vellous "Story of the Fallen Master," to sha dow forth. At first view, one might take it for an allegory, couched in masonic language,— and truly no flattering allegory,-of the Catholic Church; and this trampling on the Cross, which is said to have been actually enjoined on every Templar at his initiation, to be a type of his secret behest to undermine that Institution, and redeem the spirit of Religion from the state of thraldom and distortion under which it was there held. It is known at least, and was well known to Werner, that the heads of the Templars entertained views, both on religion and politics, which they did not think meet for communicating to their age, and only imparted by degrees, and under mysterious adumbrations, to the wiser of their own Order. They had even publicly resisted, and succeeded in thwarting, some iniquitous measures of Philippe Auguste, the French King, in regard to his coinage; and this, while it secured them the love of the people, was one great cause, perhaps second only to their wealth, of the hatred which that sovereign bore them, and of the savage doom which he at last executed on the whole body. But on these secret principles of theirs, as on Werner's manner of conceiving them, we ADALBERT (taking it from the Bust, and laying it softly are only enabled to guess; for Werner, too, on the ground.) The Cross of the Good Lord that died for me? ARMED MAN. Thou shalt no more believe in one that died; ADALBERT. Take pity on me! ADALBERT. I do 't with shuddering Step! has an esoteric doctrine, which he does not promulgate, except in dark Sybilline enigmas, to the unitiated. As we are here seeking chiefly for his religious creed, which forms, in truth, with its changes, the main thread whereby his wayward, desultory existence attains any unity or even coherence in our thoughts, we may quote another passage from the same First Part of this rhapsody; which, at the same time, will afford us a glimpse of his favourite hero, Robert d'Heredon, lately the darling of the Templars, but now, for some momentary infraction of their rules, cast into prison, and expecting death, or, at best, exclusion from the Order. Gottfried is another (Steps over, and then looks up to the HEAD which raises Templar, in all points the reverse of Robert. itself, as if freed from a load.) How the figure rises ARMED MAN (pointing to the Head with his Sword.) Go to the Fallen !-Kiss his lips! -And so on through many other sulphurous pages! How much of this mummery is copied from the actual practice of the Templars we know not with certainty; nor what precisely either they or Werner intended, by this mar ACT FOURTH. SCENE FIRST. (Prison; at the wall a Table. ROBERT, without sword, cap, or mantle, sits downcast on one side of it: GOTT FRIED, who keeps watch by him, sitting at the other.) GOTTFRIED. But how could'st thou so far forget thyself? Thou wert our pride, the Master's friend and favourite! ROBERT. I did it, thou perceivest! GOTTFRIED. How could a word Of the old surly Hugo so provoke thee } ROBERT. Ask not!-Man's being is a spider-web: A servant of eternal Destiny, Which earthward strives to press the net: GOTTFRIED. Yet each man shapes his destiny himself. ROBERT. Small soul! Dost thou too know it? Has the story moned forth; and the whole surprising secret of his mission, and of the Valley which ap points it for him, is disclosed. This Frieden thal (Valley of Peace), it now appears, is an immense secret association, which has its chief seat somewhere about the roots of Mount Carmel, if we mistake not; but, comprehending Come down to thee? Dream'st thou, poor Nothingness, in its ramifications the best heads and hearts That thou, and like of thee, and ten times better It dies with him; and one day shall the pilgrim GOTTFRIED (yawning.) But then the Christian has the joy of Heaven ROBERT. In his flesh-Now fair befal the journey! (As his eye, by chance, lights on Gottfried, who mean- -Sound already? This Robert d'Heredon, whose preaching has here such a narcotic virtue, is destined ultimately for a higher office than to rattle his chains by way of lullaby. He is ejected from the Order; not, however, with disgrace and in anger, but in sad feeling of necessity, and with tears and blessings from his brethren; and the messenger of the Valley, a strange, ambiguous, little sylph-like maiden, gives him obscure encouragement, before his departure, to possess his soul in patience; seeing, if he can learn the grand secret of Renunciation, his course is not ended, but only opening on a fairer scene. Robert knows not well what to make of this; but sails for his native Hebrides, in darkness and contrition, as one who can do no other. In the end of the Second Part, which is represented as divided from the First by an interval of seven years, Robert is again sum of every country, extends over the whole civilized world; and has, in particular, a strong body of adherents in Paris, and indeed a subterraneous, but seemingly very commodious suite of rooms, under the Carmelite Monastery of that city. Here sit in solemn conclave the heads of the Establishment; directing from their lodge, in deepest concealment, the principal movements of the kingdom: for William of Paris, Archbishop of Sens, being of their number, the king and his other ministers, fancying within themselves the utmost freedom of action, are nothing more than puppets in the hands of this all-powerful Brotherhood, which watches, like a sort of Fate, over the interests of mankind, and by mysterious agencies, forwards, we suppose, "the cause of civil and religious liberty over all the world." It is they that have doomed the Templars; and, without malice or pity, are sending their leaders to the dungeon and the stake. That knightly Order, once a favourite minister of good, has now degenerated from its purity, and come to mistake its purpose, having taken up politics and a sort of radical reform; and so must now be broken and reshaped, like a worn implement, which can no longer do its appointed work. Such a magnificent "Society for the Sup pression of Vice" may well be supposed to walk by the most philosophical principles. These Friedenthalers, in fact, profess to be a sort of Invisible Church; preserving in vestal purity the sacred fire of religion, which burns with more or less fuliginous admixture in the worship of every people, but only with its clear sidereal lustre in the recesses of the Valley. They are Bramins on the Ganges, Bonzes on the Hoangho, Monks on the Seine. They addict themselves to contemplation, and the subtilest study; have penetrated far into the mysteries of spiritual and physical nature; they mineral; and their sages can discriminate the command the deep-hidden virtues of plant and eye of the mind from its sensual instruments, and behold, without type or material embodyment, the essence of Being. Their activity is all-comprehending and unerringly calculated: they rule over the world by the authority of wisdom over ignorance. Α In the Fifth Act of the Second Part, we are at length, after many a hint and significant note of preparation, introduced to the privacies of this philosophical Sainte Hermandad. strange Delphic cave this of theirs, under the very pavements of Paris! folding doors, and concealed voices, and There are brazen sphinxes, and naptha-lamps, and all manner of wondrous furniture. It seems, moreover, to "Old Man of Carmel, in eremite garb, with a be a sort of gala evening with them; for the long beard reaching to his girdle," is for a moment discovered "reading in a deep monoto us voice." The "Strong Ones," meanwhile, are out in quest of Robert d'Heredon; who, by cunning practices, has been enticed from his Hebridean solitude, in the hope of saving Molay, and is even now to be initiated, and equipped for his task. After a due allowance of pompous ceremonial, Robert is at last ushered in, or rather dragged in; for it appears that he has made a stout debate, not submitting to the customary form of being ducked,—an essential preliminary, it would seem,-till compelled by the direst necessity. He is in a truly Highland anger, as is natural: but by various manipulations and solacements, he is reduced to reason again, finding, indeed, the fruitlessness of any thing else; for when lance and sword and free space are given him, and he makes a thrust at Adam of Valincourt, the master of the ceremonies, it is to no purpose: the old man has a torpedo quality in him, which benumbs the stoutest arm; and no death issues from the baffled sword-point, but only a small spark of electric fire. With his Scottish prudence, Robert, under these circumstances, cannot but perceive that quietness is best. The people hand him, in succession, the "Cup of Strength," the "Cup of Beauty," and the "Cup of Wisdom;" liquors brewed, if we may judge from their effect, with the highest stretch of Rosicrucian art; and which must have gone far to disgust Robert d'Heredon with his natural usquebaugh, however excellent, had that fierce drink been in use then. He rages in a fine frenzy; dies away in raptures; and then, at last, "considers what he wanted and what he wants." Now is the time for Adam of Valincourt to strike in with an interminable exposition of the "objects of the society." To not unwilling, but still cautious ears, he unbosoms himself, in mystic wise, with extreme copiousness; turning aside objections like a veteran disputant, and leading his apt and courageous pupil, by signs and wonders, as well as by logic, deeper and deeper into the secrets of theosophic and thaumaturgic science. A little glimpse of this our readers may share with us; though we fear the allegory will seem to most of them but a hollow nut. Nevertheless, it is an allegory-of its sort; and we can profess to have translated with entire fidelity. ADAM. Not so. That tale of theirs was but some poor distortion OLD MAN (reading.) "And when the Lord saw Phosphoros his pride, The Lord moreover spake: Because thou hast forgotten And thou shalt be his slave, and have no longer "And when the Lord had spoken, he drew back "But when his first-born Sister saw his pain, "Then did the Lord in pity rend asunder "But yet the Azure Chains she could not break, So will I, said the Lord, the Salt be given him. Light: Shall he my last-born grandchild lie for ever The drops of Sadness and the drops of Longing: "Then the Mother's heart was moved with pity, She beckoned the Son to her, and said: Thou who art more than I, and yet my nursling, *Mylitta, in the old Persian mysteries, was the name Ha! Again of the Moon: Muthras that of the Sun. Put on this Robe of Earth, and show thyself Was dazzled blind; but Phosphor knew his Father. Yet art thou not the Saviour from the Waters.— I surely am not; yet when thou hast drunk But yet the Azure Chains she could not break.- on such extravagances, we have fancied we could discern in this apologue some glimmerings of meaning, scattered here and there like weak lamps in the darkness; not enough to interpret the riddle, but to show that by possibility it might have an interpretation,—was a typical vision, with a certain degree of significance in the wild mind of the poet, not an inane fever-dream. Might not Phosphoros, for example, indicate generally the spiritual essence of a man, and this story be an emblem of his history? He longs to be "One and Somewhat; " that is, he labours under the very common complaint of egoism; cannot, in the grandeur of Beauty and Virtue, forget his own so beautiful and virtuous Self; but, amid the glories of the majestic All, is still haunted and blinded by some shadow of his own little Me. For this reason he is punished; imprisoned in the "Element" (of a material body,) and has the "four Azure Chains" (the four principles of matter) bound round him; so that he can neither think nor act, except in a foreign medium, and under conditions that Both hands the Captive stretch'd to grasp that Saviour; confuse him. The "Cup of Fire" is given But he fled. "So Phosphoros was grieved in heart: him; perhaps, the rude, barbarous passion and cruelty natural to all uncultivated tribes? But, at length, he beholds the " Moon;" begins to have some sight and love of material Nature; and, looking into her " Mirror," forms to him Then said the Word: Wait yet in peace seven moons, self, under gross emblems, a theogony and sort It may be nine, until thy hour shall come. "Which when the mother Isis saw, it grieved her; him With his right hand, the Rainbow with the left; The long-forgotten NAME, and the REMEMBRANCE "The door closes, and again conceals the OLD MAN OF of mythologic poetry; in which, if he cannot behold the "Name," and has forgotten his own "Birthplace," both of which are blotted out and hidden by the "Element," he finds some spiritual solace, and breathes more freely. Still, however, the "Cup of Fire" tortures him; till the "Salt" (intellectual culture?) is vouchsafed; which, indeed, calms the raging of that furious bloodthirstiness and warlike strife, but leaves him, as mere culture of the understanding may be supposed to do, frozen into irreligion and moral inactivity, and farther from the "Name" and his "Own Original" than ever. Then is the "Cup of Fluidness" a more merciful disposition? and intended, with "the Drops of Sadness and the Drops of Longing," to shadow forth that wo-struck, desolate, yet softer and devouter state in which mankind displayed itself at the coming of the "Word," at the first promulgation of the Christian religion? Is the "Rainbow" the modern poetry of Europe, the Chivalry, the new form of Stoicism, the whole romantic feeling of these later days? But who or what the "Heiland aus den Wassern" (Saviour from the Waters) may De, we need not hide our entire ignorance; this being apparently a secret of the Valley, which Robert d'Heredon, and Werner, and men of like gifts, are in due time to show the world, but unhappily have not yet succeeded in bringing to light. Perhaps, indeed, our whole interpretation may be thought little better than lost labour; a reading of what was only scrawled and flourished, not written; a shaping of gay castles and metallic palaces from the sunset clouds, which, though mountainlike, and purple and golden of hue, and towered together as if by Cyclopean arms, are but The purport of this enigma Robert confesses that he does not "wholly" understand; an admission in which, we suspect, most of our readers, and the Old Man of Carmel himself, were he candid, might be inclined to agree with him. Sometimes, in the deeper consider-dyed vapour. ation which translators are bound to bestow Adam of Valincourt continues his exposi tion in the most liberal way; but, through many pages of metrical lecturing, he does little to satisfy us. What was more to his purpose, he partly succeeds in satisfying Robert d'Heredon; who, after due preparation,Molay being burnt like a martyr, under the most promising omens, and the Pope and the King of France struck dead, or nearly so,sets out to found the order of St. Andrews in his own country, that of Calatrava in Spain, and other knightly Missions of the Heiland aus den Wassern elsewhere; and thus, to the great satisfaction of all parties, the Sons of the Valley terminates, "positively for the last time." our readers may be disposed to hold his reve lations on this subject rather cheap. Nevertheless, taking up the character of Vates in its widest sense, Werner earnestly desires not only to be a poet, but a prophet; and, indeed, looks upon his merits in the former province as altogether subservient to his higher purposes in the latter. We have a series of the most confused and long-winded letters to Hitzig, who had now removed to Berlin; setting forth, with a singular simplicity, the mighty projects Werner was cherishing on this head. He thinks that there ought to be a new Creed promulgated, a new Body of Religionists established; and that, for this purpose, not writing, but actual preaching, can avail. He detests common Protestantism, under which he seems to mean a sort of Socinianism, or diluted French Infidelity; he talks of Jacob Bohme, and Luther, and Schleiermacher, and a new Trinity of "Art, Religion, and Love." All this should be sounded in the ears of men, and in a loud voice, that so their torpid slumber, the harbinger of spiritual death, may be Our reader may have already convinced himself that in this strange phantasmagoria there are not wanting indications of very high poetic talent. We see a mind of great depth, if not of sufficient strength; struggling with objects which, though it cannot master them, are essentially of richest significance. Had the writer only kept his piece till the ninth year; meditating it with true diligence and unwearied will! But the weak Werner was not a man for such things: he must reap the har-driven away. With the utmost gravity he vest on the morrow after seed-day, and so stands before us at last, as a man capable of much, only not of bringing aught to perfection. Of his natural dramatic genius, this work, ill-concocted as it is, affords no unfavourable specimen; and may, indeed, have justified expectations which were never realized. It is true, he cannot yet give form and animation to a character, in the genuine poetic sense; we do not see any of his dramatis persone, but only hear of them: yet, in some cases his endeavour, though imperfect, is by no means abortive; and here, for instance, Jacques Molay, Philip Adalbert, Hugo, and the like, though not living men, have still as much life as many a buff-and-scarlet Sebastian or Barbarossa, whom we find swaggering, for years, with acceptance, on the boards. Of his spiritual beings, whom in most of his plays he introduces too profusely, we cannot speak in commendation: they are of a mongrel nature, neither rightly dead nor alive; in fact, they sometimes glide about like real, though rather singular mortals, through the whole piece; and only vanish as ghosts in the fifth act. But, on the other hand, in contriving theatrical incidents and sentiments; in scenic shows, and all manner of gorgeous, frightful, or astonishing machinery, Werner exhibits a copious invention, and strong though untutored feeling. Doubtless, it is all crude enough; all illuminated by an impure, barbaric splendour; not the soft, peaceful brightness of sunlight, but the red, resinous glare of playhouse torches. Werner, however, was still young; and had he been of a right spirit, all that was impure and crude might in time have become ripe and clear; and a poet of no ordinary excellence would have been moulded out of him. But as matters stood, this was by no means the thing Werner had most at heart. It is not the degree of poetic talent manifested in the Sons of the Valley that he prizes, but the religious truth shadowed forth in it. To judge from the parables of Baffometus and Phosphoros, commissions his correspondent to wait upon Schlegel, Tieck, and others of a like spirit, and see whether they will not join him. For his own share in the matter, he is totally indifferent; will serve in the meanest capacity, and rejoice with his whole heart, if, in zeal and ability as poets and preachers, not some only, but every one, should infinitely outstrip him. We suppose, he had dropped the thought of being "One and Somewhat;" and now wished, rapt away by this divine purpose, tc be "Nought and All." On the Heiland aus den Wassern this corre spondence throws no further light: what the new Creed specially was, which Werner felt so eager to plant and propagate, we nowhere learn with any distinctness. Probably, he might himself have been rather at a loss to explain it in brief compass. His theogony, we suspect, was still very much in posse; and perhaps only the moral part of this system could stand before him with some degree of clearness. On this latter point, indeed, he is determined enough; well assured of his dogmas, and apparently waiting but for some proper vehicle in which to convey them to the minds of men. His fundamental principle of morals we have seen in part already: it does not exclusively or primarily belong to himself; being little more than that high tenet of entire Self-forgetfulness, that "merging of the Me in the Idea;" a principle which reigns both in Stoical and Christian ethics, and is at this day common, in theory, among all German philosophers, especially of the Transcendental class. Werner has adopted this principle with his whole heart and his whole soul, as the indispensable condition of all Virtue. He believes it, we should say, intensely, and without compromise, exaggerating rather than softening or concealing its peculiarities. He will not have Happiness, under any form, to be the real or chief end of man, this is but love of enjoyment, disguise it as we like; a more complex and sometimes more respectable species of hunger, he would sav |