Chapter VI: Imitators of Sterne (1)

Among the disciples of Sterne in Germany whose literary imitation may be regarded as typical of their master's influence, Johann Georg Jacobi is perhaps the best known. His relation to the famous "Lorenzodosen" conceit is sufficient to link his name with that of Yorick. Martin[1] asserts that he was called "Uncle Toby" in Gleim's circle because of his enthusiasm for Sterne. The indebtedness of Jacobi to Sterne is the subject of a special study by Dr. Joseph Longo, "Laurence Sterne und Johann Georg Jacobi;" and the period of Jacobi's literary work which falls under the spell of Yorick has also been treated in an inaugural dissertation, "Ueber Johann Georg Jacobi's Jugendwerke," by Georg Ransohoff. The detail of Jacobi's indebtedness to Sterne is to be found in these two works.

Longo was unable to settle definitely the date of Jacobi's first acquaintance with Sterne. The first mention made of him is in the letter to Gleim of April 4, 1769, and a few days afterward,--April 10,--the intelligence is afforded that he himself is working on a "journey." The "Winterreise" was published at Düsseldorf in the middle of June, 1769. Externally the work seems more under the influence of the French wanderer Chapelle, since prose and verse are used irregularly alternating, a style quite different from the English model. There are short and unnumbered chapters, as in the Sentimental Journey, but, unlike Sterne, Jacobi, with one exception, names no places and makes no attempt at description of place or people, other than the sentimental individuals encountered on the way. He makes no analysis of national, or even local characteristics: the journey, in short, is almost completely without place-influence. There is in the volume much more exuberance of fancy, grotesque at times, a more conscious exercise of the picturing imagination than we find in Sterne. There is use, too, of mythological figures quite foreign to Sterne, an obvious reminiscence of Jacobi's Anacreontic experience. He exaggerates Yorick's sentimentalism, is more weepy, more tender, more sympathizing; yet, as Longo does not sufficiently emphasize, he does not touch the whimsical side of Yorick's work. Jacobi, unlike his model, but in common with other German imitators, is insistent in instruction and serious in contention for pet theories, as is exemplified by the discussion of the doctrine of immortality. There are opinions to be maintained, there is a message to be delivered. Jacobi in this does not give the lie to his nationality.

Like other German imitators, too, he took up with especial feeling the relations between man and the animal world, an attitude to be connected with several familiar episodes in Sterne.[2] The two chapters, "Der Heerd" and "Der Taubenschlag," tell of a sentimental farmer who mourns over the fact that his son has cut down a tree in which the nightingale was wont to nest. A similar sentimental regard is cherished in this family for the doves, which no one killed, because no one could eat them. Even as Yorick meets a Franciscan, Jacobi encounters a Jesuit whose heart leaps to meet his own, and later, after the real journey is done, a visit to a lonely cloister gives opportunity for converse with a monk, like Pater Lorenzo,--tender, simple and humane.

The "Sommerreise," according to Longo, appeared in the latter part of September, 1769, a less important work, which, in the edition of 1807, Jacobi considered unworthy of preservation. Imitation of Sterne is marked: following a criticism by Wieland the author attempts to be humorous, but with dubious success; he introduces a Sterne-like sentimental character which had not been used in the "Winterreise," a beggar-soldier, and he repeats the motif of human sympathy for animals in the story of the lamb. Sympathy with erring womanhood is expressed in the incidents related in "Die Fischerhütte" and "Der Geistliche." These two books were confessedly inspired by Yorick, and contemporary criticism treated them as Yorick products. The _Deutsche Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften_, published by Jacobi's friend Klotz, would naturally favor the volumes. Its review of the "Winterreise" is non-critical and chiefly remarkable for the denial of foreign imitation. The _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_,[3] in reviewing the same work pays a significant tribute to Sterne, praising his power of disclosing the good and beautiful in the seemingly commonplace. In direct criticism of the book, the reviewer calls it a journey of fancy, the work of a youthful poet rather than that of a sensitive philosopher. Wieland is credited with the astounding opinion that he prefers the "Sommerreise" to Yorick's journey.[4] Longo's characterization of Sterne is in the main satisfactory, yet there is distinctly traceable the tendency to ignore or minimize the whimsical elements of Sterne's work: this is the natural result of his approach to Sterne, through Jacobi, who understood only the sentimentalism of the English master.[5]

Among the works of sentiment which were acknowledged imitations of Yorick, along with Jacobi's "Winterreise," probably the most typical and best known was the "Empfindsame Reisen durch Deutschland" by Johann Gottlieb Schummel. Its importance as a document in the history of sentimentalism is rather as an example of tendency than as a force contributing materially to the spread of the movement. Its influence was probably not great, though one reviewer does hint at a following.[6] Yet the book has been remembered more persistently than any other work of its genre, except Jacobi's works, undoubtedly in part because it was superior to many of its kind, partly, also, because its author won later and maintained a position of some eminence, as a writer and a pedagogue; but largely because Goethe's well-known review of it in the _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_ has been cited as a remarkably acute contribution to the discriminating criticism of the genuine and the affected in the eighteenth-century literature of feeling, and has drawn attention from the very fact of its source to the object of its criticism.

Schummel was born in May, 1748, and hence was but twenty years of age when Germany began to thrill in response to Yorick's sentiments. It is probable that the first volume was written while Schummel was still a university student in 1768-1770. He assumed a position as teacher in 1771, but the first volume came out at Easter of that year; this would probably throw its composition back into the year before. The second volume appeared at Michaelmas of the same year. His publisher was Zimmermann at Wittenberg and Zerbst, and the first volume at any rate was issued in a new edition. The third volume came out in the spring of 1772.[7] Schummel's title, "Empfindsame Reisen," is, of course, taken from the newly coined word in Bode's title, but in face of this fact it is rather remarkable to find that several quotations from Sterne's Journey, given in the course of the work, are from the Mittelstedt translation. On two occasions, indeed, Schummel uses the title of the Mittelstedt rendering as first published, "Versuch über die menschliche Natur."[8]

These facts lead one to believe that Schummel drew his inspiration from the reading of this translation. This is interesting in connection with Böttiger's claim that the whole cavalcade of sentimental travelers who trotted along after Yorick with all sorts of animals and vehicles was a proof of the excellence and power of Bode's translation. As one would naturally infer from the title of Schummel's fiction, the Sentimental Journey is more constantly drawn upon as a source of ideas, motifs, expression, and method, than Tristram Shandy, but the allusions to Sterne's earlier book, and the direct adaptations from it are both numerous and generous. This fact has not been recognized by the critics, and is not an easy inference from the contemporary reviews.

The book is the result of an immediate impulse to imitation felt irresistibly on the reading of Sterne's narrative. That the critics and readers of that day treated with serious consideration the efforts of a callow youth of twenty or twenty-one in this direction is indicative either of comparative vigor of execution, or of prepossession of the critical world in favor of the literary genre,--doubtless of both. Schummel confesses that the desire to write came directly after the book had been read. "I had just finished reading it," he says, "and Heaven knows with what pleasure, every word from 'as far as this matter is concerned' on to 'I seized the hand of the lady's maid,' were imprinted in my soul with small invisible letters." The characters of the Journey stood "life-size in his very soul." Involuntarily his inventive powers had sketched several plans for a continuation, releasing Yorick from the hand of the _fille de chambre_. But what he attempts is not a continuation but a German parallel.

In the outward events of his story, in the general trend of its argument, Schummel does not depend upon either Shandy or the Journey: the hero's circumstances are in general not traceable to the English model, but, spasmodically, the manner of narration and the nature of the incidents are quite slavishly copied. A complete summary of the thread of incident on which the various sentimental adventures, whimsical speculations and digressions are hung, can be dispensed with: it is only necessary to note instances where connection with Sterne as a model can be established. Schummel's narrative is often for many successive pages absolutely straightforward and simple, unbroken by any attempt at Shandean buoyancy, and unblemished by overwrought sentiment. At the pausing places he generally indulges in Sternesque quibbling.

A brief analysis of the first volume, with especial reference to the appropriation of Yorick features, will serve to show the extent of imitation, and the nature of the method. In outward form the Sentimental Journey is copied. The volume is not divided into chapters, but there are named divisions: there is also Yorick-like repetition of section-headings. Naturally the author attempts at the very beginning to strike a note distinctly suggesting Sterne: "Is he dead, the old cousin?" are the first words of the volume, uttered by the hero on receipt of the news, and in Yorick fashion he calls for guesses concerning the mien with which the words were said. The conversation of the various human passions with Yorick concerning the advisability of offering the lady in Calais a seat in his chaise is here directly imitated in the questions put by avarice, vanity, etc., concerning the cousin's death. The actual journey does not begin until page 97, a brief autobiography of the hero occupying the first part of the book; this inconsequence is confessedly intended to be a Tristram Shandy whim.[9] The author's relation to his parents is adapted directly from Shandy, since he here possesses an incapable, unpractical, philosophizing father, who determines upon methods for the superior education of his son; and a simple, silly mockery of a mother.

Left, however, an orphan, he begins his sentimental adventures: thrust on the world he falls in with a kindly baker's wife whose conduct toward him brings tears to the eyes of the ten-year old lad, this showing his early appetite for sentimental journeying. A large part of this first section relating to his early life and youthful struggles, his kindly benefactor, his adventure with Potiphar's wife, is simple and direct, with only an occasional hint of Yorick's influence in word or phrase, as if the author, now and then, recalled the purpose and the inspiration. For example, not until near the bottom of page 30 does it occur to him to be abrupt and indulge in Shandean eccentricities, and then again, after a few lines, he resumes the natural order of discourse. And again, on page 83, he breaks off into attempted frivolity and Yorick whimsicality of narration. In starting out upon his journey the author says: "I will tread in Yorick's foot-prints, what matters it if I do not fill them out? My heart is not so broad as his, the sooner can it be filled; my head is not so sound; my brain not so regularly formed. My eyes are not so clear, but for that he was born in England and I in Germany; he is a man and I am but a youth, in short, he is Yorick and I am not Yorick." He determines to journey where it is most sentimental and passes the various lands in review in making his decision. Having fastened upon Germany, he questions himself similarly with reference to the cities. Yorick's love of lists, of mock-serious discrimination, of inconsequential reasonings is here copied. The call upon epic, tragic, lyric poets, musicians, etc., which follows here is a further imitation of Yorick's list-making and pseudo-scientific method.

On his way to Leipzig, in the post-chaise, the author falls in with a clergyman: the manner of this meeting is intended to be Sterne-like: Schummel sighs, the companion remarks, "You too are an unhappy one," and they join hands while the human heart beams in the traveler's eyes. They weep too at parting. But, apart from these external incidents of their meeting, the matter of their converse is in no way inspired by Sterne. It joins itself with the narrative of the author's visit to a church in a village by the wayside, and deals in general with the nature of the clergyman's relation to his people and the general mediocrity and ineptitude of the average homiletical discourse, the failure of clergymen to relate their pulpit utterance to the life of the common Christian,--all of which is genuine, sane and original, undoubtedly a real protest on the part of Schummel, the pedagogue, against a prevailing abuse of his time and other times. This section represents unquestionably the earnest convictions of its author, and is written with professional zeal. This division is followed by an evidently purposeful return to Sterne's eccentricity of manner. The author begins a division of his narrative, "Der zerbrochene Postwagen," which is probably meant to coincide with the post-chaise accident in Shandy's travels, writes a few lines in it, then begins the section again, something like the interrupted story of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles. Then follows an abrupt discursive study of his aptitudes and proclivities, interspersed with Latin exclamations, interrogation points and dashes. "What a parenthesis is that!" he cries, and a few lines further on, "I burn with longing to begin a parenthesis again." On his arrival in Leipzig, Schummel imitates closely Sterne's satirical guide-book description of Calais[10] in his brief account of the city, breaking off abruptly like Sterne, and roundly berating all "Reisebeschreiber." Here in fitting contrast with this superficial enumeration of facts stands his brief traveler's creed, an interest in people rather than in places, all of which is derived from Sterne's chapter, "In the Street, Calais," in which the master discloses the sentimental possibilities of traveling and typifies the superficial, unemotional wanderer in the persons of Smelfungus and Mundungus, and from the familiar passage in "The Passport, Versailles," beginning, "But I could wish to spy out the nakedness, etc." No sooner is he arrived in Leipzig, than he accomplishes a sentimental rescue of an unfortunate woman on the street. In the expression of her immediate needs, Schummel indulges for the first time in a row of stars, with the obvious intention of raising a low suggestion, which he contradicts with mock-innocent questionings a few lines later, thereby fastening the attention on the possibility of vulgar interpretation. Sterne is guilty of this device in numerous instances in both his works, and the English continuation of the Sentimental Journey relies upon it in greater and more revolting measure.

Once established in his hotel, the author betakes himself to the theater: this very act he feels will bring upon him the censure of the critics, for Yorick went to the theater too. "A merchant's boy went along before me," he says in naïve defense, "was he also an imitator of Yorick?" On the way he meets a fair maid-in-waiting, and the relation between her and the traveler, developed here and later, is inspired directly by Yorick's connection with the fair _fille de chambre_. Schummel imitates Sterne's excessive detail of description, devoting a whole paragraph to his manner of removing his hat before a lady whom he encounters on this walk to the theater. This was another phase of Sterne's pseudo-scientific method: he describes the trivial with the attitude of the trained observer, registering minutely the detail of phenomena, a mock-parade of scholarship illustrated by his description of Trim's attitude while reading his sermon, or the dropping of the hat in the kitchen during the memorable scene when the news of Bobby's death is brought.

In Schummel's narration of his adventures in the house of ill-repute there are numerous sentimental excrescences in his conduct with the poor prisoner there, due largely to Yorick's pattern, such as their weeping on one another's breast, and his wiping away her tears and his, drawn from Yorick's amiable service for Maria of Moulines, an act seemingly expressing the most refined human sympathy. The remaining events of this first volume include an unexpected meeting with the kind baker's wife, which takes place at Gellert's grave. Yorick's imitators were especially fond of re-introducing a sentimental relationship. Yorick led the way in his renewed acquaintance with the _fille de chambre_; Stevenson in his continuation went to extremes in exploiting this cheap device.

Other motifs derived from Sterne, less integral, may be briefly summarized. From the Sentimental Journey is taken the motif that valuable or interesting papers be used to wrap ordinary articles of trade: here herring are wrapped in fragments of the father's philosophy; in the Sentimental Journey we find a similar degrading use for the "Fragment." Schummel breaks off the chapter "La Naïve,"[11] under the Sternesque subterfuge of having to deliver manuscript to an insistent publisher. Yorick writes his preface to the Journey in the "Désobligeant," that is, in the midst of the narrative itself. Schummel modifies the eccentricity merely by placing his foreword at the end of the volume. The value of it, he says, will repay the reader for waiting so long,--a statement which finds little justification in the preface itself. It begins, "Auweh! Auweh! Ouais, Helas! . . . Diable, mein Rücken, mein Fuss!" and so on for half a page,--a pitiful effort to follow the English master's wilful and skilful incoherence. The following pages, however, once this outbreak is at an end, contain a modicum of sense, the feeble, apologetic explanation of his desire in imitating Yorick, given in forethought of the critics' condemnation. Similarly the position of the dedication is unusual, in the midst of the volume, even as the dedication of Shandy was roguishly delayed. The dedication itself, however, is not an imitation of Sterne's clever satire, but, addressed to Yorick himself, is a striking example of burning personal devotion and over-wrought praise. Schummel hopes[12] in Sterne fashion to write a chapter on "Vorübergeben," or in the chapter "Das Komödienhaus" (pp. 185-210) to write a digression on "Walking behind a maid." Like Sterne, he writes in praise of digressions.[13] In imitation of Sterne is conceived the digressive speculation concerning the door through which at the beginning of the book he is cast into the rude world. Among further expressions savoring of Sterne, may be mentioned a "Centner of curses" (p. 39), a "Quentchen of curses," and the analytical description of a tone of voice as one-fourth questioning, five-eighths entreating and one-eighth commanding (p. 229).

The direct allusions to Sterne and his works are numerous. A list of Sterne characters which were indelibly impressed upon his mind is found near the very beginning (pp. 3-4); other allusions are to M. Dessein (p. 65), La Fleur's "Courierstiefel" (p. 115), the words of the dying Yorick (p. 128), the pococurantism of Mrs. Shandy (p. 187), the division of travelers into types (p. 141), Uncle Toby (p. 200), Yorick's violin-playing (p. 274), the foolish fat scullion (p. 290), Yorick's description of a maid's (p. 188) eyes, "als ob sie zwischen vier Wänden einem Garaus machen könnten."

The second volume is even more incoherent in narration, and contains less genuine occurrence and more ill-considered attempts at whimsicality, yet throughout this volume there are indications that the author is awakening to the vulnerability of his position, and this is in no other particular more easily discernible than in the half-hearted defiance of the critics and his anticipation of their censure. The change, so extraordinary in the third volume, is foreshadowed in the second. Purely sentimental, effusive, and abundantly teary is the story of the rescued baker's wife. In this excess of sentiment, Schummel shows his intellectual appreciation of Sterne's individual treatment of the humane and pathetic, for near the end of the poor woman's narrative the author seems to recollect a fundamental sentence of Sterne's creed, the inevitable admixture of the whimsical, and here he introduces into the sentimental relation a Shandean idiosyncrasy: from page 43 the narrative leaps back to the beginning of the volume, and Schummel advises the reader to turn back and re-read, referring incidentally to his confused fashion of narration. The awkwardness with which this is done proves Schummel's inability to follow Yorick, though its use shows his appreciation of Sterne's peculiar genius. The visit of the author, the baker's wife and her daughter (the former lady's maid) to the graveyard is Yorickian in flavor, and the plucking of nettles from the grave of the dead epileptic is a direct borrowing. Attempts to be immorally, sensuously suggestive in the manner of Sterne are found in the so-called chapter on "Button-holes," here cast in a more Shandean vein, and in the adventure "die ängstliche Nacht,"--in the latter case resembling more the less frank, more insinuating method of the Sentimental Journey. The sentimental attitude toward man's dumb companions is imitated in his adventure with the house-dog; the author fears the barking of this animal may disturb the sleep of the poor baker's wife: he beats the dog into silence, then grows remorseful and wishes "that I had given him no blow," or that the dog might at least give him back the blows. His thought that the dog might be pretending its pain, he designates a subtle subterfuge of his troubled conscience, and Goethe, in the review mentioned above, exclaims, "A fine pendant to Yorick's scene with the Monk."

Distinctly Shandean are the numerous digressions, as on imitation (p. 16), on authors and fairs (p. 45), that which he calls (pp. 226-238) "ein ganz originelles Gemische von Wiz, Belesenheit, Scharfsinn, gesunder Philosophie, Erfahrung, Algebra und Mechanik," or (p. 253) "Von der Entstehungsart eines Buches nach Erfindung der Buchdrukerkunst," which in reference to Sterne's phrase, is called a "jungfräuliche Materie." He promises (pp. 75 and 108), like Sterne, to write numerous chapters on extraordinary subjects,--indeed, he announces his intention of supplementing the missing sections of Shandy on "Button-holes" and on the "Right and Left (sic) end of a Woman." His own promised effusions are to be "Ueber die roten und schwarzen Röcke," "über die Verbindung der Theologie mit Schwarz," "Europäischenfrauenzimmerschuhabsätze," half a one "Ueber die Schuhsohlen" and "Ueber meinen Namen."

His additions to Shandy are flat and witless, that on the "Right and Wrong End of a Woman" (pp. 88 ff.) degenerating into three brief narratives displaying woman's susceptibility to flattery, the whole idea probably adapted from Sterne's chapter, "An Act of Charity;" the chapter on "Button-holes" is made a part of the general narrative of his relation to his "Naïve." Weakly whimsical is his seeking pardon for the discourse with which the Frenchman (pp. 62-66), under the pretext that it belonged somewhere else and had inadvertently crept in. Shandean also is the black margin to pages 199-206, the line upside down (p. 175), the twelve irregularly printed lines (p. 331), inserted to indicate his efforts in writing with a burned hand, the lines of dashes and exclamation points, the mathematical, financial calculation of the worth of his book from various points of view, and the description of the maiden's walk (p. 291). Sterne's mock-scientific method, as already noted, is observable again in the statement of the position of the dagger "at an angle of 30°" (p. 248). His coining of new words, for which he is censured by the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_, is also a legacy of Yorick's method.

The third volume bears little relation to Sterne aside from its title, and one can only wonder, in view of the criticism of the two parts already published and the nature of the author's own partial revulsion of feeling, that he did not give up publishing it altogether, or choose another title, and sunder the work entirely from the foregoing volumes, with which it has in fact so contradictory a connection. It may be that his relations to the publisher demanded the issuing of the third part under the same title.

This volume is easily divisible into several distinct parts, which are linked with one another, and to the preceding narrative, only by a conventional thread of introduction. These comprise: the story of Caroline and Rosenfeld, a typical eighteenth century tale of love, seduction and flight; the hosts' ballad, "Es war einmahl ein Edelmann;" the play, "Die unschuldige Ehebrecherin" and "Mein Tagebuch," the journal of an honest preacher, and a further sincere exploitation of Schummel's ideas upon the clergyman's office, his ideal of simplicity, kindliness, and humanity. In the latter part of the book Schummel resumes his original narrative, and indulges once more in the luxury of sentimental adventure, but without the former abortive attempts at imitating Sterne's peculiarities of diction. This last resumption of the sentimental creed introduces to us one event evidently inspired by Yorick: he meets a poor, maimed soldier-beggar. Since misfortune has deprived the narrator himself of his possessions, he can give nothing and goes a begging for the beggar's sake, introducing the new and highly sentimental idea of "vicarious begging" (pp. 268-9). In the following episode, a visit to a child-murderess, Schummel leaves a page entirely blank as an appropriate proof of incapacity to express his emotions attendant on the execution of the unfortunate. Sterne also left a page blank for the description of the Widow Wadman's charms.

At the very end of the book Schummel drops his narrative altogether and discourses upon his own work. It would be difficult to find in any literature so complete a condemnation of one's own serious and extensive endeavor, so candid a criticism of one's own work, so frank an acknowledgment of the pettiness of one's achievement. He says his work, as an imitation of Sterne's two novels, has "few or absolutely no beauties of the original, and many faults of its own." He states that his enthusiasm for Tristram has been somewhat dampened by Sonnenfels and Riedel; he sees now faults which should not have been imitated; the frivolous attitude of the narrator toward his father and mother is deprecated, and the suggestion is given that this feature was derived from Tristram's own frankness concerning the eccentricities and incapacities of his parents. He begs reference to a passage in the second volume[14] where the author alludes with warmth of appreciation to his real father and mother; that is, genuine regard overcame the temporary blindness, real affection arose and thrust out the transitory inclination to an alien whimsicality.

Schummel admits that he has utterly failed in his effort to characterize the German people in the way Sterne treated the English and French; he confesses that the ninety-page autobiography which precedes the journey itself was intended to be Tristram-like, but openly stigmatizes his own failure as "ill conceived, incoherent and not very well told!" After mentioning some few incidents and passages in this first section which he regards as passable, he boldly condemns the rest as "almost beneath all criticism," and the same words are used with reference to much that follows, in which he confesses to imitation, bad taste and intolerable indelicacy. He calls his pathetic attempts at whimsical mannerisms (Heideldum, etc.), "kläglich, überaus kläglich," expresses the opinion that one would not be surprised at the reader who would throw away the whole book at such a passage. The words of the preacher in the two sections where he is allowed to air his opinions still meet with his approval, and the same is true of one or two other sections. In conclusion, he states that the first part contains hardly one hundred good pages, and that the second part is worse than the first, so that he is unwilling to look at it again and seek out its faults. The absence of allusions to Sterne's writings is marked, except in the critical section at the end, he mentions Sterne but once (p. 239), where he calls him "schnurrigt." This alteration of feeling must have taken place in a brief space of time, for the third volume is signed April 25, 1772. It is not easy to establish with probability the works of Sonnenfels and Riedel which are credited with a share in this revulsion of feeling.

In all of this Schummel is a discriminating critic of his own work; he is also discerning in his assertion that the narrative contained in his volume is conceived more in the vein of Fielding and Richardson. The Sterne elements are rather embroidered on to the other fabric, or, as he himself says, using another figure, "only fried in Shandy fat."[15]

Goethe's criticism of the second volume, already alluded to, is found in the _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_ in the issue of March 3, 1772. The nature of the review is familiar: Goethe calls the book a thistle which he has found on Yorick's grave. "Alles," he says, "hat es dem guten Yorick geraubt, Speer, Helm und Lanze, nur Schade! inwendig steckt der Herr Präceptor S. zu Magdeburg . . . Yorick empfand, und dieser setzt sich hin zu empfinden. Yorick wird von seiner Laune ergriffen, und weinte und lachte in einer Minute und durch die Magie der Sympathie lachen und weinen wir mit: hier aber steht einer und überlegt: wie lache und weine ich? was werden die Leute sagen, wenn ich lache und weine?" etc. Schummel is stigmatized as a childish imitator and his book is censured as "beneath criticism," oddly enough the very judgment its own author accords but a few weeks later on the completion of the third volume. The review contains several citations illustrative of Schummel's style.

The first two parts were reviewed in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_.[16] The length of the review is testimony to the interest in the book, and the tone of the article, though frankly unfavorable, is not so emphatically censorious as the one first noted. It is observed that Schummel has attempted the impossible,--the adoption of another's "Laune," and hence his failure. The reviewer notes, often with generous quotations, the more noticeable, direct imitations from Sterne, the conversation of the emotions, the nettle-plucking at the grave, the eccentric orthography and the new-coined words. Several passages of comment or comparison testify to the then current admiration of Yorick, and the conventional German interpretation of his character; "sein gutes, empfindungsvolles Herz, mit Tugend und sittlichem Gefühl erfüllt." The review is signed "Sr:"[17]

A critic in the _Jenaische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen_ for January 17, 1772, treating the first two volumes, expresses the opinion that Jacobi, the author of the "Tagereise," and Schummel have little but the title from Yorick. The author's seeking for opportunity to dissolve in emotion is contrasted unfavorably with Yorick's method, the affected style is condemned, yet it is admitted that the work promises better things from its talented author; his power of observation and his good heart are not to be unacknowledged. The severity of the review is directed against the imitators already arising.

The _Magazin der deutschen Critik_[18] reviews the third volume with favorable comment; the comedy which Schummel saw fit to insert is received with rather extraordinary praise, and the author is urged to continue work in the drama; a desire is expressed even for a fourth part. The _Hamburgische Neue Zeitung_, June 4 and October 29, 1771, places Schummel unhesitatingly beside the English master, calls him as original as his pattern, to Sterne belongs the honor only of the invention. The author is hailed as a genius whose talents should be supported, so that Germany would not have to envy England her Yorick.[19]

After Schummel's remarkable self-chastisement, one could hardly expect to find in his subsequent works evidence of Sterne's influence, save as unconsciously a dimmed admiration might exert a certain force. Probably contemporaneous with the composition of the third volume of the work, but possibly earlier, Schummel wrote the fourth part of a ponderous novel by a fellow Silesian, Christian Opitz, entitled "Die Gleichheit der menschlichen Herzen, bey der Ungleichheit ihrer äusserlichen Umstände in der Geschichte Herrn Redlichs und seiner Bedienten." Goedeke implies that Opitz was the author of all but the last part, but the reviewer in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_[20] maintains that each part has a different author, and quotes the preface to the fourth as substantiation. According to this review both the second and fourth parts are characterized by a humorous fashion in writing, and the last is praised as being the best of the four. It seems probable that Schummel's enthusiasm for Sterne played its part in the composition of this work.

Possibly encouraged by the critic's approbation, Schummel devoted his literary effort for the following years largely to the drama. In 1774 he published his "Uebersetzer-Bibliothek zum Gebrauche der Uebersetzer, Schulmänner und Liebhaber der alten Litteratur." The reviewer[21] in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_ finds passages in this book in which the author of the "Empfindsame Reisen" is visible,--where his fancy runs away with his reason,--and a passage is quoted in which reference is made to Slawkenberg's book on noses. It would seem that the seeking for wit survived the crude sentimentality.

Two years later Schummel published "Fritzen's Reise nach Dessau,"[22] a work composed of letters from a twelve-year old boy, written on a journey from Magdeburg to Dessau. The letters are quite without whim or sentiment, and the book has been remembered for the extended description of Basedow's experimental school, "Philantropin" (opened in 1774). Its account has been the source of the information given of this endeavor in some pedagogical treatises[23] and it was re-issued, as a document in the history of pedagogical experiment, in Leipzig, by Albert Richter in 1891. About fifteen years later still the "Reise durch Schlesien"[24] was issued. It is a simple narrative of a real journey with description of places and people, frankly personal, almost epistolary in form, without a suggestion of Sterne-like whim or sentiment. One passage is significant as indicating the author's realization of his change of attitude. The sight of a group of prisoners bound by a chain calls to his memory his former sentimental extravagance, and he exclaims: "Twenty years ago, when I was still a sentimental traveler, I would have wasted many an 'Oh' and 'alas' over this scene; at present, since I have learned to know the world and mankind somewhat more intimately, I think otherwise."

Johann Christian Bock (1724-1785), who was in 1772 theater-poet of the Ackerman Company in Hamburg, soon after the publication of the Sentimental Journey, identified himself with the would-be Yoricks by the production of "Die Tagereise," which was published at Leipzig in 1770. The work was re-issued in 1775 with the new title "Die Geschichte eines empfundenen Tages."[25] The only change in the new edition was the addition of a number of copperplate engravings. The book is inspired in part by Sterne directly, and in part indirectly through the intermediary Jacobi. Unlike the work of Schummel just treated, it betrays no Shandean influence, but is dependent solely on the Sentimental Journey. In outward form the book resembles Jacobi's "Winterreise," since verse is introduced to vary the prose narrative. The attitude of the author toward his journey, undertaken with conscious purpose, is characteristic of the whole set of emotional sentiment-seekers, who found in their Yorick a challenge to go and do likewise: "Everybody is journeying, I thought, and took Yorick and Jacobi with me. . . . I will really see whether I too may not chance upon a _fille de chambre_ or a harvest-maid," is a very significant statement of his inspiration and intention. Once started on his journey, the author falls in with a poor warrior-beggar, an adaptation of Sterne's Chevalier de St. Louis,[26] and he puts in verse Yorick's expressed sentiment that the king and the fatherland should not allow the faithful soldier to fall into such distress.

Bock's next sentimental adventure is with a fair peasant-maid whom he sees weeping by the wayside. Through Yorick-like insistence of sympathy, he finally wins from her information concerning the tender situation: a stern stepfather, an unwelcome suitor of his choosing, and a lover of her own. Her inability to write and thus communicate with the latter is the immediate cause of the present overflow. The traveler beholds in this predicament a remarkable sentimental opportunity and offers his services; he strokes her cheek, her tears are dried, and they part like brother and sister. The episode is unquestionably inspired by the episode of Maria of Moulines; in the latter development of the affair, the sentiment, which is expressed, that the girl's innocence is her own defense is borrowed directly from Yorick's statement concerning the _fille de chambre_.[27] The traveler's questioning of his own motives in "Die Ueberlegung"[28] is distinctly Sterne-like, and it demonstrates also Bock's appreciation of this quizzical element in Yorick's attitude toward his own sentimental behavior. The relation of man to the domestic animals is treated sentimentally in the episode of the old beggar and his dead dog:[29] the tears of the beggar, his affection for the beast, their genuine comradeship, and the dog's devotion after the world had forsaken his master, are all part and parcel of that fantastic humane movement which has its source in Yorick's dead ass. Bock practically confesses his inspiration by direct allusion to the episode in Yorick. Bock defends with warmth the old peasant and his grief.

The wanderer's acquaintance with the lady's companion[30] is adapted from Yorick's _fille de chambre_ connection, and Bock cannot avoid a fleshly suggestion, distinctly in the style of Yorick in the section, the "Spider."[31] The return journey in the sentimental moonlight affords the author another opportunity for the exercise of his broad human sympathy: he meets a poor woman, a day-laborer with her child, gives them a few coins and doubts whether king or bishop could be more content with the benediction of the apostolic chair than he with the blessing of this unfortunate,--a sentiment derived from Yorick's overcolored veneration for the horn snuff-box.

The churchyard scene with which the journey ends is more openly fanciful, down-right visionary in tone, but the manner is very emphatically not that of Sterne, though in the midst the Sterne motif of nettle-plucking is introduced. This sentimental episode took hold of German imagination with peculiar force. The hobby-horse idea also was sure of its appeal, and Bock did not fail to fall under its spell.[32]

But apart from the general impulse and borrowing of motif from the foreign novel, there is in this little volume considerable that is genuine and original: the author's German patriotism, his praise of the old days in the Fatherland in the chapter entitled "Die Gaststube," his "Trinklied eines Deutschen," his disquisition on the position of the poet in the world ("ein eignes Kapitel"), and his adulation of Gellert at the latter's grave. The reviewer in the _Deutsche Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften_[33] chides the unnamed, youthful author for not allowing his undeniable talents to ripen to maturity, for being led on by Jacobi's success to hasten his exercises into print. In reality Bock was no longer youthful (forty-six) when the "Tagereise" was published. The _Almanach der deutschen Musen_ for 1771, calls the book "an unsuccessful imitation of Yorick and Jacobi," and wishes that this "Rhapsodie von Cruditäten" might be the last one thrust on the market as a "Sentimental Journey." The _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_[34] comments also on the double inspiration, and the insufficiency and tiresomeness of the performance. And yet Boie[35] says the papers praised the little book; for himself, however, he observes, he little desires to read it, and adds "What will our Yoricks yet come to? At last they will get pretty insignificant, I think, if they keep on this way."

Bock was also the author of a series of little volumes written in the early seventies, still under the sentimental charm: (1) Empfindsame Reise durch die Visitenzimmer am Neujahrstag von einem deutschen Yorick angestellt, Cosmopolis (Hamburg) 1771--really published at the end of the previous year; (2) . . . am Ostertage, 1772; (3) Am Pfingsttage, 1772; (4) Am Johannistage, 1773; (5) Am Weynachtstage, 1773. These books were issued anonymously, and Schröder's Lexicon gives only (2) and (3) under Bock's name, but there seems no good reason to doubt his authorship of them all. Indeed, his claim to (1) is, according to the _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_, well-nigh proven by an allusion to the "Tagereise" in the introduction, and by the initials signed. None of them are given by Goedeke. The books are evidently only in a general way dependent on the Sterne model, and are composed of observations upon all sorts of subjects, the first section of each volume bearing some relation to the festival in which they appear.

In the second edition of the first volume the author confesses that the title only is derived from Yorick,[36] and states that he was forced to this misuse because no one at that time cared to read anything but "Empfindsame Reisen." It is also to be noted that the description beneath the title, "von einem deutschen Yorick angestellt," is omitted after the first volume. The review of (4) and (5) in the _Altonaer Reichs-Postreuter_ finds this a commendable resumption of proper humility. The observations are evidently loosely strung together without the pretense of a narrative, such as "Allgemeines Perspectiv durch alle Visitenzimmer, Empfindsamer Neujahrswunsch, Empfindsame Berechnung eines Weisen mit sich selbst, Empfindsame Entschlüsse, Empfindsame Art sein Geld gut unterzubringen," etc.[37] An obvious purpose inspires the writer, the furthering of morality and virtue; many of the meditations are distinctly religious. That some of the observations had a local significance in Hamburg, together with the strong sentimental tendency there, may account for the warm reception by the _Hamburgischer unpartheyischer Correspondent_.[38]

Some contemporary critics maintained a kinship between Matthias Claudius and Yorick-Sterne, though nothing further than a similarity of mental and emotional fibre is suggested. No one claimed an influence working from the English master. Even as late as 1872, Wilhelm Röseler in his introductory poem to a study of "Matthias Claudius und sein Humor"[39] calls Asmus, "Deutschland's Yorick," thereby agreeing almost verbally with the German correspondent of the _Deutsches Museum_, who wrote from London nearly a hundred years before, September 14, 1778, "Asmus . . . is the German Sterne," an assertion which was denied by a later correspondent, who asserts that Claudius's manner is very different from that of Sterne.[40]

August von Kotzebue, as youthful narrator, betrays a dependence on Sterne in his strange and ingeniously contrived tale, "Die Geschichte meines Vaters, oder wie es zuging, dass ich gebohren wurde."[41] The influence of Sterne is noticeable in the beginning of the story: he commences with a circumstantial account of his grandfather and grandmother, and the circumstances of his father's birth. The grandfather is an original undoubtedly modeled on lines suggested by Sterne's hobby-horse idea. He had been chosen in days gone by to greet the reigning prince on the latter's return from a journey, and the old man harks back to this circumstance with "hobby-horsical" persistence, whatever the subject of conversation, even as all matters led Uncle Toby to military fortification, and the elder Shandy to one of his pet theories.

In Schrimps the servant, another Shandean original is designed. When the news comes of the birth of a son on Mount Vesuvius, master and man discuss multifarious and irrelevant topics in a fashion reminiscent of the conversation downstairs in the Shandy mansion while similar events are going on above. Later in the book we have long lists, or catalogues of things which resemble one of Sterne's favorite mannerisms. But the greater part of the wild, adventurous tale is far removed from its inception, which presented domestic whimsicality in a gallery of originals, unmistakably connected with Tristram Shandy.

Göschen's "Reise von Johann"[42] is a product of the late renascence of sentimental journeying. Master and servant are represented in this book as traveling through southern Germany, a pair as closely related in head and heart as Yorick and La Fleur, or Captain Shandy and Corporal Trim. The style is of rather forced buoyancy and sprightliness, with intentional inconsequence and confusion, an attempt at humor of narration, which is choked by characteristic national desire to convey information, and a fatal propensity to description of places,[43] even when some satirical purpose underlies the account, as in the description of Erlangen and its university. The servant Johann has mild adventures with the maids in the various inns, which are reminiscent of Yorick, and in one case it borders on the openly suggestive and more Shandean method.[44] A distinctly borrowed motif is the accidental finding of papers which contain matters of interest. This is twice resorted to; a former occupant of the room in the inn in Nürnberg had left valuable notes of travel; and Johann, meeting a ragged woman, bent on self-destruction, takes from her a box with papers, disclosing a revolting story, baldly told. German mediocrity, imitating Yorick in this regard, and failing of his delicacy and subtlety, brought forth hideous offspring. An attempt at whimsicality of style is apparent in the "Furth Catechismus in Frage und Antwort" (pp. 71-74), and genuinely sentimental adventures are supplied by the death-bed scene (pp. 70-71) and the village funeral (pp. 74-77).

This book is classed by Ebeling[45] without sufficient reason as an imitation of von Thümmel. This statement is probably derived from the letter from Schiller to Goethe to which Ebeling refers in the following lines. Schiller is writing to Goethe concerning plans for the Xenien, December 29, 1795.[46] The abundance of material for the Xenien project is commented upon with enthusiastic anticipation, and in a list of vulnerable possibilities we read: "Thümmel, Göschen als sein Stallmeister--" a collocation of names easily attributable, in consideration of the underlying satiric purpose, to the general nature of their work, without in any way implying the dependence of one author on another,[47] or it could be interpreted as an allusion to the fact that Göschen was von Thümmel's publisher. Nor is there anything in the correspondence to justify Ebeling's harshness in saying concerning this volume of Göschen, that it "enjoyed the honor of being ridiculed (verhöhnt) in the Xenien-correspondence between Goethe and Schiller." Goethe replies (December 30), in approval, and exclaims, "How fine Charis and Johann will appear beside one another."[48] The suggestion concerning a possible use of Göschen's book in the Xenien was never carried out.

It will be remembered that Göschen submitted the manuscript of his book to Schiller, and that Schiller returned the same with the statement "that he had laughed heartily at some of the whims.[49]" Garve, in a letter dated March 8, 1875, speaks of Göschen's book in terms of moderate praise.[50]

The "Empfindsame Reise von Oldenburg nach Bremen,"[51] the author of which was a Hanoverian army officer, H. J. C. Hedemann, is characterized by Ebeling as emphatically not inspired by Sterne.[52] Although it is not a sentimental journey, as Schummel and Jacobi and Bock conceived it, and is thus not an example of the earliest period of imitation, and although it contains no passages of teary sentimentality in attitude toward man and beast, one must hesitate in denying all connection with Sterne's manner. It would seem as if, having outgrown the earlier Yorick, awakened from dubious, fine-spun dreams of human brotherhood, perhaps by the rude clatter of the French revolution, certain would-be men of letters turned to Yorick again and saw, as through a glass darkly, that other element of his nature, and tried in lumbering, Teutonic way to adopt his whimsicality, shorn now of sentimentalism, and to build success for their wares on remembrance of a defaced idol. This view of later sentimental journeying is practically acknowledged at any rate in a contemporary review, the _Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung_ for August 22, 1796, which remarks: "A sentimental voyage ist ein Quodlibet, wo einige bekannte Sachen und Namen gezwungenen Wiz und matten Scherz heben sollen."[53]

Hedemann's book is conspicuous in its effort to be whimsical and is openly satirical in regard to the sentimentalism of former travelers. His endeavor is markedly in Sterne's manner in his attitude toward the writing of the book, his conversation about the difficulty of managing the material, his discussion with himself and the reader about the various parts of the book. Quite in Sterne's fashion, and to be associated with Sterne's frequent promises of chapters, and statements concerning embarrassment of material, is conceived his determination "to mention some things beforehand about which I don't know anything to say," and his rather humorous enumeration of them. The author satirizes the real sentimental traveler of Sterne's earlier imitators in the following passage (second chapter):

"It really must be a great misfortune, an exceedingly vexatious case, if no sentimental scenes occur to a sentimental traveler, but this is surely not the case; only the subjects, which offer themselves must be managed with strict economy. If one leaps over the most interesting events entirely, one is in danger, indeed, of losing everything, at least of not filling many pages."

Likewise in the following account of a sentimental adventure, the satirical purpose is evident. He has not gone far on his journey when he is met by a troop of children; with unsentimental coldness he determines that there is a "Schlagbaum" in the way. After the children have opened the barrier, he debates with himself to which child to give his little coin, concludes, as a "sentimental traveler," to give it to the other sex, then there is nothing left to do but to follow his instinct. He reflects long with himself whether he was right in so doing,--all of which is a deliberate jest at the hesitation with reference to trivial acts, the self-examination with regard to the minutiae of past conduct, which was copied by Sterne's imitators from numerous instances in the works of Yorick. Satirical also is his vision in Chapter VII, in which he beholds the temple of stupidity where lofty stupidity sits on a paper throne; and of particular significance here is the explanation that the whole company who do "erhabene Dummheit" honor formerly lived in cities of the kingdom, but "now they are on journeys." Further examples of a humorous manner akin to Sterne are: his statement that it would be a "great error" to write an account of a journey without weaving in an anecdote of a prince, his claim that he has fulfilled all duties of such a traveler save to fall in love, his resolve to accomplish it, and his formal declaration: "I, the undersigned, do vow and make promise to be in love before twenty-four hours are past." The story with which his volume closes, "Das Ständchen," is rather entertaining and is told graphically, easily, without whim or satire, yet not without a Sternian _double entendre_.[54]

Another work in which sentimentalism has dwindled away to a grinning shade, and a certain irresponsible, light-hearted attitude is the sole remaining connection with the great progenitor, is probably the "Empfindsame Reise nach Schilda" (Leipzig, 1793), by Andreas Geo. Fr. von Rabenau, which is reviewed in the _Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung_ (1794, I, p. 416) as a free revision of an old popular tale, "Das lustige und lächerliche Lalenburg." The book is evidently without sentimental tinge, is a merry combination of wit and joke combined with caricature and half-serious tilting against unimportant literary celebrities.[55]

Certain miscellaneous works, which are more or less obviously connected with Sterne may be grouped together here.

To the first outburst of Sterne enthusiasm belongs an anonymous product, "Zween Tage eines Schwindsüchtigen, etwas Empfindsames," von L. . . . (Hamburg, 1772), yet the editor admits that the sentiment is "not entirely like Yorick's," and the _Altonaer Reichs-Postreuter_ (July 2, 1772) adds that "not at all like Yorick's" would have been nearer the truth. This book is mentioned by Hillebrand with implication that it is the extreme example of the absurd sentimental tendency, probably judging merely from the title,[56] for the book is doubtless merely thoughtful, contemplative, with a minimum of overwrought feeling.

According to the _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_ (1775, pp. 592-3), another product of the earlier seventies, the "Leben und Schicksale des Martin Dickius," by Johann Moritz Schwager, is in many places a clever imitation of Sterne,[57] although the author claims, like Wezel in "Tobias Knaut," not to have read Shandy until after the book was written. Surely the digression on noses which the author allows himself is suspicious.