be stimulant." We had unthe most perfect courtesy. He despises the derstood that alcohol was stimulant in all its entire Universe, yet speaks respectfully of shapes; opium also, tobacco, and indeed the Translators from the German, and always says whole class of narcotics; but heretofore found that they "English beautifully." A certain mild Poetry in none of the Pharmacopoeias. NeDogmatism sits well on him; peaceable, in-vertheless, it is edifying to observe with what controvertible, uttering the palpably absurd, as fearless consistency Mr. Taylor, who is no if it were a mere truism. On the other hand, half-man, carries through this theory of stimu there are touches of a grave, scientific ob-lation. It lies privily in the heart of many a scenity, which are questionable. This word reader and reviewer; nay, Schiller, at one Obscenity we use with reference to our readers, time, said that "Molière's old woman seemed and might also add Profanity, but not with re-to have become sole Editress of all Reviews;" A |