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have mentioned;-such, for example, as the restoration of the life of Ottilia's maid, after she had thrown herself out of a garret into the street, through sorrow for the death of her mistress, by the accidental contact of the two bodies; a miracle which makes Ottilia pass for a saint in the surrounding country, and is but the precursor of many more performed at her tomb.

We need not dwell on the immoral tendency of this novel. There is, in many parts, a total want of delicacy. Among the supernumerary actors, are a baron and a countess casual visitors at the castle, whose situation may accord with German refinement, but is not likely to conciliate universal favour.— They are represented to have been, for a long time, enamoured of each other, although married to different persons, and console themselves for the obstinacy of one of the latter in opposing a divorce, by travelling amicably together. The complexion of their discourse, and the doctrines they preach, are perfectly in unison with their easy and unprejudiced character.

In spite of the glaring defects which we have noticed, the present work is powerfully attractive, and evidently from the pencil of a master. The style is of finished excellence; remarkably pure, and as perspicuous as the subject and the German idiom will permit; the dialogue is skilfully managed, and the portraiture of manners no less interesting than accurate. Many of the author's reflections are equally profound and just. His descriptions, in which he appears to take particular delight, would be perfect, if they were not somewhat too minute. The beauties of his style and manner arise, however, chiefly from a peculiar talent of seizing, in his descriptions, with elegance and simplicity, all the little characteristic features, springing out of, and essentially belonging to, the spirit of his scene, his situation and his subject. This circumstance gives to his narrative an irresistible dramatic effect. While the physical eye sees but words, the mental gazes on a canvas, slowly drawn along;not, indeed, on a canvas-for life itself and reality may be said to be present.

Goëthe does not exactly tell you what happened;-you see it occur. Your imagination becomes at once engaged with the actors, or the persons implicated in the dénouement, and remains so rivetted, that the illusion never abates;-that you never perceive you are but reading. There are passages of Goethe, which you might peruse at sea, during a squall, almost without being sensible of your situation. They absorb you, like a game of chess, when the board becomes intricate, or like the sight of the Falls of Niagara, which, stunning and overcoming the beholder, have to our knowledge, in more than

one instance, excited a momentary desire of mingling with the roaring torrent.-And when you analyse this extraordinary effect, you find it always owing to this, that Goëthe never leaves unnoticed the smallest circumstance which depicts, and rarely suffers your attention to languish, by noticing any which are irrelevant.

Goëthe once, at the request of some friends, and to show the force of his talent in this respect, chose for his subject, the festivity of a carnival at Rome. His description makes a little book of itself, which, we believe, nobody ever laid down, after having taken it up, without finishing, and which leaves you in a state of Bacchanalian delirium;-in a condition of mind from which you do not, for some hours, recover. Yet there is not, in the whole picture, one word which could be left out; not a single finely-wrought sentence; not an expression be traying that the author thought of himself. He tells you simply what passes, but he tells it in such a manner, that you are all the time of the party. You feel the air in motion with the speed of the running horses:-You suffocate in the crowd pressing forward to see which wins;-the "sia amazzato" assails your ear. You try to save your candle on one side, and meet a Cerberean mouth ready to blow it out on the other.

But it is time for us to have done with Goëthe, of whose genius we can never speak without enthusiasm, however much we may be disposed to reprobate his extravagancies, as well as those of the dangerous sect of metaphysic-sentimental poets and novelists in Germany, of whom he is the leader.

A very different kind of tribute from that which we deem suitable to the metaphysics of the Kantean school, and to the works of imagination published by the Germans, is due to their labours in classical erudition, in antiquities, in ancient geography, and in history both profane and ecclesiastical. The cause of knowledge is infinitely indebted to them, for what they have achieved in these pursuits, even within the few years past, notwithstanding the sanguinary and troublous wars, of which their country has been the theatre during the same interval. Their researches are no less remarkable for depth and extent, than for accuracy and method, and have been communicated to the world, in a variety of forms, admirably well calculated to facilitate the sudies of those, who may engage in the same career, and to perpetuate the fruit of their own toil, together with that of their predecessors.

Some idea may be formed of the activity of their minds, from the fact, that Germany could boast, in 1809, of no less than two hundred authors of merit in the branches of knowledge

enumerated above, whose works published during the three years immediately preceding, amounted to the number of five hundred. These are all circumstantially noticed in a French volume, which we have now in our hands, intitled " A Report made in 1809 to the third class of the Institute of Paris, on the actual state of Ancient Literature and History in Germany."-The author of this Report, Mr. Charles Villers, is himself a man of considerable learning, and lived for several years among the Germans, in habits of close intimacy with their scholars.-In his Introduction, he discusses the causes of the peculiar character, which distinguishes the severer literature of the Germans, and of the singular zeal and success, with which they prosecute erudite studies of every description. The subject is curious, and his observations are for the most part well-founded, and instructive. In the belief that they will prove acceptable to our readers, we shall not be deterred by their length, from inserting a translation of them, as the conclusion of this article.

"Let me be permitted," says M. de Villers, " before I enter upon my task, to state as briefly as possible, what are the local circumstances and the peculiar notions, which give a distinctive character to the erudite literature of Germany.-As long as science spoke the same language throughout Europe, as long as the Latin was the common tongue of the learned, nearly the same spirit prevailed among them, and their labours had nearly the same direction. But since the custom of writing in our vernacular idiom, has introduced itself, the European literati have by degrees ceased to form a common family, or cast. They have become in some manner isolated in their respective countries, and have confined their views to their own countrymen, whose taste and appetite they must necessarily consult, and from whom they must experience that re-action, which always obtains between a writer, and his public.Hence has arisen in the bosom of each nation, a particular mode of cultivating the mind; a local fashion in the study of the sciences."

"Nature, in raising an immense barrier between the nations of the continent, seems to have divided them into two distinct races, whose temperament and character differ very materially. The first, which may be denominated the Gallic race, occupies the South and West of the great chain of the

The following statement is made in one of the Moniteurs of 1811. "The last catalogue of the fair of Leipsick has revealed to the learned world that there are now in Germany no less than 10,243 authors, full of health and spirits, and who print at least once a year."

VOL. III.

I

Alps, and of the bason of the Rhine.-The other, the Germanic, stretches to the East and North of the same barrier. Whatever on either side, does not belong, in point of intellectual culture, to one or the other of these principal divisions, merits but little consideration."

"The Germanic race, whose geographical limits extend from the Adriatic Gulf, the Rhine, and the North Sea, as far as the German provinces of the Russian empire, and which includes Denmark and even Sweden and Hungary, has a peculiar literature common to the whole. The character of this literature partakes of that of the race, which is more sedate, more patient, more contemplative, more attached to the empire of ideas, than the Gallic character. The latter, on its part, is more lively, more inclined to adopt the empire of realities, and to look among them for objects, which it pursues with great eagerness. Both of these modes of being, have their advantages and inconveniences. This is not, however, the place to compare and weigh them. It is sufficient for me to show, what differences must ensue, in the intellectual labours of one and the other race."

"What has been already said, prepares the reader for the remark, that the German exercises, in his study of languages, in his researches into antiquity, and in his manner of treating history, an assiduity, a perseverance, a scrupulous exactitude. He attends carefully to the most minute details, convinced as he is, that every observation, however seemingly unimportant, belongs nevertheless to the ensemble of knowledge, and may even throw unexpected light upon some part or other. The value he affixes to things which may appear superfluous to others, makes him communicate readily all that he knows. This minuteness often carried, as it is, to an excess, and fatiguing for the reader who takes but a slight interest in such close researches, has occasioned the imputation of pedantry to be attached to the labours of the erudite in general, and especially to those of the German scholars, while the latter have stigmatized works written in any other than their own way, as light and superficial."

"Besides this kind of literary conscience, and scrupulous rectitude, which distinguish the German scholar in his studies, another important circumstance is to be taken into view;-that he labours neither for a court, nor for a public fashioned after a court, who make elegance, and refined taste indispensable conditions to the success of any work of the mind. The greater part of the courts of Germany speak and read in French, and are almost strangers in their own country. The German

writer, then, looks for his public in the nation itself, which is uncontrolled, and over which the ton of the court, and of the fashionable world, can exert no influence. This nation or rather the several nations, who constitute the German public, contain a very great mass of information; or rather, what is the same thing, a very large number of enlightened and welleducated men. The German literati are consequently tried by their peers; they are tried severely indeed, but with sufficient equity, by a numerous public, who comprehend the spirit, and appreciate the nature of their labours."

"These literati, and this public, do not live, in great cities, and still less, heaped together in one capital, under the tyrannical yoke of a conventional taste, of fashionable opinions, and of a crowd which has no wish but to be amused, or interested. The German scholar is insulated from what is called the world; his public, as I have said, is spread over a vast territory;-from Berne to the gates of St. Petersburgh. He has, therefore, nothing to do with a local spirit, endued with the strength which is derived from great concentration. The multiplicity of the different countries in which he is read, does not allow of this. The local taste of one spot is neutralized by that of the rest; so that, on one hand, the public judges with a tolerably great share of liberality, and on the other, the savant enjoys the most perfect independence in his labours, and is entirely exempt from all influence foreign to his studies, or his meditations. Hence it results that of all others, the erudite writers of Germany are perhaps those, who have the most truly classical tact, and who modernize least the antique.Hence also the facility with which they possess themselves, of the spirit of nations and ages, so different from those which we see before us. Hence their real and solid success in antiquarian researches; in the interpretation and translation of the ancients, particularly of the Greek authors."

"There is, without doubt, another circumstance which has contributed, to the proficiency of the Germans, in the interpretation of the ancients; I mean, the obligation which the protestant countries of Germany conceive to rest upon them, of investigating thoroughly the sense of the Holy Scriptures;-both of the Old and New Testament. The interpretation of the Hebrew books of the Bible, conducts those who devote themselves to it on a large scale, into the very sanctuary of oriental litera. ture; as that of the Greek books, leads to an intimate acquaintance with the Greek and Roman world.-These studies when they become the favourite occupation of a nation, are powerful stimulants and auxiliaries, to those which are conversant

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