simplest and most beautiful acts will offend most against the law of custom. Everybody keeps reminding him that he is strange, until he adopts their way and becomes a stranger to himself. Thus the poet, like a bashful child in the midst of a formidable company, is struck dumb, and is happy, if he can only escape from his awkward confusion enough to play a conventional part like the rest. The root of this tyrannizing, narrow public opinion is partly the utilitarian, money-getting spirit of the age, of which we need not speak; and partly the selfish love of comparative excellence, of individual importance in the eyes of the world, which never accepts a man for what he is, but asks how much greater or smaller is he than A or B? How far does he rise above or sink below the common run? Of course the standard by which these questions are answered, the scale of merit for all, will be whatever the majority most prize; and that is wealth. And so the poet, if he would pass for anything, must snatch for his portion, and first get to be fashionable. No one, but the artist himself, can conceive of the immense moral courage which it costs to be an artist, a true one, in such a state of society.

We cannot say how far this social characteristic is connected with our republican institutions. Doubtless it is in some measure a result from them; but it were idle to charge our lack of great poets upon them. We do not believe that there is, or can be in any circumstances, such a thing as a peculiarly American poetry. An American poetry would be a poetry which should breathe the spirit of our institutions; and that, if realized, should be purely human, wide, universal, and not merely patriotic and national. It is not the love of country, but the love of man, and recognition of the spiritual equality of all men, which is the idea of our Constitution. But our Consti

tution is an ideal floating far above our heads, while our life is sordid in its motives, and narrow in its practical maxims; and love of power and invidious distinction, and slavery to custom, so prevail, as to make us all sadly conscious of the glaring inconsistency between profession and practice. This weighs like a spell upon everything like poetic impulse. Poetry must be the spontaneous expression of an earnest, deep, and unmisgiving life. We must live the principles of our Constitution, before we shall have that faith in them, which can overflow in song. We must live up to our Constitution, would we as a people realize the promised influence of liberty upon poetry

and art. We have gone too far to return and live contentedly in the belief, that the old ways are right and well enough. And yet the old habit clings to us in spite of our new profession. This every thinking mind feels; and it is plain that the truest poetry for us at present is, to carry out in practice the ideal principles of human brotherhood and justice, which we have hung out as our national banner. Any such practical contradiction, any such consciousness "of a false position," is utterly at war with and paralyzes the creative power of genius. We believe, then, that the most ideal and poetic impulse of our people is engaged in the movements of reform; and that when our social life comes near to the beauty of our national principles, then there will be poetry gushing forth from a full heart, that trusts its own words. A state of full, entire belief is the first condition of poetry. And that occurs twice; first, in the simplicity of the olden time, when men do not dream that there may be a better state of society than that they live in, and therefore do make a shift to live in it. And secondly, when, once inspired with the idea of progress, they go the length of their idea, and do not talk about it, but live in it.

The intermediate state of perpetual doubt and misgiving and self-accusation, when, having proclaimed their doctrine, they still cling timidly to the ways of the majority, robs genius of its faith in itself, haunts it with the nightmare of a morbid consciousness of self, and takes away all creative energy.

J. S. D.

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DR. FOLLEN.

A JOURNAL, usually recognised as a dictator in the literary world, has declared, that no one can be expected to write a good biography of a near relative. This canon may safely be disputed, whether it is intended to apply to the relation of consanguinity or of friendship. And a sounder maxim would be, that no one can write a good biography of any person, to

[The Works of Charles Follen, with a Memoir of his Life. Boston: Hilliard, Gray, & Co. 1842. 5 vols. 12mo.]

VOL. XXXIII.

3D S. VOL. XV. NO. I.

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whom he is not bound by the closest ties of affection. Love alone has insight. Indifference, curiosity, hate are blind. The advantage is wholly on the side of the biographer, when he is writing of one united to him by blood. Hereditary tendencies enable him to appreciate by his own experience the radical character, which is essentially the same though superficially modified in all the members of a family. Friendship is, however, a better qualification for a biographer than consanguinity; for friends are relatives not in the blood but in the spirit. They are bound together from seeing in each other's characters the germ or full-grown beauty of what they know to be best in themselves, or yet oftener, from finding there the very qualities, of which they are consciously deficient, and which they most need to complete their ideal. Friends are born together of God, and learn through love to know the greatness of the nature, which casual acquaintance overlooks, and which the rudeness of worldly collisions drives into the hiding-places of reserve. A man's real spirit is a walled city to his fellow-man, till confidence has unbarred the gates. Relationship, whether by birth or friendship, is the best preparation for a biographer.

We should have taken up this memoir of Charles Follen by his wife, then, with the prepossession, that we should find there portrayed his most characteristic features, even if we had not known how very pure, tender, and perfect was the love that bound and still binds these friends together. But we frankly confess, we were not prepared, from what we knew of the enthusiasm of the author, for the tone of subdued affection which makes the charm and constitutes the atmosphere of this book. We have felt, in reading it, how very near must have seemed to her the presence of him, who has passed into the world of transparent truth. The duty has been faithfully rendered which she thus simply and touchingly describes.

"It was only for the sake of my child, that I first thought of writing the history of his father's life, feeling the conviction, that it would be the best blessing I could confer upon him; but my friends convinced me, that I ought to have a wider aim and a higher purpose than this, and that many hearts might be elevated, many souls quickened and blessed, by the contemplation of the life and character of such a being.

"I may say with truth, and in his own words, 'I have wished to perform this duty in his spirit, not attempting to present what my own mind might invent, or my personal feelings

dictate, but, from such records as I have, to give the simple story of his life, which is his best eulogy.'

"I feel an unutterable shrinking from thus removing the veil of privacy from all that is most dear and holy in my own existence; but by no other means could the beautiful image of his life and character be given. No one knew him as I did. Therefore, with an unhesitating faith and a cheerful courage, I commit this inadequate record of my husband's life to the public, remembering, that the weak feeling, which makes this act a sort of self-crucifixion, will pass away, and that, while the hand that drew it will be forgotten, this faithful picture of human excellence will live forever in the minds of many.

"The effort to suppress the anguish of soul, which would unfit me for my sacred task, has contributed much towards the fulfilment of his parting charge to me, to be of good courage' till we meet again.' - pp. 581, 582.

Charles Follen was the second son of Christopher Follen, counsellor of law and judge, first at Giessen, and then at Friedberg in Hesse-Darmstadt. He was born on the 4th of September, 1796. It was ominous of an eventful life, that while the ceremony of his christening was going on, the hitherto quiet house was suddenly filled with a troop of French soldiers, with General Jourdan at their head. The son united in beautiful harmony the characters of the parents. The father is thus described in a letter from Charles, written after his death.

"How clear and living does the image of my father's soul stand before me. His penetrating and comprehensive understanding; his uprightness and firmness; his glowing justice, aiding the oppressed, unmoved by the prayers or power of the oppressor; his contempt of all false appearances; his self-sacrificing, untiring sense of duty, which acknowledged no superior, regarded no relationship, which knew neither friend nor foe, which kept him always ready to stand before the highest judgment. Who of us does not remember with a painful pleasure his cheeful disposition, his wit, his power of entertaining, his noble and truly youthful interest in the generous though imprudent exertions of young people; his childlike pleasure in children, whom he attached to himself by his humorous inventive imagination, and gift at story-telling."— pp. 317, 318.

The mother was a gentle lady, full of loveliness, who died when Charles was but three years old; - and probably we see the traces of her softness in the feeling, which made him through life remember the "sad day, when he sat all alone

upon the great old-fashioned stairs, feeling as if he were forgotten, and no one of those who passed up and down spoke a word to him, and he heard a bell toll, and felt that something very sorrowful, he knew not what, had happened, and he cried, he knew not why." p. 4. After his mother's death, the two other sons and the daughter were sent away, and Charles remained alone at home, where his father devoted himself to his improvement with a patient affection, which may be tested by the amusing and pleasing anecdote, that he allowed Charles to stretch wires across every part of his study, and hang them with bells to make a tune, without complaining of their jangle or of the trouble in stooping under them. Surely an indulgent man for a studious judge! Indeed it is plain, that the father's heart was peculiarly poured out on this beloved son. And a friendship then began which each remaining year served only to ripen. The tone of hearty love, in which the father addressed his son through the period when he was following a course that his own sobered judgment did not wholly approve, and the frankness with which he proposes to come and live with him in America, speak volumes as to the truth of the relation that bound them together. They were what parent and child should ever be, intimate, confiding friends. The simple words of the father to Augustus and Charles, when they told him they had enlisted, "If you had not done so, I should not have acknowledged you as my sons," shows the manly freedom in which he desired them to stand. Christopher Follen was a good father.

But Charles was greatly indebted also to his step-mother, a woman for whose spirit and character all that is said in the volume, and all that we can gather from her letters, awakens a warm respect; and to whom he was plainly attached as to a mother. And so the boy grew up in a loving home, where the sunshine which a child's heart needs was warm. He was delicate in health, and rather backward, sensitive, and gentle, yet resolute and persevering, inclined to be grave, though open-hearted to the romance of youth. All the little anecdotes he gives of his early years are full of beauty. You see the magnanimity of later years in the grand way, with which he held out his hand to his father, who had angrily punished him, and said, "Father, I forgive you." p. 6. A steady industry, so characteristic of his manhood, enabled him to mount rapidly from class to class, and he remained below only because his