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he compares Kant to the sanguinary dictators of '93, and proclaims the gospel of pantheism. His theory of the intellectual history of the German people is therefore false in every way; it should be consulted only as furnishing information (but too true, alas!) on the mystic and sensual fever of a portion of the present century. When the author has passed this period, the style of his writing is entirely changed; kindly feeling and amiable grace appear in every part, and sympathy restores his independence. How touchingly does he describe the errors of Fichte's youth! With what emotion does he narrate the life of Lessing! How well does he explain the origin of romance, and exhibit in illustration of the subject the old popular legends, so full of deep feeling! We have found the poet again-we forget the philosopher. Sometimes, in a few rapid words, he produces a noble figure and exhibits it to us in a true and forcible light. Thus, in speaking of M. Jacob Grimm, he exclaims: His erudition is gigantic as a mountain, and his mind as pure and fresh as the stream that issues therefrom." Concerning Goethe, Herder, Oken, M. Varnhagen d'Ense-concerning the very men whom he has most censured, Arnim, Novalis and Brentano, he writes a few beautiful, though brief passages. Do not these generous portraits make us forget many of the caricatures? We forget the impious expressions, when we see the inconsistency of that which his heart dictates with what his pen has formerly written. The same author who, in speaking of the metaphysical works of Kant, exclaims, with triumphant irony-" Do not you hear the bell sounding? Kneel down, they are taking the sacrament to a dying God,”—remarks, in another place, but two pages afterwards-" It is sufficient for me to hear any one disputing the existence of God, to awaken inquietude in my mind; I feel then an indefinable oppression, such as I once experienced in London, when, during a visit to New Bedlam, I found myself alone, abandoned by my guide, in the midst of a band of madmen. To doubt in God is to doubt in life itself; it is not less than death." We shall soon see the mask fall from the man who appeared anxious to disperse, like unfortunate phantoms, the most sacred dogmas of his fathers, and soon he will give utterance to those words which will completely disarm us :-" No, no; truly, it is vain that I attempt to deny it, old Germany is still at the bottom of my heart."

It was impossible that H. Heine could have attacked so many favourite tenets, given the death-blow to so many systems, and mercilessly

introduced so many books and proper names into his sarcastic pages, without bitterly irritating the German people. They had not yet pardoned Louis Boerne for his ridicule; but they had excused him, on account of the nobleness and generosity of his soul. On the contrary, the ever-varying and mirthful irony of the author of the Reisebilder disconcerted the grave and serious Germans, and maintained their prejudices. For some years there was a fierce outery against this renegade. Regarded by M. Menzel as an emissary of the modern Babylon, cursed by the rigid adherents of the Teutonic school as a representative of Parisian depravity, he was not less suspiciously eyed by the democrats, who accused him of treason. In addition to this, he had to endure official persecution.

A humorist ought certainly to be superior to emotions of anger; yet H. Heine had not hitherto attained that desirable elevation, and it is to his irritation, heightened by attacks of various kinds, that his book on Louis Boerne must be attributed. The author of the Lettres sur Paris was just dead; he was the civilian of the liberal party-the "firm Jacobin character" who was ever placed in contradistinction to H. Heine. H. Heine writes a description of him, caricaturing his great and noble qualities. The book is witty, bold, and vigorous; but is it as terrible as H. Heine intended it to be? No, in truth; and no one suffered from it except the author himself. Let us forget this unworthy act of retaliation, and return to poetry.

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My poem has no object, like life, like love! Seek not to find any aim in it. Atta-Troll is not a type of German nationality; he does not meddle with the questions of the day." Thus commences the charming story of Atta-Troll, in which the poet appears to be imbued with the best feelings of his youth. Gaiety and poetry, irony and imagination, these unite in diapason harmony; it is the work of a German artist. Let us not place implicit confidence in his word when he promises a poem entirely the production of his fancy-the dream of a summer's night-a romantic vision in the realms of Puck and Titania. Satire will be sure to find a place in it, but will not, however, be permitted to deface its beauty. It is a morning in May; the perfumes of the meadows and forests are wafted on vernal breezes; everything is in motion; everything has a voice; and whilst you are wandering in unfrequented paths, countless birds, concealed in the branches, are warbling satirical songs. But there are other sounds besides those of

birds; from the caves of the rocks, from the ravines of the Pyrenees, resound the growlings of bears and the noise of their conspiracy against the human race. There are, as it were, secret clubs in the subterranean dens of the mountains. Listen to these menaces, these cries of vengeance, these incendiary schemes! It is the voice of Atta-Troll instructing his untamed family. Atta-Troll is a bear who formerly used to dance in the laughing valleys of the Pyrenees, under the balconies of Cauterets and Bagnères de Bigorre; he used to dance for the amusement of the idle and think of the time when, roaming free on the mountains, he deemed himself monarch of the world. One day he breaks his chain, and runs away. What happens to him in his retreat until the day he is killed by the son of the sorceress Uraka, we must inquire of H. Heine. The visions in the ravine of spirits, the cavalcade of spectres, and the apparition of the beautiful Herodias, form a scene full of grace and passion. This somnambulism, for which the author has so frequently censured the school of romance, he here treats seriously, and finds unexpected inspiration. The moon casts her spells around the valley of Roncevaux. Countless images of the chivalric ages arise, and appear galloping and singing on the enchanted mountains. "Hallo! huzza!" it is the last meeting of the shades-the last fete of the poetry of Brentano and Fouqué. In the midst of these flights of his fancy, satire does not forget its task; literary, political satire, both are at work. On the one hand, we have the poet Freiligrath with his bears, his jackals, his negro kings, and all the menagerie of the desert; on the other, the democracy of Germany, with its deafening shouts. Is then this bear, who, after having broken his chain, busily inculcates his revolutionary theories at the bottom of his den, intended to represent a certain portion of Germany? Hush! the author says not so much as that; the rest is veiled, and we find a species of melancholy in the midst of the most brilliant allegros.

It is certain that H. Heine beholds with regret the disappearance, on the approach of the democrats, of that poetry which delighted his youth. He feels the charm of the poetry which he formerly satirized, now that the demagogues have declared war against the ideal, and are endeavouring to make imagination the handmaiden of politics.

One of H. Heine's characteristics is his predilection for Germany, even at the time when he appears to be renouncing it with anger. He lives in France; he desires the favour of

the French, and, in order to obtain it, he sometimes does violence to his nature. Despite this, he is still a German, and it is towards Germany his eyes are turned. German politics, German literature, the parties, schools, newspapers and "thirty-six states of his beloved native land"-these are his theatre, and these furnish the inexhaustible fund of his irony and gaiety.

Atta Troll appeared in 1840, at the time political poetry was beginning to create a sensation. A new band had appeared in the field, urging instant reform in the realms of fancy. The author of the Buch der Lieder had already effected a revolution in these territories; but, whatever was the mode of his attacks, whether violent or sarcastic, the ideal always appeared in them. Nothing of the kind was to be found among the reformers: the ideal was proscribed, reverie was abandoned to children; poetry must henceforth be the voice of revolution, the clarion of the approaching battles. Nothing was now to be seen but extracts in verse from the newspapers on political questions, pamphlets arranged in rhyme, appeals to the people, petitions to the King of Prussia, hymns to the future unity of the German nation. Nothing could have appeared more seasonably than the irony of Atta-Troll. It proved unavailing, however, in stemming the torrent; and from 1840 to 1845 the clamours of the democratic poets became each day more deafening. H. Hoffmann of Fallersleben, in the domain of light literature, and H. Herwegh, in that of the serious, appeared to have become the supreme governors of the German muse. It was at this period that the "new poems" of H. Heine appeared.

The book opens with a collection of stanzas of inimitable purity and beauty. Under the title of Neuer Fruhling (New Spring), the author furnishes a continuation of those elegiac poems -Junge Leiden, Intermezzo, and Heimkehr— which grace the Buch der Lieder. Then follow many brilliant and imaginative pieces; some too much imbued with Parisian levity, others full of vigour and beauty. At length, after this singular overture, in which tones of every description are blended, commences the political and poetical symphony entitled Germany; a Winter's Tale. Germany is the counterpart of Atta-Troll. Atta-Troll is the production of an Ariosto of the north, who is ever seeking to disguise the boldness of his thought under the elegant veil of figure; Germany possesses neither figures nor veils, it is a work in which the daring spirit of the author shows itself undisguised. Atta-Troll

sparkles with all the lustre of the south; Germany transports us to the mists of the north. The first is "the dream of a summer's night," the second is a "winter's tale;" the antithesis is perfect.

H. Heine is about to make a tour of some weeks' duration in his native land, and on the road from the frontiers of France to Hamburg, although the distance is short, he finds abundant food for his raillery. The Prussian customhouse, the cathedral of Cologne, the old Rhine, celebrated in the lofty tones of Becker, and so eagerly claimed by M. Alfred de Musset; the hotels of Minden, the principality of Buckeburg, the forest of Teutoburg and the statue of Arminius, Mount Kyffhaueser, and the cave of Frederic Barbarossa, and, lastly, Hamburg itself these are the varied objects that fall under the lash of his satire. The book closes with remonstrances to the King of Prussia, the lofty tones of which remind us of the invectives of Dante.

But Germany is not the work of a mere turbulent and satirical revolutionist: H. Heine includes everything, not excepting even himself, in his ridicule. The very democrats, with whom he appears to be in league, he covers with sarcasm. The liberals share the same fate as the bigoted; the national party is as ill-treated as King Frederic-William I. The author possesses the talent of comprising even past ages in his caricatures of the present day: in proof of this talent, how ably has he ridiculed the whole of Germany in the cave of Barbarossa-under the oaks of Arminius! He is ever the incorrigible humorist who delights in irritating his peaceable country in every possible manner; who pretends, by his satire, to raise himself above all beliefs; who amuses himself by baffling criticism; and who, in caricaturing the democrats, has still the power of replying with comic indignation to their attacks: "Thou liest, Brutus; thou liest, Cassius; thou liest, also, Asinius!"

Was not his irony too long continued? Did it not resemble a part arranged beforehand, and intended henceforth to form portion of his character? That deep feeling which we have instanced as appearing even in the midst of impious expressions and writings, has it been preserved intact? Has not the author destroyed many of the lovely gifts with which nature had endowed him? These were the questions being asked by the public, when it was heard that H. Heine, who for more than three years had been stretched on his sick-bed, struck with paralysis and almost deprived of sight, had just completed a new volume of

poems, and was about to take leave of the public.

How deep were the emotions this simple announcement created! Despite the prejudices entertained by so many against him, the author of the Buch der Lieder has always been a favourite poet in his native land. Whether from Berlin, Frankfort, Vienna or Munich, none of his fellow-poets ever went to Paris without knocking at the door of the dying poet, and inquiring affectionately concerning his welfare. All agreed in 'testifying to the victorious serenity with which he witnessed the approach of death; all admired his mental courage; and all were astonished at the firmness of soul of which they had hitherto doubted.

Endless were the conjectures started at this time concerning the dying man. What is become of the imagination of the satirist? was the inquiry. What lesson have years taught him? What has death told him, while seated even at his bedside? Is it true that he has denied the Hegelian tenets? that he has turned to God? that he believes in a future state? The Bible has converted him, we are assured by some; Moses is now his idol; he has again embraced the Jewish doctrines he so frequently satirized. Thus were opinions divided; some experiencing anxiety, others hope, and all expressing curiosity. The dying poet once more deceived the expectations of the public. As we found him in the ardour of youth, so does he now appear, while under the eye of his dread guest. The author of the Romancero is still the Heinrich Heine of old, the writer of the Reisebilder and Buch der Lieder; the irony is still that of former happy days, only it is more poignant; death is frequently introduced, and the grave is mournfully derided. If a few new tones are occasionally heard like a stifled lament, it will require an attentive ear to catch the meaning of them, in the midst of the peal of mirthful sounds.

The preface to the Romancero is one of those humorous medleys of which the author has been rather lavish. The poet takes leave of his readers and publicly makes his profession of faith in philosophy and religion. His regret in bidding farewell to the public is undoubtedly sincere; but, in addition to this, there is another circumstance which occasions his sorrow: the comedy is over, the curtain falls, and the theatre is about to close its doors; what will become of the puppets who performed their parts so cleverly under his direction? What will become of this and that one? It is well known that H. Heine is not scrupulous in introducing proper names. Poor

puppets! he is anxious, at least, before parting from them, to repair the injury he has done. He therefore retracts numerous accusations he has formerly advanced, and makes peace with his enemies in the most serious manner possible. Having satisfactorily arranged these affairs, it is meet that he should be reconciled to God.

"Yes, I have made my peace with the creature, and I have also made it with the Creator-and that to the scandal of my friends the philosophers, who have bitterly reproached me for relapsing into the old superstitions: thus do they designate my return to God. All the friends of atheism have passed the anathema upon me, and there are many of the upholders of scepticism who would willingly inflict torture to wring from me the confession of my heresy. Fortunately for me, the only instruments of torture they can employ are their writings. Without torture, however, I shall confess everything. Yes, I have returned to God, like the prodigal son, after having long fed the swine with the Hegelians. Is it misery that has driven me to this? No, it is a less pitiful motive. I have traversed the forests and mountains of logie; on my road, I encountered the god of the pantheists, but I could not worship him. He is but a chimerical being, interwoven in the fabric of the universe; in matter only is he great-in that he is imprisoned, and there he remains, staring at us, destitute of power and reason. The existence of a will presupposes a person, and for the manifestation of this will ample space must be furnished. If, then, we seek a god capable of rendering us aid-and that is the principal thing-we must admit a personal god, a being superior to the universe, and endowed with the holy attributes of goodness, wisdom, and infinite justice. Then the immortality of the soul is granted us over and above, like the bone which the butcher, when satisfied with his customers, throws gratis into their baskets. These bones are called in French kitchens la réjouissance, and they make excellent soup which revives and strengthens the poor invalid. Every sensible man will believe that Î never refuse a réjouissance of this description, but, on the contrary, that I always think of it with pleasure."

The most serious ideas may be expressed by comic figures, and this it is that constitutes humour. Nevertheless, we are tempted to ask whether H. Heinc's theology is indeed serious, when, in a few pages, we come to so droll a description of the employments reserved for man in another world. All the vulgar objections to the dogma of a higher existence are here personified and caricatured. He who wrote such pages was not quite cured of pantheism; his heart aspires to a God in whom his mind has not power to believe, and this impotence, as usual, he avenges by irony. His poetry alone remains as fresh and brilliant as at first. He is thinking of the magician Merlin, the British poet, whose death was so delightful and peaceful. Merlin died under the great oaks of his native soil, while innumerable birds warbled above

his head; Heine himself is far distant from the trees and the sun; he is dying amidst the confusion of Paris. Let poetry, at least, approach with its magic illusions! Let the whole world, from Asia to America-let all religions and all ages-let countless images, both mournful and joyous, come at his call, and surround the bed of the dying poet!

Such is, in truth, the character of the Romancero. The first part contains, under the title of Tales, a series of romances, ballads and poems, borrowed from all ages and glittering with the most varied colours; kings of Egypt, emperors of Siam, abbots, nuns, barons of the middle ages, sovereigns of modern times, revolutionists, savages from the New World, heterogeneous forms of every description are assembled in this brilliant gallery. After having thus followed his imagination through the various ages of history; after having passed in array these numerous figures-some comic, others tragic-intended by him to represent the confused movement of the human race, H. Heine will now speak in his own name. The second book of the Romancero is entitled Lamentations. These lamentations begin merrily enough with some clever literary satires; but immediately succeeding them is a delightful description of his life as an invalid, in a series of poems bearing the title of Lazare. These are a collection of dreams, reveries, curious reminiscences and epigrams, which he discharges in various directions, to pay off old reckonings; then we meet with unexpected bursts of emotion, or gloomy caricatures of the pale guest who is knocking at his door. He watches himself placed in the bier, and with poignant mirth describes the visit that a beloved friend will pay to his grave the following year. He speaks to her from the bottom of his sepulchre, brings his raillery into action, and professes to doubt the sincerity of her grief. What! even after death will the incredulity of the humorist continue its task? But let us turn to the following page, and this melancholy impression will be dispelled. We find here some noble stanzas, in which the poet, with tears, supplicates the angels of heaven to take his place in the house of mourning, and to be the ever-watchful guardians of her whom he has just been addressing in irony.

In examining these productions, which contain so remarkable an union of joy and sorrow, our cager desire is to obtain some information respecting the religious emotions of the author. The last book of the Romancero is composed of "Hebrew Melodies;" and it appears to us that this final poem ought to contain H. Heine's

real sentiments. Listen to these melodies: they are like dormant recollections awakening, like sentiments long since destroyed reviving in the mind. In the first poem of this seriesThe Princess Sabbath-he speaks of the old Jews he has so frequently ridiculed, with a species of embarrassment that betrays respectful affection. The finest and most poetical composition in the book, according to our ideas, is that dedicated to the great Jewish poet of the middle ages, Jehuda ben Halevy. Let us devote a few moments to the examination of it. The poet is thinking of Jehuda ben Halevy; the stanzas of the old rabbi are echoing in his ears; they are from the song of Prince Israel and Princess Sabbath. He sees before him the stern figures of some of the ancient Jews; he beholds the shadows with their long, white beards, and recognises Jehuda ben Halevy.

"Let my tongue cleave to my palate, and let my right hand be withered, if ever I forget thee, Ö Jerusalem!

"These words are echoing in my mind unceas ingly to-day; I fancy I hear voices, the voices of men singing hymns.

"Occasionally, also, I have visions of beards-of the long beards of shades. . . . Spectres of my dreams, which of you is Jehuda ben Halevy?

"But they are departing rapidly--they have vanished; the rude appeal of the living has terrified the phantoms. Nevertheless, I recognised him. "I recognised him by his pale forehead bearing the impress of noble thoughts, by the mild fixedness of his look (how attentively and anxiously did he gaze upon me !).

"But, in particular, I recognised him by the mysterious smile of his beautiful lips, so harmoniously united, like his own notes. None but poets have such lips."

He then narrates the childhood of the poet with tenderness and delight, mingled with a little innocent raillery. How carefully and piously was Jehuda educated! How well did he sing the old text of the Bible to the sacred airs appointed for it! He lived in the Talmud as in a boundless world, and in the Talmud he grew up. No poet, since the world began, was endowed with richer gifts. God had taken pleasure in moulding his noble, yet pliant soul; and when he saw it, being satisfied with his work, he "kissed the beautiful soul, and the lovely sound of this embrace echoes in every one of the poet's stanzas." Jehuda ben Halevy was inspired with a most deeply-rooted love and veneration for Jerusalem; his heart bled when he read the narratives of those who had seen the temple in ruins, and the holy country of the prophets polluted; he loved the land in which so many great and miraculous events had taken place, he loved it ardently, passionately; he loved

it as the troubadour Geoffrey Rudel loved the Countess Melisand of Tripoli. Geoffrey had seen Melisand only in his dreams, he embarked, and on reaching the shores of Tripoli, expired in the presence of his mistress. Jehuda ben Halevy also set out for Jerusalem, and, like Geoffrey Rudel, he expired in the arms of his beloved one. This is the story that H. Heine relates with a singular union of irony and deep sentiment. We may designate the poem of Jehuda ben Halevy as one of the best productions of the author of the Romancero. The enthusiasm of his hero introduces us to the mysteries of Jewish poetry, and the author furnishes us with a portrait of himself, in which the conflicting sentiments that dispute the empire of his soul and the lovely images that are ever present to his mind are admirably depicted. Jewish or Nazarene, and Greek literature are, he has often remarked, the two great divisions of history; Homer and the Bible comprise, in his estimation, all the philosophy of the world. He is not now speaking in jest; the Greek and Jewish world are disputing the first rank in his esteem. Formerly, the poetry of the Grecians accorded best with the ardour of youth, and led him a willing captive to the charms of her warchariots and martial music; now that youth is past and the world itself is disappearing, it is time for grave thoughts, and Jehuda ben Halevy has succeeded Homer.

The following poem, that which closes the volume, is the most Voltarian scene that the sceptic demon of his mind ever produced. It is a solemn controversy between a monk and a rabbi, in the presence of a Spanish Court of the middle ages. How deeply is it to be regretted that, even to his last day, the poet continues to envelope the feelings of his soul in the impenetrable veil of irony.

Irony! it is right we should confess it-after studying the life of an author who placed all the treasures of his imagination at the disposal of this indiscreet muse-irony cannot form the last chapter in the life of a poet and thoughtful man. We can readily understand the mournful and satirical look with which he gazed on the world, when the generous hopes that filled his youthful heart were annihilated by the cold realities of life; it was the revenge of deluded enthusiasm. We can comprehend it when we think of the agitated, feverish age in which he wrote, especially if we remember also that his native land had nothing to offer to him but pictures of ruin and of conflicting systems, and a state of literary anarchy succeeding the majestic reign of the masters.