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LECTURES 
 
 HISTORY OF LITERATURE. 
 
LECTURES 
 
 HISTORY OF LITERATURE, 
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF 
 
 FREDERICK SCHLEGEL. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THOMAS DOBSON AND SON, AT THE STONE HOUSE, 
 
 No. 41, SOUTH SECOND STREET. 
 
 William Fry, Printer. 
 
 1818. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 Italian Literature — Allegorizing spirit of the mid- 
 dle age — Relation of Christianity to poetry — 
 Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio — Character of 
 the Italian art of poetry in general— Modern 
 Latin poets, and the evil consequences of their 
 writings — Machiavelli — Great inventions and 
 discoveries of the fifteenth century 1 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 A few words upon the Literature of the North and 
 East of Europe — Upon the scholastic learning 
 and German mystics of the middle age 40 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 General remarks on the philosophy of the times 
 immediately preceding and following the refor- 
 mation — Poetry of the Catholic nations, the 
 Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the Italians — 
 Garcilaso, Ercilla,Camoens, Tasso, Guarini, Ma- 
 rino, and Cervantes ... 7s 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 Of romance — Dramatic poetry of the Spaniards — 
 Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton — Age of 
 Lewis XIV. — The French theatre - - 116 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 Philosophy of the seventeenth century — Bacon, 
 Hugo Grotius, Descartes, Bossuet, Pascal — 
 Change in the mode of thinking — Spirit of the 
 eighteenth century — Picture of the atheism and 
 revolutionary spirit of the French - - 166 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Lighter species of writing in France, and imitation 
 of the English — Fashionable literature of both 
 countries — Modern romance — The prose of Buf- 
 fon and Rousseau — Popular poetry in England — 
 Modern Italian theatre — Criticism and historical 
 composition of the English — Sceptical Philoso- 
 phy — Return to a better and higher specits of 
 philosophy in France — Bonald and St. Martin- 
 Sir William Jones and Burke ... 206 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 Retrospect — German philosophy — Spinosa and 
 Leibnitz — German language and poetry in the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — Luther, 
 Hans Sachs, Jacob Böhme — Opitz, the Silesian 
 school — corruption of taste after the peace of 
 Westphalia; occasional poetry — German poets 
 
vn 
 
 of the first half of the eighteenth century — Fre- 
 derick the Second; Klopstock; the Messiad and 
 Northern mythology — The chivalrous poems of 
 Wieland — Introduction of the ancient metres of 
 quantity into the German language; defence of 
 rhyme— «Adelung, Gottsched, and '* the (so call- 
 ed) golden age" — First generation of the later 
 German literature, or ** the period of the 
 founders" - 239 
 
 LECTURE XVI. 
 General review — Second generation — German cri- 
 ticism — Lessing and Herder — Lessing as a phi- 
 losopher — Freethinking and the illuminati — The 
 Emperor Joseph the Second — Character of the 
 third generation — The philosophy of Kant- 
 Goethe and Schiller — Anticipation — Fichte and 
 Tieck — True character of German Literature — 
 Conclusion - - - - - - 275 
 
LECTURES 
 
 HISTORY OF LITERATURE. 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 ITALIAN LITERATURE — ALLEGORIZING SPIRIT OF THE MIDDLE 
 
 AGE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO POETRY DANTE, PE- 
 
 TRARCHA, AND BOCCACCIO CHARACTER OF THE ITALIAN ART 
 
 OF POETRY IN GENERAL MODERN LATIN POETS, AND THE EVIL 
 
 CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR WRITINGS MACHIAVELLI GREAT 
 
 INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 IN the preceding lectures I have endeavoured to 
 present you with successive pictures of the different 
 European nations, the Germans, the French, the 
 English, and the Spaniards, more particularly in 
 regard to their poetry and their intellectual culti- 
 vation, down to the sixteenth century. The lite- 
 rature of the Italians has alone been omitted, and 
 that I have purposely left for this place, because I 
 consider it as forming the link of connection be- 
 tween the poetry of the middle age, and the new 
 Vol. II. A 
 
2 HISTORY OF 
 
 literature of these later times; since the sciences, 
 and through them the arts, were, in the course of 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so remarkably 
 enriched and revived. 
 
 The elder poetry of the Italians divides itself into 
 two distinct classes; one founded entirely on the 
 philosophy of the middle ages, of which the great- 
 est example is the allegorical Comedia of Dante; 
 the other more nearly approaching to the models of 
 antiquity, and standing in a very intimate relation 
 with the study of the ancient languages. The two 
 great poets, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, were them- 
 selves men of learning, who took no inconsiderable 
 share in reviving the sciences and arts of the Greeks 
 and Romans. The spirit of chivalry and chivalric 
 poetry seems at no time to have attained the same 
 sway and influence in Italy, which it exerted in 
 France, Germany, and England. Even Dante 
 at first intended to compose his great poem in 
 Latin; — Petrarch talks of the knightly poems and 
 romances with contempt and aversion; and, al- 
 though he has embalmed the very spirit of the 
 middle age in his rich love songs, he seems, at the 
 same time, to have rather followed involuntarily the 
 ruling feelings of his contemporaries, than to have 
 written from any serious apprehension of the true 
 nature and excellence of the modern poetry. He 
 founded, in his own mind, his expectations of poeti- 
 
LITERATURE. 3 
 
 cal fame, not upon those sonnets and canzonets 
 which have immortalized him, but upon the Latin 
 epic of Scipio,* which is now only known and read 
 on account of the reputation of its author. The 
 same wavering between the old Latin and the new 
 Italian methods of thinking, speaking, and com- 
 posing poetry, is equally evident in the third great 
 writer of the first Italian period — Boccaccio. He 
 endeavoured to embody the hairsplitting fanciful- 
 ness of the Provencial love-queries and love-cases 
 of conscience, and the amusing fictions of the Nor- 
 man story-tellers, in a style of composition far too 
 serious, too elaborate, and too ornate for his pur- 
 pose. He has written novels upon the model of 
 Livy and Cicero. Many of his works consist of 
 unsuccessful attempts to interweave the mythology 
 of the ancients into Christian histories, or to ex- 
 press Christian ideas in the language and mytho- 
 logy of the ancients; as, for example, in a chival- 
 ric romance, where such affectation appears remark- 
 ably out of place, he introduces, at all times, God 
 the Father, by the name of Jupiter; our Saviour, 
 by that of Apollo; and the Devil, by that of Pluto. 
 In some of his chivalric poems he has chosen the 
 subject, after the fashion of the middle age, out of 
 the ancient mythology, with which indeed, there is 
 
 * Known also by the name of Africa. 
 
4 HISTORY OF 
 
 no question, he was far better acquainted than any 
 of the German or French poets who had preceded 
 him in the same field. In this unfortunate choice 
 he still manifests the same passionate predilection 
 for the antique, and indulges in the same fruitless 
 endeavours to reconcile it with those poetical feel- 
 ings which are peculiar to the modern world. 
 
 The most rich, dignified, and inventive of all 
 the three great old Italian poets was unquestion- 
 ably Dante; whose work, comprehending within 
 itself the whole science and knowledge of the time, 
 the whole life of the later middle age, the whole 
 personages and events in which the poet personally 
 had interest; and not only all this, but also a com- 
 plete description of heaven, hell, and purgatory, 
 such as these were then conceived to be, is a pro- 
 duction entirely unique, and can be ranked under 
 no class of compositions. It is true, indeed, that 
 many such allegorical poems were composed during 
 the middle age, more particularly in the language 
 of the Provencials; but these have all perished or 
 been forgotten. Dante has towered so high above 
 all his predecessors in this sort of writing, that 
 both they and their works have been completely 
 overshadowed. If we are willing to study the 
 poetry of the middle age without being biassed in 
 favour of any particular theory, and without at- 
 tending to the rhetorical divisions of the ancient 
 
LITERATURE. 5 
 
 critics, which are mostly altogether inapplicable to 
 it — if we are willing to consider it in a point of 
 view entirely historical, and to judge of it accord- 
 ing to no standard but that of its own spirit — we 
 shall find that it naturally divides itself into three 
 species, the chivalric, the amatory, and the allego- 
 rical. By this last species, I mean, of course, that 
 in which the object and purpose of the whole com- 
 position, no less than its external form, is allegori- 
 cal, as is the case in Dante. The spirit of alle- 
 gory has here its most peculiar triumph, but its in- 
 fluence is wide-spread and predominant over all the 
 poetry of the middle ages. How often an allegori- 
 cal spirit and sense was inclosed, even in the form 
 of a romance of chivalry, I have already hinted, in 
 treating of the German mode of handling the 
 fables of the Round Table and the Graal. The 
 difference consists in this, that in these allegorical 
 romances the hidden sense is wrapped up in a re- 
 presentation of human life and transactions, while 
 in Dante, on the contrary, the representations of 
 human life are only inserted here and there as ad- 
 ventitious pieces of furniture in the artfully divided 
 saloons and galleries of his world-embracing alle- 
 gory. It appears that this universal tendency to 
 allegory, which was so predominant in all the 
 middle age, and which, in considering all the 
 works of that period, we cannot too much keep in 
 
5 HISTORY OF 
 
 our remembrance, had been in a very great mea- 
 sure encouraged and extended by the influence of 
 the Christian religion. 
 
 Whether we consider the Bible in regard to the 
 powerful influence which it has in reality exerted 
 upon the whole literature and poetry of the middle 
 age and of modern times, or view merely the im- 
 pression which, as a book, and in relation to its ex- 
 terior form, it was and is calculated to produce 
 upon the language, art, and spirit of composition, 
 we shall find two peculiarities which are above all 
 worthy of our attention. The first is simplicity of 
 expression — the total want of all artifice. Al- 
 though the sacred writings are principally or almost 
 exclusively occupied with God and the internal be- 
 ing of man, their mode of treating these topics is 
 every where lively and distinct; they contain little 
 of what we are accustomed to call metaphysics; 
 they are free from all those distinctions and anti- 
 theses, those dead ideas, and empty abstractions, 
 with which the philosophy of every nation, from 
 the Greeks and Indians, down to the modern Eu- 
 ropeans, has at all times been disfigured, whenever 
 she has attempted to comprehend and explain, by 
 her own unassisted powers, those highest objects of 
 all reflection, God and man. The hereditary evils 
 of endless bewildering, and of inconsistent and ar- 
 tificial reasoning, have adhered to her even when 
 
LITERATURE. 7 
 
 disclaiming all interference with those high ques- 
 tions and topics, she has either retreated into the 
 world of sense, or exerted all her powers in the 
 mere confession of her ignorance. The same sim- 
 plicity and absence of artifice distinguish even the 
 poetical parts of the Scriptures, much as those 
 abound in specimens of the beautiful, and above all 
 of the sublime. If we look indeed to the elaborate 
 developement and forms of writing, the simplicity 
 of the sacred poesy prevents it from sustaining any 
 sort of comparison with the richness of the Grecian 
 compositions. But, on the other hand, in those 
 great works, the utmost perfection of blossom is 
 almost every where followed by the symptoms of de- 
 cay, and to the highest polish of art there succeeds, 
 not unfrequently, an ambitious and luxuriant taste 
 which delights in superfluous ornament and over- 
 loaded artifice. There exist many causes in the 
 imagination of man, in the whole complexion of 
 his perceptions, in the propensities and feelings of 
 his nature, which may abundantly explain this uni- 
 versal appearance in the history of art; many 
 influences which may poison and corrode the 
 bloom of beauty, before yet it is perfectly unfolded, 
 or which may reduce the noble simplicity of ex- 
 pression, after that has been perfectly displayed, to 
 the false artifices of corruption. It is for this 
 reason that even those Christian poets of modern 
 
8 HISTORY OF 
 
 times, who have taken either their subjects or their 
 models from the Scriptures, Dante, Tasso, Milton, 
 and Klopstock, resemble their originals rather by- 
 individual traits of sublimity, than by any sustain- 
 ed imitation of the faultless simplicity of the 
 Bible. 
 
 A second peculiarity in the outward form and 
 composition of the Scriptures which has had a very 
 powerful envct upon our language and poetry, is 
 that prevailing spirit of types and symbols so con- 
 spicuous not only in the poetical books, but in those 
 also whose texture is entirely didactic or historical. 
 In one point of view the holy book may be consi- 
 dered as a national possession of the Hebrews, 
 common, in some measure, to several other Orien- 
 tal peoples, such as the Arabs and other tribes ori- 
 ginally descended from the same slock with the in- 
 habitants of Judea. The prohibition of sensible 
 images of the Deity might contribute in no incon- 
 siderable degree to foster this propensity among the 
 Hebrews, for the power of imagination, being con- 
 fined in one direction, naturally seeks an outlet in 
 some other. A similar prohibition has produced a 
 similar effect among the modern Mahometans. 
 But even in those parts of the Scriptures, where 
 little or no room is afforded for the introduction of 
 this old Oriental species of typical poetry; as, for 
 example, in the Christian books of the Bible, the 
 
LITERATURE. 9 
 
 prevalence of a symbolizing spirit is still abundant- 
 ly apparent. This spirit has deeply implanted, 
 and widely extended, its influence over the whole 
 thoughts and imagination of the Christian peoples. 
 By means of this symbolical spirit and the conse- 
 quent propensity to allegory, the Bible has come 
 to exert the same influence upon the poetry and all 
 the imitative arts of the middle age, and very near- 
 ly the same upon those of our own more cultivated 
 times, which Homer did among the ancients; it has 
 become the fountain, the rule, and the model of 
 all our images and figures. It is true that in cases 
 where the deeper sense of its symbolical mysteries 
 was mistaken, or where the purpose which the fi- 
 gure had been intended to serve was of a nature less 
 serious and sacred, this spirit has not unfrequently 
 displayed itself in the corrupted form of idle and 
 phantasti al allegory; for loaded ornament is at all 
 times of easier attainment than native grace, and 
 the most brilliant display of art is a thing more 
 common-place than the deep gravity of truth. 
 
 In regard to both of the last mentioned pecu- 
 liarities, had these only been every where felt and 
 understood, the Scriptures might have afforded to 
 Christians a high model of imitation, far more 
 beautiful in itself, and far more universal in its 
 application, than any thing which they could have 
 borrowed from the Greeks. Had the spirit of 
 
 Vol. II. B 
 
JO HISTORY OP 
 
 Christianity thoroughly penetrated us with its en- 
 liv< ning influence, we could not have failed to de- 
 rive from it, both in our language and in our com- 
 posiiion, both in our science and in our art, a 
 noble and sustained beauty which is the same 
 thing with truth, and whose influence must have 
 in all respects been alike predominant and endur- 
 ing. But in and by itself Christianity is, accord- 
 ing to my opinion, no proper subject of poetry; I 
 except lyrical compositions which are to be consi- 
 dered as direct emanations of feeling. Christianity 
 itself cannot be either philosophy or poetry. It is 
 rather what ought to be the groundwork of all phi- 
 losophy; for they who philosophize without tak- 
 ing Christianity for their guide, terminate either 
 in doubt and inextricable perplexities, or in the 
 cold and despairing void of unbelief. On the 
 other hand, Christianity is removed far above all 
 poetry; the influence of our sublime faith should 
 indeed be every where around us, but here its mi- 
 nistrations should be felt, not seen, and we should 
 beware of debasing, by familiarity, that which is 
 most worthy of our reverence. 
 
 The relation of Christianity to poetry and all the 
 literature of imagination, is one which must be consi- 
 dered with the deepest attention, whenever we would 
 inquire intothe comparative relations of the literature 
 of the ancients and that of the moderns, and examine 
 
LITERATURE. 
 
 in how far the latter of these is capable of contending 
 with the former, and manifesting in its productions 
 an equal degree of perfection. What should that 
 poetry and that art have been, which had been 
 exclusively occupied, down to the present hour, 
 in representing the faded forms and shadows of 
 that antiquity whose spirit and life are fled, or 
 which should have pretended indeed to employ 
 themselves upon our modern life, but at all times 
 confined themselves to its surface and exterior, 
 without daring to search into that deep point of 
 interest and thought, from whence our meditations 
 and our feelings have derived their peculiarity and 
 their power! 
 
 It is no wonder that so many whole ages and 
 nations, and so many illustrious geniuses of Chris- 
 tendom, have striven to honour their religion, and 
 embody its revelations, by consecrating to its ex- 
 clusive service the poetry of which they were pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, as I have already hint- 
 ed, that the indirect expression of Christian feelings, 
 the indirect influence of the spirit of Christianity 
 upon our poetry, if not the only just and true influ- 
 ence, has, as yet at least, been the surest and the most 
 successful. In this sense it is that we may call 
 the chivalric poetry of the middle age (which, like 
 the Gothic architecture, never attained complete 
 
12 HISTORY OF 
 
 perfection,) a truly Christian heroic poetry, for the 
 characteristics which distinguish it from the heroic 
 poetry of all other nations, and of the more remote 
 antiquity, are in their essence and origin unquestion- 
 ably Christian. The spirit indeed is that of Gothic 
 antiquity, the fictions and the personages are derived 
 from the pagan legends of the North, but all these 
 are changed and purified by the predominant feeling 
 and the faith of love, which have lent new beauty 
 and sublimity even to the wildest play of the ima- 
 gination. But so soon as the poet attempts to re- 
 veal directly the mysteries of our religion, we per- 
 ceive that he has made election of a subject which 
 is above the standard of his powers. This much is 
 certain, that no attempt of this kind, however 
 masterly the talents with which it has been con- 
 ducted, has attained a degree of perfection sufficient 
 altogether to remove this impression. We remark 
 the defect in Dante, the first and oldest of all great 
 Christian poets, and it is no less frequently to be 
 observed in the works of his later followers Tasso, 
 Milton, and Klopstoc k. By Dante himself, there 
 is no doubt that heavenly appearances and holy 
 ecstacies are described in far more vivid colours, 
 and with more true power of imagination than by 
 any other Christian poet. But his most zeal- 
 ous admirers must admit, that even in him the 
 poetry and the Christianity are not always perfectly 
 
LITERATURE. 1 3 
 
 in harmony with each other, and that his work, if 
 it aspire to the name of a manual of doctrine and 
 theology, must found its' pretensions not upon its 
 general scope, but upon some particular passages 
 with which it is enriched. Although his genius 
 was thoroughly poetical, and indulged itself with 
 the greatest partiality in the boldest virions of ima- 
 gination, it is evident that the prevailing scholas- 
 tics of the day had exerted a very great power over 
 this remarkable spirit. His singular poem is rich 
 beyond all othtr example in its representations of 
 human life. By his plan of describing the three 
 great regions of darkness, of purification, and of 
 light, he has found an opportunity of introducing 
 every variety of human character, incident, and for- 
 tune; he has depicted, with equally strong and 
 masterly touches of horror, tenderness, and enthu- 
 siasm, every situation in which the human spirit 
 can be placed, beginning with the deepest gloom 
 of hell and despair, and then shading away this 
 blackness into softer sorrows, and illuminating these 
 again with gradually brightening tints of hope, till 
 on the summit of his picture he pours the warmest 
 radiance of serenity and joy. Those who are able 
 thoroughly to comprehend his spiiit, and to enter 
 into all his views and purposes, cannot fail to dis- 
 cover in his apparently most miscellaneous poem, 
 the strongest unity and connection of design. It 
 
J4 HISTORY OF 
 
 is difficult to know which are most worthy of admi- 
 raiion, the daring imagination which could first 
 venture to form such a plan, or that phalanx of 
 unparalleled powers which could accompany him 
 steadily through its execution. The chief misfor- 
 tune is, that neither this harmony of plan, nor this 
 vigour of execution, are very easy to be compre- 
 hended; for he that comes properly prepared to 
 the study of Dante, must bring with him stores of 
 science and knowledge of the most various kinds, 
 far beyond what is required from the reader of any 
 other poet. To his own contemporaries, and the im- 
 mediately following generation, his geography and 
 astronomy must have been far less foreign than 
 they are to us; his perpetual allusions to the Flo- 
 rentine history must also have been far less obscure, 
 and even the philosophy of the poet was that of the 
 age in which he lived. Yet even then it appears 
 that his work stood in great need of a commentary; 
 and the truth is, that at no time has the greatest 
 and the most national of all Italian poets ever 
 been much the favourite of his countrymen. Af- 
 ter the lapse of several centuries his works, like 
 those of a second Homer, have had the honour of 
 being explained and illustrated by a whole academy 
 of literati at the public expense; yet it is certain 
 that he is very far from having become the Homer 
 of Italy. The power which he possesses, (and this is 
 
LITERATURE. J 5 
 
 of course, in spite of all obstacles, far from incon- 
 siderable,) is founded not upon any general know- 
 ledge or comprehension of his works, but upon the 
 exquisite force of a few single episodes and pictures. 
 There are among the poets of his own nation none 
 who can sustain the most remote comparison with 
 him either in boldness and sublimity of imagina- 
 tion, or in the delineation of character: None 
 have penetrated so deeply into the Italian spirit, or 
 depicted its mysterious workings with so forcible a 
 pencil. The only reproach which we can find 
 against him in regard to these things, is his perpe- 
 tual Ghibellinism. This term may appear unintel- 
 ligible, but not to those who are well acquainted 
 with the age of Dante. In those later periods of 
 the middle age, the Ghibelline party were animat- 
 ed by designs, which aimed at nothing but the esta- 
 blishment of merely worldly dominion, and conduct- 
 ed every enterprise in which they were engaged 
 with a spirit of pride, haughtiness, and harshness, 
 of which if we would form an idea we must study 
 the histories and monuments of the time. Even in 
 the most modern times we have had no want of 
 Ghibellines, men who expect the whole salvation of 
 mankind from dominion founded entirely upon 
 worldly principles, and who are willing altogether 
 to deny the power of that unseen influence, which 
 is however sure to make its existence to be felt 
 
IQ HISTORY OF 
 
 upon every proper occasion. But these Ghibellines 
 of a more modern and an over-refiiud age, are 
 chiefly characterised by the docility and submissive- 
 ness with which they render themselves up as weak 
 masses, ready to assume any shape which it may 
 please that despotism to impress, whose dignity is 
 increased in their eyes by every new infliction of its 
 oppressiveness. The old Ghibellines of Dante's 
 day were equally ambitious, but in their time pride 
 and heroic strength were more common things, and 
 the numbers of rival combatants, and the collisions 
 of great characters, were sufficient to prevent conse- 
 quences similar to those with which we are now'ac- 
 quainted. Then there existed a terrible anarchy, 
 an universal struggle and ferment of mighty cha- 
 racters and powers, but these had not been followed 
 by that sleep of uniformity and lethargy which is not 
 only the consequence and the curse, but the minis- 
 tering opportunity also, and the deadliest instru- 
 ment of despotism. The Ghibelline harshness ap- 
 pears in Dante in a form noble and dignified; but 
 although it may perhaps do no injury to the out- 
 ward beauty, it certainly mars in a very considerable 
 degree the internal charm of his poetry. His chief 
 defect is, in a word, a want of gentle feelings. — 
 But these are mere spots upon the sun, and must 
 not diminish our admiration for this greatest of all 
 Italian and of all Christian poets. 
 
LITERATURE. J 7 
 
 I have in one of my former lectures indicated 
 the proper situation in which we should view the 
 character of Petrarch, when I took notice of the 
 rich finishing which it was his fortune to bestow 
 upon that love-poetry of several different nations 
 which has already passed under our review. His 
 elegant productions belong in truth altogether to 
 that class, and we must compare his writings with 
 the amatory productions of the old Spanish and 
 German poets, before we can judge rightly of his 
 merits, or even discover what was the leading cha- 
 racteristic of his genius. Petrarch is distinguished 
 from the other love-poets of the middle age, by 
 greater skill in composition, and by a more intel- 
 lectual and platonic turn of sentiment. There 
 have not indeed been wanting some among his ad- 
 mirers, who have gone so far as to maintain, that 
 his Laura was no real mistress, but merely a fanci- 
 ful personification of loveliness. Unfortunately for 
 this hypothesis there still exist abundant proofs in 
 the church-records, not only that Laura was a real 
 woman, but that she was a wife and the mother of 
 a very large family. It is true, however, that 
 over and above the praises of this lady, Petrarch 
 has introduced a great deal of matter which cannot 
 be any thing else than allegorical; this is often too 
 evident to admit of any sort of doubt, and is 
 moreover, as I have before observed, perfectly in 
 
 Vol. II. C 
 
|g HISTORY OF 
 
 character with the spirit of all the poetry of the 
 middle ages. — As a versifier and as an improver of 
 language, Petrarch is entitled to be considered as 
 one of the very first artists who have ever made use 
 of any Romanic dialect. 
 
 Boccaccio was of as much use in polishing the 
 prose as Petrarch in polishing the poetry of his 
 country: the only fault in his composition is a love 
 of long and intricate periods; from which indeed 
 with the single exception of Machiavelli no great 
 Italian writer is free. 
 
 Each of these three Florentine poets, Dante, 
 Petrarch, and Boccaccio, was the discoverer of a new 
 path, the former of a new style of composition. 
 The first was master of Allegorical, the second of 
 Lyrical poetry; the third was the founder of the 
 Novel and the Romance, and composed for the 
 most part in prose, though many of his best fictions 
 are occasionally adorned by poetry. Each of the 
 three had a host of followers in his own depart- 
 ment. But the genius of Dante was one of so very 
 peculiar a cast that he was far from being well 
 fitted to be a model of imitation; and the crowds of 
 sonneteers and noveliists who followed in the tracts 
 of Petrarch and Boccaccio, were such, that both of 
 these kinds of writing, associated with the ideas of 
 repetition and satiety, soon became wearisome in 
 the extreme. The fifteenth century was already 
 
LITERATURE. ±g 
 
 well advanced before the Italians, convinced that 
 by persisting in these species of writing, no farther 
 laurels were to be gained, resolved to create for 
 themselves a proper chivalrous poetryj and to de- 
 sert for ever the Greek mythology and Trojan 
 fable, which Boccaccio had introduced into the only 
 productions of this sort with which they had as yet 
 been acquainted. The first predecessor of Ariosto, 
 whose name has become celebrated, was the 
 Florentine Pulci. Of a poet so well acquainted 
 with the ancient writers, and living with and ad- 
 mired by the Medici and their polished courtiers, 
 not a little might have been expected. But I fear 
 his work itself is not fitted to fulfil these hopes. 
 It is one of those in which sportivencss and wit are 
 introduced for the purpose of enabling the poet to 
 ridicule himself, and thereby induce his readers to 
 overlook the more lightly his want of poetical 
 power, or the want of probability and connection 
 in the incidents of his fable. In the narrative it is 
 not easy to discover what parts are serious, and 
 what written in the spirit of parody; besides the 
 wit itself is so purely local and Florentine, that we 
 can make very little of it, so that the work is 
 chiefly valuable as a proof how very little the 
 genius of Italians was imbued by nature with the 
 true feelings of the romantic. 
 
 A far more successful attempt was that of 
 
20 HISTORY Of 
 
 Boiardo, the immediate predecessor of Ariosto, 
 whose imperfect poem that masterly genius at first 
 intended only to complete, but which he has since 
 become the chief instrument of throwing into utter 
 oblivion. Ariosto does not receive among those ac- 
 quainted with the sources from which he drew, any 
 credit for that invention and extravagant fulness of 
 fancy, which we hear very commonly ascribed to 
 him. The whole body of his tales and fictions is 
 to be found in his predecessors, and that too set 
 forth with a power of painting not at all inferior to 
 his. The superiority of Ariosto consists in the 
 inimitable polish, lightness, and grace of his 
 language and versification, and he has besides de- 
 rived no small advantage from the skilful use which 
 he has made of Homer, Ovid, and some other poets 
 of antiquity. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that the chivalrous poetry 
 of the Italians attained its full perfection not in 
 Florence, but in Lombardy, where the Gothic 
 style of architecture had also been introduced, and 
 where the style of painting bore considerable resem- 
 blance to that of the Germans, or, at least, was 
 less remote from it than the painting of Florence 
 or of Rome. We need only run over the names of 
 the chief old states of Italy, in order to see how in- 
 finitely less prevalent the spirit of chivalry, and its 
 moral, intellectual, and poetical influences were in 
 
LITERATURE. 21 
 
 that country, than among the other polished na- 
 tions of the west. In Florence the spirit of the 
 people became at a very early period entirely demo- 
 cratic. In Venice the ruling principle was that of 
 commerce, and both manners and tastes had more 
 in common with the Orientals and the Greeks than 
 with the Gothic west. In Naples the spirit of 
 chivalry was never, after the Norman period, al- 
 together extinct; but a succession of unfortunate 
 events, the rule of foreign dynasties, frequent 
 changes of government and various other causes, 
 combined to prevent that state from taking such a 
 part as it should have done in the intellectual culti- 
 vation of the north of Italy. In Rome, the centre 
 of ecclesiastical affairs, more attention was bestow- 
 ed upon those splendid arts of imitation subservient 
 to the ornament of the church, than upon chival- 
 rous poetry. If any national feelings were ever ex- 
 cited among the Romans, they commonly took 
 quite a contrary direction, and evaporated in empty 
 dreams about the re-establishment of the Republic, 
 and the restoration of the city to her ancient glory; 
 a specimen of which we may find in those mad 
 schemes of Rienzi, of which Petrarch himself was 
 both an admirer and a partaker. 
 
 These seem to have been the causes which pre- 
 vented the spirit of chivalry from obtaining any 
 power over the more early poetry of the Italians; a 
 
22 HISTORY OF 
 
 poetry which has attained the greatest perfection of 
 developement, and which has become, as it were, a 
 common possession of the whole of cultivated Eu- 
 rope. And such seem to have been of the circum- 
 stances which may account for that leaning to the 
 antique and to philosophy, which can be discerned 
 in the national poetry of no contemporary people. 
 The fifteenth century was in Italy adorned by 
 painting much more than by poetry. The pros- 
 perity of this art commenced in this century, and 
 it continued to flourish down till the middle of the 
 next. Next to the revival of ancient learning, 
 the age of the Medici or of Leo X. has been prin- 
 cipally indebted to art for its glory. At a period 
 considerably earlier than this, it is true, certain 
 painters of Italy began to make some use of those 
 fragments of ancient art which were continually be- 
 fore their eyes. They learned some notions of ac- 
 curate drawing, and something of human anatomy, 
 and they could not avoid inhaling along with these 
 some ideas of the beauty of form and the sublimity 
 of expression. But an intimate acquaintance with 
 the antique was very rare, and many of the first 
 and greatest masters were entirely deficient in it. 
 And even among those who understood it the most 
 scientifically, no attempts were ever made at strict 
 imitation of the antique. When that came once 
 to be in fashion, it is singular but true, that paint- 
 
LITERATURE. 23 
 
 ing was already on the decline. In the early stage 
 of its progress this art had acquired among the Ita- 
 lians a new and distinct character of its own, found- 
 ed upon the predominance of Christian ideas on the 
 one hand, and that of national partialities on the 
 other. Under the influence of both of these species 
 of inspiration, this art acquired a glory which was 
 at that time unrivalled by the sister art of poetry. 
 What poet of those times can we for a moment 
 compare with Raphael? The poetry was less origi- 
 nal than the painting. The restoration of classi- 
 cal learning, and the wide circulation of so many 
 illustrious works heretofore little known, produced 
 their natural effects in giving rise to a strong spirit 
 of imitation. The appearances of this manifested 
 themselves very speedily in a manner by no means 
 happy, among all the European nations, but first 
 of all in Italy. Even the greatest geniuses could 
 not remain entirely free from the unfortunate influ- 
 ence; Camoens and Tasso, the two first of modern 
 Epic poets would, I have no doubt, have unfolded 
 their talents in a manner much more powerful, free, 
 and beautiful, had they been utterly ignorant of 
 Virgil, and written without having before their 
 eyes the necessity of adhering to a precedent. The 
 revival of ancient letters was injurious, in yet 
 another manner, to poetry and to language itself. 
 The fashion of writing, and of writing poetry too, in 
 
 
24 HISTORY OF 
 
 Latin became so universal that it gave rise to great 
 neglect of the vernacular dialects. Next to Italy, 
 Germany, in which classical studies were immedi- 
 ately embraced with unrivalled ardour, was the 
 greatest sufferer; not a few true and excellent 
 poets were, in consequence of their taste for Latin, 
 lost to their own language and nation. For it 
 was not till long after this time that men became 
 satisfied that the only poetry which has any power 
 over a people, is that composed in its own tongue. 
 Under the Emperor Maximilian, himself a lover of 
 German poetry and himself a German poet, a 
 crown was publicly bestowed on a poet who wrote 
 in Latin, but no similar distinction fell to the share 
 of those who made use of their mother tongue. 
 Even the plays represented before die Court were 
 commonly written in Latin. The evident decline 
 and corruption of our German language, so diffe- 
 rent from what its early flourishing condition might 
 have led us to expect, have been in general ascrib- 
 ed to the convulsions and civil tumults of the six* 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries. There is little 
 doubt that these must have greatly increased the 
 evil; but the corruption of our language is quite 
 apparent in writers who composed previous to the 
 Reformation, and who must indeed have received 
 their education at a time when those alarming 
 events of which I have above spoken, had not even 
 
LITERATURE. 25 
 
 been dreamed of. The truth is, that the primary 
 cause of the evil is to be sought for in that tver in- 
 creasing rage for Latinity, which induced all those 
 writers who were capable of improving the living 
 language, to consider it as below them to make 
 use of any other than the dead. In Germany, 
 where no great works had as yet been produced, 
 the effects of this fashion were of course far more 
 injurious than in Italy, where there existed the 
 writings of those three great Florentines, and 
 where the language had in consequence of their 
 labours required a form and standard from which 
 no succeeding authors could ever very widely de- 
 part. 
 
 The fault of all this lies by no means on the li- 
 terature of antiquity, but on the use, or rather on 
 the misuse, to which men applied its treasures. 
 The prodigious extension of historical science, and 
 through it, of every other species of knowledge, — 
 an introduction to so many fountains of information 
 and so many glorious monuments of art and refine- 
 ment, — these things constituted in themselves a 
 great and an invaluable good. But we shall be great- 
 ly mistaken if we believe that this abundant harvest 
 was unmingled with tares — and our expectations 
 must have been far too sanguine if we had hoped 
 that such a hidden treasure could be discovered, 
 and those that found it be guilty of no abt>ur- 
 
 Vol. II. D 
 
26 HISTORY OF 
 
 dities in their first methods of applying it. The 
 spirit of the modern Europeans is much more the 
 same throughout the different centuries of our pe- 
 riod, than might at first sight be imagined. Every 
 where I observe the same misdirected passion which 
 leads them to fasten upon every new and great 
 addition to their inheritance of knowledge, as if 
 that alone were worthy of more attention than the 
 whole of their previous possessions, to pursue it 
 with restless avidity, and forget in their admiration 
 of it every thing besides, to apply the new ideas to 
 subjects the most foreign from them, and in short 
 to become blind to all but one point — till after this 
 ferment of extravagance has subsided, things at 
 last find their natural level, and the new takes its 
 place among the old without attempting any longer 
 to exclude it. Like the revolutions of the political 
 world, those of the world of letters are attended by 
 violent convulsions and the shattering of venerable 
 institutions, and followed by periods of lethargy, 
 which often go far to destroy the good to which 
 they might otherwise have given birth. In the age 
 of the Crusades, when the Western Europeans 
 were introduced to an acquaintance with the science 
 of the Arabians, and the philosophy of Aristotle, 
 when the different nations of the world were 
 brought into contact with each other after a separa- 
 tion of many centuries, it might have seemed n 
 
LITERATURE. 27 
 
 great excess of enthusiasm to expect that a mighty 
 regeneration of intellect should have been the result 
 of such an era. But it is sufficiently evident, that 
 the effects of all these circumstances upon the 
 spirit of the thirteenth century were insignificant 
 indeed when compared with what the most rational 
 might have looked for. Their immediate and most 
 general consequence was a pervading spirit of sec- 
 tarianism, which at first confined its influence to 
 the barbarous schools of the day, but soon insinuat- 
 ed itself into the church, and through her into the 
 state, and into private life. Among all the sudden- 
 ly enriched, and intellectually fruitful periods of 
 European history, the most brilliant is perhaps the 
 fifteenth century. It was then that the systematic 
 use of the compass was adopted: it was then that 
 a long series of painful voyages and unsuccessful 
 attempts was at last crowned with a full discovery 
 of the way to India and America; and it was then 
 that the at once astonished and matured mind of 
 man became acquainted with the true extent and 
 shape of earth his habitation; it was at the same 
 period that the hidden stores of ancient literature 
 were laid open, and that, in the art of printing, 
 the most powerful of all instruments, both for pre- 
 serving and enlarging human knowledge, was in- 
 vented. Such accumulation of unexampled advan- 
 tages might well be contemplated with the pro- 
 
28 HISTORY OF 
 
 foundest feelings of astonishment and admiration. 
 But as I have already hinted, and as I mean yet 
 more fully to illustrate, the old cause of misappli- 
 cation attached itself to this sudden revelation of 
 wealth, with a pertinacity no less striking than it 
 had on former occasions exhibited. The third uni- 
 versal revolution in the history of science, and the 
 spirit of modern Europe, lies nearer our own 
 times. The prodigious improvements in the ma- 
 thematics, and, through them, in all branches of 
 natural philosophy, which took place in the seven- 
 teenth, and which have been carried on still farther 
 in the eighteenth century, the extension of all me- 
 chanical knowledge, and the improvements in tech- 
 nical expedients, have been such as to give the di- 
 rection of human life an almost entirely different 
 appearance. Who can deny that this knowledge 
 is in itself dignified and admirable, and that no- 
 thing can be more elevating to the human mind 
 than aconsciousness of superiority over the corporeal 
 and sensible world, so well harmonizing with the 
 original destination of our species? Had but this 
 dominion over the external world been united with 
 a correspondent dominion over ourselves— had but 
 those physical and mathematical modes of thinking 
 which now began to exert so powerful an influ- 
 ence not only over intellect, but also over manners, 
 been kept in their proper sphere and station, we 
 
LITERATURE. 29 
 
 should have had no reason to complain. The con- 
 sequencts of these modes of thinking and of the 
 philosophy to which they have given rise, in regard 
 to religion, morality, political and individual life, 
 have been such, that the common opinion is, I be- 
 lieve, already very much against them, and that in 
 a few years no farther difference of opinion respect- 
 ing their tendency can be expected to exist. 
 
 I return to the fifteeth century. I have already 
 mentioned the injury which the exclusive predilec- 
 tion for the literature and language of antiquity 
 did, by checking the progress of improvement both 
 in the vernacular languages of modern Europe, and 
 in the poetry therein embodied. The errors and 
 absurdities of this period should astonish us the 
 less, when we reflect that in truth the whole his- 
 tory of modern intellect consists of little more than 
 a narrative of one continuous contest between the 
 old and foreign — invaluable, in so far as form and 
 knowledge are concerned — and the new, the pecu- 
 liar, and the national, from which the whole life 
 and spirit of our active and effectual literature and 
 poetry must ever be derived. 
 
 I think it extremely probable that several of the 
 modern Latinists of the fifteenth century, in Italy, 
 were actuated by a real desire of banishing the vul- 
 gar dialect, and re-establishing the old language of 
 Rome in its life and activity. The mythology and 
 
30 HISTORY OF 
 
 language of antiquity were not merely applied with 
 great want of taste to new and Christian subjects; 
 the abuse went so far as to deserve the name of im- 
 piety itself, for it is certain that many writers con- 
 ceived it to be vulgar to talk of the Deity in the 
 language of the Bible, and revived the plural 
 " Gods" of the classics. The manners and modes 
 of life of antiquity found most zealous imitators 
 among the ecclesiastics of the Christian metropolis, 
 nor were there wanting some who extended their 
 partiality not only to the politics but to the religion 
 of the old republics. But these errors never led 
 to any serious consequences, and therefore it is no 
 wonder their existence has well nigh been forgotten. 
 The intimate knowledge of antiquity and decidedly 
 Roman prejudices of one great writer of this age, 
 Machiavelli, have produced erFects much more last- 
 ing than the dreams of those more idle enthusiasts. 
 He is the only writer not merely of Italy but of 
 modern Europe, who can sustain a comparison in 
 style and skill with the first historians of antiquity. 
 Powerful, simple, and straight-forward like Caesar, 
 he combines the depth and rich reflection of Taci- 
 tus with a clearness and precision to which that 
 great master was a stranger. He has followed no 
 one writer as his model, but rather seems to be 
 thoroughly penetrated with the spirit of antiquity, 
 and to write as if under the influence of a second 
 
LITERATURE. 31 
 
 nature with that strength, propriety, and life, which 
 are the peculiar characteristics of the ancients. 
 The art of his composition seems to be quite invo- 
 luntary; his concern appears to extend no farther 
 than the thought. But how are we to judge or to 
 explain the political system of this great genius, 
 which has attained in modern times so unfortunate 
 a predominance? The portrait which he has given 
 of an unprincipled tyrant, set forth as the example 
 and manual of all princes and governments, is jus- 
 tified by some, on the ground that Machiavelli 
 meant only to place before the eyes of the world a 
 representation of the corrupted condition of the age 
 and country in which he lived — leaving such a pic- 
 ture to produce its own natural effects upon the 
 minds of those who might contemplate it. Perhaps 
 it may be better explained by considering that 
 though Machiavelli was both a politician and a 
 moralist, his true and most essential character was 
 that of a patriot. I believe that his object was to 
 inspire the great Princes of Italy with the ambi- 
 tion of giving liberty to his country; and that in 
 his opinion this was an object which ought to be 
 pursued, even although it should be absolutely ne- 
 cessary to make use of those doubtful or even im- 
 moral means by which others had effected its degra- 
 dation and subjection. He thought that the ene- 
 mies of Italy should be fought with their own arms, 
 
32 HISTORY OF 
 
 and that nothing was unfair which might be of ad- 
 vantage to his country. The shrewdness of his 
 judgment is well exemplified in the short parallel 
 between the French and the Germans, which he 
 has left behind him. With a truly admirable 
 acuteness he shows that the power of the empire 
 was in his day vastly over- rated, and demonstrates, 
 on the other hand, that the power of the French 
 king was most formidably on the increase. How- 
 ever profound and striking Machiavelli's characte- 
 ristic of the two nations may be, he cannot be ac- 
 cused of having expressed it with any appearance 
 of flattery. The one nation, on the contrary^ are 
 satirized in the most unequivocal terms for faith- 
 lessness, vanity, and treachery, which he seems to 
 consider as inseparable from them; while he re- 
 proaches the other with equal bitterness for that 
 perverse love of freedom which, manifesting itself 
 in nothing but disunion and distrust, had already, 
 in his time, sapped the foundations of their empire, 
 and whose baneful effects have been more openly 
 displayed in the sequel. 
 
 His opinions concerning the other nations of Eu- 
 rope were such as the fortunes of Italy, Florence, 
 and himself might well excuse. But the main 
 principle which he has defended, namely, that it is 
 proper to make use of immoral means in order to 
 attain a good end, admits of no complete justifica- 
 
LITEHATURE. gg 
 
 tion. In truth the danger to Italy and to the 
 world consisted far less in the iniquitous schemes of 
 a few petty tyrants, than in the wide extension 
 of those pernicious principles upon which these 
 indeed acted, but to which the misdirected in- 
 tellect of this refined Florentine gave a system 
 and consistency which they had never before pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 The chief fault of Machiavelli consists, however, 
 not in his defence of the principle that the end 
 sanctifies the means, but in this, that he was the 
 first who introduced into modern and Christian 
 Europe the fashion of reasoning and deciding on 
 politics exactly as if Christianity had had no exis- 
 tence, or rather as if there had been no such thing 
 as a Deity or moral justice in the world. Before 
 his day the common faith of Christianity had 
 formed a bond of connection, and been considered 
 as the fundamental principle of all government 
 among the nations of Europe, and the peoples of 
 Christendom regarded themselves as forming in 
 some sort one family. The common opinion among 
 mankind was, that as they themselves ought to 
 serve their God, so it was their duty also to love 
 and obey the princes appointed by heaven to rule 
 over them; and that in this sense the right of 
 kings was divine. All the doctrines of legislature, 
 
 law, and government, still reposed upon the invi- 
 Vol. II. E 
 
34 HISTORY OF 
 
 sible foundation of the church. Of all these things, 
 of the whole domestic and political arrangements 
 of European life, Machiavelli takes no notice; 
 he is not contented with merely writing like an 
 ancient; his thoughts are all fashioned upon the 
 same model; he is an ancient politician of the most 
 decisive and unhesitating order; he believes that 
 power is the sole measure of right, with a faith 
 that might have been worthy of Rome herself in 
 her most violent days of conquest and usurpation. 
 Justice and truth he considers as mere superfluous 
 ornaments; and has no real respect excepting % for 
 intellectual strength and ability. That moral right 
 should make no appearance in his writings is not to 
 be wondered at, since it is his plan to regard men 
 as if they owed no submission to any thing beyond 
 themselves, as if they had no connection with their 
 Maker. As there can be no such thing as indivi- 
 dual worth and virtue, so it is quite evident there 
 can be no political justice among those who disbe- 
 lieve the existence of a Deity. Without that be- 
 lief the utmost that can be hoped for is deceit ful- 
 ness, hypocrisy, and hollowness of heart. When 
 we are impressed with a sense of the existence of 
 God, the whole of our thoughts and principles 
 have acquired a dignity to which we could not 
 otherwise aspire. The visible is every where de- 
 pendent upon the unseen; and as the body is mov- 
 
LITERATURE. 35 
 
 ed and regulated by the soul, so are men, nations, 
 and states, held together by the belief and the re- 
 verence of the Godhead. The moment we take 
 away this soul, this internal and universal principle 
 of life, the whole composition is loosened and de- 
 stroyed; if we obscure its light, and obstruct its 
 influence upon the whole, the individual members 
 of the organic, or of the political body, may still 
 preserve some power of life with them, but this 
 life will be narrow, separate, insignificant, misdirect- 
 ed, and destructive, rather than beneficial. It will 
 form a principle of disunion, not a bond of har- 
 mony. When that chain of morality and religion, 
 by which states and nations are connected together, 
 has once fairly been broken, the destructive poisons 
 of darkness, anarchy, and despotism, begin imme- 
 diately to operate, and vice is ever ready to occupy 
 the deserted station of virtue. 
 
 The political disunion and corruptions of Eu- 
 rope, whose influence, in spite of the steady resist- 
 ance of many excellent and truly Christian princes, 
 has been ever on the increase, cannot indeed be 
 accounted for by the abilities, however great and 
 however misapplied, of any one individual; the seeds 
 of these evils lay much deeper than this. Still, how- 
 ever, he who devotes his talents to give principle, 
 clearness, and form, to any existing engine of wick- 
 edness, he who renders its operations systematic, 
 
35 lllSTOIlY OF 
 
 and its effects consequently more pernicious, is an 
 enemy to mankind; and in so far, it is impossible 
 to deny that the indignation of posterity has been 
 in some degree at least, the merited fate of Machia- 
 velli. 
 
 The two great discoveries of the fifteenth centu- 
 ry, printing and the compass, were atttended by 
 several others which have had no inconsiderable in- 
 fluence; such were the use of gunpowder and the 
 manufacture of paper. As inventions both of these 
 belong to a much earlier period, but their influence 
 began now with their first application to purpqses 
 of practical use. The discoveries of this period, 
 taken collectively, have been sufficient to give a 
 totally new appearance to human society. The 
 distance by which those nations of antiquity which 
 were acquainted with the use of iron, and possessed, 
 along with this, more or less knowledge of writing 
 and of the finer metals, were separated from those 
 barbarians who had no acquaintance with these 
 means of connection between man and the earth, 
 between nation and nation, between antiquity and 
 posterity — these first instruments of the refinement 
 and developement of our species; — this immeasur- 
 able distance is scarcely greater than that which 
 separates the periods prior to the invention of print- 
 ing and the compass, from those which have suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
LITERATURE. 37 
 
 Even in the history of these inventions we find 
 sufficient proof that the use to which men apply 
 their discoveries is of far greater importance than 
 the discoveries themselves. The compass had long 
 before this time been known to other nations, and 
 yet neither had the old continent been circumnavi- 
 gated, nor the new discovered. Printing and 
 paper had long before this period been used in 
 China, for the purpose of multiplying gazettes, no- 
 tices, and visiting cards, without imparting any 
 principle of activity to the benumbed spirit of the 
 Chinese. 
 
 The invention of gunpowder was regarded, even 
 after its use had been universally adopted, as alto- 
 gether injurious and corrupting. Not only did 
 poets, such as Ariosto, condemn it as an unhallow- 
 ed invention, the enemy of personal bravery, and 
 the future extirpator of all chivalry; the same out- 
 cry was repeated by the gravest generals and states- 
 men of the times. Yet nothing could be more 
 silly than these complaints: true valour and virtue 
 are always sure to find sufficient room to display 
 themselves. With different manners, and in a 
 new form of war, the modern — even the very latest 
 times — have witnessed examples of devoted heroism 
 well worthy of a place by the side of the most 
 brilliant achievements of antiquity, or of the chi- 
 valric age. Yet upon the whole a discovery, which 
 
38 HISTORY OF 
 
 has increased the certainty and rapidity of the de- 
 structive influences of war, and withal rendered 
 these more systematic, cannot be reckoned among 
 the most fortunate. In the very first age of its 
 use, gunpowder did more harm than has since been 
 in its power. But for it those robberies of the Eu- 
 ropean nations which followed the first discovery of 
 America, could scarcely have been polluted with so 
 much blood and outrage. In this point of view it 
 would almost seem as if some envious demon had 
 attached to the glorious invention of the compass, 
 an engine of evil, by way of turning even the best 
 gifts of humanity to our destruction. 
 
 Even in regard to the use of paper, it may be 
 doubted whether the operations of printing, as by 
 its means extended, have really promoted the cause 
 of science and intellect, or conduced to effects of 
 a very opposite description. By means of this 
 cheap material, the art of printing, in itself one of 
 the most glorious and useful, has become prostitut- 
 ed in times of anarchy and revolution to the speedy 
 and universal circulation of poisonous tracts and 
 libels — things more destructive to the minds of the 
 uneducated, than ever gunpowder was to the bodies 
 of the undisciplined. Perhaps in making use of a 
 somewhat rarer and more costly material, the press 
 might have remained more true to its proper and 
 original purpose — the preservation of the great 
 
LITERATURE. 39 
 
 monuments of history, art, and science. Instead 
 of this, the cheapness of the materials of printing 
 has introduced a dangerous neglect of the old and 
 genuine monuments of human intellect, and a still 
 more dangerous influx of paltry and superficial com- 
 positions alike hostile to soundness of judgment, 
 and purity of taste — a sea of frothy conceits, and 
 noisy dullness, upon which the spirit of the age is 
 tossed hither and thither, not without great and 
 frequent danger of entirely losing sight of the com- 
 pass of meditation, and the polar star of truth. 
 
40 HISTORY OF 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 A FEW WORDS UPON THE LITERATURE OF THE NORTH AND 
 
 EAST OF EUROPE UPON THE SCHOLASTIC LEARNING AND 
 
 GERMAN MYSTICKS OF THE MIDDLE AGE. 
 
 AS yet we have been almost entirely occupied with 
 the literature of those of the modern nations which 
 are settled in the Southern and Western districts 
 of Europe, — the peoples whose dialects are either 
 Teutonic or Romanic, or made up of a mixture of 
 both, the Italians, the French, the Spaniards, and 
 the English. The literature of these nations is 
 beyond all doubt, both from its own nature, and 
 from the wide-spread influence which it has exert- 
 ed, by far the most remarkable and important. At 
 the same time it would have greatly gratified my- 
 self, and very much tended to complete what it was 
 my ambition to lay before you — I mean a full and 
 national view of literature, — had I been able to 
 speak at length concerning those other great na- 
 tions which inhabit the Eastern and Northern 
 
LITERATURE. 41 
 
 parts of our continent. Every separate and inde- 
 pendent nation has the right, if I may so express 
 it, of possessing a literature peculiar to itself; and 
 no barbarism is in my opinion so hurtful as that 
 which would oppress the language of a people and a 
 country, or do any thing which tends to exclude 
 them from reaching the higher orders of intellectual 
 cultivation. It is mere prejudice, unworthy of ration- 
 al and thinking men, which leads us to consider 
 languages that have been neglected, or that are un- 
 known to ourselves, as incapable of being brought 
 to perfection. Some languages, no doubt, there 
 are, which are in a certain degree unfavourable for 
 poetry; a few which may perhaps be almost incom- 
 patible with any high exertions of that art: But I 
 believe that there is no language which does not 
 contain within itself the elements of perfect adapta- 
 tion to all the really useful purposes of life, and to 
 every important object of scientific writing in prose. 
 Even although the literature of a particular nation 
 may have exerted little influence over neighbouring 
 peoples, the history of that nation's intellectual de- 
 velopement, as this stands connected with its public 
 W eal — its fortunes — and its history, is, nevertheless, 
 on its own account alone, a very interesting and a 
 very instructive object of contemplation. Yet all I 
 can do in regard to this matter amounts to little 
 more than the expression of my sincere wish that it 
 Vol. II. F 
 
42 HISTORY OF 
 
 had been within my power to carry my researches 
 so far, as might have enabled me to lay before you 
 a complete view of European literature. For I am 
 now too old to have any remaining doubt upon my 
 mind, that in the history of literature, exactly as 
 in most other things, very little dependence is to 
 be placed upon the testimonies and the opinions of 
 others respecting matters, wherein the ignorance 
 of languages prevents ourselves from being able to 
 verify their statements. I must therefore be satis- 
 fied with a few very general reflections on these 
 points, at this time when, in considering the eppch 
 of a new literature and a resurrection of science, it 
 might have seemed most necessary for me to com- 
 plete my survey by a full examination of every na- 
 tion and language into which Europe is divided. 
 
 The most favourable point of view from which such 
 a general survey could be taken is certainly the six- 
 teenth century — a period which forms as it were an 
 isthmus of connection between the middle ages and 
 modern times. So far as respects language itself, 
 and the very great influence which that exerts over 
 other peoples, the nations speaking Romanicdialects, 
 had at this period a peculiar and very manifest advan- 
 tage. These dialects are so closely connected with 
 each other, and the mother idiom from which they 
 are all derived, the Latin, at that time the common 
 language of the west, that the acquisition of any 
 
LITERATURE. 43 
 
 one of them is to those acquainted with another 
 prodigiously more easy th to that of any language 
 radically different. It was on this account that 
 even in the middle age itself, and long before the 
 effects of extended commerce began to be felt, the 
 knowledge of these dialects became far more widely 
 diffused than that of the other Northern and East- 
 ern languages of Europe. It must, however, be 
 remarked, that Spain remained at all times cut off 
 in some measure from the other districts of Europe, 
 not more by geographical position, politics, consti- 
 tution, and manners, than by her peculiarity both of 
 language and of intellectual cultivation. That the 
 peculiar language and cultivation of the Spaniards 
 have attained within their own limits a very great 
 degree of perfection, has been recognized of late 
 years with more justice than formerly. The only 
 relic of the old prejudice is the notion so prevalent 
 among our critics, that the excellence of the Spanish 
 language and literature has been almost entirely 
 confined to poetry; whereas, as all well acquainted 
 with the subject must know, one great advantage 
 of the Spanish language, and I might add of the 
 Spanish national character, consisted in this, that 
 the prose of that language was much more early 
 and had been much more excellently developed 
 than in any other of the Romanic dialects. The 
 Italian language, with the single exception of Ma- 
 
44 HISTORY OF 
 
 chiavelli, was never applied with much happiness 
 of effect to the purpose of practical and political 
 writing. The attempts at prose composition in the 
 other Romanic dialects were all extremely unsuc- 
 cessful. The French and English languages first 
 received a formation adapted for practical utility 
 and political eloquence in the seventeenth century; 
 and perhaps the advantage of so applying them has 
 always been confined to the capitals and the higher 
 orders more than was the case with the Spanish. 
 At a very early period indeed, the vernacular 
 tongue of Spain was applied, and with the greatest 
 success, to legislation and the most important con- 
 cerns of social arrangement. Perhaps the very se- 
 paration of the nation from the rest of Europe may 
 have very much contributed to the early develope- 
 ment of its language, which can boast of a very 
 great number of well- written histories, and in which 
 a manly vein of eloquence has continued even down 
 to our own day, full of the most fiery spirit, clear, 
 sharp, and intermingled on proper occasions with 
 an abundance of exquisite wit and irony. In phi- 
 losophy alone, Spain cannot boast of any names such 
 as those which have appeared in Italy, Germany, 
 England, and some other countries. In that de- 
 partment it must be admitted that she has produced 
 no truly great writer. 
 
 The German language has at all times been of 
 
LITERATURE. 4,5 
 
 more difficult acquisition than any one of the Ro- 
 manic dialects, and on that account the knowledge 
 of it has always been much more limited. This 
 ignorance of our language among the other nations, 
 has been the origin of not a little contempt for our 
 literature and philosophy. Yet I have no sort of 
 doubt that the place I have assigned to the Ger- 
 man nation in this history of literature is one of 
 which a careful examination of facts will sufficiently 
 manifest the propriety. Although our language is 
 less known than most others, yet all those who in- 
 quire with any profoundness of research, either into 
 the history or the language of the Southern and 
 Western nations, must at all times be compelled to 
 cultivate an acquaintance with the German sources 
 of knowledge; and these will all confess that along 
 with German political institutions and German 
 customs of domestic life, a very great portion of the 
 spirit of German thought has also passed into all 
 the other nations of Europe. A thorough know- 
 ledge of the middle ages and of their history is en- 
 tirely unattainable without a knowledge of the 
 language and literature of the Germans; for the 
 superiority of France and England during the last 
 two hundred years has not been more decided than 
 was both the literary and political pre-eminence of 
 Italy and Germany during the -whole period of the 
 middle ages. These were without any doubt at 
 
46 HISTORY OF 
 
 that time the two first countries in the world. So 
 far as our own country is concerned, it might be 
 sufficient to mention the simple fact, that the art of 
 printing — which was the greatest and the most im- 
 portant instrument of the revival of learning in the 
 fifteenth century — and that mighty revolution in 
 religion which gave a new form to the whole mind 
 of man in the sixteenth century — were both Ger- 
 man in their origin. But, without going so far 
 back, the truth is, that if the German language be 
 less happily developed for the purposes of business 
 and political eloquence, than the English and the 
 French, this defect is shared by the Italian 
 language, and like it atones for the defect in 
 those respects by its peculiar power in poetry. 
 With regard to the higher uses of science, I be- 
 lieve it will be acknowledged by any foreigner ac- 
 quainted with our books, that our superiority is 
 clear and decisive over every language since the 
 Greek. In the imitative arts wherein the other 
 polished nations of Europe have very little distin- 
 guished themselves, the Germans occupy a place 
 next and near to the Italians. In the modern li- 
 terature which has sprung up among the different 
 nations of Europe subsequent to the intellectual 
 convulsions of the sixteenth and the first part of 
 the seventeenth centuries, the language and mental 
 cultivation of Germany have indeed been late to 
 
LITERATURE. 47 
 
 distinguish themselves. But, at least so far as 
 science, history, and philosophy, are concerned, the 
 probability is that the latest literature will be the 
 richest and the best. The praise of fertility at 
 least will not be refused to us during the last half of 
 the eighteenth century — a period with the litera- 
 ture and intellectual refinement of many other na- 
 tions either of pause, of retrogression, or of com- 
 plete corruption and decay. How defective we still 
 are in many particular departments we are ourselves 
 extremely well aware; but in my apprehension the 
 time is not now at any great distance when an ac- 
 quaintance with the language and literature of 
 Germany will be looked upon as indispensably ne- 
 cessary to every man of polite education in Europe. 
 Of all the Northern and Eastern nations of Eu- 
 rope, the Scandinavian exerted, during the middle 
 ages, the greatest and the most immediate influ- 
 ence over the poetry and thinking of the West. 
 The influence which they had in the character of 
 wandering Normans upon Europe, and its poetry, 
 has already been noticed. They took a great share 
 in the Crusades; and partook in every thing in- 
 teresting, either in regard to reason or imagination, 
 which was introduced or created in consequence of 
 those memorable expeditions. The Icelanders tra- 
 versed every part of Europe as scientific navigators, 
 and collected in every quarter both facts and lie- 
 
48 HISTORY OF 
 
 tions. The oldest pure fountain of the poets 
 of the German nations, and the whole middle age 
 had been preserved in their Edda; and now they 
 brought back with them, into their Northern cli- 
 mate, the Christian and chivalrous poems of the 
 Southern Europeans. In many of these — particu- 
 larly in the heroic poems of the Germans — the re- 
 semblance to their own Northern sagas and perso- 
 nifications was very remarkable. These acquisi- 
 tions they now transferred into their own language 
 with peculiar delight and success. Some parts of 
 what they borrowed — every thing which was jn its 
 origin heathenish and Northern, many particular 
 creations of fancy, and in general all of the wonder- 
 ful which had been derived from the old theo- 
 logy, — they appropriated to themselves with new 
 force, effect, and feeling, on account of their own 
 more intimate knowledge of the Edda. That mar- 
 vellous which in the poetry of the Southern peoples 
 had been a fleeting and trivial exercise of fancy, a 
 mere idle ornament — acquired in the hands of Nor- 
 thern poets a deeper sense, a more affecting truth, 
 and a more important signification. It was thus 
 that the Northern versions of the Niebelungen 
 came to possess, in some respects, the advantage 
 even over the German heroic. The Icelanders, in 
 this manner, and the Scandinavians in general, 
 during the middle age, possessed a peculiar chi- 
 
LITERATURE. ,±y 
 
 valrous poetry of their own — destined to experience 
 the same fortune with that of the other nations of 
 Europe; first to be diluted into prose romances, 
 and then to be split into ballads. This last effect 
 was produced in Denmark exactly as in England 
 and Germany, and proceeded in a great measure 
 from the same causes—I mean, from that interrup- 
 tion which occurred in the national traditions and 
 recollections in consequence of the great changes 
 that occurred both in the church and the state. 
 The national poetry was left to be maintained by 
 the common people alone, and was, in their hands, 
 mutilated, corrupted, and degraded. I do not say 
 this with any intention of stigmatising ballads as 
 entirely useless; on the contrary, these composi- 
 tions, in England, Scotland, Germany, and Den- 
 mark, although every where affording but a faint 
 echo of the nobler poetry which preceded them, 
 are still worthy of great attention both in a histo- 
 rical and in a poetical point of view. The old li- 
 terature of the Scandinavians was one common to 
 the whole of the North. A great change in its 
 appearance seems to have resulted from tl\e refor- 
 mation; the vernacular historians, both of Den- 
 mark and Sweden, are full of complaints concern- 
 ing the baneful effects produced upon their native 
 languages by that immense influx of High Dutch 
 books which was followed by the general adoption 
 
 Vol. II. G 
 
50 HISTORY OF 
 
 of the tenets of the Saxon Luther. The later li* 
 terature of Sweden in particular, is often alleged 
 by the critics of that country as furnishing a me- 
 lancholy proof, that even a nation the most full of 
 character and feeling is incapable of creating a rich 
 and independent literature, if it continues to show 
 an unceasing predilection for foreign idioms and 
 models. The Danish literature, on the other 
 haiid, of these latest years, has been rapidly deve- 
 loping itself at the same time with our own, — in a 
 manner quite independent, but yet, as might na- 
 turally have been expected, with a greater lean- 
 ing to the Germans and the English than to the 
 French. 
 
 In looking back one can scarcely help observing 
 a certain resemblance between the old situation of 
 Scandinavia before the reformation and that of 
 Spain. Each of these countries possessed a high 
 degree of political and intellectual refinement, and 
 each remaining apart as it were from the rest of 
 Europe, formed within itself a complete and dis- 
 tinct whole. The Normans, like the Spaniards, 
 had their share in the universally chivalrous spirit 
 of the middle age, which was indeed by no means 
 foreign to their own particular antiquities. They 
 were also acquainted with the South of Europe by 
 means of travelling. But neither the inhabitants of 
 the Scandinavian, nor those of the Spanish peninsula, 
 
LITERATURE. *J| 
 
 Were ever engaged in any commerce with any of the 
 Other European nations, of so intimate and multi- 
 farious a nature as that which connected France 
 with England from the eleventh till the fifteenth, 
 or Italy with Germany from the ninth till the six- 
 teenth century. The literature of the Scandina- 
 vians was also entirely directed to subjects of na- 
 tional interest, such as poetry, history, or the like. 
 Like the Spaniards they paid little attention to 
 higher departments of philosophy; at least no 
 remarkable work of a purely scientific nature was 
 ever produced by them. It is quite evident that 
 four countries alone in the centre of Europe, Italy> 
 Germany, France, and England, as they have oc- 
 cupied the first place in the political history of 
 modern Europe, so in the history of literature also 
 have they distinguished themselves to such a de- 
 gree, that from the time of the first awakening of 
 the European intellect under Charlemagne, down 
 to the present day, it is scarcely possible to point 
 out a single great incident in the annals of philo- 
 sophy, a single remarkable discovery, extension, re- 
 trogression, or error — or in short to fix upon a 
 single great name in the history of philosophy 
 which does not belong to one of them. The great 
 and distinct differences between the philosophy of 
 one of these nations and that of another, and be- 
 tween that of the same nation in different ages of 
 
52 HISTORY Ol 
 
 its history, together with both the causes and the 
 effects of the differences, I shall endeavour to lay 
 before you in due time. 
 
 Among the Sclavonic nations Russia possessed 
 very early in the middle age a national historian in 
 her vernacular tongue; an invaluable advantage 
 and a sure token of the commencement of national 
 cultivation. That this cultivation had been more 
 universal and extensive in Russia previous to the 
 time of the Mogul devastations, is sufficiently prov- 
 ed by her flourishing commerce, her close connec- 
 tion with Constantinople, and many other histori- 
 cal circumstances. But to say nothing of other 
 causes, her subjection to the Greek church was 
 alone sufficient during the middle age, and is in 
 some measure sufficient, even in our own time, to 
 keep Russia politically and intellectually at a dis- 
 tance from the rest of the Western world. Of 
 those Sclavonic nations which belonged altogether 
 to this part of Europe, the Bohemians already pos- 
 sessed under their Charles IV. a full and rich lite- 
 rature, a more near acquaintance with which, above 
 all for historical purposes, might be very desirable. 
 From all that we know of it, this literature appears 
 to have followed the paths of history and science 
 much more than that of poetry. That the Polish 
 language, whose fitness for the purposes of poetry 
 has been much celebrated of late years, did, even 
 
LITERATURE. 53 
 
 in the early part of the middle age, possess a trea- 
 sure of national poems — is hinted by several writers, 
 and is extremely probable from the character of the 
 nation. But I myself am not in possession of the 
 means either to verify or to disprove it. Should it, 
 however, turn out that such is not the fact, and that 
 the Sclavonic languages and nations of the middle 
 age were entirely destitute of any such rich and 
 peculiar poetry as that with which the nations mak- 
 ing use of Germanic and Romanic dialects were 
 endowed, — even if this should be so, it may perhaps 
 be no difficult matter to give a very rational ac- 
 count of the phenomenon. The Sclavonics, in the 
 first place, took either no part at all, or at least a 
 very slight part indeed, in the adventures of the 
 Crusades. Secondly y The spirit of chivalry, al- 
 though not perhaps originally foreign and unknown, 
 attained at no period the same penetrating and 
 commanding power over them as over the other na- 
 tions of Europe. And lastly, it may be that the 
 peculiar theology possessed by the Sclavonics before 
 the adoption of Christianity, was less rich and pic- 
 turesque than the old Gothic system of superstitions, 
 or at least that their heathenish ideas were more 
 speedily and entirely eradicated by the prevalence 
 of the true faith. 
 
 There is no doubt that the Hungarians possessed, 
 even in times of very remote antiquity, a peculiar 
 
54 HISTORY OF 
 
 heroic poetry, in their national language. One: 
 great and favourite subject of this poetry was the 
 migration and the conquest of the country under 
 The Seven Leaders. It is evident from many pas- 
 sages in the Hungarian chronicles that even after the 
 introduction of Christianity these legends of the 
 heathenish time were not entirely forgotten. There 
 is at least every reason to think that those writers 
 have actually copied from ancient poems of that sort. 
 One such poem, indeed, a Hungarian scholar, by 
 name Revaj, has rescued from oblivion; its subject 
 is the arrival of the Madyari in Hungary. But 
 the existence of many such poems might 
 easily be gathered from the perusal of the chro- 
 nicle of the Royal Secretary, as he is called, 
 Bela — the same person who fills so considerable a 
 place both in the history and jurisprudence of his 
 country. The materials upon which this chronicler 
 wrought were, I have no doubt, historical heroic 
 ballads, which he has translated very diligently into 
 prose, and interspersed with abundance of opinions, 
 and would-be explanations from the cooler coinage 
 of his own brain. But I am far from approving 
 of the severity with which critics in history are ac- 
 customed to treat the good secretary. We should 
 value the book for the relics which it embodies, 
 sorely mutilated as they no doubt are, of the heroic 
 legends and poetry of the Madyari; and not 
 
LITERATURE. 55 
 
 look in it for what it would be absurd enough to 
 expect we should find in any such place, philoso- 
 phical inquiries into political affairs or skilful elu- 
 cidations of historical difficulties. Another theme 
 of the Hungarian poets was Attila, whom they 
 uniformly represented as a king and hero of their 
 own nation. In these chronicles we find abundant 
 proof that Attila and the Gothic heroes associated 
 with his name in the Niebelungcn-lied and the Hel- 
 denbuch, were equally celebrated in the language 
 of Hungary, and that poems upon these subjects 
 were in existence down to a period comparatively 
 near ourselves. It is probable that the destruction 
 of the whole of this ancient poetry may be referred 
 to the period of Mathias Corvin, who attempted at 
 once to change his Hungarians into Latins and 
 Italians, the natural consequence of which was to 
 bring into comparative neglect the old legends and 
 poems of the country. The fate which befel Hun- 
 gary in the fifteenth century would have befallen 
 Germany in the eighteenth, had a certain illustrious 
 monarch of that period, who, like Mathias, thought 
 foreign literature alone worthy of his attention, been 
 possessed of an influence as great and undisputed 
 over Germany, as Corvin had over Hungary. 
 Whatever of the old legends of Hungary and of 
 the monuments of its language and poetry escaped 
 the barbarism of this foreign refinement, fell entire- 
 
5(3 history or 
 
 ly to the ground during the time of the Turkish 
 invasions. The Hungarians have retained nothing 
 but their predilection for historical heroic poetry. 
 Several great masters of that art have appeared 
 among them during the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries; and now, in our own time, there has 
 arisen one more illustrious than any of these, Kis- 
 falud; who has devoted himself in his mature age 
 to the national legends of his country with the 
 same ardour and feeling which distinguished the 
 amatory poems of his youth. 
 
 I close these sketches, these remarks upon the 
 literature and language, more or less known and 
 understood, of the different European peoples, with 
 one general reflection which I have already thrown 
 out upon a previous occasion. Every independent 
 and distinct nation has, as I believe, the right to 
 possess a peculiar literature; that is,- to possess an 
 improved and cultivated national language, for 
 without that no degree of intellectual refinement 
 can become truly national and effectual, nay the 
 greatest, being embodied in a foreign vehicle, can- 
 not fail to be tinged with a certain stain of barba- 
 rism. It is indeed a very absurd way of showing 
 our partiality for our own language to desist from 
 learning any other, or even to deny the advantages 
 which some foreign languages may possess over our 
 own. Besides the ancient languages, there are se- 
 
LITERATURE. 57 
 
 veral of the modern dialects so useful in regard to 
 general cultivation, that whatever department a 
 man chooses for himself, he cannot fail to find one 
 or other of them absolutely necessary for his pur- 
 poses. The external relations of life have besides 
 rendered f he acquisition of some of them indispen- 
 sable. The use of a foreign dialect in legislation 
 and in courts of law is at all times distressing, and 
 I might even say unjust; the use of a foreign dia- 
 lect in diplomacy and in the social intercourse of 
 polished life, can never fail to produce injurious ef- 
 fects upon the vernacular language. But when the 
 custom of so using a foreign dialect has once been 
 fairly introduced, the evil is, at least for individuals, 
 an irremediable one. It then becomes the duty of 
 the whole cultivated and higher order of society to 
 come forward together, to point out by their influ- 
 ence the proper route between two extremes of en- 
 tirely neglecting and exclusively studying foreign 
 languages; to give to necessity that which she re- 
 quires, but never to forget what is due to our coun- 
 try. The care of the national language I consider 
 as at all times a sacred trust and a most important 
 privilege of the higher orders of society. Every 
 man of education should make it the object of his 
 unceasing concern, to preserve his language pure and 
 entire, to speak it so far as is in his power, in all 
 its beauty and perfection. He should be acquaint- 
 Vol. II. H 
 
58 HISTORY OF 
 
 ed generally, not superficially, not only with the 
 political history, but with the language and lite- 
 rature of his country, and so far is the study of 
 foreign languages from being hostile to all this, 
 that without such study I believe no man can ac- 
 quire the degree of perspicacity or the facility of ex- 
 pression necessary for the purposes to which I have 
 alluded. But the use of a foreign dialect in society 
 should certainly be limited to the strictest bound 
 of necessity. The obligation to watch over the 
 language should be most sacred in the eyes of those 
 who stand highest in the society; for the more 
 rank, and wealth, and consequence any individual 
 possesses, the more has the nation a right to expect 
 from this individual that he shall contribute to the 
 utmost of his power to the preservation and cultiva- 
 tion of that which is hers. A nation whose lan- 
 guage becomes rude and barbarous, must be on the 
 brink of barbarism in regard to every thing else. 
 A nation which allows her language to go to ruin, 
 is parting with the last half of her intellectual inde- 
 pendence, and testifies her willingness to cease to ex- 
 ist. The danger is no doubt great when a national 
 language is assailed on the one hand by a systematic 
 plan for its corruption, and on the other by a fool- 
 ish and affected fashion which encourages from 
 mere silliness the use of a foreign dialect. But, in 
 such matters as these, the danger ceases to be, the 
 
LITERATUEE. $g 
 
 moment we are sensible of its existence. In every- 
 thing which depends not upon the spirit of a mo- 
 ment, but the perseverence of an age, the victory 
 is always sure to be obtained by the universal and 
 calmly progressive resistance of men of sense. 
 
 From this general survey of the different nations 
 of Europe, I return to the thread of my history. 
 The great improvements and discoveries which 
 have given to the science and literature of modern 
 Europe a new form and direction, belong, properly 
 speaking, to the eighteenth century. But that in- 
 tellectual cultivation which attained its mighty de- 
 velopement in the eighteenth, received its shape 
 and form in the sixteenth century through the re- 
 formation. It was the moving spirit of that event 
 which, both in the one of these periods, and in the 
 other, determined the way in which the intellectual 
 cultivation should run, the end it should strive to 
 reach, and the limits within which it should be 
 confined. In both periods the apparent subjects of 
 dispute and tumult were matters at first sight little 
 connected either with refinement or with litera- 
 ture — for these were either politics, and the eccle- 
 siastical constitution, the being, the limits, and the 
 exertions of spiritual powers, or those mysteries of 
 religion which lie too deep even for the investiga- 
 tion of philosophers themselves. The reformation, 
 nevertheless, although these were apparently its 
 
6() HISTORY OF 
 
 objects, bad the effect of shaking and altering the 
 whole of Europe, and thus came to exert a very 
 great and multifarious, although certainly an indi- 
 rect, influence over literature and over all the ex- 
 ertions of intellect in whatever way applied. This 
 influence was in part salutary, in part hurtful. To 
 the first I refer the universal extension of the study 
 of Greek, and the other ancient languages which 
 now came to be considered as indispensable in a re- 
 ligious point of view, and which began therefore to 
 be cultivated if not more zealously at least far more 
 universally in all the Protestant countries — in Hol- 
 land, in England, and in the North of Germany. 
 The love for the ancient languages had in Germany, 
 and above all in Italy, been such even before the 
 reformation, that so far as these countries are con- 
 cerned, its influence was merely an additional cir- 
 cumstance in their favour. The contests and rival- 
 ries of the contending parties were perhaps produc- 
 tive of little effect in relation to the true objects of 
 their researches; for religion is a matter of faith 
 and feeling rather than of disputation and dialectic 
 combating. In a political point of view the effect 
 of the great ferment has been far more happy; but 
 perhaps even here the effect has been an indirect 
 rather than an immediate advantage, and that too 
 discovered, like most other advantageous conse- 
 quences of the reformation, not instantly (as its evil 
 
LITERATURE. ßj 
 
 effects were) but long after, when the agitated ele- 
 ments had had leisure to subside into a calm. The 
 effects upon the imitative arts were pernicious. I 
 do not allude to those operations of active destruc- 
 tion which took place here and there, but rather to 
 that more general evil which resulted from the 
 arts being compelled to depart from their natural 
 and original destination. The civil disturbances 
 and wars which ensued, were, in like manner, as 
 usually happens, more destructive to the arts than 
 to literature. It was probably in consequence of 
 these events, that the national painting of Ger- 
 many, which had begun to flourish with so much 
 success in the hands of Albert Durer, Lucas 
 Cranach, and Holbein, stopped before it had time 
 to reach the eminence it was fitted to attain. These 
 great men were themselves contemporaries of the re- 
 formation, but they had been educated in the time 
 before it took place, and in their art they found 
 no followers. In the Protestant Netherlands paint- 
 ing became devoted to subjects of lesser importance, 
 and so employed, in spite of the utmost perfection 
 in execution, it could never approach the superior 
 power and effect of the old painting which had 
 been devoted to religion. In general there was 
 produced a most unfortunate rupture between men 
 and their ancestors; and these, not contented with 
 laying aside the contested points of faith or eccle- 
 
62 HISTORY OP 
 
 siastical government, thought it necessary to forget 
 the whole middle age, and to despise the history, 
 the art, and the poetry, with which its recollections 
 were so in imately blended and united. The loss 
 to Germany was peculiarly unfortunate. Such a 
 break, and throwing aside of the intellectual inhe- 
 ritance of our forefathers could scarcely indeed fail 
 to be produced by a revolution so sudden and so 
 entire. But, now that all the causes of the bigotry 
 have ceased to operate with any violence, it is time 
 surely that we lay it aside, that we begin to think 
 liberally, and no longer to indulge in any contempt 
 either of the art or the refinement of the middle 
 ages. The principle, that the reformation was pro- 
 ductive of liberty of thought, is one that can 
 scarcely be defended now. The universal freedom, 
 the full emancipation of intellect at the end of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth century, does not at 
 least belong to the immediate consequences of the 
 reformation; it was produced by a great mixture of 
 causes over and above the reformation, and after all 
 there is not a little reason to doubt whether the un- 
 fettered licence it has introduced has been so salu- 
 tary and praiseworthy as we have sometimes heard. 
 The near and immediate effect of the reformation 
 upon philosophy and freedom of thinking, was one 
 of constraint. The idea of such liberality as that 
 which prevailed in Italy and Germany under the 
 
LITERATURE. 53 
 
 Medici, Leo X. and Maximilian, was a thing en- 
 tirely unknown among the zealous Protestants of 
 the sixteenth and of the first part of the seven- 
 teenth century. The establishment of such tyranny, 
 political and intellectual, as that of a Henry VIII. 
 of a Philip II. or of a Cromwell, was only rendered 
 possible by means of the reformation. He who is 
 placed at the head of a new party, and a great 
 revolution, at once religious and political, pos- 
 sesses a power so unlimited over thought and in- 
 tellect, that it is at least entirely the effect of his 
 own choice if he does not abuse it. To the defend- 
 ers of the old faith, on the contrary, under a Philip 
 II. and under several of the French kings, every 
 mean appeared allowable which could contribute to 
 check the farther diffusion of the new opinions. 
 Should any one attempt to prove the beneficial 
 tendency of the reformation by quoting instances 
 of persecution from the times preceding it — such as 
 the burning of John Huss and Jerome of Prague— 
 my answer is, that these cruel enormities were in 
 part at least the effects of political animosity, or if 
 that be not sufficient, that abundance of similar 
 horrors may be found after the reformation in the 
 history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 and that too on both sides. The first great self- 
 reflecting mind, the first writer of great and active 
 power, whom the Protestants possessed after the 
 
ß4 HISTORY OF 
 
 period of the first ftrment — Hugo Grotius him- 
 self, living in the freest country then existing, 
 could not escape imprisonment and persecution. 
 On the other hand, the dangerous abuses which 
 some had made of liberty led to narrow minded- 
 ness and oppression on the part of rulers otherwise 
 well disposed to be liberal. In Italy, in particular, 
 a speedy termination was put to the then rapidly 
 increasing progress of philosophy; insomuch that 
 a fact soon came to be doubted, which seems to mc 
 abundantly clear and evident, I mean the natural 
 capacity of that ingenious nation for the higher ex- 
 ertions of intellectual inquiry. The most distin- 
 guished philosophical talents possessed by Italy in 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, took a turn 
 so unfortunate that they have been almost entirely 
 lost to their country — their doctrines having be- 
 come adverse not only to the spirit of the Christian 
 church, but to all those principles of moral belief 
 without which there is no safety in the social in- 
 tercourse of men. In the world of intellect, as well 
 as in that of politics, the sure consequence of 
 anarchy is despotism, and oppression is again in- 
 variably the harbinger of lawlessness. So that 
 there is a perpetual flux and reflux from the one 
 of these extremes to the other, both alike danger- 
 ous, unless some third and higher influence inter- 
 venes, or the whole bond of constitution is renewed 
 
LITERATURE. ß$ 
 
 When certain panegyrists of the Reformation re- 
 present this as having been in itself alone a step 
 forward of the human mind, and of philosophy — a 
 deliverance from error and prejudice — they are just 
 taking for granted the very fact upon which we are 
 at issue. One should think also that men might 
 be rendered more cautious in the use of such expres- 
 sions, when they reflect that by the example of 
 many great nations — of Spain — of Italy — of Catho- 
 lic France during the seventeenth century — and of 
 Southern Germany even in these latest times — it 
 can be proved with little hazard of contradiction 
 that a very high, nay that the very highest degree 
 of intellectual cultivation is perfectly compatible 
 with the belief of those doctrines which the friends 
 of Protestantism decry as antiquated prejudices. 
 The admirers of the reformation should lay less 
 stress upon its consequences; for of these some 
 were, as themselves admit, altogether unhappy, 
 many remote and assisted by the co-operation of 
 other causes. Besides the effects are perhaps in no 
 case perfectly decisive as to the nature of the thing 
 itself. The bigoted Catholics, on the other hand, 
 who despise the reformation, and abhor it as alto- 
 gether irreconcileable with their own religious opi- 
 nions, should at least recollect that the later, if not 
 the more immediate effects of that mighty convul- 
 sion, have been beneficial and salutary. If we sur- 
 
 Vol. II. I 
 
66 HISTORY OF 
 
 vey the history of the world with the feeling of be- 
 lief, if we are willing to recognize in the fortunes 
 and fates of mankind the interposing hand of Pro- 
 vidence, we shall perceive the same spectacle in 
 every direction. Everywhere we shall see men 
 presented with the happiest opportunities, intreat- 
 ed as it were, to do good, to know the truth, and 
 to reach the eminence of true greatness and true 
 excellence; intreated however, not compelled; for 
 their own co-operation is necessary if they would be 
 what fits the destiny of their nature. Rarely, very 
 rarely, do men make the proper use of the means 
 they are intrusted to employ; often do they pervert 
 them to the most dangerous abuses, and sink even 
 deeper into their ancient errors. Providence is, if 
 we may so speak, ever struggling with the careless- 
 ness and the perversity of man; scarcely by our 
 own guilt and blindness have we been plunged into 
 some great and fearful evil, ere the benefactor of 
 our nature causes unexpected blessings to spring out 
 of the bosom of our merited misfortune — warnings, 
 and lessons, expressed in deeds and events, fur- 
 nishing us with ever returning admonitions to be- 
 think ourselves in earnest, and depart no more from 
 the path of truth. 
 
 With art or poetry Protestantism disclaimed, at 
 first any connection; its effects upon both were in- 
 jurious and depressing; history and grammar were, 
 
LITERATURE. 67 
 
 in consequence of the reformation, both studied 
 more accurately, and diffused more extensively; but 
 with philosophy the change of religion stood in the 
 most intimate connection. — But perhaps this may 
 be no improper place for giving a short sketch of 
 the history of philosophy, both before the reforma- 
 tion and in the first century after it — I mean, of 
 course, only in so far as philosophy exerted a real 
 influence upon the universal intellect of the time. 
 
 I have already called your attention to the most 
 remarkable of those philosophical geniuses produced 
 by England, Italy, and France, in the earlier pe- 
 riod previous to the twelfth century. Germany too 
 was fruitful in such productions, and may boast of 
 an almost uninterrupted series of them from the 
 reign of Charlemagne down to the reformation, and 
 even after that event. Upon the whole, barrenness 
 is of all reproaches the one least deserved by the 
 modern Europeans, even by those of the middle 
 age. If we must blame them, it should rather be 
 for the mixture of useless and unprofitable weeds 
 which they have allowed to spring up along with 
 their good grain, more particularly when any new 
 field has been added to the territories of science. 
 It was thus that along with the mathematical, che- 
 mical, and medical learning which they borrowed 
 from the Arabians, they admitted from the same 
 quarter the trash of Astrology and Alchemy; and 
 
gg HISTORY OF 
 
 it was thus that, with the knowledge of Aristotle, 
 whom they considered as the perfection of all merely 
 human wisdom, there grew up a whole wilderness 
 of dialectical hair-splittings and sophistical artifices, 
 of pretty nearly the same nature with those which 
 had formerly infested the Greeks. The best thing 
 in the philosophy of Aristotle is the spirit of criti- 
 cism. But to perceive or comprehend this, required 
 an enlarged and complete knowledge of antiquity, 
 such as was in those days quite impossible, and as 
 is, even in our own time, extremely rare. The 
 critical spirit of Aristotle deserted him in the re- 
 gion of metaphysics alone, because there the only 
 two guides which he followed, reason and experi- 
 ence, were incapable of leading him aright. From 
 an absurd reliance on those metaphysics, which even 
 in the works of the great master himself are unintel- 
 ligible, arose that system of philosophy which has 
 received the name of the Scholastic. The evil occa- 
 sioned by this was, however, abundantly atoned for by 
 the good effects of the study of the practical physics 
 of Aristotle, particularly after the time of Albertus 
 Magnus. That the morals of Aristotle were an 
 important acquisition to the middle ages I can 
 by no means allow; the value of that system to 
 us consists chiefly in the illustration it affords of the 
 manners, the domestic life, and the political insti- 
 tutions of the Greeks. Long before the works of 
 
LITERATURE. 59 
 
 Aristotle began to be studied, our ancestors pos- 
 sessed a system of Ethics incomparably purer and 
 better than his in the Bible; and their acquaintance 
 with him only tempted them to deform that su- 
 perior system by ingrafting upon it a great variety 
 of superfluous niceties and classifications. Of the 
 very pernicious effect which the Aristotelic system 
 is capable of producing even upon a very rtfined 
 and learned age, Spain can supply us with one very 
 striking example. In the sixteenth century, when 
 the great question of the treatment of the Ameri- 
 cans was agitated, the minds of many of her best 
 reasoners, and among others of one who, in every 
 other respect, was a very excellent man, Sapolveda, 
 were so infected with those notions of slavery so 
 prevalent among the Greek authors, that, princi- 
 pally by their means, measures were adopted in the 
 national councils equally repugnant to the princi- 
 ples of natural justice and to the express precepts 
 of Christianity. 
 
 We are not however to suppose that all the evils 
 of the scholastic system were occasioned entirely by 
 the study of Aristotle. At first the opposition of 
 the church to his doctrines was greatly enhanced on 
 account of a crowd of most dangerous doctrines and 
 opinions which began to come into fashion about 
 the same time with those properly belonging to his 
 philosophy. This much nevertheless must be ad- 
 
70 HISTORY OF 
 
 mitted, that from the history of the Arabs, no less 
 than from that of the middle ages in Europe and 
 of the sixteenth century, there is reason to believe 
 that the two notions of conceiving the Deity to be 
 a mere animating principle of the universe, and of 
 denying the personal immortality of the soul, appear 
 to be, if not necessarily, at least were generally 
 connected with a zealous adoption of Aristoteli- 
 anism. However this might have been, the im- 
 pulse of the age became in a short time irresistible, 
 and the dominion of Aristotle could no longer be 
 avoided. Christian philosophers, alike desirous 'of 
 supporting the cause of truth, and of extending the 
 limits of knowledge, then applied themselves to the 
 study of Aristotle, in the hope of at least turning 
 aside the stream which they found it was now im- 
 possible to turn back. It is no easy matter to form 
 a proper general judgment concerning these men 
 ■who, at least in so far as talents were concerned, 
 deserved the very highest estimation. The false 
 and scholastic turn of their philosophy was the na- 
 tural consequence of the ancient sophistry (be- 
 queathed as that was and too inconsiderately ac- 
 cepted), of the original defectiveness of the Aristo- 
 telic metaphysics, and the Arabian commentaries, — 
 above all, of that spirit of sect which was the ani- 
 mating principle of the age, and from which (so 
 enticing were its allurements), even they who were 
 
LITERATURE. 7 ± 
 
 most aware of its existence could seldom keep them- 
 selves entirely free. This spirit of sect and divi- 
 sion was nourished and inflamed very powerfully 
 by the universities, wherein many thousands of 
 striplings were yearly educated in the very atmos- 
 phere of contention, and taught to consider the 
 violence of disputation as the highest eminence of 
 human merit. For the best things which the phi- 
 losophers of the middle ages possessed, they were 
 indebted either to Christianity, which at all times 
 secured them from falling into the most dangerous 
 species of errors, and to the greatness of their own 
 genius and understanding. But after all, there can 
 be no greater mistake than to suppose that what 
 we commonly understand by the name of scholas- 
 tic, that is the unprofitable waste of intellect in 
 empty ideas, and unintelligible formulas, was an 
 error peculiar to the middle ages. The evil had al- 
 ready displayed itself to excess in the philosophy of 
 the Greeks, and that too in the most flourishing age 
 of its cultivation. The same thing may be said of 
 modern times; for not from Germany alone, but 
 from France and England also, there could be no 
 difficulty in producing abundance of examples — 
 very often in the persons of those very men who 
 have declaimed the most loudly against the scho- 
 lastic philosophy, and against the Stagyrite. It is 
 only requisite that we look to the essence of the 
 
72 HISTORY OF 
 
 evil, and that we do not allow ourselves to hold so- 
 phistry to be less dangerous, merely because it pre- 
 sents itself in a form of greater skill and elegance. 
 
 The prevalence of empty ideas and meaningless 
 words is a malady incident to human reason, which 
 never fails to make its appearance the moment we 
 desert the path of truth; in my opinion its most 
 pernicious influences are exerted in active life by 
 means of the distorted artifices of eloquence, and 
 not in the retired and formal exercises of the 
 schools. In every case, however, the spirit of sect 
 is its inevitable consequence. 
 
 The philosophy of the middle age may be said 
 to have been defective, chiefly because it was not 
 thoroughly Christian; because the intellect, know- 
 ledge, and ideas of mankind, were not sufficiently 
 penetrated with the spirit of our religion. In the phi- 
 losophy of the modern Europeans, which these in- 
 herited as a legacy from the ancients, there are two 
 great masters to be followed, and each is calculated 
 to lead those that put confidence in his direction into 
 a particular train of errors. On the one hand, there is 
 the defect to which I have already alluded, that 
 over-rationalism to which men are led by Aristotle 
 and the ancient dialectics. The other is the Platonic 
 and visionary system of error into which men are 
 very apt to fall, whenever thought and faith over- 
 shoot those limits which are necessary to the right 
 
LITERATURE. 73 
 
 exertion of every human faculty. From this pro- 
 ceeded the second species of philosophy common in 
 the middle age, the mystic. So long as men con- 
 fined themselves to the subjects of religious feeling 
 and conscience, there is no doubt that this philo- 
 sophy was not merely an excuseable but a very ex- 
 cellent guide. But its defectiveness was very appa- 
 rent when they attempted to apply it to matters of 
 science. Platonism, connected as it was with a host 
 of Oriental mysteries, public and concealed, gave 
 the fancy too much room for play, and in natural 
 science in particular, the adoption of its tenets was 
 almost always coupled with a belief in astrology, and 
 a leaning to the study of magic. This was above all 
 common in Germany. I may be the more easily 
 excused for saying so, since, in our own days, there 
 have occurred many symptoms of a tendency to 
 recur to these errors. As in former times pious 
 men began the histories of their lives with a prayer 
 to God, or a religious sentiment or aspiration, so it 
 has once more come in fashion to commence me- 
 moirs with a scheme of nativity, or some astrolo- 
 gical conjecture*. The speculations of natural phi- 
 losophers may certainly select, without offence, any 
 subjects which promise either knowledge or amuse- 
 ment to those that pursue them. I am not dispos- 
 
 * Schlegel alludes to the first paragraph of Goethe's Life. 
 Vol. II. K 
 
74 history or 
 
 ed to throw entire ridicule even upon the study of 
 secret influences, when it is kept in its proper 
 place. But the application of such pursuits to the 
 business of active life, and the belief that human 
 destinies can in any degree be regulated by the po- 
 sition of the stars, are absurdities which deserve to 
 be treated with something more severe than ridicule 
 itself, i he pernicious effect of a firm belief in the 
 potency of these mysterious influences, the total 
 ruin of all moral and religious principle which such 
 a belief brings along with it, has already been de- 
 picted with terrible vigour by the tragic pencil 'of 
 Schiller in his Wallenstein. Easy as is the abuse, 
 and dangerous the partaking of such things, they 
 have been dealt in by neither few nor inconsiderable 
 persons. An Albertus Magnus, a mathematician 
 of the fifteenth century, such as Nicolas of Cusa, 
 a pious bishop, such as Trithemius, the first of all 
 Orientalisis, Keuchlin himself, confessed, without 
 scruple, their hankering after the possession of se- 
 crets which can never be revealed to man. It 
 would be as unjust as foolish to deny the merits of 
 these great men, to call in question their genius, 
 their knowledge, or their piety, on account of 
 their addiction to follies which, in our own day, 
 we have seen so nearly revived. But all the dab- 
 blers in the occult sciences were not men of this 
 kind; the facility with which such pursuits could 
 
LITERATURE. 75 
 
 be associated with the most profligate schemes of 
 quackery and charlatanery is too apparent in the 
 history of the times. It may be sufficient for my 
 purpose to mention the name of Agrippa: Even 
 Paracelsus himself was not free from some such 
 errors. But Germany possessed, in these early 
 days, many mystic philosophers, who devoted them- 
 selves entirely to the feelings of religion. No mo- 
 dern language was so soon applied to the purposes 
 of the higher philosophy, and to spiritual subjects, 
 as ours. 
 
 There were, from the thirteenth century, down 
 to the time of the reformation, very many writers 
 of this kind both in High and Lower Dutch. 
 They were connected with each other, and formed 
 a sort of school, and called themselves the servants 
 of wisdom, or the heavenly Sophia, understanding 
 by this name that divine and sublime truth which 
 was the object of their ambition, and to their love 
 of which they willingly sacrificed their lives. I 
 shall, out of a great number, mention only one 
 whose works were of great importance in the for- 
 mation of our language. This is the preacher, or 
 the philosopher, Tauler, who received, long after 
 the reformation, the emulous praises both of Ca- 
 tholics and Protestants, but who has at last yielded 
 to the common destiny of oblivion. The Scholars 
 of Alsace, who, although their country has long 
 
70 HISTORY OF 
 
 been politically annexed to France, still show, by 
 the diligence and depth of their inquiries into our 
 history and our language, that they are determined, 
 by no means, to part with their character of Ger- 
 mans, have had the merit, in our own time, of re- 
 calling the public attention to this forgotten sage, 
 and the very high importance of his works, at 
 least so far as language is concerned. If we com- 
 pare his writings with those upon similar subjects, 
 composed in Luther's time, or even a century later, 
 we shall find their superiority as manifest as is that 
 of the harmonious love-poems of the thirteenth 
 century, and the Niebelungen-lied, over the rude 
 verses of the sixteenth century. In this respect 
 also the elder time was by no means the more rude, 
 but as its spirit was better, so its language also was 
 purer than that of the age which came after. 
 
 When critics reproach our nation with a ten- 
 dency to mysticism, they are probably not aware 
 how old the failing is. It would be easy to show 
 that we have been equally guilty of it ever since 
 the time of Charlemagne. But whether the re- 
 proach be really well founded, or whether that 
 which is the subject of it be not rather deserving of 
 praise than of blame, I shall not take upon me, at 
 the present time, to decide. 
 
 In the philosophy of the middle age, as in that 
 of the more modern times, the strong and distinct 
 
LITERATURE. 77 
 
 influence of national character is abundantly visible. 
 In the older, exactly as in the later times, France 
 and England were distinguished for the production 
 of great thinkers, great doubters, and great sophists. 
 The Italians were chiefly remarkable for their strict 
 adherence to the truths of our religion; but they 
 also, like the Germans, had a propensity to the 
 higher, the more spiritual, and the more mystical 
 kind of philosophy. The leaning to Platonism 
 may be traced even in their poets. In one word, 
 that philosophy of experience and reason, whose 
 greatest master among the ancients was Aristotle, 
 had the greatest number of followers during the 
 middle ages, as well as more lately, in France and 
 England. In this respect these two nations, in 
 spite of their political rivalry, coincide at bottom 
 in their views and opinions, much more closely than 
 at first sight might be imagined. A propensity to 
 the other and more Platonic species of philosophy 
 has, on the other hand, distinguished both the Ita- 
 lians and the Germans, the one the most remark- 
 able nation for love of art, and the other for depth 
 of feeling; insomuch, that widely different as they 
 are in origin, language, and manners, they have at 
 all times been connected together by a certain sym- 
 pathy and community of attachments. 
 
78 HISTOUY Ol- 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 
 ÖENERAL REMARKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE TIMES IMMEDI- 
 ATELY PRECEDING AND FOLLOWING THE REFORMATION POE- 
 TRY OF THE CATHOLIC NATIONS, THE SPANIARDS, THE PORTU- 
 GUESE, AND THE ITALIANS GARCILASO, ERCILLA, CAMOe'nS. 
 
 I'ASSO, GUARINI, MARINO, AND CERVANTES. 
 
 THE state of universal thought, and the progress 
 of philosophy, immediately before the reformation, 
 and in the first century after it, formed the last 
 subjects of our attention. The real result of our 
 inquiries may be comprised in the following general 
 remarks. 
 
 Throughout the whole of Europe, before the re- 
 storation of ancient learning and the reformation in 
 religion, that empty logical system of words, which 
 went by the name of Aristotle, was adopted almost 
 universally by the learned; and, without any excep- 
 tion whatever, by all the public seminaries of in- 
 struction. In Germany, however, and afterwards in 
 Italy, there sprung up, during the fifteenth century, 
 
LITERATURE. 79 
 
 by the side of this dead philosophy of words, another 
 and a higher species of philosophy, which coincided 
 in part with the system of Plato, and in part 
 with that of the Orientals. In particular things 
 there is no doubt that this new system led the way 
 to error; but, upon the whole, at least its prin- 
 ciples were just, and, at all events, it was both richer 
 in import and more profound in its views than the 
 other. We may see the proof of its superiority 
 even in the manner wherein it was studied, and in 
 the persons of those by whom it was adopted. The 
 seat of its sway was not in the universities and in 
 the schools, its adherents formed, properly speaking, 
 no sect; it deserved, in fact, the name of philosophy, 
 according to the oldest signification of the word, a 
 love of wisdom, sought and diffused for its own 
 sake alone, by men who felt within them the irre- 
 sistible vocation to the pursuit of truth. The 
 greatest naturalists and mathematicians, the most 
 profound masters of Greek learning, and the best 
 Orientalists of the fifteenth century, both in Ger- 
 many and Italy, belonged to the followers of this 
 new system. The renewed acquaintance with the 
 literature of Greece had, on the whole, no other 
 effect upon this mystical and more Platonic mode 
 of philosophizing, but that of affording to it new 
 materials and new nourishment out of the innume- 
 rable treasures and monuments of ancient wisdom; 
 
3Q HISTOUY OF 
 
 new means of enrichment, and new instruments of 
 bolder developement. These advantages were, in 
 some measure, counterbalanced by the simultaneous 
 introduction of many new errors, or rather the revival 
 of the forgotten dreams of new Platonism and the 
 Orientals. By the restoration of ancient literature, 
 the then prevalent species of philosophy, gained ad- 
 ditional extent of knowledge, but an influx of vi- 
 sionary opinions accompanied the change, and upon 
 the whole the power which was received was capa- 
 ble of being turned to evil as well as to good. 
 
 On the other species of philosophy, the Aris- 
 totelic, the effect was still greater. As yet this 
 system hadnever been studied or comprehended in its 
 purity, but always mingled with a variety of Platonic 
 notions, and in some measure reduced to a sort of 
 subjection to the doctrines of Christianity. But 
 now the opinions of Aristotle began to be sought 
 for in the original language, and to be viewed in 
 connection with the whole system of Grecian culti- 
 vation; and the change could not fail to be ex- 
 tremely favourable at least in regard to form. The 
 external part of the scholastic philosophy was at all 
 events removed, and that which remained learned 
 to clothe itself in a form not so entirely unworthy 
 of the classical elegance of antiquity and the criti- 
 cal acuteness of the Stagyrite. But the better and 
 the deeper that the spirit of the ancient philosophy 
 
LITERATURE. g^ 
 
 was comprehended, the rs ore frequently did it 
 happen that individual students were betrayed iiuo 
 the adoption of such consequences of their system 
 as are irreconcileable with rtligion and morality; 
 as for example, the dogma of establishing as first 
 cause, in the room of God, a mere principle of uni- 
 versal existence, and the other equally dangerous 
 one, of denying the personal immortality of the 
 soul. These errors were abundantly common among 
 the followers of Aristotle, particularly in Italy, dur- 
 ing the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The at- 
 tempts to renew some of the other systems of an- 
 cient philosophy, such as the Stoic, which were 
 made about the same time, were productive of 
 much less effect upon the general progress of phi- 
 losophy. Plato and Aristotle have so distinctly 
 marked out the two great paths of human thought 
 and science, that they have remained, and always 
 must remain, the master- guides of all succeeding 
 generations. The other systems of antiquity are 
 valuable, for the most part, only because they re- 
 semble one or other of these; they are slight devia- 
 tions and by-paths, which soon return again into 
 the main roads. It was for this reason that the 
 plans for renewing Stoicism, or any other of the 
 lesser systems, had very inconsiderable success, and 
 produced indeed very little effect of any kind, ex- 
 cept that they could not fail to stimulate thought, 
 Vol. II. L 
 
32 HISTORY OF 
 
 and increase yet more the general ferment of opi- 
 nions. Of all these systems, the worst alone, that 
 of Epicurus and of pure materialism, which traces 
 the origin of every thing to the collision of corporeal 
 atoms, began to meet with some success in the 
 seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth made 
 such progress as might entitle its adherents to say 
 that they belonged to a sect. 
 
 In common language we often hear the epoch of 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries called a resto- 
 ration or a second birth of the sciences. A restora- 
 tion it undoubtedly was, at least in respect of that 
 renewed acquaintance with Greek literature and 
 antiquity, by means of which, if the historical 
 knowledge of these matters was not indeed render- 
 ed perfect, it received at least incalculable improve- 
 ment. But I can by no means approve of calling it 
 a second birth of the human intellect and of the 
 sciences, for I should consider that name as due 
 not to such a change as amounts only to an increase 
 of wealth, and is produced by any external circum- 
 stances, but to one which consists of an awakening 
 out of previous death, and breaks out from the 
 roused energies of internal life. Such an inward, 
 a living, and a total change upon philosophy as 
 this, was not even produced by the reformation; 
 for after it, as before, the Aristotelic and Platonic 
 systems still continued to be the two main divisions 
 
LITERATURE. 83 
 
 of all science. Yet the reformation exerted a 
 mighty influence upon the future progress, the de- 
 velopement, and the extension of both systems. 
 With those Platonic-Oriental doctrines which were 
 before him, and during his lifetime, so prevalent in 
 Germany, the acquaintance of Luther himself seems 
 to have been extremely slight; such as it was, 
 it helped him to a more cordial hatred of the scho- 
 lastic svstem and of Aristotle, of whom he used to 
 speak with great contempt as " a dead heathen." 
 Nevertheless the best friend and follower of 
 Luther, Melancthon, was of a very different 
 way of thinking; it was indeed chiefly by his 
 means that the authority of the improved scho- 
 lastic system, and of Aristotle, was re-establish- 
 ed in its supremacy. The cause of this was 
 as follows; that higher and more spiritual philo- 
 sophy which, wherever it loses sight of truth, is 
 the most effectual means of introducing all sorts of 
 visionary error, had this effect to a very remarkable 
 extent in Germany during the anarchical times of 
 the reformation. An universal mistrust of it was 
 the consequence. The Aristotelic philosophy re- 
 gained its predominent influence over both parties, 
 in Spain as well as in Germany, for this ancient 
 system of forms, the less spirit it had, the more 
 easily was it bent and accommodated to the pur- 
 poses of either sect, and the dogmas of either 
 
g4 HISTORY or 
 
 creed. Although, however, this system was now 
 united with a somewhat superior knowledge of na- 
 ture, and with better skill in language and antiquity, 
 the evils of which it had formerly been productive 
 still adhered to it; it continued to be, after all, a 
 logical word-system, and near at hand as its extinc- 
 tion appeared to be even during the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, the effects of this favourable moment were now 
 sufficient to secure the protraction of its existence 
 in every cultivated country of Europe down to the 
 end of the seventeenth century. In Italy the 
 bolder species of philosophy, which there assumed, 
 it must be allowed, the appearance of the most dan- 
 gerous and violent opposition, was now oppressed, 
 and many most distinguished talents fell a sacrifice 
 to the struggle which ensued. In Germany and 
 England the higher philosophy was not, it is true, 
 altogether oppressed, but it certainly was dis- 
 couraged, and even persecuted, and became, at all 
 events, entirely excluded from the sphere of the 
 learned. With so much the greater zeal was it 
 cultivated by individuals of the lower orders of so- 
 ciety, and extended in other quarters by the mi- 
 nistration of secret associations. In either of these 
 ways it could not fail to be corrupted, and degraded, 
 and kept back from that universal developcment, 
 and effectual influence to which it might otherwise 
 have attained. It is true, indeed, that the gifts of 
 
LITERATURE. 35 
 
 nature and God are open to all; the spirit of deep 
 reflection, and of the highest science, is by no 
 means confined to the polished classes of society, 
 and is a thing entirely unconnected with what is 
 called erudition. Many of the most distinguished 
 of the Greek philosophers were men of little erudi- 
 tion, and destitute of any advantage over other 
 men than what they gained by their power of 
 thought; the wisest of them all, Socrates, was no 
 scholar, and never wished to become one. The first 
 preachers of Christianity were men taken from the 
 vulgar of the people, and yet we see that they have 
 no fear to treat subjects of the most mysterious 
 depth in a manner the most easy and natural. Of 
 such men there has been, through all ages, a suc- 
 cessive series. There often lies, in the strong and 
 undissipated spirit of the people, an astonishing 
 energy both of moral and of intellectual strength. 
 The founders of sects and of states, the avengers 
 of their country, and the revivers of religion, have 
 often been men of the vulgar, called and animated 
 to their great works by the voice of internal inspi- 
 ration. The greatest benefits have been conferred 
 upon mankind not by writings but by active deeds. 
 If we look to the spirit of invention, and the gift 
 of language, and compare philosophy with poetry, 
 we shall find that even in these respects genius is 
 by no means the privileged possession of the learn- 
 
36 HISTORY OF 
 
 ed. We know that it has been possible for a 
 Shakspeare, a man whose learning seems to have 
 been chiefly confined to popular poetry, to reach 
 a height and depth of representation which the 
 most skilful and erudite poets have in vain endea- 
 voured to attain; I see no reason why it should ap- 
 pear to us a thing more marvellous that a man of 
 the people in Germany should have penetrated into 
 those depths of metaphysical inquiry, and excited 
 an inventive genius on those secret departments of 
 philosophy, which were entirely out of the reach of 
 the erudite doctors of the time; need I add the 
 name of Jacob Böhme, the Teutonic philosopher 
 as he has been called, a name which is to the en- 
 lightened a stumbling block, and to the learned 
 foolishness; a man who, in spite of all his disadvan- 
 tages, had many followers, not in Germany alone, 
 but even in other countries, also in Holland and 
 England — among others in this last country the 
 too celebrated and unfortunate King Charles. I 
 have already, more than once, expressed my con- 
 viction that the very existence of a poetry of the 
 vulgar is in itself a sufficient evidence of the de- 
 cline and corruption of true poetry; for that is a 
 possession which should not belong peculiarly either 
 to the common people or to the learned, but equally 
 to all the members of which the national body is 
 composed. If a popular poetry cannot escape be- 
 
LTTF.TtATURE. 87 
 
 traying some symptoms of this unnatural state, 
 some traces of the corruption and barbarism which 
 are inseparable from this» unfortunate separation; 
 how much more must all this be the case with a 
 popular philosophy — a term which seems to involve 
 in it the very necessity of a contradiction? How- 
 ever much the genius of individuals may triumph 
 over the circumstances of their situation, it is im- 
 possible that philosophy can ever acquire, in their 
 hands, the place which is due to her. This is not 
 the time to depict and explain more fully the 
 very remarkable system of this Teutonic philo- 
 sophy. This much however I may remark, that, 
 although it bears very distinctly the traces of hav- 
 ing been the creation of one inventive spirit, it is 
 by no means destitute of points of coincidence with 
 those other forms of secret philosophy, the influence 
 of which was at that time ever on the increase. 
 Nor is it at all astonishing that this should have 
 been so, for at that period the unconquerable thirst 
 after truth was every where seeking for itself new 
 and more mysterious paths — and removed as far as 
 possible from the old tracts of verbal science and 
 erudition; paths which led to fountains of sublime 
 discovery, of lofty conception, but, we must also 
 admit, not unfrequently, of wild dreams and un- 
 profitable error. After the at once visible and in- 
 visible bond of the church was dissolved in certain 
 
g3 HISTORY OF 
 
 countries of Europe, another altogether invisible 
 system of connection began to occupy its place. 
 There are degrees in the knowledge of truth, there 
 are higher and lower steps; the higher are scarcely 
 ever attainable to the yet struggling nature of man. 
 I will confess that, according to the opinion of 
 Lessing, there are, among the component parts of 
 human knowledge, some which are in their very 
 nature secret; that is, which are of such a sort 
 that even such as have them in their possession can 
 never find resolution to reveal them. The publica- 
 tion appears always ill timed; and, moreover, the 
 means of publication are almost perpetually wanting. 
 The existence of such difficulties as these is proved 
 by history to have been common to every age of the 
 world; it is as impossible to prevent such species 
 of knowledge as those of which I speak from being 
 propagated in secret, as it is to render them com- 
 mon to all the world. However much of truth the 
 secret system may contain, the opposition between 
 it, and the open structure of truth, is at all times 
 unfortunate. Even the separation in the visible 
 church at the era of the reformation, cinnot fail to 
 be considered, by all good men, as a great misfor- 
 tune, for it was a rup'ure in the family of the 
 Christian people, and, as it were, a tearing asunder 
 of the great body of our species. The existence of 
 an invisible church, in opposition to the visible, 
 
LITERATURE. 39 
 
 must have at that time appeared a yet more alarm- 
 ing occurrence; it must have been viewed as a sort 
 of separation between soul and body, a sure mark 
 of dissolution. But the evil effects which might 
 have been expected have not been realized, the soul 
 and body of mankind are not yet separated, and 
 the unity of truth still remains. He who despises 
 the rock upon which truth stands, will never be 
 able to reach the place of her temple. 
 
 That spiritual, Platonic, and Oriental mode of 
 philosophizing which had been openly adopted by 
 the great men of Italy and Germany in the fif- 
 teenth century, was, after the reformation, in the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, either altogether 
 suppressed, or left to the vulgar and to individual 
 visionaries, or propagated in secret, and with great 
 alterations and corruptions. Among the learned 
 men, the old logical word system, which went so 
 absurdly by the name of Aristotle, retained its un- 
 disputed sway, till almost two hundred years later; 
 towards the end of the seventeenth century, it be- 
 gan to be pressed out of view by new sects and 
 systems, the consideration of whose merits must 
 belong to an after period, for their operation has 
 continued down to our own day, and their full de- 
 velopement was the work of the eighteenth century. 
 
 As the different nations of Europe became now 
 again more separated from each other, a correspon d. 
 
 Vol. II. M 
 
90 HISTORY OF 
 
 ing and equally unfortunate division took place 
 among the different sciences and studies. The 
 events of the period were hurtful, above all, to the 
 study of antiquity, and prevented it from bearing 
 any right fruit, or having any active influence upon 
 life. The first great restorers of erudition were 
 philosophers, men whose knowledge of the middle 
 ages and of their own time, was equal to their 
 knowledge of antiquity, who united Oriental learn- 
 ing with that of the Greeks and the Romans. They 
 viewed every thing in its proper place; they took a 
 comprehensive survey of things, and judged of them 
 by their relation to the history of the world, and by 
 the real powers which they possessed. But after 
 the miserable period of separation, when philosophy 
 was persecuted, suppressed, or corrupted, and the 
 middle age forgotten, the attention of the learned, 
 who had no longer almost any connection with their 
 own world or nation, was entirely restricted to the 
 antiquity of the Greeks and Romans, which they 
 admired without having any proper feeling for the 
 true beauties of its productions. Among poets and 
 artists alone did any lively perception of this exist: 
 the learned, who scarcely ever united any philosophy 
 with their classical erudition, were satisfied with a 
 mere superstitious worship of the languages. The 
 true and enlightened knowledge of the spirit of 
 antiquity did not appear till the eighteenth century. 
 
LITERATURE. gj 
 
 Even in regard to art and poetry, we must al- 
 ways regard it as unlucky that they should spring 
 up without any connection with philosophy, — that 
 the cultivation of the imagination should be sepa- 
 rated from that of the understanding, and that the 
 former of these should not unfrequently be placed 
 in exact opposition to the latter. In these stormy 
 days, however, in the ferment and revolutions of 
 which philosophy and history were so much in- 
 volved, art and poetry, it must be allowed, formed 
 almost the sole asylum wherein feeling and intellect 
 had leisure to unfold themselves in the natural calm- 
 ness of their beauty. 
 
 The poetry of the Catholic countries, the Spa- 
 nish, the Italian, and the Portuguese, were in that 
 age so much parts of one whole, that I think they 
 should all be considered together. The Spaniards, 
 as we have already seen, possessed very early their 
 national poem of the Cid: their love poetry conti- 
 nued to flourish in the fifteenth century, later than 
 that of any other nation. The general spirit of 
 chivalry, and of the poetry connected with it, was 
 preserved here much longer than in any other coun- 
 try of Europe. Their Chivalric Romances have a 
 tone of feeling almost peculiar to themselves, and 
 are distinguished, (above all the oldest and best of 
 them, the Amadis), by a more polished and beauti- 
 ful mode of writing than is elsewhere to be found, 
 
92 HISTORY OF 
 
 and by a prevailing fondness for tender and idyllic 
 representations. Here too then, in the poetry of 
 chivalry, and particularly in that of the Spaniards 
 and the Germans, we find new confirmation of what 
 I noticed in an early part of these lectures — the par- 
 tiality of all heroic nations and warlike peoples to 
 that which is soft and tender in poetical composition. 
 Along with the Chivalric Romances, there grew up 
 among the Spaniards and Portuguese, the kindred 
 species of the Pastoral Romance. The poetry of 
 Spain, particularly her love poetry, was cultivated 
 with great success in the fifteenth century, by two 
 men, whose birth, rank, and influence, were of the 
 first order — Villena and Santillana. In general, 
 ever since its first commencement the poetry of 
 Spain has always been more cultivated by nobles 
 and knights than by mere literati and authors. I 
 know of no nation which numbers among its poets 
 so many that have borne arms in the cause of their 
 country. That poetry which we call Spanish should 
 rather, in its oldest period, be denominated Casti- 
 lian; for at first it was peculiar to that province 
 alone; and many other countries of the Spanish 
 peninsula cultivated poetry in a manner of their 
 own quite different from that of the Castilians. 
 In Catalonia there flourished a species of poetry, 
 which, in respect to language, bore the greatest re- 
 semblance to the Provencial. The last and most 
 
LITERATURE. 93 
 
 celebrated of its productions was consecrated to the 
 melancholy fate of Charles of Viane, the last of the 
 royal family who seems to have been beloved by the 
 Catalonians as their native Prince, and the elder 
 brother, by the first marriage, of that Ferdinand 
 who afterwards ruled over Castile also under the 
 name of The Catholic, and came on this account to 
 be regarded somewhat as a stranger by the inhabit- 
 ants of Arragon. That province was from this 
 time more and more subjected and despised; and 
 the peculiar poetry shared the fate of the independ- 
 ence of the country where it had flourished; by de- 
 grees, as the whole political importance came to 
 centre in Castile, so also were all those ornaments 
 of poetry swallowed up in the Castilian poetry, 
 which had before been scattered throughout the dif- 
 ferent provinces of that poetical land. Of all the 
 inhabitants of the beautiful Peninsula, the Portu- 
 guese alone, as they continued to be a peculiar na- 
 tion, preserved a peculiar language and poetry of 
 their own; yet their old strictness of connection 
 with Castile was still preserved; many Portuguese 
 composed in the Castilian dialect, and much of what 
 commonly passes for Castilian is, in reality, by ori- 
 gin Portuguese. The poetry of the two nations is 
 indeed so intimately connected, that it is far from 
 easy to adjust their respective claims to the merit 
 of invention. The Arabs contributed much to en- 
 
94 HISTORY OF 
 
 rich and adorn the poetry of the country which they 
 invaded. It is true, the Old Castilian poems are 
 quite free from any such Arabian influence or Ori- 
 ental tone; they are, on the contrary, distinguished 
 by a strength and simplicity both of language and 
 of feeling, which bear the sure marks of a very dif- 
 ferent origin. The more distict is the absence of 
 all Arabic ornament in the old Castilian poetry, 
 the more clearly do we perceive its presence in the 
 new. The separation occasioned by differences of 
 religion and perpetual hostilities, may sufficiently 
 account for the want of Arabian ornaments in the 
 poetry of the remoter period. But when Isabella 
 and Ferdinand the Catholic (I name Isabella first, 
 because the generous principle was peculiarly hers), 
 — when they with their knights conquered Granada, 
 and after seven long centuries rendered Spain once 
 more entirely free from the foreign yoke; during 
 that last war between Moors and Spaniards, the fall 
 of the Arabic kingdom of Granada was hastened 
 by internal dissensions and the discord of its nobles. 
 At the head of two contending parties were placed the 
 two great families of the Bencerrajas and the Zegris. 
 The first embraced Christianity, and became Spa- 
 niards; the second retreated, after the final conquest 
 of the capital, to Africa. There yet exist many 
 romances which celebrate the fame and achieve- 
 ments of the Bencerrajas, their bloody feuds with 
 
LITERATURE. 95 
 
 the Zegris, and the last struggles of the Granadian 
 Arabs. Proud songs of the most glowing love, 
 and the wildest passion for glory; mutilated heroic 
 fragments of the most tender feeling; simple in 
 their language, but yet by no means devoid of the 
 Eastern fire; these Granadian productions, conse- 
 crated to the glory of particular families and tribes, 
 are in their tone and import entirely Saracen, and 
 resemble in most things, so far as we can judge, the 
 original poetry of the Arabian people. Here in 
 these romances the most beautiful, according to my 
 judgment, possessed either by the Spanish or by 
 any other modern people, the Arabian spirit and 
 Oriental colouring can no longer be mistaken; they 
 have tinged with their own hue the whole of the 
 succeeding poetry of Spain. The garden of Spa- 
 nish poetry, its old Castilian soil being planted 
 with the flowers of Portuguese invention and Pro- 
 vencial elegance, and now also cherished by the 
 bright glow of Arabic ardour, became every day 
 more beautiful and rich. Under Charles V. who 
 crowned Ariosto as the first poet of Italy, the more 
 artificial poetry of the Italians was introduced into 
 Spain by Garcilaso and Boscan, who retained, how- 
 ever, a due regard for the nature of the old language 
 and poetry, and were far from wishing to sacrifice 
 these to their admiration for their foreign models. 
 To these the whole nation was so much attached, 
 
96 HISTORY OF 
 
 that the introduction of the Italian style met at 
 first with great opposi'ion, although afterwards it 
 came to produce very favourable effects. No other 
 poetry is composed of so many different elements 
 as the Spanish; but these elements were neither 
 unlike nor irreconcileable; they were all different 
 tones of fancy and feeling whose union formed the 
 perfection of harmony, and has left the Spanish 
 poetry the matchless wonder of romantic writing. 
 This poetry is not only rich; it is by itself borh in 
 its import and spirit, and in every respect is in per- 
 fect unison with the character and feeling of the 
 nation. 
 
 Ever since that glorious period under Ferdinand 
 the Catholic and Charles V., no literature Ins pre- 
 served a character of such pure nationality as that 
 of the Spaniards. If we consider the works of lite- 
 rature by the principles of any universal theory of 
 art, there is no end to the controversy which may 
 arise with regard to the merits and defects either of 
 an individual book, or of a whole body of literature; 
 the great danger is, that we may perhaps, in the 
 course of our controversies, lose sight altogether of 
 our own feelings, and forget the first pure impres- 
 sion which was made upon us. But there is ano- 
 ther point from which literature can be much more 
 easily contemplated, and much more securely judged; 
 I mean the moral point of view which commands 
 
LTTF.RATUHE. gy 
 
 every thing, from which a'one we can discover 
 whether a literature be throughout national, and in 
 harmony with the national weal and the national 
 spirit. If we adopt this mode of deciding, every 
 thing, I have little doubt, will be found in favour 
 of the Spaniards. We may look at the literature 
 of Italy; and, so far as form and style are concerned, 
 we mav have no difficulty in allowing its superiority 
 over the Spanish; but if we regard national spirit 
 and influence, how clear and decided is its inferiority. 
 Some of the first Italian poets seem to have been 
 destitute of all regard for their country, devoid of 
 the least spark of national feeling; — such were Boc- 
 caccio, Ariosto, Guarini. In others, as, for instance, 
 in Petrarch, we can perceive indeed some faint echo 
 of national feeling, but this almost always ill di- 
 rected and absurd, as in his case, the admiration of 
 Ritnzi, and the plans for re-establishing the Roman 
 republic, render it abundantly manifest. The two 
 most national of the great Italian writers are Dante 
 and Machiavelli; but the first is far less a patriot than 
 a Ghibelline, and the second has spent his whole 
 genius in defending opinions and principles, the 
 adoption of which strikes at the root of every thing 
 like public virtue. 
 
 In this point of view the literature and poetry 
 of Spain are most admirable. Every part of them 
 is penetrated with the noblest natural feeling; 
 Vol. II. N 
 
93 HISTORY OF 
 
 strong, moral, and deeply religious, even where 
 the immediate subject of writing is neither morali- 
 ty nor religion. There is nothing which can de- 
 grade thought, corrupt feeling, or estrange virtue. 
 Every where there breathes the same spirit of ho- 
 nour, principle and faith. I have already alluded 
 to the great number of excellent historical writers, 
 and to the early developed and long preserved man- 
 ly eloquence of Spain. Their poets are, in like 
 manner, true Spaniards. We may almost say that 
 the only differences among them are those of lan- 
 guage and expression; the mode of thinking which 
 prevails among all these writers is one and the 
 same, the Spanish. This high national value has 
 but too often been overlooked by critics; the works 
 of the Spaniards have been absurdly judged by 
 the rules of the ancients or of the Italians — or 
 what is still worse, by the narrow decisions of the 
 French taste. In regard to national value, of all 
 modern literatures, the first place belongs to the 
 Spanish, the second to the English. I do not 
 mean to say that the latter of these is inferior in 
 any degree to the former; but it has had to con- 
 tend with a greater variety of anti-national ele- 
 ments, and it has gone through a greater number of 
 changes and temporary declensions from the right 
 path. The national unity of the English literature 
 has been preserved in spite of all these obstacles, 
 
LITERATURE. gg 
 
 but rather as if in consequence of some tacit law, 
 than as if from the mere feeling and tendency of its 
 character. I am far from asserting that this is the 
 only point of view from which literature ought 
 to be surveyed. I shall have occasion in the sequel 
 to show that many literatures derive the greater 
 part of their interest from elements of a very dif- 
 ferent description. 
 
 Garcilaso, and some other poets of the time of 
 Charles V., are usually held up by the Spanish 
 critics as models of beautiful language and perfect 
 taste. There is no doubt that they are models of 
 composition worthy of great attention; above all, 
 when we compare them with the artificial and cor- 
 rupted style of the poets who succeeded them. 
 But I can never believe that either Garcilaso, or 
 any one of his contemporaries, has reached the 
 same point of perfection in poetical language which 
 Virgil did among the Romans, or Racine among 
 the French. Their poems are rather happy effu- 
 sions of the feeling of love, than great classical 
 works. A lyrical and idyllic poet may show the 
 happy condition of language and poetry in his 
 country, but he can never bring either to their full 
 perfection; for lyrical poems are of too narrow li- 
 mits and too confined import for this. It is only 
 an epic or a dramatic poet who can ever become an 
 universal and abiding standard for the art and Ian- 
 
]QQ HISTORY OF 
 
 guage of his nation. The life of the Spanish 
 people was then so hivalric and rich, their wars in 
 Europe so great and glorious, and their adventures 
 on the sea and in the New World so wonderful and 
 so gratifying to the imagination, that the invented 
 marvellous of the old romances appeared dull and 
 common-place when contrasted with these realities. 
 About this time, in other countries, the fashion 
 commenced of turning he subjects of the old chi- 
 valric romances into epic poems. In Spain things 
 took a different turn, and poetry became daily more 
 and more historical in its themes. Such at least is 
 the case with the most celebrated epic of the Spa- 
 niards, the Araucana of Ercilla — wherein the 
 wars of the Spanish adventurers, with a free and 
 brave American nation, are celebrated or narrated. 
 The appearance of the foreign country, and its 
 savage inhabitants, wildernesses, and natural curio- 
 sities, campaigns and combats, all are depicted with 
 such truth and vivacity, that we are kept for ever 
 in mind that the poet was an eye-witness of all that 
 he describes. This first of Spanish epics abounds 
 in individual passages of great poetical power and 
 beauty; but as a whole, it is certainly rather a ver- 
 sified bonk of travels and history of war, than a 
 poem. The heroic poem should at all times unite 
 historical truth and dignity with the free play of 
 fancy in the regions of the marvellous; it matters 
 
LITERATURE. 1QJ 
 
 little whether the ground- work be historical or fic- 
 titious. In my opinion the first of all the national 
 heroic poems which the Spaniards possess is unques- 
 tionably the Cid. The Portuguese poet Camoens 
 was in these respects far more fortunate than Er- 
 cilla. As the wilderness of America then be- 
 longed to Spain, so the riches of India fell to the 
 share of his nation; a circumstance infinitely more 
 happy for the purposes of the poet. In him, too, 
 we feel that the poet was also a warrior, a mariner, 
 an adventurer, and a circumnavigator. He begins, 
 indeed, with the most violent praise of truth, and 
 boasts that he intends to beat Ariosto by means of 
 real incidents, far surpassing in splendour or mar- 
 vellousness the fictitious achievements of Orlando 
 and Ruggiero. At its commencement his poem 
 is written in strict imitation of the Virgilian 
 model, a constant adherence to which was indeed 
 the chief fault of all the epic poets of that age. 
 But Camoens, like his own Gama, soon leaves the 
 servile coast- sailing of his predecessors, ventures 
 into the wide expanse of ocean, and makes his 
 triumphant progress through rich and undiscovered 
 lands. As the mariner in the midst of the troubles 
 and tempests of the sea, perceives, by the spicy 
 gales, that he is approaching to his Indian haven, so 
 over the latter cantos of the Lusiad there is diffused 
 
102 HISTORY OF 
 
 the rich air and resplendent sun of the Oriental 
 skies. The language is indeed simple, and the 
 purpose serious; nevertheless, in colouring and ful- 
 ness of fancy, Camoens here surpasses even Ariosto, 
 whose garland he so venturously aspired to tear 
 away. But Camoens does not confine himself to 
 Gama and the discovery of India, or even to the 
 sway and achievements of the Portuguese of his 
 day; whatever of chivalrous, great, beautiful, or 
 noble, could be gathered from the traditions of his 
 country has been invveaved and embodied into the 
 web of his poem. It embraces the whole poetry, of 
 his nation; among all the heroic poets either of 
 ancient or of modern times there has never, since 
 Homer, been any one so intensely national, or so 
 loved and honoured by his countrymen as Camoens. 
 It seems as if the national feelings of the Portu- 
 guese, excluded from every other subject of medita- 
 tion by the degraded condition of their empire, 
 had centered and reposed themselves in the person 
 of this poet, considered by them, and worthy of 
 being considered by us, as worthy of supplying the 
 place of a whole troop of poets, and as being in 
 himself a complete literature to his country. The 
 most interesting parts of the poem, are those pas- 
 sages at the beginning and the close; wherein Ca- 
 moens addresses himself to the young monarch Se- 
 
LITERATURE. JQ3 
 
 bastian, the same who was destined to involve in 
 the miseries of his destinies the whole fortunes 
 of his people, with love and animating admi- 
 ration, and yet with some portion of seriousness 
 and warning, as it might be the privilege of a 
 grey haired veteran, such as he was, to address his 
 King. 
 
 Somewhat later than Camoens appeared Tasso, 
 a poet nearer to ourselves by his language, and, in 
 part also, by his subject, which, by the way, is 
 chosen with the utmost possible felicity; for the 
 Crusades unite, in a manner elsewhere unequalled, 
 the whole fulness of the chivalrous and the marvel- 
 lous, with the seriousness of historical truth. His 
 subject was still more adapted for his own time 
 than it is for ours; for the old contest between 
 Christendom and the powers of Mahomet had not 
 yet terminated. Even in the days of Charles V. 
 the heroes and warriors of Spain still flattered 
 themselves with the hope of regaining the lost con- 
 quests of Godfrey in the Holy Land; a thing 
 which, after all, might well have seemed quite 
 possible, after the naval power of Spain had ac- 
 quired the undisputed superiority in the Mediter- 
 ranean, and particularly after limits had fairly been 
 set to the tremendous power of the Turkish Em- 
 peror by land. An inspiration not only poetical 
 but patriotic was derived from the cause of Chris- 
 
104 HISTORY OF 
 
 tendom by this poet, in whom love of glory, and 
 piety of feeling, were equally predominant. But 
 he has by no means equalled the greatness of his 
 subject; on the contrary, he has made so little use 
 of its riches, that he may be said to have spent 
 only the superfluities of its treasure. He, too, was 
 in some degree, confined by the Virgilian form, 
 from which he has borrowed, with no great success, 
 a few pieces of what is commonly called the epic 
 machinery. Yet Camoens was not prevented by 
 the same sort of belief in regard to the proper form 
 of an epic, from interweaving into his poem every 
 thing that could adorn a national heroic poem, and 
 from doing entire justice to the materials of which 
 he had made choice. But in truth, even had his 
 ideas of epic art been more just, I doubt whether 
 Tasso could ever have attained the same success. 
 He belongs, upon the whole, rather to the class of 
 poets who represent themselves and their own ex- 
 quisite feelings, than of those who can create in 
 their strength of imagination another world, and 
 lose individual feelings in the luxury of their own 
 inventions. The most beautiful parts of his poem 
 are episodes which might have been introduced with 
 equal proprifty into any other epic, and have no 
 strict connection with the subject of the Jerusalem. 
 The magic of Armida, the beauty of Clorinda, 
 and the love of Erminia, — these passages, and such 
 
LITERATURE. JQ5 
 
 as these, are the things that bind us to Tasso; forms 
 of which our German poet has made Tasso himself 
 to say: 
 
 They are not shadows that produce a dream, 
 I know they are eternal, for they are.* 
 
 In Tasso's lyrical poems there is a glow of pas- 
 sion, and an inspiration of unfortunate love, which 
 delight us even more than the little pastoral of 
 Aminta, although that too is throughout impreg- 
 nated with the feeling of love. We feel in these 
 poems what the true fountain of love-poetry is, 
 and cannot help contrasting them in a very favour- 
 able manner with the artificial and cold sonnets of 
 the school of Petrarch. Tasso is altogether a poet 
 of feeling; and as Ariossto is throughout a painter, 
 so over the language and versification of Tasso there 
 is poured forth the whole charm of music; a circum- 
 stance which has, without doubt, greatly contributed 
 to render him the favourite poet of the Italians. His 
 popularity exceeds very much that of Ariosto. Indi- 
 vidual parts and episodes of his poem are frequently 
 sung in the Gondolas of the Arno and the Po; 
 and the Italians having no romantic ballads like 
 those of the Spaniards, have, by cutting down the 
 
 * Goethe. 
 Vol. II. O 
 
TQß HISTORY OF 
 
 Jerusalem into fragments, supplied themselves with 
 a body of ballads by full more harmonious, grace- 
 ful, noble, and poetical, than was ever possessed by 
 any other people. Perhaps this mode of dividing 
 their great poem was the best both for the enjoy- 
 ment and the feeling of it, for there is in truth 
 very little to be lost by throwing aside the connec- 
 tion of the poem as a whole. How little satisfied 
 Tasso himself was with his own epical art, is suffi- 
 ciently evident from the many changes and re- 
 modellings (for the most part unfortunate ones) 
 which his great poem underwent. The first of his 
 attempts was a mere romance of chivalry; after- 
 wards in the decline of life, he entirely recast the 
 whole of the Jerusalem upon which his fame is 
 founded, sacrificing to the morose morality which 
 he had adopted, all the most delightful passages in 
 the poem, and introducing, throughout the whole 
 work, a cold and destructive allegory, little calcu- 
 lated to make up for what he had taken away. He 
 also attempted a Christian epic on the subject of 
 the Creation. But even with poetical powers, 
 much more powerful than his, how could it have 
 been possible to extend a few mysterious words of 
 Moses into as many cantos with any portion of suc- 
 cess? In speaking of Dante I have already said 
 something on the poetical treatment of such sub- 
 jects, and I mention this poem of Tasso here chiefly 
 
LITERATURE. jq~ 
 
 eca u se it was this in particular which Milton had 
 before his eyes. In his poem of the Creation, Tasso 
 laid aside the use of rhyme, although that forms in 
 truth the greatest charm of many of his produc- 
 tions, and although no poet ever possessed the same 
 command over the instrument which he did; so 
 severe a critic was Tasso of his own poems. I do 
 not however think that we should judge equally 
 hardly of him; he certainly does indulge in a few 
 plays of thought, or concetti, as they are called, 
 but he has beauties sufficient to atone for more than 
 all his defects. What sort of an idea of poetry can 
 remain to us, if we take from it the liberty to be 
 a play of fancy? If we are determined to weigh 
 and balance every thought so strictly, there is no 
 question that nothing will remain with us but the 
 sobriety of prose. Even in prose, if we analyze it 
 with sufficient accuracy, we shall easily discover, in 
 the works of the best writers, images, here and 
 there, which are not perfectly just. Many of the 
 fanciful thoughts of Tasso are not only full of 
 meaning, but beautiful as images. A poet of feel- 
 ing and of love may well be pardoned such trifling 
 errors; faults of the same kind may be found even 
 in these amatory poems of the ancients, which are 
 usually held up by modern critics like the head of 
 the Gorgon, a terrible image of classica strength and 
 
l()g HISTORY OF 
 
 pivitv, in opposition to the extravagant fancy of the 
 romantic poets. 
 
 If we regard Tasso merely as a musical poet of 
 feeling, it forms in truth no proper subjeet of re- 
 proach, that he is in a certain sense uniform, and 
 throughout sentimental. Uniformity of this, sort 
 seems to be inseparable from that poetry which is 
 in its nature lyrical; and I confess it seems to me 
 even a beauty in Tasso, that he has spread this soft 
 breath of elegy even over the representation of the 
 charms of sense. But an epic poet must be richer 
 in every thing; he must be multiform; he must 
 embrace a whole wond of circumstances, the spirit 
 of the past and of the present, of his nation and of 
 nature; he must have command, not over one chord 
 alone, but be master of the whole complicated in- 
 strument of feeling. In this sort of poetical wealth 
 Camoens is far the superior of Tasso; in his epic 
 poem there are even many passages of tender feel- 
 ing and of love, which may sustain a comparison 
 with the most beautiful parts of Tasso. In him 
 too, amidst all the splendour and charm of his 
 southern imagination, there breaks through at times 
 a tone of delightful lamentation and sorrow; and 
 he is entitled to the name of a romantic poet, even 
 had he no other claim, because he is entirely pene- 
 trated with the glow and inspiration of love. But 
 
LITERATURE. lf)Q 
 
 he unites the picturesque fulness of Ariosto with the 
 musical magic of Tasso; and what is far more im- 
 portant, he connects both of these with the serious 
 dignity of the true heroic poet — an attribute which 
 Tasso rather wished for than possessed. 
 
 After what I have said, you will easily perceive 
 that I make no secret of preferring Camoens to 
 either of the other great Catholic epic poets, Arios- 
 to and Tasso. I am, however, willing to confess 
 that such judgments as these are at all times pro- 
 duced more or less by personal feeling, for of all 
 those component parts which make up the excel- 
 lence of a poet, a few only can be subjected to the 
 decision of general principles, while far more is left 
 to be approved or disapproved of, according as it 
 may happen to suit the fancy or feeling of the in- 
 dividual. There is a well known anecdote of Tasso, 
 which I cannot help wishing to recal to your recol- 
 lection. It is said that when he was asked which of 
 the Italian poets was, in his opinion, the greatest, 
 he replied, not without considerable emotion, that 
 Ariosto was the second. The self-love of a poet 
 makes him set too exclusive a value on those qua- 
 lities which he himself possesses. A lover of 
 poetry is apt to be prejudiced in the same way in 
 favour of those which he is himself most capable of 
 feeling. 
 
 I believe that in Tasso the poetical language of 
 
I IQ HISTORY OP 
 
 Italy appeared with as much of the noble and grace- 
 ful dignity of the old Roman, as it could have, 
 without throwing totally aside the nature and 
 beauty peculiar to its own construction. After his 
 time the leaning to the antique became every day 
 stronger, not only in respect to form and style of 
 writing, but also to subjects. The last great poet 
 of the yet flourishing period, Guarini, also a poet 
 of love like Tasso, shows himself in many indi- 
 vidual passages of his lyrical pieces, to have been 
 possessed of deeper thought, and even master of a 
 more elevated style, than was ever attained by the 
 poet of Jerusalem. But in the love poems 'of 
 Tasso, the strain of feeling is certainly more na- 
 tural and charming. Guarini's Arcadian drama, 
 the Pastor Fido, is without any laboured imitation, 
 and although quite full of real feeling and love, 
 entirely impregnated with the spirit of antiquity, 
 and even in the form of its composition, great and 
 noble like the drama of the Greeks. Upon the 
 whole, the theatrical part of the elder Italian lite- 
 rature is by no means the most brilliant one, and 
 their attempts at reviving the tragedy of the ancients 
 have been above all miserably cold and unsuccess- 
 ful; it is some compensation for this, that so much 
 perfection was reached in a new species of writing 
 which — at least as used dramatically — is quite pe- 
 culiar to Italy. The superiority of the Italians, in 
 
LITERATURE. 
 
 this respect, has been acknowledged by the other 
 nations of Europe; I doubt whether any modern 
 poem has been so much admired, and so often trans- 
 lated, as the Pastor Fido. In France itself down 
 to the time of Corneille, it was the favourite mo- 
 del of imitation. As a drama, indeed, it was by 
 no means a work fitted to form a path and establish 
 a theatre, and in so far it may be said to be very 
 deficient in merit. But, on the other hand, the 
 lyrical poetry of the Italians never took a bolder 
 flight than in some of the chorusses and particular 
 speeches of this poem. In treating of Tasso, I 
 have already spoken of that play of thought pecu- 
 liar to the Romanic love poets, and the concetti of 
 the Italians. The same grounds of apology which 
 Tasso possesses, may in general be pleaded in fa- 
 vour of Guarini, although it must be admitted that 
 some passages are too remote from the natural and 
 the innocently playful, too coldly elaborate and ar- 
 tificial, to admit of any exculpation Guarini has a 
 few passages which might seem not unworthy of 
 the noble and serious style of a great poet of anti- 
 quity; but he certainly touches the limit of that 
 region of voluptuous taste in which Marino appears 
 to have delighted — a poet who has united every 
 thing of luxuriant and effeminate which is to be 
 found in Ovid or* any of the ancient amatory poets, 
 with all of playful and conceited which can be 
 
1 12 HISTORY OF 
 
 gathered ont of Petrarch, Tasso, and Guarini; and 
 blended them all together into one sea of luscious 
 sweetness, which is the more disagreeable to good 
 taste because every part of the flood has the ap- 
 pearance of proceeding from the fountain not of 
 nature but of imitation. 
 
 The poetry of Spain, in its separated situation, 
 was both much longer upheld and much more hap- 
 pily developed. The imitation of the antique was 
 less predominant, because the national feeling was 
 more acute and lively. For the same reason the 
 poetry of Spain was more connected with the pre- 
 sent; romance- writing acquired a point of excel- 
 lence far above what is known among any other 
 people, and the theatre became not only the most 
 original but also the richest in Europe. 
 
 In poetry the language of Spain has never had 
 any one era which can be taken as a complete model 
 of perfection for all other periods; and although in 
 later times Garcilaso and the writers of his time are 
 commonly enough talked of as classics, this is only 
 in a very limited meaning of the word. The poetical 
 language of Spain remained at all times free; a 
 great deal too much art has, indeed, been at times 
 employed upon it, and it has often been formed 
 into an appearance far too intensely poetical. But 
 at no time has it been subjected to any universal rule, 
 excepting only that which regards the prevalent 
 
LITERATURE. | J_g 
 
 sytsem of metre. This appears so much the more 
 remarkable, because even in the earliest times the 
 prose language of the Spaniards attained a form the 
 most fixed and regular; the sharpest precision has 
 there become so much a second nature, that while 
 the prose of other languages has for the most part 
 tended to corruption in the way of neglect and care- 
 lessness, theirs has rather had to struggle with errors 
 of an opposite description. The danger has been 
 that of degenerating from extreme accuracy and 
 acuteness into a sort of over-nicety, from which they 
 only have a precise name — Ahudeza. Yet of this 
 defect there is no trace in some of the best Spanish 
 writers — among whom the first place is unquestiona- 
 bly dueto Cervantes. In his writing, the prose authors 
 of Spain possess a model of perfection — pure and 
 exquisite — such as has never been attained by her 
 poets, chiefly, it is probable, on account of the ex- 
 treme luxuriance of imagination and invention by 
 which they are distinguished. 
 
 The great work of Cervantes is deserving of its 
 fame, and of the admiration of all the nations of 
 Europe, (which it has now enjoyed for more than 
 two centuries) not merely on account of the beauty 
 of its style, and the perfection of its narrative; not 
 merely because of all works of wit, it is the richest 
 in spirit and invention; but also because it is a most 
 lively and altogether epic picture of the life and pe- 
 
 Vol. II. P 
 
Ü4 HISTORY OF 
 
 culiar character of Spaniards. It is from this that 
 it derives its ever-enduring charm and value, while 
 the many imitations of it, produced in France and 
 England, are already forgotten or in a fair way of 
 becoming so. What I once said before, in speak- 
 ing of poetical works of wit — that in such works 
 the writer should be careful so to adorn with a rich 
 effusion of poetry his narrative, machinery, and the 
 whole of his language, as to preserve undegraded 
 his title to the name of a poet, receives a strong 
 confirmation from the example of Cervantes. It is 
 common enough to hear critics who talk of him 
 enlarge altogether upon his satire and say nothing 
 of his poetry; and there is no doubt that while 
 satire is alike good to all the world, his poetry is 
 exquisitely Spanish. But he who is capable of 
 studying and relishing Cervantes aright, well knows 
 that mirth and seriousness, wit and poetry, are 
 mingled with success elsewhere unparalleled in this 
 rich picture of life, and that of no one of these 
 elements can the worth and beauty be appreciated 
 unless we observe how it is graced and adorned by 
 the juxtaposition or absolute infusion of the others. 
 The other prose works of Cervantes, his pastoral 
 romance Galatea, his novels, and the pilgrim ro- 
 mance which he wrote last of all, partake more or 
 less in these qualities of style and invention which 
 distinguish his Don Quixote — a work which is 
 
LITERATURE. 115 
 
 entirely unique in species, and which, the more it is 
 imitated, appears even the more inimitable. This 
 work is the proudest ornament of Spanish litera- 
 ture; and with justice may the Spaniards be proud 
 of a romance, which, as an universal national work, 
 has been equalled by no other writer of this order, 
 and which, as a picture of the life, manners, and 
 spirit of a nation, is almost entitled to be classed 
 with the most admirable productions of the epic 
 muse. 
 
Uß HISTORY OP 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 OF ROMANCE— DRAMATIC POETRY OF THE SPANIARDS — SPENSER, 
 
 SHAKSPEARE, AND MILTON AGE OF LEWIS XIV.— THE FRENCH 
 
 THEATRE. 
 
 THE romance of Cervantes has been, notwithstand- 
 ing its high internal excellence, a dangerous and 
 unfortunate model for the imitation of other na- 
 tions. The Don Quixote, a work in its kind of 
 unexampled invention, has been the origin of the 
 whole modern romances, and of a crowd of unsuc- 
 cessful attempts among French, English, and Ger- 
 mans, the object of which was to elevate into a 
 species of poetry the prosaic representation of the ac- 
 tual and the present. To say nothing of the genius 
 of Cervantes, which stands entirely by itself, and 
 was sufficient to secure him from many of the faults 
 of his successors, the situation in which he cultivat- 
 ed prose fiction was fortunate, far above what has 
 fallen to the lot of any of them. The actual life 
 in Spain, in his day, was much more chivalric and 
 
LITERATURE. II7 
 
 romantic than it has ever since been in any country 
 of Europe. Even the want of a very exact civil 
 subordination, and the free, or rather lawless life of 
 the provinces might be of use to his imagination. 
 
 In all these attempts to raise the realities of Spa- 
 nish life by wit and adventure, or by the extraordi- 
 nary excitements of thought and feeling, to a spe- 
 cies of poetic fiction, we can perceive that the 
 authors are always anxious to create for themselves, 
 in some way or other, the advantages of a poetic 
 distance; if it were only in the life of Italian ar- 
 tists, a subject frequently treated in German ro- 
 mances, or in that of American woods and wilder- 
 nesses, one very common among those of foreigners. 
 Even when the scene of the fable is laid entirely 
 at home, and within the sphere of the common 
 citizen life, the narrative, so long as it continues to 
 be narrative, and does not lose itself altogether in 
 wit, humour, or sentiment, is ever anxious to ex- 
 tend, in some degree, the limit of that reality 
 by which it is confined, and to procure some- 
 where an opening into the region where fancy is 
 more at liberty in her operations: when no other 
 method can be found, travelling adventures, duels, 
 elopements, a band of robbers, or the intrigues and 
 anxieties of a troop of strollers, are introduced 
 pretty evidently more for the sake of the author 
 than of his hero. 
 
US HISTORY OF 
 
 The idea of the Romantic in these romances, 
 even in some of the best and most celebrated of 
 them, appears to coincide very closely with that 
 of irregulated and dissolute conduct. I remember 
 it was the observation of a great philosopher, that 
 the moment the world should see a perfect police, 
 the moment there should be no contraband trade, 
 and a traveller's pass should contain an exact por- 
 trait and biography of its bearer, that moment it 
 would become quite impossible to write a good ro- 
 mance; for that then nothing could occur in real 
 life which might, with any moderate degree of 
 ornament, be formed into the groundwork, of 
 such a fiction. The expression seems quaint, but, 
 I suspect, the opinion is founded very nearly upon 
 the truth. 
 
 To determine the true and proper relation be- 
 tween poetry, and the past or the present, involves 
 the investigation of the whole depth and essence of 
 the art. In general, in our theories, with the ex- 
 ception of some very general, meaningless, and 
 most commonly false definitions of the art itself, 
 and of the beautiful, the chief subjects of atten- 
 tion are always the mere forms of poetry, things 
 necessary, without doubt, but by no means suffi- 
 cient to be known. As yet there has scarcely been 
 any theory with regard to the proper subject of 
 poetry, although such a theory would evidently be 
 
LITERATURE. \\g 
 
 far the most useful in regard to the effect which 
 poetry is to have upon life. In the preceding dis- 
 courses I have endeavoured to supply this defect, 
 and to give some glimpses of such a theory, wher- 
 ever the nature of my topics has furnished me 
 with the opportunity. 
 
 With regard to the representation of actual life 
 in poetry, wc must, above all things, remember 
 that it is by no means certain that the actual and 
 present are intractable or unworthy subjects of poeti- 
 cal representation, merely because in themselves 
 they appear less noble and uncommon than the 
 past. It is true that in what is near and present, 
 the common and the unpoetical, come at all times 
 more strongly and more conspicuously into view; 
 while in the remote and the past they occupy 
 the distance, and leave the foreground to be fill- 
 ed with forms of greatness and sublimity alone. 
 But this difficulty is one which the true poet can 
 easily conquer; his art has no more favourite mode 
 of displaying itself than in lending to things of 
 common-place, and every day occurrence, the bril- 
 liancy of a poetic illumination, by extracting from 
 them higher signification, and deeper purpose, and 
 more refined feeling, than we had before suspected 
 them of concealing, or dreamed them to be capable 
 of exciting. Still the precision of the present is 
 at all times binding and confining for the fancy, 
 
120 HISTORY OF 
 
 and when we, by our subject, impose so many fet- 
 ters upon her, there is always reason to fear, that 
 she will be inclined to make up for this restraint, 
 by an excess of liberty, in regard to language and 
 description. 
 
 To make my views upon this point intelligible 
 to you in the shortest way, I need only recal to 
 your recollection what I said some time ago, with 
 regard to subjects of religious or Christian import. 
 The invisible world, the Deity, and pure intellects, 
 can never, upon the whole, be with propriety repre- 
 sented by us; nature and human beings are the pro- 
 per and immediate subjects of poetry. But the higher 
 and spiritual world can be every where embodied and 
 shadowed forth in our terrestrial materials. In like 
 manner the indirect representation of the actual 
 and the present is the best and most appropriate. 
 The bloom of young life, and the high ecstacies of 
 passion, as well as the maturity of wise reflection, 
 may all be combined with the old traditions of our 
 nation; they will there have more room for exer- 
 tion, and be displayed in a purer light than the 
 present can command. The oldest poet of the past, 
 Homer, is at the same time to us a describer of the 
 present in its utmost liveliness and freshness. 
 Every true poet carries into the past his own age, 
 and, in a certain sense, himself. The following 
 appears to me to be the true account of the proper 
 
LITERATURE. jgi 
 
 relation between poetry and time. The proper bu- 
 siness of poetry is to represent only the eternal, 
 that which is, at all places, and in all times, signi- 
 ficant and beautiful; but this cannot be accomplish- 
 ed without the intervention of a veil. Poetry re- 
 quires to have a corporeal habitation, and this she 
 finds in her best sphere, the traditions of a nation, 
 the recollections and past of a people. In her re- 
 presentations of these, however, she introduces the 
 whole wealth of the present, so far as that is sus- 
 ceptible of poetical ornament; she plunges also into 
 the future, because she explains the apparent mys- 
 teries of earthly existence, accompanies individual 
 lite through all its developement, down to its pe- 
 riod of termination, and sheds from her magic 
 mirror the light of a higher interpretation upon all 
 things; she embraces all tenses, the past, the pre- 
 sent, and the future, in order to make a truly sen- 
 sible representation of the eternal or the perfect 
 time. Even in a philosophical sense, eternity is 
 no nonentity, no mere negation of time, but rather 
 its entire and undivided fulness, wherein all its 
 elements are united, where the past becomes again 
 new and present, and with the present itself, is 
 mingled the abundance of hope, and all the richness 
 of futurity. 
 
 Although, upon the whole, I consider the indi- 
 rect representation of the present, as the one most 
 
 Vol. II. Q 
 
j 22 HISTORY OF 
 
 suitable for poetry, I would by no means be under- 
 stood to be passing a judgment of condemnation 
 upon all poetical works which follow the opposite 
 paTh. We must leave the artist to be the judge of 
 his own work. The true poet can show his power 
 even though he takes a wrong way, and composes 
 works which are far from perfection hi regard to 
 their original foundation. Milton and Klopstock 
 must at all times be honoured as poets of the first 
 class, although no one will deny that they have 
 both done themselves the injustice to choose sub- 
 jects which they never could adequately describe. 
 
 In like manner to Richardson, who erred in a 
 very opposite way, by trying to imitate Cervantes, 
 in elevating to poetry the realities of modern life, 
 we cannot refuse the praise of a great talent for 
 description, and of having at least manifested great 
 vigour in his course, alihough the goal which he 
 wished to reach was one entirely beyond his 
 power. 
 
 The spirit of Spanish fiction has distinguished 
 itself with equal excellence, and with far more rich- 
 ness, upon the theatre than in romance. The lyrical 
 poetry of feeling is the fruit of solitary love and 
 inspiration; even when it does not confine itself to 
 the immediate circumstances of an individual, when 
 it seizes upon an age and a nation, it is still power- 
 ful only as the emanation of individual feeling. 
 
LITERATURE. 223 
 
 But heroic poetry implies a nation, one which 
 either is now or has been, one which possesses re- 
 collections, a great past, a legendary history, an 
 original and poetical mode of thinking and observ- 
 ing, — a mythology. Both of these species, the 
 lyric as well as the epic, are much more the chil- 
 dren of nature than of art. But dramatic poetry 
 is the production of the city and society; nay it 
 cannot flourish unless it have a great metropolis to 
 be the centre point of its developement. Such, at 
 least, is its most natural and happy situation; al- 
 though schools of imitation and rivalry, established 
 in smaller spheres of action, may in the sequel 
 contend at times not unsuccessfully with the capi- 
 tal, the first seat of the dramatic art. There is 
 no difficulty in perceiving why the stages of Ma- 
 drid, London, and Paris, enjoyed a full century of 
 splendour; were brought, each in its own way, to 
 perfection; and were rich, almost to superfluity, 
 long before either Italy or Germany could be said 
 to possess any thing worthy, properly speaking, of 
 the name of a theatre. For although Rome has 
 been, even from antiquity, the capital of the 
 church, and Vienna, ever since the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, the seat of the German empire, yet neither 
 the one city nor the other has ever become the me- 
 tropolis of a nation in the same manner with 
 
124 HISTORY OF 
 
 those three great cities of France, England, and 
 Spain. 
 
 As the Spanish monarchy was, down to the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, the greatest 
 and the most splendid in Europe, and as the na- 
 tional spirit of the Spaniards was the most deve- 
 loped, so the stage of Madrid, the living mirror 
 of Spanish life, was the first which arrived at its 
 period of glory. Its riches and fulness of inven- 
 tion, have, at all times, been recognised by the rest 
 of Europe; to its peculiar form and meaning, to 
 the true spirit and sense of the Spanish drama, 
 less justice has been done. Had it no other ad- 
 vantage but this, that it is thoroughly romantic, 
 that alone would be sufficient to render it an object 
 well worthy of attention; it would be a very inte- 
 resting thing to see what sort of dramatic poetry 
 that is, which is the pure production of the chival- 
 ric poetry in general, and of that peculiar direc- 
 tion of fancy which belongs to modern Europe and 
 the middle ages. In the theatre of no other coun- 
 try can we find so good an example of this as in 
 the Spanish, which always remained quite free from 
 all influence and imitation of the antique; while, 
 on the other hand, the Italians and French have 
 been led away by their desire to renew in their 
 purity, the proper tragedy and comedy of the Greeks, 
 
LITERATURE. J25 
 
 and while these models (acting as they did, chief- 
 ly through the medium of Seneca and the older 
 French plays) have not been without a very consi- 
 derable influence even upon the drama of the 
 English. 
 
 If we consider the Spanish stage in its first ce- 
 lebrated lord and master, Lope de Vega, its general 
 excellencies will appear to us only in a dim and 
 imperfect light; and we shall, upon the whole, 
 form no very high opinion of the perfection of the 
 Spanish drama; so hasty and redundant are his al- 
 most innumerable plays. As in the lyrical songs 
 of one poet, so also in all the dramatic works of 
 one artist, there may in general be observed a cer- 
 tain uniformity and resemblance, which must, of 
 course, lighten very much the labour of his compo- 
 sition. In the dramas not only of one poet, but 
 even of a whole age or an entire nation, the ground- 
 work is often one general idea, which in all of 
 them is properly the same, although in each it is 
 presented in a different point of view, and acting 
 with a different species of operation; like so many 
 variations of a juridical theme, or so many various 
 propositions in mathematics, all following from the 
 adoption of the same general principle. When a 
 poet has once clearly and thoroughly comprehended 
 this idea, and fixed upon the manner in which he 
 is to use it for his idea and his stage, provided he 
 
126 HISTORY OF 
 
 be at the same time a perfect master of language 
 and theatrical effect, it may very easily happen 
 that he shall produce a very great number of works 
 in a very regular form, and even without appearing 
 to have been guilty of negligence either in regard 
 to the expression or the arrangement of his produc- 
 tions. It was thus that the great dramatists of 
 antiquity, produced, each of them, more than a hun- 
 dred plays. But the number of the dramas of 
 Lope de Vega, however liberal we may be, must 
 certainly surpass all limit of permitted fertility. 
 The greater part of them must have been not com- 
 posed, in any proper sense of the word, but dashed 
 off in the manner of a mere improvisatore. I ad- 
 mit that Lope, among all dramatical ready writers, 
 and bulky writers of all nations, and down to the 
 very latest times, is the first and the most of a poet 
 in richness of invention, in splendour of imagina- 
 tion, and in the fire and strength of his language. 
 The two last qualities are indeed so common in all 
 the poetry of his nation, that we need scarcely en- 
 large upon their praise as belonging peculiarly to 
 him. Considered by itself, this swiftness of drama- 
 tic composition, even with all the talent and fancy of 
 Lope de Vega, is by no means excusable, either in 
 a poetical or in a moral point of view. A strength 
 of arrangement, and a steady law, are so much the 
 more necessary for the stage, because in no other 
 
LITER ATU HE. J27 
 
 species of composition are carelessness and corrup- 
 tion so easily tolerated, in no other are the public 
 and the author in so much danger of leading each 
 other astray. How easy it must be for a dramatist 
 of such genius as Lope, to carry his age beyond all 
 limits of judgment; how easily, even one without any 
 very splendid qualifications, by means of a sort of 
 theatrical routine, and a little skill in passionate 
 effect, may bring the public taste to such a point that 
 all higher requisites and ideas are entirely for- 
 gotten, — we have had so many examples of all this, 
 that it would be quite useless to expatiate upon it. 
 On the other side, theatrical success, we must re- 
 member, is of all other means of excitement the 
 strongest and most irresistible in its operation on 
 the vanity of a poet. The public themselves are 
 in general the first to spoil a. favourite dramatist; 
 they express so much satisfaction with his early and 
 imperfect attempts, that it is no wonder he should 
 soon consider himself as absolved from all obliga- 
 tion to be careful in his compositions. This danger 
 of demagogic corruption and anarchy is a circum- 
 stance which was often remarked and lamented 
 by the best of all dramatic judges, the ancients. 
 
 However much, in regard to some other species 
 of poetry, as for example that which is properly 
 called popular poetry, our indulgence may be due 
 to a rapid and careless method of composition, the 
 
128 HISTORY OF 
 
 theatre has no similar claim. The stage is entirely 
 a creature of art, and even although hasty and in- 
 accurate writing may be tolerated in plays, unless 
 their plan be clearly laid, and their purpose pro- 
 foundly considered, they want the very essence of 
 dramatic pieces; unless they be so composed, they 
 may indeed amuse us with a view of the fleeting 
 and surface part of life, and of perplexities and 
 passions, but they can have none of that deep sense 
 and import, without which the concerns of life, 
 whether real or imitated, are not worthy of our 
 study. These lower excellencies of the drarnatic 
 art, are possessed in great abundance by Lope de 
 Vega, and many others of the ordinary Spanish dra- 
 matists; the plays of these men display great bril- 
 liancy of poetry and imagination, but when we com- 
 pare them with the profounder pieces of the same or 
 of some other stages, we perceive at once that their 
 beauties are only of a secondary class, and that they 
 afford no real gratification to the higher parts of our 
 intellect. How little these, indeed, are accustomed 
 to be taken into account, we may easily gather 
 from the single fact, that very many critics usually 
 speak of Calderon, and Lope de Vega, as poets of 
 the same order, while in truth it would be difficult 
 to find two men more entirely and radically dissi- 
 milar both in mind and in art. If we would form 
 a proper opinion of the Spanish drama, we must 
 
LITERATURE. 229 
 
 study it only in its perfection, in Calderon — the 
 last and greatest of all the Spanish poets. 
 
 Before his time, affectation, on the one hand, 
 and utter carelessness on the other, were predo- 
 minant in the Spanish poetry; what is singular 
 enough these apparently opposite faults were often 
 to be found in the same piece. The evil example 
 of Lope de Vega was not confined to the depart- 
 ment of the stage. Elevated by his theatrical suc- 
 cess, like many other fluent poets, he had the va- 
 nity to suppose that he might easily shine in many 
 other species of writing, for which he possessed, in 
 truth, no sort of genius. Not contented with be- 
 ing considered as the first dramatist of his country, 
 nothing less would serve him but to compete with 
 Cervantes in romance, and with Tasso and Ariosto 
 in the chivalric epic. The influence of his care- 
 less and corrupt mode of composition was thus ex- 
 tended beyond the theatre; while the faults from 
 which he was most free, those of excessive artifice 
 and affectation in language and expression, were 
 carried to the highest pitch by Gongora and Que- 
 vedo. Calderon survived this age of poetical cor- 
 ruptions; nay, he was born in it, and he had first 
 to free the poetry of his country from this chaos, 
 before he could ennoble it anew, beautify and 
 purify it by the flames of love, and conduct it at 
 last to the utmost limit of its perfection. 
 
 Vol. II. R 
 
130 HISTORY OF 
 
 This incident in the history of Spanish poetry, 
 its sudden rise to unexampled excellence, imme- 
 diately following a period of unexampled corruption, 
 is one very well worthy of our attention. It may 
 serve as a sufficient correction of the common place 
 opinions and theories on which the doctrine of re- 
 gular progress and decline in art is maintained. 
 For our own age and nation it may be a lesson of 
 great value, to see how, from the midst of dead ar- 
 tifice and corrupted excrescence, the imagination 
 and poetry of Spain sprung at the call of one voice 
 into light and beauty, as the Phoenix is regene- 
 rated and renewed out of the ashes of her own 
 decay. 
 
 But in order to set before you the spirit of the 
 Spanish drama as it appears in its perfection in the 
 works of Calderon, it is necessary for me to pre- 
 fix a few words upon the true essence of the dra- 
 matic art in general, according to the peculiar views 
 which I have adopted. It is only in the first and 
 lowest scale of the drama, that I can place those 
 pieces in which we are presented with the visible 
 surface of life alone, the fleeting appearance of the 
 rich picture of the world. It is thus that I view 
 them, even although they display the highest sway 
 of passion in tragedy, or the perfection of all social 
 refinements and absurdities in comedy, so long as 
 the whole business of the play is limited to external 
 
LITERATURE. J31 
 
 appearances, and these things are brought before us 
 merely in perspective, and as pictures for the pur- 
 poses of drawing our attention, and awakening the 
 sympathy of our passions. The second order of the 
 art is that, where in dramatic representations, to- 
 gether with passion and the pictoric appearance of 
 things, a spirit of more profound sense and thought 
 is predominant over the scene, wherein there is dis- 
 played a deep knowledge, not of individuals and 
 their affairs alone, but of our whole species, of the 
 world and of life, in all their manifold shapes, con- 
 tradictions, and catastrophes, of man and of his 
 being, that darkest of riddles — as such — as a riddle. 
 Were this profound knowledge of us and our na- 
 ture the only end of dramatic poetry, Shakspeare 
 would not merely deserve to be called the first in 
 his art, but there could scarcely be found a single 
 poet, either among the ancients or the moderns, 
 worthy for a moment to be compared with him. 
 But in my opinion the art of the dramatic poet has, 
 besides all this, yet another and a higher end. 
 The enigma of life should not barely be expressed 
 but solved; the perplexities of the present should 
 indeed be represented, but from them our view 
 should be led to the last developement and the final 
 issue. The poet should entwine the future with 
 the present, and lay before our eyes the mysteries 
 of the internal man. This is indeed something 
 
132 HISTORY OF 
 
 quite different from what we commonly demand 
 in a tragedy by the name of catastrophe. There 
 are many celebrated dramatic works wherein that 
 sort of denouement, to which I here allude, is al- 
 together wanting, or which, at least, have only the 
 outward form, but are quite destitute of the inter- 
 nal being and spirit of it. For the sake of brevity 
 I may here refer you to what I said, in one of my 
 late lectuies, concerning the three worlds of Dante, 
 and of the art with which he has represented to us 
 three great classes of human beings, some in the 
 abyss of despair, some in the region of hope and 
 puriGcation, some in the enjoyment of perfect bless- 
 edness. All that I then said may be applied in a 
 certain way to the dramas, and in this sense might 
 Dante himself be called a dramatic poet, but that 
 he has chosen to give us only a series of catas- 
 trophes, without setting before us, except by some 
 casual allusion, the actions and passions of which 
 these catastrophes are the result. Corresponding 
 to these denouements of human destiny, there are 
 also three modes of that high, serious dramatic re- 
 presentation, which sets forth, not merely the ap- 
 pearances of life, but also its deeper purpose and 
 spirit, which gives us not only the knot but the so- 
 lution of our existence. In one of these we lose 
 sight of the hero in the darkness of a perfect de- 
 struction; in another the conclusion, although ming- 
 
LITERATURE. I33 
 
 led with a certain dawn of pleasure, is yet half sor- 
 rowful in its impression; and there is a third, wherein 
 out of misery and death we see a new life arisen, 
 and behoid the illumination of the internal man. 
 To show what I mean by dramas, whose termina- 
 tion is the total ruin of their heroes, I may men- 
 tion among the tragedies of the moderns, Wallen- 
 stein, Macbeth, and the Faustus of the people. The 
 dramatic art of the ancients had a peculiar fondness 
 for this altogether tragical catastrophe, which ac- 
 corded well with their belief in a terrible and pre- 
 destinating fate. Yet a tragedy of this kind is perhaps 
 the more perfect in proportion as the destruc- 
 tion is represented not as any thing external, capri- 
 cious, or predestinated, but as a darkness into which 
 the hero has sunk step by step, descending not with- 
 out free will, and in consequence of his own guilt. 
 Such is the case in those three great modern tra- 
 gedies which I have cited. 
 
 This is, upon the whole, the favourite species 
 among the ancients, yet their theatre is not without 
 some beautiful specimens of the second and milder 
 termination; examples of it occur in both of the 
 two greatest of the Greek tragedians. It is thus 
 that ^Eschylus, after he has opened before us the 
 darkest abyss of sorrow and guilt, in the death 
 of Agamemnon, and the vengeance of Orestes, 
 closes his mighty picture in the Eumenides with 
 
134 HISTORY OF 
 
 a pleasing feeling, and the final quelling of the 
 spirit of evil by the intervention of a milder and pro- 
 pitious Deity. Sophocles, in like manner, after re- 
 presenting the blindness and the fate of CEdipus, the 
 miserable fate and mutual fratricide of his sons, the 
 long sorrows of the sightless old man and his faith- 
 ful daughter, is careful to throw a ray of cheering 
 light upon the death of his hero, and to depict in 
 such colours his departure into the protection of pi- 
 tying and expecting deities, as to leave upon our 
 minds an impression rather of soothing and gentle 
 melancholy than of tragical distress. There are ma- 
 ny instances of the same kind both in the ancient 
 theatre and the modern; but few wherein the work- 
 ing of the passions is adorned with so much beauty 
 of poetry as in these. 
 
 The third method of dramatic conclusion, which 
 by its representation makes a spiritual purification 
 to be the result of external sorrows, is the one most 
 adapted for a Christian poet, and in this the first 
 and greatest of all masters is Calderon. Among 
 the great variety of his pieces I need only refer you 
 to the Devotion to the Cross, and the Stedfast 
 Prince, plays which have been very frequently 
 translated, and the remarkable excellence of which 
 has been, upon the whole, pretty generally recog- 
 nised. The Christianity of this poet, however 
 does not consist so much in the external circum- 
 
LITERATURE. J 35 
 
 stances which he has selected, as in his peculiar 
 feeling, and the method of treating his subject which 
 is most common with him. Even where his mate- 
 rials furnish him with no opportunity of drawing the 
 perfect developement of a new life out of death and 
 suffering, yet every thing is conceived in the spi- 
 rit of this Christian love and purification, every 
 thing seen in its light, and clothed in the splendour 
 of its heavenly colouring. In every situation and 
 circumstance, Calderon is, of all dramatic poets, the 
 most Christian, and for that very reason the most 
 romantic. 
 
 Since the Spanish poetry remained at all times 
 free from foreign influence, and throughout purely 
 romantic, — since the Christian chivalric poetry of 
 the middle ages continued with this nation far 
 longer than with any other even down to the times 
 of their most modern refinement, and received 
 among them a form more elegant than elsewhere, 
 this may appear to be no improper place for saying 
 something in general, concerning the essence of the 
 romantic. It consists entirely in that feeling of 
 love which is predominant in the Christian religion, 
 and through it in poetry also, by which sorrows are 
 represented as only the way to happiness, by which 
 the tragic serious of the Greek mythology, and 
 heathenish antiquity, is softened into a more cheer- 
 ing play of fancy, and in consequence of which, 
 
J 36 HISTORY OF 
 
 even in regard to the external forms of representa- 
 tion and language, every thing is selected which 
 seems most to harmonize with this feeling of love 
 and this play of fancy. In this sense of the word, 
 taking the romantic to mean nothing more than 
 the peculiar beauty and poetry of Christianity, all 
 poetry might seem to have some claim to the 
 epithet. In fact, the romantic is by no means in- 
 consistent with the ancients and the true antique. 
 The legends of Troy, and the poems of Homer, 
 are throughout romantic; so is all of the really 
 poetic kind which is to be found in the old verses 
 of Indians, Persians, Arabians, or Europeans. 
 Wherever the highest life is comprehended and re- 
 presented in its deeper meaning, there are to be 
 heard at least some echoes of that godlike love, 
 whose centre-point and full harmony lies certainly 
 in the Christian religion. Even in the ancient 
 tragedians the echoes of this feeling are here and 
 there scattered, in spite of the general darkness 
 and wordliness of their conceptions, the internal 
 love in the midst of all their errors and false images 
 of horror, breaks through in noble sentiments, and 
 diffuses the light of its sublimity over all their be- 
 wildered imaginations. iEschylus and Sophocles 
 are not worthy of admiration on account of their 
 inimitable composition alone, but of their profound 
 feeling and sentiment. In none of the vivid and 
 
LITERATURE. • 137 
 
 natural poets of antiquity is this charm entirely 
 wanting. The romantic is not opposed to the an- 
 cients and the antique, but to those false and frigid 
 erudite among ourselves, who strive to imitate the 
 form without being gifted with any portion of the 
 enthusiasm of the antique; and those other mo- 
 derns who, labouring under an equal mistake, at- 
 tempt to increase their influence upon active life 
 by making the present their subject, and fail in 
 their attempt, because the confinement to which 
 they thus voluntarily condemn themselves is more 
 than sufficient to neutralize any advantage which 
 they might have hoped to derive. 
 
 It will easily be understood that between these 
 three species of dramatic conclusion and represen- 
 tation; that of destruction, of reconciliation, and 
 of glorification, there must be room for many in- 
 termediate steps and blendings. It was only for 
 the purpose of letting you know what I conceive 
 to be the true termination of a dramatic piece, 
 that I have formally and separately described these 
 three species, — although after all, they certainly 
 are to be found separately as well as mingled. 
 Even the opposition of ancients and moderns is not 
 a perfect one, but depends merely on the preponde- 
 rance of one element — a more or a less. Even 
 among the ancient plays we may find some approxi- 
 mations to that method of tragic representation 
 
 Vol. II. S 
 
 
138 HISTORY OF 
 
 which terminates in purification, and in like man- 
 ner, we may find, among the moderns, tragedies of 
 utter destruction, which can sustain a comparison 
 with the most powerful masterpieces of the ancients, 
 with whom that was the more favourite species of 
 catastrophe. 
 
 Since, however, the excellence of dramatic repre- 
 sentation lies in the internal depth of feeling, and 
 the hidden mysteries of the spiritual life, it is evi- 
 dent that the works of antiquity, whatever may be 
 their perfection as pieces of writing, and as high 
 models to stimulate our ambition, they can in par- 
 ticular instances furnish no fit rule or example for 
 our imitation. In general we may be assured, 
 that in regard to the higher drama and tragedy, 
 there cannot be such a thing as a rule useful for all 
 nations. Even the modes of feeling among the 
 Christian peoples (connected as they are by their 
 common religion) here, where the peculiar principle 
 of the internal life should be most powerfully 
 brought forward, are found to be so essentially dif- 
 ferent, that it would be foolish to require any uni- 
 versal harmony, or to imagine that any one nation 
 could lay down effectual laws for the other. In 
 regard to tragedy and the higher drama at least, so 
 intimately are these connected with internal life and 
 peculiar feeling, that every nation must be the in- 
 ventor of its own form and its own rules. 
 
LITERATURE. 139 
 
 I am very far, then, from wishing to see the Spa- 
 nish drama or Calderon adopted as a perfect and 
 exclusive model for our theatre; but I am so sen- 
 sible of the high perfection to which the Christian 
 tragedy and drama attained in the hands of that 
 great and divine master, that I think he cannot be 
 too much studied as a distant and inimitable speci- 
 men of excellence, by any one who would make the 
 bold attempt to rescue the modern stage, either in 
 Germany or elsewhere, from the feeble and ineffec- 
 tual state into which it has fallen. Least of all is the 
 external form of the Spanish drama suitable for us. 
 Its flowery fulness of images and southern fancies 
 may be excellent, where this overflowing wealth is 
 nature, but to imitate these qualities elsewhere is 
 the height of absurdity. The remarks which I have 
 already made on more occasions than one, with re- 
 gard to the poetical representation of mystical sub- 
 jects, may be applicable in general to those plays of 
 Calderon which are in their import allegoric and 
 Christian. 
 
 The chief fault of Calderon, for even he is not 
 without them, is, that he, in other respects the best 
 of all romantic dramatists, carries us too quickly to 
 the great denouement of which I have spoken 
 above; — for the effect which this produces on us 
 would have been very much increased by our being 
 kept longer in doubt, had he more frequently cha- 
 racterised the riddle of human life with the profun- 
 
14Q HISTORY OF 
 
 dity of Shakspeare, — had he been less sparing in 
 affording us, at the commencement, glimpses of 
 that light which should be preserved and concen- 
 trated upon the conclusion of the drama. Shaks- 
 peare has exactly the opposite fault, of too often 
 placing before our eyes, in all its mystery and per- 
 plexity, the riddle of life, like a sceptical poet, with- 
 out giving us any hint of the solution. Even 
 when he does bring his drama to a last and a proper 
 denouement, it is much more frequently to one of 
 utter destruction after the manner of the old trage- 
 dians, or at least to one of an intermediate and, half 
 satisfactory nature, than to that termination of per- 
 fect purification which is predominant in Calderon. 
 In the deepest recesses of his feeling and thought, it 
 has always struck me that Shakspeare is far more 
 an ancient — I mean an ancient not of the Greek 
 but of the Northern or Scandinavian cast — than a 
 Christian. In some particulars at least we must 
 allow that the Spanish drama affords the best of all 
 models; particularly in regard to its comedy, which 
 is in every respect thoroughly romantic, and there- 
 fore truly poetical. Even upon the stage no true 
 success can ever attend any attempts to raise the 
 representation of the prosaic reality to the rank of 
 poetry, either by means of psycological acumen, 
 or the wit of society; and whoever compares what 
 go on other stages by the name of plays of in- 
 
LITERATURE. 141 
 
 trigue and plays of character \ with the romantic 
 witchery of the pieces of Calderon, and his country- 
 men, will scarcely be able to find words to express 
 his sense of the immeasurable superiority of their 
 poetical wealth, over the poverty of the German 
 stage, above all, over what passes for wit in the 
 comedies with which we are entertained. 
 
 The poetry of all the Southern and Catholic coun- 
 tries continued throughout the sixteenth, and even 
 in the seventeenth century, to partake of the same 
 qualities and undergo the same vicissitudes. In 
 the other countries of Europe a great rupture was 
 produced by the reception of the Protestant faith, 
 for the old creed could not be driven into contempt 
 without carrying along with it a variety of images, 
 allusions, personifications, poetic traditions and le- 
 gends, and modes of poetical composition which 
 were more or less intimately connected with it. 
 As among the Protestant countries, the one which 
 retained most of the old system, both in regard to 
 the condition of the clergy, and the external forms 
 of worship, was England, so here also was poetry 
 first cultivated in a rich and beautiful manner, and, 
 it may be added, in a manner resembling in every 
 important particular the poetry of the Catholic 
 south; this is sufficiently manifest in Spenser, Shak- 
 speare, and Milton. There is no occasion to recal 
 to your remembrance how fond Shakspeare is of the 
 
J42 HISTORY OF 
 
 romantic of the chivalrous time, and even of the 
 Southern colouring of fancy; Spenser is himself a 
 poet of chivalry, and both he and Milton followed ro- 
 mantic, above all Italian, models. The nearer litera- 
 ture comes to ourselves, the richer her productiveness 
 appears in these modern times, so much the more 
 necessary does it become for me to confine myself 
 to those poets and those writers alone, who mark 
 the perfection of language and cultivation in their 
 nations, and are on that account for other nations, 
 and for the whole world, the most important and in- 
 structive. But in truth these three greatest poets «of 
 England contain within themselves every thing that 
 is really great and remarkable in regard to her 
 elder literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 ages. 
 
 The chivalrous poem of Spenser, the Fairy 
 Queen, presents us with a complete view of the 
 spirit of romance which yet lingered in England 
 among the subjects of Elizabeth; that maiden 
 queen who saw herself, with no ordinary delight, 
 deified while yet alive, by such playful fancies of my- 
 thology and the muse. Spenser is a perfect master 
 of the picturesque; in his lyrical pieces there 
 breathes all the tenderness of the Idyll, the very 
 spirit of the Troubadours. Not only in the species 
 and manner of his poetry, but even in his language, 
 he bears the most striking resemblance to our old 
 
LITERATURE. 143 
 
 German poets of love and chivalry. The history of 
 the English literature was indeed quite the reverse 
 of ours. Chaucer is not unlike our poets of the 
 sixteenth century; but Spenser is the near kins- 
 man of the tender and melodious poets of our older 
 time. In every language which is, like the English, 
 the product of the blending of two different dia- 
 lects, there must always be two ideals, according as 
 the poet shall lean more to the one or the other 
 of the elements whereof his language is composed. 
 Of all the English poets the most Teutonic is 
 Spenser, while Milton, on the contrary, has an 
 evident partiality to the Latin part of the English 
 tongue. The only unfortunate part of Spenser's 
 poetry is its form. The allegory which he has se- 
 lected and made the groundwork of his chief poem, 
 is not one of that lively kind which prevails in the 
 elder chivalrous fictions, wherein the idea of a spiri- 
 tual hero, and the mysteries of his higher vocation, 
 are concealed under the likeness of external adven- 
 tures and tangible events. It is only a dead alle- 
 gory, a mere classification of all the virtues of an 
 ethical system; in short such a one, that, but for the 
 proper names of the personages, we should never 
 suspect any part of their history to contain " more 
 than meets the ear." 
 
 The admiration with which Shakspeare regard- 
 ed Spenser, and the care with which he imitated 
 
144 HISTORY OF 
 
 him in his lyrical and idyllic poems, are circum- 
 stances of themselves sufficient to make us study, 
 with the liveliest interest, the poem of the Fairy 
 Queen. It is in these minor pieces of Shakspeare 
 that we are first introduced to a personal know- 
 ledge of the great poet and his feelings. When 
 he wrote sonnets, it seems as if he had considered 
 himself as more a poet than when he wrote plays; 
 he was the manager of a theatre, and he viewed the 
 drama as his business; on it he exerted all his in- 
 tellect and power, but when he had feelings in- 
 tense and secret to express, he had recourse, to a 
 form of writing with which his habits had rendered 
 him less familiar. It is strange but delightful to 
 scrutinize, in his short effusions, the character of 
 Shakspeare. In them we see that he who stood 
 like a magician above the world, penetrating with one 
 glance into all the depths, and mysteries, and per- 
 plexities of human character, and having power to 
 call up into open day the darkest workings of the 
 human passions — that this great being was not 
 deprived of any portion of his human sympathies, 
 by the elevation to which he was raised, but pre- 
 served, amidst all his stern functions, a heart over- 
 flowing with tenderness, purity, and love. His 
 feelings are intense, profound, acute almost to 
 selfishness, but he expresses them so briefly and 
 modestly, as to form a strange contrast with most 
 
LITERATURE. 145 
 
 of those poets who write concerning themselves. For 
 the right understanding of hib dramatic works, these 
 lyric:» are of the greatest importance. They show us, 
 that in his dramas he very seldom speaks according 
 to his own feelings, or his own thoughts, but accord- 
 ing to his knowledge. The world lay clear and dis- 
 tinct before his eyes, but between him and it there 
 was a deep gulf fixed. He gives us a portrait of 
 what he saw, without flattery or ornament — having 
 the charm of unrivalled accuracy and truth. Were 
 understanding, acuteness, and profoundness of 
 thought (in so far as these are necessary for the 
 characterizing of human life), to be considered as 
 the first qualities of a poet, there is none u orthy to 
 be compared with Shakspeare. Other poets have 
 endeavoured to transport us, at least for a few mo- 
 ments, into another and an ideal condition of man- 
 kind. But Shakspeare is the master of reality; he 
 sets before us, with a truth that is often painful, 
 man in his degraded state, in this corruption which 
 penetrates and contaminates all his being, all that 
 he does and suffers, all the thoughts and aspirations 
 of his fallen spirit. In this respect he may not un- 
 frequently be said to be a satirical poet; ancl well 
 indeed may the picture which he presents of human 
 debasement, and the enigma of our being, be calcu- 
 lated to produce an effect far more deep and abiding 
 than the whole body of splenetic and passionate re- 
 Vol. II. T 
 
146 HISTORY OF 
 
 vilers, whom we commonly call by the name of sa- 
 tiric poets. In the midst of all the bitterness of 
 Shakspeare, we perceive continually glimpses of 
 thoughts and recollections more pure than satirists 
 partake in; meditation on the original height and 
 elevation of man, — the peculiar tenderness and 
 noble-minded sentiment of a poet; the dark world 
 of his representation is illuminated with the most 
 beautiful rays of patriotic inspiration, serene philan- 
 thropy, and glowing love. 
 
 But even the youthful glow of love appears in 
 his Romeo as the mere inspiration of death, and is 
 mingled with the same sceptical and melancholy 
 views of life which, in Hamlet, give to all our being 
 an appearance of more than natural discord and per- 
 plexity, and which, in Lear, carry sorrow and pas- 
 sion into the utmost misery of madness. This poet, 
 who externally seems to be most calm and tempe- 
 rate, clear and lively, — with whom intellect seems 
 every where to preponderate; who, as we at first 
 imagine, regards and represents every thing almost 
 with coldness, — is found, if we examine into the 
 internal feelings of his spirit, to be of all others the 
 mostly deeply sorrowful and tragic. 
 
 Shakspeare regarded the drama as entirely a 
 thing for the people, and at first treated it through- 
 out as such. He took the popular comedy as he 
 found it, and whatever enlargements and improve- 
 
LITERATURE. j^« 
 
 ments he introduced into the stage, were all calcu- 
 lated and conceived, according to the peculiar spirit 
 of his predecessors, and of the audience in London. 
 Even in the earliest of his tragic attempts, he takes 
 possession of the whole superstitions of the vulgar, 
 and mingles in his poetry, not only the gigantic 
 greatness of their rude traditions, but also the 
 fearful, the horrible, and the revolting. All 
 these, again, are blended with such representations 
 and views of human debasement as passed — or still 
 pass — with common spectators for wit, but were 
 connected in the depths of his reflective and pene- 
 trating spirit, with the very different feelings of bitter 
 contempt or sorrowful sympathy. He was not, in 
 knowledge, far less in art, such as since the time of 
 Milton, it has been usual to represent him. But I 
 believe that the inmost feelings of his heart, the 
 depths of his peculiar, concentrated, and solitary 
 spirit, could be agitated only by the mournful voice 
 of nature. The feeling by which he seems to have 
 been most connected with ordinary men is that 
 of nationality. He has represented the heroic and 
 glorious period of English history, during the con- 
 quests in France, in a series of dramatic pieces, 
 which possess all the simplicity and liveliness of the 
 ancient chronicles, but approach, in their ruling 
 spirit of patriotism and glory, to the most dignified 
 and effectual productions of the epic muse. 
 
j 4g HISTORY OF 
 
 In the works of Shakspeare a whole world is 
 unfolded. He who has once comprehended this, and 
 been penetrated with its spirit, will not easily allow 
 the effect to be diminished by the form, or listen to 
 the cavils of those who are incapable of understand- 
 ing the import of what they would criticise. The 
 form of Slukspeare's writings will rather appear to 
 him good and excellent, because in it his spirit is 
 expressed and clothed, as it were, in a convenient 
 garment. The poetry of Shakspeare is near of kin 
 to the spirit of the Germans, and he is more felt and 
 beloved by them than any other foreign, I had al-, 
 most said, than any vernacular, poet. Even in Eng- 
 land, the understanding of Shakspeare is rendered 
 considerably more difficult, in consequence of the 
 resemblance which many very inferior writers bear 
 to him in those points, which come most immedi- 
 ately before the eye. In Germany, we admire 
 Shakspeare, and are free from this disadvantage; 
 but we should beware of adopting, either the form 
 or the sentiment of this great poet's writings, as the 
 exclusive model of our own. They are indeed, in 
 themselves, most highly poetical, but they are far 
 from being the only poetical ones, and the dramatic 
 art may attain perfection in many other ways be- 
 sides the Shaksperian. 
 
 The delightful chivalry of Spenser, and the free- 
 dom of the universal Shakspeare, were misunder- 
 
LITERATURE. 149 
 
 stood, contemned, and even persecuted, after the spi- 
 rit of fanaticism, which, in the days of Elizabeth and 
 James, had existed only as a hidden disorder, burst 
 forth at once in all its power and offensiveness, in all 
 its overwhelming and disgusting virulence, under 
 Charles I. Shakspeare was, in a peculiar manner, 
 an object of hatred to the Puritans, for whom he 
 certainly seems to have had no patriality, exactly 
 as he still is to thek 5 " descendants, the Metho- 
 dists, and other similar sects, which are at pre- 
 sent so powerful in Britain. But, although the 
 Puritans dislike Shakspeare, they were by no 
 means without poetry; on the contrary, in the bosom 
 of their sect and age, there was produced a poet who 
 must ever be classed with the first and most re- 
 markable of his nation, and of the world. The 
 poetry of the world and human nattrre was held as 
 unlawful among the bigots; the art which would 
 express the image of that time, was obliged to be 
 entirely directed towards spiritual concerns, as is 
 the case with the ever-serious and stately muse of 
 Milton. The Paradise Lost partakes in all those 
 difficulties and defects, which, as I have already said, 
 attend all Christian poems which attempt to make 
 the mysteries of our religion the subjects of their fic- 
 tion. It is strange that Milton did not observe, that 
 the Loss of Paradise forms in itself no complete whole, 
 but is only the first act of the great Christian his- 
 
150 HISTORY OF 
 
 tory of man, wherein the creation, the fall, and the 
 redemption, are all equally necessary parts of one 
 mighty drama. It is true that he sought afterwards 
 to remove this main defect by the addition of the 
 Paradise Regained, but this poem is too insignifi- 
 cant in its purpose and size to be worthy of forming 
 the keystone to the great work. When compared 
 with the Catholic poets, Dante and Tasso, who 
 were his models, Milton, as a Protestant, laboured 
 under considerable disadvantages, by being entirely 
 denied the use of a great many symbolical represen- 
 tations, histories, and traditions, which were in their . 
 hands the most graceful ornaments of Christian 
 poetry. He was sensible of this, and attempted to 
 make amends for the defect, by adopting fables and 
 allegories out of the Koran and the Talmud, such as 
 are extremely unfit for the use of a serious Christian 
 poet. The excellence of his epic work consists, 
 therefore, not in the plan of the whole, so much as 
 in particular beauties and passages, and in general 
 in the perfection of the high language of poetry. 
 The unusual admiration which was attracted to 
 Milton in the eighteenth century, rested upon parti- 
 cular traits and representations of paradisaic inno- 
 cence and beauty, and upon the picture of hell, and 
 the character of its inhabitants, whom this poet has 
 depicted in a style great and almost antique, as giants 
 of the abyss. Whether it has, upon the whole, been 
 
LITERATURE. \$\ 
 
 advantageous for the English language of poetry, 
 that it has been leaning more to the Latin than to the 
 Teutonic side, that it has followed Milton more than 
 Spenser, — this is a point which I cannot help view- 
 ing as extremely doubtful. If such a leaning, how- 
 ever, was to take place, there is no question that 
 Milton was the best model in that way, and in many 
 respects well entitled to be himself the standard of 
 the high and serious poetical language of England. 
 But the truth is, that any exclusive standard is in- 
 jurious in a language so composed of opposite ele- 
 ments as the English is; for it is the very nature of 
 such a language, if not to be perpetually vacillating 
 between two extremes, yet certainly to retain the 
 freedom of approximating more nearly at different 
 times to the two opposite boundaries of its domain. 
 
 The whole wealth of the English tongue, power- 
 ful it is in this mixture, and the various modifica- 
 tions which that admits of, can only be appreciated 
 by those who study it in Shakspeare. 
 
 After the Puritan period had passed away, the 
 English literature and language began to be infected 
 with another species of barbarism; the adoption of 
 the then corrupted but predominant taste of the 
 French. It was not till the full restoration of poli- 
 tical freedom took place, at the close of the seven- 
 teenth century, that intellect recovered from the 
 oppression under which it had lain. So deeply had 
 
252 HISTORY OF 
 
 the foreign taste taken root, that the eighteenth 
 century had commenced before the old poets of the 
 nation began to be as it were discovered, and brought 
 into li&ht out of oblivion. 
 
 The French literature possessed, in the latest 
 Burgundian times, under Francis I. and in the six- 
 teenth century, a great abundance of tho-e historical 
 memoirs of which it has at all times been so produc- 
 tive; pictures after the life, which, by their exquisite 
 representation of individuals, and by the immense 
 number of traits, the immediate offspring of 
 personal observation, have the effect of entirely . 
 transporting us back into the manners, society, and 
 general spnit of the age depicted. The peculiar 
 talent for applying in a tone of social intercourse, 
 a species of light and sarcastic philosophy to the 
 ordinary affairs of life, was in like manner very early- 
 developed among the French. I need only allude 
 to two great masters in these two different walks of 
 literature, Philip de Commines and Montaigne. 
 The old French language is for the most part care- 
 less, inaccurate, and perplexed with intricate pe- 
 riods, but along with all these defects it possesses, 
 in the hands of Montaigne, and some of the better 
 writers of the old time, a certain naivete and na- 
 tural tone of sentiment, which are the more charm- 
 ing, on account of the careless and unaffected style 
 in which they are expressed. But that, upon the 
 
LITERATURE. 153 
 
 whole, the French language of the sixteenth century 
 was extremely ill adapted, either for poetry or 
 wit, — that it was altogether unworthy of being com- 
 pared with the languages of the neighbouring coun- 
 tries, — and gave little promise of the noble and 
 tasteful perfection to which itself has since attain- 
 ed, — all this may easily be gathered from Marot and 
 Rabelais, in spite of the high talents which both of 
 these writers possess. If we take a general view of 
 the neglected, uncultivated, and, in many respects, 
 barbarous condition of the older French literature 
 and language, we cannot fail to consider the changes 
 introduced into both, by Cardinal Richelieu, and the 
 academy of which he was the founder, as a very ne- 
 cessary and fortunate one. The literary supremacy 
 of the new academy was indeed, like the political 
 sway of its head, a yoke of iron; its operations par- 
 took of the celerity and decision of despotism. The 
 regulation of language was its first attempt, and this 
 certainly was very soon crowned with the most com- 
 plete success. In prose this is universally to be 
 seen; not only the first and most celebrated writers, 
 but we might almost say, ail the writers of the last 
 part of the seventeenth century, are distinguished by 
 a peculiar charm of noble style. We have only to 
 reflect on the immense number of letters, memoirs 
 (even of women), tracts of men of business, none of 
 them ever intended for the press, and composed by 
 Vol. II. U 
 
1 54 HISTORY OF 
 
 persons who made no pretensions to the character of 
 writers; all these are remarkable for a peculiar and 
 graceful taste, of which scarcely any trace is to be 
 discovered among the French authors of the succeed- 
 ing age. Among the poets I think that, at the same 
 period, Racine attained, in language and versifica- 
 tion, a point of harmonious perfection, even beyond 
 what has been reached by Milton in English, or even 
 Virgil in Latin, — and very far superior to any thing 
 which has ever since been seen in France. With a 
 view to the poetry itself, and even for its language, 
 it is true there is much reason to wish that, along 
 with this skilful perfection*, a little more freedom 
 had been left; that the elder French poetry of the chi- 
 valrous period, which, as we have seen, produced 
 not a little of beautiful and lovely, both in regard to 
 language and invention, had not been so entirely and 
 without exception thrown aside. It might have 
 been quite possible to unite, as was done by the 
 Italians, and by some other nations, the perfection 
 of a rich and earnest style with the poetical spirit 
 of chivalry. The French language and poetry 
 might then have preserved a great deal more ofthat 
 romantic tendency and old poetical freedom which 
 Voltaire so often wished they could regain, and 
 which he himself attempted, although with very 
 imperfect success, to restore. Yet such a forgetting 
 and total contemning of all that has gone before is 
 
LITERATURE. I55 
 
 inseparable from every great and entire change, 
 even in literature. It was a revolution; as might 
 have been expected, much secret opposition at all 
 times remained against the harsh swaj T , and this 
 became more and more apparent, when, in the days 
 of the Regent and Lewis XV. the French learned 
 to think, with even increasing earnestness, after 
 the freedom of the English, — not only in civil af- 
 fairs, but also in literature and in language. In 
 consequence of the irregular, and in part ill-inten- 
 tioned manner wherein these inclinations were gra- 
 tified, and the foreign modes introduced and ren- 
 dered predominant, there arose, during the time 
 of these princes, that corruption of taste which, 
 having gradually attained its summit, broke out 
 into the wildest appearances of anarchy, even be- 
 fore the revolution, and which, like other rebels 
 will, I fear, be with great difficulty, ever com- 
 pletely reconciled to the restoration of the ancient 
 obedience. 
 
 The true flourishing period of the French poetry 
 was the latter half of the sixteenth century. Ron- 
 sard, in the sixteenth century, was only the remote 
 forerunner of the great poets of the age of Lewis 
 XIV.; Voltaire, in the eighteenth, was only 
 their ingenious follower, who attempted, with some- 
 times great and sometimes very indifferent suc- 
 cess, to supply what he conceived to be the chief 
 
|56 HISTORY OP 
 
 defects of the poets of his own time. The true de- 
 fect which presses most severely on the French 
 poetry is this, that the cultivation of the more ar- 
 tificial species was not preceded by any truly clas- 
 sical, successful, and national epic poem. Ronsard, 
 indeed, attempted this, nor is he without fire and 
 energy, but his style is full of false bombast; as it 
 often happens that when any one attempts to make 
 a sudden escape from barbarous rudeness, he is 
 very apt to fall into the opposite defect of far- 
 thought, pedantic, and artificial expression. Of all 
 the poets, even including those of Italy, who have 
 corrupted their language by desiring to make it too 
 much like that of antiquity, the defect is most visi- 
 ble in the writings of Ronsard. Even the choice 
 of the subject in his Franciade, must be consider- 
 ed as extremely unhappy. Had a French poet 
 chosen some part of the ancient national history 
 to be the groundwork of an epic poem, he might 
 have been excused for introducing, by way of epi- 
 sode, the fable which traces the Franks from the 
 heroes of Troy — an absurd fable to be sure, but one 
 which was very commonly believed among the 
 knights and minstrels of the middle ages. But it 
 was certainly an unfortunate idea to think of mak- 
 ing such a foolish legend the very basis of the 
 epopee. The achievements and fortunes of St. 
 Lewis might, in many respects, have appeared the 
 
LITERATURE. I57 
 
 best subject of an epic poem for a poet of old 
 France; for they stand in the most intimate con- 
 nection with the whole world of romance, and in 
 the midst of all the seriousness of historic truth, 
 and the associations of patriotism and piety, con- 
 nected with the adventures of a sainted hero, 
 present to the fancy as wide a range as could have 
 been produced by the most perfect rejection of every 
 thing either true or natural. The only difficulty 
 was that presented by the illfated termination of 
 the crusade of St. Lewis. In the story of the Maid 
 of Orleans, which was selected by Chapelain, the 
 difficulty consisted in this, that the heroine who 
 delivered France, was betrayed into the hands of 
 her enemies, and abandoned to a shameful death 
 by the hands of her own countrymen, who had, in 
 the former part of her life, deified and adored her. 
 The same thing which has oftened happened in the 
 history of French heroes, occurred in literature to 
 Ronsard. He was praised beyond all bounds in 
 his own life time, and exalted to the very heavens; 
 immediately afterwards he fell to the dust, and past 
 into the most perfect oblivion. But the name of 
 Ronsard is still one which must not be omitted in 
 the history of literary France; for it is undeniable 
 that the great Corneille, the friend and admirer of 
 Chapelain, had formed himself in the elder school 
 
|58 HISTORY OF 
 
 of Ronsard, or at least reminds us, every now and 
 then, of the peculiarities of his diction. 
 
 The tragedy of the French is considered by them- 
 selves as the most brilliant part of their literature, 
 and as such has ever attracted the chief attention 
 of other nations. Their tragedy expresses so abun- 
 dantly their national character and mode of feeling, 
 that there is no difficulty in conceiving why they 
 should have come to think so highly of it, even al- 
 though the subjects of its earlier productions are al- 
 most never taken from their own national history. 
 It is not indeed to be denied, that all these Greeks, 
 Romans, Spaniards, and Turks, whom it represents 
 to us, are Frenchmen in many things besides their 
 language; yet it is certainly unfortunate that the 
 French tragedy has remained almost entirely fo- 
 reign, and very rarely represented French heroes. 
 The circumstance is probably to be explained by 
 the want of any successful and universally known 
 French epic poem. Besides, the most tragical in- 
 cidents in the old French history could not fail to 
 excite disagreeable recollections and comparisons, 
 ill adapted for the purposes of a stage entirely de- 
 pendent upon the Court. It was the great defect 
 in French literature, that an authoritative tone of 
 appeal to the national feeling was kept up by no 
 one species of serious poetry — above all, that this 
 
LITERATURE. 159 
 
 was utterly lost sight of by their first tragedians. 
 The defect was well understood by Voltaire, and 
 he attempted to remedy the evil, by choosing sub- 
 jects out of the old French history, and more ge- 
 nerally by introducing the feelings and manners of 
 the chivalrous period upon the stage. The national 
 feelings which he endeavoured to excite, did not 
 begin to display themselves till considerably after; 
 but the glory is indisputably his, of having succeed- 
 ed, in romantic tragedy, beyond any other of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 Although, however, the subjects of French tra- 
 gedy are, with a few exceptions, foreign, yet this 
 whole department of their literature is, without 
 doubt, in the highest degree expressive of the pe- 
 culiar turn and feeling of the French spirit and 
 character. I therefore gladly recognize in it a spe- 
 cies of poetry highly perfect in its execution, and 
 thoroughly national in its tendency; but the more 
 natural it is, the less is it adapted to be the stan- 
 dard and model of any other theatre. It is the duty 
 of every nation to be the inventors and creators of 
 their own drama. 
 
 The form of the French tragedy is regarded by 
 most as a mere imitation of the Greek, and judged 
 of by that standard; but it ought to be recollected 
 that the great masters of the French stage were 
 themselves the first who suggested the fact to us, 
 
X6Q HISTORY OF 
 
 and pointed this out in their prefaces, as the proper 
 point of view from which their productions should 
 be contemplated. Racine appears in this respect 
 to the greatest advantage; he speaks with a true and 
 lively knowledge of the Greeks, which we should in 
 vain seek for in any of the other French writers; and 
 if his judgment be not always satisfactory to us, 
 (for the Greeks have been much more accurately 
 studied since his time than before it), we can yet 
 recognize, in all that he says, a feeling of the ex- 
 cellence of their art and poetry, which none but 
 great poets, such as Racine himself was, are capa- 
 ble of possessing. Corneille, in his prefaces, is al- 
 ways battling with Aristotle and his commentators, 
 who are indeed very often much in his way, till at 
 the close we find him ratifying either a total capi- 
 tulation or a hollow truce with those fatal enemies 
 of all poetical freedom. We cannot avoid being 
 surprised at the humility with which this mighty 
 genius seems to submit himself to fetters so confin- 
 ing, and so entirely self-imposed. The prefaces 
 and dissertations of Voltaire always open with the 
 same assertions, namely, that the French nation, 
 and if possible, still more the French stage, is the 
 first in the world, and that nevertheless Corneille 
 and Racine, with all their excellencies, have left 
 very much to be done. The reader is commonly 
 left in a situation which enables him very easily to 
 
LITERATURE. jgj 
 
 discover, who is, in Voltaire's opinion, the great ge- 
 nius destined to supply all these defects, and to sur- 
 pass Corneille and Racine as much as they do the 
 tragedians of foreign nations. 
 
 That the form of the Grecian tragedy, and the ce- 
 lebrated treatise of Aristotle (as it is understood by 
 them) have in many respects confined and injured 
 the French poets — that a great part of the law of 
 the three unities, more particularly of those of time 
 and place, is absurd, and in total opposition to the 
 true nature of poetry — in which we do not consider 
 physical possibility with arithmetical exactness, but 
 rather judge according to the effect produced on the 
 imagination by a verisimilitude not historical but 
 poetical, — all this has been so frequently handled 
 since the time of Lessing, that it is needless to re- 
 vive a contest which has been so often fought with 
 the same issue. There is only one observation 
 which I shall make, and that is of the historical 
 kind; of all the French writers, the one who did 
 most to establish the enslaving influence of the 
 mistaken Greek models and critics, was Boileau. 
 How hurtful the effects of his precepts must have 
 been on the French poetry, may be gathered from 
 the one fact — that he treats Corneille with almost 
 the same severity as Chapelain. What gives the 
 most perfect idea of the man is, to my view, that 
 well known maxim of his, " of a rhyming couplet 
 
 Vol. II. X 
 
162 HISTORY OF 
 
 " the last verse should, if possible, be first made." 
 Instead of the true judgment and feeling of art, in 
 his own criticism, he is fond of a species of ridicule 
 which is in general by no means the most delicate; 
 and instead of poetry he is most anxious for a full and 
 perfect rhyme. I perfectly agree with the opinion 
 of Racine, who wrote in these terms to his son, 
 concerning his friend Boileau, " Boileau is an ex- 
 " cellent man, but at bottom he knows absolutely 
 "nothing about poetry." 
 
 Another great rule of this critic is the one, bor- 
 rowed from Horace, according to which a work of - 
 intellect should be as many years before it is publish- 
 ed as a human child lies months in the womb before 
 it is born. In spite, however, of all the authority of 
 Boileau, there is no doubt that the Athalie of 
 Racine and the Cid of Corneille, which I must al- 
 ways hold to be the two most glorious productions 
 of French poetry, were neither of them subjected 
 to any such process of tedious elaboration, but both 
 brought at once before the world in the inspiration 
 and glow of their first conception. These two crea- 
 tions, the finest of which the French stage can 
 boast, may best inform us what height that stage 
 has reached, and at what point it has been obliged 
 to stop in its imitation of the nobler drama of the 
 Greeks. 
 
 However little the modern expounders of Aris- 
 
LITERATURE. 263 
 
 totle may be aware of its consequences, the fact 
 itself is sufficiently certain, that the lyrical songs, 
 form the essential part in the tragedy of the an- 
 cients; that the dialogue is a mere appendix and 
 interlude to the chorus, not the chorus to the dia- 
 logue; and that he who would imitate this species 
 of writing with success, must be at least as much 
 a lyrical as a dramatic poet. The Cid of Corneille 
 is intensely lyrical, and the tone of this inspiration 
 alone gives it that magical power, against which 
 envy and criticism are of no avail. Racine, in his 
 Athalie, has restored the chorus of antiquity, with 
 many alterations no doubt, but in a manner which 
 seems to me exquisitely adapted for the purposes 
 which he had in view. Had the French tragedy 
 advanced farther in the path pointed out by its two 
 greatest masters in their two most excellent produc- 
 tions, I have no doubt it might have approached, 
 much more nearly than it has done, to the power 
 and dignity of the antique; many of the narrow fet- 
 ters, imposed by mere prosaic misunderstanding, 
 would of themselves have dropt away, and the ge- 
 nius of the drama, being more at liberty, would cer- 
 tainly have attempted achievements of higher ambi- 
 tion than any to which it has as yet aspired. 
 
 The universal custom of striking out the lyrical 
 part of the ancient tragedy, was productive of a 
 very great inconvenience; more particularly when 
 
154 HISTORY OF 
 
 the subject of the drama happened to be one of 
 those same mythological legends which had of old 
 been handled by the Greeks. When the lyrical 
 part is taken away, the plot was found to be too 
 little to fill up the tragedy, and recourse was had 
 to the same means of supplying the vacant space, 
 which had been adopted by the ancients themselves 
 when their drama was on its decline. The plot was 
 thickened by a crowd of interpolated intrigues ex- 
 tremely hurtful to the purpose and dignity of tra- 
 gedy, or else the whole was filled up with that 
 rhetoric of the passions, which every tragical sub- - 
 jtct affords such easy means of introducing. In 
 one point of view this last expedient has been of 
 great advantage to the French tragedy; it has lent 
 to it a strength which it wants in all other respects, 
 and enabled it to express, with great effect, the 
 character and spirit of a nation, among whom, 
 in all their relations, rhetoric has always exerted 
 the greatest influence — whose private life itself is 
 filled in a great measure with this very rhetoric of 
 the passions. Besides, a certain measure of this 
 rhetoric is a necessary and indispensable element of 
 all dramatic representation. The thing is, no 
 doubt, overdone in the French tragedy; but its 
 preponderance there is founded upon national feel- 
 ing, and any attempt to imitate the peculiarity 
 would be quite absurd among any foreign people — 
 
LITERATURE. 155 
 
 more particularly among those who have greater 
 feeling for poetry, than natural talent for rhetoric. 
 
 The partiality of the French for this rhetorical 
 part of their tragedy is so great, that the decision of 
 the audience is founded much more upon the ora- 
 tory of the individual speeches, than the dramatic 
 connection and effect of the whole piece. But if we 
 attend to those parts of their drama of which they 
 themselves are in general negligent, and study in 
 particular those plays which have a true and poeti- 
 cal denouement of the kind which I have above de- 
 scribed, we shall find that, even in this respect, the 
 French tragedy is the child of the antique; that its 
 termination is in general one of complete destruc- 
 tion, or that, if there be any softening, the sorrow 
 still continues to be by far the predominant mate- 
 rial. There are indeed a few delightful exceptions. 
 In his Athalie, Racine shows himself to be a Chris- 
 tian poet, and brings victory out of the conflict; and 
 in the Alzire, in like manner, death and suffering 
 are represented as the avenues of eternal life and 
 blessedness. This last play is the masterpiece of 
 Voltaire; in it he appears indeed worthy of his two 
 illustrious predecessors. 
 
166 HISTORY OF 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BACON, HUGO GRO- 
 
 TIUS, DESCARTES, BOSSUET, PASCAL CHANGE IN THE MODE 
 
 OF THINKING SPIRIT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PIC- 
 TURE OF THE ATHEISM AND REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF THE 
 FRENCH. 
 
 1 HE seventeenth century was rich in distinguish- 
 ed writers, not only in elegant literature, poetry, and 
 eloquence, but also in the sciences and in philo- 
 sophy. The philosophy and system of thinking 
 which belonged to the eighteenth century, which 
 during that period extended themselves over all the 
 departments of literature, and even acquired a most 
 determinate influence over the fate of men and of 
 nations, — these were not without their precursors in 
 the age immediately preceding; although it is true 
 that the first founders and establishes of the new 
 doctrines soon ceased to attract much attention, af- 
 ter their labours were surmounted by the more im- 
 posing structures of their successors. It is absolutely 
 
LITERATURE. J57 
 
 necessary, however, to take into view Bacon, Des- 
 cartes, Locke, and some other of the heroes of the 
 seventeenth century, before we can rightly depict 
 or understand the true nature of those intellectual 
 and moral changes which were introduced by Vol- 
 taire and Rousseau, not only into France, but into 
 all Europe, and in general into the whole spirit of 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 The sixteenth century was the age of ferment 
 and strife, and it was only towards its close that 
 the human mind began to calm and collect itself 
 after the violent convulsion it had undergone. 
 With the seventeenth century commenced that 
 new mode of reflection and inquiry to which the 
 way had been laid open by the restoration of clas- 
 sical learning, the great improvement in natural 
 science, and that universal shaking and separation 
 of faith occasioned by the reformation of Luther. 
 The first name to which we turn is that of the 
 great Bacon. This mighty genius, by carrying the 
 spirit of inquiry out of the verbal contentions of 
 the dead schools, into the regions of experience, 
 above all of life and nature, has become the father 
 of modern physics; he made and completed many 
 illustrious discoveries himself, of many more he 
 seems to have had a dim and imperfect foresight; 
 it is the work of ages to follow out the hints which 
 are dropped by such a spirit in the progress of its 
 
• ♦ 
 
 168 HISTORY OP 
 
 excursions. By means of his rich and undefatigable 
 intellect, the whole sciences of experience have been 
 immeasureably enlarged, or rather they have been 
 entirely regenerated; the common shape of mind, 
 nay, we may say, the common shape of life in mo- 
 dern Europe, has received a spark of new anima- 
 tion from the inspiring touch of this Prometheus. 
 The dangerous consequences produced by the inju- 
 dicious extension of his principles, at the time 
 when his followers and admirers in the eighteenth 
 century thought they could derive more than he 
 had ever dreamed of, from experience and the 
 senses, — the laws of life and commerce, and the 
 just notion of faith and hope,- — and threw away 
 from them, as mysticism, whatever cannot be prov- 
 ed by the common experience of sense, — these in- 
 deed were alarming and reprehensible, but they 
 cannot be with justice ascribed to the spirit of 
 Bacon. I need only recal to your recollection one 
 celebrated saying of his, which has by no means 
 become obsolete, — that philosophy when studied su- 
 perficially leads to unbelief and atheism, but when 
 profoundly understood is sure to produce veneration 
 for God, and to render faith in him the ruling 
 principle of our life. Not only in religion, but even 
 in natural science, this great man believed in many 
 things which have been despised as mere supersti- 
 tions by his followers and admirers in later times. 
 
LITERATURE. I59 
 
 It is not easy to suppose that he was influenced in 
 regard to these matters by the mere faith of custom, 
 and some not yet overcome attachment to the com- 
 mon prejudices of his day. For in truth his ex- 
 pressions concerning the world above the senses, 
 bear, as much as any part of his writings, the clear 
 impress of his penetrative and peculiar spirit. He 
 was a man who had as much feeling as invention, 
 and although the world of experience had revealed 
 itself to him in altogether a new light, the higher 
 and divine region of the spiritual world, which is 
 situated far above common experience and sense, 
 was not viewed by him either obscurely or remotely. 
 How little he himself partook, I will not say in 
 the rude materialism of his followers, but even in 
 that spiritual deification of nature which became 
 fashionable in France, and, though in a lesser de- 
 gree, in Germany, during the eighteenth century, 
 this may be abundantly proved by a simple maxim 
 which he has uttered respecting the proper essence 
 of true and philosophical inquiry in physics. In 
 the natural philosophy of the ancients, says he, 
 there is this to blame, that they held nature to be 
 an image of the Godhead; for, according to truth, 
 with which also the Christian doctrine has no va- 
 riance, man alone is a type and image of God, 
 while nature is no glass, likeness, or similitude of 
 him, but only the work of his hands. By the na- 
 Vol. II. Y 
 
j 7Q history or 
 
 tural philosophy of the ancients, it is sufficiently 
 evident from the extensive form of Bacon's argu- 
 ment, that he here meant to designate not any one 
 particular system, but in general every thing most 
 good and excellent in the opinions of the ancients 
 concerning natural philosophy — a term under which 
 it is besides more than probable that he compre- 
 hended not physical science alone, but mythology 
 and natural religion. When Bacon, according to 
 the doctrine of the Scriptures, asserts that it is the 
 privilege of man alone to be an image of the 
 Deity, we are not to understand that he had as- - 
 cribed to man this high and peculiar excellence, 
 merely as being the most glorious and complex of 
 all natural productions; he took the language of the 
 Bible in its literal sense, and believed this re- 
 semblance and image to be the gift of God's love 
 and inspiration. In the figurative expression, that 
 nature is no mirror or image of God, but only the 
 work of his hand, there may be found, if we un- 
 derstand it in its due profoundness of meaning, 
 a perfect statement of the true relation between 
 the world subject and the world superior to the 
 senses,— between God and nature. It expresses 
 that nature is not self originating or self existent, 
 but a production of the Divine will for a particular 
 purpose. We may obtain from this short and 
 simple maxim respecting the natural philosophy of 
 
LITERATURE. 1^1 
 
 the ancients, and that of the Christian Scriptures 
 and of Bacon, a clear and intelligible guide to point 
 out the right path between the dangers of im- 
 pious veneration for nature on the one hand; and 
 on the other, of that dark aversion for nature, into 
 which confined and partial reason too often falls, 
 when, directing itself entirely to morality, it can 
 neither understand external nature, nor the Deity 
 who is alike predominant over the natural and the 
 moral world. The proper distinction and relation 
 between nature and Deity, is the leading principle 
 not only of all thought and belief, but of human 
 life and intercourse. This circumstance, and the 
 saying of Bacon, which embraces the result of all his 
 reflections concerning nature, are the more worthy 
 of our attention, because, even in our own time, phi- 
 losophy is still, for the most part, divided between 
 these two extremes; the one that culpable deifi- 
 cation of nature, which distinguishes not between 
 the Creator and his works, God and the world; — the 
 other, the hatred and blindness of those despisers of 
 nature, whose reason is too exclusively egotistical 
 in its direction. The right middle-path between 
 these two opposite errors, or the true recognition 
 of nature, finds its expression in the feeling which 
 we have of our own internal connection with na- 
 ture, as well as of our superiority over it — and in 
 that peculiar reverence and admiration with which 
 
172 HISTORY OF 
 
 we regard all those parts of nature that have in 
 them something of a higher and different charac- 
 ter — all of lovely or of awful, which reveals to us, 
 in a more striking manner, the traces of a fashion- 
 ing hand and a superintending intellect. 
 
 The influence exerted during the seventeenth 
 and a great part of the eighteenth centuries over 
 philosophy and universal thought, by Lord Bacon, 
 was not more considerable than that of Hugo Gro- 
 tius over the practical and political world, and the 
 general ethics of international intercourse. And 
 in truth this influence was a happy and wholesome * 
 one; for as, after the dissolution of that religious 
 bond which formerly united the Western nations in 
 one political system, the universal and impious states- 
 manship of Machiavel had always been becoming 
 more and more the favourite rule of conduct, surely 
 no greater service could be rendered to humanity, 
 than giving to self- destroying Europe, an universal 
 and composing law for all her nations — unhappily 
 so much divided in faith, so much inflamed in pas- 
 sions, and so much corrupted by the prevalence of 
 a doctrine alike abounding in sophistry and vice. 
 Hugo Grotius was universally acknowledged to 
 have accomplished this noble purpose. It is an 
 elevating thought that a mere man of letters, a 
 philosopher, having no power except that of his 
 own intelligence and eloquence, should have been 
 
LITERATURE. 173 
 
 the unassisted founder of such a system of natural 
 law; as he gained by his exertions the veneration 
 of his contemporaries, so he is no less entitled to 
 the gratitude and admiration of posterity. If we 
 consider it as a system, the national law founded 
 and introduced by Hugo Grotius and his followers 
 may appear indeed extremely defective, and be suf- 
 ficiently open to the cavils of a sceptic. The re- 
 ligious bond of the elder political union was an ir- 
 remediable loss. In the absence of this the doc- 
 trine of right was now to be founded entirely upon 
 the innate and - necessary ideas of men respecting 
 their own social place and destination. The more 
 entirely the universal morality was grounded by 
 Grotius and his followers on nature and reason, and 
 conducted according to the capabilities of these 
 imperfect guides, the more did the first great foun- 
 tain of all morality come to be neglected; and the 
 more unavoidably did it happen than both the 
 theory and practice of national law lost themselves 
 in a multitude of useless, and, in part at least, in- 
 extricable difficulties and niceties, on the one side, 
 and on the other, in a set of conclusions which 
 were no less dangerous than extravagant. It is 
 indeed difficult to compute how much evil, both in 
 opinion and in action, was produced by the doc- 
 trines of natural right, and the statesmanship of 
 reason, in the last half of the eighteenth century. 
 
i74 HISTORY OF 
 
 Yet, it must always remain a great benefit, that 
 through the doctrine of international law, extended 
 and recognised by means of Grotius, a mighty bul- 
 wark was placed before the encroaching stream of 
 corruption for at least one full century. From 
 1648 to 1740 there is no doubt that many evident 
 and great outrages against international justice 
 were committed, but they were all exclaimed 
 against; and it was much that power and ambi- 
 tion were thus subjected to some constraint, and 
 compelled to observe at least the appearances of 
 rectitude. Even from 1740 to 1772 these bene- 
 ficial effects were still displayed; and, although 
 certainly in a less degree, perhaps even in the more 
 stormy and tumultuous period which succeeded. 
 Now, indeed, the nations of Europe have under- 
 gone a second great convulsion, and as peoples and 
 states have been so much changed, it is no wonder 
 that the old rules and forms, by which their inter- 
 course was regulated, should have passed away. 
 
 Of all the writers who have produced a great 
 and universal effect on the practical world, and the 
 political relations of Europe, the influence of Gro- 
 tius has certainly been the most salutary. In re- 
 gard to the importance of hisworks, he can only 
 be compared with Machiavel before, and Rousseau 
 after him. 
 
 In addition to his labours for the restoration and 
 
LITERATURE. 175 
 
 recognition of justice and its theory, the active in- 
 tellect of Grotius was also exerted in the attempt to 
 set forth the truth of religion in a formal, and, so to 
 speak, in a rational manner. It was one of the indi- 
 rect effects of Protestantism that religion came to 
 be perpetually looked upon as a subject of conten- 
 tion, and consequently to be treated as a matter of 
 reason — an error which formed besides a part of the 
 original spirit and system of the second great leader 
 of the reformation, Calvin. Grotius has had many 
 followers in an attempt of which the audacity 
 seems every day more remarkable, although there 
 can be no reason to doubt the excellence of his mo- 
 tives. In itself I must consider it as a sure token 
 of declining religion, that what is by nature a mat- 
 ter of the most internal feeling and lively faith, should 
 be embraced as a business of mere reason, and con- 
 sidered as the fit subject of learned controversy — 
 that the truth of religion should be handled like a 
 process of civil law, or what is still worse, as Pas- 
 cal would have desired to see it, like the solution of 
 a regular problem in geometry. 
 
 I cannot bring myself to look upon the philoso- 
 phical labours of Descartes as equally important 
 with those of these two great men; his influence 
 upon his own age, and the following one, was 
 rather dangerous and productive of error, than sa- 
 lutary and truly vivifying. In general, Descartes 
 
176 HISTORY OF 
 
 appears to me a perfect proof that a man may be, 
 at least as the exact sciences have as yet been cul- 
 tivated, a great mathematician (which he certainly 
 was for his age) without being on that account the 
 more successful in philosophy. It is true that 
 these hypotheses, from which Descartes attempted 
 to explain not only all the separate facts in physics, 
 but even the origin of the universe, have been long 
 forgotten. His system possessed only for a very 
 short time its supremacy, and was, in fact, never 
 very much extended out of France. Yet his 
 strange hypothesis of the vortices was not without ' 
 a considerable and even abiding effect upon the 
 spirit of the seventeenth, and through that of the 
 eighteenth century. Above all, his method, as he 
 calls it, or the mode in which he began to philoso- 
 phize, has found many imitators. It was the great 
 object of his desire to be throughout an original 
 thinker in the strictest and most perfect sense of 
 the word. For this purpose he resolved to forget, 
 once for all, every thing he had before known, 
 thought, or believed, and to begin entirely anew. 
 Of course all the philosophers and inquirers of 
 preceding ages were entirely neglected, and their 
 labours overlooked as matters unworthy of notice 
 by this original reflector. Were it possible at plea- 
 sure to throw entirely and effectually aside the 
 thread of inherited thought, (by which we are, in 
 
LITERATURE* I77 
 
 spite of ourselves, inseparably connected through 
 language), the consequences of this could be no 
 other than destruction. The case would be exactly 
 as if some innovator in the political world should 
 dream himself capable of stopping the great wheel 
 of public life, and of substituting in place of that 
 complicated machinery, which a nation has formed 
 for itself in the progress and struggle of ages, some 
 simpler, and, as he thinks, better invention of his 
 own devising — a constitution springing fresh and 
 pure from his own unassisted reason. The absurdity 
 of any attempt to attain either philosophical truth, 
 or political faultlessness, by such contempt and ob- 
 livion of the past; has been demonstrated by many 
 unhappy examples in the history both of nations 
 and of literature. The most natural consequence 
 of all such attempts is, that the inquirer neither 
 sees nor avoids those first and usual errors into 
 which human reason is most apt to fall, when it at- 
 tempts to discover truth entirely by its own power; 
 errors are thus needlessly revived, and even held up 
 as great discoveries, which have already been often 
 corrected or confuted. As for the total oblivion of 
 all that has gone before us, that, as I have said 
 above, is an impossibility; so impossible is it to 
 erect any fabric of perfect and independent origi- 
 nality in philosophy, that Descartes is by no means 
 the only one of these self-satisfied philosophers, 
 Vol. II. Z 
 
173 HISTORY OF 
 
 whose most boasted and original opinions turn out, 
 after all, to be mere new versions of what had been 
 often said, in different words, by their predecessors. 
 The borrowing is indeed unintentional, but it is 
 produced by a mixture of imperfect self-deception, 
 and obscured but not extinguished reminiscence. 
 It is usually supposed to have been a great merit 
 of Descartes, that he drew so perfect a line between 
 spirit and matter. It must, however, appear unques- 
 tionably somewhat strange and surprising, that it 
 should have been looked on as something so new 
 and original to make a distinction between intellect ■ 
 and body; but, in truth, the mode in which Des- 
 cartes made his distinction was so unsatisfactory 
 and merely mathematical, that no good resulted 
 from it, and the whole thoughts of those who 
 adopted it were lost in inextricable difficulties, in 
 the attempt to explain the connection between soul 
 and body, and their mutual influences upon each 
 other. Philosophy continued, after the time of 
 Descartes, to vacillate between the principle of 
 personal consciousness and the world of the senses — 
 one set of inquirers vainly endeavouring to explain 
 every thing on the former; and another still more 
 absurdly, to deduce from the experience of the lat- 
 ter even those doctrines of morality and theology 
 with which it has not the smallest connection. In 
 every case the true relation between the soul and 
 
LITERATURE. jyg 
 
 the senses remained entirely incomprehensible, so 
 long as men had lost all sight of that higher and 
 godlike region upon which both depend, and from 
 whose light both must first be illuminated and ex- 
 plained. We often hear Descartes praised for the 
 mathematical precision with which he has, from 
 reason alone, described the being of God. If this be 
 a merit, in my opinion, it does not belong to him: 
 it was an idea borrowed from those elder philoso- 
 phers of the middle age, who were treated with so 
 much contempt by Descartes and his age. It is 
 true that they considered the matter in a point of 
 view quite different from that of Descartes and the 
 period following their own. To the highest of all 
 truths, of which, in a way peculiar to itself, we 
 have also the most firm and fearless knowledge, 
 and which forms, in fact, the animating spirit and 
 central-point of all other thoughts and impressions, 
 even of all the active purposes and views of life — 
 to this truth these old philosophers attempted, with 
 modesty and perseverance, to add the additional 
 and far inferior arguments of reason. As every 
 creature, or being in nature, makes known involun- 
 tarily, in one way or another, the inscrutable great- 
 ness of itß Creator, so may also the human reason, 
 otherwise so vain of itself, and its own powers, 
 be permitted to join the general chorus which does 
 honour to the Deity. As in human affairs it is 
 
J 80 HISTORY OF 
 
 always looked upon as the highest triumph of a 
 good and right cause, when even its enemies and 
 opponents are compelled to bear unwilling witness 
 to its truth and excellence, so also may the reason 
 of man be admitted to furnish evidence of divine 
 truth. But if we attempt, after the manner of 
 Descartes, to explain exclusively or chiefly from 
 reason the being of God, which we must learn to 
 comprehend from the suggestions of very different 
 authority, we are in fact degrading God to a de- 
 pendence upon reason, or at least to a companion- 
 ship and equality with it. There never has been, 
 nor ever can be, any successful attempt after men 
 have lost their respect for that other and higher 
 authority, to demonstrate the existence of God to 
 those who neither feel nor believe it. 
 
 The followers and disciples of Descartes founded 
 a new sect in France, which for a short time main- 
 tained its supremacy. Yet there were not a few 
 who, remaining independent, and even preserving 
 their religious principles, embraced, nevertheless, 
 as much of the Cartesian system as they imagined 
 they could reconcile with their belief. This was, 
 in many respects, the case with Malebranche, al- 
 though he indeed was never able completely to get 
 rid of those difficulties which Descartes had seen 
 conct ruing the connection between thought and its 
 external objects, between spirit and matter. Huet 
 
LITERATURE. \ 3 1 
 
 acquired great fame as an opponent of Descartes, 
 and a critical, acute, and philosophical deiender of 
 Revelation; while, at the same time, Fenelon, 
 without partaking in any degree of the peculiar 
 philosophical and metaphysical contentions of his 
 day, wrote in the most exquisite language from no 
 inspiration but that of his own amiable and Chris- 
 tian feelings. But religion owed her preservation 
 much more to another distinguished Frenchman, 
 whose name I have as yet purposely forborne to 
 mention; — this is Bossuet, a writer who, so far as 
 eloquence and language are concerned, has always 
 been considered as one of the first which his coun- 
 try has produced. It may indeed be matter of 
 some doubt, whether the splendour of such elo- 
 quence as his be altogether an appropriate vehicle 
 for the truths of religion, whether the simplicity of 
 our faith do not better accord with a more artless 
 and unlaboured style of composition. But even if 
 this should be so in the general, there can be no 
 question that at that particular period, as in every 
 other period when religion is a matter of contest, 
 and truth not entirely triumphant, a preacher, such 
 as he was, possessed at once of the clearest and 
 most comprehensive understanding, and of the 
 most vigorous eloquence, must have been an ac- 
 quisition of the highest importance to the cause he 
 had undertaken to defend. Besides, we must re- 
 
1 32 HISTORY OF 
 
 collect that the eloquence of Bossuet was by no 
 means confined to subjects, strictly speaking, theo- 
 logical; for whatever in life and in morality, in 
 church and state, in politics and history, and in ge- 
 neral whatever in human affairs is calculated to lead 
 the mind to serious reflection, was always regarded 
 by this great man in a religious point of view, and 
 considered as a fit subject of the eloquence of the 
 pulpit. 
 
 If it may be permitted to compare an orator, so 
 far as his language and composition are concerned, 
 with poets, I think there is something in Bossuet - 
 which places him on a higher level than any of the 
 poets which were his contemporaries. — The perfec- 
 tion of style is enclosed in a very narrow sphere, 
 between two extremes, that of the lofty and sub- 
 lime, and the merely artificial; its charm consists 
 in the mingling of these two elements. There is 
 nothing more rare or difficult than to preserve this 
 medium. On the one side there are many poets 
 who are both great and sublime, but in whom there 
 is a want of refinement, perfection, or, in general, 
 of harmony. Others in their anxiety to be polish- 
 ed lean too much to the side of effeminacy and de- 
 licacy; they are noble and elegant, but not great; 
 they want the strength which is necessary to con- 
 stitute the sublime. Voltaire seems to have been 
 well aware of this from the mode in which he cri- 
 ticises the two great tragedians his predecessors, 
 
LITERATURE. jg3 
 
 whom it was the highest ambition of his life to 
 surpass. It was no difficult matter for him to de- 
 tect in Corneille individual passages wherein the 
 language appears obsolete, rude, or even corrupt 
 and bombast. But it seems to me that he had a 
 higher reverence for the genius of this poet than 
 for that of his rival, — perhaps as bearing some re- 
 semblance to himself; and that he hoped, by his 
 own fire and energy in passion, to surpass Racine, 
 whom he held to be deficient in power and eleva- 
 tion. But, in truth, I apprehend that his opinion 
 of Racine was not upon the whole a correct one; 
 if we look only to the rhetoric of passion, among the 
 crowd of French tragedies, which have made that 
 the chief object of their ambition, we shall with 
 difficulty find any one which can sustain a com- 
 parison with the Phedre. The Athalie is animated 
 with the force of another and yet higher inspira- 
 tion. If in many of his other plays, as, for example, 
 in Berenice ', the chief excellence appears to consist 
 in a harmonious repose of representation, and ex- 
 quisite delicacy of characterizing; this was ren- 
 dered necessary by the nature of the fable. Yet 
 this much may be easily conceded to Voltaire, that 
 Racine would have been a greater and more per- 
 fect poet, had he united to the harmonious fault- 
 lessness of language and versification which he 
 possessed, to that noble and graceful style which 
 
JS4 HISTORY OF 
 
 forms of his peculiar beauty, here and there, some- 
 what more of that impetuous sublimity, which often 
 loses a great part of its effect on account of the pro- 
 fuseness with which it is lavished among the scenes 
 of Corneille. So far as language and representation 
 are concerned, and so far as an orator can be classed 
 with poets, I think that this union of excellencies 
 was possessed by Bossuet. With the strictest 
 purity and refinement, with a stile, the noble ele- 
 gance of which has never been surpassed, he is 
 master, whenever his subject requires it, of a great- 
 ness and sublimity which he never suffers to swell * 
 into the bombast. I am happy to agree with the 
 most severe of the French critics in the judgment 
 which they have formed respecting the high excel- 
 lence of this man and his writings; and the more so 
 because they are not only examples of perfect style 
 and expression, but also rich fountains of the most 
 sublime and salutary truths. 
 
 There is yet another point in which the excel- 
 lence of Bossuet as a writer and orator, even above 
 the great poets of his age and nation, is sufficient- 
 ly conspicuous. The French literature is, in many 
 essential circumstances, fashioned after the model 
 of the earlier refined nations of antiquity; it is in 
 part grounded on this imitation, in the same man- 
 ner that the Roman literature was upon the imita- 
 tion of the Greek. This in itself is no reproach, 
 
LITERATURE. jgej 
 
 and, in a certain degree, indeed, is necessary with 
 the literature of every nation whose refinement 
 has a date subsequent to that of others, and more 
 particularly whose spirit, like that of the Romans 
 and the French, has been more directed to the ex- 
 ternal and practical life, than to the internal ac- 
 tivity of intellect. It would be absurd to class 
 the literature of the Romans, in regard to in- 
 ventiveness of spirit, with that of the Greeks; 
 but I have endeavoured to show how, notwithstand- 
 ing its great inferiority in poetry and philosophy, 
 the Roman feeling and idea of Rome, predomi- 
 nant in all its works and writers, have been suffi- 
 cient to give it a character and excellence of its 
 own. The same effect was produced on Bossuet 
 by the religion which animated him, for his reli- 
 gion was no mere faith of custom, but the spirit of 
 his life, and, as it were, a second nature, by which 
 he was enabled to see and comprehend more clearly 
 all the mysteries of the first. For this reason it is, 
 that he preserves all the independence of an original 
 writer, and is the equal and rival, rather than the 
 follower, of those ancients who were both his mo- 
 dels in st} le, and the fountains of his learning and 
 opinions. What the idea of their country and of 
 the greatness of Rome was to the Romans, and what 
 this idea gave to them even as writers, Chris- 
 tianity was, and gave, in a much higher degree, to 
 Vol. II. 2 A 
 
186 HISTORY OF 
 
 Catholic France, during the period when the spirit 
 of Bossuet was the ruling one. Religion was the 
 free part of the soul, which enabled it to maintain 
 itself unsubdued by the encroaching influences of the 
 antique. So far however was this from being com- 
 monly the case, that the best poet which France at 
 that time possessed, who was also the most religious, 
 stopped short in his career, before he had reached 
 the point of perfection which he certainly might have 
 attained, in consequence of the collision which took 
 place between his ideas of Christianity, and his too 
 exclusively antique notions in regard to the drama- 
 tic art. It is well known that Racine, after he had 
 become completely penetrated with the opinions 
 of the Jansenists, adopted ideas of absurd strict- 
 ness respecting his own art, and even desisted 
 from writing for the theatre. This excess of moral 
 scrupulousness in the great poet, cannot fail to im- 
 press us with an amiable notion of the man, and 
 that is indeed sufficiently confirmed by all that we 
 know of his private history, and by the scope and 
 tenor of his letters. And if it be true that he 
 judged too severely of the capabilities of the theatre, 
 it is unquestionably quite as true, that in the dra- 
 matic art and representation of his time, there were 
 many things not very easily reconcileable with 
 the doctrines and morality of the Bible. There 
 was always a want of harmony between Christian 
 
LITERATURE. 157 
 
 sentiments and the vehicle in which they were 
 conveyed. Upon the whole, there is the greatest 
 reason to regret that Racine did not finish what 
 he so well begun in his Athalie^ and demonstrate 
 the possibility of making the drama of France a 
 Christian drama, without diminishing its excel- 
 lence. How great in these respects is the supe- 
 riority of the Spanish poetry over the French. 
 Among that thoroughly Catholic people, religion 
 and fiction, truth and poetry, do not stand at va- 
 riance from each other, but are all united in the 
 most harmonious beauty. 
 
 The party of the Jansenists gave to France 
 many distinguished writers, among whom I need 
 only mention Pascal; but, upon the whole, I am 
 convinced that the controversies which they intro- 
 duced had any effect rather than a fortunate one 
 on the French literature. I shall only recal to 
 your recollection, in a very few words, the subject 
 of most of their contests. It was a difficulty as 
 old as human reason, and which human reason 
 never can thoroughly explain; the nature of the 
 free will of man, and its reconcilement with the 
 necessity of nature — the omniscience and omnipo- 
 tence of the Deity. This is a matter entirely sub- 
 ject to reason, and which of right, therefore, should 
 never have been connected with religion. The 
 judicious friends and defenders of Christianity have 
 
1Q3 HISTORY OF 
 
 never pronounced any opinion respecting it, except- 
 ing only a negative one, to express their dislike of 
 the two equally reprehensible extremes. But as in 
 the fifth and sixth centuries, when the doctrines of 
 free will, and the power of man's own exertions, 
 in regard to his virtue, were so much brought for- 
 ward, that he was represented as a being indepen- 
 dent of God, and not requiring his aid, all the 
 friends of Christianity were obliged to bestir them- 
 selves in order to get the better of this error; so 
 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, their 
 chief object was to combat those very opposite dog- ' 
 matists who maintained that man, to obtain and 
 fulfil all the purposes of his being, needs only to 
 lay aside all exertion and all free will, — who adopt- 
 ed, in the main, the antique notions of dark and 
 inflexible destiny, or at least the Mahometan ones 
 of predestination and fatality. This controversy 
 was in itself an unless one, but it was rendered far 
 more hurtful than it needed to have been by the 
 manner in which it was conducted. The Provin- 
 cial Letters of Pascal have, in consequence of their 
 wit, and the beauty of their language, become 
 standard works in French literature; but if we 
 would characterize them by their import and spirit, 
 they form nothing more than a masterpiece of so- 
 phistry. He disdains none of the tricks of that 
 dangerous art, by which he thinks he can render 
 
LITERATURE. ^39 
 
 his opponents, the Jesuits, contemptible or odious. 
 That violence was in many respects done to truth, 
 those acquainted with the history of the time well 
 know, but even although that had been much less 
 frequently the case than it really was with Pascal, 
 every one must admit that an author, such as he 
 was, employed his genius in a very culpable man- 
 ner, when he set the example of writing concerning 
 religion in the tone of apparent levity and bitter sar- 
 casm. At first, indeed, this mode was adopted by 
 one Christian against others, men whom he person- 
 ally hated, although they were seriously religious, 
 because they did not measure the truths of Chris- 
 tianity by the geometrical standard which he him- 
 self preferred. But how soon were the same wea- 
 pons turned against religion itself, The witty and 
 exquisitely expressed sophistry of Pascal, was an 
 admirable but a dangerous model, copied with but 
 too much success by Voltaire; and easily coupled 
 by him with all the kindred artifices of Bayle — a ge- 
 nius of the highest order, who applied a most 
 various erudition in order to throw out doubts, in- 
 sinuations, mockeries, and jests, against religion, 
 and to make his approaches on every side, like a 
 treacherous underminer, towards the yet unshatter- 
 ed bulwarks of our faith. 
 
 In general the spirit of philosophy in the last 
 part of the seventeenth century, leaned more and 
 
190 HISTORY OF 
 
 more to evil. We may learn from the example of 
 Hobbes alone how much the new doctrines of Ba- 
 con, without any intention or fault of that great man 
 himself, had the tendency to promote unbelief and 
 materialism. But as yet the spirit of the time was 
 not ripe enough to receive the doctrine of unlimit- 
 ed right in the strongest, as expressed in the Le- 
 viathan. In order to have preached with success 
 such an atheistical view both of the physical and 
 political world, Hobbes should have come a cen- 
 tury, or at least half a century later. Locke, on 
 the other hand, received much greater favour, be- 
 cause his opinions were not so much at variance 
 with the received moral principles and feelings of 
 his time, and because the tendency of his book, al- 
 though almost as greatly, was by no means so ap- 
 parently irreligious. In truth his errors were the 
 more dangerous, on account of the unsuspicious 
 shape in which they made their appearance. It is 
 quite evident that no higher kind of belief or hope 
 can obtain a place, where every thing is inclosed 
 within the narrow limits of the senses, and their 
 experience. Locke himself, indeed, was a good 
 Christian, but this is only one instance more, that 
 he who first opens a new line of thought very sel- 
 dom pursues it so far as to perceive even its most 
 inevitable consequences. If we adopt his principles, 
 we must inevitably renounce all other thoughts, 
 
LITERATURE. J91 
 
 and limit ourselves to the feeling, the experience, 
 and the enjoyment of the senses; and those who 
 in later times have openly professed these notions, 
 although they called themselves independent phi- 
 losophers, were in truth only the disciples of Mr. 
 Locke. When men began to reflect somewhat 
 more deeply on the proper subjects of this sensible 
 experience, and then on the power which it pos- 
 sesses, and the effects which it produces, a mighty 
 variety of doubts sprung up in every direction — 
 particularly in England. The doctrine, that the 
 only true knowledge is that shaped out by the 
 senses and experience, is in general decided, al- 
 though not openly expressed, materialism — and 
 in France it very soon threw aside the veil such 
 as it was. — Indirectly, and indeed entirely con- 
 trary to his wishes, Newton himself paved the 
 way for the philosophy of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury; for the defenders of the new opinions were 
 proud of appealing perpetually to his authority; 
 and thought, indeed, that after his stupendous 
 discoveries in physics, nothing is so great but that 
 it may be attained without the assistance of reli- 
 gion. Both Newton and Bacon would have turned 
 away with disgust from those who professed to be 
 their greatest admirers in the eighteenth century. 
 These, indeed, with all their reverence for his phi- 
 losophy, did not scruple to talk at times of his 
 
1 92 HISTORY OF 
 
 attachment to Christianity as a weakness in the 
 mind of Newton. In many of his expressions con- 
 cerning the Deity and his connection with nature, 
 we may perceive the traces not merely of an anima- 
 ted feeling, but of a deep sentiment — marks that, 
 though he was not, in strict speaking, a philoso- 
 pher, and knew nothing of metaphysics, he had ne- 
 vertheless thought, in an original manner, on all the 
 highest subjects of reflection. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, the English were the 
 first people of Europe, in literature as in every 
 thing else. The whole of the modern French philo- 
 sophy was produced by that of Bacon, Locke, and 
 other Englishmen; at least, it borrowed all its first 
 principles from them. In France, however, it soon 
 assumed an appearance quite different from what it 
 had ever had in England. In Germany, on the other 
 hand, the mighty regeneration of literature in the 
 middle of this century, received its first impetus and 
 ruling direction, principally from the poetry and the 
 criticism of the English. 
 
 Voltaire was the first who contributed, in a great 
 degree, to bring the philosophy of Locke and New- 
 ton into France. It is singular with what a per- 
 versity of genius this man makes use of all the 
 marvellous greatness of nature as revealed to 
 him by the science of England, not for the 
 purpose of exalting the character of the Creator, 
 
LITERATURE. jgg 
 
 but for lowering that of men; — how fond he is of 
 dwelling on the insignificance of this earthworm, 
 amidst the immeasureable splendours of stars and 
 planets. As if the spirit, the thought which 
 can comprehend all this universe of suns and stars, 
 were not something greater than they; as if God 
 were some earthly monarch, who, among the mil- 
 lions over which he rules, may well be supposed 
 never to have seen, and almost to have forgotten 
 the existence of some paltry village on the border 
 of his dominions. The eighteenth century in ge- 
 neral made no use of the physical knowledge it 
 inherited from the seventeenth, except one ex- 
 tremely hostile to the higher truths of religion. 
 In Voltaire, indeed, there is no such thing to be 
 found as any regular system of infidelity, scarcely 
 even a single firm principle, or settled philosophical 
 opinion, or even precise form of philosophical 
 doubt. As the sophists of antiquity took a plea- 
 sure in showing the versatility and ingenuity of 
 their spirit, by defending first one opinion and 
 then the one exactly opposite to it, so Voltaire 
 wrote one book in favour and another in contradic- 
 tion of providence. Yet in so far is he sincere, 
 that he cannot help letting us see, very plain- 
 ly, which of these works is his own favourite. 
 Throughout all his writings, whatever be their sub- 
 ject, he cannot resist any opportunity of introduc- 
 Vol. II. 2 B 
 
194 HISTORY OF 
 
 ing his impious wit, and showing his aversion for 
 Christianity, and, in part at least, for all reli- 
 gion. In this point of view his spirit operated 
 as a corrosive and destructive engine for the dis- 
 solving of all earnest, moral, and religious modes 
 of thinking. Yet it appears to me that Voltaire 
 has done even more harm by the spirit andpur- 
 pose which he has thrown over history, than by his 
 derision of religion. He felt what was the defect 
 of French literature in this department, as well as 
 in that of poetry. Since the time of the Cardinal 
 Retz, the abundance of historical memoirs, alike 
 interesting from their subjects, and the lively mode 
 of their composition, had increased to such a de- 
 gree, that they might almost be said to be a pro- 
 per literature by themselves — and certainly to form 
 one of the most brilliant parts of the whole lite- 
 rature of France. But in consequence of these 
 memoirs, there is no doubt that history declined 
 too much into the tone of conversation, became 
 split into particulars, and lost itself at last, to the 
 great injury of historical truth, in an endless va- 
 riety of anecdotes. However delightful the peru- 
 sal of such works may be, they are, after all, only 
 the harbingers and materials of history, not his- 
 tories in the proper acceptation of the word. At 
 least there is much space intervening between the 
 best possible style of writing such anecdotes, and a 
 
LITERATURE. J 95 
 
 style of historical composition such as that of the 
 ancients was, or among the moderns, that of Ma- 
 chiavelli. The French literature possesses many 
 excellent narrators, some well collected, and (even 
 as pieces of writing) praiseworthy tracts concerning 
 the older history of the country, but no truly 
 classical, national, and original work of history. 
 Voltaire was very sensible of this defect in the li- 
 terature of his nation, and with his usual vanity of 
 universal genius, attempted to supply it himself. 
 That in regard to art he was not entirely success- 
 ful; that as a writer of history, even in respect to 
 the mode of composition adapted for works of that 
 kind, he can sustain no comparison, I do not say with 
 the ancients, but even with the best English his- 
 torians — Hume and Robertson; this is now uni- 
 versally admitted even in France itself. Never- 
 theless, the spirit in which he viewed history, very 
 soon acquired very great influence even over Eng- 
 lish writers — particularly Gibbon — and became al- 
 most the ruling historical spirit of the eighteenth 
 century. The essence of this mode of thinking in 
 respect to history which proceeded from Voltaire, 
 consists in expressing, on every opportunity, and in 
 every possible form, hatred for monks, clergymen, 
 Christianity, and, in general, for all religion. In 
 regard to politics, its prevalent spirit is a partial, 
 and, in the situation of modern Europe, an absurd 
 
196 HISTORY or 
 
 predilection for the republican notions of antiquity, 
 accompanied very frequently with an altogether 
 false conception, or at least extremely imperfect 
 knowledge of the true spirit and essence of repub- 
 licanism. Among the followers of Voltaire this 
 went so far as to take the appearance of a decided 
 and bigoted hatred of all kingly power and nobi- 
 lity, and in general of all those modes of life and 
 government which have been produced by what 
 is called the feudal system; and all this, in spite of 
 Montesquieu, who characterized and praised with 
 the acuteness and liberality of a true philosopher, 
 what these comparatively ignorant writers were 
 only capable of reviling. How much was set in a 
 false light, how greatly historical truth was injured, 
 and the whole of the past unworthily condemned, 
 begins now to be discovered; since historical in- 
 quirers have adopted a more profound and accurate 
 method of research. For after the philosophy of 
 the eighteenth century had entirely accomplished its 
 owndestruction, and the religion which it would have 
 overthrown had come victorious out of the struggle, 
 every thing in history and in the past has begun 
 to be seen in a more just and natural point of 
 view. Yet there remain many falsifications, er- 
 rors, and prejudices, with regard to past ages which 
 have still to be amended; for in no department did 
 the philosophy of the last century so deeply and so 
 
LITER ATlfRE. 197 
 
 extensively establish its influence as in history, 
 where its wickedness and falseness are, of course, 
 less observable to those who lake facts upon trust, 
 than when their spirit is brought distinctly for- 
 ward in the shape of philosophical doctrine and 
 opinion. 
 
 In regard to Voltaire, I must observe that he 
 seems to have been actuated by motives of a per- 
 sonal nature, which render the spirit of his histo- 
 ries still more narrow and unjust. It is evidently 
 his purpose to make us believe that all the ages be- 
 fore that of Lewis XIV. were ages of darkness, 
 and that even then, all nations except his were 
 mere hordes of barbarians. This much exalted mo- 
 narch plays this important part in the historical and 
 intellectual drama of Voltaire, because he, it seems, 
 while the whole earth was wrapped in chaos and 
 barbarism, was the first who pronounced a creative 
 fiat lux. Yet the great writers of the time of 
 Lewis, and even Newton and Locke, were, after 
 all, only the first faint rays of the coming splen- 
 dour. The mid- day sun of entire illumination and 
 freethinking, did not, according to Voltaire's opi- 
 nion, manifest himself till somewhat later. But 
 however inclined he was in the general to flatter 
 the foolish vanity of his nation; yet, in many mo- 
 ments of mirth or displeasure, he spoke either 
 from levity or bitterness, in a very different tone, 
 
J98 HISTORY OF 
 
 as, for example, in that well known saying of his, 
 that " the character of a Frenchman is made up 
 " of the tiger and the ape." In other more mode- 
 rate but not less caustic expressions, it is easy to see 
 how thoroughly Voltaire had studied and compre- 
 hended his countrymen. But this was a piece of 
 knowledge which he never displayed except by ac- 
 cident. 
 
 Even Montesquieu contributed towards the for- 
 mation of this philosophy of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury; principally, as I apprehend, because he ne- 
 glected to give any rule or standard of unity to 
 that immense collection of admirable political re- 
 marks and opinions which he laid before the world. 
 This was exactly in compliance with what was then 
 the usual fashion in every department of thought 
 and action. The erudition, the genius and power- 
 ful reflections of this great and remarkable writer, 
 contributed only to increase the general relaxation 
 of all principle; for the spirit of the age, being 
 furnished with no guiding rule, floated hither and 
 thither amidst that vast sea of political facts and 
 precepts, like a ship without anchor or compass, 
 upon the waves of the ocean. 
 
 The tendency to sublime and elevating thoughts, 
 even to religious feelings and views, is so strong 
 in our nature, and occasions to call these forth are 
 so profusely scattered over the world around us,' 
 
LITERATURE. J 99 
 
 that we cannot be at all surprised to find that 
 many of the great French naturalists remained en- 
 tirely, or at least in a great measure, free, from the 
 prevalent spirit of irreligion, and have even here 
 and there risen to a style of reflection much higher 
 than that of their age. Although many of his 
 opinions do not harmonize with revealed religion, 
 and many others cannot stand the test of philo- 
 sophy, — although he himself was by no means free 
 from the material fetters of the entirely physical 
 system of philosophy which was then in fashion; 
 yet I can never help considering the great Buffon 
 as one, who is entitled to be classed, at least in the 
 way of comparison, with the better thinkers of the 
 eighteenth century. Among the latter authors, I 
 may justly allude to the zealous and intellectual 
 Bonnet. 
 
 The social manners and constitution of modern 
 Europe, and more particularly of France, had be- 
 come, in very many respects, so remote from na- 
 ture, that we can scarcely wonder that a restless 
 and inquiring spirit should have gone entirely to 
 the opposite extreme. But how little fitted admi- 
 ration and respect for nature alone are to supply 
 human life with a proper rule of conduct, the ex- 
 ample of Rousseau affords a sufficient proof. In 
 regard to the feeling and zeal which animated him, 
 Rousseau, as a reasoner, is not only superior to 
 
200 HISTORY OF 
 
 Voltaire, and all other French philosophers of the 
 last century, but of a class entirely different from 
 them. The influence which he exerted over his 
 age and nation was perhaps only on that account 
 the more hurtful. It is only when a strong mind, 
 striving passionately in quest of truth, pursues its 
 researches in a wrong direction, and embraces er- 
 ror in room of it, that error assumes a form of real 
 danger, and becomes capable of seizing possession 
 of generous natures, whose general principles are 
 in an unsettled state. The wit of Voltaire con- 
 tributed very much to unsettle and relax principle, 
 and thereby paved the way for Rousseau. But 
 this man's impetuous and overwhelming eloquence 
 drew into the whirlpool of error, many whom the 
 mere sophistry of wit and pleasantry could never 
 have led astray. It is true that at first Rousseau's 
 pictures of savage life, and his theory of a pure 
 democracy of reason, gave rise to more wonder 
 than conviction. But as it was this man's fortune 
 to become the founder of a new system and method 
 of education, wherein the developement of the in- 
 dividual man is supposed to be best conducted 
 upon the isolated principle of seclusion, and entirely 
 without regard to his situation as a citizen, we need 
 not be astonished to find that at a somewhat later 
 period even the wildest of his dreams about natural 
 politics found both admirers and defenders. After 
 
LITER AtURE. 201 
 
 having seen that the extension of physical science 
 contributed very much, in its misapplied condition, 
 to immorality, irreligion, and even atheism, it is 
 no .wonder that a direction equally culpable and 
 dangerous was given by the philosophers of the 
 eighteenth century to the improved knowledge of 
 men and nations. But however much men might 
 refine and adorn their descriptions of American sa- 
 vages, in order to promote the idea of the possibi- 
 lity of natural perfection, there remained always a 
 few points in the testimony of every traveller which 
 presented unsurmountable difficulties to the ad- 
 mirers of barbarity. In Voltaire, on the other 
 hand, and in many other French writers of his 
 time, we may observe an equally absurd predilec- 
 tion, another extreme — one as far removed as can 
 well be from the wild freedom of savages. I mean 
 a passion for the Chinese, a people polished into 
 perfect tameness and uniformity, and exhibiting 
 the best specimen of what has since been called 
 " the Despotism of Reason." An age which was 
 perpetually endeavouring to substitute a complete 
 system of police in the room of the antiquated 
 influences of religion and morality, which regarded 
 the perfection of a few manufactures as the sole 
 and highest object of human society, and what 
 they called, " the doctrine of pure ethics," as the 
 Vol. II. 3 C 
 
202 HISTORY OF 
 
 ne plus ultra of illumination — an age such as this 
 could scarcely indeed fail to contemplate, with 
 mighty admiration, the spectacle of a nation which 
 has, according to its own account, possessed for 
 some thousand years laws without religion, which 
 has had newspapers some centuries longer than our- 
 selves, which can imprint upon porcelain colours 
 more brilliant than we are acquainted with, and 
 make paper thinner and finer than any European 
 manufactory. It is lamentable to see into what 
 contemptible perversities, the misdirected ingenuity 
 of a few rational men can conduct both themselves- 
 and their contemporaries. 
 
 Voltaire and Rousseau were the first who gave 
 its form and shape to the spirit of the eighteenth 
 century; but they had many coadjutors in their 
 attempts, many who were indefatigable in render- 
 ing the moral philosophy of Locke more decided in 
 its principles as well as bolder in its consequences, 
 and in rendering it, so improved, the manual of the 
 age. What results this produced in regard to hu- 
 man life, may be learned from the single example 
 of Helvetius. This man proved to the satisfac- 
 tion of his readers, that selfishness, vanity and 
 sensual enjoyment are the true and certain guides, 
 the only rational ends of enlightened men, the 
 only realities in human life — and his readers soon 
 
LITERATURE. 203 
 
 began to suspect that the same principles ought to 
 be extended to the whole universe. Mind, accord- 
 ing to this doctrine, there is none, for matter is 
 every thing, and man is distinguished from the 
 brutes not by intellect, but by hands and fingers — 
 advantages which, in some degree at least, he ap- 
 pears to share with the monkey. The difference be- 
 tween the man and the monkey was indeed dimi- 
 nished very much in the opinion of many philoso- 
 phers of this time, and it was a very favourite 
 speculation to discover the existence of interme- 
 diate and connecting species between them. It is 
 much to be regretted that Rousseau did not fulfil 
 the intention he once expressed, of openly combat- 
 ing the dogmas of Helvetius. He must, in the course 
 of such a controversy, have at least been compelled 
 to settle and explain somewhat more fully his own 
 principles — and these, however erroneous, possess, 
 when compared with those of the other, much that 
 is both good and noble, and capable of being im- 
 proved. 
 
 The last step in the progress of the French ante- 
 revolutionary philosophy, is that marked by the 
 congenial spirit of Diderot. I may, without ques- 
 tion, assume the fact, that this man was the centre- 
 point and animating principle, not only of the Ency- 
 clopedia, but also of the Systeme de la Nature, and 
 
204 HISTORY OP 
 
 of many other works connected in the same spirit 
 of audacious atheism. He wrought indeed much 
 more in secret than in public; he was different from 
 Voltaire and Rousseau in this, that he had less 
 vanity of authorship than they, and was perfectly 
 satisfied when he could gain the victory, without 
 wishing to be personally held up as a victor. 
 He was peculiarly distinguished by a most fana- 
 tical hatred, not only of all Christianity, but of all 
 kinds of religion. He maintained that these are 
 all alike founded in the superstitious terrors left on 
 the minds of a half destroyed race, by those ter-" 
 rible revolutions in the natural world, the traces of 
 which are still so apparent around us. In many 
 of the writings of this school, even the name of 
 Atheism is not concealed, but it is openly stated 
 that man can never be happy till he learns to throw 
 aside the whole doctrine of a Deity — an opinion, 
 the absurdity of which has been but too fatally de- 
 monstrated by the experience of a few subsequent 
 years. Of all the forms in which this atheistical 
 system was brought before the world, perhaps the 
 most singularly extravagant was the theory which re- 
 presented Christ as a mere astronomical symbol — 
 a being never possessed of historical existence — 
 and the twelve apostles as so many old signs of the 
 zodiac. The whole spirit of this system, and the 
 
LITERATURE. 205 
 
 whole of the practical purposes which it was intend- 
 ed to serve, may be learned from the single well 
 known wish, of which the fathers of the revolution 
 made no secret — " that the last king might be burn- 
 ed on a funeral pile, composed of the body of the 
 " last priest." 
 
206 HISTORY OF 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 LIGHTER SPECIES OF WRITING IN FRANCE, AND IMITATION OF 
 THE ENGLISH FASHIONABLE LITERATURE OF BOTH COUN- 
 TRIES MODERN ROMANCE THE PROSE OF BUFFON AND ROUS- 
 SEAU POPULAR POETRY IN ENGLAND MODERN ITALIAN THEA- 
 TRE—CRITICISM AND HISTORICAL COMPOSITION OF THE EN- 
 GLISH SCEPTICAL PHILOSOPHY RETURN TO A BETTER AND 
 
 HIGHER SPECIES OF PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE— BONALD AND 
 ST. MARTIN SIR WILLIAM JONES AND BURKE. 
 
 FROM the time of Lewis XIV. the French lan- 
 guage has always possessed great wealth in all 
 these lighter species of writing, whose inspiration 
 consists of imagination and wit. Yet even in 
 this respect the elder times were the more for- 
 tunate. No later writer of comedies has come near 
 to Moliere; the peculiar charm of La Fontaine, in 
 his artless species of poetical narration, remains 
 inimitable. Voltaire, who in his opinions and 
 philosophy belongs so entirely to the later time, 
 and was even the founder of its principles, so far as 
 
LITERATURE. 207 
 
 literature and poetry are concerned, is one of tha 
 elder school, and so forms a sort of point of con- 
 nection between it and the new. His success in 
 comedy was far less than in tragedy; but he is 
 quite unrivalled in his variety of miscellaneous, 
 witty, and occasional poems of every kind. The 
 minor poems and songs of the French had always 
 this tendency to social wit and fashion, while those 
 of the English, on the other hand, partook more 
 of the true nature of lyrical poetry, and were dis- 
 tinguished by their depth of thought and their 
 tone of natural feeling in description. The more 
 poetry attaches itself to the present, and the life 
 of society, the more local does it become, and sub- 
 ject to the influences of fashion. Many comedies, 
 romances, and songs, produced in the end of the 
 seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, which are in themselves full of talent, and 
 were, in their day, very celebrated in France, have 
 since become as obsolete as the manners and opi- 
 nions of the society which they represent. Should 
 the poetry of any nation confine itself entirely to 
 these species, and to subjects exclusively modern — 
 to dramatic pictures of manners without fable — to 
 tales taken from the life of ordinary society — and 
 witty occasional poems — it would be almost as im- 
 possible and absurd to attempt a historical or cri- 
 tical account of it, as to make a display of ana- 
 
208 HISTORY OF 
 
 tomical skill upon the ephemerides of a summer 
 evening. The object of these productions is 
 nothing more than to fill up the idle hours of 
 fashionable life and amusement; and even al- 
 though, in order to fulfil this purpose, they may 
 at times make use of feeling, passion, and original 
 thoughts, their end still continues to be pastime — 
 a thing which may be attained quite as well with- 
 out poetry as with it. 
 
 It is true, without doubt, that in the miscel- 
 laneous and trifling species of poetry, there are to 
 be found productions which bear as decidedly the - 
 stamp of genius as the first works of the epic poet 
 or the tragedian. The beauty, however, is seldom 
 so universal. It depends very often entirely upon 
 expression, and its delicacies, things which can be 
 more easily felt than explained. A heroic poem or 
 a tragedy can be very well comprehended although 
 translated into a different language, and in general 
 the greater its intrinsic excellence is, the less does 
 it suffer by such a transmutation. But I doubt 
 whether any foreigner, however complete may be 
 his familiarity with the French language, can ever 
 sympathize in its utmost extent with the admira- 
 tion which Frenchmen express for La Fontaine. 
 Naivete, elegance, and the stamp of genius, these 
 every one must recognize in him; but a French- 
 man feels and enjoys something still more exquisite 
 
LITERATURE. 209 
 
 than these, and this depends on the language, to an 
 entire feeling of whose numberless peculiarities 
 no foreigner ever can attain. Many even of the 
 most celebrated characteristic pieces of Moliere are 
 now become too antiquated for the stage and actual 
 representation, and can be admired only in reading. 
 However high we may be inclined to place these as 
 individual works and in the scale of French poetry, 
 their effects, as the beginning of a new species of 
 writing, and as models for future artists, have been 
 very far from fortunate. The characters of La- 
 bruyere or Theophrastus may be set forth in a dra- 
 matic form, but they can never become poetry. 
 Even the rhetoric of the passions, when it forms the 
 sole animation of the tragedy, is far from coming up 
 to our ideas of what tragedy ought to be; in like 
 manner, the psychological wire-drawing of characters 
 and passions in comedy furnishes a very unequal 
 substitute for poetry and wit. The tendency to this 
 extreme minuteness of characterisation has fre- 
 quently formed a subject of reproach against the 
 higher French comedy of the eighteenth century. 
 From it the change was by no means a difficult one 
 to those ethical treatises in the shape of comedies, of 
 which, unfortunately for his own nation, and still 
 more so for ours, Diderot was the inventor. 
 
 The original French character is, I believe, quite 
 as light and careless as it is usually represented; 
 
 Vol. IL 2D 
 
Q]Ü HISTORY OF 
 
 but among the French books of the eighteenth 
 century, I confess, I can perceive very few traces of 
 this, even in those situations where it might have 
 appeared with the greatest propriety. This must 
 be ascribed to the ever increasing spirit of philoso- 
 phical and political sectarianism; and even from 
 the external history of the period, it is quite easy 
 to see why a passionate species of rhetoric came to 
 acquire a complete predominance over the old tri- 
 vial spirit of the French. The truth is, that the 
 nation itself had undergone as great a change as its 
 literature. The ruling philosophy of morals was - 
 indeed expressed by some poets in light and hu- 
 morous strains; but it carried most, by much too 
 far, and quite beyond all the limits of poetry. Ma- 
 terialism is essentially inimical to poetry and dead- 
 ening to fancy. The magic of the muse must lose 
 all its power over one who is thoroughly penetrated 
 with the degrading doctrines of Helvetius. 
 
 On the other hand, the passion for freedom, and 
 the adoration of nature, which chiefly, by means of 
 the followers of Rousseau, became predominant in 
 the new philosophy, were not easily to be recon- 
 ciled with the formal accuracy of the elder French 
 poetry in the seventeenth century. From this cir- 
 cumstance there arose an internal conflict, and 
 enduring struggle, to get rid of the ancient au- 
 thority, and this broke out in an open rebellion of 
 
LITERATURE. 211 
 
 taste, and produced an entire, although perhaps 
 only a transitory, anarchy in literature, even before 
 the period of the political revolution: hence the 
 predilection for the poetry of England. Even 
 Voltaire had made much use of it in particular in- 
 stances, not only without acknowledgment, but 
 in the midst of perpetual sarcasms against Milton 
 and Shakspeare. In all the French efforts in the 
 higher walks of poetry, this influence of the Eng- 
 lish is even in our own times sufficiently apparent. 
 The desire to give tragedy a greater freedom of 
 construction and more of historical import, without 
 however entirely laying aside the old system, is 
 still undiminished, although it has never as yet pro- 
 duced any very considerable results. The last 
 works of elevated poetry which have acquired a 
 classical reputation in France, are descriptive poems 
 of the species peculiar to England. But of all 
 species of writing, none was so much the favourite 
 of the literati of the new school as the romance; 
 for whatever fetters might have been imposed on 
 all the regular forms of poetical composition, this 
 at least remained perfectly free. When Voltaire 
 clothed his wit in this form, when Rousseau embo- 
 died in it his enthusiasm and his eloquence, when 
 Diderot chose to make it the vehicle of his immo- 
 rality, romance became, in the hands of each of 
 these men of genius, exactly what he found it most 
 
212 HISTORY OF 
 
 convenient for himself to make it. The two first 
 of them had many followers, who attempted to 
 embody a similar spirit in the form of a more re- 
 gular narration, and under the guise of a more 
 exact delineation of the present modes of life. No 
 one is ignorant into how many romances the prin- 
 ciples and opinions of Candide have been wrought. 
 Others were more the imitators of Rousseau; 
 among these not a few who partook in his passion 
 for narure, have chosen to lay the scene of their 
 fictions among the wildernesses of America, — re- 
 gions in which they might certainly consider them- ' 
 selves as quite free from the domestic tyranny of 
 Aristotle and Boileau. The most distinguished of 
 these are Bemardin de St. Pierre, and Chateau- 
 briand. 
 
 Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, made use of 
 the romance very frequently, merely because they 
 knew not in what other form they could so conve- 
 niently express certain philosophical opinions. But 
 if we regard romance as a species of poetry, and as 
 the regular representation in narration of incidents 
 taken from actual life and manners, it is quite evi- 
 dent that the French have even in this species of 
 writing been the imitators of the English, although 
 I am far from thinking that they have attained 
 equal excellence with them. In invention and 
 power of representation, perhaps, Richardson may 
 
LITERATURE. 213 
 
 be entitled to the first place. Although this writer 
 has already become antiquated and obsolete, both 
 at home and abroad, although his attempts at the 
 higher species of poetic fiction are in the main un- 
 successful, and although his extreme copiousness is 
 vulgar and disagreeable, we should, I suspect, at- 
 tribute the decline of his popularity to any thing 
 rather than a deficiency of genius. The species of 
 writing which he adopted is a false one, and even a 
 more powerful genius than that of Richardson could 
 not easily get over the difficulties which it presents. 
 Among the modern imitators of Cervantes, the most 
 accomplished are Fielding and Smollet. Of all ro- 
 mances in miniature (and perhaps this is the best 
 shape in which romance can appear), the Vicar of 
 Wakefield is, I think, the most exquisite. That 
 other species of romance, of which the purpose is 
 not narration but humour, and which loses itself 
 in the mere play of wit and sentiment, was car- 
 ried by its first inventor, Sterne, to a point of ex- 
 cellence at which none of his French imitators have 
 arrived. 
 
 If we must give an opinion of those works of 
 intellect which serve the purposes of mere fashion 
 and daily use, as we should of any other species of 
 fashionable manufacture, I think the common run 
 of English novels and romances are as much su- 
 perior to the common run of the French, as Smol- 
 
214 HISTORY OF 
 
 let and Fielding are superior to the best of the 
 French novelists. 
 
 I must not omit to mention one circumstance 
 which has been extremely unpropitious to French 
 romance; I allude to the extraordinary abundance 
 in this literature of memoirs, confessions, books of 
 letters and anecdotes, all more or less partaking 
 in the nature of the romance. I am not aware 
 that any tale of Marmontel has ever excited so 
 universal an interest as his memoirs; and I am 
 quite sure that no French romance ever produced 
 half so much effect as the Confessions of Rous- 
 seau. 
 
 In general, poetry, during the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, was driven out of fashion in France by prose; 
 this, we must admit, although not without many 
 great errors and faults, was rich, and in the hands 
 of the most eminent writers was developed with the 
 highest power and eloquence. Voltaire's style in 
 prose is animated and witty like himself; it is per- 
 fectly adapted to him and his purposes. The more 
 severe French critics disapprove of his prose, and 
 in history, indeed, I think it is by no means a suit- 
 able one. Many Germans find something very de- 
 lightful to them in the style of Diderot, and I agree 
 with them that he shows a perception and feeling of 
 the more delicate beauties of imitative art by no 
 means common among the writers of his country; 
 
LITERATURE. 215 
 
 but his language is incorrect and hasty, and wholly- 
 devoid of that pure elegance which characterises 
 the witty writings of the best French authors. In 
 respect to style, Buffon and Rousseau are justly 
 regarded with the highest admiration. The former 
 is perhaps the richest and most graceful of the two; 
 but he was so much fettered by the nature of his 
 work, that he never could introduce his rhetoric 
 without an episode, and this has destroyed in a 
 great measure the effect which he was fitted by na- 
 ture to produce. It may appear natural enough 
 that he should have given his theory of love in the 
 article Dove. But we could scarcely have looked 
 for a rhetorical treatise on the subject of the dis- 
 persion of nations under the word Hare. Aristotle 
 allowed himself no such liberties in his capacity of 
 natural historian. As a scientific writer BufFon 
 can sustain no comparison with the illustrious 
 Greek whom it was his chief ambition to rival. 
 Upon the whole, I coincide with those who give 
 the preference to Rousseau over Buffon; for, al- 
 though his style is in particular respects equally de- 
 fective, there is more unity of purpose, and a more 
 eloquent flow of composition in his works. His 
 charm lies much more in this last peculiarity, than 
 in the extraordinary beauty of individual passages. 
 My feelings perfectly accord with those who esteem 
 Rousseau the first of all the French writers of the 
 
216 HISTORY OF 
 
 last century, in regard to skill and power of elo- 
 quence; but I must not conceal from you that I, 
 nevertheless, look upon the beauty of his composi- 
 tion as holding a place extremely below the sublime 
 oratory of Bossuet. 
 
 Should the present condition of affairs ever be 
 altered, and the superiority of prose over poetry 
 in the language and literature of France become 
 less tyrannical — in other words, should poetry ever 
 revive among the French, I am clearly of opinion 
 that their best means of attaining great excellence 
 will consist, not in any strict imitation of English 
 models, or of any foreign models whatever, but in 
 a hearty recurrence to the old spirit and poetry of 
 their own nation. The imitation of another nation 
 can never be perfectly successful, for the most 
 perfect productions of this nation remain always 
 foreign to those who make them their models. 
 Every nation has enough in its power when it can 
 go back to its own original and most ancient poe- 
 try and legends. The farther back we go in history, 
 the more intimate do we find the connection be- 
 tween different nations to be. But it is in the very 
 first ages of national existence that the foundations 
 both of national character and national poetry are 
 laid. 
 
 In England, at the beginning of last century, the 
 leaning towards a French taste in poetry was still 
 
LITERATURE. 217 
 
 evident; its influence is apparent in the elaborate 
 versification of Pope, and in the tragedy which 
 Addison wrote with a view to promote what he 
 conceived to be more just ideas concerning poetical 
 theory among his countrymen. Yet both of these 
 authors contributed in no small degree towards 
 bringing Shakspeare and Milton out of oblivion. 
 Pope's translation of Homer, however remote it 
 may be from the simplicity of the old bard, in- 
 creased nevertheless the general love for this great 
 poet of nature and antiquity, and is itself a proof 
 of the existence of this love. In the original 
 poems of Pope, we can perceive abundant traces of 
 that predilection for thought which has rendered 
 didactic poetry so much a favourite among the 
 English. I have already expressed my belief that 
 this species contains always something of the frigid 
 and unpoetic; and England has furnished another 
 example that, such as it is, it becomes very soon 
 exhausted. The common materials of didactic 
 poetry were, however, often combined in England 
 with the more poetical elements of passion and me- 
 lancholy; as, for example, in the gloomy and 
 enthusiastic Young. Thomson expressed his feel- 
 ings more tastefully and beautifully in that species 
 of poetry so much loved by his countrymen, and 
 after his own time so much copied by foreigners, — 
 the descriptive. The passion for nature was the 
 Vol. II. 2E 
 
218 HISTORY OF 
 
 origin of the national love of Ossian; and although 
 neither the sorrow of Ossian nor the despair 
 of Young be every where prevalent, the spirit of 
 serious meditation is certainly much more diffused 
 over the lyrical poems of England during the 
 eighteenth century, than even those of France. 
 By the side of the ever increasing veneration of 
 Shakspeare, there £rew up, chiefly in consequence 
 of the writings of Percy, a passionate love for the 
 old ballads and popular poems. The more of 
 these were discovered (and the wealth of the Scots 
 in particular is almost boundless), the more did the 
 love of them overcome that of every other kind of 
 writing, and engross the whole of the English 
 literature, with the single exception of romances 
 and plays for daily use. In France, then, at the end 
 of the seventeenth and beginning of the eigh- 
 teenth centuries, the higher kinds of poetry were 
 cultivated in a manner too regular and precise, and 
 gradually sunk into the tone of social wit. In 
 England, on the other hand, serious thoughts and 
 poetical descriptions of natural scenery were the 
 chief materials at the commencement of the last 
 century, and at its close, the universal passion was 
 for the ancient national ballads, — melancholy echoes 
 of the lost poetry of a more heroic time. Those 
 acquainted with the modern literature of England 
 are well aware how this propensity has been fos- 
 
LITERATURE. 219 
 
 tered by the genius of the poets who are our own 
 contemporaries. 
 
 Upon the whole, during last century, the state 
 of poetry was a very poor one, at least when com- 
 pared with the riches of antecedent times, even in 
 countries where poetry is intermingled with all the 
 enjoyments of life, as in Spain; or where the spirit 
 of art forms almost the character of the nation, as 
 in Italy. In this last country, however, although 
 the higher species of poetry produced no new works 
 worthy of being placed by the side of those of the 
 more ancient period, the theatre at least was more 
 successful and fruitful than it ever before had been» 
 In Metastasio, Goldoni, Gozzi, Alfieri, we may 
 discover, in a separate state, all those elements of a 
 poetical drama, which in a more blended condition 
 characterize our own stage. In Metastasio we find 
 the highest musical beauty of language; in Goldoni 
 common life is represented in a light and delightful 
 manner, with those airy accompaniments of masking 
 and carnival which appear natural to an Italian. 
 In Gozzi's fantastic popular stories, and plays of 
 witchcraft and spectacle, we can perceive an abun- 
 dance of the true poetical power of invention; but 
 there is a great want of that musical harmony and 
 elegance of fancy which are requisite before inven- 
 tion can take just possession of the stage. In the 
 dramas of Alfieri an attempt is made to revive the 
 
220 HISTORY OF 
 
 sublimity of the antique; an attempt so noble, that 
 it is well worthy of great praise, even when it is not 
 entirely successful. 
 
 I am not certain but the same remark which I 
 made a few pages back, respecting the comparative 
 merits of the modern French and English romances, 
 might be with equal propriety applied to their mo- 
 dern dramas. Both are mere species of manufac- 
 ture, and I think the English are rather the best 
 of the two. The Italian theatre lies much nearer 
 ourselves, both in regard to external shape and later 
 developement. 
 
 The criticisal books of the English, and in parti- 
 cular most of their treatises concerning poetry and 
 the imitative arts, are distinguished by greater 
 freedom, originality, and knowledge of the antique, 
 and bear on these accounts more affinity to our own 
 modes of thinking than those of the French. Al- 
 though, however, our German criticism certainly 
 received its first impulse from the study of the Eng- 
 lish works of Harris, Home, Hurd, Watson, &c. 
 we soon became sufficiently independent of these; 
 and perhaps in no department of our literature is 
 there so much originality as in this. 
 
 Of all the works connected with elegant litera- 
 ture which the English produced during the last 
 century, by far the most important are their great 
 historical writings. They have in this department 
 
LITERATURE. 221 
 
 surpassed all the other European nations; they had 
 at all events the start in point of time; and have 
 become the standard models both in France and 
 in Germany. The first place is, I believe, univer- 
 sally given to David Hume. But however salutary 
 may be the spirit of scepticism in the conduct of 
 historical researches, I am strongly of opinion that 
 this spirit, when it is not confined to events alone, 
 but extends its doubts to all the principles of mo- 
 rality and religion, is by no means becoming in a 
 great national historian, and will, in the end, dimi- 
 nish in a very considerable measure the influence 
 which the native genius of this singular man might 
 well have entitled him to maintain over the minds 
 of his countrymen. 
 
 Narrow principles and views of things not per- 
 fectly just, are, I am free to confess, in my estima- 
 tion, much better fitted for a great historian than 
 no principles at all, and a deadening want of feel- 
 ing, warmth, and passion. When these are re- 
 moved, the only remaining means of creating in- 
 terest in a historical work is the love of opposing 
 the ruling opinions and of paradoxy. The leaning 
 to this species of opposition is most evident in 
 Hume. However praiseworthy and salutary it 
 might be, that such a writer as Hume was, should 
 take up a set of opinions opposed to those of the 
 Whigs — a party in his day, as well as in our own, 
 
222 HISTORY OF 
 
 possessed of perhaps too much influence over the 
 literature of England — and should represent a most 
 important part of the British history with a pre- 
 dilection for the unfonunale house of Stuart, and 
 the principles of the Tories; it is evident that 
 had he written without any such views, he might 
 have attained to an eminence far beyond that 
 which he has reached, and descended to posteri- 
 ty not as the first of all party-writers of histo- 
 ry, but as the author of a truly great national 
 work, the spirit and excellence of which should 
 have been equally admired and appreciated by all 
 the English. In his treatment of the elder periods 
 of the English history he is quite unsatisfactory and 
 meagre; he had no love for its antiquities, and could 
 not transport himself back into the spirit of remote 
 ages. — In regard to style, few writers of any country 
 can sustain a comparison with Robertson; his ex- 
 pressions are select and elegant, but always clear 
 and unlaboured. But he is very inferior in respect 
 to other matters of far greater importance, the re- 
 search and import of his histories. 
 
 The English themselves are now pretty well con- 
 vinced that he is a careless, superficial, and blunder- 
 ing historian, although they study his works, and 
 are right in doing so, as models of pure composition, 
 extremely deserving of attention, during the pre- 
 sent declining state of English style. To speak 
 
LITERATURE. 223 
 
 from my own feelings, I think Robertson, although 
 upon the whole a beautiful writer, is too fond both 
 of verbosity and of antithesis. The ambition of 
 fine writing, and of the desire to treat matters in an 
 elaborate and oratorical manner, appear to me to be 
 extremely erroneous and out of place in a writer of 
 history. If historical composition is to be consider- 
 ed merely as a display of writing, no modern author 
 need ever flatter himself with the least hope, I do not 
 say of equalling, but of approaching the great his- 
 torians of antiquity. We have it in our power, 
 however, to surpass them in another way, namely, 
 by considering history in a more scientific manner, 
 and making use of those opportunities and instru- 
 ments of information in which our times are so 
 much superior to those of Greece and Rome. If 
 we make this our object, the best style which we 
 can adopt is the most simple; we should write 
 clearly and carefully, but avoid all appearance of 
 artifice, superfluity, affectation, or ambitiousness. — 
 Gibbon is a writer full of thoughts; his language is 
 in general powerful and exquisite, but it has, to a great 
 excess, the faults of elaborateness, pompousness, 
 and monotony. His style is full of Latin and French 
 words and phrases; the English language, as being 
 of so very mixed a nature, and as possessing such a 
 variety of words and phrases, and constructions, La- 
 tin, French,and domestic, — has no very exact stan- 
 
224 HISTORY OF 
 
 dard to regulate the proportion of the different ele- 
 ments which are placed at the disposal of those who 
 use it. That elaborate and half-Latin manner of 
 writing by which Gibbon is distinguished, had be- 
 fore him been brought very much into fashion by 
 the example of the critic Johnson; in principle at 
 least the English have now departed from it, and 
 speak of it as a false species, and hostile to the spirit 
 of their language. The work of Gibbon, however 
 instructive and fascinating it may be, is neverthe- 
 less at bottom an offensive one, on account of his. 
 deficiency in feeling, and his propensity to the in- 
 fidel opinions and impious mockeries of Voltaire. 
 These are things extremely unworthy of a historian, 
 and, in the periodic and somewhat cumbrous style of 
 Gibbon, they appear set off to far less advantage 
 than in the light and airy compositions of his mas- 
 ter. He never seems to be naturally a wit, but 
 impresses us with the idea that he would very fain 
 be one if he could. Although I have mentioned some 
 faults which I think I perceive in each of these three 
 great writers, yet their general excellence is not to 
 be disputed, and is felt by none more deeply than 
 myself; they appear indeed to great advantage with 
 whomsoever we compare them, and never more so 
 than when we turn from their writings to those of 
 their followers and imitators. With all the abun- 
 dance of his Italian elegance, what is the overload- 
 
LITERATURE. 225 
 
 ed and affected Roscoe when compared with Gib- 
 bon? Coxe, although master of a good and classical 
 style, resembles Robertson in no respect so much as 
 in the superficialness of his researches; and the 
 statesman Fox has nothing in common with Hume 
 but the bigotry of his party zeal. The art of 
 historical writing is evidently quite on the decline 
 in England. One great cause of this consists, I 
 imagine, in the want of any stable and satisfactory 
 philosophy — a defect sufficiently apparent even in 
 the three great writers whom I have enumerated. 
 Without some rational and due conceptions of the 
 fate and destiny of man, it is impossible to form any 
 just and consistent opinion, even concerning the 
 progress of events, the developement of times, and 
 the fortunes of nations. In every situation history 
 and philosophy should be as much as possible unit- 
 ed. Philosophy, if altogether separated from history, 
 and destitute of the spirit of criticism which is the 
 result of the union to which I have alluded, can be- 
 come nothing more than a wild existence of sect and 
 formality. History, on the other hand, without the 
 animating spirit of philosophy, is merely a dead 
 heap of useless materials, devoid of internal unity, 
 proper purpose, or worthy result. The want of sa- 
 tisfying and sane views and principles, is nowhere 
 more conspicuous than in those histories of man- 
 kind, as they have been called, originally produced 
 Vol. II. 2 F 
 
226 HISTORY Ol-' 
 
 in England, and more recently written among our- 
 selves. From the immense storehouse of travels 
 and voyages, a few facts are collected, which make 
 up loose portraits of the fisher, the hunter, the emi- 
 gration of the early nations, and the different con- 
 ditions of agricultural, pastoral, and commercial 
 peoples. This is called a view of the history of 
 mankind, and there is no doubt that it contains 
 many individual points of great interest and import- 
 ance, with respect to the progress and habits of our 
 species. Such would be the case, even if we should 
 treat of men entirely according to their corporeal 
 subdivisions of white, black, red, and brown. But 
 how little is gained by all this, as to the only real 
 question, an answer to which should form the proper 
 history of mankind? How little do we learn as to 
 the origin and proper state, or the present lament- 
 able and fallen condition of human nature? The 
 answer to this question, which is the essence of all 
 history, can only be supplied by religion and philo- 
 sophy; that philosophy, I mean, which has no other 
 ambition and no other end but to support religion. 
 In these false histories of mankind, the worthy off- 
 spring of the degraded and material philosophy of 
 the eighteenth century, the predominant idea is 
 always, that man sprung originally from the dust 
 like a mushroom, and differed from it only by the 
 possession of locomotive power and of consciousness. 
 
LITERATURE. 227 
 
 The ambition of their authors is to represent us as 
 originally brutes, and to show how, by the progress 
 of our own ingenious contrivances, art has been add- 
 ed to art, and science to science, till our nature has 
 gradually reached the high eminence on which it 
 now stands. The greater intimacy of connection 
 can be established between us and the Ourang-ou- 
 tang (that favourite of so many philosophers of the 
 last century), the more rational are supposed to be 
 our opinions concerning our species, and its history. 
 The philosophy of sensation, which was unconsci- 
 ously bequeathed to the world by Bacon, and reduced 
 to the shape of a regular system by Locke, first dis- 
 played in France the true immorality and destruc- 
 tiveness of which it is the parent, and assumed the ap- 
 pearance of a perfect sect of atheism. In England it 
 took a different course; in that country it could not 
 indeed be supposed likely to produce the same ef- 
 fects, because the old principles of religion were re- 
 garded as far too intimately connected with national 
 welfare, to be easily abandoned. The spirit of Eng- 
 lish thought was moreover naturally inclined to 
 adopt the paradoxical and sceptical side of this phi- 
 losophy rather than the material and atheistical. 
 The most singular phenomenon in the whole history 
 of philosophy is perhaps the existence of such a 
 man as Berkeley, who carried the system of Locke 
 so far as utterly to disbelieve the existence of the 
 
228 HISTORY ÖF 
 
 external world, and yet continued all the while a 
 devout Christian bishop. How external objects 
 come into contract with our intellect, so that it forms 
 notions of them — this was a point upon which the 
 philosophy of that time neither came nor could come 
 to any satisfactory conclusion. All that we per- 
 ceive or feel of these things, is after all only an im- 
 pression, a change upon ourselves. We may pursue 
 it as far as we will; we can lay hold on only such a 
 notion or perception of an object, not the object 
 itself. That seems, the more we seek it, to fly the - 
 farther from us. If we consider nature, as either 
 itself animated, or as the medium instrument and 
 expression of life, then this perplexity is at an end, 
 and every thing becomes clear. We have no diffi- 
 culty in conceiving, that between two living and 
 mutually operating spiritual natures, there may exist 
 a third nature apparently inanimate, to serve as the 
 bond of connection and mutual operation, to be their 
 word and language, or to serve as the separation 
 and wall of partition between them. We are fa- 
 milar with such an idea, from our own expe- 
 rience, because we cannot have any intercourse of 
 though with our brother men, or even analyse our 
 thoughts, except through the operation of exactly- 
 similar means. The simple conviction, however, 
 that the sensible world is merely the habitation of 
 the intellectual, and a medium of separation as well 
 
LITERATURE. 229 
 
 as connection between intellectual natures, had been 
 lost along with the knowledge and idea of the world 
 of intellect, and the animating impression of its ex- 
 istence. The philosophy of the senses stumbled, in 
 this way, at the very threshold, and proceeded to 
 become more and more perplexed in every step of 
 its progress. Berkeley believed that the external 
 world has no real existence, and that our notions 
 and impressions of it are directly communicated to 
 us by the Deity. From the same doubts Hume fell 
 into a totally different system, the sceptical, — a phi- 
 losophy which humbles itself before its doubts, and 
 denies the possibility of attaining knowledge. This 
 man, by the penetrating and convulsive influence of 
 his scepticism, determined the future condition of 
 English philosophy. Since his time nothing more 
 has been attempted than to erect all sorts of bul- 
 warks against the practical influence of this destruc- 
 tive scepticism; and to maintain, by various sub- 
 stitutes and aids, the pile of moral principle uncor- 
 rupted and entire. Not only with Adam Smith, 
 but with all their later philosophers, national wel- 
 fare is the ruling and central principle of thought, — 
 a principle excellent and praiseworthy in its due si- 
 tuation, but quite unfitted for being the centre and 
 oracle of all knowledge and science. The two great 
 substitutes to which I allude are neither scientifi- 
 cally nor practically of a durable and effective na- 
 
230 HISTORY OF 
 
 ture. Common sense is poor when compared with 
 certain knowledge, and moral feeling is a very in- 
 adequate foundation for a proper system of ethics. 
 Were the common sense of man even as sound and 
 universal as these English reasoners maintain, if we 
 should take its conclusions for the last, and subject 
 them to no higher review, we should find it more 
 likely to cut than to unloose the knot of the great 
 questions in philosophy. The innate curiosity of 
 man is not to be so satisfied, but however frequently 
 we may put it off, returns to the charge with undi- 
 minished pertinacity. Moral feeling and sympathy 
 are things too frail and uncertain for a rule of mo- 
 ral action. We must have, in addition to these, an 
 eternal law of rectitude, derived not from expe- 
 rience and feeling, but from reason or from God. 
 A fair and unshaken faith is indispensable for our 
 welfare. But the faith which the English philoso- 
 phers have established upon the dictates of common 
 sense and moral feeling, is like the props upon 
 Which it leans, uncertain and unworthy of our con- 
 fidence. It is not worthy of the name of faith; the 
 name applied to the impression made upon by us 
 reason and external experience, and with equal pro- 
 priety to the impressions we receive in a totally dif- 
 ferent way from the internal voice of conscience 
 and the revelations of a superior nature. That which 
 is called faith among these men is nothing more than 
 
LITERATURE. 23 j 
 
 weak and self-doubting faith of necessity, — a thing 
 as incapable of standing the test of time, as the frail 
 faith of custom is to resist the arguments of unprin- 
 cipled sophistry. This nation is powerful and free 
 in its whole being and life. Even in poetry, it re- 
 gards the profound and internal rather than the out- 
 ward and ornamental, but by means of its own errors 
 it is cramped and confined in its philosophy. In 
 regard to this mighty department of human intel- 
 lect and exertion, the English of later times are 
 neither original nor great; they even appear to be 
 fundamentally inferior to some of the best writers 
 among the French. If a few authors in England 
 have pursued an intellectual path of their own, 
 quite different from the common one, they have 
 exerted no powerful, or at least no extensive influ- 
 ence over their fellow countrymen. The attempts 
 with which I myself am acquainted do not indeed 
 display genius such as might entitle them to much 
 consideration. 
 
 We may compare the mode of philosophical 
 thought in England, to a man who bears every ex- 
 ternal mark of health and vigour, but who is by 
 nature prone to a dangerous distemper. He has re- 
 pressed the first eruptions of the disease by means 
 of palliatives, but the evil has on that very account 
 had the more leisure to entwine itself with the roots 
 of his constitution. The disease of philosophical 
 
232 HISTORY OF 
 
 error and unbelief can never be got the better of, 
 unless by a thorough and radical cure. I think for 
 this reason that it is extremely probable, nay, that 
 it is almost certain, England has yet to undergo a 
 mighty crisis in her philosophy, and of necessity, in 
 her morality and her religion. 
 
 If we regard not so much the immediate practi- 
 cal consequences, but rather the internal progress 
 of intellect itself, we shall be almost compelled to 
 think error is less dangerous when open and com- 
 plete, than when half- formed and disguised. In the 
 midst of moderate errors our self-love keeps us igno- 
 rant of our danger. But when error has reached its 
 height, it is the nature of the human mind to pro- 
 mote a re-action, and to rise with new strength and 
 power out of the abyss into which at last it per- 
 ceives itself to have fallen. 
 
 Such a return, and certainly a most remarkable 
 one, to the truth and true philosophy, has occurred 
 of late years in France. After that altar upon 
 which shortly before, reason, the goddess of the 
 age, was worshipped, more appropriately than her 
 devotees suspected, under the shape of an actress or 
 a harlot, — after this altar had been purified, and 
 religion restored, after a church without a creed and 
 the chimera of Theophilanthropy had been reduced 
 to their original nothingness, the voice of oppressed 
 and persecuted truth began on every side to make 
 
LITERATURE. 233 
 
 itself heard. I do not mean to refer in any parti- 
 cular way to that one celebrated writer who has 
 consecrated his powerful eloquence ensirely to the 
 service of his religion. For however useful Chateau- 
 briand may have been by representing Christianity 
 in her most amiable form and her beneficial conse- 
 quences, nay, however necessary such a writer as 
 he is may have been to break the ice of infidelity in 
 France, he has attached far too much to the sensible 
 and external part of religion, and I suspect, indeed, 
 has never penetrated into the deep and proper es- 
 sence of our Christianity. 
 
 Many attempts have been made in a quite differ- 
 ent way, to enlarge the mode of thinking, and esta- 
 blish a higher species of philosophy in France. 
 Even the efforts which have been made to intro- 
 duce and naturalize the spirit of our German philo- 
 sophers, are worthy of much attention. They have 
 been supported by the genius and erudition of seve- 
 ral of the first and most celebrated Frenchmen of 
 the age. The attempt indeed is still opposed by 
 many serious and almost unsurmountable obstacles. 
 Perhaps the Germanizing French scholars have 
 plunged too widely into the whole of our literature, 
 instead of thoroughly mastering, in the first instance, 
 the principles and essence of our philosophical sys- 
 tems. A still more important difficulty is presented 
 by the lingering tone of infidel thought, with which 
 
 Vol. II. 2G 
 
234 HISTORY OF 
 
 the general body of the nation is still, I fear, infect- 
 ed. The political establishment and external ob- 
 servances of religion are not sufficient for the pur- 
 pose. Philosophy must proceed from, and return 
 to a sincere, and unalterable, and undoubting faith. 
 What I view as the most essential and important 
 change in French literature of these last years, is 
 the return to a higher morality, and that united 
 system of Platonic and Christian philosophy, which 
 stands exactly in the opposite extreme from the 
 atheism of the preceding age. In some measure, 
 even before the revolution, and even in the period 
 of the most entire corruption, this return had been 
 begun. But it was not till after the whole system 
 of thought had undergone a convulsion, that it be- 
 gan to manifest its perfect influence. A few phi- 
 losophers cut off from their age, and superior to it, 
 France at all times possessed. I may refer, in the 
 first place, to Hemsterhuys, who, although not a 
 Frenchman by birth, wrote entirely in this lan- 
 guage; and that too with so much grace and har- 
 mony, that even in this point of view his Socratic 
 dialogues are worthy of the noble spirit of Plato- 
 nism and Christianity which they express. The 
 return has, however, been most of all promoted by 
 two very remarkable philosophers, men in all their 
 views and principles thoroughly Christian. Of the 
 one of these, St. Martin, many writings were known 
 
LITERATURE. 235 
 
 even before the revolution, and he was spoken of by 
 the name of the unknown philosopher; the other, 
 Bonald, has since that time become the best and 
 most profound champion of the old French mo- 
 narchial constitution. Both, along with their good 
 and excellent qualities, have many great and essen- 
 tial errors. They are full of French prejudices; 
 and although despisers of the spirit of their own 
 age, they have so much partaken in it as to be very 
 unfit judges of ages and nations different from their 
 own. Even the most essential parts of their philo- 
 sophy bear witness at what period they wrote, and 
 have a share of the spirit of the eighteenth century. 
 The chief error of St. Martin consists in this, that 
 he viewed religion entirely as a matter of individual 
 revelation, and as having no connection whatever 
 with forms, and the external church of God. For 
 this, in the situation of things immediately before 
 or during the revolution, there might indeed be 
 some apology; but the error is in itself a dangerous 
 one, and has prevented in a great measure the 
 powerful genius of St. Martin from producing the 
 effect which might otherwise have been expected to 
 follow its exertions. He belongs to the adherents of 
 that Oriental and Christian philosophy, which as I 
 have already said, although despised and ridiculed 
 by doctors and universities, has ever since the revo- 
 lution been making silent but sure progress in the 
 
236 HISTORY OF 
 
 spirit of the age. However little of the praise of 
 invention may be due to St. Martin, and however 
 much of error may be mingled with all his ideas, it 
 still must remain a very remarkable circumstance, 
 that at the period when France was most filled with 
 atheism, an unknown and solitary philosopher 
 should have arisen, who devoted the whole of his 
 talents to destroy the atheistical philosophy of the 
 time, and substitute in its place the doctrines of di- 
 vine revelation and ancient tradition — a Mosaic 
 and Christian system of philosophy. It is no less 
 remarkable that at the very commencement of our 
 century, while others were restoring religion mere- 
 ly for political purposes, and with a view to main- 
 tain the faith of the ignorant, a learned Jurist, and 
 political philosopher, like Bonald, should have seri- 
 ously made the attempt to found the theory of jus- 
 tice upon God alone, and that of government on the 
 doctrines of the Bible. In a philosophical point of 
 view we may blame him for having too much con- 
 founded and identified revelation with reason. But 
 we must remember that he wrote in a country where 
 these had been treated as not only distinct but irre- 
 concileable means of knowledge. Many champions 
 of Christianity have injured themselves by their 
 too indiscriminating rejection of all philosophy. Bo- 
 nald goes into the other extreme; he errs by making 
 Christianity too rational, and almost resolving it 
 
LITERATURE. 237 
 
 into reason. Truth itself, when waging war with 
 error, is apt to go to the opposite extremity, and to 
 regard the arguments of its adversaries in too 
 narrow a point of view. After such errors and prin- 
 ciples as those of the last century were, it is no won- 
 der that the human mind should have received a 
 shock sufficient to render it incapable of moving at 
 once firmly and independently even in a better way. 
 Such appears to have been the case with these illus- 
 trious Frenchmen, Bonald and St. Martin. 
 
 Such a radical change in philosophy cannot easily 
 occur in England. The great incidents of external 
 life, commerce, and the British constitution, India 
 and the Continent, engross the active intellect of 
 this most active of all countries. There remains no 
 talent or time for those pursuits of deeper thought 
 and philosophy, in which, for these very reasons, the 
 English are inferior at this moment to the French. 
 Even in our own days, however, there has been no 
 want of illustrious writers, of men alike distinguished 
 by research and eloquence, in England — these stand 
 alone as tokens of the changing spirit of our time. 
 William Jones has as yet had no rivals in the de- 
 partment which he selected; no one appears to have 
 comprehended, as he did, the antiquities of Asia, 
 and above all of India, with the acuteness of a phi- 
 losopher, or to have seen the mode of reconciling 
 every thing with the doctrine and history of the 
 
238 HISTORY OF 
 
 scriptures. Were such paths pursued with spirit and 
 power, the usual prejudices and fetters of British 
 thought might be easily got rid of. But if we are 
 to praise a man in proportion to his usefulness, I 
 am persuaded that no task could be more difficult 
 than that of doing justice to another Englishman, 
 his contemporary, the statesman and orator Burke. 
 This man has been to his own country and to all 
 Europe — in a very particular manner to Germany — 
 a new light of political wisdom and moral experi- 
 ence. He corrected his age when it was at the 
 height of its revolutionary phrenzy; and without 
 maintaining any system of philosophy, he seems to 
 have seen farther into the true nature of society, and 
 to have more clearly comprehended the effect of re- 
 ligion in connecting individual security with na- 
 tional welfare, than any philosopher, or any system 
 of philosophy of any preceding age. 
 
LITERATURE. 239 
 
 LECTURE XV. 
 
 RETROSPECT GERMAN PHILOSOPHY SPINOZA AND LEIBNITZ 
 
 GERMAN LANGUAGE AND POETRY IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SE- 
 VENTEENTH CENTURIES LUTHER, HANS SACHS, JACOB BÖHME 
 
 OPITZ, THE SILESIAN SCHOOL CORRUPTION OF TASTE AFTER 
 
 THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA; OCCASIONAL POETRY GERMAN- 
 POETS OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 FREDERICK THE SECOND; KLOPSTOCK; THE MESSIAD AND 
 NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY THE CHIVALROUS POEMS OF WIE- 
 LAND INTRODUCTION OF THE ANCIENT METRES OF QUANTITY 
 
 INTO THE GERMAN LANGUAGE; DEFENCE OF RHYME ADE- 
 LUNG, GOTTSCHED, AND " THE (SO CALLED) GOLDEN AGE" 
 
 FIRST GENERATION OF THE LATER GERMAN LITERATURE, OR 
 " THE PERIOD OF THE FOUNDERS.'' 
 
 XO some of my hearers it may appear as idle and 
 superfluous to write against the philosophy of the 
 eighteenth century, as it would be to fight with 
 the shadow of a departed enemy. In truth, how- 
 ever, the cases are not at all parallel ones, although 
 I can easily suppose they may seem so to such as 
 form their judgments entirely from the external ap- 
 
240 HISTORY OF 
 
 pearances of things. The evil is by no means an- 
 nihilated, although it has become less visible. In 
 England the disease of the age never broke out 
 openly, and for that very reason has never been 
 radically cured. In that country as in France 
 there are a few illustrious exceptions, and symbols 
 of a self-regenerating age; symptoms of a gradual 
 return from error, and the invincible power and 
 majesty of truth. But, I fear, those who are best 
 able to judge will agree with me in suspecting that 
 the general tone of thought, particularly among, 
 those who have the empire of literature in their 
 hands, is not yet altered. Among the latest wri- 
 ters of France, the prevalence of the old system 
 is still manifest; the world and all its phenomena 
 are still explained upon the old principles of the 
 atomical and material philosophy. Of all the 
 foolish hypotheses which have ever cheated the 
 human intellect with the empty show of explana- 
 tion, that of materialism is the most unsatisfactory. 
 In a scientific point of view, it is void of founda- 
 tion and fantastic; in regard to morality, national 
 welfare, and religion, its influences are utterly un- 
 worthy and pernicious. Although this system is 
 now seldom pursued to its consequences, and al- 
 though experience has convinced all men how dan- 
 gerous these inevitably are, yet we have still before 
 our eyes the miserable spectacle of men entitled 
 
LITERATURE. 241 
 
 to every respect as natural philosophers, and justly 
 occupying a high place in the intellectual scale of 
 our age, who disgrace all their knowledge by the 
 most lamentable and childish ignorance respecting 
 whatever is most truly worthy of the name of philo- 
 sophy. The cause of truth is gaining strength 
 every day, but these men are not ashamed to ad- 
 vocate, at least by insinuations and calumnies, the 
 cause of her adversary. Such is the situation of 
 affairs abroad. Here, in Germany, the common 
 disease of the century, the false philosophy, and 
 the mania for reason, assumed quite a different ap- 
 pearance — a form of more temperance, and per- 
 haps of less practical danger. We should err very 
 much, nevertheless, if we should imagine that the 
 evil does not exist, or flatter ourselves that our 
 disease is entirely vanquished, merely because the 
 symptoms have undergone a change. 
 
 If the German philosophy did not fall into such 
 violent extremes as the French, it was not guarded 
 by the same strong feelings of nationality, whose 
 influence I have already described upon the English. 
 The sentiment of national union had before this 
 time become quite extinct among the subjects of 
 our innumerable petty states. But perhaps the 
 very smallness of our states was in some measure 
 the cause of our security. Every thing was con- 
 ducted upon so small a scale, and was so much in 
 
 Vol. II. 2 H 
 
242 HISTORY OF 
 
 the view of men, that no open or audacious adop- 
 tion of any pernicious systems of injustice, such as 
 those of Hobbes or Machiavel, could be ventured 
 upon. Still, however, in private life, manners cer- 
 tainly were becoming more relaxed, and so paving 
 the most easy way for vicious theory. But the 
 circumstance which preserved the German philo- 
 sophy, at its commencement, from falling into the 
 extreme of error, was, I imagine, the erudition of 
 the German writers. These were in general full 
 of recollections and ideas of that philosophy of an- 
 tiquity, which had become entirely forgotten in 
 France and England. Leibnitz was, in this point 
 of view, a great blessing to his country. It is very 
 true that he was a physician who made use of pal- 
 liatives, but was incapable or unambitious of effect- 
 ing a radical cure; yet even this was much if we 
 consider the wants of the time. He was a scholar 
 as well as a philosopher, and his works contain in- 
 numerable points which call us back to those who 
 preceded him. It is perhaps the chief fault of 
 Leibnitz that he is too fond of reviving exploded 
 difficulties, but even by this defect of his, he has 
 been the most admirable harbinger of men who 
 felt within them the spirit, the call, and the pas- 
 sion, to plunge more deeply into all the labyrinths 
 of thought, and all the secrets of knowledge. He 
 marks the point of transition from the philosophy 
 
LITERATURE. 243 
 
 of the seventeenth to the new morle of thinking of 
 the eighteenth century — one of the most remark- 
 able eras in the whole history of mankind. As 
 he and his philosophy have never exerted much in- 
 fluence out of Germany, and have bern little 
 studied in France, and not at all in England, I 
 have thought fit to pass him over in silence while 
 treating of foreign philosophers, and reserved him 
 for a place by himself. The same conduct has been 
 adopted in respect to his adversary Spiuosa, because 
 he too has had a similar fate; has been little heard 
 of either in his own country or in England, and 
 not at all in France, but been zealously defended 
 and attacked by Germans alone. Spiiiosa's great- 
 est error, that of making no distinction between 
 God and the world, is one of the most pernicious 
 nature. He denied to individual beings indepen- 
 dence and self-direction, and saw in them all only 
 various manifestations of one eternal and all com- 
 prehending existence; he thus took personality 
 from the Deity, and freedom from man, and by 
 representing all that is immoral, untrue, and im- 
 pious, as appearances, not realities, he went far 
 to destroy all distinction between good and evil. 
 This error is so intimately connected with the 
 doctrines of unassisted reason, that it is pro- 
 bably the very oldest of all the falsities which 
 sprung up in the room of the truth originally com- 
 
244 HISTORY OF 
 
 municated to mankind by his Maker. But Spinosa 
 threw pantheism into a more scientific shape than 
 it ever possessed before his time. The error itself 
 is one so natural to scientific and self-confident 
 reason, that Descartes, from whose system that of 
 Spinosa immediately sprung, was prevented only by 
 the want of depth and decision in his spirit, from 
 falling into the abyss upon the brink of which he 
 stood. In this, as in many other cases, we must be 
 careful to separate the error from the person. 
 It frequently happens that he who first opens up a 
 new path of error, who even thoroughly prepares it, 
 and points it out in the most decided and fearless 
 manner, is nevertheless far less dangerous than his 
 followers who pursue the same track without the 
 same confidence. The morality of Spinosa is not 
 indeed that of the Bible, for he himself was no 
 Christian, but it is still a pure and noble morality 
 resembling that of the ancient Stoics, perhaps pos- 
 sessing considerable advantages over that system. 
 That which makes him strong when opposed to ad- 
 versaries who do not understand or feel his depth, 
 or who, unconsciously, have fallen into errors not 
 much different from his, is not merely the scientific 
 clearness and decision of his intellect, but in a 
 much higher degree the open heartedncss, strong 
 feeling and conviction with which all that he says 
 seems to gush from his heart and soul. We can- 
 
LITERATURE. 245 
 
 not call this a natural inspiration, such as that 
 which animates the poet, the artist, or the natu- 
 ralist, still less the inspiration of the supernatural 
 world, for where can this find a place when there 
 is no faith in an affective Deity? But it is a 
 thorough and penetrating impression and feeling 
 of the eternal which accompanies him in all the 
 ranges of his thought, and lifts him above the 
 world of the senses. The remarkable error which 
 lies at the root of all his philosophy is indeed a 
 pernicious and detestable one, and it might appear 
 as if nothing could be worse. Yet if we com- 
 pare the error of Spinosa with the atheism of the 
 eighteenth century, we shall be at no loss to discover 
 a mighty difference between them. That material 
 philosophy, if we must give it such a name, which 
 explains every thing by matter, and gives the first 
 place to sense, is an error which seems almost to 
 lie lower than the region of humanity. Rarely, 
 among particular individuals who have embraced 
 such a system, can there be much reason to hope 
 for a return to truth; although there can be no 
 difficulty in conceiving that an age or nation, which 
 has seen its pernicious moral consequences openly 
 displayed, should throw it off with abhorrence. 
 The high spirituality, on the contrary, of that 
 other error into which Spinosa fell, may well ap- 
 pear to leave greater means and more open paths 
 
246 HISTORY OF 
 
 for reformation. But after all, an error is surely 
 so much the more pernicious, that it is fiited to 
 seize on noble and intellectual disciples; the imme- 
 diate consequences are then not so practically dan- 
 gerous, but the evil principle has by this means 
 time to fasten itself more deeply, and sooner or 
 later is sure to manifest the power of its corruption 
 upon the whole either of an age or of a nation; as 
 that disease is the most fatal to the human body 
 which makes its slow but steady attacks upon the 
 very vitals of our frame. 
 
 The philosophy of Leibnitz is almost entirely 
 fastened upon that of Spinosa. It is almost through- 
 out a Polemic philosophy; and even when it does 
 not assume the external form of controversy, its ob- 
 ject is always to pull down the common philosophy 
 of his age, to answer it, resolve its doubts, and sup- 
 ply its deficiencies; it is entirely devoted to the 
 spirit and necessities of his time, and never comes 
 forward in the independence and confidence of its 
 own original power. The literary sceptic Bayle, and 
 Locke, the founder of the sensation-system, were the 
 principal adversaries of Leibnitz, to say nothing of 
 a few more personal opponents. But the most pro- 
 minent of them all is Spinosa, with whom he fre- 
 quently, nay, almost perpetually contends, even 
 where he does not name him, as if with an invisible 
 and dreadful enemy. Of the philosophers with 
 
LITERATURE. 247 
 
 whom he agrees, and of the sources from which he 
 derived a great part of his arguments, he says very 
 little. It was no part of his character to recognise 
 the existence of an eternal and spiritual world, 
 whereof the sensible world is only the external ve- 
 hicle and veil. His hypothesis, on the contrary, 
 (according to which sensible objects are merely a 
 perplexed chaos of solitary spiritual principles or 
 monads, in a state of slumber, or imperfection) 
 coincides with, or at least stands at no very remote 
 distance from the atomical doctrine of Epicurus and 
 the modern Atheists, and is at the best only a sort 
 of intermediate s) stem between that and the proper 
 belief in a spiritual world. His attempt to solve 
 the difficulties of the contemporary philosophy con- 
 cerning the connection of the mind and the body, 
 by saying that the common Creator of both made 
 them originally to go together, as a watchmaker 
 might make two watches, is only a piece of inge- 
 nious sophistry, and tends to give a degrading view 
 of the nobler part of our nature. His celebrated 
 T/ieodicee, or justification of God on account of the 
 existence of moral evil, answers that question which 
 so perpetually recurs to the natural reason, with the 
 bold dexterity of a practised diplomatist, who con- 
 ceives it to be his duty, to promote by every means, 
 good, bad, or indifferent, the cause of his master — 
 and to conceal as much as possible from the eyes of 
 
248 HISTORY OF 
 
 his opponent any thing that seems favourable to the 
 other side of the question. It is impossible for the 
 philosophy of reason to answer the question con- 
 cerning the existence of evil in the woild, without 
 either denying the existence of evil in contradic- 
 tion to our daily experience, or ascribing its creation 
 to the Deity, in contradiction to our own feeling and 
 the voice of conscience. The solution of Leibnitz 
 (that of optimism) which gave so much room for 
 the wit of Voltaire, has more lately found a counter- 
 part in the theory of a celebrated philosopher, who 
 explains every thing upon a principle of which Leib- 
 nitz had no idea, who thinks that the only end for 
 which the external world was created, was to afford 
 the spirit room to exercise and develope itself, and 
 maintains that the worse the world is, the better is 
 it adapted to serve this purpose. Neither this Spar- 
 tan, nor that elaborate solution, is satisfactory either 
 to feeling or to philosophy. 
 
 In the Leibnitzian ideas concerning space and 
 time, we have a remarkable evidence how entirely 
 the views of the truest and highest philosophy were 
 at that period forgotten. The philosophy of anti- 
 quity recognised in time and place an endless 
 theatre for the display of the eternal, and of the 
 living pulsation of eternal love. By the contempla- 
 tion of such things, however imperfect and inade- 
 quate, the natural, even the merely sensible man, 
 
LITERATURE. 249 
 
 was affected with a stupendous feeling of admira- 
 tion well calculated to prepare the way for religious 
 thoughts. It extended and ennobled his soul to 
 regard, in such a manner as this, the past, the pre- 
 sent, and the future. But Leibnirz saw in time 
 and space nothing but the arrangement of contem- 
 porary or consecutive incidents. So apt are deaden- 
 ing and insignificant ideas to creep into the place 
 of living and just feeling, in all that is most fitted 
 to elevate man above the world of the senses. The 
 philosophy of Leibnitz was brought into fashion in 
 Germany, and established in the schools, chiefly by 
 means of Wolf; the circumstance is sufficient to 
 characterise it. A sect which lays hold of active 
 life, is judged by the direction which it pursues, and 
 the consequences which it produces. But the spirit 
 of a sect confined to schools soon becomes a mere 
 being of formality: Aristotle, Descartes, Leibnitz, 
 or Kant, is called the master, and the ideas are said 
 to be his, but in truth they are no longer ideas as 
 they were in him; they are mere formulas. Ger- 
 many, nevertheless, has to thank this scholastic 
 system for preventing, or at least checking, the in- 
 troduction of the yet more dangerous sectarian 
 spirit of the atheistical philosophy of the senses; and 
 after all, the pedantry was not of long duration. 
 Leibnitz himself, although he wrote mostly in 
 Latin and French, gave quite a new spring to the 
 Vol. II. 2 I 
 
250 HISTORY OF 
 
 study of the German language, history, and antiqui- 
 ties; and even Wolf's German writings were of con- 
 siderable service to the language. They were fol- 
 lowed by some, who, although belonging to their 
 school, had both originality of thought and power 
 of writing; and these, along with a few better poets 
 than had lately appeared, first brought our language 
 out of the state of barbarism into which it had 
 fallen. They prepared the way for Klopstock, who 
 arose in the middle of the last century, and became 
 the founder of a new epoch, the master and father 
 of the present literature of Germany. 
 
 But before I proceed to depict Klopstock, I must 
 direct your eyes to a short review of the period which 
 intervened between the old and the new literature of 
 our country. The sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies produced indeed few great German writers, 
 but these few are, on account of the rarity, the more 
 worthy of our attention. I have already explained 
 in what way the chivalrous poetry and art of the 
 middle age were lost during the controversies of the 
 sixteenth, and how our language itself became cor- 
 rupted during the long continued civil wars by 
 which the internal peace of our country was so 
 cruelly agitated and convulsed. There was one in- 
 strument by which the influx of barbarism was op- 
 posed, and one treasure which made up for what 
 had been lost — I mean the German translation of 
 
LITERATURE. 251 
 
 the Bible. It is well known to you that all true 
 philologists regard this as the standard and model of 
 classical expression in the high Dutch language; 
 and that not only Klopstock, but many other writers 
 of the first rank, have fashioned their style, and 
 selected their phrases, according to the rules of this 
 version. It is worthy of your notice, that in no 
 other modern language have so many Biblical words 
 and phrases come into the use of common life, 
 as in ours. I perfectly agree with those writers 
 who consider this circumstance as a fortunate one; 
 and I believe, that from it has been derived not 
 a little of that power, life, and simplicity, by 
 which I think the best German writers are dis- 
 tinguished from all other moderns. The Catho- 
 lic as well as the modern Protestant scholar, have 
 many things to find fault with in this translation; 
 but these after all regard only individual passages 
 wherein Luther erred, either by writing in the 
 spirit of his own sect and contrary to the old doc- 
 trines of the Christian church, or from a want of 
 knowledge in history, physics, or geography. In 
 these later times we have witnessed an attempt to 
 render a new and rational translation of the Bible 
 an instrument of propagating the doctrines of the 
 illuminati; and we have seen this too much in the 
 hands even of Catholics themselves. But the in- 
 stant this folly had blown over, we returned with 
 
252 HISTORY OF 
 
 increased affection to the excellent old version of 
 Luther. Luther himself has not indeed the whole 
 merit of producing it. He only selected the best 
 parts of translations existing before his time, and he 
 was assisted in this labour by several of his friends, 
 in particular by the indefatigable Melancthon. We 
 owe to him, nevertheless, the highest gratitude for 
 placing in our hands this most noble and manly 
 model of German expression. Even in his own 
 writings he displays a most original eloquence sur- 
 passed by few names that occur in the whole history 
 of literature. He had, indeed, all those properties 
 which render a man fit to be a revolutionary orator. 
 This revolutionary eloquence is manifest, not only in 
 his half- political and business writings, such as the 
 Address to the Nobility of the German Nation, 
 but in all the works which he has left behind him. 
 In almost the whole of them we perceive the marks 
 of mighty internal conflict. Two worlds appear to 
 be contending for the mastery over the mighty soul of 
 this man so favoured by God and nature. Through- 
 out all his writings there prevails a struggle between 
 light and darkness, faith and passion, God and him- 
 self. The choice which he made — the use to which 
 he devoted his majestic genius — these are subjects 
 upon which it is even now quite impossible for me 
 to speak so as to please you all. For myself I am 
 free to acknowledge, that I can never regard either 
 
LITERATURE. 255 
 
 his writings or his life, except with some portion of 
 that compassion which is due to a great nature led 
 astray by over- confidence in its own vigour. As to 
 the intellectual power and greatness of Luther, ab- 
 stracted from all consideration of the uses to which 
 he applied them, I think there are few even of his 
 own disciples who appreciate him highly enough. 
 His coadjutors were mostly mere scholars, indolent 
 and enlightened men of the common order. It was 
 upon him and his soul that the fate of Europe de- 
 pended. He was the man of his age and his na- 
 tion. 
 
 Luther was thoroughly a popular writer. No 
 country in Europe can boast of so many remarkable, 
 comprehensive, powerful, and extraordinary writers 
 for the common people, as Germany. However 
 much the higher orders of Germany were inferior, 
 or however lately they came up to those of France, 
 England, and Italy, it is certain that the common 
 people of none of these countries has displayed so 
 much profoundness of intellect, and natural power 
 of mind, as that of our own nation. It is an old 
 saying, that the power of kings is given by God; it 
 is an equally old one, and one quite as much worthy 
 of being kept in mind, that the voice of the people 
 is the voice of God. Both are clear, perfect, and 
 true; wo to those that disregard, or would mislead 
 this oracle of the Deity. They are much to be 
 
254 HISTORY OF 
 
 pitied who conceive that they are capable, by the 
 tricks of empty and vain politics, of leading the 
 people entirely according to their own selfish and 
 unworthy purposes and desires. The people is wiser 
 than they imagine, and far wiser than themselves. 
 The people sees through their tricks, and will not 
 easily be deceived. But of all men they surely are 
 guilty of the greatest crime who would make use of 
 the natural power of our people for the purposes 
 of destruction and convulsion. — This strength must 
 indeed be appalling, should it ever be directed by 
 any other guides than those it has as yet obeyed, — 
 obedience to the precepts, and faith in the doc- 
 trines of religion. Narrow must their judgment 
 be who conceive that this power is extinct, be- 
 cause it is seldom visible. It is the inheritance of 
 our ancestors, and can never be thrown away; but 
 like many of the other hidden powers of nature, it 
 is too great to be often manifested. 
 
 The popular writing of northern Germany was 
 by no means confined to religious subjects (as in 
 Luther's works), but embraced also poetry and phi- 
 losophy. I shall for the present mention only two 
 of the most remarkable authors, — the celebrated 
 Meistersang er of Nürnberg, and that Christian vi- 
 sionary who was so much celebrated throughout 
 Europe, about the time of the thirty years war, 
 under the name of the Teutonic philosopher. 
 
LITERATURE. 255 
 
 In popular songs and poems the possessions of 
 Germany are abundant. The popular poetry is ge- 
 nerally of two kinds; it consists in part of songs, 
 solitary fragments of a departed age of heroism 
 and chivalry, whose recollections have been dis- 
 turbed and broken by the revolutions of external 
 events, or have become exploded in consequence of 
 the gradual change in the modes of our social life 
 and ideas; in part of the productions of the vulgar 
 themselves, — and this is the most striking divi- 
 sion of the popular poetry of Germany. The 
 master of Nürnberg was an artificer in poetry as 
 well as in common life. He is however a writer 
 full of power and fancy; he possesses abundance 
 of wit and shrewdness, and if we are to compare 
 him with the early writers of other languages, he 
 is I think more inventive than Chaucer, more rich 
 than Marot, and more poetical than either. In 
 regard to our language, his works form a trea- 
 sure, of which no proper use has as yet been 
 made. 
 
 The same remark may be applied to Jacob Böhme, 
 that Teutonic philosopher, who is so much ridiculed 
 by the general race of literary men. These are them- 
 selves sensible that they understand neither the good 
 nor the bad that is in his writings; but they are ig- 
 norant that they know absolutely nothing either re- 
 specting the man himself, or the relation in which 
 
256 HISTORY OF 
 
 he stood to his contemporaries. I have, on a former 
 occasion, shown you what my opinion is respecting 
 the effects of philosophy being cultivated by the 
 common people, and neglected by the higher orders 
 of a nation. Such, however, was actually the case 
 at that period, both in Protestant Germany and in 
 England. Jacob Böhme is commonly called a 
 dreamer, and it is very true, that in his writings 
 there may be more marks of an ardent imagination 
 than of a sound judgment. But we cannot at least 
 deny this strange man the praise of a very poetical 
 fancy. If we should consider him merely as a poet, 
 and compare him with those other Christian poets, 
 who have handled subjects connected with the su- 
 pernatural world, with Klopstock, with Milton, or 
 even with Dante, we shall find that he rivals the 
 best of them, in fullness of fancy and depth of feel- 
 ing, and that he falls little below them, even in re- 
 gard to individual beauties, and poetical expression. 
 Whatever defects may be found in the philosophy of 
 Jacob Böhme, the historian of German literature can 
 never pass over his name in silence. In few works 
 of any period have the strength and richness of our 
 language been better displayed than in his. His 
 language possesses indeed a charm of nature, sim- 
 plicity, and unsought vigour, which we should look 
 for in vain, in the tongue which we now speak, en- 
 riched as it is by the immense importation of fo- 
 
LITERATURE. 257 
 
 reign terms, and the invented phraseologies of our 
 late philosophers. 
 
 The permanent effects produced by the thirty- 
 years war upon our literature were extremely hurt- 
 ful; but there is no doubt that, while it actually 
 raged, it operated as an awakener and animator of 
 German intellect. The Silesian Opitz arose in the 
 midst of it, and gave to our language and poetry a 
 direction which has since found many imitators. 
 His immediate models were sought from Holland, a 
 country which at that time possessed a Hugo Gro- 
 tius, which was not only the most learned and en- 
 lightened of all Protestant states, but also rich and 
 cultivated in its poetry, and abounding in vernacu- 
 lar tragedies composed after the antique model, a 
 considerable time before the great French tragedians 
 were fostered in the court of Lewis XIV. Yet the 
 excellence of Opitz is quite independent of what he 
 borrowed from any foreign literature, from the Dutch 
 tragedies, and the pastoral romances of the Spaniards. 
 Even his dramatic attempts, free translations, or 
 imitations of the Greek and Italian theatres, have 
 not produced any effect. The truth is, that in the 
 very best and most original of his lyrical, miscella- 
 neous, and didactic poems, we should always regard 
 more what he was fitted by nature to be, what he 
 desired and felt and aspired to, than what he really 
 was. He is commonly called the father of German 
 Vol. II. 2 K 
 
258 history or 
 
 poetry; it appears to me that, at least since Klop- 
 stock, few of the sons have been grateful enough 
 to cultivate much acquaintance with this parent. If 
 any man was ever formed by nature to be a heroic 
 poet, this was Opitz. He felt this, and wished to 
 be the heroic poet of the German nation. But 
 his life was spent a midst the perplexities and agita- 
 tions of a tumultuous period, and he died in early 
 manhood before he had time to complete either his 
 purposes or his poetry. Throughout all his works, 
 imperfect as they are, there break forth flashes and 
 emanations of that course of thought and greatness 
 of soul which create a heroic poet; and even, in re- 
 gard to language, those noble sentiments and strong 
 thoughts of Opitz are in general expressed with an 
 artless simplicity and naivete, which, I think, have 
 not since been equalled. His style is superior to 
 that of Klopstock. 
 
 Next to Opitz, the most distinguished of the Si- 
 lesian poets of this period is Flemming. His poetry 
 is intensely personal; it is filled with the inspiration 
 of his own friendships, passions, and loves. His 
 life was worthy of his being so celebrated; he tra- 
 velled through the then unknown interior of Russia 
 into Persia, and has described all that he saw or 
 experienced during this interesting journey, with 
 the most glowing feeling, and a truly oriental splen- 
 dour of fancy. In style, however, he is quite infe- 
 
LITERATURE. 259 
 
 rior to Opitz. It is much to be regretted, that both 
 of these men were, after all, or were at least held 
 to be, not national but provincial poets, not Ger- 
 mans but Silesians. After the unfortunate civil 
 war, whose flames, fed by the participation or policy 
 of the half of Europe, wasted and devoured our 
 country for thirty years — after the still more miser- 
 able peace of 1648, the strength of the German 
 nation was broken, and German poetry shared in 
 the general decline. Its substance and life were fled, 
 and it soon degenerated into a mere artificial and 
 phantastic display of insignificant thoughts upon 
 worthless subjects. The first introducer of the false 
 taste was Hoffmanswaldau, but it was rendered ge- 
 neral by the more powerful talents of Lohenstein. 
 This period, from 1648 to the middle of last century, 
 was our proper age of barbarism, a sort of division 
 and chaotic interregnum in the history of German li- 
 terature. Our language hesitated between a species 
 of would-be French and wavering German, and 
 was, with all this weakness, full of affectation and 
 artifice. Even, in a political point of view, the most 
 degraded and unfortunate period of our history is 
 hat immediately subsequent to the peace of West- 
 phalia. With the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century the power of Germany began again to re- 
 vive. Austria again attained the summit of strength 
 and glory, some of the first thrones in Europe were 
 
260 HISTORY OF 
 
 ascended by princes of the German houses, and one 
 of them founded in Germany itself a new and splen- 
 did monarchy. All these circumstances, particu- 
 larly when taken together, could scarcely fail to 
 produce a reviving and quickening effect on the in- 
 tellect, language, and manners of our country. 
 Many princes were compelled, even by considera- 
 tions of mere political interest, to become the pa- 
 trons of science. These causes did operate, but not 
 speedii) ; they were opposed by many serious ob- 
 stacles; above all by the deep-rooted corruption 
 which had extended itself through all the German 
 notions of art and style. The first in thought 
 and language of the better lyrical poets of the 
 eighteenth century, resembled in a great measure 
 their predecessors of the seventeenth, and devoted 
 themselves entirely to the occasional poetry of gal- 
 lantry, court, festival, and panegyric. Those of 
 them who paid the greatest attention to style, 
 Hagedorn, and after him Utz, were more addict- 
 ed to imitation, and certainly very happy imita- 
 tion, of French and English poets, than to the 
 open expression of their own feelings and passions. 
 Those who, by a higher tone of inspiration, like Mal- 
 ier, or by a more graceful and elegant fertility, like 
 Gleim, are most deserving of the name of poets, are, 
 in respect of language, always careless, frequently 
 corrupt. At the same time they must be regarded, 
 
LITERATURE. 261 
 
 even in respect to langnage and its construction 
 alone, as great and meritorious, when compared with 
 the state of barbarism into which the taste and 
 judgment of the time immediately preceding them 
 had fallen. They must receive still greater admi- 
 ration, when we reflect on the unfavourable circum- 
 stances of some of their lives. Several of these first 
 revisers of the German language and poetry died in 
 very early life; such was the fate of Kleist, who 
 was perhaps the greatest genius of them all, of 
 Kronenk, and of Elias Schlegel; others devoted 
 their chief attention to the bustle of active life, or 
 passed into foreign countries and forgot their des- 
 tiny. They all felt the want of a point of union, 
 and looked for it in vain from the youthful hands 
 of Frederick the second. It is common of late to 
 justify the conduct of this monarch, by asserting 
 that at the time when he arose, the language and 
 poetry of his country were really in such a state, that 
 they could not possibly be viewed with any thing 
 but contempt and aversion by one of so much talent 
 as he possessed. There is, however, no foundation 
 in fact for such a plea: What might not have been 
 done for German literature by a prince, in whose 
 time (and some of them too in whose own do- 
 minions) there arose and flourished such men as 
 Klopstock, Winkelmann, Kant, and Lessing? 
 Where, in any age, could better materials have been 
 
262 HISTORY OF 
 
 found, and what were the foreign favourites of Fre- 
 deric (Voltaire alone accepted) when placed by 
 the side of these great resuscitators of science and 
 art? What was a Maupertuis, or a La Metrie? 
 — the mere mob of French literati. We may 
 well excuse Klopstock for expressing, with some- 
 what of the keenness of personal resentment, his 
 indignation for the unmerited contempt poured 
 upon the language and literature of his country. 
 He felt and expressed this with bitter severity, when 
 he instituted a comparison between Frederick and 
 Caesar. In the time of Julius, more Greek, good, 
 bad, or indifferent, was written at Rome, than 
 French in Germany during the whole of the 
 eighteenth century. The Roman language possessed 
 at that period as few classical works as the German 
 did before 1750. And yet Caesar thought it well 
 worth his while to devote the most careful atten- 
 tion to his mother tongue, nay, to be himself a Ro- 
 man philologer and grammarian. And it was thus 
 that he made himself one of the first of orators and 
 of writers, distinctions which no man ever can reach 
 who makes use of a foreign dialect. — But upon the 
 whole we should perhaps scarcely regret the want of 
 such an union of German writers as Frederick had 
 it in his power to effect. Individuals would indeed 
 have written better and more easily, but it may be 
 that the literature as a whole might have suffered, 
 
LITERATURE. 263 
 
 that it might have been narrowed in its spirit and 
 comprehension, and become the affair of a province 
 rather than of the whole German people. We 
 should have paid dearly for a somewhat more rapid 
 developement, by sacrificing what constitute at this 
 moment the chief excellence of our writers — riches 
 and freedom. But the whole of the argument in 
 defence of Frederick proceeds upon a wrong view of 
 the subject. If kings are to defer their patronage 
 of national literature till such time as there are in 
 the country abundance of elegant and perfect wri- 
 ters, the utmost which it can be in their power to 
 effect, must be the establishment of some tame and 
 unprofitable academy. The monarch who is ambi- 
 tious to befriend and guide the intellect of his 
 people, must foster and cherish talents not yet com- 
 pletely developed, and furnish young men with the 
 instruments and opportunities of distinction. We 
 may pardon the zeal of Klopstock, for he had in his 
 own person abundant experience of the neglect of 
 princes. He was conscious to himself of a genius 
 capable of diffusing new spirit and life, not over 
 poetry alone, but over all the departments of lite- 
 rature. The evil influence of Voltaire over France 
 was not more extensive, than the good influence of 
 Klopstock might have been over Germany, had he 
 been supplied with room, occasion, means, and in- 
 struments, worthy of his genius. 
 
264 HISTORY OF 
 
 Klopstock stood conspicuous, and almost alone in 
 the German literature of his time, in respect of his 
 intensely national feelings, feelings with which few 
 of his contemporaries sympathised, and which still 
 fewer could understand. It was his ambition to 
 transfer these German feelings into poetry. With 
 the Messaid the new literature of our country may 
 be said to begin; so immeasurable have been the 
 benefits derived from it, particularly in respect to 
 style and expression, although the poem is now ad- 
 mired chiefly upon trust, or has not at least become 
 a work of true power and living feeling in our hands. 
 The plan labours under the same disadvantages 
 which I have described as inseparable from all poems 
 of this species. Klopstock's most successful poetry 
 is that conceived in the spirit of elegy. Every gra- 
 dation, blending, and depth of elegiac feeling, is 
 handled by him with the power and ease of a mas- 
 ter; however far he pursues the stream of his me- 
 lancholy reflections, he never doubts, nor needs to 
 doubt, that his readers will willingly follow him, and 
 deliver up their spirits to his control. He culls 
 forth the most melting of our sympathies even for a 
 fallen spirit — Abbadona. There is another ele- 
 ment which enters as largely, but far less happily 
 into the composition of his poetry. In prose he is 
 a writer who errs by beiag too sententious, brief, 
 and epigrammatic; but in poetry he indulges in a 
 
LITERATURE. 265 
 
 verbose and elaborate species of rhetoric, which 
 often destroys in a very great measure the effect of 
 his feeling. Both Milton and Virgil are chargeable 
 with the same defect, but Klopstock has carried it 
 much farther than either of them. We may allow 
 him to assume that his heavenly personages make 
 use of human, nay, of German language, but we 
 can with difficulty suppose that beings of so elevated 
 a nature can waste their time in such frivolous and 
 long-winded conversations as occur in the Messiad. 
 
 That neither the nation or the poet himself was 
 satisfied with the Messiad as a whole, is sufficiently 
 proved by the very great dissimilarity of the first 
 and second halves of the poem. 
 
 There lay in the spirit of Klopstock a lofty idea 
 of a new and eminently German poetry. His 
 mighty hand put an end to the greatest reproach of 
 our literature; he demonstrated that Christianity 
 on the one hand, and Gothic mythology and anti- 
 quity on the other, must be the main elements of all 
 new European poetry and inspiration. In his time 
 the scholars of Denmark were zealously employed 
 in bringing into notice the northern mythology and 
 the Edda; and Klopstock himself was willing to 
 take a part in their labours. But the small lyrical 
 poems and odes by which he attempted to promote 
 their views were not the proper means for accom- 
 plishing it. The Danish poets were wiser in adopt- 
 
 Vol. II. 2 L 
 
266 HISTORY OF 
 
 ing the department of narrative and descriptive 
 poetry. 
 
 To the Hermann of Klopstock, next to the Mes- 
 siad his most considerable poem, the same general 
 remarks may be applied which I have already made 
 concerning the elegiac spirit of all his poetry, and 
 the abuse of rhetorical acuteness. As a drama it is 
 calculated for a future and ideal theatre, not for 
 that actual theatre either of his time or of ours, 
 which seems to regard with a favourable eye all 
 manner of pleasure and purpose, rather than the 
 poetical. Klopstock seized and felt only the two 
 extreme points of German poetry; he overlooked all 
 that lies in the middle between the Christian and 
 the northern, and all that is produced by the blend- 
 ing of these two elements, — the whole middle age, 
 the thousand or twelve hundred years, which inter- 
 vened between Attila and that peace of Westpha- 
 lia, of which so much against our wishes we are 
 compelled to make an epoch both in literature and 
 in history. He omitted, therefore, to survey the re- 
 gion of all others most fruitful and most obvious, 
 the only one upon which poetry ever can be esta- 
 blished so as to become a matter of historical and 
 national influence in our eyes. This great blank which 
 Klopstock left, many subsequent writers have at- 
 tempted to fill up; particularly Bodmer as a scho- 
 lar, and Wieland as a poet. Bodmer was passion- 
 
LITERATURE. 267 
 
 ately fond of the old romantic chivalrous poetry, 
 and was the first who brought the riches of Germany 
 in that department into light; although he adopted a 
 method which was ill calculated to hasten the effects 
 he wished to produce. The poetry of Wieland was 
 entirely devoted to the romantic, which had been 
 left untouched by Klopstock. It is true, that a his- 
 torical romantic poem, after the manner of Tasso, 
 not perhaps founded on the crusades, but on some 
 other of the rich poetical materials of the middle 
 age, might have been a better and more effectual 
 instrument, than an entirely fanciful and playful sub- 
 ject, such as that of Oberon. But notwithstanding 
 all this, and in spite of many absurd modern things 
 which he has interwoven, the services of Wieland 
 have been eminently useful in recovering romantic 
 feelings. It is a shame and a pity that one who 
 had recreated in so glorious a manner the min- 
 strelsy of the Provencial period, should have so 
 soon laid poetry aside. This is the greatest re- 
 proach which can be made to the poet of Oberon, 
 that he who, had he acted wisely, might have be- 
 come the German Ariosto, or the rival of the Ita- 
 lian one, should have stooped to be the imitator of 
 such a prose writer as Crebillon. In prose it is 
 quite evident that his style and expressions are 
 vastly inferior to what they appear in his verses. I 
 believe that when all his Greek romances are for- 
 
268 HISTORY OF 
 
 gotten, the fame of Wieland will still be supported 
 by his Oberon. 
 
 Of the other poets of the first generation, the 
 most original is Gessner. But he deals in a spe- 
 cies of poetry too remote from actual life, and too 
 devoid of any precise species of mythology. He 
 wanders therefore in a world of shades, and every 
 thing assumes in his hands the appearance of a 
 tame uniformity. A contempt of rhyme and metre 
 may harmonize well enough with such a sort of 
 poetry, but it also promotes and cherishes its most 
 characteristic errors and defects. 
 
 In one respect alone the doctrine and example of 
 Klopstock operated unfavourably upon the German 
 language. In order to recal a language out of a si- 
 tuation of entire corruption, few better means can 
 be selected than the introduction of severe, elabo- 
 rate, and foreign forms of writing. These at first 
 indeed produce the appearance of restraint and diffi- 
 culty, but they destroy the prevalent absurdities of 
 carelessness. The ancient hexameter measure ac- 
 cords well with our language, and ours is the only 
 modern language in which it is tolerable. But with 
 whatever excellent effects the introduction of foreign 
 forms may be attended, they should be still regard- 
 ed merely as exercises. He who would create a 
 truly national poem must choose a national and fami- 
 liar measure. The accents of a foreign metre do not 
 
LITERATURE. 269 
 
 come upon the ear with the effect of domestic influ- 
 ence, or fasten themselves in the memory and heart 
 of the readers. The hexameter when carelessly exe- 
 cuted, displeases scholars, and when written with 
 accuracy appears monotonous and wearisome to or- 
 dinary readers. The Messiad is prevented by its 
 import from becoming an universal favourite. But 
 for this I should consider the measure in which it is 
 written as the great cause of its unpopularity. 
 
 It was a great error in an illustrious poet, such 
 as Klopstock, to hate and banish rhyme. It is 
 well that he has not succeeded in all that he wished 
 to effect. It was a most absurd thing to suppose 
 that rhyme, a custom which has been familiarised to 
 German ears by nine hundred or a thousand years, 
 and which has become intwisted among the very 
 roots of our language, could be thrown off with so 
 much ease. Besides rhyme is not merely an adven- 
 titious habit, it is founded in the very nature of 
 Teutonic speech. Klopstock conceived that the 
 most ancient German songs and poems were ryth- 
 mical, but without rhyme: but he was mistaken. 
 It is true that they are without that regular rhyme 
 at the end of lines which we now use, but they all 
 possess that species of repetition of sound, which is 
 alike observable in the Islandic, Anglo-Saxon, Scan- 
 dinavian, old English, and old Saxon poets, which 
 goes by the name of Alliteration, and of which 
 
270 HISTORY OF 
 
 even in the latest poetry of Germany and England, 
 the traces are abundantly manifest. The transition 
 from this kind of rhyme to ours was a very easy one. 
 Rhyme is not indeed so necessary in our language 
 as in the unmusical one of France, but it is inter- 
 mingled with the very foundation of our speech, and 
 has entered long since into our pronunciation. 
 Wieland deserves much praise for restoring rhyme, 
 and putting an end to that mania for blank endings 
 and unsatisfactory metres, which was introduced by 
 Klopstock, which was tolerated in him, but utterly 
 disgusting in the hands of his imitators. 
 
 Wieland's love of philological pursuits led him 
 sometimes into bigoted paradox, and the same 
 thing may be said of a much greater philologer 
 than he was — Adelung. I am far from wishing 
 to deny the merits and talents of this great etymo- 
 logist; but in our time it is no longer easy to over- 
 look such monstrous absurdities as some of those 
 into which he fell; that, for instance, of confining 
 the pure High Dutch language entirely to the 
 limits of the old Margravate of Meissen, and 
 of despising Klopstock, who was the first writer 
 among his own contemporaries, nay the first mas- 
 ter of the German language which had then ap- 
 peared. 
 
 How relative the idea of a golden period must 
 always be, at least in respect to our literature, we 
 
LITERATURE. 271 
 
 have now had many examples; Gottsched fixed it 
 in the age of Frederick the first King of Prussia, 
 and talked of Besser, Neukirch, and Pietch, as if 
 they were to be in German literature, what Virgil 
 is in the Roman, and Corneille and Racine in 
 the French. These writers are now, however, 
 regarded without any of the enthusiastic admira- 
 tion of Gottsched. So convinced was he that hu- 
 man intellect and German poetry had at that time 
 reached their summit, that he persuaded himself 
 he could see all around him the marks of a decline, 
 and he wrote in such terms as these in the year 
 1751 — the very year in which the first part of the 
 Messaid was published. The poets whom he prais- 
 ed so highly produced only odes and small pieces; 
 but a literature can never reach its perfection till it 
 can boast of a great epic poem and a great history. 
 We must be grateful to those earlier writers for 
 the care with which they purified our language, 
 but they were only preparing the way for the more 
 stately march of those who came after them. The 
 rapid and yet gradual improvement which occurred 
 in our last century is indeed a subject which cannot 
 be considered by us with too much satisfaction. 
 There is no privileged period in which the great 
 change took place. The earliest works of Lessing 
 can scarcely be said to be written in the same lan- 
 guage of which he lived to make use. From 1750 
 
272 HISTORY OF 
 
 till 1800, a constant succession of works appeared 
 in Germany, of which, although few are perfect, 
 there are none that have not added both strength and 
 elegance to the language in which they are com- 
 posed. 
 
 Although the whole of this period has been dis- 
 tinguished by unintermitted fertility, there is no 
 difficulty in classing our writers into their different 
 generations. Each of these generations has its 
 own characteristic excellencies and defects — derived 
 in general from the situation or circumstances of 
 the time, rather than from the genius of the indivi- 
 duals. 
 
 In the first generation I class those writers whose 
 developement and first exertions occurred between 
 the years 1750 and 1760. My limits do not per- 
 mit me to enumerate the whole even of those who 
 are entitled to great respect. I have already touch- 
 ed on the most celebrated. But I cannot pass over 
 in silence the learned Jesuit Denis, who should be 
 remembered with peculiar honour by my audience, 
 because it was he who first introduced into the lite- 
 rature of Austria that pure taste which had been 
 created in the north by Klopstock. 
 
 Of prose writers, many of those philosophers 
 whom I shall mention hereafter belong to the first 
 generation; even Kant himself, if we consider the 
 period of his birth, and the nature of his earliest 
 
LITERATURE. 273 
 
 writings. The most distinguished were Lessing 
 and Winkelmann. 
 
 The writers of this period exhibit many traces of 
 the unfortunate state into which German literature 
 had fallen in the age immediately preceding their 
 own. With what difficulties Winkelmann had to 
 contend before he succeeded in forming his rich and 
 exquisite style, we may learn from the perusal of 
 his youthful Letters. Kant's mode of writing 
 bears innumerable marks of long, hard, and severe 
 labour. The juvenile works, in particular the 
 poems, of Lessing, should be considered merely as 
 a tribute paid by a man of genius to the spirit of 
 his age. Even Klopstock, however much he is 
 to be admired, would, without doubt, have been 
 far better, had he been preceded by writers of great 
 eminence. 
 
 Such were the injurious consequences produced 
 on the writers of the first generation, by the miser- 
 able state of German literature at the period when 
 they made their appearance. We must not for- 
 get, however, that the difficulties with which they 
 had to contend, stimulated them to exertions of 
 power and greatness to which they might not other- 
 wise have aspired. They were obliged to concen- 
 trate all their powers upon one point; this was the 
 case with Klopstock, Winkelmann, and, in another 
 way with Kant. More lately our literature, and 
 Vol. II. 2 M 
 
■274 HISTORY OF 
 
 above all our poetry, has lost that tone of severe 
 simplicity and dignity which distinguished the best 
 authors of the first generation. The admirable 
 works of Winkelmann may perhaps have been 
 very instrumental in producing this effect. The 
 beautiful and the tasteful have become too exclu- 
 sively the object and passion of our writers. We 
 must return to the still more exalted inspiration of 
 national feeling and religion. 
 
LITERATURE. 
 
 275 
 
 i 
 
 LEÖ1 
 
 ^URE XVI. 
 
 GENERAL REVIEW SECOND GENERATION GERMAN CRITICISM 
 
 LESSING AND HERDER LESSING AS A PHILOSOPHER FREE- 
 THINKING AND THE ILLUMINATI THE EMPEROR JOSEPH THE 
 
 SECOND CHARACTER OF THE THIRD GENERATION THE PHI- 
 LOSOPHY OF KANT GOETHE AND SCHILLER ANTICIPATION 
 
 FICHTE AND TIECK TRUE CHARACTER OF GERMAN LITERA- 
 TURE CONCLUSION. 
 
 XHOSE who are best able to form an opinion con- 
 cerning the modern literature of Germany, are sen- 
 sible that its principal defect is its want of har- 
 mony. To point out in a general way where this 
 harmony should be sought, and wherein alone it may 
 be found, might seem perhaps to be no very difficult 
 task. But I know not that it could be productive 
 of much good to point out the remote termination, 
 unless we could accompany this with some direc- 
 tions as to the way which must lead to it, some 
 warnings concerning the bye-paths which deflect 
 from it, the obstacles which interrupt, and the 
 
276 HISTORY OF 
 
 dangers which surround it. Before we think of 
 solving the problem, we must first thoioughly com- 
 prehend it in all its extent and all its difficulty; 
 we must discover the extremities of the several 
 cords, and follow them through all the mazes of 
 their intertexture, ere we need hope to loosen the 
 Gordian knot of our literature. 
 
 The nearer we come to our own time, the more 
 am I obliged to contract the extent of my re- 
 searches, and to dwell less upon the characters of 
 individuals, and confine myself to the universal pro- 
 gress and ruling spirit of intellect and letters. The 
 time is not yet come for a complete history of Ger- 
 man literature. Many things will not appear in 
 their just light, till the nature of their consequences 
 has been more fully developed. It is impossible to 
 raise the structure till the materials be at our dis- 
 posal. 
 
 I have already attempted to depict, in a general 
 manner, the most illustrious poets of the first genera- 
 tion. In order that I may adhere as closely as may 
 be to the order of chronology, I shall defer for a little 
 my view of the philosophers, and other prose wri- 
 ters, their contemporaries, because neither of the 
 most celebrated of them, Lessing and Kant, began 
 to exert an effectual influence upon the general mind 
 till somewhat later. 
 
 After the long feuds between Austria and Prus- 
 
LITERATURE. 277 
 
 sia had at last terminated in a durable peace, Ger- 
 many enjoyed a number of years of repose alike 
 salutary to her states, her sciences, and her intellect. 
 At one time, indeed, it seemed as if this quiet was 
 about to be broken, but the danger was a transi- 
 tory one, and Germany continued to flourish in the 
 enjoyment of peace and her own power, without be- 
 ing conscious at the time, to what causes she was 
 indebted for the happiness of her condition. 
 
 The first establishers of our literature, and puri- 
 fiers of our language and poetry, who either imme- 
 diately preceded or immediately followed Klop- 
 stock, and devoted their lives to the same purposes 
 which he always kept in view, were placed in a si- 
 tuation of no ordinary difficulty. Many of the ob- 
 stacles which were opposed to them they overcame; 
 their honourable toils prepared and smoothed the 
 path; even the errors and defects which may be re- 
 marked in them have warned and guided their 
 successors, and are deserving of the respect of pos- 
 terity. 
 
 It need not surprise us to find that the second 
 generation of German poets and writers, whose 
 genius was first developed about the year 1770, 
 have an appearance of boldness and facility to 
 which their predecessors were strangers. They 
 used and inherited what the labours of the first ge- 
 neration had founded and created. The most dis- 
 
278 HISTORY OF 
 
 tinguished poets» of this epoch are Goethe, Stol- 
 berg, Voss, Burger; to these I might add the 
 names of a few other individuals who were nearly 
 or exactly their contemporaries, and who by their 
 genius are well entitled to stand beside them, al- 
 though either from the character of their works, or 
 from the incidents of their own lives, they have not 
 been able to obtain an equally splendid portion of 
 celebrity. It is very true that along with these 
 there arose, at that period, a band of popular wri- 
 ters, very inferior to them, whose writings have al- 
 most brought the time of their production into some 
 contempt. But that this epoch was in itself one 
 of the most brilliant and fruitful in the whole 
 course of our literary history, it is not possible to 
 doubt. We need only remember that in addition 
 to those I have named, Jacobi, Lavater, Herder, 
 and John Müller, both by the date and character 
 of their works, belong to this epoch; men whose 
 fame is not confined to Germany, but has in part 
 at least been echoed by every country in Europe. 
 The writers of the second generation are both in 
 spirit and in style entirely different from those who 
 went before them. Their method of writing- is 
 full of soul, fire, and life; abundant in animation 
 and wit, original, new, and, in many respects, ex- 
 quisite. They want, however, uniformity, regu- 
 larity, and a standard; and are often chargeable 
 
LITERATURE. 279 
 
 with a neglect of the necessary purity of language. 
 This is true even of Herder and John Müller, the 
 most erudite as well as the most comprehensive 
 spirits of their day. It might almost seem as if 
 the adherents of the first generation were right in 
 asserting, that purity of language is, if not exclu- 
 sively, at least principally the portion of those 
 whom they admire. But this must not be taken 
 in its fullest extent; in some writers, and particu- 
 larly some poets of the second epoch, in Voss, in 
 Stolberg, and in many of the works of Goethe, 
 the purity of language is found in all its strictness 
 and perfection — more so than perhaps in any wri- 
 ters or poets of the first generation. The careful- 
 ness of Voss in respect to language is such as to 
 render his style, on some occasions, painful and 
 hard; and if it be true that in many of the minor 
 works, both early and late, of Goethe, there occur 
 many carelessnesses, yet in his noblest poems the 
 language is as beautiful as German can be, and 
 possesses indeed an artless elegance and grace to 
 which Klopstock never could attain. 
 
 The language was not only enriched by the ge- 
 nius of these writers and poets, who followed out 
 with greater freedom of step the path opened by 
 their predecessors, but individual works were pro- 
 duced more perfect in their kind than Germany 
 had even yet possessed. Poetry at that time took 
 
280 HISTORY OF 
 
 a totally new direction. Somewhat earlier it had 
 been separated into two parties, the imitators of 
 Wieland and those of Klopstock. The first set 
 thought of nothing but muses, graces, love, roses, 
 zephyrs, nymphs, and hamadryads; the second 
 re-echoed the old minstrelsy of the bards, the ice- 
 dance, or the bear-hunt among rocks and wilder- 
 nesses; they wandered among the clouds with Eloah, 
 and trod heavenly paths strewed with suns and 
 stars; or, if they stooped to earth, it was in thunder, 
 storm, and whirlwind, like the trumpet of the 
 judgment. Between these two extremes of mono- 
 tonous and uninterestingelevation, and luscious, half- 
 Greek, half- modern effeminacy, the new poets en- 
 deavoured to establish something possessed of grea- 
 ter power, and more akin to nature. They made Ho- 
 mer, as the great poet of living nature, the chief 
 subject of these eulogies, and translated him with 
 much success into the German language. Or they 
 revived the faded recollections of ancient German 
 history, art and poetry, although they were, in some 
 instances, little qualified in point of erudition to do 
 what they had undertaken. Their attempts were 
 in general mere echoes; but some were both admi- 
 rable in themselves, and have been productive of 
 imporant results. The single work," Götz of Ber- 
 lichingen with the iron hand," was the parent of a 
 numerous progeny of steel-clad knights and brother- 
 
LITERATURE. 281 
 
 hoods, who preserve alive, even down to our own 
 time, the memory of old German freedom and 
 heroism, at least upon the stage. The poem itself 
 is a juvenile one, and has many errors and imper- 
 fections, and the history and manners represented 
 in it are very far from being the true ones; but it 
 must always retain its value as a poetical picture of 
 great energy, and be honoured as the best of all the 
 youthful poems of its author. 
 
 Upon the whole, perhaps, this new turn of things 
 carried poetry somewhat too far from that lofty idea 
 which Klopstock conceived of it; it was separated 
 too much into individual points, and brought too soon 
 and too exclusively to the service of the stage. It 
 seems to me at least quite certain, that a national 
 theatre is never the better of being an early one. 
 The Greek theatre itself owes much of its excellence 
 to the period of its developement. A theatre cannot 
 possibly assume an air of exquisite perfection, unless 
 it has been preceded by a literature and poetry cul- 
 tivated with high success. Above all, the more 
 lofty and serious species of poetry are its best har- 
 bingers, because these imply a national intellect 
 and spirit in a state of developement most fitted 
 to receive it. The criticism of Lessing had the 
 effect of drawing our attention too much to the 
 stage. With all his accuteness and erudition, of 
 which none can be a greater admirer than myself, 
 Vol. IL 2 N 
 
282 HISTORY OF 
 
 it may, I think, be doubted whether Lessing pro- 
 duced a favourable effect on the German theatre. 
 The translations of Corneille and Voltaire soon gave 
 place to that species of moral domestic pictures in- 
 troduced into France by Diderot, and prose was 
 even supposed, for a considerable time, to be neces- 
 sary for a truly natural dialogue. This pernicious 
 error, however, at last passed away. The enthu- 
 siasm for Shakespeare, to which Lessing greatly 
 contributed, was more permanent; and from him 
 we derived notions both of nature and of poetry, far 
 more profound and exquisite than were ever enter- 
 tained by any of the school of Diderot. 
 
 As a critical writer, Lessing was better adapted 
 for discovering and destroying particular errors in 
 taste than for assigning to any one work, author, or 
 species of writing, a true and just place in the scale 
 of literary merit. He had not leisure nor patience 
 to study the perfections of any one great work, as 
 Winkelmann did; and without such mature consi- 
 deration and quiet enthusiasm, no man can become 
 an universal critic. We must learn to comprehend 
 the essence of art from admiration of excellence, 
 rather than from detection of error. Lessing is 
 too much a philosopher, and too little an artist 
 in his criticism. He wants that energy of fancy 
 by which Herder was enabled to transport him- 
 self into the spirit and poetry of every age and 
 
LITERATURE. 283' 
 
 people. It is this very perception and feeling of 
 the poetical, in the character of natural legends, 
 which forms the most distinguishing feature in 
 the genius of Herder. The poetry of the He- 
 brews was that which most delighted him. He 
 may be called the mythologist of German litera- 
 ture, on account of this gift, this universal feeling 
 of the spirit of antiquity. His power of entering 
 into all the shapes and manifestations of fancy, im- 
 plies in himself a very high degree of imagination. 
 His mind seems to have been cast in so universal a 
 mould, that he might have attained to equal emi- 
 nence, either as a poet or as a philosopher. 
 
 Since Winkelmann wrote, the taste and feeling 
 for art has been perpetually on the increase among 
 the Germans. This has been promoted, not only by 
 the natural love which we have for poetry, but by 
 the removal of almost all German talents from the 
 affairs of external life. The German intellect has 
 been left only two fields, in which to exert itself — 
 taste and philosophy. The first of these was at first 
 cultivated to a degree which injured the second; 
 for many German writers, who spent their lives 
 in discoursing of subjects of mere art and taste, 
 were evidently formed by nature for the higher 
 species of philosophy. Such a natural predilection 
 is apparent enough, even in Winkelmann; the whole 
 
284 HISTORY OF 
 
 of his high ideas of art are established upon the 
 ground of a Platonic inspiration, which he had cul- 
 tivated in the best manner, and which was the 
 ruling principle of all his thoughts. Of all kinds 
 of philosophy there is none which harmonizes so 
 well with a love of art as this; but in him the Pla- 
 tonism was so strong, that it lifted him not unfre- 
 quently very far above the subjects of which he 
 treated. In particular, his later writings are full 
 of manifestations of this philosophical propensity, 
 and I know not but it might have been very fortu- 
 nate for German philosophy, had it set out in the 
 hands of such a Platonist as Winkelmann. 
 
 Lessing, so soon as his spirit had reached the 
 height of its manly maturity, laid aside, as follies of 
 his youth, the whole of his antiquarian, dramatic, 
 and critical pursuits. The philosophical inquiry 
 after truth was the object of all his later exertions, 
 and he devoted himself to this noble pursuit with 
 an earnestness of enthusiasm to which even his ar- 
 dent mind had as yet been a stranger. In his ear. 
 Her pursuits he seems to have written rather by 
 way of exercising his genius, and from the wish of 
 overthrowing his adversaries, than from any pro- 
 found love of his own cause. However much na- 
 ture kid fitted him to be a critic, his highest desti- 
 nation was for philosophy. He was too far above 
 
LITERATURE. 285 
 
 his age to be understood by it; and moreover he 
 did not live to fill up the outline of the system 
 which he embraced. 
 
 Of the philosophers of the elder school, Sultzer 
 devoted his thoughts and researches to art — with 
 the views and habits of his time; Mendelsohn's 
 ambition was to establish the universal truths of re- 
 ligion upon philosophical principles; Garve was no 
 adherent of the school of Leibnitz; but his whole 
 character shews that he should be classed with the 
 elder period. He devoted himself principally to the 
 moral philosophy of the ancients and the English. 
 He seems to have partaken in the errors of his 
 masters, and to have viewed ethics as founded ra- 
 ther on the principles of elegance and the agreeable 
 than on those true and more profound principles 
 with which German feelings have greater sympathy. 
 The philosophical romances of Wieland had a still 
 more dangerous tendency to promote a merely Epi- 
 curean system of morality. These men were not 
 well fitted to be the guides of a nation and age 
 placed on the brink of such conflicts and difficulties 
 as were then about to agitate the world. 
 
 Kant was not as yet known. Lavater pursued a 
 path of his own quite remote from all the rest. The 
 world has become well acquainted with the follies 
 of his physiognomical reveries, and have considered 
 him as a mere dreamer. The profoundness of his 
 
286 HISTORY OF 
 
 philosophical views, and the best of his works, are 
 equally unknown. Of all the inquirers of the last 
 century, I know of none, who, next to Lessing, la- 
 boured more to pursue the traces of forgotten truth 
 than Lavater. 
 
 The writings of Reimarus concerning natural re- 
 ligion contain nothing but what is quite common- 
 place. Lessing laid hold of the same subject with 
 very different views, and with very superior genius. 
 The then prevalent doubts, produced by the philo- 
 sophy of Locke and Descartes, had no interest for 
 him. In all his controversial writings (and in none 
 more than his Education of the human race, and 
 his Freemason Dialogues) we may discover thing* 
 more intimately connected with the principal sub- 
 jects of the higher philosophy, than any contempo- 
 rary inquirer seems ever to have contemplated. 
 Leibnitz was the only philosopher near his own 
 time of whom he thought much, and him he con- 
 sidered as standing at a very great distance from 
 those who at that time conceived themselves to be 
 of the Leibnitzian school. He understood him 
 better than any of them, because he studied Spinosa 
 whom they neglected. The metaphysics of Lessing 
 are indeed imperfect, and in some respects he seems 
 not only not to have overcome, but even not to have 
 understood that greatest of all his adversaries; but 
 I must confess that I think he saw farther than 
 
LITERATURE. 287 
 
 Kant, although not with so systematic an eye, into 
 the deep places of philosophy. Had he lived longer 
 and husbanded his strength, his influence and fame 
 might have become very superior to what they are. 
 The freedom and boldness of his spirit might have 
 given a better direction to German philosophy than 
 it received from Kant and his adherents. He is 
 sometimes said to have been a Spinosist; but of 
 this reproach he is by no means deserving. One of 
 his most favourite notions was that of the metemp- 
 sychosis — a doctrine obviously quite irreconcileable 
 with the genius of a philosophy that denied the 
 personal duration of the soul. Lessing's leaning 
 was rather to the old Oriental philosophy, and of 
 this he himself makes no secret. I perfectly agree 
 with those who maintain that enthusiasm cannot 
 be guarded against with too much care and anxiety; 
 for it is clear that all the masterly learning of Leib- 
 nitz, and all the sound judgment of Lessing, could 
 not preserve these great men from mistakes which 
 are very easily discovered and ridiculed by their in- 
 feriors. 
 
 The enthusiasm and dreams of Lessing did not 
 pass into the spirit of the age, along with the ex- 
 ample of his boldness, and the inheritance of his 
 doubts. He has become an instrument in the 
 hands of his most inveterate enemies. In a certain 
 sense he may be said to have completed the work 
 
^38 HISTOttY OF 
 
 which was begun by Luther. It was he who esta- 
 blished Protestantism in the most enlightened part 
 of Germany, or at least who annihilated there the 
 cause of Catholicism. It is lamentable indeed to 
 see with what perversity of ingenious mischief the 
 principles of this deep and philosophical believer, 
 were converted into the weapons of illumination 
 and infidelity by Basedow, Nicolai, and VVeisshaupt. 
 Unbelief and contempt of religion did not indeed 
 make the same bold and rapid strides as in France, 
 or as among certain individuals of England, but the 
 undecided and fantastic shape they have assumed 
 have rendered them more dangerous to such a people 
 as the Germans; and it may be that we have not as 
 yet seen the worst of their consequences. 
 
 Even the repose of universal peace, and the flou- 
 rishing condition of Germany must have been fa- 
 vourable to the rise of a new mode of thinking, 
 quite as much as to the developement of the arts 
 and sciences. Although these did not indeed re- 
 ceive any very open patronage, yet the internal sa- 
 tisfaction of a powerful and thriving nation must 
 have had a very considerable eflfect even in this re- 
 spect. Germany in the middle of last century, and 
 in the period immediately subsequent, possessed the 
 two most imposing rulers in Europe. Frederick 
 and Maria Theresa were in different ways the pride 
 of their people, and expectations even of a still 
 
LITERATURE. 289 
 
 higher nature were excited by the youth of the Em- 
 peror Joseph II. His active reign satisfied the 
 hopes of his subjects; but so far as science and art 
 were concerned the prophecies of the patriotic Klop- 
 stock were not fulfilled. As the sovereign of so many 
 countries out of Germany, this emperor might rather 
 have been expected to found a great scientific insti- 
 tute for the whole of Europe, than for Germany by 
 itself; and in another work I have expressed my 
 conviction of the important nature of those services 
 which by so doing he might have rendered to the 
 spirit and mind of the age in which he appeared. 
 He regarded too exclusively the practical side of 
 the sciences. He was so far, however, from having 
 any contempt of them, that he entered with even 
 too much keenness into many of those theories of 
 law, finance, and police, which were started during 
 his time. It is fit and natural that a great monarch 
 should be a practical man, even in regard to science, 
 but they who are the best politicians are aware that 
 physical power and external splendour are not the 
 only component parts of the greatness of a nation. 
 
 I now proceed to the third generation in German 
 literature — a period remarkably different from either 
 of the foregoing. By fixing our eyes distinctly and 
 closely upon the general character of these different 
 epochs and generations, we shall adopt the surest 
 means of solving many otherwise dangerous contra- 
 
 Vol. ir. 2 o 
 
290 HISTORY OP 
 
 dictions, of reconciling many apparently opposite 
 opinions, taken up either from total misunderstand- 
 ing or from looking at things in a partial, not a 
 general point of view. The whole external circum- 
 stances and ruling spirit of that epoch in which the 
 first education and developement of a writer occur, 
 determine very frequently the character of his ge- 
 nius, and in all cases exert a very decisive influence 
 over his choice of the subjects to which he ap- 
 plies it. 
 
 I account those to belong to the third generation 
 who mostly formed their taste and habits of think- 
 ing during the last fifteen years of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. The external events and prevalent spirit of the 
 time had a mighty influence upon the German lite- 
 rature; not only on the writers but on the public. 
 The public for which the German writers and poets 
 laboured, consisted at the period before this, of a few 
 particular friends and patrons of the arts, a few scat- 
 tered dilettanti. Such was the public of Klopstock 
 and his contemporaries, and it was long before the 
 small band became increased. The revolution pro- 
 moted reading and writing, and soon extended its 
 influence over literature and philosophy, quite as 
 widely as over politics. However injurious in many 
 instances its influence may have been, there is no 
 question that it roused to an unexampled degree 
 the public interest for all things, and that even the 
 
LITERATURE. 29 1 
 
 violence of pany rage, like most other species of con- 
 flict, was advantageous to the developement of hu- 
 man intellect. If I should characterise this epoch 
 by a single word, I would call it the revolutionary 
 one — protesting, however, against mistakes, and 
 using the term in a sense not a little different from 
 the common one. It is true, indeed, that to the ho- 
 nour of the German writers, the most distinguished 
 of them, at least, remained entirely free and pure,, 
 from the democratic phrenzy of the first years of the 
 revolution. There is only one exception, and he, 
 we must all allow, was not one of the deceivers, but 
 one of the deceived. It was difficult at that period 
 to resist the treacherous hopes which were every- 
 where held forth for acceptance, but such of our bet- 
 ter writers as had been so deceived, soon returned to 
 their right judgment, and did all they could to atone 
 for their errors. I make use of the term rather 
 in the same sense with that in the admirable say. 
 ing, " Burke wrote a revolutionary book against the 
 revolution." The meaning of this is, that Burke 
 painted with such a terrible eloquence the convul- 
 sions of the age, and so perfectly felt and under- 
 stood the danger and the greatness of the existing 
 struggle, that he himself was thrown into a state of 
 agitation and contagious violence when he composed 
 his book. It is this state of an internal rather than 
 
292 HISTORY OF 
 
 of an external struggle, that I consider as the dis- 
 tinguishing mark and characteristic of the third ge- 
 neration. In order to make my meaning perfectly 
 understood, I need only name one great poet and 
 writer of this period, whose splendid career has al- 
 ready been brought to its close. Schiller in the 
 first enthusiastic writings of his youth, exhibits all 
 the most striking symptoms of internal conflict, and 
 breathes the full confidence of all those visionary 
 hopes and violent opposition to existing institutions, 
 which were the immediate harbingers of the revolu- 
 tion. In some of his early works he expresses a pas- 
 sionate and painful scepticism — an unbelief, which 
 is accompanied in his young spirit with so much 
 sublime earnestness and fire of energy, that we con- 
 template it not with aversion, but with compassion, 
 and with the hope that a soul so fearfully agitated 
 and so panting for the truth, would in its period 
 of manhood and maturity, attain the repose of 
 faith. What a mighty change do we observe 
 in the subsequent progress of his career! what 
 a dignified struggle with himself, the world, the 
 philosophy of the age, and his own art! Rest- 
 less in himself, and perpetually tossed about in un- 
 quietness, he comprehends and compassionates the 
 universal convulsions of the time. It is this which 
 I mean to express by the word I have adopted, for, 
 
LITEUATCKK. 2 ( J3 
 
 in a greater or in a less degree, the remark I have 
 made concerning Schiller applies to all the illus- 
 trious writers of his epoch. 
 
 The poets and other authors of the second genera- 
 tion lived in a state of carelessness, which appears 
 to us very remarkable, accustomed as we are to trace 
 in the events which occurred during their time, the 
 seeds of all the subsequent agitations. In political 
 events they took no sort of concern, and lived in a 
 total contempt of the whole external world, existing 
 only for themselves and the enjoyment of their own 
 art. John Müller alone forms an exception; his 
 spirit was entirely devoted to historical events, and 
 looking down from the solitary elevation of his Alps, 
 he saw farther into the gathering tempests of the 
 political world than any of his brethren, inhabitants 
 of the peaceful valley, or the tumultuous capital. 
 Instead of this artist-like and happy unconcern, 
 the whole of the writers of the late generation, who 
 appeared between the year 1780 and the year 1800, 
 appear to be thoroughly penetrated with the spirit 
 and feelings of their age; they either coincide in, or 
 oppose, with the violence of partizans, the prevalent 
 system of opinions. One of our writers, the most 
 fertile of his age, creates the greater part of his in- 
 terest by taking possession of the merciful and tole- 
 rant side of the time; and another much greater 
 
294 HISTORY OF 
 
 genius, going to the totally opposite extreme, thinks 
 that in his favourite i he has discovered the n« St» 
 of Archimedes. A third writer, who is the favour- 
 ite of his age and nation, is so, because he has seiz- 
 ed upon the whole wealth of this variously developed 
 epoch, and represented all its dissonances and com- 
 plaints, with wit, sympathy, and a peculiar species 
 of humour — in a style the remarkable nature of 
 which is of itself a sufficient proof that the period 
 in which it was formed, was a revolutionary one. 
 Other authors, disgusted with the chaotic situation 
 of actual affairs, betook themselves to the regions of 
 mere fancy, or of pure science. A few made a 
 wiser use of their experience, and returned with a 
 sense of humility and submission to the aids of reli- 
 gion, and the long neglected sublimities of the Bible. 
 I cannot pretend to bring my history any farther 
 down, for I am sensible how impossible it must be 
 for a man to depict a period to which he himself 
 belongs. When an external struggle becomes. uni- 
 versal in any department of human activity, the so- 
 cial as well as the intellectual, it is impossible that 
 either party should be entirely in the right. Even 
 they who have espoused the right cause will mingle 
 something wrong in the feelings of their triumph. 
 The creative influence of a period of convulsion may 
 be sufficiently proved by a reference to the history 
 
LITERATURE. 295 
 
 of Schiller — what mighty spaces intervene between 
 the Robbers, the Don Carlos, and the Wallenstein. 
 Invention is certainly more favoured by such a pe- 
 riod than perfect finishing; but many German works 
 produced during these years exhibit both, in a 
 beauty which they can manifest only when they are 
 united. 
 
 During this period the philosophy of Kant was at 
 the height of its power in Germany. That its ef- 
 fects were injurious in respect to religion, I cannot 
 upon the whole believe, for that had already been 
 attacked in its more fundamental principles by ad- 
 versaries much more fitted to produce a popular 
 effect. If in some respects it fostered doubts, these 
 doubts were of the more profound and serious nature, 
 and carried their own antidote along with them. I 
 do not mean to say any thing in favour of the mere 
 faith of reason, but I maintain that, if the truth 
 had been entirely lost, there are to be found in the 
 writings of Kant many hints, by means of which a 
 serious inquirer might have been greatly assisted 
 in its recovery. If we reflect how generally a de- 
 grading infidelity had been received among the 
 Germans, we shall easily admit that a more digni- 
 fied system of infidelity must have been advantage- 
 ous rather than pernicious. It is no doubt to be 
 regretted, that the philosophy of Kant so soon be- 
 came a sect. But even this was, like his corrup- 
 
296 HISTORY OF 
 
 tion of our language, only a transitory evil. Kant's 
 own style has the stamp of his character; it is per- 
 fectly original, and displays much philosophical 
 acumen, spirit, and wit. But, upon the whole, and 
 particularly in his method of constructing periods, 
 we can see evident marks of a soul toiling painfully 
 after truth, and undergoing perpetual concussions 
 from its doubts. Hence arose the unfortunate Ter- 
 minology. But that barbarism — the cypher lan- 
 guage of philosophy, has now in a great measure 
 disappeared; only a few of our better writers still 
 make some use of it, and that from slovenliness. 
 The best philosophical writings of later years are 
 quite pure in respect of language. 
 
 In Kant's philosophy are to be found many of 
 the defects of his predecessors in the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries. He sets out with ideas 
 of time and space quite as dead as those of Leib- 
 nitz; like almost all other philosophers since Des- 
 cartes he wavers between the principle of personal 
 consciousness and the external world of the senses, 
 and he at last lands in the system of experience, 
 like Locke. As this, however, is quite silent re- 
 specting all moral and divine things, he formed, in 
 a manner not very consistent, either with the spirit 
 of the English philosopher, or with his own prin- 
 ciples, a system of rational faith out of the scatter- 
 ed fragments of rational knowledge. This found 
 
LITERATURE. 297 
 
 no believers or followers. The Kantian doctrines 
 of morality and law are indeed valuable, because 
 they shew exactly how far reason does enter into 
 the formation of true morality and true law; but 
 they furnish an example even more striking than 
 that of the Stoics, how inadequate, nay, in some 
 instances, how pernicious, any system of ethics 
 must be which rests upon no higher foundation 
 than reason can afford. 
 
 The chief merit of Kant in regard to this sub- 
 ject is, that he demonstrated the incapacity of pure 
 reason to decide any thing at all respecting such 
 subjects — that she can acquire some knowledge of 
 God and divine things, only by her power of gather- 
 ing facts out of the experience of human life. In- 
 stead, however, of placing reason where he should, 
 in the second place, he erroneously assigned her the 
 first, and the ill used name of faith, which he be- 
 stowed on her, was a very insufficient mask. Had 
 he avoided this ancient error, and laid open the 
 path to true knowledge, with that accuracy of 
 which his genius was capable, he might have at- 
 tained the great object of his ambition, and become 
 to philosophy what Bacon has been to physics. He 
 might have put an end for ever to verbal difficul- 
 ties, and established religion upon the foundation of 
 experience and science. 
 
 Vol. II. 2 P 
 
298 HISTORY OF 
 
 To explain at greater length the two main errors 
 which have sprung from the philosophy of Kant, 
 and to give you a general picture of the present 
 philosophy of Germany, would carry me very far 
 beyond the limits which I have for the present 
 prescribed to myself. Living poets who have al- 
 ready composed a series of great works, and finish- 
 ed their career before our eyes, may be taken into 
 the historical picture of the latest period. Not so 
 philosophers; their ideas may yet assume a differ- 
 ent form of developement, their system is as yet in 
 futuro. I shall only make this one general remark, 
 that our country has been distinguished since 
 Kant by a spirit of profound and patient investi- 
 gation; and that our philosophers have formed 
 their own speculations with the advantages of a 
 more extensive learning than has as yet been 
 equalled in any other country of modern Europe. 
 These are the best preparations and symptoms of 
 a return from error to truth. Some have already 
 made great progress in the removal of the errors 
 which were bequeathed by Kant. I may be pardon- 
 ed for mentioning the name of my own departed 
 friend Novalis*; not that he was the first who 
 returned to the right path, or that he has carried 
 
 * Heinrich von Hardenberg. 
 
LITERATURE. 299 
 
 his views farther than many others, but because the 
 fragments which he has bequeathed to us are a suf- 
 ficient proof that, had he lived, he would have 
 done more for true philosophy than any of those 
 whom he has left behind him. With a dignified 
 simplicity and clearness Slottberg expresses the 
 loftiness of that faith, which not only gave repose 
 to his feelings, but energy to his genius. Many 
 approximations have been made, and are now in 
 making to the truth. I hope that ere long the re- 
 turn will be universal, and the philosophy of Ger- 
 many assume a shape in which she will be no longer 
 the enemy and darkener, but the champion and 
 torch-bearer of the truth. At all times we should 
 separate persons from opinions; but above all we 
 should beware of hating or distrusting philosophy 
 in general, merely on account of the individual 
 errors into which her adherents may have been 
 betrayed. False philosophy can only be supplanted 
 by the true. This consideration should quicken the 
 energy and sustain the confidence of the age. 
 
 I now turn to the poets — but I must confine my- 
 self to a very few remarks even concerning them. 
 During this period the more mature works of 
 Goethe first became known and admired, as they 
 deserved to be, and many of them belong to it even 
 by the date of their compositions. The best of 
 them are now very generally admitted to be, both 
 
300 HISTORY OF 
 
 in respect to poetical art and beauty of language, 
 the most excellent of which the German language 
 can boast. This poet possesses, in an unequalled 
 degree, that power and ease by which the writers of 
 the second generation are distinguished. In some 
 particular pieces his example might indeed be a 
 misleading one; for even in his maturer years he 
 has too often brought down his poetry to the pre- 
 sent; and there is indeed perhaps no other poet who 
 has bestowed so much art upon subjects entirely 
 modern. But nothing can enable us to judge better 
 of the difficulty of this whole undertaking than the 
 simple comparison of his writings of modern repre- 
 sentation, with those poems of which the subjects 
 are taken from periods more remote. How inferior 
 is Eugenie to Egmont, considering both as poetical 
 representations of the mode in which civil disorder 
 and revolution are fostered and extended in the 
 vulgar and in the cabinet. Or, if we may be allowed 
 to class together works externally of different spe- 
 cies, on account of the kindred nature of their 
 internal import, how superior is the Tasso to the 
 Affinities of Choice, as a picture of the develope- 
 ment of passion, in the higher orders of society. If 
 we look upon the last named work, merely as a re- 
 presentation of the mind struggling with the world 
 (like the Faustus), and compare it in that point of 
 view with the William Meister, how greatly must 
 
LITERATURE. 3QJ 
 
 it appear its inferior, both in respect to thought and 
 style. If we look to the poetry alone, I imagine that 
 these works, Faustus t Iphigenia, Egmont^ and Tasso, 
 will maintain in future ages the fame of this author, 
 along with the most beautiful of his songs. In that 
 mode of composition he has, in every period of his 
 life, been alike admirable. 
 
 Many doubt whether Goethe was meant by na- 
 ture for a dramatic poet, and think that even in such 
 of his pieces as are best adapted for the stage, as for 
 instance in Egmont, the repose of his descriptive 
 representations points out a poet whose tendency is 
 rather to the epic. His attempts, however, in the 
 epic, or in those species most nearly allied to it, 
 have never been eminently successful. It seems as 
 if he had never been able to light upon either a 
 subject or form of epic composition exactly to his 
 mind. His feelings led him more to the romantic 
 than the proper heroic; and the romantic, in the 
 widest sense of the word, when it affords play alike 
 for fancy, wit, feeling, and observation, seems to be 
 indeed the proper sphere of this great poet. 
 
 The influence which he exerted over his age was 
 twofold, and such also appears to be his nature. 
 In respect of his art, many have called him with 
 justice the Shakspeare of our age — an age, name- 
 ly, which leans more to riches of ideas and variety 
 of cultivation, than to high perfection of art in 
 
302 HISTORY OF 
 
 any one department of poetry. In respect to his 
 mode of thinking, as he has applied it to the con- 
 cerns of actual life, our poet deserves his other ap- 
 pellation of the German Voltaire.— A German he 
 is in every thing; and even his mockeries, ironies, 
 and unbelief, are expressed with a tone of good- 
 heartedness, seriousness, and eloquence, to which 
 the French Voltaire was an utter stranger. The 
 want of settled principle is indeed the defect which 
 most frequently strikes us in the midst of all the 
 polished elegance, exquisite irony, and profuse wit, 
 which this great poet has lavished over all the crea- 
 tions of his genius. 
 
 The unhappy relation of the German poetry to 
 the German stage, is apparent from this circum- 
 stance, that both Klopstock and Goethe have written 
 many dramas which they never meant for represen- 
 tation; although some of the pieces of Goethe, so 
 composed, have, at a subsequent period, been 
 brought upon the stage. The same circumstance 
 occurred with respect to the Don Carlos of Schiller; 
 and after he had resisted all the seductive influence 
 of his first success, he has not been able to produce 
 so much effect by the more dignified exertions of 
 his art. But, even although there remains some 
 want of harmony between his poetry and our stage, 
 still he was the true founder of our drama. He gave 
 it its proper sphere, and its most happy form. He 
 
LITERATURE. 3Q3 
 
 was thoroughly a dramatic poet; even the passionate 
 rhetoric which he possessed along with his poetry, 
 belonged exactly to this character. His historical 
 and philosophical works and attempts are only to be 
 considered as the studies and preparations of a dra- 
 matic artist Yet his philosophical tracts are very 
 valuable, from the light which they afford us into 
 his internal spirit, and the proof they give of his 
 want of mental harmony. A doubting, sceptical, 
 unsatisfied disposition seems to accompany his spirit 
 in all its inquiries. He himself appears to have re- 
 mained always at the very threshold of doubt, and 
 even in the noblest and most animated of his works 
 we are chilled by the breath of an internal coldness. 
 Some have been of the opinion, that Schiller's 
 philosophical pursuits were injurious to him, even 
 in respect to his own art. But, in truth, his infideli- 
 ty had its origin at an earlier period, and the satis- 
 fying of a spirit such as his was a matter of greater 
 moment than any thing which regards the mere 
 finishing of an art. And even with a view to the 
 drama, I think that the historical and philosophical 
 turn which Schiller has given to some of his trage- 
 dies, is by no means deserving of censure. Our theatre 
 is not to flourish by means of voluminous authors; 
 but like those of Greece, England, and Spain, by 
 means of profound thought and historical import. 
 At one period of his life Schiller seems indeed to 
 
304 HISTORY OF 
 
 have entertained some false notions respecting the 
 essence of the ancient tragedy — but this we must 
 consider merely as a proof that he had not at that 
 time brought the studies which he pursued so ear- 
 nestly, to their proper termination. 
 
 The same lofty ideas of tragedy which Schiller 
 entertained were also held by Henry Collin. So 
 intensely was his spirit imbued with the inspiration 
 of patriotism, that even when he treats of subjects 
 of antiquity, he is always a national poet. 
 
 I feel that I have now reached the termination 
 of the picture which I undertook to unfold. The 
 multitude of circumstances which pressed upon me, 
 and the interest which I took in the representation 
 of the middle age, have abridged me in the latter 
 part of my labours. I have done little more in 
 these last lectures but point out the names of men 
 upon whose works I should have dilated with much 
 more fulness, both for your sake and for my own. In 
 regard to German literature, if I had not confined 
 myself to very narrow limits, each several province 
 or department might easily have occupied a space 
 as considerable as that which I have devoted to the 
 whole. 
 
 I see plainly that a new generation are arising 
 and fashioning themselves, and that the nineteenth 
 century will be no less distinguished in the history 
 of Qerman letters than the eighteenth has been. 
 
LITERATURE. 3Q5 
 
 But the spirit and tendency of this young genera- 
 tion are not yet so much developed that I can ven- 
 ture to give any certain opinion as to its character. 
 Much will be expected from them, for great things 
 have been done to prepare the way for them. If 
 we are to speak of the whole body of the German 
 literature, I do not hesitate for a moment to say, 
 that I expect all our most sanguine expectations 
 will, at no very distant period, be fulfilled. At 
 present I see much both of false taste and affecta- 
 tion in our art and poetry. The imitation of the 
 antique, and of the great men of the preceding age, 
 is conducted on narrow principles. Even in philo- 
 sophy we have not borrowed the best part of those 
 who have gone before us. But I hope that ere long 
 all these things will exist only in remembrance. If 
 the times proceed as they have lately done, litera- 
 ture will soon become much less the corcern of in- 
 dividuals than of the public, and the influence of 
 readers upon authors will at least be as great as that 
 of authors upon readers. Since the middle of last 
 century, literary works and literary men have as- 
 sumed a totally new character in Germany — more 
 so than in any other country of Europe. The greater 
 the number of spectators is, the more is the inte- 
 rest in the spectacle; and I know not that any lite- 
 rature can be inspired more favourably than by 'he 
 constant contemplation of such a spirit and nation 
 as our own. 
 
 Vol. IT. 2 Q 
 
306 HISTORY OP 
 
 Even the spirit of sectarism, however deeply it 
 has been implanted among us, has of late years been 
 visibly on the decline. Of those sects which in the 
 last half of the eighteenth century had most influ- 
 ence in Germany, and on that account, if on no 
 other, are historically of some importance, the illu- 
 minati sunk into the background, at the first ap- 
 pearance of the more profound philosophy; the 
 Kantians have now begun to be as weary of their 
 own system as the world was before them, and even 
 the natural philosophers have become split into so 
 many parties that they can scarcely be said to form 
 any longer a particular sect. I am far from flatter- 
 ing myself that the errors of any one of these sys- 
 tems no longer exist, but they do not show them- 
 selves in the same imposing form as before. The 
 spirit of sect has become milder; scholastic forms 
 have sunk into comparative contempt, and all par- 
 ties prepare to labour in unison on the great work 
 of developing the intellect of Germany. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary for me to recal to your 
 recollection that our literature, even from the first 
 epoch of its developement, has been in a state of 
 perpetual contest and struggle. At first the conflict 
 lay between the Swiss, who admired exclusively 
 the poetry and criticism of England and anti- 
 quity, and the Saxons who were the professed wor- 
 shippers of the literature and taste of France; 
 then between the serious and playful poets, the 
 
LITERATURE. 3Q7 
 
 followers of Klopstock and those of Wieland; and 
 in another department between the orthodox party, 
 and the new sect of illuminati. The contest as- 
 sumed a more serious appearance in the time of the 
 Kantian philosophy, as a regular struggle between 
 idealism and empiricism. Both of these last com- 
 batants have in a certain sense gained the victory. 
 Empiricism has with justice become the ruling 
 system in all that regards practical life, physics, 
 and pure science. Idealism, taking it in the highest 
 acceptation of the word as the system of those who 
 recognise ideas as superior to sensation, has exert- 
 ed a powerful and an abiding influence upon our 
 art, our criticism, and our higher philosophy. We 
 often hear men speak of the new school, and the 
 golden age. I have already said thar our literature 
 has no proper golden age, and I acknowledge I can as 
 yet observe nothing that is deserving to be called a 
 new school. We should be ambitious to perfect 
 what has been begun, not to show our invention at 
 the expense of our judgment. — Another foolish en- 
 mity which has become forgotten, is that which 
 subsisted between the literary men of the North, 
 and of the South of Germany. We were never so 
 sensible of our national identity as now. 
 
 If we consider the remarkable struggles of intel- 
 lect which occurred during the last century, in a 
 more general point of view — as they developed 
 
308 HISTORY OF 
 
 themselves not in Germany a'one but in England, 
 in France, and in the whole of Europe; and ask 
 for a merely historical solution of this great pheno- 
 menon, the follow ing is probably the conclusion at 
 which we should arrive. This struggle has had its 
 seat not in those persons and events alone, wherein 
 it has been manifested to us, but rather in a great 
 internal awakening throughout the whole intellect 
 of man. 
 
 The wild wanderings of reason and power of 
 thought set free from all control, and then the re- 
 viving of imagination which had so long slept be- 
 neath the pressure of a formal and (apparently only) 
 a scientific system, were probably the moving causes 
 of all these manifold convulsions and conflicts. In 
 France despotic and contemptuous reason re- 
 nounced all the bonds of faith and love, and dis- 
 played its destructive influence upon the external 
 life and manners of a nation, in a way which has 
 furnished us and our posterity with a warning and 
 a terrible example. In Germany, from the dif- 
 ferent character of the nation, the spirit of the time 
 manifested itself not in bloody revolutions, but in 
 the entangled warfares of metaphysicians. The 
 regeneration of fancy has in more countries than 
 one, shown itself in the revived love of old tradi- 
 tions and romantic poetry. To the extent and 
 depth, however, wherein this love has been kindled 
 
LITERATURE. 309 
 
 among the Germans, no other nation of Europe 
 can furnsh a parallel. They have had their time, 
 it is fit that we should now have ours. 
 
 Were I called upon to select one example of the 
 pre alent power and freedom of reason, of the end- 
 less rapidity with which strong spirits weaken, de- 
 stroy, and recreate the structure of thought, I 
 should fix upon none more readily than Fichte; not 
 merely on account of power of invention and mas- 
 terly management of thought, which are in so high 
 a degree peculiar to him, but also because he takes 
 the materials of his thoughts entirely from himself, 
 trusts every thing to nature, and depends in nothing 
 upon those who have gone before him. The cor- 
 responding energy in the exertions of imagination, 
 the resurrection, as I might call it, of fancy in 
 Germany, cannot be more strongly exemplified 
 than in Tieck — a poet who is so perfectly master 
 of all the depths, and observations, and wonders, 
 and mysteries of his art. 
 
 So far have reason, and imagination, and the 
 century advanced; but as yet no farther. We 
 must not, however, forget, that unless we retro- 
 grade, we must of necessity proceed. To this pro- 
 foundness of reason which we have attained, and 
 this fulness and majesty of fancy which have been 
 restored to us, there must yet be added that stable- 
 ness of will and purpose, which brings the seeds 
 
310 HISTORY OF LITERATURE. 
 
 of good to maturity, and guards them from the 
 first encroachments of corruption. The clear- 
 ness of an enlightened judgment must watch over 
 those mighty energies of reason and of fancy. 
 True judgment depends in all things upon uni- 
 versality of observation, and discernment of that 
 which is right in the midst of much more that is 
 wrong. 
 
 I have endeavoured in these lectures, to lead 
 you to a point of view from which all our litera- 
 ture and all the operations of our intellect should 
 be surveyed; as in all my more early attempts, my 
 object has been to discriminate between the good 
 and the evil, without any ambition to display those 
 arts of rhetoric which might have pleased your ears 
 but could not have aided your judgment. 
 
 THE END. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 IUPPPWPF 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAYLORO 
 
 
 
 FHINTCO IM U.S.A.