"Not he who takes up arms for cote and conduct,1 and his four nobles of Dunegelt." There is the "eagle muing" again. There is a highly sarcastic description of some tradesman's "Religion," & some clergy's preaching. What were precisely the things which Milton, Cromwell &c. aimed at so intensely? This should be clearly ascertained in limine, more clearly than hitherto. I [Thus far was written in August 1822 what a horrid gap has followed! It is now the 4th of March 1823; and what have I been doing since? Fearful question! will think no more of it. Goethe says it is always wrong to spend time in looking back at the road we have travelled over; it either disheartens us vainly, or puffs us up with a conceit as vain: the best plan is whatever our hand findeth to do, to do it quickly. So be it then ! — But alas! alas! —] The old Dramatists, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher &c. have disappointed me a good deal. Their language has often an echo of richest melody in it; their characters (particularly of Rips and Blackguards in B & F.) are sometimes well conceived and happily 1' Cote' or coat-money was a tax for clothing new levies, imposed on the counties by the King. 'Conduct' a tax for defraying the cost of moving or conducting troops from place to place. presented; there are in short many individual beauties: but no one piece, so far as I recollect, that I read to an end without disgust. What horrid barbarism of taste! what shocking grossness of manners! how little of genuine philosophy or real insight into the depths of human nature. Rich and royal Shakespeare! We should read his cotemporaries in order rightly to prize him.- No this is not the way for instructing myself! It is not. What should I think of Goethe? His Wilhelm Meister instructed, disgusted, moved and charmed me. The man seems to understand many of my own aberrations, “ the nature and causes " of which still remain mysterious to myself. I do feel that he is a wise and great man. The last volume of his Life is good also gossipping, but full of intellect and entertainment. Lacretelle1 is but a flashy superficial historian: he has nothing to tell me that I did not know before. French chivalry — the spirit of honour, and the everlasting Henri Quatre-stuff-very wersh2 stuff. It is really curious to think how little knowledge there is actually contained in these uncountable mountains of books that men have written. A few 1 Author of many works on the history of France, born 1766, died 1835. 2 Wersh, Scottice, "insipid." general ideas, a few facts in the history of natural phenomena, a few observations on the properties of our minds, a few descriptions of the whole repeated in ten thou our feelings - this is what Alas! I am we call philosophy and poetry. not yet past the threshold of instruction! GOTT HILF MIR! as Luther said. These German critics are curious people. Grüber, Wieland, Doering, Schiller shew curiously beside our Edin" and Quarterly Reviews. How much better are they? More learned at any rate, more full of careful reflection, displaying greatly more culture than is usual among such people this side the water. I rather fear however there is more cry than wool. I must read some of them any way. Herder I have some good hopes of. is a place extracted from his Nemesis. After mentioning that he thinks the notion of the soul was first suggested by the phenomena of dreams, and preluding a little on the similarity of Sleep and Death and their common relation to Night, he proceeds: Here "Beautiful allegory which the Former of our nature, by the alternation of light and darkness of sleeping and waking, has placed in the feelings of the most unthinking man! It seems as if He had wanted to give us a daily emblem of the circuit of our destiny, and had sent us daily to deliver it his mes senger, Sleep the brother of Death. Softly do the dark wings of this Ambassador sweep towards us, and overshadow us with the clouds of Night. The Genius sinks his torch, and refreshes us, if the day dazzled our eyes, with some drops of forgetfulness from his ambrosial horn. Tired with the glare of the young Sun, we look to our old Mother Night as she comes with her two children in her arms, shrouded in a dark veil, but circled with a far-glancing crown of Stars. Whilst on the Earth she obscures the eyes of our body, she awakens the eyes of our soul to wide prospects of other worlds. But the views there are but dreams for our earthly spirit; the Mother of Sleep and Rest can give us nothing more." Is not this a little in the vein of Hervey? Yet there is something very sweet in it. Herder writes a Prize-essay about the origin of Speech - Another about the decay of taste, from which Mad. de Staël appears to have borrowed something. In voller Jugend glänzen sie (the stars) Das Licht von ihren Wangen. Hier aber unter unserm Blick Verfällt, vergeht, verschwindet alles: Der Erde Pracht, der Erde Glück Droht eine Zeit des Falles (Last line bad.) Herder "But as to the place and hour of thy future existence, fret not thyself O man; the Sun which illuminates thy day measures out for thee thy dwelling and thy earthly business, and obscures for thee meanwhile all the stars of Heaven. Soon as he goes down the world appears in its wider form: the sacred Night in which thou once layest shrouded up and wilt again lie shrouded up, covers thy Earth with shades but opens for thee in its stead the shining books of Immortality in the sky. There lie dwellings, worlds, and spaces." Unchanged they shine still young as ever "But here while yet one views it All fades and falls and mocks the eye; Earth's pomp "That Earth herself will be no more when thou shalt still be, and in other dwellingplaces under other forms of existence shalt enjoy thy God and his creation. Already hast thou in this Earth enjoyed much good. In it thou hast obtained that form of being, in which as a son of Heaven it is allowed thee to look around about thee and above. Seek then to leave it in contentment, and bless it as the green field where thou a child |