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tions are all taken from the scenes in which he had dwelt; his images are those with which all are familiar; and the 1800-48. example of the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard,” and "The Deserted Village," may teach us that when such objects are treated in the true poetic spirit, no more charming subjects for the lyric muse are to be found. Sunset amidst the bleating of lambs in a solitary pastoral valley-the breath of spring after the severity of winter -the leafy month of June-the hoary icicles of December-the first green of the leaves-the first bloom of the flowers-the tolling of the village bell which calls the faithful to the house of God-are the images on which he loves to dwell. Unlike many of his countrymen, he is deeply impressed with the feelings of religion; and if to "look up through nature to nature's God" is one chief end and the noblest object of poetry, few have ever attained it more successfully than Uhland. In this respect, as well as in his enthusiastic admiration of the beauties of nature, and his felicitous use of common images, he very much resembles Longfellow, who has rendered, in a kindred spirit, many of his finest odes into the English language.

37.

RUCKHÄRT is the most voluminous lyric poet of GerRuckhärt. many. His works, in six volumes octavo, exceed in bulk those of all its other bards of that class put together. It does not follow from that circumstance that he is the best. Bulk in lyric poetry is generally in the inverse ratio of real merit. It will be long before England produces six volumes composed of poems like "Alexander's Feast," "The Progress of Poetry," "The Allegro," or "Hohenlinden." Ruckhärt has in many respects great merit, but it is not of the highest kind. He has prodigious facility of versification, a richly-stored memory, a poetic fancy, and often shows great felicity of casual expression. Like Freiligrath, his imagery is drawn from the whole earth; and, like many other inhabitants of the northern regions, his imagination seems to have been in an especial manner fascinated by

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the sunny isles and graceful palms and unclouded sun of CHAP. the south. What he wants is depth of feeling and elevation of thought. He is neither profound and pathetic like 1800-48. Goethe, nor noble and chivalrous like Schiller: he is more akin to Wieland, both in the flow of his versification and the strain of his ideas. He is not destitute of sentiment, and occasional passages of exquisite beauty are to be found in his writings; but, generally speaking, he is an epicurean in thought-not a stoic. He is more akin to Horace than Pindar. His amatory verses, which are very numerous, resemble the Italian ones in the decline of taste, when conceit and extravagance had come in place of the simplicity of genuine affection. They remind the English reader of the extravagance of the euphuists in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Compared to the simple devotion of Thekla or Mignon, they indeed afford a lasting proof how little all the riches of imagination can supply the want of the simple voice of nature.

A

38.

Of all the poets whom recent times have brought forth in Germany, REDWITZ is the most successful. His Redwitz. chief and longest poem, Amaranth, has gone in a few years through eighteen editions. There can be no doubt that it possesses merits of a very high order, and what renders his verses the more attractive to foreigners, they are peculiarly of a German character. To the simplicity and almost homeliness of rural life in the middle class of landed gentry in that country, it unites the interest of chivalrous feeling, and the romance of feudal event. sincere Christian, Redwitz presents the Romish faith under its most amiable and attractive form, and hence it is warmly recommended by the Catholic clergy to those of their persuasion, though the warmth of some of the scenes savours little of the coldness of the cloister, or the self-denial of spiritual love. In Amaranth the poet has portrayed in charming colours the innocence and simplicity of the virgin heart, under the influences and chastened by the spirit of religion; in Chismonda he has

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CHAP. attempted to draw the portrait of the charms, the passions, and the vanities of the world. Perhaps those who know 1800-48. it best will say that the denouement is not agreeable to nature, and that Redwitz would have interested us more if he had made Walther's breach with the Italian syren originate in something else than her refusal, at his request, to submit to sacrifice the natural and universal aspirations of the female heart. Be this as it may, the poem abounds with pure and elevated ideas, great felicity and beauty of expression, and a refined taste for the influences and charms of nature.

39. Kinkel.

KINKEL belongs to the same school as Redwitz, and his Otto and Margaret present beauties of the same description. The first is a tale of true love and chivalry, such as is recorded of the olden time, and is, we believe, more true to nature, even in these degenerate days, than, judging from the mere surface of society, we should be inclined to imagine. Its strain is as elevated and generous as that of Redwitz, though perhaps there is somewhat less of the varied and attractive imagery which, in the latter poet as in Wieland, give the charm of a fairy tale to the creations of fancy. Margaret is itself a fairy tale, in which, as in Little Red Riding Hood, the pathetic and the terrible are educed, by a little superinduction of the marvellous, on the common events of humble life. The extreme popularity of both these poets, and the immense extent to which their works are read in Germany, is very remarkable, and eminently characteristic of the pure feelings and lofty spirit which, in a land still untainted, for the most part, by the vices or corruptions of cities, animate the vast majority of the inhabitants. They diminish our wonder at the glorious efforts of the war of liberation, they prognosticate a corresponding generous burst in behalf of civil freedom, when the aspirations of the people shall assume a practical form, and be guided by observation, not impelled by passion.

If ever two branches of literature stood forth in strik

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1800-48.

40.

Germany:

ter.

ing contrast to each other, it is the poetry and prose of Ger- CHAP. many. The immense celebrity of its literature, at least with the great bulk of readers, depends almost entirely upon the former. The prose writers have in many instances the very Prose of highest merit; their learning is generally immense, their its charac industry almost miraculous, their thoughts sometimes profound. But there is, with a few brilliant exceptions, a fatal defect in their style. As much as the Teutonic poetry is brief, condensed, and emphatic, is its prose lengthy, tedious, and obscure. The sentences are in general involved, and of inordinate length, their ideas often vague and mystical, their doctrines abstract, and incapable of any practical application to the affairs of the world. Their expressions are often felicitous, and the power which their language gives them of compounding a single word so as to make it convey a whole idea, makes them often extremely striking, and renders inexcusable the wearisome length of their sentences, and the mystical obscurity of their ideas. They have neither the terse brevity of the best class of English writers, nor the power of lucid arrangement and clear expression which seems inherent in all ranks of French. They are almost always involved and obscure, and their sentences so long that they put us in mind of what is said of some American orators, who, when they have gained possession of the floor on Tuesday, are expected to keep it during the whole remainder of the week.

41.

of their

the cause of

This fault, great as it is, and seriously as it must impede, as long as it continues, both the influence of the The youth German writers on general thought, and their fame as literature is individuals, is not, however, to be ascribed entirely to this. themselves. It is the result of the youth of their literature; it is common to them with nations commencing their career in composition all over the world, and in all ages. Look at the prose writers even of the greatest genius in England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, or soon after; Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Sir Walter Raleigh, Milton himself. Their prose sentences are so long, their

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I

CHAP. ideas so involved, that it is next to impossible, in spite XXVIII of the occasional beauty of expression, to read them with 1800-48. the pleasure which their merit deserves. The same

42.

this defect,

is the case with the early historians of Italy,-Davila, Guicciardini, Giannone. Men of vast genius, and the most powerful minds, may even at such periods indeed convey their thoughts in brief language, but it belongs only to such capacities as those of Macchiavelli, Cervantes, Montesquieu, or Bacon, to do this. Generally speaking, the era of antithesis and epigrammatic expression is late in literary history; it is in the days of Sallust or Tacitus, not of Livy or Xenophon. It is the same with individuals, even those who ultimately become most celebrated for terseness of expression and clearness of ideas. Johnson's Essays in the Rambler are for the most part couched in pompous periods and long rounded sentences; his colloquial sayings, recorded by Boswell, are models of vigorous thought and clear epigrammatic expression.

The reason is, that a young nation, like a young Causes of author, is writing itself into thought, not conveying that already formed. The world will not take mere enunciations of propositions off the hands of a young nation any more than a young writer; it requires the weight of years and established reputation to effect this with either. The ideas of a nation commencing the career of thought are of necessity vague, as the movements of a traveller are when he first adventures upon an unknown region; his steps are devious and uncertain, because he does not know well where to go. Decision of thought, and consequent brevity of expression, belong to the experienced nation as well as traveller. Add to this that there is no oratory in Germany except that of the pulpit and the professor's chair; and they, so far from being the school of brevity, are just the reverse, for their audiences are obliged to listen in silence to the prelections of their holders, how long and wearisome soever they may be. There is no school for brevity like free debate in presence