which the flimsiest and most immature ing condition. They modestly put forth talent, considers itself some great and their lucubrations as only very promising rising genius, and with the coolest arro- and pouting half-blown rose-buds; while gance confidentially announces itself as the other sees in them nothing but the such to the Public; hence those character- crisp and withered shoots of a premature istic stereotype features so prevalent in summer-season of the mind, prematurely certain departments of our literature: the come to an end. We discover the principal most singular medley of keenness and cause, why our present poetry is so much stupid nonsense, smart skimmings of the feebler and less substantial than the plastic profound, affected profundity in mere tri- arts, in the great expansion and culture of fling superficialities, fitful dippings into the language, and the consequent ease of formarcana of Science, which ever bring up the ing a style without labor of thought. Plassame, therefore nothing, elegant methods tic Art cannot ever again sink so very low, of irrationality, and a peculiar splendor of nor become so completely flattened to indiction, of no intrinsic worth whatever. sipidity by inordinate spread and commonness, because it rests in its very nature on the basis of a handicraft, that is, on the skill acquired only by laborious effort and practice. But, when the breeder of poetry has no longer to wrestle with words and language, when they fall into his hand ready-made and pliant tools, when on every side it presses upon him forms and parcels of contents cut and dried for ready usein such an era, certainly, Poetry must partly become stifled in its own exuberance, partly evaporate in ethereal nothingness. We often hear numerous voices, enjoining upon writers of the present day, above all things, to observe moderation and curtailment, and thereby think that they contribute something to what is called the turning of literature, (Hebung.) There are advisers, even, who are fully minded, that it would be much for the better not to squander and waste so much power of mind in fruitless poetical efforts, to suffer the fields of poesy to lie fallow until more favorable times, and to labor more zealously to further the appropriate business of the age, Science. It is, however, perfectly plain, that moderation and resignation are preached up to individuals, and to the age, with just the same success as attends the preaching of the faith, where the disposition to receive it is wanting. A bold theological criticism is hardly a greater stumbling-block of offence to the pious, than to many is the present state of polite literature and of æsthetical criticism, as presented in every-day productions, or in exhibitions of public institutions. Even the very persons who would provide our literature with a splendid modern wardrobe, made of entirely new materials, which indeed she must wear a while, before it can be made to fit comfortably and gracefully, even these do by no means pretend to say, that literature is in a flourish Epic and dramatic literature, in general, are evidently much weaker, and with all their scientific training, much more vague in their aim and character, than is Historical Painting. The mental attunement of the age stands forth in its deepest and most striking traits in lyrics and in landscapes; whatever is genuine and significant in either, becomes in after-time better appreciated and more valued; we are disturbed at every moment of enjoyment, by the dif fusive after-lyrics and the flat landscape, both copies from the composer, one from the true poet, the other from nature. Sketch-painting, (Genre-malerei,) the naïve, sentimental, humorous, droll, satirical dashes, from real life or from history, stands, as a whole, far above our boasted and boasting literature; all these sketches and tableaux are generally much more bearable and effective, when hung up on the wall by the refined public, than when We beg to adduce an instance from real life, which will indicate a whole category of literary maladies pretty distinctly. The waiter at a Read-lying as a cover on the table, enclosed by ing-club had manufactured an historical drama in iambic verse, and laid it before his Macanas, the President of the Club. On being asked by him why he had taken the pains to indite his performance in verse, the aspiring Poet answered in these very words: "I am sensible that I cannot command a fine thoughts as those of Schiller or of Goethe, and wished, therefore, to give some importance to the piece, by means of rhyme." How much rarer and more honorable is such a partial self-knowledge, than that implicit and impervious self-confidence which poetically removes mountains! The good man, too, provided his own reward, by not sending his historical drama in Iambics to the press. some many-colored medallion. Portraits remind one but too often, however involuntarily, of the personal, insidious, and defamatory criticism, which has invaded our literature. As for the rest, the mass of likenesses of unmeaning faces at our exhi bitions, and the fulsome chatter of our journalists about insignificant writers and virtuosos, are two very prominent signs of the democratic tendencies of the present day. And this tendency or quality, is to usa circumstance which has much enhanced in strains which hearts fraught with artifithe baneful influences which we have indi- cial sensibility only could appreciate. The cated through the astonishing and prevail- coterie of readers and authors, was nothing ing increase of literary productions and more than a committee of self-constituted literary enjoyments. The relations of po- delegates from the supreme intellectual lite literature to the reading world, have census, most inadequately representing the already been spoken of in these pages, as people, though pitched in close proximity connected with our remarks thus far. We to the legitimate congress. The case is touch upon this subject here only in view so no longer. The elements, in which the of our ultimate object. poet and author of the present day draws We see the sentiment frequently advanced his circles around him, from whom he earns in cursory remarks on the history of Ger- his bread and to whom he dedicates his man literature, as well as in works profess-productions, have become altogether differedly devoted to the subject, that a state ent in their ingredients, aspects, and tastes. of exhaustion and sterility must necessari- Political revolutions and reforms have ly succeed to the short and brilliant period broken down the ancient landmarks of through which German poetry has passed, rank and cast. In utter variance with a and that fresh blossoms can be expected only in remote futurity after the lapse of a slow and gradual recruiting of strength, and a re-modelling of our own National character and habits. It may be so, or it may not; but is it not passing strange, that in making this estimate, Literature is often looked upon as a special identity, with its appropriate vitality, subject to alternate periods of vegetation; but the masses, the soil in which she is rooted, the public, is thought to be some once-for-all established and permanent fixture, a quiescent substratum? It is forgotten, that it is and ever will be the public, the spirit of the multitude, which though so slightly tinctured by literature, yet, if not positively creating it, determines its scope and coloring, and lends it the customs, actions, and postures with which it may invest itself. Who will venture to specify what particular direction our German poetry would have taken, had the appearance of Goethe and Schiller not been followed by a radical change in the organization of society -But this is by no means the case. former state of things, all or nearly all are perfectly equal in the eye of the law, all equally entitled to do and possess many things, or qualified thereto in the prelimi naries. Since then also culture and refinement, whose main channels formerly flow. ed only through the higher walks of society, have tended downwards with impetuosity. Light in science and art penetrates the masses more and more. It is however inherent in human nature, that the man wrought upon by the progress of the age, not only appropriates to himself all that can be of practical benefit to him in his daily business, in his particular trade, but he wishes to grasp the whole circle of improvements, according to his capacity. He reaches out his hand, not only after what is serviceable in the world of mind, but also after the ornamental, the beautiful; not only after the bread, but after the wine of life also; not to secure knowledge alone, but also art; and scarcely has he learned scantily to assuage his mental cravings, before the luxury becomes to him a necessity. A half-educated person, In past centuries poetry had by degrees, who looks about him from his obscure and that chiefly through the agency of the station and seeks for light, is drawn by press, become detached from the living means of our Encyclopedia and especially national soil, divorced from the views and by the universality of matter spread out feelings of the people, and when commenc-upon the columns of our newspapers, into ing to be signalized as "polite literature," the very midst of the premises of knowingshe had long been the exclusive badge and property of the higher classes, growing out of and congenial to the state of their intellectual culture. When German literary genius awoke, after an ignominious slumber of centuries, she found such a system already perfectly established, in her standard works. Like the poetry of England and of France, she almost entirely disowned the multitude, as by pre-concerted agreement; she sang, played, and declaimed only for the gratification of ears polite, ness, (we will not say knowledge,) is soon hurried through these, and before he is aware he emerges on a wide æsthetical common, which he finds delectable indeed. He suspects not what danger he runs, in pursuing this course, of destroying instead of strengthening the marrow and jewel of his being; and after having absorbed a certain quantity of poems, plays, novels, and reviews, he arrives quite naturally to the conclusion, that he can easily produce the like of these himself. The reading public of our day, is a far in the plastic arts, than for the most merimore promiscuous company than formerly, torious compositions, and know no other and what can be more natural that that poetry than that which jingles in verse. polite literature should spontaneously adapt In this they see and apprehend that skill itself in scope and matter to the propor- has effected something, of which they are tions, character, and demands or necessi- incapable, and which evidently can be acties of the reading world? With the ex- quired only by industry and practice; the tension of the reading public, the sphere of labor bestowed and the wit expended strikes those who not only receive bounty from the eye in looking at verse; but in prose the Muses, but who extort it, has been im- they see nothing but what they think themmensely enlarged. In like manner, and in selves able to produce, if the thoughts and the same sense as predicated of the plastic ideas were theirs, and as these go toll-free, arts, the brotherhood of Belles-Lettres has they are not disposed to attach any great become much vulgarized and drawn within value to such ware. In the former case the precincts of industry and handicraft, they overlook the matter on account of the and the spirit of the age has erected its vehicle, in the latter they forget the form factories and workshops on the manor soil for the sake of the matter, or, in this the of poetry itself, in the shape of literary form, and in that the matter, seem to them journals, magazines, and philological and something as quite selon la règle. translating institutes. Preoccupied by such notions, not only He who draws a comparison between the the rude hand of the serf, but even the delipresent condition of literature and its re- cate gloved and perfumed digits of the cent palmy days, who begins to meditate literary parvenû, grab into the conservatory on its probable or possible development, of choice and elegant literature, to gather and leaves out of sight this point of cul- a nosegay suiting their taste. With views mination, this essential difference between as these, reading is sedulously attended to, then and now in the annals of human cul- not only in the guard-house and the servture, he, to use a homely phrase, reckons ants hall, but much oftener in the boudoir, without his host. The sudden swell and since every body claims partnership with consequent disarrangement of the intel- the beau-monde, who has his head furnishlectual masses, which are operated upon ed and done up by the peruquier. enormous But so by the literature of the age, and which populous a beau-monde produces naturally again reacts in the multiplying and increas-authors innumerable. The bel-esprit-virus ed vaporing emptiness of authors, is evi- with which the world has become inocudently the main source of the prevailing lated, breaks forth at a thousand points in dilettanteism in literature, which in most the shape of poems, novels, romances, &c.; of its departments knows far less its own poetical vitality raised to an mind and object, than the plastic arts do. pitch! Nothing can therefore be more An ever increasing craving for instruc- natural than that very many entertaining the tion, is sated by an aimless, undue, miscel- same ideas of poetry as to its matter and laneous reading; but through all this wil-form, dash away at writing, with the same derness of words, the craving mind seizes nonchalance as the others do at reading; direct on any thing like fact or narrative; knowledge of every kind is now-a-days in the dress, the vehicle of conveyance, is of such a state of fluidity, all manner of inno consequence. With such a disposition, struction so wonderfully facilitated by the not merely the practical and relatively use- most effectual helps, the most ingeniously ful is absorbed, but also the ideal and fan- contrived literary funnels and injection ciful. The fiction, the drift, and meaning, pipes. The minds of youth are at once is then every thing. The majority of immersed in the immense vat of literature, readers imagine, that the conceptions of and instead of being suffered to form themthe poet are as easily embodied in form selves, are there operated upon according and language, as a newspaper paragraph or to circumstances; before they well know a popular tale; that to design, to create, how, they find themselves to their great and to commit that which is designed and delight in full and undisturbed possession created to paper, is but one and the same of the great tool of the poetical craft, lanoperation, or that as long as a man is pro-guage; and in a few years after the young lific and successful in inventing, it is of the lady has had her last exercise corrected smallest import how he acquits himself in by the gouvernante, she has with heroic the delivery. Hence it happens that igno- grief hatched and put forth her first novel; rant, half-educated people evince much and just about the same period, or when more veneration for the veriest mediocrity his little college-learning is about evapo rating, the young gentleman feels himself | themselves at least so much of aesthetic called to be a poet or a critic. In the good culture (once the exclusive property of old pedantic times, the man who desired to certain classes,) as may be thought necesmarshal forth his genius into the upper sary in order to lay claim to some concircles of society, if not a bona fide genius, ventional distinction in society, is the that is, if he had not passed through the cause of the increasing clamor for literary schools with some degree of personal and distinction. We may observe that this earnest application, which was the indis- clamor and this desire extend just as far pensable groundwork of all superior cul- downwards and embraces as many classes, ture we say, he must have made some- as does that modern attire which is fast thing of himself by study-he must have crowding out the earlier national and solidity; though perhaps not fashioned out grade-indicating costume; both are equalof the finest and best materials, yet he had ly significant signs of a social conformaa sound and solid one, but it must be purg- tion, where there are enough of gradations, ed and gilded in the schools. But in these heights, and depths in external as well as times of ours, people are very quickly and intellectual respects, but nowhere a defivery thinly varnished over with the pro- nite demarcation, no legitimate guage and fessional compound; they extemporize their standard of pretensions. In this world poetical effusions, and we think indeed that people judge and estimate one another with the galvano-plastic mode of gilding was wonderful instinctive accuracy. With one discovered earlier, and more for the benefit glance, the most ignorant servant-wench of poetasters, than for the beautifying of discovers not only the difference between house-furniture and kitchen utensils. The the dress of the real and the would-be lady, most empty heads, the most shallow brains, even when stuff and cut are the same, but plunged into the castalian fount, soon be seizes upon much smaller discrepancies in come coated over with a thin crust of the attire, though perfectly similar in base gold-wash, and incontinently pop aloft make; the most common eye is difficult as matriculated and all promising sons of to deceive as to the standing and quality the muses. There is no lack, in these of persons, by a dress contradicting days, of very clever heads, but most all of that quality. Much natural and acquirthem become very early infected with the ed art, theoretically, and much impuæsthetic atmosphere of the age, and ad priori accustomed to over-rate themselves, to mistake the dominant idea of the day for originality, to eschew and contemn serious study and honest labor, and to plunge into a path on which no talent can eventually arrive at any thing, or produce any thing worth speaking of. But is it worth one's while, to encounter all the grievous ills to which, by the confessions of the best men in all ages, all true poetry, yea, every superior work, is destined? It is more convenient to trifle about these ills. The art of making false jewelry in the cheapest and most plausible imitation of real gold-ornaments, has been carried to such perfection, that only the very smallest portion of gold trinkets have the credit of being solid and genuine, and consequently but very few wear such. In like manner, a technical routine cheaply got, and as it were thrown at one's head, produces a modern literature of plated and gilt hollow ware, by which the multitude garnish their intellectual premises. Small demand there is for the massive, finely wrought, and chiseled article. Who, that works for a market, would think of taking the thankless pains of producing such? With many the desire to appropriate to dence and cunning, practically, is requisite, much curtailed; and thus the voice and in the most grotesque shapes. Thus one taste of the majority, who hold true learn-in his travelling-sketches abandons himself ing so cheaply, prevail in most of the to his "eligaic" mood, and speaks of the various departments of letters. That, "triumvirate" of the creative arts, music while thus speaking, we in nowise are so foolish, to wish again for the "good old time" of privileged caste-that we do not anticipate the future glory of poetry from a revival of the old aristocracy of Savans, we need not, it is presumed, expressly state. The conclusion of these reflections will make it apparent, that we entertain quite different views of the future. and poetry; another complains, laughably enough, of the "hydrogene" elements of a certain literary association-this is printed; only he meant to say, "heterogene" elements; another promises in his prospectus of a new gazette a "Reblique" of the latest literature; evidently a learned transformation of revue or retrospect. How far the general thirst for knowBut it is not to be wondered at, that with ledge, the spirit of speculating and sifting the prevalence of such æsthetical habits, so prevails in poetry, as well as in every spemany writers and readers lose sight more cies of art, is especially apparent from the and more of the difference between literary circumstance that literature is itself aware solidity and mere tinsel, that the difference of her weakness, and of its cause. Litera becomes more and more unnecessary. "Lu-ture storms bravely about herself, just as dentis speciem dabit et torquebitur." How ma- we grumble over our own citizen's dress. ny valiant in producing or criticising poet-Through the labors of antiquarians, theatrery, have not understood this saying, even if directors, and merchant-tailors, the costhe literal meaning were plain! They may tumes of past ages have become as familiar have heard of it, but do not believe, that a to us as their poetry, and we have arrived poetical fashionably popular work, whether at a critical conviction, that at no time. great or small, must appear light and des- people dressed more shabbily and absurdly, tined to oblivion. If it has been so easy at no time was poetry more shamefully for the author to indite, it must be a light misused than at the present. One would matter, and the opposite of all ideas of true think that nothing would be more easily art, and if to be thrown aside into oblivion, changed, more easily and entirely revoluit is certainly not worth preserving. As tionized on coming to an unbiassed resoluthe French say of the drama: "Ce qui ne tion, than the diurnal modes of dress; but vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante;" not so-in this department, too, next to noso we may say of a great portion of our thing is invented-in this too we apply belles lettres; that which had better never only scientific criticism, recur to the ways been thought, is printed. of our grandmothers, and patch them up, and particularly with regard to female costume, any variation depends chiefly on the fecundity of antiquarian talent. Our tailors and mantuamakers are as sterile in creative and progressive invention as our poets, and we can as little get rid of our clothes as of our literature. Thus the fateabandoned field of tailoring proves most strikingly, first, that all developments in the same age, the highest as well as the lowest, necessarily proceed from the same root; and next, that the problem and characteristic of our time is not invention, but discovery. A presumptuous chasing after scientific discovery, finding out, and appliance, keeps down inventive and creative art, drawing it into the same unfruitful path, so that a self-confident activity and thoughtfulness pervade the arts; but not that sort of thoughtfulness and study which in the genuine work follows inspiration-—a sort which must serve as substitute for inspiration. All systems of science, from chemistry to æsthetics, are crammed with strange, outlandish, and, for an unlearned tongue, often desperate words and phrases, mostly Greek. This still flourishing custom, of baptizing new objects and ideas by hellenistic and barbarian names, is at least excusable when used in a purely scientific connection, with reference to interchange of thought with antiquity; but stands in the absurdest disproportion with the growing flippancy and superficiality of the present humanistic school-education. One would suppose, that this thorny nomenclature would repel many authorlings and adepts in book-making, who never were burdened with much knowledge, and who forget nothing only because they have so little to be forgotten, from certain matters and things, just as rabbits and worms are kept aloof from the fruit tree by haw-thorn hedges and ramparts of pitch. But the literary caterpillar finds everywhere his way to leaf and bark, and devours every thing, even to the knots and prickles, which he often re-delivers We would indeed be led to entertain very serious apprehensions respecting the |