ON GERMAN CRITICISM.

Ir was our lot, when we entered the world some five-andtwenty years ago, to have brought with us a little code of taste in matters of literature, collected from the perusal of models that we were then taught to believe had been formed upon the true and undeviating principles of human nature. We allude to the compositions of the best eras of antiquity, and to those productions of the last two or three centuries, by which the authors, in the spirit of noble composition, have rescued the genius of their respective times, and countries, from the imputation of degeneracy. Whenever those works proposed to us examples of what was instructive, or affecting, or admirable, in the form of fictitious representations, we followed the fortunes of the heroes of the story with the deepest interest, because we could, without an effort, comprehend the full measure of their claims upon our sympathy. All the finer passages of the epic narratives of antiquity are appeals to the natural emotions of the human breast. The love of country-the anguish of exile-the vicissitudes of great dynasties-heroic intrepidity in battle and in council the instincts of natural piety-the endearments of friendship-and the sorrow that can never weep enough, when the objects are no more ;-these, and the long train of the other social and political affections, are the elements of poetic excitement, which those masterly productions bring in happy combination before us and as long as man retains that mysterious faculty of delighting to identify himself in imagination with the fortunes and feelings of others, no matter how far removed by time and space, or how strong his assurance that the whole is but an unsubstantial fable, he will lend himself to the illusion, he will take pleasure in accompanying the personages of Grecian and Roman story, through every variety of sentiment and situation; and, adopting all their emotions, because he recognizes them as his own, feel as intensely for the fictitious events of twenty or thirty centuries ago, as for the joys or calamities of the passing hour. Nor is it merely in such passages of those immortal works, as present us with scenes, to which we might be ourselves exposed, that we fully apprehend, and participate in, the passions of the actors. In the recital of scenes of wonder, as of ordinary occurrences, the foundation still is human nature, operating according to principles, known and authenticated, from time immemorial. The Sixth Æneid, for instance, is a beautiful and scientific illustration of the forms, which the ordinary phenomena of our nature would assume, if submitted to new, and, in point of fact, impossible modes of excitement. In the conduct and language of the Trojan adventurer, during his passage through the realms of eternity, and still more in that of the

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departed beings, with whom this noble episode brings him into contact, we feel the spirit of genuine humanity dictating every movement: once admitting the mythological creed, by which the fiction is justified---allowing the possibility of such particular modifications of existence, as form and feature without organic life-as moving, sentient, visible, but unpalpable images of what was once a breathing substance-having ideas without sensespassions untamed by death-and conspicuously among the latter, a sad retrospective attachment to the "glorious light," which is never to visit their dreary situations-once admitting this, we enter, without scruple, into their habitation--and, informed by the genius of Virgil, can give our sympathy as strongly and distinctly to the fleeting groups that throng the banks of the Styx and the Elysian fields, as if their interests and condition were commensurate with our own. It is, in fact, amidst those beings, over whom the grave has closed, that the pathetic fancy of the bard displays some of its tenderest inspirations. His description of the futile efforts to embrace of the pious son and the disembodied parent-and the prophetic elegy of the latter on the short-lived virtues of the yet unborn Marcellus, are lasting evidences of the consummate power, that he possessed, and never failed to exercise, of making the hearts of his readers keep pace with the boldest excursions of his inventive imagination. This is a single example (every classical reader will recall others without number,) of the principles, on which the great writers of antiquity proceeded, and by adhering to which, they have so well succeeded in imparting to their creations an imperishable interest. Notwithstanding the lapse of ages, and the strange vicissitudes of opinion, and of social forms that have ensued, we still find our heads and hearts as much at home in the midst of the scenes they record, as if they related to the daily routine of our familiar occupations. The secret of this fascination (we repeat it) is, that they present us with human beings, in whose nature we recognize a perfect identity with our own. In the characters of ancient fiction, there is consistency and adaptation. They act from assignable motives. They speak as becomes their condition. They have no fantastic incongruities to startle and perplex us. There are no slaves discoursing like demigods-no pedlars hawking about quintessential sentimentality, and haranguing mendicants by the way-side on the soul of the universe, and the fall of empires. So of the moral attributes of their personageswe can comprehend them at a glance. The question of their merits does not come before us in the form of an intellectual puzzle. Homer and Virgil had no skill in constructing models of inscrutable heroism, whom the reader is called upon at once to venerate and abhor. They present us with none of those dark and dubious beings, endowed with courage, generosity, dis

interestedness, exalted enthusiasm, and all the other qualifications of a perfect character, except that they have betrayed a friend, or stained their hands in blood, or committed some other crime, for which they ought long since to have fallen under the stroke of the common executioner. But this old and simple method of engaging our interest, by appealing directly to our social and moral instincts, has of late years been falling into disuse, and some new and very equivocal expedients have been invented to supply its place. Among these, the theories of the German school hold a distinguished rank; and, as we understand that the general adoption of the principles of that school, by English writers, is ardently looked forward to by many as the millennium of our literature, we feel induced to offer a few remarks upon some of its doctrines, as far as we can comprehend them; and their tendencies, which are not quite so unintelligible. Upon a subject, embracing so wide a range, it will, we fear, be inconsistent with our limits to enter upon minute details, and we expect to have many future occasions of returning to it; we shall therefore, at present, content ourselves with submitting our observations in rather a general form. One of the leading peculiarities of the German school, is an incessant effort to produce effect by the introduction of some high-wrought passion, claiming, upon special grounds, an exemption from ordinary restraints, and seeking to engage our sympathy, in defiance of our moral convictions. The germ of this principle, if we mistake not, may be traced to a celebrated author of the last century---not a German-but who may be fairly classed with the writers of that nation-we allude to the productions of Jean-Jaques Rousseau, and in particular to his Nouvelle Heloise. In speaking of this performance, we heartily concur with those, who protest against its indelicacies and its perilous tendencies; but in spite of these and numerous other objections to it, as a mere work of fiction, we cannot help pronouncing it to bear the stamp throughout of a most singularly subtle, profound, and imaginative mind. But to praise, or blame it, is not so much to our present purpose, as to point out one of its prominent peculiarities, which appears to have had a very extensive influence upon the literature of modern Germany.

In the composition of this novel, the author's aim, as he informs us himself, was to discard the common artifices of external incident and situation, and to supply their place by sentiment. For this purpose, ordinary sentiment would have been insufficient. To produce a continued interest, he saw the necessity of inflaming the imaginations of his readers, by exhibiting the workings of some impetuous passion, and his own temperament decided that that passion should be love :-" Je me figurai l'amour, l'amitiè, les deux idoles de mon cœur, sous les plus ra

vissantes images: je me plus à les orner de tous les charmes du sexe que j'avois toujours adorè." He entered upon his design in a frame of mind, and with powers peculiarly fitted to describe, and to defend, all the waywardness of the passion he had selected for his theme. Though long past the season of youthful excitation, his extraordinary sensibility, which rendered his whole life a long fever, and his intense recollection of the emotions of his youth, had, in his instance, completely baffled the effects of time. He was still as susceptible of tenderness and love as at any period of his existence; and the more so from the oppressive conviction, that the day was not distant when age or the grave must for ever chill his heart against the endearments for which it panted. "Devorè (says he) du besoin d'aimer sans jamais l'avoir pu bien satisfaire, je me voyois atteindre aux portes de la vieillesse, et mourir sans avoir vécu."

In want of a determinate object, and despairing to find it, or disdaining to seek it, in a world, with which he had long been in a state of war, this singular being passed his days in rambling through the woods of Montmorenci, and dreaming of ideal existences, in whose purer society he could relieve his bosom from the weight of impassioned emotion that oppressed it. These solitary reveries first suggested the idea of a romance; and it is difficult to determine how far (had nothing intervened) his creative imagination and fervid style might not have produced a fiction abounding with images of exalted, however improbable, innocence and perfection. But, in the height of his romantic paroxysms, Madame D'Houdetot came across him, and became the object of his idolatry, for which he had been searching in the skies. Rousseau at last was unequivocally in love. His romance was not discontinued, but the plan was in part remodelled, and sad work made with the original heroine; and here it is that the writer has justly exposed himself to unmeasured reproach. Madame D'Houdetot, the avowed mistress of St. Lambert, was engrafted upon the divine Julie, and the author, regardless of the moral responsibilities of his situation, summoned all the powers of his eloquent and subtle mind to soften and justify the unnatural combination. Poor Julie was

permitted to retain her original qualities of beauty, sensibility, constancy, ardour in friendship, and filial piety, but was condemned to assume the temperament, and too frequently the language, of a Parisian intriguante. She was now to be " foible, mais d'une si touchante foiblesse, que la vertu sembloit y gagner.'

This is not precisely the account that Rousseau gives of the matter, but from the light which the confessions throw upon the Romance, we have little doubt that it is the true one; and that Julie would have been represented as " Sage" as Claire, if Madame D'H. had kept out of the way. But the situation, in which he became involved with this lady, brought down his imagination from its high pitch of romantic contem

To establish this paradox, that chastity may not be essential to the perfection of the female character, is the great scope of the Nouvelle Heloise; and however the laws of society, and the good old instincts of the human breast, may exclaim against the position, the celebrity of the attempt has attracted crowds of imitators. It is in Germany, where writers particularly pique themselves upon the novelty and independence of their conceptions, that the hint has been most ardently adopted and extended. It were endless to enumerate the myriads of the productions of this school, from Werter down to the periodical supplies of sentiment, prepared expressly for every Leipsic fair, in which nature and genuine feeling are put aside, and some morbid visionary is made to set up a code of wild and licentious metaphysics, to justify his offences against the laws of common prudence and de

corum.

In perusing some of the most popular English productions of the present day, it is impossible not to observe to what an extent our literature has been infected by this system of substituting the turbulence and sophistries of lawless passion for the delineation of those more regular and decent movements, which appeal to our sympathy through our moral approbation. In our poets and our poetical novel writers, this innovation has been most flagrant and systematic, and most successful, as far as to be read with avidity, and applauded by the unthinking, can constitute success. The fashionable notion now is, that, in a work of true genius, every thing must be made subordinate to passion--no matter how unnatural or presumptuous a tone it may assume; and accordingly our recent literature has teemed with impassioned railers against the decencies of life-impassioned marauders by sea and land-impassioned voluptuaries-impassioned renegades-impassioned striplings-impassioned hags-all of them venting furious sublimity upon the astonished reader, and boldly demanding his profound admiration, because they have lost all controul over their actions and their words.

But this exclusive taste for foam and convulsions cannot last. The works, that have of late years been sent forth to gratify it, may enjoy a temporary celebrity, but they are against the genius of our literature, and will never be permanently embodied with it. They are excrescences upon a naturally healthy body, which its restorative energies, when once roused, will indignantly work off. Sooner or later, we shall get tired of eternally listening to the uninstructive ravings of culprits and adventurers. The inherent love of order and decorum, that belongs to a

plation to all the petty and impure details of French intrigue. Upon comparing the two works, it is quite manifest that, wherever he could, he identified himself and her with the hero and heroine-even to giving Julie an attack of the small-pox, that her face, by retaining some traces of it, might the more resemble Madame D'Houdetot's.