SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Simms Lirrass.

History of German Literature. by Wolfgang Menzel. Translated from the German,

with Notes, by Thomas Gordon Talboys, asfurd.

SOCIAL MORALS.

Women's Rights and Potties Considered with Relation to their Influence on Society

and on her own Condition. By a Woman. In 2 Tula. Parker. Mammy. REPORII. A Letter to the Right Thmonmble Vireount bfelhottrue; with the Outlines of a Bill for Regulating the Practice of Surgeon-Apothecaries and Chemists and Druggists, and a Plan for Suppressing Uneducated Practitioners, In a summary manner, be- fore a Magistrate or Justice of the Peace. By Martin Sinclair, M.D., Sm.

Ilighleg.

MENZEL ON GERMAN LITERATURE.

MENZEL'S work is not a " History of German Literature " : it more resembles a selection from reviews of the current literature of the day; with explanatory references to preceding writers, such as we might expect to be dashed off by one who was called upon week after week to fill with his lucubrations the columns of a literary gazette. It is questionable whether MENZEL could under any circum- stances have become more than he has become—a writer of " para- graphs" and " leading articles." His notoriety was obtained at first by running atilt against the literary reputation of GOETHE and others allowed to stand at the head of the belles lettres in Germany. Wilful boldness was mistaken in him, as it has been in many others, for originality. Having got the ear of a portion of the public, he contrived to keep it, by the freshness and vigour of his style, and by the slashing peremptoriness of his critical deci- sions. A healthy state of body, combined with a commonplace healthy judgment, enabled him to utter judicious commonplaces in a lively way ; and those who never ventured to think for them- selves called genius the bold expression of opinions which they would have formed but for their lack of courage—" He must be a clever fellow : that is just what I would have said myself."

MENZEL'S career was favourable to the development of the brisk superficiality of his mind. After acquiring as much knowledge as can be picked up by listening to lectures and joining in the con- versations of academic circles, generally turning more or less upon professional (i. e. literary and scientific) topics, he was employed first as a schoolmaster, and latterly as the editor of a literary journal. At an early age, his conscious facility of expression drove him to publish; his habit of communicating to the young and utterly ignorant from his own half-stores of knowledge, encouraged dogiziatism; and the necessity of passing weekly under review at least the titles and themes of the four thousand volumes published every week in Germany, perfected him in the art of talking glibly about everything and everybody. He had not time, even if he had possessed the ability, to understand any one subject thoroughly. He was in literature what gentlemen-democrats are in politics: he won the illiterate crowd by talking of his own class in their lan- guage. He was extensively acquainted with titlepages and book- sellers' catalogues ; but he had read few books from beginning to end, and scarcely any with patient attention. He glanced over their contents, not to learn what they were, but to catch hints for smart sayings of his own.

A " History cf German Literature" !—as good a history of Bri- tish literature might be furbished up from reprints of the cri- tiques in the "literary registers" of some magazines. We know not whether the blunder of calling the book a " history" is the author's or the translator's, but it is a blunder in the one or the other. The "articles " are too long for a British periodical, but not for a German one; in which we have seen the same interminable holding-forth, like a minced serpent, drag its slow length through each weekly number of a revolving year. Or if they be considered too long even for a German periodical, their greater scope has not been made available for a more profound investigation of a subject, but merely for extending the author's superficiality over a wider surface. Every thing is hinted at, nothing is directly stated or explained. Almost every German author is named in some page or another of the book, but most of them are merely named and the rest are dismissed with brief sketches ; the accuracy of which must, by those unacquainted with their writings, be taken for granted upon the bare ipse dizit of the critic.

The;translator indeed admits, in his preface, that the work is 'not a history ; but adds, " it will, I hope, be of much use to those among us who have acquired a desultory and smattering acquaint- ance with the subject." In what way it is to be of use to them, it would be difficult to say ; unless, indeed, by rendering it more easy for them to talk with an appearance of familiarity about matters with which they are imperfectly acquainted,—a task which they find it sufficiently easy to perform without such aid.

These remarks apply to the book more than to the author ; for, however some, who think the book makes the man, may be startled with the assertion, every author has more matter in him than he can put into his books. With all leaszses presumption, want of high intellect or imagination, and smattering scholarship, there is energy about him and healthy common sense. It is a rather pre- valent belief on this side of the Channel, that German literature is without exception dreamy, mystical, and sentimental. That there is at the least a due admixture of these ingredients in it, cannot well be denied; but an exaggerated notion is entertained of their amount, owing to the peculiar taste of the majority of English translators from the German. It is not that a better class of works do not exist in German ; it is that this second-rate or third-rate quality seems best adapted for the English market. If it is, as some English critics would make it, a reproach to Germany that mysticism and puling sentimentality find so good a market there, what is it to England, which shows equal fondness for the drug, without the ability to manufacture it ? The avowed translations from the German by no means convey an adequate idea of our obligations to that language for the extravaganzas of romance : our English helle.lettristes (some of them of no mean name) have bor- rowed much more from that source than they care to acknowledge. From the reproach here brought against the mass of English dealers in German literature, the translations which have appeared under the auspices of the publisher of the work at present under review are entirely exempt. They belong, we believe without a single exception, to the really intellectual and healthy literature of Germany. Even MENZEL'S writings, superficial as they are, and inadequate to give a comprehensive view of German literature, are manly and healthy in their tone. The only way to peruse this book without doing injustice to its author, is to read it by starts, as one reads the " leaders" in one's morning paper. It contains the extempore opinions, regarding current events in literature and politics, of a man possessing more than common energy, a desultory acquaintance with the topics dis- cussed, considerable play of fancy, common(place) sense, and no superabundance of modesty. They can only be properly appre- ciated by those who live in the same society, and take the same gossiping interest in the same pursuits. The just views, and the suggestions to thought which MENZEL frequently throws out, are only available for those who were previously familiar with the men and writings he professes to criticize. Those who were previously unacquainted with them, will learn nothing about them from him that they can rely upon. Occasionally, however, passages occur calculated to throw light, even to the uninitiated, upon the state of the public mind in Germany. For example, the following sketch of the political press in Germany at the present time, will recommend itself to confidence by its practical unexaggerated tone, even to those who are entirely unacquainted with that press : it is in- deed the most judicious and correct account we have anywhere met with.

" Liberal principles, however, were disseminated by speeches in the Cham- bers, by articles in the newspapers and local publications, to such an extent, that among so many names we scarcely know which to praise most. Upon the whole, political ideas and the political style have been both wonderfully improved. How astonished would Justus Moser be were he to see the interest with which our burghers and peasants now talk about politics, and to find in every corner of Germany papers filled not only with patriotic dreams, but also of disquisitions on questions of public law, such as we really meet with every day.

The number of those who read political papers has increased to an amazing extent.

" The papers no longer occupy themselves exclusively with foreign policy ; they now enter into questions connected with that of our own country. " There is in the age, despite the censorship, an invincible desire to make every thing public. Even when the censorship suppresses all Liberal papers, the state-gazettes and the servile papers give, in their own way, a publicity to contested political questions. " Our political public press has already found out by experience, that the controversies of parties have become a kind of routine : some leading questions have been so often discussed, that notions formerly unknown or mysterious have become clear and known to every one.

" After the Rhenish Mercury of Garres of Coblenz, the Balance of Borne of Frankfort, the Franconian Mercury of Wetzel in Hamburg, the Opposition paper of Wieland (the son of the poet) in Weimar, the Nemesis of Luden in Jena, had all ceased to exist, and the Isis of Oken had gone a wandering, no Liberal journal was started after the passing of the Carlsbad Decrees, except the Neckar Gazette of Seybold, which soon became very moderate in its tone, and the German Observer of Liesching of Stuttgart, who was thrown into prison. After the French Revolution of 1830, this ebb was all at once fol- lowed by a flow, so that the sudden transition from chains to a wild and unre- strained licence was truly surprising. Wirth in his Tribune, and Siebenpfeiffer in his Western Mercury, some German exiles in the Courier of the Lower Rhine, preached up revolution and republicanism : nay, some of these ter- rorists went so far as to attack Rotteck, who appeared to them to be far too moderate, and in whom they saw nothing but an aristocrat, while his paper, The Liberal, (Der Freisinnige,) was suppressed by the Diet as being too liberal.

" The local papers, those which took an interest in the peculiar affairs of one province or city, and began to criticize in an interesting and intelligent manner their local affairs, were far more numerous and of more influence than those which argued about matters of more general importance. Every one knows best himself where the shoe pinches him. He, therefore, who pointed out and discoursed of those wants of any particular place which were the most particu- lar and pressing, was far more attended to than he who spoke only in general terms. The people of one province or town did not, it is true, take any in- terest in the affairs of another ; but all, though independent of one another felt the same interest in public questions. Few editors of such papers, it is true were celebrated, or can be ranked among our distinguished literary men; yet though, on the whole, they had but little influence on the upper ranks, they found means to make themselves of more importance on single questions among the lower classes, where they found a fruitful field which had hitherto remained almost uncultivated. Our great national literature passed unheeded before the eyes of the mechanic and peasant; this little local literature came home to his interests and feelings. " The papers which daily started up in incredible numbers were of very different value. In one place they breathed forth a noble spirit, like the Pa- triotic Fancies of Justus Moser; in another, they were exceedingly vulgar. Here, they were more like political newspapers ; there, amusing literary papers. Here, they used the popular style of the older Village Gazette, (Dorf-zeitung); there, more of the analyzing language of the advocate. In other cases they were sentimental, pedantic, warning, intrusive; or they took delight in vulgar- isms and pointless wit. The papers of enlightened countries, and of a popula- tion which was less uncultivated, were much more tolerable ; but in no place were they and are they more immoral than in Mirochen, where many vie with one another in vulgarity. " The numerous pamphlets which were written on provincial occurrences were no less influential than the local papers. Holstein alone published above thirty within two years. Hanover, Brunswick, Saxony, produced a great num- ber of them ; indeed so did every German province, in proeortion as each was mote or lees subject to violent crises. These pamphlets, joined to the volnmi-

nous reports of the proceedings of the legislative assemblies, have increased our libraries so much that we cannot now survey them. Alexander Muller and Dr. Zopfl attempted to give, in journals peculiarly devoted to the consideration

of questions of public politics, a review of the whole ; but they could give nothing but fragments; they had not room for the whole. There would be no end to

the matter, were we to add the Swiss, with their newspapers and pamphlets. Here, thirty-eight—there, twenty-two states—in each of which questions ate put and answered, wishes breathed and satisfied, demands made and refused : with all these we cannot wonder that there is a great noise and tumult.

" It is the more difficult to compress the whole, because the greatest differ- ences everywhere meet our eye. In one province the same man is a Liberal,

who in another would be considered an Aristocrat. Here we are angry at the trifling nature of a boon which would be there looked upon as the greatest li- berality ; and then, to complete all the erudition which we Germans involun- tarily introduce into all our public affairs, the pettiest state possesses an im- mensely learned and confused code of laws, which Ministries and Chambers vie with one another in making still more unnatural, by additions and amendments.

The endeavour to be very profound, as well as that to be very liberal, begets a minuteness in legislation, which, even though wholly dictated by the spirit of freedom, would fail in its effect, because, in consequence of its pedantic artifi- cialness and its masses of paper, it is so hid from the public eye that the whole affair is in the hands of a few learned jurists. A law that I know, is worth more than a hundred laws which repose unknown to me iu thick folios. It is not enough that we have the laws, we must understand them ; they must be short and explicit. This, however, is not yet the case with us: therefore, to study the various codes of German laws, and to compare them with one another, is a task which will soon surpass the powers of man. " As political interest has within these few years been turned away from general to local affairs, the old enthusiasm of patriotism, the longing after the

unity of Germany, &c. have been but very seldom awakened. Nay, the Go-

vernments have even begun to lament that public opinion has become so un- patriotic in Germany—that the public does not place sufficient confidence in

the Diet—that people are so indifferent about the Luxemburg question—that

they showed more sympathy fur the French Belgians than for the Germanic Hollanders—that they have in many ways opposed the Prussian Customhouse League, (Zoilverein,) See. The Liberals arc reproached with un-German feel-

ings, those very Liberals who were formerly blamed for an excessive Ger- manism.

" Many thought it strange and improper that Wirth should, at the celebrated Hambacli Festival, assert the claims of the German national pride in terms as energetic as those formerly used by Arndt. "Klaiber has undertaken to edite and comment upon, in a purely historical manner, the constitution, the decrees, and the protocols of the German Con-

federacy. Herr von Gagern has demanded from the Diet a seat for nobles, in

addition to that for princes; while Wilhelm Schulz has asked for a representa- tion of the German State, a General Chamber of German Deputies, in addition to the Diet of the Princes. Herr von Wangenheim has given a judicial exa- mination of the decrees of the Diet of 1832. Paul Pfizer has lately commented in a still more comprehensive way on the general public relations of the Con-

federacy. Erudition, close argumentative demonstration, the most prudent, clearest pictures, and the noblest patriotism, distinguish these publicists in so high a degree, that the eye which ranges through the dreary mists of age and its literature, will dwell with joy upon these clear and beautiful phcenomena.

" General attention, however, has not yet been directed to the affairs of the Confederacy. Is this the result of sloth or of indifference? or is it nothing but a mischievous whim of patriotism ? The public are certainly employed with other kinds of things than with the questions discussed by the Confe- deracy.

" Among the many isolated and petty questions which, during the silence on great leading questions, have been thrust forward into notice, that of the emancipation of the Jews plays an important part. A multitude of pamphlets

have been written on both sides in almost every state of Germany. Riesser of Altona has used the most energetic and talented language. What he, him-

self a Jew, has said in favour of the rights of Jews, ranks among the master- pieces of political eloquence. Yet fie children of Israel suffer even till this day from the petty regulations of Germany, and they have been granted their poor rights in but very few places. Here men attempt to educate them ; and we see the oldest people in the world treated like a little child which cannot stand on its own feet. There they wish to convert them, with all possible for- bearance: they do not compel them, it is true, to become Christians; but they cannot claim the right of citizens—nay, scarcely that of men—so long as they are not Christians. Here they are openly hated as a foreign people, upon whom, however, as we are ashamed to kill them, we vent our barbarian cou- rage in another way. There men play the master, the gracious protector; but they take care not to emancipate them, lest by so doing they should lose the

pleasure of playing the part of patron. There are even Liberals who are op- posed to the emancipation of the Jews, merely because Christians are not yet ut all respects free. We find everywhere that petty pride which ridicules the

Jews, tormenting them at one time with refusals, at another with half conces- sions, at a third with obtrusive offers of instruction. We can scarcely be sur- prised that men of talent and education, such as have of late years arisen in considerable numbers among this race, should become mad at this despicable ill-treatment. But the wrath of a Borne, the sarcasm of a Heine, will not aid in furthering the Jewish cause, because they foster petty antipathies, and be- cause, under their protecting shield, a brood of commonplace Jewish youths is formed, who load with open scorn every thing which is holy in the eyes of the Christian and the German."

The following is not an unfavourable specimen of MENZEL'S power of rendering a sensible commonplace attractive.

" A far worse evil, however, is connected with et-rolls/n-1 premature and false enlightenment, the old-fashionedness of the young. People have been busy eradicating as early as possible, superstition from the minds of the young, and placing sound reason in its place; but this endeavour, praiseworthy as it is in itself, has led to foolish excesses. To rescue the intellect, they have de- stroyed the heart.

" The innocent belief of children is overcast, and the golden play of their imagination is taken from them, to render them wise before the time. People moralize, catechize, and reason with them upon morel, religious, and ration- alistic notions, which destroy the magic circle of their innocence, without pro- curing for them, in its place, any nobler advantage. That love which they naturally possess, is supplanted by criticisms upon their parents and teachers. Childlike belief and superstition being replaced by a childish old-fashioned- ness, the luxuriant play of the fancy is succeeded by calm decorum and affecta- tion. How can this be otherwise, when we see thousands upon thousands of books for children in which the foibles of their parents are ridiculed as well as their own : the natural wit of the children is therefore necessarily incited to oppose itself to the pedantry of their teachers, when their feelings and imagi- nations are blunted by hearing a constant talk about the folly of superstition, and when they themselves hear praised as the highest good that decorum which points out to their natural but innocent vanity a lath which most lead them to a false nature. Nothing but conceptions—conceptions acquired by learning, and mechanically understood—are forced upon the child; so that there is pro- duced in him an unripe thinking, which soon dries up all the emanations of the feelings and of the imagination. a This having been of late acknowledged, pains have been taken to give the toys, by means of an early acquaintance with the poets, and even by instruct- ing them to make verses themselves, a poetical counterpoise to that system of instruction which was far too prosaic. This, however, instead of effecting any good, merely fosters the vanity of the young, and produces, by dozens, im- mature versemakers, who increase the number of unfortunate poets or of use- less book-manufacturers."

The spirit in which MENZEL discusses the comparative merits of the Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches is " refreshing," (to use a hackneyed phrase,) after being disgusted with the affected bigotry and the equally affected toleration of mere political parti- sans among ourselves. He writes like a dispassionate inquirer, seeking neither to extenuate nor to create prejudice against the dogmas and policy of any sect. Allowance, however, must be made here, as in all his writings, for a certain straining after smartness. Of the moderate Catholic he says-

" We must make a few general remarks upon this moderate party before we leave it. It is the younger sister of the Reformation : it has not, however, like it, abandoned its aged mother, but cherishes her with childlike forbearance. It has not deserted the ranks of the regular succession of Catholic centuries, but has returned to the ninth—to the independence of the German Church, and to the purity which doctrine then possessed in the time of Rhabanus Manrus. This party wishes for a German national church, in opposition to nitramontanism, as well as an independent church in opposition to the secu- lar power. It wants an intelligible German liturgy, divested of Latin formulas, a national education in place of ignorance, a cheerful philosophy instead of gloomy superstition, and toleration instead of persecution. But this party is not yet sufficiently aware of its vocation. Placed half-way between rational- ism and ultramontauism, it has not yet gained a firm footing : it inclines most to the former, that is, to the Protestant side. Thence proceeds that wretched prose peculiar to it, the dry morality and the wishy-washy sentimentality, the jejune translations of the Bible, the fear entertained for every play of the imagination, and finally that inclination to political servilism, that liberalism, which so vaunts itself in the affairs of the church, whilst thundering out its anathemas against Rome, crouches before, and fawns upon the pettiest of the German petty princelings. These traits, which have lately occurred, dis- figuring the character of one of our most respectable sects, are fortunately not the prevailing ones: on the contrary, the great majority of this party manifest a certain degree of patient unassuming modesty, a disinclination to accept any -advice which may happen to be offered, much good sound sense and under- standing. The signs of the times show that the abolition of the laws regarding celibacy will become the watchword of a struggle, which in no distant period will separate this party from the ultramontanists, thus bringing it a step nearer to Protestantism.'

The Protestants are thus disposed of-

" It is well known that the Protestant Church became, even from its very commencement, the tool of worldly politics, and remained dependent upon worldly power. The higher the Romish Church had raised itself above the tem- poral power, the deeper was the dependence into which the Lutheran fell. At first, when a religious enthusiasm and fanaticism stillglowed, the Protestant clergymen, acting as royal chaplains, upper court preachers, and diplomatists, naturally played an important part. But this ceased with the age of Louis the Fourteenth. Black coats were supplanted by green coats ; the place of the fat father confessor was supplied by jovial hunters and mistresses. The Protest- ant clergy sunk into the list of inferior officers.

" It is not long since country livings were conferred by licentious and coarse country squires ' under the apron '—that is, under the condition that the poor candidates theologies should marry the paid-off chambermaid or the cast-off mistress. Rabner in his Letters, and Thilmmel in his Wilhelmina, satirically scourged, about the middle of the last century, this disgraceful practice: the most detailed and faithful account, however, of the lamentable state of the Protestant Church at that time, will bs, found in Nicolai's novel, Sebaldus Nothanker. If at that time a poor preacher happened in the slightest degree to displease the whims of a petty princeling or conntling of the German em- pire, or of his mistress, or of his court marshal, or to contradict a brutal court chaplain or superintendent, he was unceremoniously dismissed from office and employment, and left without support. " These things, it is true, now no longer occur. The greater decency ob- served by the Courts and the Government has had a beneficial influence upon the Church. Though church livings and professorships are still given away by petticoat influences, yet only the honest daughters and cousins of the patrons are concerned ; so that all goes on decently. " But dignity is not always combined with decency : dignity consists in freedom ; and our Protestant Church is now, as formely, enslaved.

" A hundred years ago, the Jesuits in Dillingen attempted to prove the po- sition, that the Catholic faith is more serviceable to absolute monarchy than the Protestant ; but the Pfaff of Tubingen drove them from the field, by proving that no church was more servile than the Lutheran. When a court chaplain at Copenhagen (Dr. Mashie) dared to say that princes ought to be- come Lutherans, not so much from fear of God as from motives of temporal advantage, because no creed but the Lutheran favoured the divine right of kings, maintaining that it was derived directly from God without the inter- vention of any higher spiritual power, and because in the Lutheran religion alone was the secular prince at once bishop, emperor, and pope,—when Masius argued this, and when the chivalrous defender of truth and right, Thomasins, who can never be sufficiently praised, Thomasins alone, of all his contempora- ries, had sufficient courage to censure a publication so blasphemous. All attacked this worthy man, and called his opinion, that religion had other purposes in view than the strengthening the power of absolute monarchy, a crimes lame rnajestatis; so that he was compelled to flee from Leipzig, where they had con- fiscated all his property, in order to escape imprisonment, or perhaps even death ; and in Copenhagen his reply was solemnly burnt by the common hangman. " Such was the state of affairs then ; and in all that is essential no change has since taken place. The episcopal dignity is still possessed by the temporal monarch, and the Church is ruled by Cabinet orders. The consistories, it is true, appear to possess some aristocratical power, but this is in appearance only ; they are, in reality, the mere organs, of the Ministry. From the Cabinet they receive instructions respecting their liturgy, their clerical vest- ments, their texts, and directions how they shall apply the Word of God in accordance with the circumstances of the times. The subaltern clergy are trained like the other public functionaries. In a word, there are no longer any priests, but merely servants of the state in black uniform.

" The feeble attempts to introduce a Presbyterian form of government into the Protestant Church have always been received with displeasure, and put aside with a degree of ease which proves that it is impossible to form a middle party between the totally servile clergymen and the Dissenters, who follow their own path. The Court will never permit the introduction of a demo- cratical element into the government of the Church ; and that portion of the people which takes a serious interest in religion will never trust the priests. Thus, our well-meaning Presbyterians always fall between two stools.

" The State will long exercise this power over the Church, for the number of Independent Dissenters is still small. The majority of the people have, as it were, had their fill of religious controversies in former centuries; they no longer take any interest in such affairs; they are engaged in other occupations: the servilism, therefore, of their clergymen, and that vulgar routine which is hostile to every innovation, to every advance in mental power, is quite suited to their condition. People are no longer harangued to, or irritated by their clergymen ; and that is what they like. They may believe what they choose; they may go to church or not without being blamed or teased by the clergy. men : a state of things quite suited to their present degree of culture. From this proceeds the characteristic mark of the Protestant world—religious in- differentism."

In short, to use the technical phrase of English controversialists, MENZEL leans to Voluntaryism.

To conclude—In a country like our own, where a man with a clear head and energetic courageous temper has the field of public business open to him, MENZEL would have had fair pray : in Ger- many, the only resource for such a character is literature ; and for that he wanted depth both of intellect and feeling.