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424 THE LEADER. [No. 423, May 1,1858 ^ [
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Critics are not the legislators, but tli...
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Most of our readers are aware that Mr. T...
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THE MATERIALS OF GERMAN POETRY. Poets an...
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.
424 The Leader. [No. 423, May 1,1858 ^ [
424 THE LEADER . [ No . 423 , May 1 , 1858 ^ [
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Critics Are Not The Legislators, But Tli...
Critics are not the legislators , but tlie judges and police of literature . They do not makelaws—theyinterpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh lievtew .
Most Of Our Readers Are Aware That Mr. T...
Most of our readers are aware that Mr . Tjhom ^ s Alxsop , for whose apprehension the late Government offered a high reward , / was for many years an intimate friend of Coiebidge ; but they probably do not know , or may not remember , that twenty years ago lie published an interesting volume entitled Letters , Conversations , and BecoUecliom 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 . Hobert Alxsop , 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 and most profound thinkers of this or any age . " Without fully endorsing this judgment of Coxeredge , it may be at once allowed that he was scarcely likely to form a close and intimate friendship with a bloodthirsty assassin such as Axlsop , by the Government proclamation , was represented to be . It is true , that CoiEKiDGE 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 , jSpy Nosey ( Spinoza ) be correct—Laving not
unnaturally exposed him to the charge of being a revolutionist . At no time , 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 he had a mission as a popular leader , but it was an entire mistake . His passion fox 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 the
multitude . "ELis love of liberty -was enlightened and sincere , but the early revolutionary fire soon faded a and in later years , especially at the period of his intimacy with Mr . Aklsoe , so far was he from being a republican and an atheist , that lie might be not unfairly described as a sound Tory and orthodox churchman . There is nothing very revolutionary in the letters or conversations given by Mr . Alls op , Coleridge ' s great social and political enemies in those days being evidently Malthus and tlie political economists of his school , against whom lie wages unceasing warfare . The only reference to tyrannicide we have noticed , and which we quote for the benefit of Mr . Edwin James in the pending trials for sedition , occurs in a passage \ rhere , speaking of Baxteh , he says : "He is borne out in ali his
statements by Mrs . Lxjcy Hutchinson , 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 Truelove succeeds , the publishers of our English classical works , and especially Milion , will be exposed to legal pains and penalties . In connexion with this subject—state-prosecutions of opinion—an anecdote of Lord Kenyon occurs which is too good to be omitted : "Lord Kenton , on the trial of a bookseller for publishing Pause ' s Age of Reason , in his
charge to the jury , enumerated many celebrated men who had been sincere Christians , and after having enforced the example of Locke and Newtonboth of whom were Unitarians , and therefore not Christians—proceeded 'JNor , gentlemen , is this belief confined to men of comparative seclusion , since men , the greatest and most distinguished , both as philosophers and as monarchs , have enforced this belief and shown its influence by tlicir conduct Above all , gentlemen , need T 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 Coleridge'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 has even more influence with the women than the handsome captain . The captain will captivate the fancy , whilst the young pnrson seizes upon the imagination and subdues it to his service . The captain ia conscious of liis advantage , and sees the impression ho has imtdo long lioforo his victim suspects the reality of any preference . The parson , unless he bo the vain fop , for which , however , his education essentially unfits him , has often secured to himself the imagination , and , through the imagination , the Lest affections of those amongst whom ho lives , before he ia seriously attached himself .
A number of personal anecdotes and reminiscences occur , some of which , especially those of Charles Lamb , are very characteristic . Take the following , for instance : —" Mahtin Bukney , -whilst earnestly explaining the throe kinds of acid , was stopped by Lamd ' s saying , ' The best of nil kincs of acid , however , as you know , Maiitin , is uity , ussid-uity . '" We conclude with an extraot , curiously illustrating the way in which Lamu and Colimudgk regarded each other ' s religious character : — " No , no ; Lamb ' s scepticism lias not come lightly , nor is ho a sceptic . The harsh reproof to Godwin for hia contemptuous allusion to Christ before a > vell-trained child , proves that ho is not a sceptic . His mind , never prono to analysis , seems to have been disgusted with the hollow pretences , tlio false reasonings and absurdities of tbo
rogues and fools with which all establishments , and all creeds seeking to become established , abound . I look upon Lamb as one hovering between earth and heaven ; neither hoping much nor fearing anything . "It is curious that lie should retain many usages which , he learnt or adopted in the fervour of his early religious feelings , now tliat hia faith , is in a state of suspended animation . Believe me , who know him well , that Lamb , say what he will , has more of the essentials of Christianity than ninety-nine out of a hundred professing Christians . He has all that would still have been Christian had Christ never lived or been made manifest upon earth . " It will be interesting to compare Lamb ' s estimate of the belief of Colerid ge—lialf 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 bis surprise that such a man as Coleridge should , when speaking of Christ , always call him our Saviour . Lamb , who had been exhilarated by one glass of that gooseberry or raisin cordial which he has so often anathematized , stammered out , " Ne—rie—never mind what 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 . Allsoi , which present him in an attractive light as a genial , kind-hearted man , of warm sympathies , nob ' le views , and considerable literary culture—a humane , reflective , and high-principled merchant—anything but a conspirator or assassin .
The Materials Of German Poetry. Poets An...
THE MATERIALS OF GERMAN POETRY . Poets and Poetry of Germany : Biographical and Critical Notices . By Madame L . Dave ' sie ' s de Pontes . Two vols . Chapman and Ball . 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 Walter of Aquitaine , whose Latin metre is abandoned for the fourteen-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 the 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 , and 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 , as 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 tlie most antique relics 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 euro a lame horse and enumerating- the divine but not immortal beings Phoul , Wodin , Frea , Folia , andI 3 akler—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 these days poetry was darkened by a universal belief in gnomes and cobolds , with elfin sprites far less ethereal and gracious than those of Shakspeare and Chaucer , the nixes who
carried © it' young girls to be their ladies under the sea , and killed thorn 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 them a slight tinge of Christianity colours the second range of literary monuments , the translations of the Scripture books by Ulphilas , 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 . The Hildebrnnd Lie — belonging to the same class with the Weissbrimnen — in the low German dialect , ia the epie of an Arian hero , condemned by
the Church to eternal perdition . The Walter of Aquitaine is an idealization of Atilla , altogether separated , however , from tlie figure drawn by history . From this and from the savngo 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 Androinedns and Angelinas , and plays at once the part of Perseus , Orlando , and Jack the Giant Killer . Tlie next Niebelungen lay is more gorgeous and beatific , though still wild , fierce , and stained with blood , and the lays are certainly characterized l ) y great beauty and variety , but Madame Pontes remarks with much truth that the attempt of the lace this bod
Germans to p y of poems and legends on a par with tlie Iliad is simply absurd . There ia not even a point of resemblance in the fact that ft controversy has been waged on the question whether the Niebelungen be a series of lays composed at different periods and merely collected and arranged by some rhapsoilist of the t \ vel lth century , or whether it be the work of a single individual , the Homeric doubts being now consigned to the cloisters of obsolete criticiain . Madame Ponton adds : " The older manuscript of the Niebelungen extant ia dated a . d . 1290 . Into such profound oblivion had it fallen ^ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , that we lind no mention of it , save in a work almost forgotten , by an Austrian writer , on the emigration of nations , " The Gudrune ia a far more romantic noom .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 1, 1858, page 424, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_01051858/page/16/
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