which others hold an advantage. Did the so-called injury rob this great man of his philosophy, his good heart, his wit, his virtue! It robbed him not-but it gave him peace, independence of outward judgments, freedom from tormenting wants, and the incapacity of being wounded; and with this consciousness he could venture upon the punishment of every vice. Great man! Thank God that thou wert born in a country where they wondered at thy wisdom, instead of, as at present, punishing it. Fools would commit the only wise man to a madhouse; but, like Socrates, he would ennoble his prison.

"The painter would be ridiculous in offending against costume.' This is true, but more witty than applicable to me. I need only say, that the painter of costume is not the greatest in his art; he is great whose pencil creates, not after the tailor, but after God; paints bodies, not dresses. The painter's creations can only please through form, which is the shell; and am I designed for that? Is it my destination, with my organised ugliness, to please! Scarcely-if I would.

"But enough. I hold the constant regard that we pay in all our actions to the judgments of others as the poison of our peace, our reason, and our virtue. Upon this slave's chain have I long filed, but I scarcely hope ever to break it.'

"This humorous controversy was kept up for some months on paper, as games of chess are played in Holland, without either party saying check to the king. At last Paul consented, as he called it, to inhull his person, and put an end to this tragicomical affair, by the following circular addressed to his friends :

ADVERTISEMENT.

"The undersigned begs to give notice, that whereas cropped hair has as many enemies as red hair, and said enemies of the hair are likewise enemies of the person it grows upon; whereas, further, such a fashion is in no respect Christian, since, otherwise, Christian persons would adopt it; and whereas especially, the undersigned has suffered no less from his hair than Absalom did from his, through on contrary grounds; and whereas it has been notified to him, that the public proposed to send him into his grave, since the hair grows there without scissors: he hereby gives notice, that he will not willingly consent to such extremities. He would, therefore, inform the noble, learned, and discerning public in general, that the undersigned proposes on Sunday next to appear in the various important streets of Hof, with a false, short queue; and with this queue, as with a magnet,

Points of this kind have been often argued seriously enough between loving aunts solicitous of propriety, and brisk nephews solicitous of independence, perhaps also affecting singularity; but let it stand here discussed more profoundly and systematically by a sensible German pastor and a profound German poet-philosopher, in perpetuam rei memoriam. Right or wrong, nothing could mark the man more decidedly; always independent and original in his principles of action, and ever willing to yield to innocent prejudice when he had once openly vindicated his principle.

To pass from trifles to the serious business of authorship, the following extract is most instructive and full of character:

"As these years, spent with his mother in Hof, were the most uninterruptedly studious of Richter's life, it seems the place to give some account of the manner in which he pursued his studies. That plan must be a good one, and of use to others, of which he could say, 'Of one thing I am certain; I have made as much out of myself, as could be made of the stuff, and no man should require more.'

"First in importance, he aimed, in the rules he formed for himself, at a just division of time and power, and he never permitted himself, from the first, to spend his strength upon any thing useless. He so managed his capital, that the future should pay him an ever-increasing interest on the present. The nourishment of his mind was drawn from three great sources living Nature, in connexion with human life; the world of books, and the inner world of thought; these he considered the raw material given him to work up.

"We have already mentioned his manuscript library. In his fifteenth year, before he entered the Hof gymnasium, he had made many quarto volumes, containing hundreds of pages of closely-written extracts from all the celebrated works he could borrow, and from the periodicals of the day. In this way he had formed a repertory of all the sciences. For if, in the beginning, when he thought himself destined to the study of theology, his extracts were from philosophical theology, the second volume contained natural history, poetry, and, in succession, medicine, jurisprudence, and universal science.

He had also anticipated one of the results of modern book-making. He wrote a collection of what are now called handbooks, of geography, natural history, follies, good and bad names, interesting facts, comical occurrences, touching incidents, &c.

"He observed Nature as a great book, from which he was to make extracts, and carefully collected all the facts that bore the stamp of a contriving mind, whose adaptation he could see, or only anticipate, and formed a book which bore the simple title Nature.

"When he meditated a new work, the first thing was to stitch together a blank book, in which he sketched the outlines of his characters, the principal scenes, thoughts to be worked in, &c., and called it Quarry for Hesperus, Quarry for Titan,' &c. One of his biographers has given us such a book, containing his studies for Titan, which occupies seventy closely-printed duodecimo pages.

"Richter began also in his earliest youth to form a dictionary, and continued it through the whole of his literary life. In this he wrote down synonymes, and all the shades of meaning of which a word was susceptible. For one word he had found more than two hundred. Add to this mass of writing, that he copied all his letters, and it is surprising how any time remained. He made it a rule to

give but one half of the day to writing,

the other remained for the invention of

his various works, which he accomplished while walking in the open air.

"These long walks, through valley and over mountain, steeled his body to bear all vicissitudes of weather, and added to his science in atmospheric changes, so that he was called by his townsmen the weather prophet. He is described by one who met him on the hills, with open breast and flying hair, singing as he went, while he held a book in his hand. Richter at this time was slender, with a

value and significance of the smallest things. The joys, the sorrows, the loves and aversions, the whole of life, in this Teniers' picture passed before him. He himself was a principal figure in this limited circle. He sat with Plato in his hand, while his mother scattered fresh sand on the floor for Sunday, or added some small luxury to the table on days of festival. His hardly-earned groschen went to purchase the goose for Martinmas, while he dreamed of his future glory among distinguished men. Long years he was one of this humble society. He did not approach it as other poets have done, from time to time, to study for purposes of art the humbler classes; he felt himself one of them, and in this school he learned that sympathy with humanity which has made him emphatically in Germany the poet of the poor.""

One of the most instructive traits of Richter's character is, his great attention to personal purity of heart and self-control. It was a main point with him, as with Quintilian, the sound old rhetorician, that to write or speak well, one must first of all be a good man. In imitation of many excellent and pious persons, Paul kept a diary of the sins that most easily beset him, and a register of moral From this victories by God's grace to be won. "Andachts büchlein," or "little book of devotion," the following admirable extracts are given :"OF PAIN.

"Every evil is an occasion and a teacher of resolution. Every disagreeable emotion is a proof that I have been faithless to my resolutions.

"An evil vanishes, if I do not ask after it. Think of a worse situation than that in which thou art.

"Not to the evil, but to myself, do I owe

around which curled fine blonde hair. His eyes were a clear soft blue, but capable of an intense fire, like sudden lightning. He had a well-formed nose, and, as his biographer expresses it, 'a lovely lip-kissing mouth.' He wore a loose green coat and straw hat, and was always accompanied by his dog.

"As Richter from every walk returned to the little household apartment where his mother carried on her never-ceasing female labours, where half of every day he sat at his desk, he became acquainted with all the thoughts, all the conversation, the whole circle of the relations of the humble society in Hof. He saw the

"Vanity, insensibility, and custom, make one steadfast. Wherefore not virtue still more?

"Never say, if you had not these sorrows, that you would bear others better. "What is sixty years' pain to eternity? "Necessity, if it cannot be altered, becomes resignation.

"OF GLORY.

"Most men judge so miserably; why would you be praised by a child?

"No one would praise you in a beggar's frock; be not proud of the esteem that is given to your coat.

"Do not expect more esteem from others because you deserve more, but reflect

that they will expect still more merit in yourself.

“Do not seek to justify all thy actions. Value nothing merely because it is thy own, and look not always upon thyself.

"Do not wait for extraordinary opportunities for good actions, but make use of common situations. A long continued walk is better than a short flight.

"Never act in the heat of emotion: let reason answer first.

"Look upon every day as the whole of life, not merely as a section; and enjoy the present without wishing to spring on to another section that lies before thee.

"Seek to acquire that virtue in a month, to which thou feelest the least inclined.

"It betrays a greater soul to answer a satire with patience, than with wit.

"If thou wouldst be free, joyful, and calm, take the only means that cannot be affected by accident—virtue.”

A man who could act on these principles was morally a great man, and worthy of admiration even without genius. To know and feel habitually, as Richter seems to have done, that "EVIL is like the nightmare; the instant you bestir yourself it has already ended," is to be a moral hero, and a triumphant Christian.

See

how every thing turns into gold at the touch of such a man!--the way of pædagogy (for he practised the "dominie" too for four years to eke out his scanty earnings,) to him is spread not with thorns, but with violets and primroses. The following account of his pædagogic practice cannot fail to interest many :—

"The deep and marked peculiarities of a poetic nature were never brought into fuller exercise than by Richter, in the formation and government of his little school. That which is usually to men of rich endowments a vexing and wearisome employment, the daily routine of instruction for little children in the elements of knowledge, became to him a source of elevated and ennobling thought. His mode of instruction was the opposite of that from which he thought he had himself suffered. In this little school there

was no learning by heart, no committing to memory the thoughts of others, but every child was expected to use its own powers. His exertions seemed mainly directed to awaken in the children a reproducing and self-creating power; all knowledge was therefore the material, out of which they were to form new com

binations. In a word, the whole of his instruction was directed to create a desire for self-study, and thus lead his pupils to self-knowledge. He aimed to bring out, as much as possible, the talents that God had given his pupils; and, after exciting a love of knowledge, he left them to a free choice as to what they would study; but their zeal and emulation were kept alive by a (so-called) 'red book,' in which an exact account of the work of each individual was recorded; this was shown to parents and friends at the end of the quarter, and so great was their zeal, that they needed a rein rather than a spur. While he accustomed the children to the spontaneous activity of all their faculties, he gave them five hours aday of direct instruction, in which he led them through the various departments of human knowledge, and taught them to connect ideas and facts by comparison and association. From the kingdom of plants and animals he ascended to the starred firmament, made them acquainted with the course of the planets, and led their imaginations to these worlds and their inhabitants. Then he conducted them through the picture-gallery of the past history of nations, and placed the heroes, and saints, and martyrs of antiquity before them, or he turned their attention to the mystery of their own souls and the destiny of man. Above all, and with all, he directed their tender, childish hearts, to a Father in heaven. He said, 'There can be no such companion to the heart of children, for the whole life, as the ever-present thought of God and immortality.""

But these humble avocations were soon to cease. Richter was destined to emerge from the obscurity of a village schoolmaster, and appear on the public stage of Germany as the compeer of Herder and Schiller, of Wieland and Goethe-second to none of these now European names in originality, brilliancy, and vigour of literary talent; superior to all of them in the purity and intensity with which there glowed in him many of those highest moral qualities which distinguish the man and the Christian. The following extract, relating to the publication of his first very successful work, and the commencement of his German celebrity, in the year 1790, is steeped in the purest essence of poetry, and most characteristic of that flow of pure, cheerful, and exalted emotion which freshens one's moral

nature like milk and honey, in all the mature writings of this extraordinary

man.

He

"The weeks that followed the successful reception of the Invisible Lodge were the Sabbath weeks' of Paul's life. had had the courage to speak out in the fulness of his nature, and had found a response in many hearts. In the paradise that opened before him, he determined to give full course to the flood of his genius; but he well knew, that the richest fulness of poetic thought could only exist in connexion with peace of soul, cheerfulness of disposition, and firmness of purpose, and that the truth of his representations must arise from corresponding inward truth and integrity; in short, if he would be a poet in his works, he must be a poet in his life.

"He carefully continued his book of devotion, his rules and purposes of life. He never awoke without reviewing the past day; and where he had been assaulted by the force of any passion, there he placed a double bulwark, and with quiet satisfaction celebrated the victory gained. His quick and warm fancy led him often to outbreaking anger, and his ready wit to satire that was sometimes wounding, especially when his good-nature was misused; but the gentlest call led him back to tenderness -the accidental sight of a boy's face with tears in his eyes was sufficient to disarm him; he thought of his future life, of the sorrows that would draw from him still bitterer tears, and he said, 'I will not pour into the cup of humanity a single drop of gall; and he kept his word. Where he was obliged to assert his rights, he did it so calmly and gently, that the holy treasures of his life-love and truth remained for ever undisturbed.

"Every thing living touched his heart -from the humblest flower that opened its leaves in the grass, up to the shining worlds on high; children and old men, the beggar and the rich, he would have embraced them all in the sacred glow of his emotions, or given all he possessed to make them happy. No one went from him unconsoled; and when he could give nothing but good counsel, he gave that. Were it only a poor mountaineer or a travelling apprentice to whom he could impart the smallest present, he would dwell the whole day with delight on the circumstance. Often he would say to himself, 'Now he will draw the dollar from his pocket, and reckon which of his long-cherished wishes he can first satisfy. How often will he think of this day, and of the unexpected gift, and

perhaps once more than usual upon the Giver of all good. Love was the everliving principle of his character and of his writings, and before the thought of the Infinite, all differences in rank vanished. away; all were equally great, or equally little.

"He gained nourishment for this principle from every circumstance in life. Where others would have been untouched and cold, there he heard whispered to his spirit the voice of humanity. Let him speak for himself. He says in his jour nal: :

"I picked up in the choir a faded rose-leaf, that lay under the feet of the boys.

Great God! what had I in my hand but a small leaf, with a little dust upon it; and upon this small fugitive thing my fancy built a whole paradise of joy-a whole summer dwelt upon this leaf. I thought of the beautiful day when the boy held this flower in his hand, and when through the church window he saw the blue heaven and the clouds wandering over it; when every place in the cool vault was full of sunlight, and reminded him of the shadows on the grass from the over-flying clouds. Good God! thou scatterest satisfaction every where, and givest to every one joys to impart again. Not merely dost thou invite us to great and exciting pleasures, but thou givest to the smallest a lingering perfume.'

"Above all things, his eye hung upon Nature. He lived and wrote whole days in the open air, on the mountain, or in the woods; and in the midst of winter he sought from the window the evening rosecolour, his beloved stars, and that magic enchanter, the moon. Every walk in the open air was to him the entrance into a church. He said in his journal→→ 'Dost thou enter pure into this vast, guiltless temple ? Dost thou bring no poisonous passion into this place, where flowers bloom and birds sing? Dost thou bear no hatred where Nature loves! Art thou calm as the stream where Nature reflects herself as in a mirror ? would that my heart were as true and as unruffled as Nature when she came from the hands of her great Creator!' Every new excursion in this great temple gave him new strength, and he returned laden with spiritual treasures. He loved to make short journeys on foot; where the motion of the body kept the mind in a state of activity, and the insignificant gained value by its unexpectedness. A sunny day made him happy, and the perfumes of a spring morning, or dewy evening, seemed almost to intoxicate him with their incense; but the hours of

Ah,

night were those of his highest elevation, when he would lie long hours on the dewy grass, looking into the opening clouds. He says in his journal-'I take my ink-flask in the morning, and write as I walk in the fragrant air. Then comes my joy, that I have conquered two of my faults-my disposition to be angry in conversation, and to lose my cheerfulness through a long day of dust and musquitoes. Nothing makes one so indifferent to the pin and musquito thrusts of life, as the consciousness of growing better.""

Richter belonged now to Germany, and should have been transferred immediately, you will think, like Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Herder, and the other Di majorum gentium, to WEIMAR, the one literary capital of Deutschland; for political capital it neither had then nor has now, nor in the common course of things, notwithstanding the songs of 1813 and the Zoll- Verein, is ever like to have. And in Weimar, no doubt, there were some men who looked upon the apparition of the Richter comet with a more favourable eye than senatorian Goethe. Old Father Wieland, in particular, "who had read Tristram Shandy eighty times over" called him "our Yorick, our Rabelais, the purest spirit!"-and the earnest Herder, with his capacious sympathy, was able to appreciate the religious and Christian element in Paul's character, which naturally was a mystery to the author of Agathon. Taken as a whole, however, Weimar, with Goethe as its real king and god, was by no means the proper element for Richter. There was too

much mere literature in it for one with whom goodness was the one thing need ful, and greatness only an accident, agreeable or disagreeable, as the case might be. There was too much head in Weimar, and too little heart. Freedom, indeed, there was, in a grand style, from all those civic formalities, and minute observation of small points, which had vexed him so much in Hof. But what one might complain of there, to use his own words, was "PAINTED EGOTISM AND UNPAINTED SCEPTICISM;" - the French Voltaire in a German Avatar! For the true Teut, Richter, that would never do. We are not, therefore, to be surprised if the visit which Paul made to Weimar in 1796, though full of joy and exhilaration, was not followed up by any permanent change

in his quiet and retired mode of life. His native secluded region of the Fichtelgebirge was still to be his home. Hof and Bayreuth, in the centre of central Germany, and therefore out of every body's way, were to boast the possession of this the most German of How little atgreat German men. traction there was between the calm, cold, artistical contemplativeness of Goethe, and the bickering sportiveness of sunny joy in the essentially moral nature of Richter, the following extract will declare:

An

"On the second day I threw away my foolish prejudices in favour of great authors. They are like other people. Here, every one knows that they are like the earth, that looks from a distance, from heaven, like a shining moon, but when the foot is upon it, it is found to be made of boue de Paris (Paris mud.) opinion concerning Herder, Wieland, or Goethe, is as much contested as any other. Who would believe that the three watchtowers of our literature avoid and dislike each other! I will never again bend myself anxiously before any great man, only before the virtuous. Under this impression, I went timidly to meet Göethe. Every one had described him as cold to every thing upon the earth. Madam von Kalb said, he no longer admires any thing, not even himself. Every word is ice! Curiosities, merely, warm the fibres of his heart. Therefore I asked Knebel to petrify or incrust me by some mineral spring, that I might present myself to him like a statue or a fossil. Madam von Kalb advised me, above all things, to be cold and self-possessed, and I went withhouse, palace rather, pleased me; it is the out warmth, merely from curiosity. His only one in Weimar in the Italian style with such steps! A Pantheon full of pictures and statues. Fresh anxiety oppressed my breast! At last the god entered, cold, one-syllabled, without accent.

The French are drawing towards Paris,' said Knebel. 'Hm!' said the god. His face is massive and animated, his eye a ball of light. But at last, the conversation led from the campaign to art, publications, &c., and Goethe was himself. His conversation is not so richt and flowing as Herder's, but sharp-toned, penetrating, and calm. At last, he read, that is, he played for us, an unpublished poem, in which his heart impelled the flame through the outer crust of ice, so that he pressed the hand of the enthusiastic Jean Paul. (It was my face, not my voice, for I said not a word.) He did