altogether in the wrong, in a certain oracular communication which he made to Eckermann* regarding Uhland's poetical anni

"Mark me," said Göthe, "the politician will swallow up the poet. To be a member of parliament, and live in daily excitement and irritation, is not fitted for the tender nature of a poet. His song will soon sound its last note; and that is certainly not a matter of indifference. Swabia has many men eloquent and intelligent enough to conduct public business, but it has only one poet like Uhland.”—Göthe's Gespräche mit Eckermann, vol. i. p. 358.

We add here Heine's remarks on the same subject. After complaining of the great change that had come over the spirit of his own dream, and lamenting that he is now no longer able to sympathize with the romantic spirit of Uhland's ballads, Heine proceeds: And perhaps Uhland himself has fared little better than I. His own feelings must have undergone no small change since that period (1815). With very 'few exceptions, he has written nothing for twenty years. I cannot bring myself to believe that this proceeds from a natural barrenness of poetic feeling. I rather ' explain the silence of his muse by the contradiction in which it has found itself with 'the more pressing claims of his political situation. The elegiac poet, who sung so beautifully the glories of the ancient catholico-feudalistic ages, the Ossian of the 'middle ages, has now become a member of the Wurtemberg Chambers, and has dis'tinguished himself as a bold advocate of civil equality and freedom of thought. That the poet is sincere in all that he has done for the public, the great sacrifices he has made in its service leave no room to doubt. He has well deserved the civic crown that has taken the place of his poetic laurel. But this honest enthusiasm for the modern movement could not co-exist with an unabated reverence for the middle ages; and as his Pegasus was only a trim chivalrous steed, that trotted pleasantly through the region of the past, but stumbled upon the vulgar roads of modern time, Ludwig Uhland has seen proper, with a smile, to dismount, and lead his romantic 'beast into the stable. There the animal remains up to the present hour; and, like his colleague Baiardo, he possesses every possible virtue, and only one fault-he is 'dead.

that

'But, sooth to say, sharper eyes than mine have not failed to remark, that Uhland's 'chivalrous horse, with its storied housings and blazonings, never at any time suited very well with the homely quality of its civic rider, who, instead of boots and gold spurs, wears only shoes and silk stockings, and, instead of a helm, carries only a lawyer's wig on his head. These critics pretend to have made the discovery, Ludwig Uhland and his theme were at no time perfectly identical; they assert that the rough and wild, the naïve and natural tones of the middle ages, have not been ' revived by this poet, even in an ideal form, but that he has dissolved them into a sickly sentimental melancholy, that he has, so to speak, boiled down the strong stuff ' of the ancient popular poetry into a pleasant soup, for the weak taste of the modern 'public. And, indeed, when one views the ladies of Uhland's poetry a little more 'minutely, we find that they are only beautiful shadows, incarnate moonshine, milk in 'their veins, and in their eyes sweet tears; that is, tears without salt. In the same way, if we compare Uhland's knights with the sturdy old ancestors of Götz von Berlichingen, we cannot help thinking, how ridiculous soever the idea may appear, that they are mere lay-figures harnessed with polished tin, and stuffed within with rose'leaves, instead of blood and bones. Uhland's knights are far more tender than even 'the most tender and melting of the ancient troubadours, many of whom we know 'well, besides their great skill in harping, wore huge, unwieldy inexpressibles, and 'ate much, and drank more.'-Die Romantische Schule, p. 306-309.

We have made this extract from Heine at full length, partly because it is sufficiently characteristic of the writer, but chiefly because (as will appear more fully below) we agree in a great measure with the substance of the remarks which it contains. We are glad to find that our view of the weak side of Uhland's poetry is not exclusively English; and Heine can the less be suspected of saying any thing malicious on the present occasion, as he speaks of Uhland generally with the greatest kindliness and affection. Indeed, we must repeat here what we said of Heine in the beginning of this article, with all his faults, he is a kind, honest soul; and though he sometimes

hilation. But, sooth to say, we are not sorry that the romancer has chosen to be silent. In his very best poems, there is a tone to our British taste not altogether healthy, at least a certain manner a certain assumption of, and absorption in, middle-age feeling,—which, in a man who lives in the present age, with his eyes open, is surely, to say the least of it, not very natural.

In our own country, indeed, Wordsworth has created a little world of observation and speculation for himself; but Wordsworth is not, like Uhland, a member of parliament; and besides, his poetry, though very peculiar and very narrow in its sphere, is a poetry in every respect in and of the present; and so far as the poet himself is concerned, in every respect most actual, real, and natural. But that sort of moonlight Catholicism and sanctified chivalry in which Uhland deals is and can be natural nowhere save in the head of a modern German romancer.

This plea, however, Uhland, whose spirit has been so strongly carried along with the great political movement of these latter days, is not in a condition now to urge. If he continues to write the same sort of poetry now that he might naturally have written, and did, we hope, quite honestly and naturally write, when Frederick Schlegel was dictator, he becomes a decided mannerist; he loses all truth; he lives in a state of habitual selfcontradiction. Even the Germans, who tolerate all absurdities, will not understand to what asthetical purpose this saintly glory is allowed to mix its pale hues with the vigorous green of the civic crown. There remains, therefore, only this dilemma for him-either he must seek for a new inspiration, or he must give up poetry altogether. In the early part of the modern era, he seemed inclined to follow the former course; and he has written several " Freiheitslieder," which are kindly cherished by the most song-loving people of Europe, along with the more stirring strains of Arndt and Körner.

But Uhland has not succeeded in creating any new patriotic poetry, that can take up an honourable and independent position beside his own ballads and romances. He has, therefore, been obliged latterly to preserve a comparative silence; and there is little hope now that he will ever become a very voluminous writer. Indeed, he is altogether wanting in that luxuriance, grasp, and energy of mind, which are indispensably requisite to create a new literature to his country. Wolfgang Menzel is a more hopeful subject; and there is one who might do more than

trifles too much with right and wrong, yet we believe that he is, at bottom, a sincere lover of truth; and what he feels and knows to be true, that he speaks out with a most downright, uncompromising recklessness. We hope that he will yet bear good fruit.

VOL. XIX. NO. XXXVIII.

Y

both, if he only knew what his talents are worth. But Henry Heine has housed himself in Paris, which, in spiritual affairs, is at present one great madhouse; and he has recklessly laid aside the old Greek motto, without which no man can hope to prosper —Deivos ós beous Gε6. Let him reverence the gods, and not kick against the pricks; and Germany may yet mention his name with honour.

Out of such elements, partly modern-patriotic, but chiefly middle-age romantic, has the poetry of Uhland, and his brother minstrels, been developed. We hope we have not appeared too discursive in this sketch. Uhland is unintelligible, and, to a foreigner at least, very insignificant, when viewed apart from the school of which he is the offspring. Besides, an Englishman, who in all mystical matters is a profane person, requires to breathe for a few minutes the foreign atmosphere, before he can understand either the sense or the nonsense of a German poet. There are no railroads in this region. Romantic ideas will not allow themselves to be moved like so many men upon a chessboard. With this understanding, we may now proceed to a more particular review of Uhland's poems, earnestly requesting every individual, who may honour this article with a passing glance, not to attempt to square every thing we either have said, or may say, with an English yard-measure. There are clouds in German literature which were never intended to be touched.

The first part of these poems consists of what are called “Lieder;" though the greater part of them might more properly be termed "flittings of feeling" than "songs" in the proper sense of the word. There are also not a few small conceits scattered through them, such as the poetic reader has often plucked in Herrick's Hesperides, or other such flowery garden of old Engglish verse. We do not, however, intend by this comparison to put Uhland upon a par with the sterling old Englishman; if he were ten times Uhland, he is but a German, and would want the sound, healthy stuff of which an Englishman is composed. The best that can be said of Uhland is that his feeling is always pure and amiable, even when it is not altogether sound; wit he has none, and humour very little; his fancy is any thing but luxuriant; and we often miss that weight and manly dignity of thought which is so necessary to sustain and relieve a mere effusion of amiable feeling. What we most complain of in Uhland's lyrics, as in those of many other Germans, is a want of body and solidity. His ideas come across him as light and unsubstantial, but not seldom also as beautiful, as a summer-cloud: they have scarcely gratified the beholder's eye with the appearance of some nascent shape, when they flit away into nothing. They owe their

significancy, the momentary attention which the wandering eye bestows on them, neither to substance, size, nor shape, but sheerly to the ethereal beauty with which they are instinct, the sunny cheerfulness in which they are embosomed. But a voice, a smile, a sigh, a mere breath of sentiment, is not a poem; and for this reason we must say of many of these German "Lieder," that we value them not so much because they are poems, as because they are flitting thoughts of a poet. If that poet were not a most amiable and virtuous man, these poems would fail to charm us.

But we must here make one observation in justification of the Germans, and it is one to which the charitable critic will, we have no doubt, be willing to allow all due weight. In Germany every thing connected with feeling and sentiment, every thing comprehended under that most untranslateable word-Gemüthplays a much more distinguished part than among us. There is a kindliness, a warmness, an openness, a simplicity of soul about these Germans, of which we in this hard, practical, mercantile, money-making island have no conception. We have known some of them-long-headed, thinking men too-who were very children in the frankness of their natures; bushy-bearded men, and yet gentle withal, overflowing with love, redundant in affection, ready to throw themselves into every honest Christian's arms. These men have a poetry of their own, a poetry of pure child-like feeling and fondness of heart, which it were unjust to measure by canons of purely British criticism. We must not quarrel with an honest Deutscher's "Gemüth," because, when we laugh, he loves; and when we caricature, he weeps. Humour and sentiment, it is true, often run into one another; but it is not less true that they are oftentimes deadly enemies. Things may unite in the mind of a Shakspeare or a Richter, that in the common models of creation annihilate one another, like fire and water. There is no more fatal foe to all fine feeling than your vulgar humorist. And thus it is with the Englishman and the German. The one acts, and laughs, and caricatures; the other thinks, and weeps, and sentimentalizes. Perhaps we have chosen the better part; we are the more healthy natures. Hogarth is more than a match for Werther. But let us rejoice with trembling; let us judge charitably. Humour is good; but it is not the best. Reverence for the holy, and love for the beautiful, are the highest capacities of man. If we lose these, we lose our immortal gem. Thus far we are willing, on the eternal principles of human nature, to redeem from vulgar scorn the mysteries of that much-bespoken German "Gemüth.” But we must also be allowed to say without disguise, that there is in these poems of Uhland's a certain air of weak

consumptiveness, which we do not relish. There is not a little childish trifling, decking-out of pretty nothings, sheer shilly-shally, unadulterated namby-pamby. As Heine says of Tieck, so we are too often obliged to say of Uhland—if there is any strength in these poems, they are only strong when contrasted with the very weak tea which it is the fashion to drink in the literary soirées of Germany. Happily we are not singular in this opinion. Göthe, in a letter to Zelter, which has excited much bickering in Germany, expresses himself as follows.*

"I have got a strange sample of our modern German poets-"Gedichte von Gustav Pfitzer." This Pfitzer is not without talent, and seems moreover an amiable man. But such a miserable feeling of weakness came over me as I read, that I was obliged to throw down the book. In these times, when cholera is abroad, such depressing influences are to be avoided. The work is dedicated to Uhland, and from the region in which this poet dwells, there is little hope that any thing strong or invigorating will proceed. I do not blame the book, but I shall not look into it a second time. One trick of these gentlemen is most deserving of notice; they throw around them a certain ethico-religiouspoetical beggar's mantle, with such wonderful dexterity, that, even when their elbow looks out beneath it, this is considered as a poetical beauty. I shall send it you in my next parcel, and shall rejoice that it is out of the house.†

"Weimar, 4 October, 1831."

The opinion of the easy octogenarian on this subject must doubtless be taken with some grains of allowance. His indefatigable studies of Greek cameos and intermaxillary bones, and Newtonian optics, left him in his latter years very little room for any sort of sentiment, much less of religious, of which he was never peculiarly susceptible; but he, too, had written some good songs, and told some classic ballads in his day; and when he gave Zelter his opinion of Uhland and his school, there is no doubt he knew very well what he was talking of. He complains of a want of nerve and vigour-something to stimulate, stir, and strengthen the faculties; and to show how just his complaint is, we shall give a sample. Where, for instance, shall we find a poetic flower more tenderly glistening with the dew of pious tears, more delicately belit with sentimental moonshine, than the following?

* Zelter's Briefwechsel, vol. vi. p. 305.

†The poet who gave occasion to these remarks-Gustav Pfitzer-is a distinguished member of what is commonly called the Swabian School-He has been omitted in the present article because he has little of the romance element in him, and belongs more to Schiller than to Tieck.-We have no wish to class poets geographically.