possession of Lord Holland, his intimate friend and admirer;* and the Spanish Cortes, whose convocation he had promoted with so much zeal, gave a well-merited testimony to this hero in virtue and knowledge, declaring him to have deserved well of his country.t 'This enlightened citizen,' says the author of the Noticias Historicas,' to whom nobility of birth served only as a further stimulant to distinguish himself in the career of virtue, has left to magistrates a perfect model of conduct in the discharge of their sacred functions; to literary men, a profitable lesson on the right application of talents, and the most delicate taste in all classes of useful sciences; to good men, a surpassing example of self-confidence and purity of conscience; to tyrants, a fresh proof that neither the machinations of power nor the proscriptions of despotism can ever obscure the lustre or diminish the glory of recognised integrity; and to patriots, that have sustained the glorious struggle against the armies of the most powerful empire on earth, a precious name to add to the martyrology of Spanish liberty.' That the noble individual under consideration had his imperfections, who shall gainsay or attempt to extenuate?—There is error in the over-warmth of zeal ;-weakness leavens the strongest virtue, spots obscure the glowing mass of the meridian Sun. But these qualifications of humanity are like the silver setting of the diamond, essentially serving to enhance the brilliancy of the jewel. To err, and to lead into error,' is the doom of man; perfection hath its seat only in the bosom of the infinite Godhead. Such as Jovellanos was-he was a being after the true stamp of his Maker.-Would that others might live like, or even second, unto him! Then might Spain arise from her posture of abject prostration, and assert the dignity of her early birth, and vindicate in the eyes of Europe the respect and admiration due to the heroic deeds of her youth, and the chivalrous achievements of her thrice-glorious manhood. Then might commerce indeed again visit her deserted havens, and autumnal plenty reinvest and fill with gladness her most fertile plains. Then might the shout of joy again be echoed from her lofty hills to her gentle valleys; then might the fire of emulation and distinction again burn in the hearts of her spirit-stirring nobility, and the light-hearted peasant again move his unshackled limbs to the free measures of the saraband, beneath the soothing influences of the evening star! * Another of the friends of Jovellanos has composed the following epigram to his memory: 'Alma Jovellanos hæc est sapientis imago: Quod si ars virtutem mentemque effingere posset, + In a public session of the 8th January, 1812, on the motion of Count de Toreno. ART. ART.V.-Novalis Schriften. Herausgegeben von Ludwig Tieck und Fr. Schlegel (Novalis' Writings. Edited by Ludwig Tieck and Friedrich Schlegel.) Fourth Edition. 2 vols. Berlin, 1826. A NUMBER of years ago, Jean Paul's copy of Novalis led him to infer that the German reading world was of a quick disposition; inasmuch as, with regard to books that required more than one perusal, it declined perusing them at all. Paul's Novalis, we suppose, was of the first Edition, uncut, dusty, and lent him from the Public Library with willingness, nay with joy: but times, it would appear, must be considerably changed since then; indeed, were we to judge of German reading habits from these volumes of ours, we should draw quite an opposite conclusion to Paul's; for they are of the fourth Edition, perhaps therefore the ten-thousandth copy, and that of a Book demanding, whether deserving or not, to be oftener read than almost any other it has ever been our lot to examine. Without at all entering into the merits of Novalis, we may observe that we should reckon it a happy sign of Literature, were so solid a fashion of study here and there established in all countries for directly in the teeth of most intellectual teacircles,' it may be asserted that no good Book, or good thing of any sort, shows its best face at first; nay that the commonest quality in a true work of Art, if its excellence have any depth and compass, is that at first sight it occasions a certain disappointment; perhaps even, mingled with its undeniable beauty, a certain feeling of aversion. Not as if we meant, by this remark, to cast a stone at the old guild of literary Improvisators, or any of that diligent brotherhood whose trade it is to blow soap-bubbles for their fellow-creatures; which bubbles, of course, if they are not seen and admired this moment, will be altogether lost to men's eyes the next. Considering the use of these blowers, in civilized communities, we rather wish them strong lungs, and all manner of prosperity but simply we would contend that such soapbubble guild should not become the sole one in Literature; that being indisputably the strongest, it should content itself with this pre-eminence, and not tyrannically annihilate its less properous neighbours. For it should be recollected that Literature positively has other aims than this of amusement from hour to hour; nay perhaps that this glorious as it may be, is not its highest or VOL. IV.-NO. VII. Н true true aim. We do say therefore that the Improvisator corporation should be kept within limits; and readers, at least a certain small class of readers, should understand that some few departments of human inquiry have still their depths and difficulties; that the abstruse is not precisely synonymous with the absurd; nay that light itself may be darkness, in a certain state of the eyesight; that, in short, cases may occur when a little patience and some attempt at thought would not be altogether superfluous in reading. Let the mob of gentlemen keep their own ground, and be happy and applauded there: if they overstep that ground, they indeed may flourish the better for it, but the reader will suffer damage. For in this way, a reader, accustomed to see through every thing in one second of time, comes to forget that his wisdom and critical penetration are finite and not infinite; and so commits more than one mistake in his conclusions. The Reviewer too, who indeed is only a preparatory reader, as it were, a sort of sieve and drainer for the use of more luxurious readers, soon follows his example: these two react still further on the mob of gentlemen; and so among them all, with this action and re-action, matters grow worse and worse. It rather seems to us as if, in this respect of faithfulness in reading, the Germans were somewhat ahead of us English; at least we have no such proof to show of it as that fourth Edition of Novalis. Our Coleridge's Friend, for example, and Biographia Literaria, are but a light business compared with these Schriften; little more than the Alphabet, and that in gilt letters, of such Philosophy and Art as is here taught in the form of Grammar and Rhetorical Compend: yet Coleridge's works were triumphantly condemned by the whole reviewing world, as clearly unintelligible; and among readers they have still but an unseen circulation; like living brooks, hidden for the present under mountains of froth and theatrical snow-paper, and which only at a distant day, when these mountains shall have decomposed themselves into gas and earthy residuum, may roll forth in their true limpid shape, to gladden the general eye with what beauty and everlasting freshness does reside in them. It is admitted too, on all hands, that Mr. Coleridge is a man of 'genius,' that is, a man having more intellectual insight than other men; and strangely enough, it is taken for granted, at the same time, that he has less intellectual insight than any other. For why else are his doctrines to be thrown out of doors, without examination, as false and worthless, simply because they are obscure? Or how is their so palpable falsehood to be accounted for to our minds, except on this extraordinary ground: that a man able to originate originate deep thoughts (such is the meaning of genius) is unable to see them when originated; that the creative intellect of a Philosopher is destitute of that mere faculty of logic which belongs to 'all Attorneys, and men educated in Edinburgh?' The Cambridge carrier, when asked whether his horse could draw inferences,' readily replied, Yes, any thing in reason;' but here, it seems, is a man of genius who has no similar gift. We ourselves, we confess, are too young in the study of human nature to have met with any such anomaly. Never yet has it been our fortune to fall in with any man of genius, whose conclusions did not correspond better with his premises, and not worse, than those of other men; whose genius, when it once came to be understood, did not manifest itself in a deeper, fuller, truer view of all things human and divine, than the clearest of your so laudable practical men' had claim to. Such, we say, has been our uniform experience; so uniform that we now hardly ever expect to see it contradicted. True it is, the old Pythagorean argument of the master said it,' has long since ceased to be available: in these days, no man, except the Pope of Rome, is altogether exempt from error of judgment; doubtless a man of genius may chance to adopt false opinions; nay rather, like all other sons of Adam, except that same enviable Pope, must occasionally adopt such. Nevertheless we reckon it a good maxim, that no error is fully confuted till we have seen not only that it is an error, but how it became one;' till finding that it clashes with the principles of truth, established in our own mind, we find also in what way it had seemed to har→ monize with the principles of truth established in that other mind, perhaps so unspeakably superior to ours. Treated by this method, it still appears to us, according to the old saying, that the errors of a wise man are literally more instructive than the truths of a fool. For the wise man travels in lofty, far-seeing regions; the fool in low-lying, high-fenced lanes: retracing the footsteps of the former, to discover where he deviated, whole provinces of the Universe are laid open to us; in the path of the latter, granting even that he have not deviated at all, little is laid open to us but two wheel-ruts and two hedges. On these grounds, we reckon it more profitable in almost any case to have to do with men of depth than with men of shallowness; and were it possible, we would read no book that was not written by one of the former class; all members of which we would love and venerate, how perverse soever they might seem to us at first; nay, though, after the fullest investigation, we still found many things to pardon in them. Such of our readers H 2 readers as at all participate in this predilection will not blame us for bringing them acquainted with Novalis, a man of the most indisputable talent, poetical and philosophical; whose opinions extraordinary, nay altogether wild and baseless as they often appear, are not without a strict coherence in his own mind, and will lead any other mind, that examines them faithfully, into endless considerations; opening the strangest inquiries, new truths, or new possibilities of truth, a whole unexpected world of thought, where, whether for belief or denial, the deepest questions await us. In what is called reviewing such a book as this, we are aware that to the judicious craftsman two methods present themselves. The first and most convenient is for the Reviewer to perch himself resolutely, as it were, on the shoulder of his Author, and therefrom to show as if he commanded him, and looked down on him by natural superiority of stature. Whatsover the great man says or does the little man shall treat with an air of knowingness and light condescending mockery; professing, with much covert sarcasm, that this and that other is beyond his comprehension, and cunningly asking his readers if they comprehend it! Herein it will help him mightily if, besides description, he can quote a few passages, which in their detached state, and taken most probably in quite a wrong acceptation of the words, shall sound strange, and to certain hearers, even absurd; all which will be easy enough, if he have any handiness in the business, and address the right audience; truths, as this world goes, being true only for those that have some understanding of them; as, for instance, in the Yorkshire Wolds, and Thames Coal-ships, Christian men enough might be found, at this day, who, if you read them the Thirty-ninth of the Principia, would 'grin inteltelligence from ear to ear.' On the other hand, should our Reviewer meet with any passage, the wisdom of which, deep, plain, and palpable to the simplest, might cause misgivings in the reader, as if here were a man of half-unknown endowment, whom perhaps it were better to wonder at than laugh at, our Reviewer either quietly suppresses it, or citing it with an air of meritorious candour, calls upon his Author, in a tone of command and encouragement, to lay aside his transcendental crotchets, and write always thus, and he will admire him. Whereby the reader again feels comforted; proceeds swimmingly to the conclusion of the Article,' and shuts it with a victorious feeling, not only that he and the Reviewer understand this man, but also that, with some rays of fancy and the like, the man is little better than a living mass of darkness. |