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EMARKS ON SCHLEGEL'S HISTORY OF ling to believe in the excellence of

* LITERATURE.

Ir seems to be received among most of the good people of the present age as an axiom not to be disputed, that the period to which they have the happiness to belong is, beyond all question, the most enlightened which the world has ever seen. Nothing can be more natural than the species of ratiocination upon which this comfortable belief is founded. Every individual, however unskilled in the more secret mysteries of psycology, is metaphysician enough to be sensible of the gradual enlargement and improvement of his own understanding during the far more considerable portion of his life and it is quite in the course of things, that individuals should reason from themselves to every thing around them. To the man who, in reviewing a few past years of his life, perceives in every direction the traces of intellect strengthened and knowledge extended, it must needs appear at first sight a very improbable thing, that, while the individual is at all times so actively progressive, the general mind should at any time be retrogressive, or even stationary. He takes it for granted that the nation, the world, are moving at the same pace with himself, and his favourable opinion respecting the century in which he happens to be born, derives not a little of its charity from the unsuspected, but unintermitted, workings of his self-love. We are all wil

Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern; from the German of Frederick Schlegel. 2 vols. Edinburgh, William Blackwood; London, Baldwin, &c. 1918,

what belongs to ourselves; we begin with our apparel, furniture, and houses, and extend, by degrees, the compliment to our town, our nation, and last of all, to our age.

We have no intention to deny, that in many matters of no inconsiderable moment, the self-gratulations of the present generation are well founded. Were there no ground for their belief, except in vanity, it must indeed have long since given way. The fault lies in extending to the condition of the whole man that which applies in truth to one part only, perhaps not the most dignified or important part of that mysterious being. The part which has been the scene of improvement is indeed that to which the philosophers of the last century chiefly devoted their attention. But it remains to be decided by posterity, whether their devotion, or our applause, should be considered as among the excellencies or the defects of our respective periods, Among the many ages which have preceded ours, not a few, and these too, at least some of them,-ages to which we now look back with very little reverence, were, in their day, equally self-complacent in their opinion of themselves. Perhaps no times were ever more filled with self-conceit than the corrupt and trifling ones of the last Roman and Byzantine emperors. The blindfold mill-horse has no suspicion in how narrow a circle he is moving,

To go somewhat towards the bottom of the matter, we may observe, that the exertions of human intellect are

directed either towards the bettering of our earthly and corporeal existence, or to something quite foreign, and, we are not singular in supposing, quite superior to this. One great class of

objects are useful, and pursued as means for producing tangible and visible improvements in the external accommodation of man; another great class of objects have, in most ages of the world, attracted the zeal of the finest spirits of the earth, although not leading to any thing so obviously advantageous-have been pursued, in a word, for their own sake alone, and believed to bring with them abundantly their own reward. In regard to the former class of objects, it must be admitted that the world was never so well off as it is now; we suspect that, in regard to the second, a little research would have a tendency to lead to a very different conclusion.

In respect to those branches of human exertion which are most evidently ornamental, our inferiority to former ages will not be disputed, even by the warmest admirers of their own time and of themselves. Our age produces no paintings like those of Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Correggio, or even like those of Holbein. In sculpture and architecture our poverty is equally apparent. If we are better than our immediate predecessors, if we no longer admire or imitate the absurdities of such men as Bernini, still we can sustain no comparison with the times of antiquity; nay, in regard to one of those arts we are utterly despicable, when compared with those ages of modern Europe which we are pleased to think and talk of as utterly dark and barbarous. Whatever excellence we attain in sculpture is derived from a servile imitation of the antique; and in regard to architecture, we seem to be so impressed with a sense of littleness, that we have absolutely given over attempting any thing that is worthy of being called great. We make no fresco paintings now-a-days, no colossal statues, no cathedrals. We may call this wisdom and philosophy if we will. We may rave about political economy and chemistry, and despise, if we choose, the simple ages which were more occupied with art than with science, with feeling than with analysing; but to those who consider this world as a preparatory scene, and our earthly life as a school for our intellect, and man as an immortal creature, whose desires and aspirations are at all times after the infinite, the spectacle of this, our boasted age, may perhaps appear to partake at least, as

much of the humiliating as of the cheering. We are more knowing than our fathers, but the old breed was a noble one, and it may be worth our while to consider with ourselves whether we may not deserve the reproach of the satirist-Gens pusilla, acuta.

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Such reflections as these are not very common among the men of our nation, but in the book which now lies before us, and in many other works of those whom Madame de Stael classes with its author, under the name of ces grand penseurs Allemands,” we find sufficient proof that they are by no means unusual among the reflective men of another nation, which, in so far at least as philosophy and art are concerned, may be entitled to fully as much respect as our own. Although the last fifty years have produced in Germany more great and valuable literary works than the last hundred years among all the other nations of Europe, even the authors of Germany appear to be pretty free from that overweening self-complacency which is so visible in the writings of their French and English brethren. The truth is, that all the German writers of eminence are also scholars of eminence. They read before they think of writing. Their reverence for others tempers their confidence in themselves. They labour to improve and adorn their age, but they are modest enough to consider no little preparation as necessary for those who would enter upon such a vocation. In like manner, their books are too full of learning for our public, in its present state; they make allusions which our wits would laugh at as obscure, and pass into digressions which they would censure as absurd. Nevertheless, they are worth the studying, and will repay the labour which they demand from those who peruse them with advantage.

According to the author of these lectures, the chief cause of those defects which may be discovered in the art and literature of the present time, is to be found in the spirit of thought introduced by the philosophy of the last century. The object of that philosophy was revolution; its engine was derision. Its masters devoted all their talents to destroy the habitual veneration with which their country men of France and of Europe were accustomed to regard the political, moral, and religious institutions of

their fathers. They strove to represent every thing beyond their own sphere, as existing only in prejudice, and held sacred only by folly. Above all things, it was their wish and purpose to undermine those forms of government which are established among all the descendants of the Gothic conquerors of Europe. In order to make these appear ridiculous, they pointed the shafts of their wit, not only against the Gothic thrones themselves, but against all the art, and literature, and philosophy, which had sprung up under their protection. Their sole topics of praise were found either among the republican peoples of antiquity, or among themselves ;-the former having to boast, as they asserted, of the only true artists, and their own age of the only true sçavants.

It is with a certain mingled feeling of calmness and melancholy that we look back, from the present situation of affairs, to the image of those old times when the external aspect of things was harsher and ruder, but when hearts were warmer than they now are, and faith more firm. The history of the last century may at times provoke a contempt almost touching upon ridicule, but in general it is with feelings of a very different nature indeed, that we connect the circumstances of that eventful period with those of our own. As when dark clouds are seen progressively advancing over the face of a calm and lovely heaven, and the memory of past tempests is revived in the apprehension of new, it is not without an anxious and a mournful expectation that we see the old bands every day relaxing around us, and, under the specious name of improvement, every thing which our fathers loved and venerated borne by slow but sure degrees, into the reach of that revolutionary current which leads to a fearful, and as yet an unexplored, abyss, None seems to have contemplated the tendency of this age with more concern than Frederick Schlegel. The work which we have just read is a noble effort to counteract and repel its effects, to arouse forgotten thoughts and despised feelings, and to make men be national and religious once more, in order that once more they may be great. He is quite right in believing that, as the evil has proceeded, so must the cure also proceed from the influence of literature; and it is in re

gard to that great and splendid branch of human exertion, that he has chosen, in the first instance, to meet and combat the purposes and opinions of his antagonists. It is not necessary for us to explain by what circumstances, in the late history and present condition of his country, his views have been more immediately turned to the consideration of some of those subjects which his present work is most calculated to elucidate.

The truth is, that the old contest between the friends and the enemies of empiricism, which was sufficiently violent in the days of the Platonists and Peripatetics of antiquity, never attained its full height and vehemence till of late. The balance inclines grievously to the meaner side. Mankind are now every where ashamed of being, what the philosophers of the last age were pleased to call unphilosophical. Even the common people begin to take more pride in having some general ideas, than in retaining that warmth of attachment to one set of objects, which entirely depends, as they have told, upon ignorance of that which is beyond their circle. The travelling regiments of books which pour in their heterogeneous impressions from the four quarters of the heavens, level all peculiarities before them, and turn the private enclosures of attachment and opinion into a thorough-fare. When the mind is artificially supplied, by means of books, with more sources of sentiment than are able at once harmoniously to keep possession of it, the speculative understanding steps in to settle their claims, and concludes by leaving the whole man in a woful state of obliteration, which corresponds with Wordsworth's description of a moralist. "One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling No form nor feeling, great or small, A reasoning self-sufficing thing,

An intellectual all-in-all."

To trace with that boldness which can only be inspired by mature skilfulness, a map of the whole history of human literature; to show how in every age, the action of literature upon nationality, and that of nationality upon literature, have been strictly reciprocal; and thus, by past examples, to warn the present generation of the dangers in which they have involved themselves, this was a great attempt, and we think Frederick Schlegel has accomplished it with very singular

success. He inculcates, throughout, the necessity which there is, that literature should have reference to an established centre, namely, to religious faith, and to national history and character, that its main employment should be to nurse and strengthen our associations in relation to these objects,-and that, instead of being applied at random as a stimulus to our faculties and emotions, as mere abstract human beings, it should bend all its powers towards tutoring and forming the feelings of men, destined to act a part as citizens of their respective communities. In doing so, literature gains, both by having a determinate purpose, and by being the conservator of associations, which grow more and more valuable as they grow older. As every nation has its own mental character and constitution propagated from generation to generation, no traditions or poetry can be so congenial to it, as those which originated with itself in early ages, constituting tests of its true bias and genius, and continuing, during the course of its history, to strengthen nature itself by reacting upon the same national temperament which at first produced them. He shews that a great national character can only be preserved, by endeavouring as much as possible to cherish and keep alive the characteristic spirit of our ancestors; and that the literature of each nation, instead of embodying all kinds of human ideas indifferently, should aim at rivetting a peculiar set of impressions proper to itself, which would have the advantage of gaining force by every reiteration, and of pervading the whole system both of private and public life. Nothing can, we think, be more beautiful than the manner in which Schlegel calls up in succession the master-spirits of antiquity, and extracts from their merits, and sometimes from their defects, confirmation of the theory which it is his purpose to defend. The power, majesty, and enduring beauty of the Greek, and the comparative poverty of the Roman literature, are both explained upon the same principle: and yet the general conclusions to which he would lead us are, throughout, so admirably blended with the interesting and amusing portraiture of individual men and works, that however strong may be the impression of which we are conscious, we cannot easily point out from what

particular part, either of narrative or disquisition, it has been derived. There is, for instance, at least as much of art, as of elegance and of feeling, in the view which he gives us of the Homeric writings.

"There is only one production, the high pre-eminence of which gives to the early ages of the Greeks a decided superiority over those of every other people,-the Homeric poems, the still astonishing works of the Iliad and the Odyssey. These indeed are the work of a preceding age; but it is sufficiently evident from the language, the contents, and above all, from the spirit of these poems, that they were designed and composed within a short time (probably within a century) of the age of Solon. In his time, at all events, and partly by means of his personal exertions, they were first rescued from the precariousness and forgetfulness of oral recitation, arranged in the order in have ever since continued to be, the objects which we see them, and rendered, as they of universal attention and regard.

"Solon and his successors in the government of Athens, Pisistratus and the Pisistratida, over and above the delight which they must have derived from the composi tions themselves, were probably influenced by views of a nature purely political, to interest themselves in the preservation of the Homeric poems. six hundred years before Christ, the indeAbout this period, that is pendence of the Greeks of Asia Minor was much threatened, not indeed as yet by the power of Persia, but by that of the Lydian monarchs, whose kingdom was soon after swallowed up in the immense empire of Cy

rus.

As soon, however, as that conqueror had overcome Crasus, and extended his power over the lesser Asia, no clear-sighted patriot could any longer conceal from himself the great danger which was impendent over Greece. The greater part of the Grecian states, indeed, seem to have remained long in their security, without foreseeing the storm which was so near them, and which burst with such fury on their continent dur ing the reigns of Darius and of Xerxes. But the danger must have been soon and thoroughly perceived by Athens, linked as she was in the closest intimacy with the Asiflourishing commerce, but also by the comatic Greeks, not only by all the ties of a mon origin of their Ionic race. The revival of these old songs which relate how Grecian heroes warred with united strength against Asia, and laid siege to the metropolis of Priam, occurred, at least, at a very favour able period, to nourish in the Greeks the pride of heroic feelings, and excite them to like deeds in the cause of their independence.

"Whether any such event as the Trojan war ever in reality took place, we have no positive means of deciding. The dynasty of Agamemnon and the Atreidæ, however,

falls almost within the limits of history. Neither is it at all unlikely that much intercourse subsisted at a very early period between the Greek peninsula and Asia Minor; for the inhabitants of the two countries were kindred peoples, speaking nearly the same language, and Pelops, from whom the peninsula derived its name, was a native of Asia. That the carrying away of a single princess should have been the cause of an universal and long protracted war, is, at least, abundantly consistent with the spirit of the heroic times, and forcibly recalls to our recollection a parallel period in the history of Christendom, and the chivalry of the middle ages. However much of fable and allegory may have been weaved into the story of Helen and Troy, that many great recollections of the remote ages were in some manner connected with the local situation of Troy itself, is manifest from the graves of heroes, the earthen tumuli which are still visible on that part of the coast. That these old Greek mounds or monuments, which were, according to universal tradition, pointed out as the graves of Achilles and Patroc lus,-over one of which Alexander wept, envying the fate of the hero who had found a Homer to celebrate him,-that these were in existence in the time of the poet himself is, I think, apparent from many passages of the Iliad. It was reserved for the impious, or at least the foolish curiosity of our own age, to ransack these tombs, and violate the sacred repose of the ashes and arms of he roes, which were found still to exist within their recesses. But all these are matters of no importance to the subject of which I am at present treating; for although the Trojan war had been altogether the creation of the poet's fancy, that circumstance could have had little influence either on the object which Solon and Pisistratus had in view, or on the spirit of patriotism which was excited by the revival of the Homeric poems. The story was at all events universally believed, and listened to, as an incident of true and authentic history.

"To the Greeks, accordingly, of every age, these poems possessed a near and a national interest of the most lively and touching character, while to us their principal attraction consists in the more universal charm of beautiful narration, and in the lofty representations which they unfold of the heroic life. For here there prevails not any peculiar mode of thinking, or system of prejudices, adapted to live only within a limited period, or exclusively to celebrate the fame and pre-eminence of some particular race-defects which are so apparent both in the old songs of the Arabians, and in the Poems of Ossian. There breathes throughout these poems a freer spirit, a sensibility more open, more pure, and more universal -alive to every feeling which can make an impression on our nature, and extending to every circumstance and condition of the great family of man. A whole world is laid

open to our view in the utmost beauty and clearness, a rich, a living, and an ever moving picture. The two heroic personages of Achilles and Ulysses, which occupy the first places in this new state of existence, embody the whole of a set of universal ideas and characters which are to be found in almost all the traditions of heroic ages, although nowhere else so happily unfolded or delineated with so masterly a hand. Achilles, a youthful hero, who, in the fulness of his victorious strength and beauty, exhausts all the glories of the fleeting life of man, but is doomed to an early death and a tragical destiny, is the first and the most lofty of these characters; and a character of the same species is to be found in numberless poems of the heroic age, but perhaps no where, if we except the writers of Greece, so well developed as in the sagas of our northern ancestors. Even among the most lively nations, the traditions and recollections of the heroic times are invested with a half mournful and melancholy feeling, a spirit of sorrow, sometimes elegiac, more frequently tragicalwhich speaks at once to our bosoms from the inmost soul of the poetry in which they are embodied: whether it be that the idea of a long vanished age of freedom, greatness, and heroism, stamps of necessity such an impression on those who are accustomed to live among the narrow and limited institutions of after times; or whether it be not rather that poets have chosen to express only in compositions of a certain sort and in relation to certain periods, those feelings of distant reverence and self-abasement with which it is natural to us at all times to reflect on the happiness and simplicity of ages that have long passed away. In Ulysses we have displayed another and a less elevated form of the heroic life, but one scarcely less fertile in subjects for poetry, or less interesting to the curiosity of posterity. This is the voyaging and wandering hero, whose experience and acuteness are equal to his valour, who is alike prepared to suffer with patience every hardship, and to plunge with boldness into every adventure; and who thus affords the most unlimited scope for the poetical imagination, by giving the opportunity of introducing and adorning whatever of wonderful or of rare is supposed, during the infancy of geography, by the simple people of early societies, to belong to ages and places with which they are personally unacquainted. The Homeric works are equalled, or perhaps surpassed, in awful strength and depth of feeling by the poetry of the north-in audacity, in splendour, and in pomp, by that of the oriental nations. Their peculiar excellence lies in the intuitive perception of truth, the accuracy of description, and the great clearness of understanding, which are united in them, in a manner so unique, with all the simplicity of childhood, and all the richness of an unrivalled imagination. In them we find a mode of composition so full, that it often

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