most eventful period of this kingdom, and one most interesting to the age, from 1640 to 1688; and seemed more than once to hold the balance which was to decide the permanent form of our government. But he was the leader of an unsuccessful party. Even, comparatively speaking, in our times, the same mysterious oblivion is sometimes encouraged to creep over personages of great social distinction as well as political importance.

LIFE OF JEAN PAUL F. RICHTER. Compiled from various sources. Together with his Autobiography. Translated from the German. 2 vols. small 8vo. J. Chapman.

Ir often happens that when two men of different pursuits and habits of mind have been a long time in angry opposition upon some abstruse subject, that they ultimately discover that although there has been great apparent difference, yet on a more temperate and deliberate examination, they really feel and think very much the same. So it seems to be, in a great degree, with the German and English mind. No doubt our moral feelings and our intellectual sympathies are radically the same; though frequently evolved in a very different form. It is probable that it is only manner and form that divide us. This superficial distinction exercises, however, a very important function, and keeps the readers of the two nations still far apart. The general reader cannot be expected to translate every sentiment and opinion he meets with in a German book into a corresponding English sympathy. He reads for his amusement, as he takes a walk for his health and recreation, and cannot be scientifically studying every object of nature he passes.

It may be asked, How is it that the French, and even Spanish and Italian literature, have taken more genuine root in this country than the German? as witness the national popularity of "Don Quixote" and of so many French philosophical and dramatic works, and the Italian poets. The wonder is apparently added to, by it being at the same time felt that the German blood, manners, and character, are more nationally allied to us. It is, perhaps, this very alliance that makes the difficulty. The writers of the other nations have applied themselves to outward appearances and to universal qualities, and been modelled on the classical principle which interested itself more especially on the universal, and was what the Germans themselves term objective; that is, the mind and the feelings were affected by external objects; whereas in the German and Teutonic mind generally, objects receive their value from the state of the mind itself. As the two states of mental existence are beginning at length to obtain attention here, and the words are creeping into our every-day literature, it is worth a sentence or two to endeavour to make them popular; at least as far as we accept and apply the terms.

The lover seems to offer the strongest illustrations of the two states. When the heart is occupied with any emotion, but more particularly with the passion of love, which is more uniform and continuous than

any other (of course we speak of the passion as separate from the appetite); the most palpable power is exercised over the intellectual faculties and the senses. All outward nature, all outward circumstances, are tinged by, and are "subjective" to the lover's feelings and objects, and results lose to him their objective power. The sun gives no joy when his mistress frowns; the summer air is no longer balmy. The gifts of fortune are rubbish. Thus the " objectivity" of these objects is utterly destroyed; and, on the contrary, is so completely transformed by being "subjective" to his passion, that light is painful, honours are trivial, and this "brave o'erhanging firmament, a pestilent congregation of foul vapours." This state, applied purely to the intellect instead of the passions, is what we conceive is meant by things being "objective” or "subjective." A confusion, however, not unfrequently arises from their being applied sometimes to the operations of the intellect, and sometimes to the operations of the passions and feelings. It would carry us, however, too far into metaphysics to endeavour to define and trace the effect on literature on these subjects, and we have only alluded to them here, to endeavour concisely to explain how it is that with principles and feelings so nearly allied to the Germans, they differ so essentially from us in mode and taste.

This tendency to subject all objects of sense to his intellectual faculties and to his feelings, is the distinguishing characteristic of the German writer: and it is because we possess it in a greater degree than the cultivated portion of the other intellectual nations of Europe, that we find a difficulty in assimilating with the German. We feel as much as he does, but are not interested in the same objects. In all he does he is operated by sentiment, but his sentiment is derived from, or rather associated with, different objects than our own, and therefore we are not touched by his enthusiasm nor excited by his allusions. And hence arises the opposite opinions, broached of the same writer, by English literary men of competent judgment. The one may have by nature a tendency to the same class, and may have such knowledge of the objects referred to as shall enable him to feel and comprehend the writer; while another may listen to all things as a foreigner who understands the words but not the phrases of the country.

These few imperfect remarks were absolutely necessary to introduce any notice of such a writer as Richter, better known by the appellation of Jean Paul. He is so peculiarly German, and his writings are so remarkably subjective, that he has not acquired the European reputation of Goethe, to whom he may be in many respects considered as the opposite. He is essentially a writer of the past generation, having been born in 1763, and dying in 1828; although so lately introduced to the notice of the general reader in England, that many have supposed he was a young author now in the meridian of his fame. Since his birth two generations of men have appeared, and almost two eras in taste. The sentimental school has risen and fallen during that period, and new systems of philosophy developed themselves. German taste and feeling, principle and religion, as well as those of Europe

generally, have undergone many changes from Werterism and Kotzebuism through Byronism and Scottism, to an infinite number of shades and sects, both religious and philosophic.

No one can doubt, from the perusal of this biography, that Jean Paul was a very thorough man, possessed of great sensibility and nobility of heart. Kind, generous, and sympathising; candid, honest, and brave. He was also learned and cultivated, and viewed mankind and the world philosophically; or, perhaps, we should say theoretically, as what German does not? His intellect was superior; but it seems that his sensibility towards all things, grave or gay, it was that gave him his power and his popularity. The son of a poor clergyman, of simple mind and heart, but of a joyous and sensitive temperament, Jean Paul had to struggle through all the difficulties necessarily attendant on such a position; and had to win his way to distinction through great privations and exertions. In so doing, however, he won his way to wisdom and knowledge, and acquired that intimate knowledge of his own and others' hearts that made him the oracle of so large a portion of his countrymen.

Whether he can ever be popular here may be doubted. There is a want of passion in German writers of this class, that appears insipid and vapid to the practical English taste. The virtue seems cold and wire-drawn, and the vice depraved rather than energetic. The brilliancy of his fancy, which is very great, is apt to be expressed in forms too remote from our association, and the humorous seems too often to be only the grotesque. There also seems often a disproportion between his subject and his mode of treating it, that carries us into the vague.

It was not till the 31st year of his age, in the year 1794, that he fairly began his literary career, when his novel of "Hesperus" gave him the first taste of celebrity. Henceforward it was by his novels that he chiefly gained his reputation. We can merely give the names of the most popular-Titan, Quintus Fixlein, the Invisible Lodge, Levana, Greenland Papers, &c.; which, if translated during the first German furor that supervened here on the translation of "Werter," have made no impression on the English novel-reading public. Quintus Fixlein" has been translated by Mr. Carlyle, and will afford the English reader a fair opportunity of judging of this popular German writer for himself. "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces," has also lately been translated by Mr. Noel, and we have given a notice of it in our first Number.

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The following account, by himself, of his reception amongst his contemporaries at Weimar, in 1798, when aged 35, will give some idea of his status and his style :

Yesterday I visited Schiller. He was indisposed, and I went, foolishly, to walk with his wife. She belongs to those agreeable coquettes in conversation, who do not throw the ball straight back, but keep it up through playful persiflage. She led the author of Hesperus, at twilight, to a beautiful eminence, to see another; but he could only look at her beautiful face, and her still more charming Cleopatra eyes. I always tell her I cannot believe a

word she says, unless she looks in my face. At a learned supper I met Hufeland and Fichte, and others, that I did not know. Fichte is small (I thought he had been tall), modest, and precise, but not particularly genial. I was lovingly treated by all, especially by Schiller. Ah! I speak too openly with people, and shield myself too little. My table-talk at Dresden to Schlegel, obliged his brother, when it was repeated to him, to the expression of his judgment about me.

I write to you, wrapped in Wieland's wide mantle, which, on account of the cold, his wife lent me. I travelled here on foot, with only my summer coat, and a pocketful of shoes and clean shirts. Wieland is slender, erect, with a red scarf, and a red handkerchief bound round his head-talking much of himself, but not with pride-a little Aristippish, and indulgent towards himself, as towards others-full of parental and conjugal love, but so intoxicated by the Muses, that his wife once concealed from him, for ten whole days, the death of one of his children. He does not penetrate the relation of things so deeply as Herder, and his judgment is better upon external social affairs, than upon intimate human relations. He gave me the palm many inches higher than his own, particularly about my dreams and pages upon nature, and increased my outward pride (my inward, never) about many things. He depreciates himself too much, and was too anxious about my praise of his works.

On my second visit to Wieland, with my wide fluttering summer ornaments, the good patriarch, on account of the hateful cold weather, brought me his coat himself. To-day I carried it back. God send every poet such an active, firm, prudent, candid, tender, and kind wife. She had read in the newspapers of the danger of resting after being cold, and she brought and insisted upon my drawing on warm stockings. Wieland could not survive her, if she were to die, neither she him. He has told me her heart's history, and also his own. Ah, how much I have to relate to your ear and heart. In his single, and widowed daughters, beneath plain persons, are good and beautiful hearts; but with such faces they will not be drawn out. Nevertheless, his wife proposed, and he mentioned it to me the next morning, that I should take the opposite house, and eat always with them. He said I gave him new life, and that they all loved me !-Naturally, as I always make them laugh, and as I cannot help loving so good a family. But that would never do. Two poets can never live together. And I will wear no chain, even were it formed of perfume, and welded by moonbeams—and I should be certain that in the solitude of only their society, I should end by marrying one of their daughters-which is not my plan.

I have just come from Herder. We sat many hours alone in his arbour. Oh, dear Otto, how shall I show you this noble spirit at its right elevation, before which my little soul bends with Spanish, even Turkish veneration-this man, penetrated with Divinity, whose foot is upon this world, his head and breast in the other? How shall I paint his inspired eye, when poetry or music softens him? How shall I represent him embracing all the branches of the tree of knowledge, although he seizes masses, not parts, and instead of the tree shakes the ground upon which it stands? I have often, after spending the evening with him, taken leave with tears.

Apropos, I have also been with Göethe, who received me with more obliging friendship than the first time. I was, in consequeuce, freer, bolder, less susceptible, and therefore more independent. He inquired after my manner

of working, as it completely surpasses his method, and asked how I like Fichte. Upon the last, Göethe said, "He is the great new scholastic. Men are born poets, but they can make themselves philosophers, if they can anywhere fix a transcendental idea. The new (philosophers) make light an object, when it should only show objects." He will complete the Faust at the end of six months. He said he could always promise himself his work six months beforehand, and he prepares himself by prudent diet. Schiller drinks coffee immoderately, and Malaga also. No one is as moderate in coffee as I am.

Göethe told us, he had not read a syllable of his Werter until ten years after it was written. "Who would willingly surrender themselves to a past sensation, and recall anger or love," etc.? So also said Herder of his works. What can be said of the self-idolatry of the small literary men of the day, when such men are so humble? I was ashamed not to be so before them, but I said, "that my things, immediately after they were printed, pleased me extremely, and that I knew no better reading-but when I had forgotten my own ideal, I knew none worse."

We cannot conclude our brief notice without regretting that the translator had not rather re-written a compact "Life of Jean Paul," in a style suitable to English readers. We are ready to assent to the maxim, that form and mode are much in everything; but that which is really good will bear transplanting; if not completely, at least its good can be intimated, and made sufficiently manifest. The present work is thoroughly German; diffuse and elaborated, and tending too much to elevate everything relating to the author into a uniform value. Yet, notwithstanding this excess of zeal on the part of the biographer, we cannot help having disagreeable misgivings as to several points of Richter's character, and doubt if he escaped the sentimentality of the age so completely as is asserted. His frequent fallings in love, and his rapid extrication from the bonds of the tyrannous passion, give one a shrewd suspicion that he had "affectations," and, at the best, that he mistook the phosphoric gleams of fancy for the true fire of passion. Not that these amours seem ever to have passed the bounds of the Platonic. Much allowance, however, must be made for the tone of the society he moved in, and the temperament of its females. Sentimentality was at its height, and excessive must it have been, when it seems to have been thought nothing exceedingly remarkable that a young girl of seventeen should, after some correspondence with Richter, without ever seeing him, destroy herself, because he, fifty years of age, a married man, greatly attached to his wife and family, and living a "prosaic life," did not intensely return her passion. He was, however, an estimable and a generous man, and his life is worthy of perusal, although we see nothing in it that warrants its being upheld as the mirror of a great mind." This may be in our want of perception, or in the want of skill of the biographer, or by a remote possibility in the want of greatness in the subject itself; and these points the reader had better settle for himself.

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