dinner; you know that such absurdities are to me intolerable; you have forced me to forget what I owe to the ladies.' He then put on an air of perfect composure, and turning to the ladies, commenced talking with them on some indifferent matters. He did not, however, sit long, but rose soon after and left the room. It was manifest that a great violence had been done to his feelings, and that he sought solitude to regain his wonted tone. Werner sat like a man annihilated." Not less characteristic are the following notices of Schelling and Fichte. They belong to the year 1799; the place Jena. Schelling had just arrived from Leipzig, and was, as I was informed, only recently recovered from a severe illness. On the day ap pointed for his introductory lecture, professors and students were found crowding the lecture-room in great numbers. Schelling entered and mounted the cathedra. He had a youthful appearance, was indeed two years younger than myself, and at the same time the first of the notable German philosophers whom I had an inexpressible desire to be acquainted with. In his whole manner there was something very decided; something like an air of defiance. His cheek-bones were large, his forehead high, his temples prominent and wide, the nose with a small cast upwards, and in the large clear eyes there lay the might of intellectual command. When he began to speak he appeared a little embarrassed, but this lasted only for a few moments. The subject of his discourse was that which then occupied his whole soul. He spoke of the idea of a philosophy of nature, of the necessity of proceeding in the study of nature from the point of her essential unity, of the light that would spread itself over all branches of natural science, so soon as naturalists should dare to plant themselves in this central position of the unity of reason. I was completely carried away by his eloquence, and hastened the next day to make a personal visit to him. Galvanism at that time was the engrossing matter of speculation with natural philosophers; that mysterious point of a higher unity in which electrical and chemical agency seemed identified, was prominently brought forward. This subject had infinite attractions for me. Schelling received me not only with the greatest kindness, but with manifest satisfaction. I was the first professional naturalist that had attached myself to him, unconditionally and with enthusiasm. Among that class of men indeed, hitherto, he had met only with opponents; and with that class of opponents too, unhappily, who were more anxious to refute the philosopher, than to know what philosophy they were refuting. "From Schelling I went to Fichte, who was that day delivering the introductory discourse to his lectures on the Destination of Man. This short, strong-built man, with his sharp, commanding features, made, I cannot deny it, a great impression on me when I first saw him. His very language had a cutting sharpness. Already acquainted with the incapacity of a general audience for metaphysical subjects, he sought in every possible way to make himself intelligible to them. He set himself, in the most articulate style of patient logical argumentation, to Schelling and Fichte. 139 demonstrate his every proposition; but at the same time there was an air of command in his discourse, as if he wished, by an intellectual fiat, to enforce unconditional acquiescence. 'Meine Herrn,' said he, 'collect yourselves; go into yourselves; we are not here to talk of any thing external, but simply and sheerly of the internal self.' The auditors, thus addressed, appeared in real earnest to be preparing to 'go into themselves.' Some changed their position, and raised themselves up, others drew themselves together, and fixed their eyes on the floor; all were manifestly waiting with great expectation what was to follow so serious an address. Meine Herrn,' continued the philosopher, 'denken Sie sich die Wand' (Gentlemen, think to yourselves the wall); and immediately I observed how every one was actually employed in 'thinking the wall,' and how all of them appeared to succeed. Haben Sie die Wand gedacht' (Have you thought the wall)? said Fichte. Nun, Meine Herrn, so denken Sie denjenigen der die Wand gedacht hat' (Now, gentlemen, think him who thought the wall). It was strange to observe how, at this point of the argument, a manifest confusion and embarrassment immediately made itself visible in the company. Not a few of the auditors seemed really altogether at a loss to discover him who had thought the wall; and I now understood how young men, who in their first attempt at metaphysics had stumbled so awkwardly on the threshold, might, in the course of their future studies, fall into a very unpleasant and unsafe state. Fichte's delivery was excellent, marked in every thing by clearness and precision. It was impossible to resist the earnestness of his manner; I was altogether carried away by the subject; and confess that I never heard so striking a lecture again." With these extracts we hope we have succeeded in giving the English reader some idea of what sort of general human gleanings are to be gathered from this very German book. There are politics, indeed, as well as literature, philosophy, and theology, in the Erlebtes; but of these the germ only appears in the present volumes; we are to look for the fruits in those that are to come. Steffens was at Halle in the eventful days which preceded and followed the battle of Jena; and the account of the state of public feeling in Prussia at that time, given in the sixth volume of these memoirs, is not without interest to the historian. He afterwards took an active part in the moral reaction which swept the merely physical bonds of Napoleon's German power in 1813. But all that relates to this, and whatsoever else of a public and political interest the long series of the Erlebtes' may contain, we reserve for a future notice,-if it shall seem expedient. ART. IX.-Le Verre d'Eau; ou, les Effets et les Causes. (The Glass of Water; or, Effects and Causes.)-Le Fils de Cromwell. (The Son of Cromwell.) Comedies, par EUGENE SCRIBE. Paris. 1842. Gaetan, Il Mammone. Drame, par FREDERIC SOULIÉ. Paris. 1842. Halifax. Comedie, par ALEXANDRE DUMAS. Paris. 1842. La Main Droite et la Main Gauche. (The Right Hand and the Left.) Drame par LEON GOZLAN. Paris. 1843. Les Deux Impératrices; ou, une Petite Guerre. (The Two Empresses; or, a Little War.) Comedie, par Madame ANCELOT. Paris. 1842. Robert Macaire; rôle créé par FREDERIC LEMAITRE.--Vautrin. Drame, par M. de BALZAC. Paris. 1841. Une Chaine. (A Chain.) Comedie, par EUGENE SCRIBE. Paris. 1842. THE atmosphere of the French Academy, which has always had an unhappy influence upon the genius of dramatic writers, has lately transformed Eugene Scribe, the Vaudevilleiste, into a Professor of English History. In the pursuit of this new vocation, the learned lecturer has discovered to his exceeding mirth, that the historical trophies of England are in general but the result of some mean accident, which entirely strips them of their ideal glory; and his success has, as usual, called a host of imitators into the field. The Sorbonne is transferred to the Théâtre Français, and Scribe takes the place of Guizot. The dramatic doctrinaire, with his Verre d'Eau' before him, without which French professors cannot speak, broaches his leading doctrine, worthy of the attempt and of the occasion, in the words of his second title:Great Effects from little Causes.' Having illustrated this from the reign of Queen Anne, he plunges half a century deeper into our annals, and, side by side with the Fils de Cromwell, brings up General Monk, to make him relate to a Parisian audience, how love of a gentle fair one, of whose name the uninquiring English had never heard, converted the old Roundhead into a cavalier, and so brought about the restoration. No longer let us wonder, then, why our second Charles devoted himself to the fair. Eugene Scribe has for ever silenced the wicked satirists or dull moralists, who expose or reflect upon the gallantries of the Merry Monarch. The Verre d'Eau' is founded upon an anecdote to the effect, be it fabulous or true, that the Duchess of Marlborough, during the period of her ascendancy over Queen Anne, in a fit of anger allowed a glass of water to spill upon the robe of her royal mistress. To this circumstance, designed or accidental, is attributed, by our French professor, the fall of the favourite: the overthrow of the Whigs: the Duke of Marlborough's deprivation of command: and that peace with France, which probably saved the last days of the once great Louis the Fourteenth some deeper disasters and humiliations. M. Scribe seizes upon the anecdote for the purpose of illustrating his favourite maxim, that the most important public events turn frequently, if not always, upon accidents of a contemptible character. But M. Scribe is as wrong in his general principle, as he is mistaken in the bearing of the present particular fact, assuming it to be true. Trivial circumstances are in this life pretexts, not causes, for breaches of longestablished connexions. They are the ready available facts which discover the depth of an existing difference; they are seized to decide an already established rupture. Such an occurrence as the falling of a glass of water could, if an accident, have been apologized for and explained, unless indeed, as a pretext, it had been wanted and watched for. If, on the other hand, as M. Scribe assumes, the Duchess did insolently commit an outrage upon the queen, by purposely letting fall a glass of water, then the cause ceases to be petty; for as human society is constituted, an insult, no matter how followed by important consequences, is held to be adequate to any result. But this principle of mean causes and mighty effects runs throughout the whole of this politico-philosophical comedy. Comedy, indeed! The victorious progress of Marlborough and Prince Eugene stopped; the fortunes of England in the balance; the fate of France, too, as a nation; all depending upon the tremour of a hand which offered a glass of water. That, a comedy! Shakspeare felt not so, when he described in his inspired, and because inspired, profoundly human lines, 'the tricks of man, dressed in a little brief authority,' as 'making angels weep.' Accidents arising even from the infirmities of human temper, when they affect human destinies, are no longer subjects for laughter; and the levity with which historical circumstances of great political import are treated in these comedies, is assuredly no very gratifying evidence of the spirit of the time. It is the antagonist of reverence: not only of reverence for things sacred, but of reverence for historical and traditional associations -for great names and great characters. We quarrel with it as an unwise and unmannerly invasion of the comic drama. We have already had enough of it in the sombre melodramas of the Porte Saint Martin, and it is with pain we see it take the ground occupied hitherto by the pleasant spirit of Molière. The political hero, so to speak, of the Verre d'Eau,' is Boling as broke, reduced, in M. Scribe's hands, to a small intriguer. The romantic hero is a young protégé of the statesman, named Masham. The heroine, Abigail, afterwards the famous Mrs. Masham, is the daughter of Mr. Tomwood, a jeweller in the city. Bolingbroke, like Archimedes, wants only a place on which to rest his foot, to disturb the course of the whole political world; and true to his leading maxim of great effects from little causes, he discovers in this pair of simple beings, the very tools for his purpose. purpose. The manner in which Miss Abigail Tomwood is introduced at court, shows M. Scribe's ready method of inventing expedients. Queen Anne, according to our dramatic historian, loved to lay aside the oppressive state of royalty; but far from seeking her pleasure, Pope would have it, on the "bosom of the silver Thames," she loved better, like Charles Lamb, the streets of London, where she could look at the shops, gossip with her trusty subjects the shopkeeper's wives and daughters, and make little purchases. Among shops distinguished thus by the royal favour, was that of Mr. Tomwood; in which, one day, the Queen having bought a trinket (a trifle of only thirty guineas' worth), she found she had forgot her purse, and was blushing before Abigail, when Miss A. put an end to the embarrassment by requesting the unknown lady to put the trinket in her pocket, and pay for it the next fine day she happened to be passing in the neighbourhood. The Queen hereupon followed up her first act of simplicity by a second. She gave the jeweller's daughter her address, and a pressing invitation to call upon her, with the view of providing for Abigail a place in the household of the Duchess of Northumberland; for her majesty had learned, in the course of confidential communications in the shop, that old Tomwood was on the eve of bankruptcy. When Abigail calls the next morning, she to her surprise meets Masham, who at that moment is talking politics with Lord Bolingbroke; while his lordship, so far from feeling himself interrupted, at once takes Miss Tomwood into the conversation. Bolingbroke recognises the handwriting, giving the unknown lady's address, to be that of the Queen; and his fertile brain, upon this frail ground, proceeds without delay to build up a magnificent scheme. Abigail shall be the favourite of the Queen; Masham shall rule Abigail; he rules Masham. Taking for granted, then, on the spot, that the whole plan is settled according to his wishes, he opens to the eyes of the city girl, the state of relations between France and England, and informs her that she is to play a great part in the affairs of the two nations. His immediate object is to have a letter from the French ambassador secretly presented to the Queen. The new political pupil of Bolingbroke naturally doubts her power of presenting an ambassador. She is si peu de chose. We shall give what |