but seldom, in the history of Literature, has | is a rhetorical amplitude and brilliancy in the she had the honesty to unveil, and ride triumphant as in these volumes. Mr. Taylor discovers that the only Poet to be classed with Homer is Tasso; that Shakspeare's Tragedies are cousins-german to those of Otway; that poor, moaning, monotonous Macpherson is an epic poet. Lastly, he runs à laboured parallel between Schiller, Goethe, and Kotzebue; one is more this, the other more that; one strives hither, the other thither, through the whole string of critical predicables; almost as if we should compare scientifically Milton's Paradise Lost, the Prophecies of Isaiah, and Mat Lewis's Tales of Terror.

Messias which elicits in our critic an instinct truer than his philosophy is. He has honestly studied the Messias, and presents a clear outline of it; neither has the still purer spirit of Klopstock's Odes escaped him. We have English Biographies of Klopstock, and a miserable Version of his great Work; but perhaps there is no writing in our language that offers so correct an emblem of him as this analysis. Of the Odes we shall here present one, in Mr. Taylor's translation, which, though in prose, the reader will not fail to approve of. It is perhaps, the finest passage in his whole Historic Survey.

"THE TWO MUSES.

"I saw-tell me, was I beholding what now happens, or was I beholding futurity ?—I saw with the Muse of Britain the Muse of Germany engaged in competitory race-flying warm to the goal of coronation.

Such is Mr. Taylor; a strong-hearted oak, but in an unkindly soil, and beat upon from infancy by Trinitarian and Tory Southwesters: such is the result which native vigour, wind-storms, and thirsty mould have made out among them; grim boughs dishevelled in multangular complexity, and of the stiffness of brass; a tree crooked every way, un wedge- "Two goals, where the prospect terminates, able and gnarled. What bandages or cord-bordered the career: Oaks of the forest shaded ages of ours, or of man's, could straighten it, the one; near to the other waved Palms in now that it has grown there for half a cen- the evening shadow. tury? We simply point out that there is excellent tough knee-timber in it, and of straight timber little or none.

"Accustomed to contest, stepped she from Albion proudly into the arena; as she stepped, when, with the Grecian Muse and with her from the Capitol, she entered the lists.

"She beheld the young trembling rival, who trembled yet with dignity; glowing roses worthy of victory streamed flaming over her cheek, and her golden hair flew abroad.

66

pet, and her eyes swam with intoxicating joy.

"Proud of her courageous rival, prouder of herself, the lofty Britoness measured, but with noble glance, thee, Tuiskone: Yes, by the bards, I grew up with thee in the grove of oaks :

"But a tale had reached me that thou wast no more. Pardon, O Muse, if thou beest immortal, pardon that I but now learn it. Yonder at the goal alone will I learn it.

In fact, taking Mr. Taylor as he is and must be, and keeping a perpetual account and protest with him on these peculiarities of his, we find that on various parts of his subject he has profitable things to say. The Göttingen group of Poets, "Bürger and his set," such Already she retained with pain in her tuas they were, are pleasantly delineated. The multuous bosom the contracted breath; allike may be said of the somewhat earlier ready she hung bending forward towards the Swiss brotherhood, whereof Bodmer and Brei-goal; already the herald was lifting the trumtinger are the central figures; though worthy, wonderful Lavater, the wandering Physiognomist and Evangelist, and Protestant Pope, should not have been first forgotten, and then crammed into an insignificant paragraph. Lessing, again, is but poorly managed; his main performance, as was natural, reckoned to be the writing of Nathan the Wise; we have no original portrait here, but a pantagraphical reduced copy of some foreign sketches or scratches, quite unworthy of such a man, in such an historical position, standing on the confines of Light and Darkness, like Day on the misty mountain tops. Of Herder also there is much omitted; the Geschichte der Menscheit scarcely alluded to; yet some features are given, accurately and even beautifully. A slow-rolling grandiloquence is in Mr. Taylor's best passages, of which this is one: if no poetic light, he has occasionally a glow of true rhetorical heat. Wieland is lovingly painted, yet on the whole faithfully, as he looked some fifty years ago, if not as he now looks: this is the longest article in the Historic Survey, and much too long; those Paganizing Dialogues in particular had never much worth, and at present have scarcely any.

Perhaps the best of all these Essays is that on Klopstock. The sphere of Klopstock's genius does not transcend Mr. Taylor's scale of poetic altitudes; though it perhaps reaches the highest grade there; the "stimulant" theory recedes into the back-ground; indeed there

"There it stands. But dost thou see the still further one, and its crowns also? This represt courage, this proud silence, this look which sinks fiery upon the ground, I know:

"Yet weigh once again, ere the herald sound a note dangerous to thee. Am I not she who have measured myself with her from Thermopyla, and with the stately one of the Seven Hills?"

"She spake: the earnest decisive moment drew nearer with the herald. I love thee,' answered quick with looks of flame, Teutona, Britoness, I love thee to enthusiasm;

"But not warmer than immortality and those Palms: Touch, if so wills thy genius, touch them before me; yet will I, when thou seizest it, seize also the crown.

And, Oh how I tremble! O ye Immortals, perhaps I may reach first the high goal: then, oh then, may thy breath attain my loosestreaming hair!

"The herald shrilled. They flew with eaglespeed. The wide career smoked up clouds of dust. I looked. Beyond the Oak billowed yet thicker the dust, and I lost them."

"This beautiful allegory," adds Mr. Taylor, | wise. The most of what Mr. Taylor has writ"requires no illustration; but it constitutes ten on Schiller, on Goethe, and the new Literaone of the reasons for suspecting that the ture of Germany, a reader that loves him, as younger may eventually be the victorious we honestly do, will consider as unwritten, or Muse." We hope not, but that the generous written in a state of somnambulism. He who race may yet last through long centuries. has just quitted Kotzebue's Bear-garden, and Tuiskone has shot through a mighty space, Fives-court, and pronounces it to be all stimusince this Poet saw her: what if she were now lant and very good, what is there for him to do slackening her speed, and the Britoness quick- in the Hall of the Gods? He looks transiently ening hers? in; asks with mild authority, "Arian or Trinitarian? Quotidian or Stimulant?" and receiving no answer but a hollow echo, which almost sounds like laughter, passes on, muttering that they are dumb idols, or mere Nürnberg waxwork.

If the Essay on Klopstock is the best, that on Kotzebue is undoubtedly the worst, in this book, or perhaps in any book written by man of ability in our day. It is one of those acts which, in the spirit of philanthropy, we could wish Mr. Taylor to conceal in profoundest It remains to notice Mr. Taylor's Translasecrecy; were it not that hereby the "stimu- tions. Apart from the choice of subjects, lant" theory, a heresy which still lurks here which in probably more than half the cases is and there even in our better criticism, is in unhappy, there is much to be said in favour some sort brought to a crisis, and may the of these. Compared with the average of sooner depart from this world, or at least from British Translations, they may be pronounced the high places of it, into others more suitable. of almost ideal excellence; compared with the Kotzebue, whom all nations, and kindreds, and best translations extant, for example, the Gertongues, and peoples, his own people the fore-man Shakspeare, Homer, Calderon, they may most, after playing with him for some foolish still be called better than indifferent. One hour, have swept out of doors as a lifeless great merit Mr. Taylor has: rigorous adbundle of dyed rags, is here scientifically ex- herence to his original; he endeavours at amined, measured, pulse-felt, and pronounced least to copy with all possible fidelity the turn to be living, and a divinity. He has such pro- of phrase, the tone, the very metre, whatever lific "invention," abounds so in "fine situa- stands written for him. With the German tions," in passionate scenes, is so soul-har-language he has now had a long familiarity, rowing, so stimulant. The Proceedings at Bow and, what is no less essential, and perhaps Street are stimulant enough; neither is prolific still rarer among our translators, has a decided invention, interesting situations, or soul-har- understanding of English. All this of Mr. rowing passion wanting among the Authors Taylor's own Translations: in the borrowed that compose there; least of all if we follow pieces, whereof there are several, we seldom, them to Newgate, and the gallows: but when except indeed in those by Shelley and Coledid the Morning Herald think of inserting its ridge, find much worth; sometimes a distinct Police Reports among our Anthologies? Mr. worthlessness. Mr. Taylor has made no conTaylor is at the pains to analyze very many science of clearing those unfortunate perof Kotzebue's productions, and translates formances even from their gross blunders. copiously from two or three: how the Siberian Thus, in that "excellent version by Miss Governor took on when his daughter was Plumptre," we find this statement: Professor about to run away with one Benjowsky, who Müller could not utter a period without introhowever, was enabled to surrender his prize, ducing the words with under, "whether they had there on the beach, with sails hoisted, by business there or not;” which statement, were "looking at his wife's picture;" how the peo- it only on the ground that Professor Müller was ple "lift young Burgundy from the Tun," not not sent to Bedlam, there to utter periods, we indeed to drink him, for he is not wine but a venture to deny. Doubtless his besetting sin Duke; how a certain stout-hearted West In- was mitunder, which indeed means at the same dian, that has made a fortune, proposes mar- time, or the like, (etymologically, with among,) riage to his two sisters, but finding the ladies but nowise with under. One other instance we reluctant, solicits their serving-woman, whose shall give, from a much more important subreputation is not only cracked, but visibly ject. Mr. Taylor admits that he does not make quite rent asunder, accepts her nevertheless, much of Faust: however, he inserts Shelley's with her thriving cherub, and is the happiest version of the Mayday Night; and another of men;-with more of the like sort. On the scene, evidently rendered by quite a different strength of which we are assured that, "accord- artist. In this latter, Margaret is in the Catheing to my judgment, Kotzebue is the greatest dral during High-Mass, but her whole thoughts dramatic genius that Europe has evolved since are turned inwards on a secret shame and sorShakspeare." Such is the table which Mr. row: an Evil Spirit is whispering in her ear; Taylor has spread for pilgrims in the Prose the Choir chant fragments of the Dies ira; she Wilderness of Life: thus does he sit like a kind is like to choke and sink. In the original, host, ready to carve; and though the viands this passage is in verse; and, we presume, and beverage are but, as it were, stewed gar- in the translation also,-founding on the lic, Yarmouth herrings, and blue-ruin, praise capital letters. The concluding lines are them as "stimulant," and courteously presses the universe to fall to.

What a purveyor with this palate shall say to Nectar and Ambrosia, may be curious as a question in Natural History, but hardly other

these:

"MARGARET.

I feel imprison'd. The thick pillars gird me.
The vaults low'r o'er me. Air, air, I faint.

-Your what?-Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" Your Drambottle." Will Mr. Taylor have us understand, then, that "the noble German nation," more especially the fairer half thereof, (for the "Neighbour" is Nachbarin, Neighbouress,) goes to church with a decanter of brandy in its pocket? Or would he not rather, even forcibly, interpret Fläschchen by vinaigrette, by volatile-salts?—The world has no notice that this passage is a borrowed one, but will, notwithstanding, as the more charitable theory, hope and believe so.

reach a second edition, which we hope, perhaps he may profit by some of our hints, and render the work less unworthy of himself and of his subject. In its present state and shape, this English Temple of Fame can content no one. A huge, anomalous, heterogeneous mass, no section of it like another, oriel-window alternating with rabbit-hole, wrought capital on pillar of dried mud; heaped together out of marble, loose earth, rude boulder-stone; hastily roofed in with shingles,-such is the Temple of Fame; uninhabitable either for priest or statue, and which nothing but a continued suspension of the laws of gravity can keep from rushing ere long into a chaos of stone and dust. For the English worshipper, who in the meanwhile has no other temple, we search out the least dangerous apartments; for the future builder, the materials that will be valuable.

And now, in washing our hands of this alltoo sordid but not unnecessary task, one word on a more momentous object. Does not the existence of such a Book, do not many other indications, traceable in France, in Germany, as well as here, betoken that a new era in the spiritual intercourse of Europe is approaching; that instead of isolated, mutually repulsive National Literatures, a World-Literature may one day be looked for? The better minds of all countries begin to understand each other; and, which follows naturally, to love each other and help each other; by whom ultimately all countries in all their proceedings are governed.

We have now done with Mr. Taylor; and would fain, after all that has come and gone, part with him in good nature and good will. He has spoken freely, we have answered freely. Far as we differ from him in regard to German Literature, and to the much more im- Late in man's history, yet clearly at length, portant subjects here connected with it; deeply it becomes manifest to the dullest, that mind as we feel convinced that his convictions are is stronger than matter, that mind is the creator wrong and dangerous, are but half true, and, and shaper of matter; that not brute Force, if taken for the whole truth, wholly false and but only Persuasion and Faith is the king of fatal, we have nowise blinded ourselves to his this world. The true Poet, who is but the invigorous talent, to his varied learning, his sin-spired Thinker, is still an Orpheus whose Lyre cerity, his manful independence and self-sup- tames the savage beasts, and evokes the dead port. Neither is it for speaking out plainly rocks to fashion themselves into palaces and that we blame him. A man's honest, earnest stately inhabited cities. It has been said, and opinion is the most precious of all he possesses: may be repeated, that Literature is fast belet him communicate this, if he is to communi- coming all in all to us; our Church, our Sencate any thing. There is, doubtless, a time to ate, our whole Social Constitution. The true speak, and a time to keep silence; yet Fon- Pope of Christendom is not that feeble old tenelle's celebrated aphorism, I might have my man in Rome; nor is its Autocrat the Nahand full of truth, and would open only my little poleon, the Nicolas, with his half million even finger, may be practised also to excess, and of obedient bayonets; such Autocrat is himthe little finger itself kept closed. That re- self but a more cunningly-devised bayonet and serve, and knowing silence, long so universal military engine in the hands of a mightier than among us, is less the fruit of active benevo- he. The true Autocrat and Pope is that man, lence, of philosophic tolerance, than of in- the real or seeming Wisest of the past age; difference and weak conviction. Honest Skep-crowned after death; who finds his Hierarchy ticism, honest Atheism, is better than that of gifted Authors, his Clergy of assiduous withered, lifeless Dilettantism and amateur Journalists; whose Decretals, written not on Eclecticism, which merely toys with all opi- parchment, but on the living souls of men, it nions; or than that wicked Machiavelism, were an inversion of the Laws of Nature to which, in thought denying every thing, except disobey. In these times of ours, all Intellect that Power is Power, in words, for its own wise has fused itself into Literature: Literature, purposes, loudly believes every thing: of both Printed Thought, is the molten sea and wonderwhich miserable habitudes the day, even in bearing Chaos, into which mind after mind England, is wellnigh over. That Mr. Taylor casts forth its opinion, its feeling, to be molten belongs not, and at no time belonged, to either into the general mass, and to work there; Inof these classes, we account a true praise. Of terest after Interest is engulfed in it, or em his Historic Survey we have endeavoured to barked on it: higher, higher it rises round all point out the faults and the merits: should be the Edifices of Existence; they must all be

molten into it, and anew bodied forth from it, or stand unconsumed among its fiery surges. Wo to him whose Edifice is not built of true Asbest, and on the everlasting Rock; but on the false sand, and of the drift-wood of Accident, and the paper and parchment of anti-know-That its tendency is to a universal quated Habit! For the power, or powers, exist not on our Earth, that can say to that sea, roll back, or bid its proud waves be still.

TRAGEDY OF THE NIGHT-MOTH.
[FRASER'S MAGAZINE, 1831.]

་

CHARACTERISTICS.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1831.]

THE healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: this is the Physician's Aphorism; and applicable in a far wider sense than he gives it. We may say, it holds no less in moral, intellectual, political, poetical, than in merely corporeal therapeutics; that wherever, or in what shape soever, powers of the sort which can be named vital are at work, herein lies the test of their working right, or working wrong.

In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the first condition of complete health is, that each organ perform its function unconsciously, unheeded; let but any organ announce its separate existence, were it even boastfully, and for pleasure, not for pain, then already has one of those unfortunate "false centres of sensibility" established itself, already is derangement there. The perfection of bodily wellbeing is, that the collective bodily activities seem one; and be manifested, moreover, not in themselves, but in the action they accomplish. If a Dr. Kitchener boast that his system is in high order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed take credit; but the true Peptician was that Countryman who answered that, "for his part, he had no system." In fact, unity, agreement, is always silent, or soft-voiced; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself. So long as the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, can pour forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is a melody and unison; Life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestial music and diapason,-which also, like that other music of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, without interruption and without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the ear. Thus, too, in some languages, is the state of health well denoted by a term expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say that we are whole.

issued clear victorious force; we stood as in the centre of Nature, giving and receiving, in harmony with it all; unlike Virgil's Husbandmen, "too happy because we did not know our blessedness." In those days, health and sickness were foreign traditions that did not concern us; our whole being was as yet One, the whole man like an incorporated Will. Such, were Rest or ever-successful Labour the human lot, might our life continue to be: a pure, perpetual, unregarded music; a beam of perfect white light, rendering all things visible, but itself unseen, even because it was of that perfect whiteness, and no irregular obstruction had yet broken it into colours. The beginning of Inquiry is Disease: all Science, if we consider well, as it must have originated in the feeling of something being wrong, so it is and continues to be but Division, Dismemberment, and partial healing of the wrong. Thus, as was of old written, the Tree of Knowledge springs from a root of evil, and bears fruits of good and evil. Had Adam remained in Paradise, there had been no Anatomy and no Metaphysics.

But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, “Life itself is a disease; a working incited by suffering;" action from passion! The memory of that first state of Freedom and paradisiac Unconsciousness has faded away into an ideal poetic dream. We stand here too conscious of many things: with Knowledge, the symptom of Derangement, we must even do our best to restore a little Order. Life is, in few instances, and at rare intervals, the diapason of a heavenly melody; oftenest the fierce jar of disruptions and convulsions, which, do what we will, there is no disregarding. Nevertheless, such is still the wish of Nature on our behalf; in all vital action, her manifest purpose and effort is, that we should be unconscious of it, and, like the peptic Countryman, never know that we "have a system." For indeed vital action everywhere is emphatically a means, not an end; Life is not given us for the mere sake of Living, but always with an ulterior external Aim: neither is it on the process, on the means, but rather on the result, that Nature, in any of her doings, is wont to intrust us with insight and volition. Boundless as is the domain of man, it is but a small fractional proportion of it that he rules with Consciousness and by Forethought: what he can contrive, nay, what he can altogether know and comprehend, is essentially the mechanical, 1. An Essay on the Origin and Prospects of Man. the vital; it is essentially the mysterious, and small; the great is ever, in one sense or other, 2. Philosophische Vorlesungen, insbesondere über Philo- only the surface of it can be understood. But sophie der sprache und des Wortes. Geschrieben und vorgetragen zu Dresden im December, 1828, und in den Nature, it might seem, strives, like a kind ersten Tagen des Januars 1829. (Philosophical Lectures, mother, to hide from us even this, that she is a especially on the Philosophy of Language and the Gift mystery: she will have us rest on her beauti of Speech. Written and delivered at Dresden in De-ful and awful bosom as if it were our secure cember, 1828, and the early days of January, 1829.) By Friedrich von Schlegel. 8vo. Vienna, 1830.

Few mortals, it is to be feared, are permanently blessed with that felicity of "having no system:" nevertheless, most of us, looking back on young years, may remember seasons of a light, aerial translucency and elasticity, and perfect freedom; the body had not yet become the prison-house of the soul, but was its vehicle and implement, like a creature of the thought, and altogether pliant to its bidding. We knew not that we had limbs, we only lifted, hurled, and leapt; through eye and ear, and all avenues of sense, came clear unimpeded tidings from without, and from within

By Thomas Hope. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1831.

home; on he bottomless, boundless Deep,