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424 THE LEADEE. ' [No. 423/May 1,1858.
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Critics are nottielegislators, but the j...
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Most of our readers are aware that Mr. T...
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THE MATERIALS OF GERMAN" POETRY. Poets a...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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424 The Leadee. ' [No. 423/May 1,1858.
424 THE LEADEE . ' [ No . 423 / May 1 , 1858 .
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Critics Are Nottielegislators, But The J...
Critics are nottielegislators , but the jtidges and police of literature . They do not makelaws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
Most Of Our Readers Are Aware That Mr. T...
Most of our readers are aware that Mr . Thomas Allsop , for whose apprehension the late Government offered a high reward , was for many years an intimate friend of Coxemdge ; but they probably do not know , or may not remember , that twenty years ago he published an interesting volume entitled Letters , Conversations , and Recollections of S . T . Coleridge . This volume , which has long been out of print , has just been , republished in a cheap and convenient form by his son , Mr . Robert Allsop , partly in fulfilment of a longcherished purpose in order to render it more accessible , and principally just now to show to the world what manner of man Thomas Allsop is , and in what estimation he was held by one of the greatest philosophers arid most prof ound thinkers of this or -anv age . ' Without fully endorsing this
judgment of CoLEKtDGE , it may be at once allowed that he was scarcely likely to form a close and intimate friendship witli a bloodthirsty * assassin such as Allsop , by the Government proclamation , was represented to be . It is true , that Coleiudge himself did not altogether escape suspicion in his earlier years , his sympathy with the French Revolution , and his philosophical pursuits—if the story told about Spy Nosey ( Spinoza ) be correct—having not unnaturally exposed him to the charge of being a revolutionist . At no timc however , could , he have been a conspirator . Even in the heyday of life his enthusiasm against tyranny and tyrants was of a very harmless kind . He lacked altogether the practical materials , the peculiar powers of speech and action out of which patriots and demagogues are made . He could neither be
a conspirator , nor urge others to become so . At one time , indeed , he fancied be had a mission as a popular leader , but it was an entire mistake . Kis passion for liberty exhausted itself . in- philosophical dissertation and . hazy eloquence , which even his most reverential disciples did not at all times understand . He must ever have remained caviare to tlie multitude . His love of liberty was enlightened-and sincere , but the early revolutionary fire soon faded , and in later years , especially at the period of his intimacy with Mr . Allsop , so far was he from being a republican and an atheist , that he might be not unfairly described as a sound lory and orthodox churchman . There is nothing very revolutionary in the
letters or conversations given by Mr . Allsop , Coleridge's great social and political enemies in those days being evidently Malthus and the political economists of his school , against -whom he wages unceasing warfare . The only reference to tyrannicide we have noticed ., and which we quote for the benefit of Mr . Hdwin James in the pending trials for . sedition , occurs in a passage where , speaking of Baxteb , he says : "He is borne out in . all his statements by Mrs . Lucr Hittciiinson , that most delightful of women and of regicidesses . No doubt the Commons had a right to punish the weak and perfidious king , inasmuch as he first appealed to the God of Battles . " Even such language as this is fast becoming dangerous in this country , and if the prosecution against Trtjelove succeeds , the publishers of our English
classical works , and especially Milton , will be exposed to legal pains and penalties . In connexion with this subject—state-prosecutions of opinion—an anecdote of Lord KisNYOKf occurs which is too good to be omitted : " Lord Kenton , on the trial of a bookseller for publishing Paine ' s Age of licason , in his charge to the jury , enumerated many celebrated men who had been sincere Christians , and after having enforced the example of Locke and Ni : wxonboth of whom Avere Unitarians , and therefore not Christians—proceeded : ' ! Nor , gentlemen , is this belief confined to men of comparative seclusion , since men , the greatest and most distinguished , both as philosophers and as monarchs , ] iavc enforced this belief and shown its influence by their conduct , Above all , gentlemen , need I name to you the Emperor Julian , who was so celebrated for the practice of every Christian virtue that he was called Julian the Apostle . '" ¦
It need scarcely be added that the volume abounds with illustrations of Colebjdge's views , political , philosophical , and theological . As a curious illustration of his celebrated distinction between the fancy and the imagination , the following passage may be quoted : — A clergyman bus even more influence with the women than tlic handsome captnin . The captain will captivate the fancy , whilst the young parson seizes upon the imagination and subdues it to his service . The captain is conscious of his advantage , and sees the impression he has made long before his victim suspects the reality of any preference . The parson , unless he be the vain fop , for which , however , liis education essentially unfits him , has often secured to himself the imagination , and , through the imagination , the best affections of those amongst whom lie lives , before lie is seriously attached himself .
A number of personal anecdotes and reminiscences occur , some of which , especially those of Chaklks Lamb , arc very characteristic . Take the following , for instance : — "Maiitin Buiwey , whilst earnestly explaining the three kinds of acid , was stopped by Lamu ' s saying , ' The best of all kincs of acid , however , as you know , Maiitin , is uil . y , assid-uity . ' " We conclude with an extract , curiously illustrating the way in which Lamb and Colkiudgk regarded each other ' s religious character : — " No , no j Lamb ' s scepticism has not come lightly , nor is ho a sceptic . The harali reproof to Gochvm for hid contemptuous allusion to Christ before , n well-trained child , proves that ho is not a sceptic . Ilia mind , never prono to analysis , seems to havo been disgusted with the hollow pretences , the false reasonings and absurdities of the
rogues and fools with which all establishments , and all creeds seeking to become ea . tablished , abound . I look upon Lamb as one hovering between earth and heaven * neither hoping much nor fearing anything . ' " It is curious that he should retain many usage . ? which he learnt or adopted in the fervour of his early religious feelings , now thai his faith is in a state of suspended animation . Believe me , . who know him well , that Lamb , say what lie will , ^ more of the essentials of Christianity than ninety-nine out of a hundred pro fessing Christians . He has all that would still have been Christian bad Christ never live ! or been made manifest upon earth . " It will be interesting to compare Lamb ' s estimate of the belief of Colerid ge—hall serious , half sportive—with this defence of Lamb from the charge of scepticism , After a visit to Coleridge , during which the conversation had taken a religious turn Leigh Hunt , after having walked a little distance , expressed his surprise that such a man as Coleridge should , when speaking of Christ , always call him our Saviour , Lamb , who had been exhilarated hy one glass of that gooseberry or raisin cordia l which he has so often anathematized , stammered out , " Ne—ne—never muuhvliat Coleridge says : he is full of fun . "
Before leaving the volume , we ought to say that the letters are interspersed with reminiscences and reflections by Mr . ALLSor , which present him in an attractive light as a genial , kind-3 icartcd man , of warm sympathies , noble views , and considerable literary culture—a humane , reflective , and high-principled merchant—anything but a conspirator or assassin .
The Materials Of German" Poetry. Poets A...
THE MATERIALS OF GERMAN" POETRY . Poets and Poetry of Germany : Biographical and Critical Notices . By Madame L . Davdsies de Pontes . Two vols . Chapman and Hall . The biography contained in these volumes is of more value than the criticism . Madame de Pontes , a competent translator , familiar with German literature of all ages , has prepared a series of intelligent and interesting sketches connecting the ancient folk-lore of Germany -with the poetry of our own times , and those chapters of her work which are most characteristic refer to the distant sources of Teutonic fable that fed the stream of early German poetry . The Gothic quotations illustrative of these passages are rendered from the best ancient traditions , and in the exact measure of the original , with the exception of those from W alter of Aquitaine , whose Latin metre js abandoned for the four teen-syllabled verse
of the old German minstrels . A thread of history connects the literary investigations , and it is one merit of the volumes that , passing Goethe , Schiller , and other poets of superior magnitude , Madame de Pontes has thrown the light of her long and untiring research among the less known , and , so to speak , more local writers , whose careers belong to the history of their country . Madame de Stael was among £ he first to praise the intellect of the people whom Swift and Du Perron satirized as the most stupid in Europe ; but even she knew nothing of the more primeval literature , the Niebelungen and the Gudrune , the realistic epics of fairy-land , shadow-land , and strange chivalry , which long lay in dust on monastery shelves ; but when these relics were disinterred it was found that the original poets of Germany had been at work upon her mythological romance , ami assuredly neither Spenser nor Ariosto possessed imaginations more kaleidoscopic
and vivid . Madame Pontes notices cursorily the theory attributing a cognate origin to Teutonic and Hellenic fable , us well as that which peoples the German forests with supernatural shapes and voices from the holy land of the Himalaya ; but she passes rapidly to an account of the most antique lelies of the German tongue . These consist of two incantations , discovered only seventeen years ago in the convent of Meiseberg , the principal of them being a grotesque charm purporting to cui * e a lame horse and enumerating the divine but not immortal beings ]? hoal , TVodin , Frea , Folia , and Balder—a singular proof of identity between the German and Scandinavian myths , an identity quite different from the analogies between the Scandinavian and the Hindu , Odin and Youdricterah , In thesu days poetry was darkened by a universal belief in gnomes and coholds , with elfin sprites far less ethereal and gracious than those of Shakspeare and Chaucer , the nixes who
carried oil young girls to be their ladies under the sea , and killed them if they desired to return upon the earth , the wilkyres , or virgins who had died on their bridal eves , the river and swan maids , the white women , and cannibal giants . These traditions hang like a ground fog upon the primal epoch of German poetry . Above thorn a slight tinge of Christianity colours the second range of literary monuments , the translations of the Scripture books byUlphilas , Bishop of the Visigoths , whose version was discovered in the sixteenth century in an ancient abbey , written on parchment in silver letters on a purple ground . It is now preserved at Upsal , and is known as the Silver Code , and from the date of its production a light began to beam through the density of mythological fable . Thcllildubmnd Lie — belonging to the same class with the Weissbrunncn— in the low German dialect , is the epic of an Arian hero , condemned by
the Church to eternal perdition . The Walter of Aquitaine is an idealization of Atilla , altogether separated , however , from the figure drawn by history . From this and from the savage ballad of sorcery , Beowulf , the transition is rapid to the cycle of the Nicbelungen , with its Achilles of the North , the immaculate and all but invulnerable Siegfried , who rescues Andromedas and Angelinas , and plays at once the part of Perseus , Orlando , and Jack the Giant Killer . The next Niebolungcn lay is more gorgeous and beatific , though still wild , fierce , and stained with blood , and the lays arc certainly characterized by great beauty and variety , but Madame Pontes remarks with much truth that the attempt of tho to lace this bod and
Germans p y of poems legends on a par with the Iliad is simply absurd . There is not oven a point of resemblance in the fact that u controversy has been waged on tho question whether the Niehelun ^ en be a series of lays composed at different periods and merely collected and arranged by some rhapsodist of the twelfth century , or whether it be the work of a single individual , the Homeric doubts being now coiiHi ^ ncd to the cloisters oi' obsolete criticism . Madame Pontes adds : " The oldeiMnnanuseript of the Nicljelungcn extant is dated a . i > . 1290 . Into such profound oblivion had it fallen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , that we find no mention of it , save in a work almost forgotten , by an Austrian writer , on the emigration of nations . " The Gudruno ia a far more romantic poem .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 1, 1858, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01051858/page/16/
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