ri UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNI AT LOS ANGELES r N Oawscn's Anliqus li' ^_ 713 South Bnwtmv Lie ANGELES, < V^ THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. CLASSIC GERMAN COURSE IN ENGLISH. BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON. » « -^^^ » 4 NEW VMRK: CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, C. L. S. C. Department, 805 Broauwav. 1887. » 3 > J > > > 1 J > > > 1, ^ OTHER VOLUMES IN THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES BY THE SAME AUTHOR. * Preparatouy Greek Course in Enc4Listi ** Preparatory Latin Course in English. *** College Greek Course in Engusii . **** College Latin Course in ENGursii . . Classic French Course in English .... $1 00 1 00 1 00 1 00 60 The req%dred hooks of the C. L. S. C. are recommended hy a Coinicil of six. It must, hoivever, be understood that recommendation does not involve an ap- proval hy the Council, or hy any memher of it, of every principle or doctrine con- tained in the book recommended. Copyright, 1S87, by Phillips & Hunt, New York. I etc t c c t ' c t C < ' pr7 nr'' PRE FACE. ^ The present volume has an object similar to that of each ts volume preceding in the After-School Series to which it G^ belongs. It aims to enable readers knowing English, but not \ German, to acquire, through the medium of the former lan- ^ guage, some satisfactory acquaintance — acquaintance at once general and particular — with the chief classics of German literature. The method proposed of accomplishing this is — having first premised a rapid summary sketch and characterization of German literature as a whole — to select, with some Spar- tan hardness of heart, from amona: German authors no lonofer living, those generally acknowledged the best, and present 'these through translation, in specimens from one or more of ^^ their respective masterpieces — whetlier prose or verse — accompanied with such comment, biographical, explanatory, ^ critical, as may be judged desirable in order to securing the "'"^;;^ fairest and fullest final impression on the reader's mind, primarily, of the true characteristic individual quality of ^^each author treated, and, secondarily, of each author's his- toric relation and influence. CN The limits imposed by the size in which the volume aj)- ^ J^ears were accepted by the writer as on the whole judi- ^ ciously chosen, but, at any rate, as fixed and unchangeable. His simple problem has been — problem simple, though found far enough from easy — to make the best possible use of the inelastic space at his disposal. Considerate judges will esti- mate; his success with wise respect to the conditions under which he has necessarily worked. 4024^6 4 Preface. Hitlierto, in the present series of books, some regcard has steadily been had to the proportion in the study of foreign tongues, living and dead, observed by the average American scliool of higher education. Modern languages, especially the French and the German, but more especially the German, have of late been encroaching somewhat on the ancient pre- serves prescriptively belonging to those two great languages of antiquity, the Greek and the Latin, in the courses of study established by our colleges and universities. Thus far, however, their place therein remains, and, as the present writer thinks, properly remains, generally less than that of their elder kindred. The room, therefore, narrow though it be, given, in the pages which follow, to German literature, is after all not so very inadequate — measured in comparison with the quasi-authoritative standard, to which, as now hinted, habitual deference has, throughout this series of volumes, been paid. It has not been thought necessary, or even desirable, in ful- iillment of the purpose of the present volume — more than in the case of the volumes preceding in the series — that the author should frequently either make new translations of his own, or secure such from other hands, for the extracts to be introduced. A fresh version will indeed here and there be found in these pages; but for the most part recourse has been had to translations previously existing in English. In general, for each ease as it arose, the writer has compared various translations one with another, as also, of course, with their common original, sufficiently to satisfy himself what rendering was, all things considered, best suited to his pui*- pose; and then, besides, in the particular passages finally selected from considerable works for transfer to his pages, he has collated his chosen version with the corresponding German text, in order to make corrections or improvements observed by him to be needed. In some instances, however — instances in which the authority of the translator, either for scholarship or for literary skill, was great — he has re- mitted this caution. Preface. 5 Nothing further, perhaps, in the way of explanation, is re- quired — unless to say that the present writer may be under- stood, acting under a sense of serious responsibility, to have formed independently for himself, though, naturally, not without much comparative study of various discussion by others, the literary, and by occasion the ethical, judgments and opinions which he has here committed himself to express. On the whole, it is a humble work, for a work so arduous and so full of risk to himself, that the writer herewith sub- mits to the public. He hopes that he shall at least be found to have done no injustice, either to the authors whom he presents, or to the readers to whom he presents them. CONTENTS. ■*•• PAGE German Literature 7 II. Luther 24 IIL Klopstock 40 IV. Lessixg 56 Y. WlELAND 83 VL Herder 104 YII. Richter 122 viir. IiNTERLUUE OF PoET.S 140 IX. Goethe IGO X. Schiller 221 XI. The Romancers and tub Romanticists 265 xn. Heine 297 xin. Epilogue 319 Index 324 CLASSIC GERMAN COURSE IN ENGLISH. GERMAN LITERATURE. To Germany may justly be accorded the paradoxical dis- tinction of possessing at once the most voluminous and the least voluminous national literature in the world. Our meaning is, that while the aggregate bulk of books written and printed in the German language would probably be found to exceed, and even vastly exceed, that of those written and printed in any other language whatever, you would certainly look elsewhere in vain for a second example of a national literature in which the proportion of what, judged at once for substance and for form, could be pi'O- nounced choice and admirable Avas equally small. The German genius is prolific in thought, it is eager for expres- sion ; but of beauty in expression for thought, it is far, very far, from being correspondingly, we need not say capable, l>ut desirous. The result is, as we have intimated, that, while of literature, in the large, loose sense of the term, the Germans have even an over-supply, of literature in the strict, narrow sense, they possess comparatively little. Little com- paratively, we say; for absolutely they possess much. And of this much in quantity, a part at least is in quality very tine. Our concern, in the present volume, will be chiefly with what is best in German literature. We shall leave to one side, merely mentioning perhaps, as we pass, all that enor- mous contriltution of the German mind to classical scholar- Classic German Course in English. ship, to sacred hermeneutics, to dogmatic theology, to metaphysic speculation, to exact science, to historical re- search. This has been, it still is, it always will be, im- mensely imi)ortant to the accumulation of intellectual treasure for the human race ; it is even widely and endur- ingly important to the development of literature— the liter- ature of the world at large, as well as of Germany ; but proper literature itself it is not. In short, literature in the higher sense of that terra — polite literature — has never yet been to Germany the favorite, fullest exjjression of the national genius. During a certain limited period of time, such did indeed seem almost to be the case. The period which had its long and splendid culmination in Goethe was, no doubt, a pre- dominantly literary jieriod in Germany. Long, we thus suffer ourselves to call the culmination ' of that period ; yet in truth, accurately considered, the culmination was not long, but short. It seems long only in a kind of illogical, illusive association with the lengthened life-time and length- ened productive activity of Goethe himself, the space between M'hose birth and whose death spans well-nigh the entire chief literary history of Germany. Klopstock published the be- ginning of his llessiah in 1V4S ; in 1749 Goethe was born. What was there in German literature before the 3Iessiah of Klopstock? In 1832 Goethe died; in 1826 Heine had pub- lished the first installment of his masterpiece, the Pictures of Travel. What has there been in German literature since ? Of course, we speak broadly, and with only approximate truth. Klopstock was not the earliest, and Heine is not the latest, of German authors. Still, it is one of the chiefly le- markable things about the history of literature in Germany that that literature should first have been so tardy in begin- ning, and then should have apparently exhausted itself in a development so sudden and so short. So tardy, however, in beginning, as Ave shall thus seem to have represented, German literature in reality was not. You have to run back from Klopstock, two centuries, to Luther, German Literature. 9 to find the true moment from which to date the dawu of a national literature in Germany. The national literature of Germany, we ought perhaps rather to say. For even before Luther, the German mind had, as it were unconsciously, grown at least one literary product, important enough to he justly called in itself a literature, and racy enough of the soil from which it sprang to be called emphatically a national literature. We refei', of course, to the anonymous epic, the Nibelungen Lied, so styled. This poem, however, the Iliad of the German-speaking race, belonged, not only in its prob- able first state of pure oral tradition, but also in the modified written form to which a later age reduced it, to an order of things that had been completely superseded long before Luther apjieared. The e^nc itself, in Luther's day, had been forgotten, or at least lost utterly out of sight. In truth, a catastrophe in literary history had intervened, which sepa- rates the age of the Nibelungen Liedivom the age of Luther as absolutely as classic Greek and Roman antiquity is sejia- rated from the times in which we live. Nay, this comparison understates the fact. For with the now livino; literature of Germany the N'tbelungen TAed has far less genetic con- nection than have the foreign and ancient literatures of Greece and Rome. It is proper, accordingly, to treat the current German literature as a growth rooting itself in a national past no more remote than the age of the Reforma- tion. Luther, it deserves to be added, did not in his time stand solitary, though he stood supreme, as founder of modern German letters. Hans Sachs is a late-resuscitated name — a name which should never have been suffered to sink into need of resuscitation — worthy to ride in the same orbit of literary fame with Luthei", as a brilliant, though in- ferior, satellite by his side. Ulrich von Hiitten, too, was a knightly man of letters, who, with far less of shrewd, homely jjopular instinct than chai"acterized either one of these two contemporaries of his, had genius enough and wit enough to have made his 2)art in the JiJphtohti Ohscuroruni Vlrorum, had lie, when writing his contribution to that immortal 1* 10 Classic German Course in English. series of pasquinades, written in German instead of in Latin, a permanent classic of the language. But Lutlier's was the true vivific literary, as well as relig- ious, mind of the period. The mighty master-spirit of the great Reformation stamped with his foot on his native soil, and forthwith, obedient to the sign, there sprang up, for his " dear Germans," along with a purified Christianity, a new vernacular literature. These two things, but, alas, not these alone. Wars, too, were awakened — dreadful wars, amid which, and in the sequel of which, for whole generations, literature and Christianity alike seemed near going hopelessly down together in Germany. Seldom in the history of the world has it happened that a civilized country, destined after all to survive, and to survive in eventual power, was brought so close to the brink of irrecoverable desolation as was Germany (1618-1648) by the Thirty Years' War. No wonder, if a people almost annihilated did little more than persist, and perhaps somewhat revive, during the first ages succeeding. Even, however, during the flagrancy itself of the Thirty Years' War, some bi-illiant flames shot up to show that the German national mind, though deeply smothered, was yet not quenched. It was now that Kepler, the great mathematical philosopher, confidently committed to the keeping of the world his magnificent contributions to the science of as- tronomy — Avith that majestic, prophet-like saying of his, never surjiassed for sublimity by any uninspired utterance of man's: "My book may well wait a century for a reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an observer." Leibnitz's infancy was rocked by the dying throes of the tliirty years' earthquake that shook Germany; but Leil)nitz, a peer in intellect of the greatest of philosojjhers, and natu- rally, withal, as Ke2>lcr was not, a literary man, wrote almost exclusively either in Latin or in P^rench, and so added nothing to the proper Avealth of his country in letters. One name alone stands conspicuously forth — though even this one soli- tary name conspicuously not to the reader, only to the student Gerraaa Literature. 11 of literature — as continuer, for those desolate years, of Ger- man literary history. Opitz was in letters a great boast, a great authority, and really a great beneficent force, to his contemporaries; but the fact that Opitz's name, the foremost of his day — and liis day of renown was long, it outlasted his life — should signify exactly nothing whatever now, except to the specialist, sufficiently illustrates the completeness of the swoon in which the literary mind of Germany was sunk. This, howcA'er, was the time of Paul Gerliardt, that noblest of the Lutheran lyrists, leading a numerous choir of brethren in sacred song. The Christian Church still, and now in many different tongues, sings some of the sweet, pathetic hymns born of that time of trouble in Germany. "O, sacred head, now wounded" (in its German form a translation by Gerliardt from a Latin hymn of the twelfth century, by Bernard of Clairvaux), is one of these. " Give to the winds thy fears," a more heroic strain, also Gerhardt's (John Wesley's parajjhrase), is another inheritance to us all from the German psalmody of this period. If Luther bequeathed to Germany the inestimable advan- tage of a catholic literary language, thus first making it possible for a catholic German literature to exist, this service of his to letters, creative of unity and conducive to strength, was in part offset by another, an indirect result of his ac- tivity, tending, on the contrary, to division and feebleness. For when the tumults of the Thirty Years' War subsided at last, then, in addition to the general death-like exhaustion of national strength produced by the struggle, there was found to have been precipitated in deposit upon Germany a political system of so many petty states and sovereignties, independent of each other, that the German republic of let- ters had, and could have, no recognized center and capital. The state of things that existed before was like indeed, but less evil. Luther, thus, at the same time that he oi-igi- nated a condition of the language friendly, had in effect originated a political condition, temporarily, at least, more hostile than ever, to the prospect of unity and prosperity for 12 Classic German Course in English. the literature of Germany. The inspiring sentiment of national unity, of national dignity, was lost. Worse : the sentiment of national liberty had expired. For the hundred separate governments under which Germany was left to groan were a hundred separate despotisms, crass, stolid, stupid, and all of them organized to be vexatiously meddle- some in proportion as they Avere ridiculously small. And, to think of it ! — during the time that, on the country which had but lately given its mightiest launch to the modern human mind, this nightmare of literary impotence was rest- ing — during that very time, in England, Milton was chanting his Paradise Lost ; in France, the clustered glories of the reign of Louis XIV. were filling the heavens with light ! But a great change impended for Germany. A bold, long step forward was now suddenly to be taken in that grand forced march toward national unity for Germans which it was reserved for our own times to see finished at last in triumphant arrival at the goal, when, Avith far-heard sound of celebration, King William was proudly — too proudly ? — crowned at Versailles first Emperor of Germany, A century had passed after the close of the Thirty Years' War, and Frederick the Great, in 1740, became king of Prussia. In this shaker of kingdoms the German spirit as- serted itself once more. It ceased to sleep as if the sleep of death. The fresh impulse felt was military and political, rather than literary or even intellectual; but the law of the conversion, or translation, of force works very widely, and the movement from Frederick, which began in war and in politics, went over also, transposed, into the Avorld of the in- tellect and of literature. Besides, the new king Avas, in his Avay, a man of letters. True, he Avas, as it were, a foreign man of letters, despising the language to which he was born, and himself Avriting only in French. But there was at least light now Avhere had been "darkness visible" before; and a ray of light from the throne — much more, Avhen the throne is that of Frederick the Great — becomes "illustrious far and wide." The royal example contributed at first to German Literature. 13 confirm the wretcliecl tendency already then prevalent among Germans to imitate slavishly in literature the omnipotent French; but it also in the sequel incited some stronger, freer spirits, notably Lessing — that Luther of a literary reformation in Germany — to declare their intellectual independence. Even those German authors themselves, of Frederick's time, whose literary mission it was, as they conceived it, to practice and to teach obedience to French canons in the art of writing, were pricked with patriotic ambition to prove to the disdain- ful monarch of Prussia that native German genius, uttering itself in native German speech, was not so wholly to be de- spised. Gottsched was the chief of such; but it is creditable to Frederick that Gellert, a quite different writer, less ag- gressively French, succeeded better than Gottsched in mak- ing a favorable impression on the royal arbiter. As between these two writers, the general verdict has since confirmed the preference of Frederick. Whether or not it was some spirit breathing in the free air of Switzerland, there arose contemporaneously in the Swiss city of Zurich a German literary school, with Bodmer at their head, who waged open war on the French classicjism of Gottsched and his fellows. The Zurich circle, however, in refusing to be French, did not after all become truly in- dependent and German. They were only otherwise, perhaps more judiciously, dependent, and — English. Bodmer pub- lished a German translation of Milton's Paradise Lost. This was a literary event of prime importance for Germany, It gave her the Messiah of Klopstock ; and, with the publication of the Messiah of Klopstock, the long-arrested development of German literature began fairly to go forwai'd again. Lessing, Herder, Wieland, Goethe, Richter, Schiller, and a score of names only less than these, now follow one another in rapid succession, or jostle each other in crowded simul- taneous appearance. The firmament of German literature is suddenly full. It blazes with stars and with constellations. German literature, considered as a body of recognized classics, remains to this day very muc'li what the great age 14 Classic German Cow'se in English. of Goethe bequeathed it to the woi'ld. We need not theie- fore bring down our historical sketcli to a point lower tiian the date here reached. J3riefly now as to the forms or kinds in which the literature tlius sketched has appeared. Unlike the French, and like the English, German literature inclines as naturally to assume the form of verse as it does the form of prose. In epic poetry, however, that is, epic poetry of the first class, it cannot be reckoned rich. The two chief German poems which might claim for themselves the highest epic rank are the Nibelungen Lied and the 3fes- sia/i of Klopstock ; of which the former is rather interesting and remarkable than really great, and of which the latter is remarkable, perhaps, but hardly either great or interesting. In dramatic poetry German literature is strong; Schiller's single name being sufficient to give it beyond cavil that character. With Schiller's name, however, are to be joined the names, not far unequal to his, of Goethe and of Lessing, as representatives of the drama in Germany. It is to tragedy, rather than to comedy, that the grave German genius instinctively turns to find its favorite dramatic ex- pression. Still, Lessing was witty enough to be a success- ful writer of comedy. German Moliere, there is none ; but that he would have liked to be one is a confession of Lessing's. In lyric poetry German literature may vie with any other literature, either of ancient or of modern times. What battle pseans are finer than Korner's ? What strains of patriot- ism more spirit-stirring, or more pathetic, than Korner's, Arndt's, Uhland's ? What love-ditties sweeter than the best of Goethe's and the best of Heine's ? What songs of sentiment tenderer than those which any one of these masters of the German lyre upon occasion sings ? And finally, what hymns of worship nobler than a few at least which Luther and Paul Gerhardt have led the whole Christian Church in lifting up on high ? German Literature. 15 If we go now from verse to prose, we light at once upon a kind of literature in which German prose and German verse find common ground, and in which German literature easily surpasses every other national literature in the world. We refer to the literature of folk-lore: the traditionary tale, the fairy story, the popular myth, the romance of the super- natural. Goethe speaks of the "eternal womanly." So we might speak of tlie" eternal child-like," and predicate this as a common characteristic of the German mind. And of the German child-likeness of genius there is no better expression than that found in its "Marchen," so-called; a class of stories in which the improbable, the whimsical, the weird, the ghostly, the grotesque, runs riot without check. The brothers Grimm are universally known as masters in this kind. Goethe, who loved to try his hand at whatever man could do, wrote Marchen. So did Tieck, so did Hoffman. In history — to make the transition now from the world of fancy to the world of fact — in history, considered as science and as philosophy, Germans have long been pioneers, dis- coverers, leaders, marching in the van and forefront of the world; but in history, considered as literature, they are not proporlionately conspicuous. The historians Niebuhr, Ne. ander, Ranke, Mommsen, are great names; but even Momm- sen, the most brilliant writer of the four, is less brilliant as a writer than he is profound and exhaustive as an historical scholar. And it is curious, almost paradoxical, that of the brilliancy which does belong to him as a writer, a large part is the brilliancy of the advocate and the sentimentalist, rather than the brilliancy of the narrator. Respecting Schiller, it may be said that it is chiefly his fame as poet that keeps up his credit as historian. In criticism, Germany again takes high rank — the very liighest, perhaj)s, acconling to what is now accepted as the wisest current opinion. This remark applies to criticism in that wide sense of the word which includes criticism of art, as well as criticism of literature. Winckelmann, Lcssing, Herder, Schlegel, Humboldt, (Toethe, are held to have ad- 16 Classic German Course in Euglish. vaiKted the work of the critic Irora mere empiricism to the dignity of a science and a philosophy. In metaphysics, in psychology, in speculative theology, and in exact scholarship as well, there have always been found Germans to take great delight and to achieve remark- able results. There are, in the realm of jjure thought, no names, ancient or modern, mightier than Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling. German theologians we need not name, nor German scholars. But, as has already been hinted, the results of such intellectual activity have not often been presented to the world by Germans in form to constitute elegant literature. There is one kind of literature in which Germans have always been singularly weak, and that is the literature of public discourse, eloquence, oratory. Whether it is due to fault in the language, to defect in the national genius, or to infelicity of historical circumstance, the fact remains, that there is absolutely almost no great oratory in German liter- ature. If Luther is not the only exception, we at least can not name any other. With the growth of freedom in Ger- many, perhaps, this will change. But which is it that produces the other ? Does freedom give birth to eloquence '? Or is it eloquence that gives birth to freedom ? So much for the different recognized species or forms in which German literature has appeared. In the course of its appearing in these various forms, German literature has exhibited certain exterior i:)eculiarities of which something has been already incidentally said in preceding pages. We may jierhaps usefully resume and supplement the suggestions thus made. The abundance of books in German, the comparative scar- city of German books highly admirable at once for matter and for form, the lateness of German literature in beginning, the interruptedness of its subsequent history, are points which have been sufficiently remarked. A further point attracting attention in the present survey is the dependent, imitative, parasitic disposition constantly German Literature. 17 manifested by the Germans in their literature. Menzel reckons live different epidemics of literary imitation in Ger- many, which he names in order — a Gallomania, a Grtecomania, an Anglomania, a New Anglomania, a New Gallomania. Another notewortliy thing is the tendency, at once quar- relsome and social, prevalent among German writers, to classify and cluster themselves in mutually conflicting local schools or coteries. There were the Gottingen group, the Leipsic group, the Hamburg group, the Zurich group, the Silesian, earlier and later, the Swabian, and, greater than any other, greater than all others, the Weimar group. The associative tendency thus pointed out may be referred to the same originating cause with the national tendency spoken of to follow foreign models in literature. Both tendencies probably sprang, we will not say from weakness, but from a sense of weakness, in the German mind, an instinctive feminine leaning toward exterior support. It is possible, however, looking to a still different pecul- iarity, yet to be named — a peculiarity very profoundly qualifying German literature — to find an alternative explan- ation, one more honorable to the national intellect, for the extraordinary tendency characteristic of German authors to attach themselves to one another in groups, and to addict themselves to foreign literary leaders. The quest, however, of this alternative explanation carries us over from a con- sideration of the exterior, to a consideration of the interior, characteristics of German literature. Let us then take, finally, some account of those fundamental traits which make up what we may call the national literary idiosyncrasy of Germans. One of the most distinctive and most admirable gifts be- longing to the national genius of Germany is its unrivaled catholic capacity to recognize and appreciate intellectual merit abroad as well as at home; in fa('t, indifferently, wherever found, no matter in what age or what race of mankind. (iiinian literary admiration is tlie least jealously patriotic, tile most open-heartedly Iiospitable, the most cosmoj)Olitan, 18 Classic German Course in English. ill the world. Beyond all other men, Germans believe in intellectual free-trade. With them there is no restriction to the commerce of ideas. Breadth, generosity, welcome, is accordingly a legend covering the whole face of German literature. Nearly allied to this embracing catholicity of literary spirit, on the part of the Germans, is a trait, to be addition- ally reckoned, of their intellectual character, namely, their passion for philosophy. This passion is with Germans a uni- versally penetrating literary influence. It makes them wish to be deep, to go to the bottom of things; it makes them wish to be broad, to work with a radius long enough to sweep their circumference around every thing knowable — and unknowable, too, for that matter. The Germans are often credited with having been the first to ground literary criticism in principles of philosophy. The " philosophy of history " is, if we mistake not, a German phrase, Avhether or not, also, a German idea. Once more. Profound thinking and broad thinking imply free thinking. Freedom of thought, accordingly — paradox- ical thouo;h it be to make the assertion — is as salient a thing in German literature as is imitativeness of literary form. Freedom — in fact, intrepidity — in thinking, intrepidity car- ried not seldom to the verge of foolhardy, eccentric caprice, is a characteristic of the German mind. We shall not exceed the truth to say that Germany, in the realm of ideas, leads the van of the world ; leads, but, alas, too often misleads. It was, we suppose, in part for the purpose of expressing this leadership of his country in thought, that Richter once, with a humor which probably had for its author a tinge of patriotic pathos in it (it was the time of nadir, or near it, in the national humiliation of Germany), remarked, "Provi- dence has assigned to France the empire of the earth, to En- gland the empire of the ocean, and to Gei-many the empire of — the air ! " The present writer lately, in quoting this remark of Jean Paul's, was surprised and confounded by a straightfor- German Literature. 19 ward hearer with tlie challenge, proposed in perfect good faith, to explain exactly what the remark meant. Then, for the first time, he was brought distinctly to perceive that the oft-quoted saying of Richter, Avhich he had supposed himself to understand well enough to enjoy it keenly for its witt}^ expressiveness, was, in truth, less clear than it seemed. This leads us naturally to name an additional trait of German lit- erature — its lack of clearness, definiteness, solidity, point. The Germans think deeply, they think boldly, but they do not think clearly. Perhaps if they thought more clearly they would think less boldly. Perhaps, too, if they tasked them- selves to think more clearly they would less seem to be think- ing deeply. This vagueness, this insubstantialness, this dis- appointing cloudiness, in German thought, may have been a part of what was consciously meant — it is certainly a part of what we well ma^ understand as conveyed — in Richter's remark. Unsophisticated sentimentalism, disposition to wear the heart on the sleeve, to have no personal secrets whatever from readers — this is a further singularity observable in Ger- man literature. What we mean goes beyond that certain degree of simplicity, of unreserve, of confidingness, on the part of writers, with which, though some might be surprised, most would be pleased. German outspokenness in literature is often, to English or American taste, something excessive, something almost egi'egious. It resembles what in society we should call lack of requisite reticence, of decorous self- control. The sentiment of delight in the contemplation of nature is a sufficiently striking thing in German literature to deserve separate note. This sentiment, in its later exhibition, may be a derivation from abroad — from Rousseau, fi-om Spinoza, for example. But Luther, too, loved nature, and there are some exquisite bits of idyllic description of natural beauty i liters] tcrsed through his letters. At any rate, however in- spired, whether ijiijtorted or iiidigenous, the ]):issi<>n has be- come a distinctive (Ti^-maii lifcraiy trait. 20 Classic German Course in English. Of near kindred with the two traits last named is, finally, a certain religiosity giving its tinge to German literature. Your German writer may be an infidel, but he will not there- foi-e cease to have his religiosity. He may be a libertine in practice, but his religiosity will still be dear to him. Religi- osity never gave up harboring in Heine's heart, cheek by jole with mockery, with ribaldry, with blasphemy. The religios- ity of which we now speak, is not religion. It is rather sim- ply the irrepressible, though half-perverted, witness borne in literature by the German temperament to its own ineradicable instinct for religion. Of religion itself, however, the authen- tic thing, beautiful and sweet, there is also, in German liter- ature, no lack. We have, in saying this, lo suppose a broad distinction made in lhouo;ht between religion and orthodoxy, as orthodoxy is commonly conceived. A German strictly orthodox in religion may, indeed, exist ; but such a one, we judge, has never yet made himself known to the world in literature. We have said "finally," and we accordingly herewith bring our characterization of German literature abruptly to its close, A word or tM'O only of related information, and we go without more delay to the exhibition of those select German authoi-s who will furnish the subject and the mate- rial of the present volume. German generosity in literary appreciation — perhaps we should say German generosity as toward English authois in particular — has enjoyed the return from English-speakers of an overflowing reward in kind. Never, on behalf of any other coeval foreign literature than the German, has there been exercised among us a championship so importunate and so influential. Coleridge and Carlyle, by eminence, in En- gland; in America, Felton, Ripley, Brooks, Hedge, and, in- deed, in one way or another, nearly all our chief literary powers, have conspired to commend to Englishmen and Americans the study of German literature, and have accu- mulated a popular apparatus of means for that study far beyond what exists in the case of any modern literature ex- German Literature. 21 cept ihe German. The deep-lying difference in mental genius between the purely Teutonic and the mixed Anglo-Saxon race interposes a barrier, which will, j^erhaps, never be sur- mounted, to perfect freedom of literary interchange llowing back and forth from the one to the other. We may, how- ever, safely wish well to every effort made on eitlier side to promote mutual literary acquaintance. For the benefit of tliose among our own readers who may desire to prosecute their explorations' of German literature farther than, with the single aid of this volume, they can do, we mention now a few accessible books in English which they will find variously serviceable to their purpose. Among living American teachers of the German language and literature, the place of honor belongs, we suppose, by right of seniority, to the veteran Dr. F. H. Hedge, whose two books, Prose Writers of Gerniany, an ample re})ertory of translation issued many years ago, and Hours vnth Ger- man Classics, recently published, a collection of university lectures on German literature, have gained wide acceptance with the public. In the older and larger book, translation (limited to originals in prose) is the principal object, bio- gra|)hical and critical comment being secondary. In the smaUer, recent volume, that relation is reversed. Even this smaller volume of the two much exceeds the present book in size. Professor James K. Ilosmer's Short History of German Literature is not, what its title might seem to import, a complete, though compendious, sketch of German literary his- tory. It is rather a series of essays or lectures on selected topics in German literature, designed by the author to be so treated as virtually to cover the whole held indicated in the title to his book. The book is by no means a primer in size. It contains more than six hundred fairly large pages. It is fresh and vigorous in style, and its tone is, on the whole, pure and bracing. It breathes unwasted youthful enthusiasm and joy in its subject. There ari? in it fre(jueiit translations from < Jerman interspersed. 22 Classic German Course in KnglhJi. A formal history of German literature lias lately been translated, under the best auspices, from German, which may be mentioned as constituting a popular manual for general pur- poses i^robably not inferior to any now existing in English on its subject. This is the work of W. Scherer, commended in its English form to the public by the name of Max Miiller on its title-[)age as editor, Scherer is a well-informed, judicious historian and critic, having at command a more than ordina- rily clear and unembarrassed style — for a German His book is not free from errors, and his plan of treatment seems to us faulty, involving as it does, on the historian's part, re- peated recurrences here and there throughout the volume to a given name, and thus obliging the student, with much con- fusing use of his index, to piece out as best he can for iiim- self that whole view of each particular author which his manual will rarely be found in any one place to supply. German-like, Scherer begins remotely, and stores his lirst volume with a mass of uninteresting information painstak- ingly gathered, such as it is a great satisfaction to have within reach — for future reference. The special difference to characterize the volume herewith offered to the public— apart from its less comparative size, a very important feature of contrast — is, first, that while, on the one hand, it will not be either merely or chiefly historical and critical, it will, on the other hand, be both historical and critical incidentally; and, second, that while, on the one hand, it will not present long ti-anslated extracts in bare unbroken bulk, it will, on the other hand, present considerable extracts, interrupted, connected, elucidated, and appreciated, by means of quasi-editorial comment in explanation and appraisal. In other words, taking translated German text, select and rep- resentative, for the basis, the backbone, of the book, we shall seek so to edit that text as to invest it with flesh, its own flesh, to inspire it with breath, its own breath, to give it a heart, its oAvn heart; in short, to make it live, and with its own life, to our readers. If we succeed in our efforts our readers will here have under their eye, neither, on the one German Literature. hand, simply so mucli translated German literature, to under- stand, as best they may, for themselves, and to form their own unguided judgment upon, nor, on the other hand, sim- ply so much unexemplified critical expression to take on pure trust from the critic, without I'ully apprehending, and, of course, without verifying. The idea of this book is, there- fore, not quite like that of any other book known to the present writer. The execution is such as his best conscien- tious endeavors could make it. 24 Classic German Course in JiJ/u/llsh. II. LUTHER. 1483-1546. A WORLD-HISTORICAL personagc, C'm)»hatically and hy emi- nence such, is Luther. The adjective we thus apply — a compound adjective so much more German than Englisli in genius — seems made for our purpose, to express densely at the same time this man's personality, liis influence, and his fame. For no other man perhaps ever lived who, simply by what he was, stamped himself so broadly, so deeply, and so indelibly as did Lutlier upon the universal imagination of the liuman race; no other man who, by his own single force, did so much to turn into a new channel the main current of human history ; no other who so imperiously usurped, at once and for ever, his place in the memory of all human kind. Such was Luther, the man. We liave here, however, to deal with Luther, not in these larger aspects of his genius and his achievement, but rather as a German simply; and, even more narrowly still, as a German producer of German litera- ture. (No inconsiderable part of Luther's immensely volu- minous literary production was written, not in German, but in Latin.) Luther, as we have already remarked, stands founder, at the very beginning, of proper German literary history. Fecund and manifold man that he was, he bore fruit for literature hardly less remarkable than was the fruit which he bore for religion and for politics. German litera- ture, in the full catholic sense of that expression, may be said to date its commencement from the moment at which Luther's noble translation of the Bible into his own mother- tongue was first given to Germany. That monumental work it was which fixed for Germans the form of their literary language — in truth, Avhich made it possible for a German literature, strictly and comprehensively so described, to be. Luther. 25 Before Luther, the German hinguage seemed hopelessly dis- tracted into dialects. As an organ of literary expression, it was despised even by the Germans themselves, and neglected. Luther's works in authorship are as multiform as they are manifold. They consist of lectures, of sermons, of tracts, of pamphlets in controversy, of commentaries, of addi-esses, and, unsurpassed in importance, of letters — letters almost as numerous, and almost as various, as those of Voltaire. Above every thing else, however, that proceeded froni Luther's pen towers eminent in literary value and signiti- cance his translation into German of the Old and New Tes- tament Scriptures. Luther's own sign manual, legible on it all, renders it fair that the German Bible which, where he did not himself make it he at least effectively got made, should be called, as it invariably is called, by his name. This, Luther's cajtital achievement in literature, it will, of course, be impossible for us at all to illustrate here. Luther's Bible is, and it must remain, immortally and hopelessly, as it is admirably, German. It has, for three centuries and a half, been to the German-speaking peoples all that the " King James's " translation, for two centuries, has been to the peoples that speak English. We shall not need here to sketch Luther's life. The world knows it by heart. It will not, however, be amiss to recall to our readers an image, at once lively and just, of the man ]\rartin Luther, by giving a few glimpses of him as self-dis- closed in his letters, or again as acting the true " autocrat of the breakfast-table," at his ease and freely, among his friends. How the great reformer seems to be living again, as often as one listens to that racy and that abundant "table- talk" of his — silent now so long from the lips that uttered it, but resounding still, and forever resounding, in the hooks in which it is printed, for all races and all generations of his fellow-men to hear ! Luther, Avith shrewd self-knowledge, contrasted himself against his friend Melanchthon by saying: " Philip is straiter tied than I am; I am more a rhetorician and a talker." '1\> talk was indeed Luther's genius and his 26 Classic Gerinati Course iit EinjUsh. delight. He talked when he preached, tulked even when he wrote; but he was at his best — also, it must be owned, at his worst — when he ungirded himself to talk freely and ilowingly, in the communications of social or of convivial life. Such most characteristic utterances of Luther are pre- served for us, perhaps in overlarge supply. The great man had his devoted admirers, who valued, not merely for them- selves, but for the whole world of mankind, every syllable of speech that issued from those extremely out-speaking oracular lips. These earlier Boswells of a far mightier Johnson waited on their master as often as they got the chance — and they got the chance very often — and took down his words in writing as fast as he spoke tliem. His least considered utterances seem not to have dilfered from those best considered, in the perilous risk they ran of being thus " treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." Never per- haps was mortal man more completely, more pitilessly, ex- posed, to be known to the Avorld for what he really was, than was Martin Luther. And this exposure we have, in not its least startling degree of distinctness, in the volumes of his table-talk. No conventional, no posturing Luther is here — no Luther deceptively draped by artful admirers for deco- rous appearance to history. It is an actual, not an ideal, man, a man, too, caught as it were, at unawares — his attitude sighted under many different angles — that lives before us, as we listen, and speaks these breathing words. The most conveniently accessible popular form in which, until lately, Luther's Table- Talk could be read in English was found in a much abridged translation, from the hand of William Hazlitt, constituting one of the issues of the well- known Bohn Library. Professor Henry Morley now edits, for the very useful " National Library," in course of publication by Cassell & Company, one small volume of selections, promising a second, from the pioneer English version of Captain Henry Bell. We go ourselves to the original text for our extracts from Luther. '11 the TahU-Talk. Luther is discussing astrok)gy, in whicli pretended' science lie did not believe, although his friend Melanchthon did. Luther says: I liMve often talked of the subject [astrulogv'] vvitli Philip [Melaiicli- ihon] and reeoiiulcd to him iu order my wiiole hfe, how one thing after another lia.s befallen, and how it has fared with inc. I am a peasant's son; m\- father, my grandfather, my lireat-grandfather, were nothinrcbnt peasants. My father went to Mausfeld, and tliere became a miner. Sneh is my origin. Now that I shonld become bachelor of arts, master of arts, monk, and so forth, that was not written iu the stars. Did I not get myself great shame though, bj' becoming monk, by hiying aside my brown cap and wearing a different one? The which, truly, ve.xed my father sore and of- fended him. After that I got into the pope's hair, and he, forsooth, back into mine; I tuok a runaway mm to wife, and had children by her. Who saw all that in the stars? Who woidd have told me beforehand that so it was to happen ? AVith the foregoing passage cited from the Table-Talk^ Michelet begins his lively biography of Luther. But the passage is " edited " by the Frenchman. The fact of its l)cing in argument against astrology that Luther was sketch- ing his own career does not at all come out, and Michelet omits altogether the particular about Luther's becoming a " monk," apparently because to include it, after " bachelor of arts, doctor of divinity," M'ould spoil a climax — a climax, by the way, quite the Frenchman's own, and not in the least ]>elonging to Luther's simple statement. In short, Luther is exhibited by Michelet as swaggering about himself, instead of merely telling, for argument's sake, a few incidents from his own experience. In aildition, the clause, " Such is ray origin," is mistranslated to read, " There I was born," Luther being thus caused to say that he was born at Mans- feld, whereas Eisleben was his birthplace. It will do to add a good pinch of salt, in allowance for rhetorical variations, whenever you read ^l. Michelet's citations from the liable- Talk of Luther. Care, in fact, is always to be exercised in using Luther's TabU-Tr. And though they take oiu- life, Goods, houses, children, wifi-, ^^'t is their profit small, These things shall vanish all, The eit}' of God remaiuelli. 32 Classic German Course in English. Dr. Hedge has a less literal, but smoother, version of this song, beginning, "A mighty fortress is our God." Dr. Hedge's version is often printed in our collections of hymns. In a ballad of Luther's, the " Martyrs of Brussels " (two young men who suffered at the stake for Christ, in 1523), occurs the following stanza, which seems to be the original of a hymn sometimes attributed to Luther, beginning, " Flung to the heedless winds : " Their ashes will not rest ; world-wide They fly through every nation ; No cave nor gra,ve, no lurn nor tide, Can hide th' abomination. The voices which witli cruel h;nids Tliey put to silence living, Are Jieard, though dead, tiiroiigliout all lands Their testimony giving, And loud hosannas singing The striking thought about those restless martyr ashes finds prose expression in an extract, s