CHAPTER XXVIII.

LITERATURE OF GERMANY IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY.

XXVIII.

1800-48.

1.

portance of

literature in

part of the

century.

IMPORTANT at all times, and in all countries, the CHAP. LITERATURE OF GERMANY during the early part of the nineteenth century is pre-eminently so, not only as indicating the progress of the human mind during the most Great im- important era of modern times, but as foreshadowing the the German course of social change, and the march of political event. the early In free countries, the changes of public opinion, often nineteenth capricious and inconstant, are indicated by unmistakable symptoms, and future events are foreshadowed in a manner which, even by the most inconsiderate, cannot be misunderstood. The debates in the legislature give vent to general thought, and define the objects of the parties into which the State is divided; the press disseminates them through every part of the realm, and strengthens the passion of which they are the expression; public meetings indicate, often in a voice of thunder, the objects of popular desire, and the subjects of general discontent; and philosophic thought, in periodical literature, applies to present events the lessons of past experience, and stimulates or discourages future change by the contemplation or the picture of former revolution. No one who is acquainted with the literature, whether daily, monthly, or quarterly, of free states, can be at a loss to apprehend whence they are coming, or whither they are

XXVIII.

going. But it is otherwise in despotic countries. No CHAP. national assemblies there furnish a safety-valve to public feeling, or indicate its tendency; the expression of dis- 1800-48, content in any form is strongly prohibited; rigorous punishment deters from any censure, how well soever founded, on the measures of government; and while national feeling is daily accumulating, and public discontent is at its height, the journals do little more than narrate the progress of princes and princesses from one city to another, and the universal enthusiasm when they show themselves in public. But in an age of advancing intelligence and stirring events, it is not to be supposed that the human mind is in reality dormant; it is incessantly working, but its movements are not perceived, nor is the existence of dangerous passions even suspected at a distance, till a sudden and unforeseen event at once reveals their tendency, and demonstrates their strength.

2.

is thus the

general

It is in the literature of such states that we must look for the real tendency of public opinion, and the fore- Literature shadowing of future change; and it is to be found, not in index to the discussion of present, but in the contemplation of past opinion. events; not in the journals, but in the drama. Veluti in speculum may then be with truth inscribed over the curtain of every theatre. The ardent desires and aspirations of the human mind, unable to find a vent in public assemblies, a free press, or the discussion of present events, seek it in the realms of imagination; the license of the theatre consoles for the restrictions of the senate-house; and the dreams of perfectibility are indulged in a world of the poet's creation, if they are not to be found in that of the statesman's direction. This is the true cause of the elevation and frequent grandeur of thought in the drama of despotic states, and its ultimate degradation in free communities in the former it is the expression of noble and generous thought, in the latter it is the scene of relaxation from it. Thence it was that Corneille and Voltaire poured forth such noble declamations in favour of

VOL. V.

Ꮐ

CHAP. general freedom under the despotic rule of the Bourbons; XXVIII. thence it was that Shakespeare uttered such heart-stirring 1800-48. sentiments at the absolute court of Queen Elizabeth;

3.

and thence it was, in later times, that the drama had not even arisen in America, in an age when Schiller and Goethe had rendered it immortal in Germany, and that Alfieri's noble tragedies on Roman liberty were contemporary only with Sheridan's comedies on the English. stage.

The Germans say that the French have got the land, Cause of its the English the sea, and themselves the air. No one can character in be acquainted with their literature without perceiving

romantic

Germany.

that there is much truth in this observation, and that as much as it is inferior to the works of English thought in practical utility or acquaintance with the social necessities of mankind, is it superior to most of them in ardour of imagination and romance of sentiment. This difference between two people sprung from the same stock, and commencing their career with the same institutions, is very remarkable, and strikingly indicative of the influence of situation and external circumstances upon the ultimate character of general thought. The Germans have built their castles in the air, because they were unable to construct them upon the earth. For the most part shut out by their inland position from the ocean, they were deprived of the material resources and extended intercourse of commerce; surrounded by military monarchies, which turned all the external energies of the state to war, and crushed every approach towards liberal institutions at home, the middle classes neither acquired the social importance, nor, if they had gained it, could they have wielded the physical strength necessary in a conflict with a powerful and proud aristocracy, and a government having at its command great armies. Thus the powers of intellect and imagination, second in the German race to none in the world, were of necessity turned into the realms of imagination, from the closing of all the avenues to practical exertion;

XXVIII.

1800-48.

and thence both the aerial turn of their literature, and the CHAP. sudden start to the very highest eminence which it made. In all respects, save race and descent, the circumstances of Great Britain were the very reverse; and if the Germans had been placed in a land encircled by the waves, abounding in coal and ironstone, and on the frontier of the Atlantic, and the English in an inland territory, without the means of commerce, and constrained in self-defence to turn all their energies to the military art, the character of the literature of the two countries would probably have been reversed.

4.

German

It is not in general in the outset of its intellectual course that nations, any more than individuals, evince the Dawn of decided bent which race or circumstances are destined to literature. imprint upon its subsequent stages. Early youth in both is in the first instance imitative. The Greeks themselves, gifted beyond any people that ever existed with original genius, copied in the outset from the Persians and Egyptians; the marbles of Lycia and Ægina preceded the Parthenon. On the dawn of letters and of art in modern Europe, the classical models were the object first of the most extravagant admiration, next of servile imitation. It is by the collision of original genius with the study of the great works of antiquity that a new school is formed, guided in its conceptions by the former, chastened in its execution by the latter. This is exactly what took place in Germany the classical and imitative school preceded the romantic and original; and the latter in its infancy was strongly tinctured with the images and ideas of the former. But various circumstances tended both to make the spring of intellect later in Germany than in the adjoining states, and to cause it, when it did arise, to start almost at once into perfection and vigour.

Its inland situation and military bent, forced upon it from being the battle-field of Europe, was the main cause of the long intellectual night which overspread the German Empire. Its nobles were constantly, as it were,

XXVIII.

1800-48.

CHAP, clothed in armour; its burghers arrayed in defence of their walls; its peasants tilling the soil for haughty and warlike nobles. Its inhabitants were neither protected Causes of from invasion by a barrier of mountains, like the Italians wardness of or Spaniards, nor sheltered by a barrier - stream and

5.

the back

its litera

ture.

incomparable situation like the French, nor encircled by the ocean and guarded by their fleets like the English; on the contrary, the German plains were the scene in which they all engaged in mortal conflict. Situated in the centre of Europe, and too much divided into separate dominions to be able then to repel aggression by their native strength, the German states have alternately been the prey of internal discord and the theatre of external aggression. The Poles, the Huns, the Franks, the Italians, the Spaniards, have successively ravaged their fields, or contended in them for the mastery of Europe: war has not been to them a season only of pleasurable excitement as to the French and the English, but it has brought its ravages and desolation home to the hearths of the burghers and the cottages of the poor. Such a state of things is inconsistent with the growth of a national literature, which, though it is often stimulated by the excitement and passions of war, can only take root and flourish amidst the tranquillity and enjoyments of peace. There was no national literature in Scotland till the Union with England had made it cease to be the battle-field of the British Islands; nor in Spain till the expulsion of the Moors had given the Castilians leisure to reflect on the exploits of the Cid and the Paladins of Christendom. Religious freedom was extinguished in Germany by the victory of the White Mountain near Prague; and it never acquired domestic peace till the victories of Eugene and Marlborough had tamed for a season the ambition of France, and those of Frederick the Great had secured the independence of Northern Germany.

That science had made great progress during the