seldom thus conveyed because of the dan- an unconscious self-record. Molière did ger of the times. When Mazarin was good, but from mixed motives. His fine obliged during the Fronde to yield to the common sense revolted, no doubt, against clamours of his enemies, and to withdraw the affectation which his satire demolished into voluntary exile, he and Anne of Aus--but he acted, too, in obedience to the tria corresponded by word of mouth, will of a monarch whose disdain was all through confidential couriers who carried egotistical. Madame de Sévigné did bettheir despatches in their heads. A serious ter: she instructed by presenting a model family affair would, even at a later period, which won all hearts, in the contemplation demand a journey from one of its heads. of which people rather forgot than hated, But a letter then filled many of the objects and insensibly abandoned the tawdry idols now supplied by a newspaper, and hence to which they had before paid homage. we read in Madame de Sévigne's letters For this reason, teaching by example is the descriptions of public events, to convey best teaching; and sight of the good far which a friend would at present have no better than exposure of the bad. Let more to do than write an address at a those, however, who are dull, or sad, or opnewspaper office. See for example her pressed, or disappointed, or dissatisfied with account of the death of Turenne, and the the world, have recourse to either one or particulars given of the funeral procession the other. If Molière or Sévigné cannot to Saint Denis: an event which at the preadminister relief, the case is all but hopesent day (we talk not of style) would be less. done for all the world at a peuny a line. At With Madame de Sévigné closes that the same time the circumstances in which brilliant train of intellectual women of they were written give these charming whom Madame de Rambouillet was the compositions a serious historical impor- first. tance, and hence those researches, in relation to them, which have conferred upon the names of Monmerqué and Walckenaer so much honour.

Madame de Sévigné was religious, and in the best sense of the word, for she was charitable, forgiving, and tolerant. • Have no enemies,' is one of her most energetically expressed counsels to her daughter, to which she adds, and plenty of friends.' Such was the maxim of her mature years, but in her youth she practised it from feeling. We know of nothing more touching than her conduct upon arrival in town after the death of her husband who fell in a duel that had originated in dispute about a mistress. To that mistress, Madame Godoran, the young bereaved wife sent to beg a lock of the hair of her husband, whose sins against herself she forgave, as she prayed Heaven to forgive them. Her pardon of the outrage against herself committed by her cousin Bussy Rabutin (he introduced her portrait in an indecent book), was in a similar spirit. She reserved it until he was abandoned by all the world, a ruined man: and then she visited him, affording him the consolation of her matchless conversation, with all the aid he stood in need of.

Thus lively, hearty, and wise, religious and tolerant, instructive and unaffected, natural and loving, with a reflecting mind, an expansive heart, accomplished manners, and boundless animal spirits, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marchioness de Sévigné, was the most perfect woman of whom we have

THE reputation of A. W. SCHLEGEL is not undeservedly European. He has done the state some service;' he has stimulated the minds of many thinking men, directing their attention to points of literary history which had before been overlooked; and he has been useful to the science of criticism, by his paradoxes which have roused discussion, no less than by his principles which have received assent. His works are distinguished amongst their class by a splendour of diction, a felicity of illustration, and attractiveness of exposition rarely equalled; nor has their popularity been injured by the affectation of philosophic depth of which they are guilty. Although more Rhetorician than Critic, his writings contain some valuable principles luminously expressed, much ingenuity and acuteness, and

are, in spite of all their drawbacks, worthy a purpose; and of Madame de Staël, who of serious attention. But in merits and in terrified Napoleon,—and talked. faults he is essentially a popular writer, and He will also long be honourably menstands, with us, in the very false position of tioned amongst us as one of the first who an oracle. As a popular writer he is effi- taught us to regard Shakspeare as the recient, and merits all the applause he has re- verse of a 'wild, irregular genius.' The ceived; but as an oracle-as a rational, se- precedence we know is claimed by Colerious, philosophic critic-he is one of the ridge, and many of his admirers admit the most dangerous guides the student can con- claim; while others wonder at the 'singular sult. Freely admitting that his influence coincidences.' As a point of literary history in England has not been on the whole with- this is worth settling. Every one is aware out good result, we are firmly convinced of the dispute respecting the originality of that it has been in many things pernicious. certain ideas promulgated by Coleridge, And while we are constantly deploring the but no one, we believe, has sifted the evievils he has caused, we as constantly see dence on which the matter rests. The him held up to our admiration and respect facts are these: Schlegel lectured in Vienas the highest authority on Dramatic Art.* na in 1808; five years afterwards, in 1813, Whatever benefit it was in his power to con- Coleridge lectured on the same subject in fer has been already reaped; and now it is London. On examining the printed lectures important that his errors should be exposed. we find the most singular resemblances : We beg the reader therefore to understand not, be it observed, mere general resemthis article as polemical rather than critical: blances, such as two writers might very not as an estimate of Schlegel's work, but easily exhibit-not mere coincidences of as a protest against his method, and exami- thought, but also of expression; the docnation of his leading principles. trines are precisely the same, the expresIn the preface to his recently collected sion so similar as to be a translation of one volume of Essays he complains that his language into the other, the citations are countrymen have forgotten him; but re- the same, the illustrations are the same, joices in the conviction that in other lands and the blunders are the same. On so his name is mentioned with respect. This large a topic as that of the Greek Drama, is true. In Germany he has no longer any coincidence of opinion is extremely probainfluence because he can no longer teach: ble; but coincidence of expression is in the new generations have left him far be- the highest degree improbable; and if we hind, and all his best ideas have become add thereto coincidence of illustration, citacommonplaces. Gossip, not Fame, is busy tion, and blunders in point of fact, the conwith him; his coxcombry is sometimes men-clusion is irresistible that one of the writers tioned, to be laughed at; his writings have has plagiarized from the other. We would not even the honour of detraction. Yet beg attention to the following examples: must he always occupy an honourable place in the literary annals of his country, both on account of what he has done and the toxicating in the odour men he has been connected with. As the of a southern spring, translator of Shakspeare and Calderon he languishing in the song will deserve the gratitude of his country- of the nightingale, or Nor can literary history forget that voluptuous on the first he was one of the chiefs of the Romanti-opening of the rose, is breathed into this cists, whose wit and eloquence came to poem. celebrate the victory that Lessing, Herder, and Winckelman had won; that he was the friend of the hectic Novalis, that strange, mystic, unhealthy soul; of Tieck, whose light and sunny spirit takes such glorious more different from revenge of his misshapen form; of Wack- Westminster Abbey, enroder, who died in his promise; of or St. Stephen's at ViSchleiermacher, whose unceasing activity enna, than the strucwas ennobled by so lofty and so generous Sophocles from a drature of a tragedy of ma of Shakspeare. SCHLEGEL.

men.

• Ex uno disce omnes. "We consider the Dramatic Lectures every way worthy of that individual whom Germany venerates as the second, and whom Europe has classed among the most illustrious of her characters."—Quarterly Review.

Whatever is most in

SCHLEGEL-
-on
'Romeo and Juliet.'

The Pantheon is not

With Juliet love was all that is tender and melancholy in the nightingale, all that is voluptuous in the rose, with whatever is sweet

in the freshness of spring.

COLERIDGE.

And as the Pantheon

is to York Minster or Westminster Abbey, so is Sophocles compared with Shakspeare. COLERIDGE.

Not to tire the reader, let these examples suffice, although we could cite twenty others equally striking. Most of what is said in the 'Remains of Coleridge on the subject of the Greek Drama and respecting Shakspeare (pages 12 to 83 of the second volume), is to be found in the 'Lectures' of Schlegel. This passes the possibility of casual coincidence. Yet Coleridge, accused of plagiarism, boldly declared that "there is not a single principle in Schlegel's work (which is not an admitted drawback from its merits) that was not established and applied in detail by me."

lished her 'De l'Allemagne.' On the other hand Coleridge, by an artful assertion, throws a difficulty in the way. He says that his rival did not lecture till two years after he did; referring to the lectures at the Surrey Institution in 1806. We call it an artful assertion, and the artifice is this: the fact that he lectured in 1806 is brought forward as a proof of his originality, implying that in those lectures of 1806 he delivered the same opinions as in those of 1813. His friends have taken the implication as if it were a necessary consequence of his having lectured. But it is by no means a necessary consequence; indeed we have his own express testimony against it: for he says that he always made a point of so altering the matter of his discourses that two on the same subject differed as much as if they had been by two different individuals. These lectures of 1806 have perished; no trace of them remains to support his assertion; the only remains are of those of 1813; and, until it can be proved that the 'resemblances' were in those of 1806, he must be accused of the theft by all impartial judges. For (and the case is remarkable as a specimen of boldness) in one place Coleridge calls Sir George Beaumont, Sir Humphrey Davy, and Hazlitt, to witness that he delivered his views upon Hamlet' two years before Schlegel. The fact is indubitable; but he forgot, in the anxiety for his 'moral reputation, to add this other fact that in

his criticism on Hamlet there are no resemUnfortunately Coleridge, with all those blances to the criticisms of Schlegel. Let the great and admirable powers which we are reader compare Remains,' vol. ii., pp. 204 far from wishing to depreciate, was notori--234, with Dramatic Lectures,' ii., pp. 199 ously a plagiarist, and not a very honest-204, and he will appreciate the importone. He did not simply appropriate the ance of Coleridge's witnesses. ideas of others, but always endeavoured to prove that he was but recovering his own property. It is worthy here to be remarked that many of the opinions and happy illustrations of certain topics, to which Coleridge gave currency, and for which he daily receives the credit, are plagiarisms. His famous saying that all men are born either Aristotelians or Platonists is in Frederick Schlegel. His still more famous saying respecting Plato, is what Socrates uttered of Heraclitus. The philosophy in his 'Biographia Literaria,' is translated, often verbatim, from Schelling. If, therefore, with this knowledge of his literary honesty we examine the present question of plagiarism, we shall find little difficulty in detecting the culprit.

Coleridge lectured in 1813, five years after Schlegel; and by this time the German's ideas were pretty well known over Europe, for Madame de Staël had then pub

We here quit this topic, to confine ourselves to the Dramatic Lectures.' Schlegel's method we regard as the most injurious portion of his work; the more so as it dignifies itself with lofty names, and wishes to pass off easy theorizing for philosophic judgment. We owe the jargon of modern criticism, which styles itself 'philosophic,' principally to Schlegel; for the Solgers, Rötschers, Hegels, &c., are but little read. Everybody knows that the criticism of the last century was bad, but at any rate it was positive; it was intelligible; it treated of the matter in hand, and measured it according to standards which were appreciable, if limited, Bad as it was, it was more satisfactory, more instructive than much of what passes as philosophic in the present day. Ridiculous though it be to talk of the 'elegance and sublimity' of Homer, or the 'irregularity' of Shakspeare, we prefer it to the rhapsodies of Schlegel on Calderon,

wherein he defends the glittering nonsense tiently, and reasoned profoundly. One as

of his favourite upon the ground that it is a sense of the mutual attraction of created things to one another on account of their common origin, and this is a refulgence of the eternal love which embraces the universe.' If there is better criticism in the present day than in the last century, it is because knowledge of art is greater and taste more catholic; not because analysis' has given place to 'synthesis,' as many people maintain.

In the eloquent introduction to the last edition of the translation of the Lectures,' Mr. Horne deems it worthy of especial and enthusiastic praise that Schlegel eschewed ' analysis.' Mr. Horne has an angry contempt for analysis; deems truth and appreciation solely on the side of synthesis; will see no danger in wholesale judgment. In this respect we may take his introduction as the expression of an opinion prevalent with a large class. Opposed to this class is another which sneers with unlimited contempt at philosophic criticism' as vague, dreamy, and fantastic. Both parties are right in what they mean by these terms; but neither of them affix the right meaning. One scorns analysis, meaning incomplete analysis. Another scorns philosophy, meaning bad philosophy.

Though ranging under neither banner, we confess our inclinations lean towards

analysis. Bad analytical criticism is better than mediocre philosophy. A review of a poem, which consists in quoting a few passages, may not be satisfactory, but it at least selects something whereby the reader may form an opinion. A dissertation on the philosophic or artistic import of that poem must be excellent to be endurable; and at the best it is an essay, not a judgment. Mr. Horne thinks analysis akin to the taking an inventory of furniture in an edifice as a means of calculating the abstract spirit of its master' as we said, he means incomplete analysis. He has also described his favourite method thus:

pect, one limb, did not to them represent the whole. They strove to evolve the meaning from each work, and nor to force some à priori meaning on the work. They were judges and not advocates. It will be the scope of our remarks to show that Schlegel's 'synthesis' is rash, and not founded on a due analysis:' that he is an advocate and not a judge.

The first principle of classification is to trace constant uniformities amidst varieties: applied therefore to works of art, it consists in ranging under one head all such various specimens produced by various nations as have some principle in common; so that the diversities of language, customs, and tastes, are set aside, and the real generic resemblance made the ground of classification. This would be the scientific method; but Schlegel in his celebrated classification of art into classic and romantic has acted in direct opposition to it. He has grounded his classification on a single diversity instead of a constant uniformity. Except for historical purposes, the division of art into ancient and modern is fatal: it is assuming that the spirit of art is entirely religious, whereas we hope to prove that it is national. The ground of classification must be ethnic not chronological: it is a question of races not of periods.

Struck with the revolution operated by Christianity in men's opinions, Schlegel and others have jumped to the conclusion, that it also operated a revolution in the spirit of art. This is tantamount to saying that a change of belief brings with it a change of nature and of organic tendencies. Great as must always be the influence of religion upon art, it can never entirely change its spirit. Let us be understood. By the spirit of art we do not mean opinions. As a distinction is made, and justly, between the mind and its beliefs, so we would distinguish between the spirit of art, and the ideas therein expressed. There is in every nation an organic character, which no changes of opinion can efface; this sets its impress upon all its works, so that we never confound them with the works of another. This impress is the sign of what we call the spirit or the national tendencies of art. It cannot therefore be true that the spirit of Art is dependent on religion; the more so as religion itself is modified by the national character. We do not here allude to secThe greatest of modern critics, Lessing tarian distinctions, or to varieties of interand Winckelman, were men of great analy-pretation; we point to the fact, that Chrispower, and it is to them that we owe the best appreciation of works of art. They were not declaimers. They studied pa

"It is the synthetic principle to work with nature and art, and not against them; collaterally, and not in the assumed superiority of the contemplative and investigating power over the productive power and the things it produces."

In other words, the synthetic critic is an advocate, and not a judge: an accurate description of Schlegel himself.

tic

tianity becomes a subjective religion with a northern race, while with a southern race it becomes objective; as we endeavoured to