Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Great works are not what we require of Americans; we would rather endeavor to discover in them the traces of the moral spirit of their country, its philosophical and historic signs, rather than poetic fables skilfully constructed and eloquently told. For example, these female poets of North America, suggest an interesting question for Europeans to examine. Have all those Misses and Mistresses who write poems, dramas and sonnets, any features of resemblance with our female authors? Has America, which is represented so coarse in manners, inherited the vices of European society, and become so degenerate as to give birth to that monstrous nondescript, named among us a _bas-bleu_? We have endeavored, diligently, to discover, in this large volume, traces of resemblance between our women of letters and the female poets of America, but we have discovered none. These daughters and wives of American citizens, of merchants, bankers, magistrates and doctors in theology, do not write as our female authors, from vain ambition, or love, or scandal, or (what among us is by no means uncommon) to repent of the scandal that they have occasioned. They write as among us young girls draw or sing. Poesy is for them an ornamental art, and nothing more. Besides, this great number of female poets in America, is explained by the much more liberal education received by the women of English blood and of the Protestant religion. We can find better specimens of poetry, certainly, but nothing equalling them in the discretion and reserve that reign in all their verses. We have sought, diligently, to discover the sentiments which American women are most pleased in translating into written poetry: one only is expressed, freely and energetically--maternal love. The other sentiments and virtues are carefully veiled, as subjects upon which it would be improper to dwell. Such verses are full of scruples and delicacies, and to us, it is their principal charm. Love, so difficult for the female heart to acknowledge in words; passionate confidences, so easily turned into sarcasms, and almost repulsive when uttered by the mouth of a woman, find no place in the inspirations of the American poetess. There are no strongly expressed individual passions. Vague and objectless longings--the cold lights of mere fancy, are the characteristics of those writers. Sometimes we discover a regret, or a mournful remembrance, but so obscure as to be nearly lost in a vastly diffused hope of some good which is not realized. We have endeavored to discover if the sentiment of conjugal love were there, but we are disappointed. To us, Europeans, who are overwhelmed with romances, in which this chaste sentiment is analyzed and written of in a manner to produce absolute nausea, it is not, perhaps, known how much discretion there is in this passionless exterior, and how commendable it is that so holy a sentiment should not pass the sacred inclosures of the female heart; that it should not wound the delicacies of its own natural reserve and silence. The talents of these writers are exercised upon permitted subjects, and not, as too often among our own female poets, upon subjects at once easy and unlawful.

This modesty and reserve throughout the work become necessarily monotonous--but it is of no great consequence to us. We would not have written if it had not been to acknowledge specimens of real literary excellence. But we have in the work itself what is of considerable value as reflecting in some degree the American character. We can use these elegies, reveries and monodies as a means of discovering the nature of the virtues thus brought out from obscurity, though in coloring too pale and uniform. The life of these women possesses nothing adventurous, passionate, or eccentric. It is composed of three facts: birth, marriage, and death. As to the intervals between these three solemn events, the biographer says little, and we suppose they are filled with exemplary virtues and the accomplishment of duties which human and divine law imposes upon the woman. Three of these, however, are distinguished from the others by their position in society, or by their talents, and constitute the only singularities of the work.

We have just remarked, that these _poesies_ are all written by the daughters of rich merchants, lawyers, and doctors of divinity; two, however, are of low condition--a negress, Philis Wheatley Peters; and a domestic, Maria James. The negress belonged to the close of the eighteenth century, and was born at a time to justify the pamphlets of Franklin on slavery, and the demands of philanthropy. This "daughter of the murky Senegal," as one of her critics called her, has been, thanks to the circumstances of her color, birth, and condition, a sort of historic character. Sold at ten years of age, in a public mart of slaves, she was purchased by Mrs. Wheatley, a lady who educated her, and who afterwards permitted her to be called by her own name. This negress, so little known now, has had her day in history; she visited London, where she was an object of general esteem. Washington corresponded with her, and the Abbe Gregoire, our revolutionary regicide, announced her a great poet, in his Essay upon the Intellectual and Moral Faculties of the Negro. The opponents of slavery applauded her verses with enthusiasm, and the upholders of slavery denounced and slandered her. She has been, for a moment, in the eyes of the universe, the noblest type of her race--this humble black slave has been, in the civilized world, the representative of all her brethren. Her existence has been one of the incidents of universal history, and this unknown person has had her share, however small, in the revolutions of the world.

Maria James was a poor servant, the child of an emigrant from Wales. An unlettered poet, she drew her only instruction from the Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress, and Miss Hannah More, a kind of Madame de Genlis of puritanism; and yet it was this poor girl who wrote the most perfect lyric, the neatest, and in a literary view, the best composed, that we find in the collection; the lyrical pieces, by the way, are not generally well written. The thoughts are indefinite, the images confounded, and in some way run in upon each other. The principal sentiment is seldom neatly distinguished. These lyrics are as the buzzing of bees, or rather as honey scarcely formed, of which each drop contains the perfume of the flower whence it was extracted. Here is a piece by Maria James, which we do not give as her best, but which overflows with a profound religious feeling, and turns the heart of the reader, for a moment, to the haven of eternal repose:

THE PILGRIMS: TO A LADY.

We met as pilgrims meet,
Who are bound to a distant shrine,
Who spend the hours in converse sweet
From noon to the day's decline--
Soul mingling with soul, as they tell of their fears
And their hopes, as they passed through the valley of tears.

And still they commune with delight,
Of pleasures or toils by the way,
The winds of the desert that chill them by night,
Or heat that oppresses by day:
For one to the faithful is ever at hand,
As the shade of a rock in a weary land.

We met as soldiers meet,
Ere yet the fight is won--
Ere joyful at their captain's feet
Is laid their armor down:
Each strengthens his fellow to do and to bear,
In hope of the crown which the victors wear.

Though daily the strife they renew,
And their foe his thousands o'ercome,
Yet the promise unfailing is ever in view
Of safety, protection, and home:
Where they knew that their sov'reign such favor conferred,
"As eye hath not seen, as the ear hath not heard."

We met as seamen meet,
On ocean's watery plain,
Where billows rise and tempests beat,
Ere the destined port they gain:
But tempests they baffle, and billows they brave,
Assured that their pilot is mighty to save.

They dwell on the scenes which have past,
Of perils they still may endure--
The haven of rest, where they anchor at last,
Where bliss is complete and secure--
Till its towers and spires arise from afar,
To the eye of faith as some radiant star.

We met as brethren meet,
Who are cast on a foreign strand,
Whose hearts are cheered as they hasten to greet
And commune of their native land--
Of their father's house in that world above,
Of his tender care and his boundless love.

The city so fair to behold,
The redeemed in their vestments of white--
In those mansions of rest, where, mid pleasures untold,
They finally hope to unite:
Where ceaseless ascriptions of praise shall ascend
To God and the Lamb in a world without end.

But of all these poetesses, the most remarkable, certainly to us, is Maria Brooks, who died in 1845, the author of a curious poem entitled _Zophiel_, which Southey admired, and which Charles Lamb declared to be too extraordinary to have been conceived in the mind of a woman. Unfortunately, in Mr. Griswold's volume, we have only an incomplete analysis, with some brief fragments, of this poem. Notwithstanding its incompleteness, however, there is enough to show a powerful life and a wonderful imagination. There is in the poem a surprising union of Thomas Moore and Shelley. Imagine the bowers of _Lalla Rookh_, through which is sweeping the northern tempest of Shelley, bending the trees and scattering the roses. The odes _To Cuba_, to the _Shade of her Child_, and all her other lyrics, have, in a word, a very remarkable movement, and are full of mysterious inquietudes and inexplicable burnings. We cannot have an idea of the sweetness, and at the same time the impetuosity which mingle in her verses, without thinking of the impossible combination of the eagle and the dove--a dove with the stroke of an eagle's wing, and which would yet, in spite of its power, retain the timid nature of the dove, be frightened at its own strength, and tremble in looking upward to the sun. Her compositions are full of daring ideas imperfectly expressed, as if she were afraid of the boldness of her heart. Often, however, her thoughts fall into the _alambique_, the abstract and metaphysical. Her love to her child inspired the best lines she ever composed. The sports of the little one, whom she should see no more, associated with the remembrance of forests, plains, and cataracts, give to that love the grandeur and infinitude of American Nature. Of all the female poets of the new world, Maria Brooks seems to possess most the sibylline inspirations of the celebrated women of contemporaneous Europe. Yet she has none of that Byronean spirit that reigns so much among them; and if we would indicate the European poetry school to which she should be attached, we would cite, rather than that of Byron, the names of Southey, her admirer, of Coleridge, and of John Wilson, the author of the _City of the Plague_.

Maria Brooks is the only brilliant exception that we have met in the collection of Mr. Griswold. All her poetic companions draw their inspirations, not from their individual life, but their education, and as this education is the same for all, it is not astonishing that their works are uniform and monotonous. Yet, we do not complain, as we have already intimated, for we are thus enabled to see some of the features of American character more easily than if an original genius inspired each of the poetesses. The religious sentiment, for example, is every where uttered in these verses, but indeed it is the same that we find in the writings of American essayists--a sort of Christian theism which is becoming more the character of Protestantism in America. The spirit of Christ breathes indeed in these pages, but the person itself is seldom seen: Christ is always the teacher and saviour of the world, but the crucified Redeemer is well nigh forgotten. The Son of God is manifested as he appeared to his disciples; transfigured upon Tabor, they see him in the radiant light conversing with the prophets of the ancient law. Do you prostrate humanity in the place of the disciples and the astonished crowd at the foot of the mountain, then you have an idea of the life of the religious faiths more and more adopted in America. But the torments of the Divine agony--the cross of Golgotha, and all the tragedy in the Saviour's history upon earth, which the nations of the middle ages and the ancient Christians held in precious remembrance, are almost forgotten. We mention the fact as being one which the religious and philosophic of our times may reflect upon with profit. It is the symptom of an imminent crisis in Protestantism, and sooner or later, will not fail of attracting discussion. This theistic sentiment, which is the foundation of the writings of Channing and Theodore Parker, makes itself felt continually in the verses of this collection which by manner or subject relate to religion.

The descriptions of nature, oddly enough, never strike, as one would expect, by their novelty. Far away we see pleasantly the names of palms, cotton-trees, cocoa trees, and the botanic names of flowers unknown to us, but it is no matter whether we exchange all these trees and exotic plants for poplars, oaks, and birches, or the modern plants of our Europe. We feel very little, in any poetry, the particular sentiment of an original nature. In the midst of the woods and forests of the new world, one can readily believe himself among those of France or England; he will remark only a more lively picture of verdure and waters. Have you ever seen the landscapes of Theodore Rousseau? The grass is greener and the yellow leaves are yellower than in the paintings of any other artist. But the presence of nature is not there. Such is the effect upon us of the descriptions given by these female poets. Here, in support of our assertion, is a picture by Mrs. Frances Green.

Stillness of summer noontide over hill,
And deep embowering wood, and rock, and stream,
Spread forth her downy pinions, scattering sleep
Upon the drooping eyelids of the air.
No wind breathed through the forest that could stir
The lightest foliage. If a rustling sound
Escaped the trees, it might be nestling bird,
Or else the polished leaves were turning back
To their own natural places, whence the wind
Of the last hour had flung them. From afar
Came the deep roar of waters, yet subdued
To a melodious murmur, like the chant
Of naiads, ere they take their noontide rest.
A tremulous motion stirred the aspen leaves,
And from their shivering stems an utterance came,
So delicate and spirit like, it seemed
The soul of music breathed, without a voice.
The anemone bent low her drooping head,
Mourning the absence of her truant love,
Till the soft languor closed her sleepy eye,
To dream of zephyrs from the fragrant south,
Coming to wake her with renewed life.
The eglantine breathed perfume; and the rose
Cherished her reddening buds, that drank the light,
Fair as the vermil on the cheek of hope.
Where'er in sheltered nook or quiet dell,
The waters, like enamored lovers, found
A thousand sweet excuses for delay,
The clustering lilies bloomed upon their breast,
Love-tokens from the naiads, when they came
To trifle with the deep, impassioned waves.
The wild-bee hovering on voluptuous wing,
Scarce murmured to the blossom, drawing thence
Slumber with honey; then in the purpling cup,
As if oppressed with sweetness, sank to sleep.
The wood-dove tenderly caressed his mate;
Each looked within the other's drowsy eyes,
Till outward objects melted into dreams.
The rich vermilion of the tanager,
Or summer red-bird, flashed amid the green,
Like rubies set in richest emerald.
On some tall maple sat the oriole,
In black and orange, by his pendent nest,
To cheer his brooding mate with whispered songs;
While high amid the loftiest hickory
Perched the loquacious jay, his turquoise crest
Low drooping, as he plumed his shining coat,
Rich with the changeful blue of Nazareth.
And higher yet, amid a towering pine,
Stood the fierce hawk, half-slumbering, half-awake,
His keen eye flickering in his dark unrest,
As if he sought for plunder in his dreams.
The scaly snake crawled lazily abroad,
To revel in the sunshine; and the hare
Stole from her leafy couch, with ears erect
Against the soft air-current; then she crept,
With a light, velvet footfall, through the ferns.
The squirrel stayed his gambols; and the songs
Which late through all the forest arches rang,
Were graduated to a harmony
Of rudimental music, breathing low,
Making the soft wind richer--as the notes
Had been dissolved and mingled with the air.
Pawtucket almost slumbered, for his waves
Were lulled by their own chanting: breathing low,
With a just audible murmur, as the soul
Is stirred in visions with a thought of love,
He whispered back the whisper tenderly
Of the fair willows bending over him,
With a light hush upon their stirring leaves,
Blest watchers o'er his day-dreams. Not a sign
Of man or his abode met ear or eye,
But one great wilderness of living wood,
O'er hill, and cliff, and valley, swelled and waved,
An ocean of deep verdure. By the rock
Which bound and strengthen'd all their massive roots
Stood the great oak and giant sycamore;
Along the water-courses and the glades
Rose the fair maple and the hickory;
And on the loftier heights the towering pine--
Strong guardians of the forest--standing there,
On the old ramparts, sentinels of time,
To watch the flight of ages.[C]

These verses are pretty, perhaps very pretty. They give nature a charming appearance,--too much like the "everlasting spring" of Ovid. Do you not seem to lie in the shade of a European forest? Here are the same trees, the same flowers, the same animals. But the trees are more abundant of leaves, the grass is thicker, the sun is brighter, the waters warmer. But there is no profoundly original painting, no broad description by a few great outlines.

The sentiment of the beautiful and ideal is expressed in this collection of poetry, in an uncolored, abstract, and metaphysical manner. We are not sure that all these women love and understand the beautiful arts, and particularly the plastic arts; the only one whose influence they feel deeply, and which they seem to prefer, is music. And this preference among the moderns for music is a curious fact. The superiority given to it above painting and sculpture may be accounted for in some degree by the fact that music accords more with woman's instincts. Music is truly the art of the nineteenth century _par excellence_; it is the art which expresses best incredible aspirations; it is an art democratic in its essence. Appreciated by all living beings, even the unintelligent tribes, to be felt, music demands neither science nor long study--it makes every one happy, and tells to each the story of his love.

To produce sculptors, poets, and painters, it is necessary that a country should boast of many centuries, of a history, of a long succession of traditions, of established customs; but modern nations, particularly Americans, outstrip time, act with precipitation, and have no leisure to wait the traditions of history. Hence this extraordinary love of music, the least costly of the arts. They love music as one loves the conversations of the evening, and refreshing sleep after a hard day's labor. The art of music then is, if we dare say so, the art of nations who have no time for meditation and reflection--the art of ardent and feverish nations; for, to be understood, it requires only that a man should have a soul, with warm desires and hopes. We find in this collection two sonnets in honor of Beethoven and Mozart, in which the genius of the two masters is perfectly appreciated and felt. They are from Margaret Fuller, since Countess d'Ossoli, who was drowned by shipwreck on her return to her native country.

BEETHOVEN.

Most intellectual master of the art,
Which best of all teaches the mind of man
The universe in all its varied plan--
What strangely mingled thoughts thy strains impart!
Here the faint tenor thrills the inmost heart,
There the rich bass the reason's balance shows;
Here breathes the softest sigh that love e'er knows;
There sudden fancies seeming without chart,
Float into wildest breezy interludes;
The past is all forgot--hopes sweetly breathe,
And our whole being glows--when lo! beneath
The flowery brink, Despair's deep sob concludes!
Startled, we strive to free us from the chain--
Notes of high triumph swell, and we are thine again!

MOZART.

If to the intellect and passions strong
Beethoven speak, with such resistless power,
Making us share the full creative hour,
When his wand fixed wild Fancy's mystic throng,
Oh, Nature's finest lyre! to thee belong
The deepest, softest tones of tenderness,
Whose purity the listening angels bless,
With silvery clearness of seraphic song.
Sad are those chords, oh heavenward striving soul!
A love, which never found its home on earth,
Pensively vibrates, even in thy mirth,
And gentle laws thy slightest notes control;
Yet dear that sadness! spheral concords felt
Purify most those hearts which most they melt.

Of these two sonnets, we prefer that of Mozart, as expressing better, in our opinion, the character of the music of the great master--as more discriminating than that of Beethoven--a perfect description besides of the author of _Fidelio_. The sonnets appear curious to us as sparklings of aesthetic poetry beyond the seas.

The sentiments of American pride and of national susceptibility vibrate here and there in all this poetry, but not very often. The remembrance of the early emigrants, the description of America when inhabited by savage hordes, and the comparison of this barbaric state with the industrial wonders of the nineteenth century, are themes somewhat rare, but which are nevertheless not forgotten. We have also noticed two or three pieces which brought a smile upon our lips--where the shades of old Indian sachems appear to bless modern civilization, and seem ready to thank the Great Spirit for having exterminated their race, despoiled and chased from their own native woods and prairies. There are besides a few pieces borrowed from historic subjects, and a few dedicated to individuals; some pages in honor of Washington and Napoleon, and this is all. The rest is composed of mere musings, fancies, and elegies, expressing no precise and distinct sentiment.

But what matters the relative weakness of this poetry? Let us rise to higher spheres than that purely literary. The moral character and the virtues which this collection of poetry suggests are superior to the poetry itself. Who can tell, indeed, the good which may be done by these musical reveries and innocent caprices? They have been composed in the bosom of tranquility, by the fireside, among parents, children, relatives, and friends. These were the public to which they addressed themselves, who admired them, and drew from them their contributions to the good and beautiful. Probably many chaste tendernesses are recognized by the banks of these little limpid fountains of poesy; many hearts have rejoiced in these tender harmonies; many a man, weary with the labors of the day, has felt the sweet words of his daughter or his wife thrill his soul; he has beheld the bright gleams of ideal realities, and laid himself down and dreamed of images of higher beauty. In that hard, practical country, many poetic germs have thus taken root, many coarse natures have become more refined. What matters it, then, whether these specimens of poetry be original or not?--they have been useful. We offer our thanks to the female poets of America, for the seeds of piety, virtue, and nobility sown in their country. Without noise, without humanitary pretensions, they have fulfilled their mission of religion and refinement.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] THE FEMALE POETS OF AMERICA: BY RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD. Philadelphia, Henry C. Baird, 1851.

[C] From Nanuntenoo, an Indian Romance. By Frances H. Green. Philadelphia, 1850.

JEANNE MARIE, AND LYRICAL POETRY IN GERMANY.

We are induced to translate for _The International_ the following crisply written critique from _Die Grenzboten_, not only from its giving for the benefit of certain of our _dilettanti_ German scholars a few judicious remarks on the true merit of their "new celebrity," JEANNE MARIE, but because the preceding account of the present state of lyrical poetry in Germany, is very nearly as applicable to lyrical poetry as it now exists among the rising bards of America and England as to that of the father-land:

"It is now about a century since the beginning of our most brilliant German lyrical era, and we are at the conclusion of a series of developments, which individually display all of the peculiarities indicative of the decline of a great epoch in art. The incredible number of subjects which have been artistically treated, has inspired the minds of our cotemporaries with an almost superfluity of poetically adapted figures, forms, tones and materials, with which we are familiar from our first breath. Vast numbers of corresponding series of similes, and combinations of words and sentences have been naturalized in our language, and the spirit of the rising generation cannot be other than powerfully influenced by the incredible variety of forms and phrases, which it acquires during education. From all which a limitation of the creative power naturally results--since there is hardly a sentiment, hardly a perception of the present day, which has not been rendered applicable to poetic art; and the array of these imposing creations ring in the soul of the young poet wonderfully through each other. It is almost impossible to experience a new feeling which has not been sung, and yet the impulse still exists to win for the again and again experienced, a value, and a certain degree of originality. From which results the most desperate efforts, by means of bold, artificial, highly polished or tasteless images and comparisons, to form a style and acquire a peculiar literary physiognomy: efforts which should by no means be despised, even when the critic is compelled to blame its results; for it is natural and unavoidable. Such a superabundance of poetic forms of address, applications, words, and measures, are at present current in the world, that for every poetic feeling a prosaic or metrical reminiscence rings and echoes consciously or unconsciously, and more or less clearly, through the poetic soul. To avoid this wearisome beaten path, our poets are driven, on the one hand, into unheard of refinements of metre and words--or on the other, into an affected barbarism and roughness. And since the quantity of poetic metres, applications, and forms of speech, has become so incredibly large that they every where pass and are received as a sort of _spiritual small change_, it has become infinitely easier to express an idea in tolerably good poetic language, than it was fifty years ago. Gleim, Holty, and Buerger, are to us great men, not because their poems are so much better than those manufactured at the present day, but because their every poem was a victory gained over the barbarism and want of form in the German language as it then existed--a true conquest for the realm of beauty and art. At present, any fool who has by heart his Schiller or his Heine, can collect and write that which may pass for his 'poem'--though perhaps not an atom of the whole is the result of aught save mere reproduction. What is really wanting to all our writers is the _correct_ and _artistic_ adaptation of terms. For this modern dilettanti reproduction and combination of the thoughts and forms of others is but a rough and uncomely parody of those poetic creations, which were consecrated by an earnest striving and silent battle with the force of language. Among the numerous modern poets in Germany, there live not a dozen who can write a truly correct verse and make just applications of our so poetically adapted language. The which assertion, seemingly a paradox--is nevertheless natural enough.

"And yet the creative impulse lives in many a soul, nor has there for a long time existed a more generally diffused or more exquisite appreciation of lyrical poetry than during the past year. New poets of an aristocratic or pious tendency are eagerly purchased and admired, which is also according to rule, since they reflect the spirit of the age, and correspond with modern wants. Such a peculiar influence on the interest of the public at large has naturally conducted to the most elegant style of publication of recent poems. It has become a real pleasure to see their paper, type, and binding, and their neat garments of fine linen, delicately trimmed and lettered with burnished gold. Such a highly ornamented work at present adorns every table, and appears right well in the white little hand of its fair possessor.

"The poems of Jeanne Marie, the popular romance writer, are by an intelligent and well educated lady. She has evidently observed and reflected much in the world, and had also her own experiences therein--yet knows how to express with propriety and consciousness her most passionate feelings. She is, however, in her poems, rather witty and calculating, than inspired with heart and soul. Those productions are, for the greater part, images and comparisons--not unfrequently very exquisitely conceived and executed--the _point_ being occasionally a gross antithesis, as for example in the poem, _Alles nur Du_:

"'What I most longed for, thou hast to me given,
What I possess, belongeth all to thee;
Thou art mine _I_--thine is my life and heaven,
My life is thine, and thine my all _To-Be_.'

"Or in other poems, the conclusion merely amounts to the explanation of a comparison, as in the _New Cloak Song_, in which on a rusty nail, a torn cloak explains itself as the cloak of Christian love. But where our poetess simply narrates or describes, her art is truly agreeable, only that the lively and closely detailed perceptions, which shoot forth in her soul, often appear obscure from a want of practice in poetic language, and not unfrequently entirely perverted on account of an utter deficiency in logical acuteness.

"But since this poetess is endowed with far more than her cotemporaries--_id est_, a peculiar talent to conceive and represent in a lively manner epic details--let us, for the sake of art, gently beg of her to do something for this her talent. She is by far too ignorant of the art of application of terms in lyrical poetry, her delivery is too variable and inaccurate, while botched-up expressions (_Flickwoerter_) and startling instances of incorrectness in language are in her writings every where to be met with. As yet she is a mere amateur and _dilettant_, and her right, to lay before the literary world her poetic inspirations, may very correctly be doubted; and yet she has evidently in her the material for something far better. This she can attain in only one way. She must lay aside all the flaunt and tawdriness of her similes and figures, and then strive to express a lively emotion or an interesting expression, with the simplest words, first in prose--and _then_ in verse. What she has written should then be carefully thought over--every line and word tested, and no inaccuracy in poetical perceptions, no oblique expression, and no metrical defect be suffered to remain."

_Authors and Books._

A new German work, entitled _Klopstock in Zurich from the years 1730 to 1751_, gives quite a new portrait of the poet of the Messias, who, both by the time of his appearance and by the dignity of his theme, is held as the patriarch of German poetry. In this sprightly little volume the mystic halo with which an exaggerated homage has invested the head of the genial young German rolls away, and we behold a pleasant fellow in gay summer costume, floating about upon the blue lake of Zurich, surrounded by a circle of fair and admiring votaries, to whom he chants strains from his immortal poem, and reaps a harvest of kisses in return. We behold a chivalrous equestrian dashing through the still streets of old Zurich, draining unreasonable depths of beer with wild students, biting glass, and swallowing coal, until the old Bodmer with whom he was living--a reverential admirer of the great Prophet of the Messias, and in whose imagination Klopstock sat separate in a godlike and passionless serenity--was bitterly grieved by these earthly experiences of a Greek rather than of a Christian divinity, complained, remonstrated, rebuked, until the jovial poet was forced to leave the good Bodmer's house, and betake himself to Rape's, with whom he sat in silken hose, and speculated upon the universe. It is always pleasant to hear these human facts of the heroes of fame and imagination. Few things remove Washington farther from the general sympathy than the unbending austerity of hue in which his mental portrait is always colored. Why should our great men, whose humanity makes them dearer, go so solemnly and sadly through all posterity? Burns could draw the tired hostlers of village inns from their beds to listen open-mouthed and open-hearted to his wondrous and witching stories. Shakspeare shall always have stolen sheep, even though De Quincy proves by splendid and resonant reasoning that he could never have done it. Raphael shall have been a warm-blooded man, spite of our cold-blooded speculations upon his saintship, so that we shall not wonder at De Maistre's delicate and dainty truth that the Fornarina "loved her love more than her lover." Not that sheep-stealing, or any other peccadillo is beautiful, or in any way to be commended or imitated, but that these are the signs of human and actual sympathy which these great and glorious geniuses show us--as stately sky-sailed galleons, sweeping the sea into admiring calm at their progress, might hang out simple lanterns to the fishing-smacks around, to show their crews that the same red blood was the sap of all that splendid life. "Is he not the Just?" "Yes--and because he is the Just, I have done it." Poor old Herr Bodmer could not see with equanimity the illustrious guest of his imagination boating about the lake with the girls at Zurich, and selling the stanzas--of priceless worth to him--for a snatched and blushing kiss. For our own part, we are glad that generous Mr. Morikofer has pulled off the bleached horse hair wig of factitious gravity, and shown us the natural moist and waving hair of a human-hearted poet.

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A _History of German Literature_, from W. WACKERNAGEL, is coming out in parts at Basle. Since Gervinus there has been no broad treatment of the subject. But Gervinus gives us rather a history of the cultivation than of the literature of Germany. Vilmar is much too partial and partisan, and Hillebrand treats only the period from Lessing to the present time. Wackernagel surveys the whole ground from the beginning. The first part of his work is occupied with the elder literature of Germany, but he has handled it so dexterously that it interests the general reader, even while he develops the laws by which the old high German proceeded from the Gothic, and the middle high German from that. He divides the literary history into three parts. 1. The old high German era, Frank, Carlovingian, of the German Latinity of the bards. 2. The middle high German, beginning with the Crusades, and treating all the chivalric, social, and international relations which they inspired. 3. The new German style. The treatise is original and profound, and lacks only a little more elaboration of the biographical notices.

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A somewhat curious proof of the influence which America at present exerts, even in language, may be found in the title of a dictionary (English and German), recently published at Brunswick. The title alluded to, is as follows: _A new and complete dictionary of the English and German languages, compiled with especial regard to the American idiom for general use; containing a concise grammar, &c., &c._: by WILLIAM ODELL ELWELL.

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CARL HEIDELOFF, whose exquisite work on the architectural ornaments of the Middle Ages, should entitle him to the gratitude of every student of mediaeval art, will publish, before the end of this month, by Geigar of Nuremberz, a folio, illustrated with the finest steel engravings, entitled _Architectonic Sketches, and complete buildings, in the Byzantine and Old German styles_.

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It has long been a mooted point among the philosophers of the beautiful in Germany whether the art of gardening was a legitimate branch of aesthetic culture. Bouterweck denied that the artificial perversions of an old-fashioned French garden had the slightest relation to art, but admitted that the _Landschafts-gartenkunst_, or art of landscape gardening, might very properly be ranked with painting and sculpture. Thiersch passes the subject by in silent contempt, while Tittman, whose work on beauty and art is fast becoming a universal hand-book of aesthetics, declares, on the other hand, that it is, even more than architecture, closely allied to the study of the beautiful, since its object is far less directly connected with human wants, and more nearly related to the attractive and fascinating. Herr Rudolph Siebeck would appear, however, to have put the question for a time at rest, by a work at present publishing by Voigt, in Leipsic, entitled _Die Vildende Gartenkunst, in ihren modernen Formen_, which, as he very correctly asserts, "embraces in one comprehensive theory all those laws of the art of gardening which aesthetics present, by the application of natural and artificial methods, in order to plan and execute walks and grounds, according to the dictates of a refined taste." In pursuance of this great aim, Herr Siebeck, (who was, by the way, formerly the imperial Russian court-gardener at Lazienka, and is at present council-gardener at Leipsic,) after completing his education as a practical gardener, scientifically studied the higher principles of his art at the universities of Munich and Leipsic, both of which, but particularly the former, have long been celebrated for the facilities which they afford for this study. After which, under the kind patronage of Baron Hugel, he journeyed to "every country" the natives of which had so far advanced in the art of gardening as to deserve the honor of a visit. The results of this study and labor are given in the above-titled volume, which embraces all things, if not exactly from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, at least from the largest royal park to the smallest garden in a city. The work is illustrated with twenty colored garden plans, arranged according to the following categories: 1. Kitchen Gardens. 2. Pleasure Gardens. 3. Pleasure and Kitchen Gardens. 4. Public Gardens. 5. A Botanical Garden.

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The first volume of a new _Life of Goethe_, by J. W. SCHAFER, has been published, of which we find flattering accounts. Also the _Life and Times of Joachim Jurgins_, with Goethe's fragments upon his works by G. C. Guhsaner. He was the contemporary of Galileo, Kepler, Cartesius, &c.

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FRANZ LISZT, the famous pianist, has written a pleasant pamphlet in favor of the project of a Goethean Institute of Art in Weimar, where he is chapel master.

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WEIL--not _Alexander_ of the Corsaire, but Dr. GUSTAV WEIL, Professor of Oriental languages and History at Heidelberg--is publishing at Mannheim, a _History of the Khalifs_,[D] which, as regards extent, erudition, and accuracy, may be fairly ranked with any work on this subject extant. The title is, however, only partial; that of "An Universal History of Islamism," would be far more appropriate. The Khalifate forms, so to speak, a nucleus around which are grouped as integral parts all of the numerous dynasties which were in any degree connected with the Khalifate, while those which were more nearly within its influence, as the Saffarides, the Tulinides, Bujides, and Saljucks, are illustrated with extraordinary learning and research. An excellent history of Arabic literature to the midst of the fourth century of the Hegira is appropriately introduced. The reader will remember that SCHLOSSER, in the introduction to his fourth volume of the _Weltgeschichte_, remarks that in the oriental portion of that work he had been guided _solely_ by the "Life of Mohammed," by Weil, and this "History of the Khalifate," of which, however, only the first volume had then appeared. _Weil_, remarks the great "modern Tacitus," "is at present universally recognized as one of the first oriental scholars in Germany or France. He has brought from manuscripts many new things to light, and his works may be regarded as historical sources."

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VON RAHDEN, a German officer of note, has published some very interesting _Reminiscences of a Military Career_. The third part, which is just completed, contains the history of his campaigns with the earliest army in Spain. He is a soldier of the old type, and was devoted body and soul to Don Carlos--and if his story occasionally expands into romance, it is readily forgiven for the greater local truth and impression thereby obtained. He paints battle-pieces in a most vivid manner, pervaded by that interest in the individual which lends so fascinating a charm to all narration. In his first Spanish battle, when stationed as an outpost in the very tempest of bullets and balls, he quietly takes time to draw the country and the situation of the enemy. His hero is Lichnowsky--the young German Prince, who was so inhumanly butchered during the session of the German Parliament in Frankfort. He was in Spanish battle as cool, skilful, and death-despising, as he was chivalric against the crudeness of the political philosophers, and noble against the beastly brutality of his assassins, in central Germany.

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The third part of the life of BARON VON STEIN, the celebrated Prussian statesman, is published. The chief interest of this part is the history of Stein's sympathy with the Emperor Alexander of Russia, whom he regarded as the Saviour of Europe.

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ADELBERT KELLER, one of the most zealous among the mediaeval romantic antiquaries of the Tubingen school, and well known by his accurate editions of the _Gesta Romanorum, Les Romans des Sept Sages, Romancero del Cid_, and _Gudrun_, has recently, in company with Wilhelm Holland, prepared for the press a new edition of the songs of _Guillem IX., Count of Poictiers and Duke of Aquitania_. In addition to the chair of Professor Extraordinary of Modern Languages, (which our readers need not be informed is nothing very extraordinary at a German university,) Keller holds the far more important office of teacher of the German Language and Literature at the university of Tubingen. We presume that few men, even in France or Germany, have more carefully or enthusiastically hunted over the various MS. libraries of Italy or his own country, in search of Minnesinger and Provencal literature than Keller.

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The twenty-fifth publication of the _Geschichte der Europaischen Staaten_ (History of the States of Europe) consists of continuations of histories of Austria and Prussia. The series is edited by the well-known scholars HEEREN and UKERT. It has been in progress more than twenty years, and is designed to embrace a complete body of American history, by competent authors. Fifty volumes have already been issued, embracing in complete works, Italy, by Leo, finished 1832; German Empire, by Pfister, 1836; Saxony, by Bottiger, 1837; Netherlands, by Van Kampen, 1837; Austria, by Mailath, 1850; France to the Revolution, by Schmidt, 1848; France, from the Revolution, by Wachsmuth, 1844; the Histories of Denmark, by Dahlmann (vol. III. in 1844); of Portugal, by Schafer (vol. III. in 1850); of Russia, continued by Herrmann after Strahl's decease (vol. IV. 1849); of Prussia, by Stenzel (vol. IV. 1850) are all far advanced, and their completion may be looked for at no distant period. Single volumes, also, have appeared, by Zinkeisen, on the Ottoman Kingdom; by Ropel, on Poland; and by Bulau on the Modern History of Germany. The _Athenaeum_ observes that when the series is completed, the Germans and those who read German in other countries will have, in no immoderate compass, a body of European history, uniform in its general plan, and maintaining a standard of competent authorship such as cannot, we believe, be found in any other language.

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The well-known Countess SPAUR, the wife of the Bavarian Ambassador at Rome, is engaged upon a series of memoirs of events connected with the flight of the Pope from Rome in 1849. It will be remembered that the Pope escaped under convoy of the Bavarian ambassador, and the consequent completeness of information added to the graceful elegance of her style, will produce a brilliant and interesting book.

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A singular occurrence which took place very recently in Berlin affords a curious illustration of a line in _The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_, in which, speaking of German idioms, the writer somewhat inaccurately remarks, that "the U, twice dotted, is pronounced like E;" inaccurately, we say, since this pronunciation is not found in the pure north German. Dr. WIRTH, director of the opera at Berlin, was during the past month confounded by some not very intelligent police agents of that city with the revolutionary WURTH (who was however deceased in 1848), arrested, and subjected to much personal inconvenience, before he could prove to their satisfaction that he was not the _ci-devant_ disturber of kingly peace.

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The COUNTESS IDA HAHN-HAHN, has written her spiritual experience in a work published in Mannheim, entitled, _From Babylon to Jerusalem_. It is a history of her own soul, showing how it journeyed from confusion and doubt to peace. In it she says of the famous holy coat of Treves: "It was not comprehended--what did that show? How wonderful and incredible it was that thousands and thousands journeyed up the Rhine and down, not alone of the lower classes, but of the intelligent, of the cultivated and elegant class. And could this be really the Saviour's garment? And were the cures real which had been reported in all the journals as wrought by it? Like all the rest, I shared the religious enthusiasm of which no Protestant can conceive. Instead of ridiculing and scorning, I wrote that I knew not if this was the identical garment, but this was certainly the same faith that cast the woman at the feet of Christ, and caused her to kiss the hem of his robe, and be healed. My instinct was just, but my reasoning false. For if the old faith was so fast, so glowing, and so immortal in the old church, how could I ever say better _no_ church than _one_ only?"

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A singular book is announced in Germany, a country in which we are not aware that singular books have ever been rare, under the title of _Intercourse with the Departed by means of Magnetism_. "A book for the consolation of Humanity, containing the most irresistible evidence of the personal continuance and activity of the soul after its separation from the body, collected from contemporary notes taken from extatic somnambulists, by LUIS ALPHONSE CAHAGNET, with a critical preface by Dr. J. Newberth, authorized magnetizer in Berlin and Associate of the Imperial Leopold Academy of Sciences." A prospectus, modest enough in style but of very large pretensions, sets forth that it is not a speculation, but a communication of truth, which is nowise contrary to the Christian religion, but is calculated to exercise a genial influence upon the faithful to disperse all doubts and to advance the kingdom of Faith and Love. Who will fail warmly to wish "God-speed" to a work that proposes to accomplish such rich results?

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In Russia the singular prejudice has long obtained that the old Sclavonian dialects had nothing in common with the Russian language. But there is now a change in the opinions of the learned, and many skilful philologists are at present engaged in scientific speculations upon the subject. SRESNEWSKY, DAWYDOFF, and SCHEWYREFF have recently published works upon the question. The first has "Memoirs upon the new efforts towards a philological investigation of the old Sclavonian Language," and "Thoughts upon the History of the Russian Language." Dawydoff has published "An attempt at a Grammar of Universal Comparison of the Russian Language," and Schwyreff "A Journey to the Convent of Kirillo-Bjeloserski," an archaeological work, represented as a model of its kind. Schewyreff is a well known, educated, and learned man, fully cognizant of the results of philogical study in the west. It is evident that Russia constantly aims to put herself abreast of western science. Wostokoff is busy upon a complete grammar of the old Sclavonic language, and a dictionary of the same. Both works will soon go to press. Since Dobrowsky, the area of old Sclavonian philology has much extended itself, and there can be no doubt that Wostokoff has made use of all the new material. The study of the Sclavonian language and literature has more than a merely philological interest. It will throw much light upon the confused history of Eastern Europe from the sixth to the ninth century,--a light sadly needed, even after Schaffarik's Sclavonian antiquities.

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In Munich, we observe that THIERSCH, Professor of Fine Arts at the University of the "German Athens," and whose _Aesthetik_, if not the most philosophic, is at least the most agreeable and practical, (though we know that _Krug_ disposes of it in conversation very briefly with the expression "merely eclectic,") has published a new edition of his _Ziber das Erechtheum auf der Akropolis zu Athen_, with excellent colored illustrations by METZGER. Out of Germany the reputation of Thiersch rests principally upon his researches into and elucidations of Athenian antiquities.

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A drama by an unknown poet, ROBERT PROeLSS, _The Right of Love_, attracts much attention in Germany, from its clear and interesting style, its fresh and lively dialogue, and the delicate drawing of its characters. The author seems to have modelled himself upon Shakspeare, but his work shows traces also of Italian study, and the critics, without questioning Proelss' originality or asserting an imitation, are reminded of Machiavelli's Mandragora. They find in the author the material of a genuine dramatist--experience, feeling, a sharp insight into character, and great skill in dialogue. The literary eye must be fastened upon such promise. It is so refreshing to find a Phenix in a mare's nest.

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_Pictures of Travel and Study, from the North of the United States of America_, is the title of a new book of travel by Mr. CHARLES QUENTIN, a German gentleman and official from Prussia. It is a diary of impressions, and without aiming at any high literary or philosophical excellence, abounds in sharp and smart observations. Some things do not escape the shrewd eye of Mr. Quentin, that not all Americans observe. As an illustration, we remark his notice of the American female habit in "shopping," of tumbling over all the goods in the shop and departing without finding "anything to suit." Hence our author infers the social supremacy of women in America. A new way of arriving at the old fact--a fact which the sane and sensible of the sex cannot fail to perceive and acknowledge. The book is written in a vivacious, colloquial humor.

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ERNST FORSTER, well known as having married the daughter of Jean Paul Richter, but more celebrated for his translation of and notes to the best version of Vasari ever published, and who would deserve an honorable mention were it only for his well-known hospitality to all Americans visiting Munich, has recently given to the world, through the eminent bibliographist and publisher Kaiser, a brochure, entitled, _Wem Gebuhrt der Krang?_ (Who deserves the Wreath?) a holiday-gift on the occasion of uncovering the colossal bronze statue of Bavaria. Next to King Ludwig himself, there are no Germans of the present day who entertain more comprehensive or sounder views of art in its manifold relations than Dr. Ernst Forster.

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Since the remarkable increase of late years of the use of stucco ornaments in our Atlantic cities, we deem it almost a duty to call the attention of our builders to a work by Professor Eisenlohr, recently published, at a very moderate price, by Veith, of Carlsruhre, entitled _Architectural Ornaments, in Clay and Gypsum, for practical use, with Lithographed Illustrations_. Folio, 1 volume.

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The publishing house of BROCKHAUS, one of the largest in Germany, is printing a series of Russian novels and poems, translated into German by William Wolfsohn.

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_The History of the United States Exploring Expedition_, under Lieutenant WILKES, is just translated and published in Germany.

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COUNT MORITZ STRACHWITZ has published a new volume of poems. His former books have been well received.

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PROFESSOR BULAU'S _Review of the Year 1850_, has reached a second edition.

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BAYARD TAYLOR'S _El Dorado_ has lately appeared in a German translation.

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