Germany. ... With notes and appendices by O. W. Wight

Preface

. Madame de Stael's Germany, which we agree with Sir James Mackintosh in regarding as the greatest production of feminine genius, constitutes, in omseries of French Classics, the fourth and fifth volumes of her works. The reader must look in the first volume for Biography, Critical Estimates, Bib liographical Notice, etc. We have used the translation published by Murray, in 1814. We know not who was its author. It shows a singular com bination of ability and carelessness. We have spent almost labor enough in its careful revision to have made a new trans lation, and, if we are not mistaken, the result is a bette. translation than could have been made by either party alone. Madame de Stael's style, in which there is expressed a constant admixture (thus to speak) of indefinite sentiment and definite thought, is difficult to translate well.

Madame de Stael's book abounds in quotations from the best German authors. The English translator took these all at second hand, through the French. Except in two or three in stances, we have substituted translations made directly from the German. It is almost useless to remark what a shadow of a shadow must be an ode of Klopstock or a ballad of Goethe when distilled through a language wholly different from the German into English. Our notes, drawn from too many sources to be indicated here, are equal to nearly half the matter of the text. Our principal editor's peefaoe. 6 object has been to give abundant and reliable information in regard to the period since Madame de Stael wrote. Important Appendices have been added, which complete the survey of German Literature, Philosophy, and Theology.

We had intended to say something here in regard to the intellectual importance of Germany, but we find what we wished to say so much better expressed by Mr. Carlyle,— and who has a better title than he to speak of intellectual Germany ?— that we gladly adopt his language : " There is the spectacle of a great people, closely related to ns in blood, language, character, advancing through fifteen cen turies of culture, with the eras and changes that have distin guished the like career in other nations. Nay, perhaps the intellectual history of the Germans is not without peculiar at traction on two grounds : first, that they are a separate un mixed people ; that in them one of the two grand stem-tribes, from which all modern European countries derive their popu lation and speech, is seen growing up distinct, and in several particulars following its own course ; secondly, that by accident and by desert, the Germans have more than once been found playing the highest part in European culture ; at more than one era the grand Tendencies of Europe have first im bod ied themselves into action in Germany ; the main battle be tween the New and the Old has been fought and gained there.

We mention only the Swiss Revolt and Luther's Reformation. The Germans have not indeed so many classical works to ex hibit as some other nations ; a Shakspeare, a Dante, has not yet been recognized among them ; nevertheless, they too have had their Teachers and inspired Singers ; and in regard to popular Mythology, traditionary possessions, and spirit, what we may call the inarticulate Poetry of a nation, and what is the element of its spoken or written Poetry, they will be found superior to any other modern people. editor's peeface. 7 " The Historic Surveyor of German Poetry will observe a remarkable nation struggling out of Paganism ; fragments of that stern Superstition, saved from the general wreck, and still, amid the new order things, carrying back our view, in faint reflexes, into the dim primeval time.

By slow degrees the chaos of the Northern Immigrations settles into a new and j fairer world ; arts advance ; little by little a fund of Knowledge of Power over Nature, is accumulated for man ; feeble glim merings, even of a higher knowledge, of a poetic, break forth ; till at length in the Swabian Era, as it is named, a blaze of true though simple Poetry bursts over Germany, more spleu did, we might say, than the Troubadour Period of any other nation ; for that famous Nibd'ingen Song, produced, at least ultimately fashioned iu those times, and still so insignificant in these, is altogether without parallel elsewhere. " To this period, the essence of which was young Wonder, and an enthusiasm for which Chivalry was still the fit expo nent, there succeeds, as was natural, a period of Inquiry, a Di dactic period ; wherein, among the Germans, as elsewhere, "many a Hugo von Trimberg delivers wise saws and moral apo thegms to the general edification : later, a Town-clerk of Stras burg sets his Ship of Fools translated into all living languages, twice into Latin, and read by Kings ; the Apologue of Reynard the Fox, gathering itself together from sources remote and near, assumes its Low-German vesture, and becomes the darling of high and low ; nay, still lives with us, in rude genial vigor, as one of the most remarkable indigenous productions of the Mid dle Ages.

Nor is acted poetry of this kind wanting ; the Spirit of Inquiry translates itself into Deeds which are poetical, as well as into words : already at the opening of the fourteenth century, Germany witnesses the first assertion of political right, the first vindication of Man against Nobleman, in the early history of the German Swiss. And again, two centuries later, editor's preface. 8 the first assertion of intellectual right, the first vindication of Man against Clergyman, in the history of Luther's Reforma tion. Meanwhile the Press .has begun its incalculable task ; the indigenous Fiction of the Germans, what we have called their inarticulate Poetry, issues x innumerable Volks-Bucher, (People's-Books), the progeny and kindred of svhich still live in all European countries', the People have their Tragedy and their Comedy; Tyll Eulenspiegel shakes every diaphragm with laughter; the rudest hear*, quails with awe at the wild mythus of Faust.

" With Luther, however, the Didactic Tendency has reached its poetic acme ; and now we must see it assume a prosaic character, and Poetry for a long while decline. The Spirit of Inquiry, of Criticism, is pushed beyond the limits, or too ex clusively cultivated : what had done so much, is capable of doing all : Understanding is alone listened to, while Fancy and Imagination languish inactive, or are forcibly stifled ; and all poetic culture gradually dies away. As if with the high reso lute genius, and noble achievements, of its Luthers and Hut tens, the. genius of the country had exhausted itself, we behold generation after generation of mere Prosaists succeed these high Psalmists. Science indeed advances, practical manipula tion in all kinds improves ; Germany has its Copernics, Hevels, Guerickes, Keplers; later, a Leibnitz opens the pathos true Logic, and teaches the mysteries of Figure and Number : but the finer education of mankind seems at a stand.

Instead of Poetic recognition and worship, we have stolid Theologic con troversy, or still shallower Freethinking ; pedantry, servility, mode-hunting, every species of Idolatry and Affectation holds sway. The World has lost its beauty, Life its infinite majesty, as if the Author of it were no longer divine : instead of ad miration and creation of the True, there is at best criticism and denial of the False ; to Luther there has succeeded Thoeditor's preface. 9 masius. In this era, so uupoetical for all Europe, Germany torn in pieces by a Thirty Years' War, and its consequences, is pre-eminently prosaic ; its few Singers are feeble echoes of foreign models little better than themselves. No Shakspeare, no Milton appears there ; such, indeed, would have appeared earlier if at all, in the current of German history ; but instead, they have only at best Opitzes, Flemmings, Logans, as we had our Queen Anne Wits ; or, in their Lohensteines, Gryphs, Hoffmannswaldaus, though in inverse order, an unintentional parody of our Drydens aud Lees.

" Nevertheless from every moral death there is a new birth ; in this wondrous course of his, man may indeed linger, but cannot retrograde or stand still. In the middle of last century, from among the Parisian Erotics, rickety Sentimeutalism, Court aperies, and hollow Dulness, striving in all hopeless courses, we behold the giaut spirit of Germany awaken as from long slumber ; shake away these worthless fetters, and, by its Lessings and Klopstocks, announce, in true German dialect, that the Germans also are men. Singular enough in its cir cumstances was this resuscitation ; the work as of a ' spirit on the waters,' — a movement agitating the great popular mass ; for it was favored by no court or king : all sovereign ties, even the pettiest, had abandoned their native Literature, their native language, as if to irreclahnable barbarism.

The greatest King produced in Germany since Barbarossa's time, Frederick the Second, looked coldly on the native endeavor, and saw no hope but in aid from France. However, the na tive endeavor prospered without aid : Lessing's announcement did not die away with him, but took clearer utterance, and more inspired modulation from his followers ; in whose works it now speaks, not to Germany alone, but to the whole world. The results of this last Period of German Literature are of deep significunce, the depth of which is perhaps but now be editor's preface. 10 Coming visible. Here, too, it may be, as in other cases, the Want of the age has first taken voice and shape in Germany ; that change from Negation to Affirmation, from Destruction to Reconstruction, for which all thinkers in every country are now prepared, is perhaps already in action there.

In the nobler Literature of the Germans, say some, he the rudiments of a new spiritual era, which it is for this, and for succeeding generations to work out and realize. The ancient creative Inspiration, it would seem, is stdl possible in these ages ; at a time when Skepticism, Frivolity, Sensuality, had withered Life into a sand desert, and our gayest prospect was but the false mirage, and even our Byrons could utter but a death-song or despairing howl, the Moses'-wand has again smote from that Horeb refreshing streams, towards which the better spirits of all nations are hastening, if not to drink, yet wistfully and hopefully to examine. If the older Literary History of Ger many has the common attractions, which in a greater or less degree belong to the successive epochs of other such Histories, its newer Literature, and the historical delineation of this, has an interest such as belongs to no other."

Carlyle acknowledges that this book of Madame de Stael has done away with the prejudices against the Germans. We send it forth in a new dress, with careful and copious annota tation, and hope it may proye a true guide to those who are seeking information in regard to a great people. O. W. Wight. June, 1859. CONTENTS. Paos Pkijack 13 General Observations 21

Part I. Of Germany, And The Manners Of The Germans

Chapter I. — Of the Aspect of Germany 27 Chap. II. — Of the Manners and Characters of the Germans 30 Chap. III.— Of the "Women 43 Chap. IV. — Of the Influence of the Spirit of Chivalry on Love and Honor 46 Chap. V.— Of Southern Germany 52 Chap. VI.— Of Austria 53 Chap. VII— Of Vienna 59 Chap. VIII.— Of Society 66 Chap. IX. — Of the Desire among Foreigners of imitating the French Spirit 69 Chap X. — Of supercilious Folly and benevolent Mediocrity 75 Chap. XI. — Of the Spirit of Conversation 77 Chap. XII. — Of the German Language, in its Effects upon the Spirit of Conversation SO Chap. XIII.— Of Northern Germany 93 Chap. XIV.— Saxony 97 Chap. XV.— Weimar 100 Chap. XVI.— Prussia 105 Chap. XVII.— Berlin Ill Chap. XVIII.— Ofthe German Universities 116 Chap. XIX. — Of particular Institutions for Education, and Charitable Establishments 123 The Fete of Ihterlachen CONTENTS. •

Part II. On Literature And The Arts

Page Chap. I. — Why are the French unjust to German Literature ? 145 Chap. II. — Of the Judgment formed by the English on the subject of German Literature .^ 150 Chap. III.— Of the principal Epochs of German Literature 153 Chap. IV.— Wieland. '. 158 Chap. V.— Klopstock 161 Chap: VI. — Lessingand Winekelniann 163 Chap. VII.— Goethe i75 Chap. VHL— Schiller 179 Chap. IX. — Of Style, and of Versification in the German Language ... 183 Chap X.— Of Poetry 193 Chap. XL— Of 'Claesic and Romantic Poetry 193 Chap. XII. — Of German Poems 204 Chap. XIII. — Of German Poetry 224 Chap. XIV.— Of Taste 249 Chap. XV.— Of the Dramatic Art 254 Chap. XVI. — Of the Dramas of Lessing 264 Chat. XVII.— The Robbers and Don Carlos of Schiller 270 Chap. XVTIL— Wallenstein and Maiy Stewart 280 Chap. XIX. —Joan of Arc and the Bride of Messina 308 Chap. XX.— Wilhelm Tell ;._i Chap. XXI. — Goetz of Berlichingen and the Count of Egmont 336 Chap. XXH— Iphigenia in Tauris, Torquato Tasso, &c, &e 351 Chap. XXHI. — Faust gill Chap. XXIV.— Luther, Attila, The Sons of the Valley, The Cross on the Baltic, The Twenty-Fourth of February, by Werner

PREFACE.

. 1st October, 1813. In 1810, I put the manuscript of this work, on Germany, into the hands of the bookseller, who had published Corinne. As I maintained in it the same opinions, and preserved the same silence respecting the present government of the French, as in my former writings, I flattered myself that I should be per mitted to publish this work also : yet, a few days after I had dispatched my manuscript, a decree of a very singular description appeared on the subject of the liberty ofthe press; it de clared " that no work could be printed wiihout having been examined by censors." Very well ; it was usual in France, under the old regime, for literary works to be submitted to the examination of a censorship ; the tendency of public opinion was then towards the feeling of liberty, which rendered such a restraint a matter very little to be dreaded; a little article, however, at the end of the new regulation declared, "that when the censors should have examined a work and permitted its publication, booksellers should be authorized to publish it, but that the Minister of the Police should still have a right to suppress it altogether, if he should think fit so to do."

The meaning of which is, that such and such forms should be adopted until it should be thought fit no longer to abide by them : a law was not necessary to decree what was in fact the absence of all law ; it would have been better to have relied simply upon the exercise of absolute power. My bookseller, however, took upon himself the responsibility of the publication of my book, after submitting it to the cen sors, and thus our contract was made. I came to reside within RTAF.l.'s GEBMANY. forty leagues of Paris, to superintend the printing of the work, and it was upon this occasion that, for the last time, I breathed the air of France. I had, however, abstained in this book, as will be seen, from making any reflections on the political state of Germany : I supposed myself to be writing at the distance of fifty years from the present time ; but the present time will not suffer itself to be forgotten.

Several of the censors exam ined my manuscript ; they suppressed the different passages which I have now restored and pointed out by notes. With the exception, however, of these passages, they allowed the work to be printed, as I now publish it, for I have thought it my duty to make no alteration in it. It appears to me a curious thing to show what the work is, which is capable even now in France, of drawing down the most cruel persecution on the head of its author. At the moment when this work was about to appear, and when the ten thousand copies of the first edition had been actually printed off, the Minister of the Police, known under the name of General Savary, sent his gensdarmes to the house of the bookseller, with orders to tear the whole edition in pieces, and to place sentinels at the different entrances tj the warehouses, for fear a single copy of this dangerous writing should escape.

A commissary of police was charged with the superintendence of this expedition, in which General Savary easily obtained the victory ; and the poor commissar)-, it is said, died of the fatigue he underwent in too minutely assur ing himself of the destruction of so great a number of volumes. or rather in seeing them transformed into paper perfectly white upon which no trace of human reason remained ; the price 0/ the paper, valued at twenty louis by the police, was the only indemnification which the bookseller obtained from the minister. At the same time that the destruction of my work was goino on at Paris, I received in the country an order to deliver up the copy from which it had been printed, and to quit Frau.ce in four-and-twenty hours. The conscripts are almost the only persons I know for whom four-and-twenty hours are considered

PREFACE.

. a sufficient time to prepare for a journey ; I wrote, therefore, te the Minister of the Police that I should require eight days to nrooure money and my carriage. The following is the letter which he sent me in answer : General Police, Minister's Office, } Pans. 3d October. 1810. j " I received, Madam, the letter that you did me the honor to write me. Your son will have apprised you, that I had no objection to your postponing your departure for seven or eight days. I beg you will make thai time sufficient for the arrangements you still have to make, because I cannot grant you more. " The cause of the order which I have signified to you, is not to be looked for in the silence you have preserved with respect to the Emperor in your last work ; that would be a mistake ; no place could be found in it worthy of him ; but your banishment is a natural consequence of the course you have constantly pursued for some years past.

It appeared to me, that the air of this country did rot agree with you, and we are not yet reduced to seek for models among the people you admire. " Your last work is not French ; it is I who have put a stop to the publication of it. I am sorry for the loss the bookseller must sustain, but it is not possible for me to suffer it to appear. " You know, Madam, that you were only permitted to quit Coppet, because you had expressed a desire to go to America. If my predecessor suffered you to remain in the department of Loire-et-Cher, you were not to look upon that indulgence as a revocation of the orders which had been given with respect to you. At present, you oblige me to cause them to be strictly executed, and you have only yourself to accuse for it. " 1 desire M. Corbigny ' to suspend the execution of the order I had given him, until the expiration of the time I now grant you. 1 Prefect of Loire-et-Cher.

GEBMANT. " I regret, Madam, that you have obliged me to commence my correspondence with you by a measure of severity; it would have been more agreeable to me to have had only to offer you the testimonies of the high consideration with which I have the honor to be, Madam, your very humble and ven obedient servant; (Signed) " The Duke de Rovigo." " Mad. he Stael. " P. S. I have reasons, Madam, for mentioning to you the ports of Lorient, la Rochelle, Bourdeaux, and Roehefort, as being the only ports at which you can embark ; I beg you will let me know which of them you choose." ' I shall add some reflections upon this letter, although it appears to me curious enough in itself. " It appeared to me," said General Savary, " that the air of this country did not agree with you ;" what a gracious manner of announcing to a woman, then, alas ! the mother of three children, the daughter of a man who had served France vith so much fidelity, that she was banished forever from the place of her birth, "-rithout being suffered, in any manner, to protest against a punishment, esteemed the next in severity to death !

There is a French vaudeville, in which a bailiff, boasting of his politeness towards those persons whom he takes to prison, says, "Aussi je suis aim£ de tout ceux que j'arrete."*1 I know not whether such was the intention of General Savary. He adds, that the French are not reduced to seek for models among the people I admire. These people are the English first, and in many respects the Germans. At all events, I think I cannot be accused of not loring France. I have shown but too much sensibility in being exiled from a country v*.h._re I have so many objects of affection, and where those who are dear to me delight me so much ! But, notwithstanding this ' The object of this Postscript was to forbid me the Ports of the Channel 11 " So I am loved by all I arrest."

PREFACE.

. attachment, perhaps too lively, for so brilliant a country, and its spiritual inhabitants, it did not follow that I was to be-for bidden to admire England. She has been seen like a knight armed for the defence of social order, preserving Europe during ten years of anarchy, and ten years more of despotism. Her happy constitution was, at the beginning of the Revolution, the object of the hopes and the efforts of the French ; my mind still remains where theirs was then. , On my return to the estate of my father, the Preset of Ge neva forbade me to go to a greater distance than four leagues from it. I suffered myself one day to go as far as ten leagues, merely for an airing : the gensdarmes immediately pursued me, the postmasters' were forbidden to supply me with horses, and it would have appeared as if the safety of the State de pended on such a weak being as myself.

However, I still sub mitted to this imprisonment in all its severity, when a last blow rendered it quite insupportable to me. Some of my friends were banished, because thev had had the generosity to come and see me ; this was too much : to carry with us the contagion of misfortune, not to dare to associate with those we love, to be afraid to write to them, or pronounce their names, to be the object, by turns, either of affectionate attentions which make us tremble for those who show them, or of those refinements of baseness which terror inspires, is a situation from which every one, who still values life, would withdraw ! I was told, as a means of softening my grief, that these con tinual persecutions were a proof of the importance that was at tached to me ; I could have answered that I had not deserved " Ni cet e.vcfe d'honeur, ni oette indignity ;"2 but I never suffered myself to look to consolations addressed 1 The Maitre de Paste is one who has charge of a station of post-horses.

Sui_ti stations are found, seven or eight miles from each other, on all the highways of Europe. They are regulated by government, and all travellers, by complying with certain forms, can demand horses at any station to convey them to the next. There is no corresponding system in this •ountry. — Ed. * " Neither this excess ot honor, nor this indignity." GERMANY. to my vanity ; for I knew that there was no one then in France, from the highest to the lowest, who might not have been found worthy of being made unhappy. I was tormented in ai_. the concerns of my fife, in all the tender points of my character, and power condescended to take the trouble of be coming well acquainted with me, in order the more effectually to enhance my sufferings. Not being able then to disarm that power by the simple sacrifice of my talents, and resolved not to employ them in its service, I seemed to feel, to the bottom of my heart, the advice my father had given me, and I left my paternal home.

I think it my duty to make this calumniated book known to the public — this book, tht source of so many troubles ; and, though General Savary told me in his letter that my work was not French, as I certainly do not consider him to be the representative of France, it is to Frenchmen such as I have known them, that I should with confidence address a production, in which I have endeavored, to the best of my abilities, to height en the glory of the works of the human mind. Germany may be considered, from its geographical situation, as the heart of Europe, and the great association of the Conti nent can never recover its independence but by the independ ence of this country. Difference of language, natural bounda ries, the recollections of a common history, contribute alto gether to give birth to those great individual existences of mankind, which we call nations ; certain proportions are ne cessary to their existence, certain qualities distinguish them ; and, if Germany were united to France, the consequence would be, that France would also be united to Germany, and the Frenchmen of Hamburg, like the Frenchmen of Rome, would by degrees effect a change in the character of the countrymen of Henry the Fourth : the vanquished would in time modify the victors, aud in the end both would be losers.

I have said in my work that the Germans were not a nation ; assuredly, they are at this moment heroically disproving that assertion. But, nevertheless, do we not still see some German countries expose themselves by fighting against their countrv

PREFACE.

. 19 men, to the contempt even of their allies, the French ? Those auxiliaries (whose names we hesitate to pronounce, as if it were not yet too late to conceal them from posterity) — those auxil iaries, I say, are not led either by opinion or even by interest, still less by honor ; but a blind fear has precipitated their gov ernments towards the strongest side, without reflecting that they were themselves the cause of that very strength before which they bowed. The Spaniards, to -whom we may apply Southey's beautiful line, " And those who suffer bravely save mankind ; the Spaniards have seen themselves reduced to the possession of Cadiz alone ; but they were no more ready then to submit to the yoke of strangers, than they are now when they have reached the barrier of the Pyrenees, and are defended by that mar of an ancient character and a modern genius, Lord Wel lington.

But to accomplish these great things, a perseverance was necessary, which would not be discouraged oy events. The Germans have frequently fallen into the error of suffer ing themselves to be c vercome by reverses. Individuals ought to submit to destiry, but nations never ; for they alone can command destiny : with a little more exertion of the will, misfortune would be conquered. Thc submission of one people to another is contrary to na ture. Who would new believe in the possibility of subduing Spain, Russia, England, or France; Why should it not be the same with Germany rt If the Germans could be subjugated, their misfortune would rend the heart; but, as Mile, de Man cini said to Louis XIV, "You are a king, sire, and weep!" so we should always be tempted to say to them, " You are a nation, and you weep !"

The picture of literature and philosophy, seems indeed for eign from the present moment ; yet it will be grateful, perhaps, to this poor and noble Germany, to recall the memory of its intellectual riches amid the ravages of war. It is three years since I designated Prussia, and the countries of the North STAEI.'s GERMANY. 20 which surround it, as the country of thought ; into how many noble actions has this thought been transformed I That to which the systems of Philosophers led the way is coming to pass, and the independence of mind is about to lay the foundation of the independence of nations. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. The origin of the principal nations of Europe may be traced to three great distinct races, — the Latin, the German, and the Sclavonic. The Italians, the French, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, have derived their civilization and their language from Rome ; the Germans, the Swiss, the English, the Swedes, the Danes, and the Hollanders, are Teutonic peoples ;' the Poles and Russians occupy the first rank among the Sclavonic.

Those nations whose intellectual culture is of Latin origin were the earliest civilized ; they ha"*, e for the most part inher ited the quick sagacity of the Romans in the conduct of worldly affairs. Social institutions, founded on the Pagan religion, preceded among them the establishment of Christianity ; and when the peoples of the North came to conquer them, those very peoples adopted in many respects the customs of the countries which they conquered. These observations must no doubt be modified by reference to climates governments and the facts of each individual his tory. The ecclesiastical power has left indelible traces in Italy. Their long wars with the Arabs have strengthened the military habits and enterprising spirit of the Spaniards ; but, generally speaking, all that part of Europe, of which the languages are derived from the Latin, and which was early initiated in the Roman policy, bears the character of a long-existing civiliza tion of Pagan origin.