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ART. IV.-1. Lebengeschichte des Baron de la Motte Fouqué. 1840. 2. Ausgewählte Werke von Friedrich Baron de la Motte Fouqué.

1841.

IN returning to the life of Fouqué, we feel that we owe an apology to our readers for again troubling them to recall the view of biography on which hitherto we have proceeded. We all of us feel great difficulty in reading, still more in drawing any definite idea from, those many biographies and memoirs which inundate the press, in which every minute circumstance is related with praiseworthy precision, the details of the pedigree, infancy, childhood, boyhood, manhood, and senility of the hero. And this is because they seem meaningless. Even with all their particularity they are the history not of the individual, but of the genus. They distinguish in no respect their subject from any other man. Å life is written of A. or B., and of the two or three volumes of 500 pages each, more than four-fifths will equally suit that of C. or D. The man's life, that which constitutes his distinctive history, lies but in the fifth. And had the writer been contented with giving us this, we should have carried off an idea; as it is, we are overwhelmed, we grow sleepy; perhaps we wade through a volume, and give the rest up in despair. Now, in the case of Fouqué, we have been endeavouring to apply this principle. By carefully examining his life and writings, we have sought to discover that idea, which was the moving element of both, and, by laying this before the reader, with the arguments which led us to it, developed by facts, to give, what seems to us, the fairest and most useful sketch of the man himself. We argued that poetry was, according to a well-known definition, the endeavour to express some powerful and absorbing emotion, whose full expression is somehow necessarily repressed; and, in examining the life of Fouqué, we endeavoured to prove that in him this emotion was a yearning desire to express a belief in or perception of the invisible world, most difficult, nay, impossible, to express fully and perfectly, yet, at the same time, not lacking ways and means to express itself poetically or imperfectly, by analogies, contrast, irony, and the like. In this way, then, we endeavoured to show that which governed his heart, and to find, as it were, a key to many obscure passages in his life and works, hoping, at the same time, to escape the enumeration of much indistinctive matter, common to him with half the world besides. The chief ground of our argument was what we first

showed must inevitably ensue, viz. that, when the absorbing emotion received due power of expression, the workings of the mind would be healthy; when checked beyond the fitting limit, troubled and distracted. We consider that we have now worked out the first part of our subject. We have represented Fouqué as suffering, filled with an eager desire to express his yearnings and emotions, yet without adequate power from either thought, sympathy, knowledge, or education, weakly in body and mind, on the brink of madness and suicide. If now, then, we can succeed in showing that, under circumstances obviously favourable to the development of such an emotion, his mind grew calm, our object will in some measure be effected.

Now, in speaking of one possessed by an emotion of this kind, seeking vent to express itself, we are speaking of nothing which is not quite conceivable in any man. Whether he be

Christian or heathen, a man's heart might be filled with feeling so absorbing and powerful as to drive him to grasp at every mode of expression which came within his reach. Even this desire to give vent to certain indistinct stirrings of the heart connected with the invisible world might be found in any man, and they would be expressed more or less fully according to the circumstances in which he was thrown. As, for instance, when Plato, by the aid of the Greek language, and the imperfect mythical truths of the old world, could image forth and relieve his mind with the expression of heavenly and invisible things. But we may fairly urge that, through the Christian religion, or, to use a safer phrase, through the truths embodied and conveyed in the Catholic Church, leading us straight on to the heavenly and invisible, would alone be found the sure and satisfactory exponent of that yearning; and, when we add to this the case of one born in Christian times, we may fairly go on to assert that a mind thus possessed could not possibly find peace till it had grasped these truths.

The argument then would be reduced to this. A poet is one possessed with some deep and absorbing emotion. This must, in some way or other, and indirectly, be expressed: if not expressed, evil-if duly expressed, rest and tranquillity, result. The circumstances best adapted for expression vary with the emotion itself. This emotion may be ascertained from the phenomena of its expression or repression, viz. from its result in rest or unrest, in poetry or in distraction. If the circumstances be such as would naturally be adverse to the expression of any particular emotion, and we find accordingly unrest in the individual, there is a presumption that this emotion possesses him. Still more, if, on the other hand, we find, under circumstances favourable to the expression of such emotion,

poetry gushing forth, and the temperament peaceful and happy, may we fairly infer what the emotion is, without reference to the means by which it is expressed, looking only to the circumstances and the fact that there is peace and expression.

To consider, then, the case before us. Fouqué lived for many years, as we have seen, in outward circumstances, singularly unfavourable for the expression of this yearning after the invisible world, and his mind became unhappy and distracted. When at length these circumstances changed, and he became religious, and mingled with religious and earnest men, and acquainted himself with books, and found himself in a position where noble aspirations and a high soul could make themselves felt, the tone of his mind changed also. Therefore we may infer that this emotion or possessing feeling as being that which would be influenced by these circumstances, was that which was at the bottom of his mind. Certainly it is most striking to read the two parts into which his life is, as it were, divided, the one containing his early education, till he joined the army, the other the rest of his life from that time onwards.

To this latter we proceed. The reader will, perhaps, remember that, in 1803, he left his father's house, and soon after married, and got his discharge from the army. From this time, he gave himself up to literary pursuits, living at Nennhausen, and communicating with Bernhardi, the Schlegels, and other literary men of the day. Germany was divided into two distinct poetical schools. The rivalry between the admirers of Goethe and Schiller is a popular topic; and separate from both of these, though truly, to our dull English minds, more in name than degree, arose the romantic school, founded and sustained by the two Schlegels, Ludwig Tieck, and men of less note, among whom, perhaps, we may class Chamisso. These set themselves to lower in the popular estimation the so-called Classical School, of whom, perhaps, Wieland is the most abstract specimen. We have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to investigate 'Almanacks' and 'Reviews,' Criticisms and Counter-criticisms,' in order to mark distinctly the differences, and shades of differences, between these two Schools and their adherents. is sufficient, for the present purpose, to point out how the general tenets of that called Romantic must have corresponded with the peculiar genius of Fouqué. It was this romantic School which first saw the deep meaning hidden in the Mährchen, or traditionary nursery tale; which dealt with early mythologies as embodying 'world-old' truths; which traced the analogies between the seen and the unseen, treating the one but as the exponent of the other; which boldly worked out in its philosophy the grand distinction between reason' and 'understanding,' that they are

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two separate faculties, if indeed the reason can be called a faculty, the latter, as it were the handmaid to the former, reason intuitively giving birth to truths or ideas, understanding digesting into logic that which is in itself above logic, as the goldsmith can create the ring, but neither the gold nor diamond which compose it; lastly, it was this school which first, of that generation, dealt earnestly and truly with Religion, albeit, not untinctured with strange mystical views. Now, so soon as Fouqué got among these men, he seemed, to use a common phrase, in his element. The school seemed made for him, to satisfy his peculiar yearnings and sympathies with the Invisible World. And exactly as our hypothesis suggested, he was at peace and happy, and overflowing with romance in prose and verse, all serving to express the idea of his heart. Thus his writings at this time show every thing passing through the alembic of the mind, whether History, Classical Literature, Politics of the time, only to come forth in a romantic form. Sintram, Wild Love, Thiodolf, will exemplify our meaning; all contain classical tales and myths thus grotesquely twisted into romantic shapes.

So, too, at this point of his life he found, with some sorrow, that he was diverging from many of those whom he had always admired, and whose society he had eagerly sought; among others, Heinrich von Kleist and Schiller. For so it is ever with men. They hold long together, and it seems that nothing can separate them, yet a turn of a hair is sufficient for the purpose. The bent of these men was to Pantheism, of Fouqué to Catholicism. They start from a common ground of seeking the beautiful wherever it may be found, but the one sees it as embodying, the other as but typifying, God. We shall have occasion to allude to this again.

Perhaps the following interview with Schiller may illustrate what we have said of the calm happiness which now possessed Fouqué, and of the power which he, who formerly cast aside his books in despair, had now acquired of feeling and comprehending so abstruse a subject as Greek Rhythm. He had been introduced to him at Weimar; and a few years afterwards met him at Lauchstadt, drinking the waters. Schiller hardly recollected him, yet, with great urbanity, welcomed him as a friend. He found himself among a herd of young men, who followed the great Poet from place to place, like the school in Academia of old, drinking in his eloquent words, and not very careful how they treated such as denied or questioned his authority. They usually occupied themselves in discussing points of literature, arguments in which Schiller's dictum was like the sword of Brennus. They looked somewhat askance on

young Fouqué, as from the enemy's camp (for Schlegel had shown in the Musen Almanach that Schiller was vulnerable), and seemed to look for an opportunity to measure swords. The conversation turned on the Greek Drama, how far it was calculated for representation on the German stage. Fouqué, a devoted admirer of Eschylus, at once mentioned the Prometheus as, if properly translated, fit for the purpose. This brought them to the subject of the Metres, and the question arose, how far was it possible to render the Greek into German trimeters. Fouqué advocated strongly the affirmative, finding fault with Stolberg's translation as defective in this point; and, on the other hand, the Schillerites blamed him as too rigorous, and as though this strictness of versification must cramp the Poet's freedom. By no means,' he replied; to the true poet, the 'so-called difficulties of metre are suggestive, as Stolberg would have found, had he started on this principle. In Eschylus, and especially his Prometheus, the trimeter cannot be dispensed ' with. In what less voice could the gods and Titans express 'themselves, or rather Titans and gods, for Titans here, prophetic heroes of an ancient mighty world, have the mastery over the newly-risen and quickly-setting race of gods? How 'could they talk, but in the heavy tramping trimeter?' A well-known actor, whose powerful voice seemed exactly formed for heroic metres, rejoined somewhat harshly, We shall, I suppose, amongst others, be acting your trimeter plays.' Schiller here took up the subject, and replied to his follower kindly, Why 'not, friend? In Joan of Arc, Montgomery speaks in this metre with the Maid of Orleans. Does not every good thing 'at first appear more full of difficulties than in reality it is? 'Remember how all Iambics were strange on our stage when 'I introduced Don Carlos. I do not mean to say that it is altogether in Iambics, but Iambics there are notwithstanding. And at first there seemed too many, for your actors never 'failed to alter the foot by an oh! or ah! or by changing a shrug for a sigh, to alter the character of the metre. But now

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things are changed, and I say it in glad acknowledgment. For if by chance your memory fail you, you strive to readjust the ' injured measure, not only by these interjections, but by a dexterously changed word, so as not to injure the Iambic. And, 'doubtless, the same may happen to the Trimeter Iambic.' Again they returned to the Prometheus. Schiller sat calmly listening, and at length said, I have thought much on this sub'ject, and I will tell you to what my thoughts have led me. The Cothurnus and the Mask, moulded to aid the voice, are 'both good and useful; but for these Titan Eschylean forms we want something more: I should feel satisfied with nothing