THE FOREIGN QUARTERLY QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. XL. FOR JANUARY, 1838. ART. I.—1. Karl L. von Knebel's literais- it was impossible for the Duke of Weimar, cher Nachlass und Briefwechsel, heraus- had he been ever so willing, to come forgegeben von K. A Varnhagen von Ense und Th. Mundt. (Posthumous Works and Correspondence of Karl L. von Knebel, edited by K. A. Varnhagen von Ense and Th. Mundt.) Leipzig. Reichenbach. 1835, 1836. 3 Bände. 8vo. 2. Titus Lucretius Carus von der Natur der THE little world of literature which, towards ward to redeem his country from the just imputation of political sloth. The whole German nation, in truth, was in a state of public lethargy, from which alone the electric stroke of the battle of Jena was destined to arouse it. But the battle of Jena, though it might arouse the young Prussians-the sleeping Schills and Dornbergs of 1806came too late to awake those who had grown old under the kind-cradling influences of petty German princedom in its palmy days. The old regime was not to be revolutionized, and the consequence was that, while the gigantic spirit of Mirabeau was walking abroad in the active bodies of a thousand French warriors, and Napoleon was seeing things at Berlin that convinced his astonished sight that there was a tribe of Germans "even more stupid than the Austrians," during all these Titanic movements the Epicurean gods of Weimarian literature remained unmoved and unmoving. Goethe drew himself back with nice sensibility into his artistical shell, and penned most delicate romances upon the elective affinities of the moral world; while the benevolent scepticism of Old Father Wieland was modernizing Lucian, and another estimable member of the same quiet brotherhood was translating Lucretius. "Semota a nostris rebus sejunctaque longe," so that intellectual nature, of which Goethe was the representative, seemed to take an especial delight in leaving the noisy world without to shift for itself, while the Weimarian gods were walking in sublime self-satistion in the Epicurean gardens of poetry. The translator of Lucretius was Karl The fruitless campaign of 1792, in which Ludgwig von Knebel, a poet, a philosopher, Goethe took part, did little to disturb the un- and a major in the army-three things not clouded serenity of this repose. Matters very commonly seen united in the same insoon returned into their old state of comfort-dividual. But the Wars of Major Knebel able abstraction. While the King of Prussia (to speak the truth out) had been bloodless. was inviting the plunderings of Napoleon by Though ten years an officer in the army of the imbecile vacillation of his own counsels, the great Frederick, he had during that long period seen no harder service than taking | Night Thoughts-a book at that time, and his turn upon the watch at Potsdam. So far, still, very popular in Germany; and this we therefore, as actual experience of blood and mention not only as a curious fact in intercarnage went, his soldiership fell beneath national psychology, but as an early and sure that of his own pacific friend Goethe; for index of that deeply contemplative and reliGöethe had seen balls fly at Verdun, and gious spirit for which he was afterwards so studied optics in the rain-pools of Cham- remarkable. We say "religious,"not having pagne. We do not say this in disparage- any reference thereby either to the Augsburg ment or ridicule of the excellent major-for Confession or the Thirty-nine Articles, but he was a peaceful man indeed, but also a merely wishing to indicate a certain piety of generous and brave man; and, during the an abstract metaphyisical kind, filling the ten years that he submitted to the mechan- whole soul and giving a color to the whole ism of Frederick's army, no opportunity had style of thinking, very common among the offered itself of acquiring military laurels. literary men of Germany, and which we But it is of importance to observe that, so shall see below is by no means inconsistent far as active mingling with the bustle of life with a strong tincture of Lucretian philosowas concerned, Karl von Knebel formed no phy. After the first serious influences had exception to the general character of the been allowed to make their indelible impres Weimarian circle to which he belonged. sion upon the susceptible mind of the young He was of a disposition naturally more con- Epicurean, he was sent to the University of templative than active; and having, like Halle, not to study theology and become a Goethe and Wieland, been early transplant- Jesuit missionary (fond enthusiast!) as he ed into the botanic garden of Duke Charles himself wished, but to study the law. The. Augustus, he remained during his whole life mis indeed seems to be the favorite task-misa quiet denizen of that quiet literary republic, tress with many wise parents, whom Heawhich the revolutionary storms of time beat ven has blessed with dreamy poetical sons; and buffetted in vain. and a pretty good correctress of imaginative extravagances it must be admitted she is, if once she gets the spoiled children into the stocks. But these children are of a volatile character, and have a tendency to fly away Thus Knebel fled; Let us cast a glance on the outward fates of Major Knebel's existence. He was born in 1744 at Wallenstein, a market-town in the mediatized princedom of Oettingen-Wallenstein, not far from Anspach, now forming if not strictly watched. part of the kingdom of Bavaria. His father and, thinking it more honorable at least to was privy councillor in the ministerial college be a tool in the hand of the great Frederick at Anspach. Here it was that Knebel re- than a puppet in the formal mechanism of ceived his early education. It was remark- the law, he exchanged Halle for Potsdam, able for nothing except for that cast of pe- and the rough bullying of university Bursdantic formality which characterized the Ger- chen (whom he never liked) for the nice disman education of those days, a specimen of cipline of a Prussian army. This was in which the reader may perhaps remember to 1763, and with Frederick, as we had occahave seen at full length in Göthe's Autobio- sion to mention above, he remained ten years. graphy. Knebel's father was not quite so pre- This time, we may suppose, was not very cise a gentleman as old Göcthe ; but, as Theo- edifyingly spent; no battles were fought, and dore Mundt observes, the young philosopher upon the chess-board of Potsdam tactics it was drilled into Latin and the Bible as mecha- was not to be expected that the wonderful nically as the great king (the hero of that day) blossom of poetry would blush out. Some drilled his Persian boors into soldiers. But knowledge of the world was however here the old German pedantry was even then beginning to give way, and young Knebel had the good fortune to spend many of his boy ish days in the society of John Peter Uz, one of the poetical leaders of those times a good, easy, dapper Horace, it is said, no less in bodily conformation than in intellectual character. But there was not sufficient intellectual nourishment yet of true German origin to supply growth to the young literary minds of the day; and Knebel, like many others among the then rising men, was obliged to turn himself from the learned dust of German polyhistors to the well of English undefiled. His favorite study was Young's gained; and it was perhaps to this businesstraining, if we may so call it, that Knobel was indebted for a certain clearness of perception and soundness of judgment, which, amid all his Lucretianizing speculations, never failed to accompany him.* In 1773, * The following short note from Knebel's fragments (vol. iii. of the Nachlass) deserves atking. The testimony is peculiarly valuable as tention of every future biographer of the great coming from one who had such ample opportunities of making his own quiet observations. "The ten years that I lived at Potsdam, I spent, like the other officers, in blind admiration and fear of the king. We allowed ourselves to criticise this and that upon occasion, but in the however, he left Potsdam with the rank of a Lieutenant, (Frederick very properly refused to make him captain, for he had seen no fight) and with the determination never to return. His literary propensities naturally led him to Weimar, where Wieland was then the Olympian Jupiter of the German Parnassus. Knebel's agreeable manners and amiable poetico-philosophical sociality captivated the hearts of the Weimarians; the Duchess Dowager Amelia, who possessed "the gift of genuine insight" into talent and virtue in an eminent degree, fixed her fostering eye upon the Prussian lieutenant, and he was straightway (with the title of captain) constituted and inducted military tutor to the young prince Constantine. the young prince, happening a few years after his arrival at Weimar, released him from all laborious duties. He was honorably pensioned off with the title of Major, to poetise, philosophisze, and Lucretianize as he might think proper. Thus was he allowed, in the prime of a healthy life, to enjoy the otium cum dignitate on the banks of the Saale and among the towers of Jena. No philosopher could have desired a more erudite seclusion, no poet could have prayed for a more picturesque neighborhood. We have said that Knebel was both a poet and a philosopher; whether a poetic philosopher or a philosophical poet, he never seems himself to have been able to determine; and it seems a matter of very This grand ducal tutorship, as the reader little consequence to adjudicate. But, whemust have foreseen, fixed the domicile of ther the poetical or the philosophical were Knebel for life. He was no longer destined the proper category of his nature, he certo wander about as a stray leaf on the sur- tainly was, in many respects, a very pecuface of society, or to sit penned in a military liar and original character; and as such, coop at Potsdam; he was now in a quiet not less than as an accessory star of the haven, and the rest of his story is shortly told. He passed his time partly at Weimar, partly at Anspach and Nurnberg, with his friends, but chiefly at Jena, and among the mountains at Ilmenau.* The majority of great Weimar constellation, he is unquestionably entitled to our studious attention. Those who prefer the hidden wonders of the mysterious cathedral of thought to the bowling-green, or the battle-field of external life, will find themselves edified in no vulgar fashion by stealing a glance into Karl von Knebel's mind. There are many highsounding names both in poetry and philo. main we bowed before the power and insight of the master-mind. I cannot, however, deny, that towards the end of my residence in Potsdam I began to suspect that many things were not altogether as they should be. Assuming the wis-sophy which men are in the habit of looking dom of the monarch to be as great as I then considered it, it seemed undoubted that greater condescension and a more easy spirit would on many occasions have been very beneficial. Not that the great king was altogether stiff and formal; he knew how to let himself down when he pleased. But there was still something about him which separated his person too much from other I should say with considerable confidence, that, to govern men well, one must possess something in common with the great mass of men, viz., something common place. But the whole education of the king was unfavorable to this easy sympathy with common humanity; and there was nothing in the character of the Germans at that time that could tend to smooth down this uninviting exterior. He was not altogether to blame in despising his own countrymen and his own language. men. Properly speaking, the king was loved by nobody, but those to whom he had done some good action, and who never had seen him; the others only feared him. If he had any love at all in his composition, he bestowed it all upon his dogs. "P. S.—I do not think it does any good to a king to have the ambition of authorship. Study has a tendency to withdraw us from other men, and versifying makes us whimsical. The greatest statesmen have left us little or nothing of their statesmanship in writing. Besides, study often makes us one-sided." * The truth is, that Knebel, notwithstanding the great kindness shown him by the grand duke, and all the members of the Weimarian circle, (for he was a universal favorite,) did not much like Weimar. There was too much of formal up to, but which would much less reward the trouble of a close anatomy than the mind of this philosophic major. Let a man but build up a system of startling metaphysics, or spread himself out into a sounding epic on a popular theme, (religion or patriotism is the best,) and he is sure to walk through centuries, eternized, if not in the hearts of the people, at least in the benches of erudite book-gatherers. Literary histories will mention him with honor, and re-echo his praises with parrot fidelity, long after the animating breath of human sympathy has ceased to dwell among his dead bones. But let a man be honest, modest, and unassuming, solicitous about nothing but this one thing needful, to be wise and to do good; and, unless chances be peculiarly kind, a hundred trumpets, (were they to be found for such service,) shall not be able to blow him into reputation. Such outward show, empty court duties, and aimless dissipation, for his quiet, contemplative disposition. He loved sociality, but could not sympathize with the loosely-mingled mirth of mixed society. Besides, Knebel was a liberal in politics, and did not altogether approve of certain sentiments on important public subjects that passed current in the court circle. Göthe was the man for this atmosphere. a modest man was Karl von Knebel; an aversion to dogmatizing, we are to attribute, honest, unpretending thinker, whose name, in a great measure, the uncertainty with perhaps, many of our readers have scarcely which he always spoke of the immortality heard, while many noisy dictatorial Schle- of the soul; agreeing herein with many of gels have been marching through the the profoundest philosophers and theolo length and the breadth of Europe on the gians of our own country, that on such a stilts of criticism, pulling down this idol subject the utmost that mere reason can atand setting up that, according as their own tain to is a hope; while "life and immorSovereign will and pleasure (Napoleon- tality" can only be fully brought to light by wise) might direct. We have an instinctive an extraordinary revelation. But we shall suspicion of the whole race of Schlegels, see, anon, with what a holy sublimity (we Fichtes, Schellings, Hegels, Heines, Gutz. speak soberly) he could speak even on the kows, Weinbargs, who preach parodoxes, fearful subject of the annihilation of the soul; proclaim systems, and promulgate their own and we shall see also how strangely, in wisdom, with much noise, upon the market the mind of this man, the principles of an place. With so much the more pleasure, Epicurean and seemingly materializing however, do we turn to those sound, healthy philosophy are united with the most prominds that digest their food in quiet, and found piety and the most pure Evangelical who, though busy enough in putting ques- morals. This may indeed sound strange tions to Nature, do not feel themselves to some of those mechanical reasoners, too called upon to come forward and publicly frequently, alas! to be found in our land of catechize her. We value their doubts, as rail-roads and steam-coaches; but the huLord Eldon said of a celebrated Scotch lawyer, more than the assertions of twenty Gamaliels. There are certain subjects on which the highest wisdom is the wisdom of Harpocrates-to hold our fingers upon our lips and be silent. Were this duly considered, a great deal of our most vaunted learning, whether under the name of poetry, philosophy, or theology, matters little, would be seen to be what it really is, viz., dust and smoke, with a twinkling intellectual hallucination gathered round it, to confound the weak sight of those whose eyes are every where except in their head. man mind is neither a square nor a triangle, nor is it to be measured by cubic inches, or weighed by avoirdupoise. The ever-fermenting elements of German thought give birth to strange combinations and most curious mixtures, which the eye of a mere Englishman looks upon but does not understand. We must be content to put on a pair of Nurnburg spectacles for a season, if we would see the true meaning and import of such minds as Knebel's and Göthe's. The letter of mere church-orthodoxy, and mere university-logic, finds itself ont of reckoning here; and, above all things, it is But enough of this. Our zeal, however, the consummation of critical absurdity to will appear perfectly justifiable, when we bring an "Essay on Taste," or a pair of consider what a mass of confounded and French scissors (of Boileau or Batteux confounding transcendental nonsense is manufacture,) to clip and pare at the mind daily echoed over to us under big sounding of a German metaphysician. Pedantry titles (pnμaτа пεяvруwpeva) from Germany, while may measure the length and breadth at pecalm, clear, unobtrusive reason is con- dantry; but, on the same principle, Nature demned to sit silent, like a clever school- has no measure but herself. boy, taught when it should teach. Karl Karl von Knebel was in reality a curious von Knebel was a decided enemy to the compound. We have found in him a mystic babble of the romantic school; and strange mixture of the delicacy of Jacobi it is for this calm, classical clearness, work- with the somewhat rude strength and rough ing purely, for so many years, in wise hiliarity of Professor Zelter But the Jasilence, that we so highly esteem him. cobi predominates, (though, happily, withThis quiet, unclouded walk of sober specu- out one grain of the faith-philosopher's lation, he maintained, be it observed, in Ger- vanity ;) and, on the whole, we should say, many; the land of much misty metaphysics, that there is something feminine, certainly and of many foolish books; and yet he nothing effeminate, in his constitution. neither mystified in metaphysics, nor overflows with love and kindliness-a pecuever published any thing that in folio'd liar virtue of the Germans; and he has a Germany could deserve the name of a book. tenderness altogether his own, which fitted So far from his philosophy being marked him well to be the friend of Jean Paul with that bold rash character which distin- Richter. But he has also frequent outguishes so many continental speculations, breakings (though, they seem to have been it was, if any thing, rather anxiously and mellowed with the ripeness of his latter scrupulously timid. To this instinctive years,) of what Wieland called his “Grau He This samkeit;" he can say very severe and very | by nature with a very active and discursive cutting things when his bile is up; and the mind, and continually busy, he never seems honest Germans, with their learned pedan- to have seriously occupied Limself with the try, their watery sentimentality, and their idea either of building a scientific system of misty romanticism, are lashed, every now his strange musings, or of writing a modern and then, with a force that might have come philosophical poem, after the example of from the strong arm of Wolfgang Menzel. Lucretius, "De rerum naturâ." But Knebel is too much of the easy philo want of literary ambition has certainly been sopher to allow himself to be discomposed a loss to the world; but it was no loss to for any length of time by these occasional Knebel. He was not, on that account, held sallies. Epicurus smiles through Demos- in the less estimation by the great minds that thenes; and, whereas Wolfgang Menzel were then creating German literature; nor walks forth bristling with satire to sting to did he live less piously in faithful commudeath all the base leeches that suck the life nion with his own chosen goddess, “Madre of his dear fatherland, Karl von Knebel NATURA." Nevertheless, he thought it remains in his sunny garden, smiling at the his duty to do something for public edificapassing cloud which his own soul had tion, as well as for private enjoyment; and raised, and proving that, notwithstanding as Herder, spurring most mercilessly at all German moral prostration and German himself, was also wicked enough to spur the political imbecility, Nature is wise and God ease of the Epicurean, some beautiful poems is good. at length blossomed into day, and some With such peculiar elements of character, classical translations were at length made calculated at once to please the superficial and to satisfy the profound, it is no wonder that Knebel made friends wherever he turned himself, and was in particular, the idol and intimate of all those distinguised personages who constituted the literary society of Weimar. Lords and ladies, poets and philosophers, believers and infidels, seem to have been equally delighted with him. Göthe was indebted to him for his introduction to the young duke at Frank furt; and Herder, who, in his latter years, was not always very happy in the Weimarian circle, seeins absolutely to have lived in the atmosphere of Knebel's mind. Wieland found Lucretius a very useful ally in his anti-Platonic skirmishes; only Schil. ler does not seem to have had any immediate connection with Karl von Knebel; and that we do not exactly understand. That same moral purity and religious enthusiasm, which united him so intimately with Herder, should, it might seem, have made him the bosom friend of the bard of Wallenstein. 'Knebel died, not of any disease, but, But there seems to have been something in the most peculiar and beautiful sense, of backward, and, we might almost say, monk- mere ripeness and sufficiency of existish, in Schiller's character, with which ence. He had a long and happy career. Knebel's sunny cheerfulness did not perhaps He exhausted his activities in almost evealtogether sympathize.. Whatever mighty direction, and a length of healthy years have been the cause, Herder, Wieland, and Göthe, seem to have monopolized Knebel's intimacy, to the almost complete, if not total, exclusion of Schiller. visible, by which it was meant to convince John Henry Voss that all good translations must be, like all good originals, a spiritual growth, and not a mere mechanical and most erudite dove-tailing of short and long syllables. Among other things, a classical translation of Lucretius was lucubrated, a work of love, in executing and improving which the author employed thirty conscientious years. This work was hailed by all the leading men in Germany, long before it publicly appeared, as a master-piece both of poetry and scholarship; what peculiar claims it has upon the attention of Englishmen, we shall see below. Before proceeding, however, to cast a hasty critical glance over the volumes, the titles of which head these cursory remarks, we must be allowed to insert from Mundt's interesting biography, the following edifying account of the philosophers's death. Nothing can be more morally beautiful or psychologically instructive. was given to him, almost surpassing the 23d February, 1834, in his ninetieth year. measure of humanity. He died on the During his whole illness his mind remained strong and cheerful. He frequently Knebel lived ninety years in the enjoy spoke to his friends of the satisfaction ment of leisure and good health, and which the preservation of purely moral cupied himself for the last fifty years of his habits affords in life no less than in life almost exclusively with science and death. Every thing,' he said, 'dependliterature. But, as we have said, he does but every one must take care for himself ed originally on good natural disposition, not seem, to have been at all ambitious of not to allow any black spot to defile Naliterary reputation; and, though endowed ture's handiwork.' To a friend, who ask OC |