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132 NOTICES OF BOOKS.
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Contempoeaey Germain" Iiitera.Tuhe No. I...
The biography which we have reviewed thus far has hitherto been that of an unformed character ; but whilst we leave Fanny
_Lewald half decoyed into that false sentimentality which usually oriinates in early youth before the faculties are properly balanced
we g trust in future volumes to find that sorrow had worked its , earnest purpose . Youth is the time for free fancy and poetry , as
age is for strong and calm reflection . "We cannot expect youth to be that ripe thing which manhood isfor the showers and sunshine
, of years have to work their allotted task . Adversity is appointed to increase its strength ; and the young are raw recruits , whilst the
old are disciplined warriors . And those are often the greatest men and the noblest companions who can be cheerful and even merry
with an under-stratum of gravity . The deepest and the stillest waterswhere the ocean forests intertwine their luxuriant branches ,
lie far , beneath the waves _tliat dance in the sunlight where the rippling currents break . It is perfectly consistent with probability
that the same mind which composed " II Penseroso" should also indite " L'Allegro ; " and in the greatest genius that ever lived ,
probably the balance of sanity was only preserved by the alternate changes between the deeply tragic and _tlie irresistibly comic .
Of such a being , alternating with ease from grave to gay , never confounding imagination with judgment , and uniting deep love of
nature with boundless sympathy for his fellow-men , we have a pleasant picture in tlie biography of Walter Scott , which has been
carefully compiled by Dr . Felix Eberty of Breslau . * We cannot expect Dv . Eberty to present us with any information _,
which will be new to the English reader , but wo must congratulate him on his effective grouping of well-known figures , and on the
artistic skill with which he has used his materials . It may be amusing to our lady readers to compare the volumes
before us with the standard Memoir of Lockhart , whilst here and there they will be interested by Dr . Eberty's remarks on the genius
of our accomplished countryman , and an occasional anecdote drawn from the newspapers of the times may enable them more
successfully to realize the literary history of the past . The freshness and utter absence of introspection in the genius of
Scott presents ( as we might _exjDect ) a psychologic peculiarity to the German critic . Explain it as we may , there will often seem to be
characteristics of mind which are inherited by blood , and fostered by circumstances of life . The peculiarities of race are sometimes stamped
as much upon the features of the mind as on those of the body . The lives of Gotheof Novalisor of Fichtemay be said to form a running
commentary on , whatever , is difficult to , decipher in their works . There is the same strength of will , the same power of self-concentration
or morbid sensitiveness common to many such characters , whilst the literary power of each is often developed from unripe beginnings .
* Walter Scott . Ein Lebensbild . Yon Dr . Felix Eberty . 2 Bde .
Breslau .
132 Notices Of Books.
132 NOTICES OF BOOKS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1862, page 132, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041862/page/60/
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