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objects are useful, and pursued as means for producing tangible and visible improvements in the external accommodation of man; another great class of objects have, in most ages of the world, attracted the zeal of the finest spirits of the earth, although not leading to any thing so obviously advantageous-have been pursued, in a word, for their own sake alone, and believed to bring with them abundantly their own reward. In regard to the former class of objects, it must be admitted that the world was never so well off as it is now; we suspect that, in regard to the second, a little research would have a tendency to lead to a very different conclusion.

In respect to those branches of human exertion which are most evidently ornamental, our inferiority to former ages will not be disputed, even by the warmest admirers of their own time and of themselves. Our age produces no paintings like those of Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Correggio, or even like those of Holbein. In sculpture and architecture our poverty is equally apparent. If we are better than our immediate predecessors, if we no longer admire or imitate the absurdities of such men as Bernini, still we can sustain no comparison with the times of antiquity; nay, in regard to one of those arts we are utterly despicable, when compared with those ages of modern Europe which we are pleased to think and talk of as utterly dark and barbarous. Whatever excellence we attain in sculpture is derived from a servile imitation of the antique; and in regard to architecture, we seem to be so impressed with a sense of littleness, that we have absolutely given over attempting any thing that is worthy of being called great. We make no fresco paintings now-a-days, no colossal statues, no cathedrals. We may call this wisdom and philosophy if we will. We may rave about political economy and chemistry, and despise, if we choose, the simple ages which were more occupied with art than with science, with feeling than with analysing; but to those who consider this world as a preparatory scene, and our earthly life as a school for our intellect, and man as an immortal creature, whose desires and aspirations are at all times after the infinite, the spectacle of this, our boasted age, may perhaps appear to partake at least as

much of the humiliating as of the cheering. We are more knowing than our fathers, but the old breed was a noble one, and it may be worth our while to consider with ourselves whether we may not deserve the reproach of the satirist-Gens pusilla, acuta.

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Such reflections as these are not very common among the men of our nation, but in the book which now lies before us, and in many other works of those whom Madame de Stael classes with its author, under the name of ces grand penseurs Allemands,” we find sufficient proof that they are by no means unusual among the reflective men of another nation, which, in so far at least as philosophy and art are concerned, may be entitled to fully as much respect as our own. Although the last fifty years have produced in Germany more great and valuable literary works than the last hundred years among all the other nations of Europe, even the authors of Germany appear to be pretty free from that overweening self-complacency which is so visible in the writings of their French and English brethren. The truth is, that all the German writers of eminence are also scholars of eminence. They read before they think of writing. Their reverence for others tempers their confidence in themselves, They labour to improve and adorn their age, but they are modest enough to consider no little preparation as necessary for those who would enter upon such a vocation. In like manner, their books are too full of learning for our public, in its present state; they make allusions which our wits would laugh at as obscure, and pass into digressions which they would censure as absurd. Nevertheless, they are worth the studying, and will repay the labour which they demand from those who peruse them with advantage.

According to the author of these lectures, the chief cause of those defects which may be discovered in the art and literature of the present time, is to be found in the spirit of thought introduced by the philosophy of the last century. The object of that philosophy was revolution; its engine was derision. Its masters devoted all their talents to destroy the habitual veneration with which their countrymen of France and of Europe were accustomed to regard the political, moral, and religious institutions of

their fathers. They strove to repre-
sent every thing beyond their own
sphere, as existing only in prejudice,
and held sacred only by folly. Above
all things, it was their wish and pur-
pose to undermine those forms of gov-
ernment which are established among
all the descendants of the Gothic con-
querors of Europe. In order to make
these appear ridiculous, they pointed
the shafts of their wit, not only against
the Gothic thrones themselves, but
against all the art, and literature, and
philosophy, which had sprung up un-
der their protection. Their sole topics
of praise were found either among the
republican peoples of antiquity, or a-
mong
themselves; the former having
to boast, as they asserted, of the only
true artists, and their own age of the
only true sçavants.

It is with a certain mingled feeling of calmness and melancholy that we look back, from the present situation of affairs, to the image of those old times when the external aspect of things was harsher and ruder, but when hearts were warmer than they now are, and faith more firm. The history of the last century may at times provoke a contempt almost touching upon ridicule, but in general it is with feelings of a very different nature indeed, that we connect the circumstances of that eventful period with those of our own. As when dark clouds are seen progressively advancing over the face of a calm and lovely heaven, and the memory of past tempests is revived in the apprehension of new, it is not without an anxious and a mournful expectation that we see the old bands every day relaxing around us, and, under the specious name of improvement, every thing which our fathers loved and venerated borne by slow but sure degrees, into the reach of that revolutionary current which leads to a fearful, and as yet an unexplored, abyss. None seems to have contemplated the tendency of this age with more concern than Frederick Schlegel. The work which we have just read is a noble effort to counteract and repel its effects, to arouse forgotten thoughts and despised feelings, and to make men be national and religious once more, in order that once more they may be great. He is quite right in believing that, as the evil has proceeded, so must the cure also proceed from the influence of literature; and it is in re

gard to that great and splendid branch of human exertion, that he has chosen, in the first instance, to meet and combat the purposes and opinions of his antagonists. It is not necessary for us to explain by what circumstances, in the late history and present condition of his country, his views have been more immediately turned to the consideration of some of those subjects which his present work is most calculated to elucidate.

The truth is, that the old contest between the friends and the enemies of empiricism, which was sufficiently violent in the days of the Platonists and Peripatetics of antiquity, never attained its full height and vehemence The balance inclines till of late.

grievously to the meaner side. Man-
kind are now every where ashamed of
being, what the philosophers of the last
age were pleased to call unphilosophical.
Even the common people begin to take
more pride in having some general
ideas, than in retaining that warmth
of attachment to one set of objects,
which entirely depends, as they have
told, upon ignorance of that which is
The travelling
beyond their circle.
regiments of books which pour in their
heterogeneous impressions from the
four quarters of the heavens, level all
peculiarities before them, and turn the
private enclosures of attachment and
When
opinion into a thorough-fare.
the mind is artificially supplied, by
means of books, with more sources of
sentiment than are able at once har-
moniously to keep possession of it, the
speculative understanding steps in to
settle their claims, and concludes by
leaving the whole man in a woful state
of obliteration, which corresponds with
Wordsworth's description of a moralist.
"One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
No form nor feeling, great or small,
A reasoning self-sufficing thing,

An intellectual all-in-all."

To trace with that boldness which can only be inspired by mature skilfulness, a map of the whole history of human literature; to show how in every age, the action of literature upon nationality, and that of nationality upon literature, have been strictly reciprocal; and thus, by past examples, to warn the present generation of the dangers in which they have involved themselves, this was a great attempt, and we think Frederick Schlegel has accomplished it with very singular

success. He inculcates, throughout, the
necessity which there is, that literature
should have reference to an established
centre, namely, to religious faith, and
to national history and character,-
that its main employment should be
to nurse and strengthen our associa-
tions in relation to these objects, and
that, instead of being applied at ran-
dom as a stimulus to our faculties and
emotions, as meré abstract human be-
ings, it should bend all its powers to-
wards tutoring and forming the feel-
ings of men, destined to act a part as
citizens of their respective communi-
ties. In doing so, literature gains,
both by having a determinate purpose,
and by being the conservator of asso-
ciations, which grow more and more
valuable as they grow older. As every
nation has its own mental character
and constitution propagated from ge-
neration to generation, no traditions or
poetry can be so congenial to it, as those
which originated with itself in early
ages, constituting tests of its true bias
and genius, and continuing, during the
course of its history, to strengthen na-
ture itself by reacting upon the same
national temperament which at first
produced them. He shews that a great
national character can only be pre-
served, by endeavouring as much as
possible to cherish and keep alive the
characteristic spirit of our ancestors;
and that the literature of each nation,
instead of embodying all kinds of hu-
man ideas indifferently, should aim at
rivetting a peculiar set of impressions
proper to itself, which would have the
advantage of gaining force by every re-
iteration, and of pervading the whole
system both of private and public life.
Nothing can, we think, be more
beautiful than the manner in which
Schlegel calls up in succession the
master-spirits of antiquity, and ex-
tracts from their merits, and sometimes
from their defects, confirmation of the
theory which it is his purpose to de-
fend. The power, majesty, and en-
during beauty of the Greek, and the
comparative poverty of the Roman li-
terature, are both explained upon the
same principle and yet the general
conclusions to which he would lead us
are, throughout, so admirably blended
with the interesting and amusing por-
traiture of individual men and works,
that however strong may be the im-
pression of which we are conscious,
we cannot easily point out from what

particular part, either of narrative or disquisition, it has been derived, There is, for instance, at least as much of art, as of elegance and of feeling, in the view which he gives us of the Homeric writings.

"There is only one production, the high pre-eminence of which gives to the early ages of the Greeks a decided superiority over those of every other people, the Homeric poems, the still astonishing works of the Iliad and the Odyssey. These indeed are the work of a preceding age; but it is sufficiently evident from the language, the contents, and above all, from the spirit of these poems, that they were designed and composed within a short time (probably within a century) of the age of Solon. In his time, at all events, and partly by means of his personal exertions, they were first rescued from the precariousness and forgetfulness of oral recitation, arranged in the order in have ever since continued to be, the objects which we see them, and rendered, as they of universal attention and regard.

"Solon and his successors in the government of Athens, Pisistratus and the Pisistratidæ, over and above the delight which they must have derived from the composi tions themselves, were probably influenced by views of a nature purely political, to interest themselves in the preservation of the Homeric poems. About this period, that is six hundred years before Christ, the independence of the Greeks of Asia Minor was much threatened, not indeed as yet by the power of Persia, but by that of the Lydian monarchs, whose kingdom was soon after swallowed up in the immense empire of Cy.

rus.

As scon, however, as that conqueror had overcome Croesus, and extended his power over the lesser Asia, no clear-sighted patriot could any longer conceal from himself the great danger which was impendent over Greece. The greater part of the Gre cian states, indeed, seem to have remained long in their security, without foreseeing the storm which was so near them, and which burst with suck fury on their continent dur, ing the reigns of Darius and of Xerxes. But the danger must have been soon and thoroughly perceived by Athens, linked as she was in the closest intimacy with the Asiatic Greeks, not only by all the ties of a flourishing commerce, but also by the com mon origin of their Ionic race. The revival of these old songs which relate how Grecian heroes warred with united strength against Asia, and laid siege to the metropolis of Priam, occurred, at least, at a very favour able period, to nourish in the Greeks the pride of heroic feelings, and excite them to like deeds in the cause of their independence.

"Whether any such event as the Trojan war ever in reality took place, we have no positive means of deciding. The dynasty of Agamemnon and the Atreida, however,

falls almost within the limits of history. Neither is it at all unlikely that much intercourse subsisted at a very early period between the Greek peninsula and Asia Minor; for the inhabitants of the two countries were kindred peoples, speaking nearly the same language, and Pelops, from whom the peninsula derived its name, was a native of Asia. That the carrying away of a single princess should have been the cause of an universal and long protracted war, is, at least, abundantly consistent with the spirit of the heroic times, and forcibly recalls to our recollection a parallel period in the history of Christendom, and the chivalry of the middle ages. However much of fable and allegory may have been weaved into the story of Helen and Troy, that many great recollections of the remote ages were in some manner connected with the local situation of Troy itself, is manifest from the graves of heroes, the earthen tumuli which are still visible on that part of the coast. That these old Greek mounds or monuments, which were, according to universal tradition, pointed out as the graves of Achilles and Patroclus, over one of which Alexander wept, envying the fate of the hero who had found a Homer to celebrate him,-that these were in existence in the time of the poet himself is, I think, apparent from many passages of the Iliad. It was reserved for the impious, or at least the foolish curiosity of our own age, to ransack these tombs, and violate the sacred repose of the ashes and arms of heroes, which were found still to exist within their recesses. But all these are matters of no importance to the subject of which I am at present treating; for although the Trojan war had been altogether the creation of the poet's fancy, that circumstance could have had little influence either on the object which Solon and Pisistratus had in view, or on the spirit of patriotism which was excited by the revival of the Homeric poems. The story was at all events universally believed, and listened to, as an incident of true and authentic history.

"To the Greeks, accordingly, of every age, these poems possessed a near and a national interest of the most lively and touching character, while to us their principal attraction consists in the more universal charm of beautiful narration, and in the lofty representations which they unfold of the heroic life. For here there prevails not any peculiar mode of thinking, or system of prejudices, adapted to live only within a limited period, or exclusively to celebrate the fame and pre-eminence of some particular race;-defects which are so apparent both in the old songs of the Arabians, and in the Poems of Ossian. There breathes throughout these poems a freer spirit, a sensibility more open, more pure, and more universal -alive to every feeling which can make an impression on our nature, and extending to every circumstance and condition of the great family of man. A whole world is laid

open to our view in the utmost beauty and clearness, a rich, a living, and an ever moving picture. The two heroic personages of Achilles and Ulysses, which occupy the first places in this new state of existence, embody the whole of a set of universal ideas and characters which are to be found in almost all the traditions of heroic ages, although nowhere else so happily unfolded or delineated with so masterly a hand. Achilles, a youthful hero, who, in the fulness of his victorious strength and beauty, exhausts all the glories of the fleeting life of man, but is doomed to an early death and a tragical destiny, is the first and the most lofty of these characters; and a character of the same species is to be found in numberless poems of the heroic age, but perhaps no where, if we except the writers of Greece, so well developed as in the sagas of our northern ancestors. Even among the most lively nations, the traditions and recollections of the heroic times are invested with a half mournful and melancholy feeling, a spirit of sorrow, sometimes elegiac, more frequently tragical— which speaks at once to our bosoms from the inmost soul of the poetry in which they are embodied: whether it be that the idea of a long vanished age of freedom, greatness, and heroism, stamps of necessity such an impression on those who are accustomed to live among the narrow and limited institutions of after times; or whether it be not rather that poets have chosen to express only in compositions of a certain sort and in relation to certain periods, those feelings of distant reverence and self-abasement with which it is natural to us at all times to reflect on the happiness and simplicity of ages that have long passed away, In Ulysses we have displayed another and a less elevated form of the heroic life, but one scarcely less fertile in subjects for poetry, or less interesting to the curiosity of posterity. This is the voyaging and wandering hero, whose experience and acuteness are equal to his valour, who is alike prepared to suffer with patience every hardship, and to plunge with boldness into every adventure; and who thus affords the most unlimited scope for the poetical imagination, by giving the opportunity of introducing and adorning whatever of wonderful or of rare is supposed, during the infancy of geography, by the simple people of early societies, to belong to ages and places with which they are personally unacquainted. The Homeric works are equalled, or perhaps surpassed, in awful strength and depth of feeling by the poetry of the north-in audacity, in splendour, and in pomp, by that of the oriental nations. Their peculiar excellence lies in the intuitive perception of truth, the accuracy of description, and the great clearness of understanding, which are united in them, in a manner so unique, with all the simplicity of childhood, and all the richness of an unrivalled imagination. In them we find a mode of composition so full, that it often

becomes prolix, and yet we are never weary of it, so matchless is the charm of the language, and so airy the lightness of the narrative; an almost dramatic developement of characters and passions, of speeches and replies; and an almost historical fidelity in the description of incidents the most minute. It is perhaps to this last peculiarity, which distinguishes Homer so much, even among the poets of his own country, that he is indebted for the name by which he is known to us. For Homeros signifies, in Greek, a witness or voucher, and this name has probably been given to him on account of his truth, such truth I mean as it was in the power of a poet-especially a poet who celebrates heroic ages, to possess. To us he

is indeed a Homer-a faithful voucher, an

unfalsifying witness, of the true shape and

fashion of the heroic life. The other ex

planation of the word Homeros a blind man-is pointed out in the often repeated and vulgar history which has come down to us of the life of a poet, concerning whom we know absolutely nothing, and is without doubt altogether to be despised. In the poetry of Milton, even without the express assertion of the poet himself, we can discover many, marks that he saw only with the internal eye of the mind, but was deprived of the quickening and cheering influence of the light of day. The poetry of Ossian is clothed, in like manner, with a melancholy twilight, and seems to be wrapped, as it were, in an everlasting cloud. It is easy to perceive that the poet himself was in a similar condition. But he who can conceive that the Iliad and the Odyssey,

the most clear and luminous of ancient

poems, were composed by one deprived of his sight, mast, at least in some degree, close his own eyes, before he can resist the evidence of so many thousand circumstances which testify, so incontrovertibly, the re

verse.

"In whatever way, and in whatever century, the Homeric poems might be created and fashioned, they place before us a time when the heroic age was on the decline, or had perhaps already gone by. For there are two different worlds which both exist together in the compositions of Homer,the world of marvels and tradition, which still however appears to be near and lively before the eyes of the poet; and the living circumstances and present concerns of the world which produced the poet himself. This commingling of the present and the past (by which the first is adorned and the second illustrated), lends, in a pre-eminent degree to the Homeric poems, that charm which is so peculiarly their characteristic.

"Of old the whole of Greece was ruled by kings who claimed descent from the heroic races. This is still the case in the world of Homer. Very soon, however, after his time, the regal form of government was entirely laid aside, and every people which had power enough to be independent, erect

ed itself into a little republic. This change in the government of states, and the condition of their citizens, must have had a tendency to render the relations of society every day more and more prosaic. The old heroic tales must have by degrees become foreign to the feelings of the people, and there can be little doubt that this universal revolution of governments must have mainly contributed towards bringing Homer into that sort of oblivion, out of which he was first recalled by the efforts of Solon and Pisistratus.

His account of the Greek dramatists, historians, and philosophers, is equally excellent with regard to the last set of writers, however, we suspect his observations are much better fitted for German than for English readers. With the exception of the unhappy young gentlemen who are drilled into a superficial and mechanical knowledge of some part of Aristotle's writings at Oxford and Cambridge, the whole subject of ancient philosophy is, we verily believe, as little known in Eng

land as in Iceland. Even the most dis

tinguished of our philosophical writers, Mr Dugald Stewart, never touches upon it, without betraying ignorance unworthy of his great genius. We hope the day is not far distant, when the example of the Germans, more lately, of the French themselves, may produce an important and happy change, in this particular, among a set of men who are far too good to be thrown away upon the vain work of doing over again things that were as well understood two thousand years ago as they

are now.

As a specimen of the view which literature of the Romans, we extract our author takes of the history of the the following very original, and, we think, satisfactory account of their drama.

"In the drama the Romans were perpetually making attempts, from the time of Ennius downwards. In truth, however, they have left nothing in that department of poetry except translations from the Greek, -more or less exact, but never executed with sufficient spirit to entitle them even to the less servile name of imitations. The lost tragedians, Pacuvius and Attius, were mere translators; and the same thing may be said of the two comic poets, Plautus and Terence, whose writings are in our hands. That old domestic species of bantering comedy, which was known by the Oscian name of fabula atellana, was not however entirely laid aside. It still preserved its place as an amusement of society in the merry meetings of the nobles; who, in the

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