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From Chambers's Journal.

ius. Twice ten years after wards, the best and A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE AND RECOGNI- noblest spirits of the time listen to the words

TION.

A SKETCH OF LITERARY HISTORY.

of the sage of Weimar as to an oracle; and ladies of quality are found crowding the antechamber of the author of Titan, begging a lock of his hair.

Jean Paul met with no ridicule on account of his large wardrobe, but with plenty because of his poor and torn attire; instead of having credit at the bankers, he was only too happy when he could earn his dinner from day to day. Goethe took private lessons of painters and artists for recreation and pleasure; Richter gave them, "because the prison fare of bread and water depended upon them." From Oeser's studio Goethe sauntered to the drawing-room of the Breitkopf family, or gossiped at the Clavier with Corona Schröter, or dined and danced at the hotel at Dölitz with mine host's amiable daughter or wrote songs for Annette Schönkopf, and played them with her. Jean Paul lodged in an out-of-the-way garret, and the only visits he paid were to beg if they had only been successful! Bankruptcy was advancing with rapid strides upon the finances of the young theologian, every prop of his house was failing, the widow was alone with her infant children, and under the pressure of extreme destitution, wrote bitter lamentations. Fate seemed to have let her bloodhounds loose upon our hero. It was not that poverty which Horace admonishes the Roman youth to accustom themselves to look upon, which had burst upon him

IN the latter half of the last century, the university of Leipsic was twice honored in a way that is seldom the privelege of the same In the features presented, Richter's resiseat of learning: in the year 1765 Wolfgang dence in Lepisic bore a perfect resemblance Goethe, and in 1781 Friedrich Richter, ma- to that of Goethe; in others, the most striktriculated in it. No further merit, however, ing distinctions are apparent. The university belongs to Leipsic, either in the case of Goethe men set up a loud laugh at the Frankfort or of Jean Paul. A striking parallel is offered freshman, on account of his old-fashioned in the academic lives of the two poets at the wardrobe; but at the same time they secretly Saxon university. The son of the Frankfort envied him for the large remittances and letpatrician was designed for the study of juris-ters of credit with which he was furnished. prudence, without either choice or opposition on his part; and with just as little personal preference the son of the widow of Hof was devoted to the study of theology. Both, at first, regularly attended certain lectures, rather, however, as critics than as students; both were accustomed, though yet mere lads, to regard themselves as equal to the men whom age and experience, office and distinction, had placed far above them, and to try their strength with every authority, fearless of an overthrow. Where is the wonder that the religious awe, with which they ought to have regarded such high dignitaries, had dwindled down to nothing? Both Goethe and Richter quickly separated themselves from all learned circles and companions, their original plans of study were abandoned, their intended professions-the law of the one, and the divinity of the other-were renounced in favor of a multitude of other objects; both worked hard in all directions, read books, and wrote poems, excerpts, and notices; neither of them received or expected any guidance from the university, but each labored, by rigorous self-culture, to lay the foundation of his own intellectual life. Both roamed the fields and the woods, had a seeing eye and a sensitive mind for the beautiful and the living, recognised the great and the whole in the minute and the particle; both greatly preferred the blue heavens, the misty heights at morning dawn, the green forest, and silent nature in her peaceful majesty, to the speaking professors on their wooden chairs, and the choking atmosphere and dust of a lecture-room: on which account both were regarded as bad students. When young Goethe returned to his native city, many a tongue was eager to defame him; and in whatever company he appeared, whispers began to circulate about him as a wild and riotous youth. The scandal-mongers of Hof acted in just the same manner towards Richter, when he fancied he could go on with his writing just as well at his mother's, as in Leipsic, where he met with nothing but hunger and hardship: for years he was regarded as a wild and unbridled gen

Angustam, amice, pauperiem pati
Robustus acri militia puer
Condiscat-

poverty not in the form of hardiness and ab-
stemiousness but in the shape of ghastly hol-
low-eyed destitution. He pressed his suit
among the professors but the professors had
amanuenses and famuli, native lads of the
town, and most diligent attendants at lectures,
whose exemplary virtues secured them the
preference. The situations were few, and the
applicants many. Strangers coming to Leip-
sic found the local charities reserved for local
purposes.

The battle-field tries the quality of our armor. Weak souls bend before the first storm of adversity; not so, however, the brave spirits that have within them an unconquerable strength and freedom of will, and proud

hearts, that nothing can crush. Richter, perhaps, was fired with some thoughts of ambition when he exchanged the solitude of his quiet village for the driving bustle of Leipsic; dreamy fancies hovered round him when he was in company with distinguished men of science, and a gentle voice whispered to him that he would one day be as famous as any of them. The day of hope had dawned brilliantly on his horizon, but as rapidly as a dream its glow vanished before the rough realities of the world. Jean Paul was not disposed, however, to admit that evening had come down upon his soul. It is true, dark thoughts did at times steal upon him, but a livelier, loftier stoicism taught him to overcome them. He possessed a bold, elastic humor; and all his unsuccessful suits, vain toils, and thick coming misfortunes, he used to welcome with a quiet and severe irony. "Misfortune," he used to say, "is like a nightmare-the moment you begin to fight with it, or bestir yourself, it is gone. What is poverty? Where is he that complains of it? The pain is only like the piercing of a maiden's ears, in order to hang jewels in the wounds." A youth who feels and reasons in this way, and studs his reasonings with such poetry, will find or make a way for himself in the world. "Viam aut inveniam aut faciam !" as his motto expresses it. He set out with the conviction that the only successful plan of resisting sufferings, destitution, and starvation, was downright uninterrupted work. He began, mindful of his maxim, by preparing for fight. He had now finally abandoned theology; literary labors must henceforth be the stay of his life. In his little bow-windowed chamber, the philosopher of nineteen thinks and writes night and day. The Greenland Processes are ready. The manuscript is taken to the nearest bookseller, and in an hour is returned to its author. A second, a third proposal, with like results. Now he goes about among the publishers, imploring them, as he had before done the professors, and with the like invariable refusals. How ignorant of the world this scribbler must be, to fancy that a publisher who knows what he is about, will, in circumstances so unfavorable to the book-selling craft -which indeed always exist!-undertake, as soon as he is asked, the printing of a work whose author has never been heard of, whom

no

one patronises, no one recommends! What prodigious assumption, too, to expect payment! If the work had been of a popular nature, and he had said nothing about twenty louis-d'ors, the case might have been different, but a book like that, and a price!

The Greenland Processes continued to wander from one office to another, from this city to that, their author having to solve the problem, whether it were possible to live upon

nothing, and how? At length a Potosi was discovered in Berlin: an adventurous speculator, Voss by name, purchased the right, for sixteen louis-a reduction of four from the twenty-of bringing Jean Paul into the market!

I scarcely know with what to compare the feeling of a young writer who holds his first printed essay in his hands: a joy, a pride overpowers him-an ecstasy that swells all the higher from the consciousness (whether he will confess it or not) that he has taken the first step towards immortality. The critics take care to dispel all such pleasing illusions. A letter from his mother did the wrok as effectually in the mind of the author of the Greenland Processes. The good woman, hearing that her son had published a book, began to believe it at last possible that he might actually produce a sermon ; so she wrote to Friedrich, desiring him to come to Hof, where there was a chance of his being permitted to preach in the Hospital church. Such a proposal operated like a cold bath on any remains there might have been of the author's self-satisfaction. Jean Paul's answer shows he thought no better of his private critic than modern writers do of official reviewers. "What is a sermon," returned he, "but something every student can make and deliver. But do you suppose that all your clergymen in Hof can understand a line of my book, to say nothing of being able to write it ? "

Unfortunately for Richter, the speculation Voss embarked in did not succeeed: the Greenland Processes was printed but nobody bought or read the book. The world had something better to do; far greater trifles claimed its attention, The Cagliostrians and Rosicrucians occupied the attention of politicians; the fashionable world was just then horrified at the wife of one of the court-councillors passing the lady of the president without greeting her. In another rank, a dreadful tale was going the round of the tea-tables: the comptroller's wife, forgetful of her station, had given orders for a new velvet mantle with a broad fringe! A new actress had appeared in one of the theatres or some syren's bell-like voice was to be heard; to-day there was to be a procession, and tomorrow a deserter was to be shot. How, in the face of so many comedies and tragedies, could time or inclination be found for reading the Greenland Processes? Just as the public ignored the works, so did the critics. Editors and reviewers disdained to notice a writer who had neither contributed to nor corresponded with them. A solitary scribe in Leipsic condescended, with an undisguised sneer, to notice the work in these terms: "Much, perhaps all, the author has written with great bitterness against literature, theology, wives, coxcombs, etc., may be true, but we have no

doubt whatever that the attempt at wit, which is evident on every page, will excite disgust in the mind of the rational reader, and lead him to throw the book aside with contempt." A potosi of sixteen louis-d'ors is very soon exhausted; a fresh shaft must be sunk. The Selections from the Papers of the Devil was tried; but Voss declined the publication, vehemently protesting that he had suffered quite enough loss by the Greenland Processes. The manuscript travelled over all Germany, and from every journey returned with the invariable reply: "We thank you for your esteemed offer, but regret that our time and resources are fully engrossed by other undertakings."

A ship is dashed to pieces on a rock; the crew are drowning; boards and planks, spars and masts, are drifting about amid the waves; from the surging flood a hand is thrust up; it grasps a beam, and holds fast by it, and the elements lose one of their victims. The demons of the sea are laughing; sure of their prey, they mock the struggle of the swimmer: "Look, poor wretch; stare your very eyes blind; wave your white signal in the wind, and burst with your wail of anguish: but no sail comes in sight. Tremble, and say your last prayer, if you can; for see, there swims the shark: a moment, and all is over with you!" The situation has often been represented in smaller or larger paintings: it was the situation of Richter. He had shouted himself hoarse, and the only answer to his cry had been the murmur of the waves; he had looked himself blind, and the white sail -the letter that announced the acceptance of his manuscript-had never hove in sight. The shark swims towards him-the prospect of disgrace and destitution! Are his lips uttering their last prayer? No! Richter will fight with the shark for life or death.

had made from borrowed books. By this means, indeed, he became possessed of a library, for books he did not possess. A vehement, but yet measured, heat burned within him. Necessity and destitution had lost their sting for him; he has looked despair in the face, and found that it has nothing maddening for him. His philosophy consoles him with the assurance that hunger and nakedness, perils and contempt, yea ofttimes the cross and the poisoned cup, have been the reward the world has given for wisdom. In all ages and countries the world has neglected its benefactors and persecuted its poets and instructors: Roger Bacon and Galileo pined away in the prisons of the inquisition; Torquato Tasso was confined in the cell of a madhouse; Camoens died in the streets of Lisbon, a beggar; and Burns, a thorough-bred steed of Phoebus, was compelled to drudge all his days in the gear of a cart-horse. But the gold that is thrown into the hottest meltingpot comes out the purest, and the canary-bird sings all the sweeter the longer it has been trained in a darkened cage.

Jean Paul betook himself to literature, in the first instance, as the only means of providing himself with a living; he wrote in fact, to get money-to live. In the further prosecution of this course, the material aim gradually began to disappear. Jean Paul will labor on, and think and feel, and will still demand, and at length receive recognition; literature ceases to be a means, and becomes an end with him; the struggle for existence merges in a struggle for recognition.

Many years ago, at Paris, in the early dawn, a young man was discovered hanging under the eaves of a house, close by the trellis of a window. A thin silken cord tightly twisted round his throat, had done the hangman's work. The scene quickly attracted all the Weeks and months rush past us like the curious and the idle. The noble, aristocratic wind; we see not from whence the whirlwind features of the dead, the delicate white hands, comes nor whither it goes. A morning chases plainly shewed that the unfortunate man had away the evening; to-day replaces yesterday; at one time occupied a higher position than we complete another year, we know not how, the tattered clothes in which he was conwe whose lives are happy, or even tolerably cealed would lead one to suppose. His per80. But the poor, the unfortunate? Time son was searched for papers that might throw flies with rapid wing over plenty and enjoy- some light upon the event; nothing was found ment, but slowly the days and hours of poverty drag their lengths along. In winter, spring is longed for on account of its lengthening days and greater warmth; in summer, the shorter days of autumn are looked forward to, which yield a few hours more rest to the weary body. In this manner, during his three years' residence in Leipsic, Jean Paul told off his evil hours and dreary days; he deluged the journals and newspapers with essays and treatises, wrote verses to order, also congratulations, and wedding-eve jokes, and filled whole chests with the extracts he

however; he had kept everything to himself like a true philosopher. Passers-by at length identified him. This suicide in rags was one of the most distinguished and brilliant geniuses of modern French literature, whose wit threw every saloon and boudoir into ecstacy-Gerhard de Nerval. In order that he might live, he also had grasped the pen, and had looked hopefully forward to recognition and distinction. He had been living a long while dissatisfied and miserable; by night, he roamed through the streets of the great city like a runaway dog; his desk and seat

were the table and bench of the commonest tavern ; he frequently sought sleep and oblivion in the most wretched dens, side by side with thieves and the most reprobate of beings, the scum of humanity. Thus had he been thrust about till, all hopes being now at an end, he bethought him that dying was perhaps a little better than living. He had looked for a home, and now the great quartermaster, death, had at length assigned him an abode.

Whatever may be thought of this suicide, it is unquestionably the nobler heroism which enables a man to endure, without rest or weainess, to the last. That Jean Paul, in his darkest hours when crushed to the lowest extremity by the miseries of the world, never lost faith in himself, never listened to the gloomy tempter, but " laughed so long in the face of fortune that it began to smile upon him in return"-this indeed commands admiration as a rare and worthy heroism.

He left Leipsic in 1784, and went to live with his mother in Hof: here he found a night's lodging, at least free of cost, and here he could go about without being pointed to as a beast broken loose from a menagerie, when he walked the streets without a wig, with open breast, and no neck tie. In this respect, the people of Hof were more tolerrant than a certain Leipsic magister, whoprobably not remembering how the cynic, Diogenes, in tattered garb, had trodden the pride of Plato under foot-had written to the wigless and collarless youth in peremptory terms, demanding the immediate discontinuance of the public nuisance.

A student has to accommodate himself to his needy circumstances as well as he can. "Nowhere," as we read in Richter's own daybook, "does one collect poverty's siege-coins more merrily and philosophically than at the university. The academic citizen proves how many humorists and cynics Germany contains." But it is doubly painful when the man of mature age has to pass year after year enduring the same, or it may be even greater hardships; of this Jean Paul had a torturing experience after his settlement at Hof. On the posts of his doors he wrote in large characters: "Dear christian friends, you perceive that I have not much money, what inference do you draw from it?" On passing the door, one entered a narrow chamber; at the window, sitting on a wooden stool, was our hero, thinking and laboring; the rest of the apartment was occupied with the washing his mother had taken in. At another time, the mother is seen busily plying her distaff. An account of what that mother and son earned in this

way was carefully kept; a little account-book, relating "how much we gained by spinning," has been preserved. According to this, the receipts of the family, in March 1793, amounted to 2 florins, 51 kreutzers, 3 pence; in April, to 4 florins, 3 kreutzers; in May, to 4 florins, 9 kreutzers, 3 pf., etc. etc. Against the entry of 2 florins, 1 kreutzer, the sum received in September 1794 it is observed that, on the 9th of this same month of September, a new pair of boots was purchased for the youngest son Samuel, "which cost 3 thalers, about the whole quarter's income.

A writer will be pardoned for anything but tediousness. I fear I shall become tedious or, shall weary the patience of the reader, if I devote one page to tell how the tears of Richter's mother fell down upon her web or into her wash-tub-how affliction and silent grief preyed upon the heart of the aging woman like a gnawing worm, as her first-born son, whose laborious industry she watched, began to sicken; the lion who fought with royal courage became a lamb; her son had discontinued his usual and regular walks, his pleas ure in life seemed to be extinguished, and the mirthful sally with which he used to deal out consolation was silent; the gentry of Hof affirmed that he was half-crazy, and the judgment was rapidly and universally endorsed.

"There

His quietness, however, which pained his mother, was not an unstringing of his spirits or the submissiveness of despair, nor was his resignation the coldness of apathy; he had made a bargain with the longings of his heart, had made his peace with the world. Agony has ceased to make him complain. is not a case in which I have not deserved my affliction. Every unpleasant sensation is an indication that I am untrue to my resolutions. Epictetus was not unhappy." What does it matter to him what may be the opinions of his worship the mayor, or his reverence the parson ? "Men for the most part judge very pitifully; why are you so anxious for the praise of children or of fools? No man honors you in a beggar's coat; be not therefore proud of the respect that is shewn to your clothes." How just! Wo to the man who has no appeal from the judgment of the world! he is a lost man! "Let one," as a certain critic remarks, "observe the public in a theatre: the life of a man is here compressed within a period of three hours; it is played upon the open stage with brilliant lights and with all the appliances that human art and oratory can suggest to render it clear and simple, and still, after the curtain falls, how diversified are the opinions the public pass upon both the hero and the play."

But now let it be supposed that the drama is not concluded in three hours, but that it lasts during a man's whole lifetime, that it is not represented with any effort towards clearness, that upon many episodes no streams of gaslight fall, and that we have no clue to many situations, no motive for many actions; and that the world or the critical public during the representation is occupied in divers ways, bestowing its attention for a moment now here, and now there. Where is the wonder, then, if that world condemns where the drama cannot be reviewed according to the common gauge of the three Aristotelian unities, but must be measured by its own particular rules-or, metaphor aside, when the object of criticism is a man of original genius and character?

The soul of the Doric hero rose all the clearer and more unconquerable from the depth of its sorrows and oppressions, its humiliation and deprivations, after the twelve labors. The angry goddess is appeased; on

Eta commences the apotheosis of the son of the gods. For Jean Paul, also, the hour strikes when the inexorable forces of destiny at length cry "Hold!" In the year 1796, the startling story of Hesperos issued from the little washing and spinning chamber: it obtained for its author, in all the states of Germany, that for which he had laboredrecognition. "What a god-genius," writes the octogenarian Gleim, "is our Friedrich Richter! Here is more than Shakspeare, I say to myself, in more than fifty passages I have underlined. I am perfectly enraptured at the genius from which these streams, these rills, these Rhine-falls, and these Blandusian springs issue and irrigate humanity, and if I am displeased to-day at some sentences such as the muses have not inspired, or even with the plan itself, I shall not be so to-morrow."

The fight for existence and recognition is fought out; sunshine breaks through the clouds; henceforth the star of Jean Paul shines brightly in the heavens.

THE "SIMPLICITY OF YOUTH."-Nevertheless, as we have hinted, the lad was by no means the artless stripling he seemed to be. He was knowing enough with all his blushing cheeks; perhaps more wily and wary than he grew to be in after years. Sure, a shrewd and generous man (who has led an honest life and has no secret blushes for his conscience) grows simpler as he grows older; arrives at his sum of right by more rapid processes of calculation; learns to eliminate false arguments more readily, and hits the mark of truth with less previous trouble of aiming and disturbance of mind. Or is it only a servile delusion, that some of our vanities are cured with our growing years, and that we become more just in our perceptions of our own and our neighbor's short-comings? I would humbly suggest that young people, though they look prettier, have larger eyes, and not near so many wrinkles about their eyelids, are often as artful as some of their elders. What little monsters of cunning your frank schoolboys are! How they cheat mamma! how they hoodwink papa! how they humbug the housekeeper! how they cringe to the big boy for whom they fag at school! what a long lie and five years' hypocrisy and flattering is their conduct to Dr. Birch! And the little boys' sisters! are they any better, and is it only after they come out in the world that the little darlings learn a trick or two?-The Virginians, No. 6.

THE subscriptions for the Luther monument in Worms, the execution of which has been confided to Reitschel, of Dresden, amounts now to fifty-one thousand four hundred and two florins, out of which four thousand four hun

dred and forty-eight have been given by royal houses. Only one-half of the sum required for the completion of the work has as yet been collected, but large donations are expected from America, England, and the Protestant kingdoms of Europe.

THE artists of Dresden, in imitation of those of Munich, have just held a magnificent fancydress carnival ball, at which the King and royal family were present. All ladies and gentlemen who had reached the age of fifty were allowed to appear in ordinary evening dress, with the addition of a peculiarly shaped cap, invented for the occasion. No masks or dominoes were permitted. During the evening a telegraphic message was despatched to Munich, where a similar scene was going on-a greeting from the Dresden artists to their Bavarian brethren, with a hearty cheer for King Maximilian. This was read aloud in the ball-room of the Odeon in Munich; and after the lapse of an hour a return message was received in Dresden, bringing thanks and hearty good wishes from the King and artists of Bavaria to those of Saxony. The invitation card to the ball was composed by the well known artist, P. Ludwig Richter.

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