NEXT to Schiller there is no writer whom Germany cherishes with more enthusiastic attachment than Jean Paul,-so he called himself, while living, and is still called since his death. Confined to a narrower circle than Schiller, he is even more intensely loved within that circle than the great dramatist himself; for he is a writer to be loved, if tolerated. There is that in him which allows of no indifference. He must either attach or repel. Where he does not create an irreconcilable aversion, he binds with indissoluble friendship. Those who read him much,come into personal relations with him, and sympathize with him as with no other. Indeed, there is no other like him in the history of literature. He is incommensurable, and refuses to be classed; combining the most contradictory characters and gifts; the humorist and the prophet; the wildest fun with the steepest elevation of thought and an infinite pathos; the sharpest satire with an all-embracing love; a feeling for all littleness and little ones, with the loftiest sentiments and aspirations; a prevailing subjectiveness, with clear and original intuitions of men and things.

The humorist predominates; and such humor! It is not the humor of Cervantes, though sunny and wholesome as his. It is not the humor of Rabelais, having nothing of the satyr or the swine; and yet Rabelais himself is not more wildly fantastic. It is not the humor of Swift, though it lacks nothing of his irony; nor is it the humor of Sterne, though not less kind and contemplative, and stuffed with conceits. It is a humor quite his own, "compounded of many simples and extracted from many objects." In this, as in other things, he resembles no one else in the world but just Jean Paul. He is Jean Paul, "the only."

He was sumptuously, marvellously endowed, and if he wanted many essential qualifications of a great poet, or even of a good writer, there are others which he possessed in unrivalled perfection. He has but one rival, and that is Shakspeare, in exuberance of fancy. The in

continent, the inconceivable, the overwhelming affluence of images and illustrations, is what first strikes us in his writings. The paragraph labors and staggers with meanings and double meanings, and after-thoughts and side-thoughts, conceits appended to every third word, and ornaments stuck in, some sufficiently bizarre, and others of supernal beauty, making altogether "a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified Mosaic," as no other writing can parallel. He has absolutely no rival in what may be called the inborn poetry of the heart, that sympathy and identification of himself with all forms and ways of being, that secret understanding with Nature, that profound humanity which, in an inferior degree, so happily distinguishes Wordsworth among English poets. Some of his pieces, for example, Fibel and Quintus Fixlein, constitute a new and higher order of idyl; combining the subjective piquancy of modern thought with the classic outwardness of the ancient model.

In power of imagination, also, he takes rank among the first. Many of his characters are wholly new creations, and have an individuality and a self-subsistence which only true genius can impart. It is in his visions, however, with which his works abound, that Richter's imagination is most active, producing an apocalypse of the most extravagant and unheard-of portents, a swarming phantasmagory of beautiful and terrible apparitions, which make the application more appropriate to him than to any other, of those lines which describe one of his contemporaries:

"Within that mind's abyss profound,
As in some limbo vast,

More shapes and monsters did abound
To set the wondering world aghast,

Than wave-worn Noah fed or starry Tuscan found." His faults as a writer are sufficiently prominent, but, for the most part, so blended and complicated with his peculiar merits, that we cannot imagine them removed without destroying some characteristic excellence. An utter

NEXT to Schiller there is no writer whom Germany cherishes with more enthusiastic attachment than Jean Paul,-so he called himself, while living, and is still called since his death. Confined to a narrower circle than Schiller, he is even more intensely loved within that circle than the great dramatist himself; for he is a writer to be loved, if tolerated. There is that in him which allows of no indifference. He must either attach or repel. Where he does not create an irreconcilable aversion, he binds with indissoluble friendship. Those who read him much, come into personal relations with him, and sympathize with him as with no other. Indeed, there is no other like him in the history of literature. He is incommensurable, and refuses to be classed; combining the most contradictory characters and gifts; the humorist and the prophet; the wildest fun with the steepest elevation of thought and an infinite pathos; the sharpest satire with an all-embracing love; a feeling for all littleness and little ones, with the loftiest sentiments and aspirations; a prevailing subjectiveness, with clear and original intuitions of men and things.

The humorist predominates; and such humor! It is not the humor of Cervantes, though sunny and wholesome as his. It is not the humor of Rabelais, having nothing of the satyr or the swine; and yet Rabelais himself is not more wildly fantastic. It is not the humor of Swift, though it lacks nothing of his irony; nor is it the humor of Sterne, though not less kind and contemplative, and stuffed with conceits. It is a humor quite his own, "compounded of many simples and extracted from many objects." In this, as in other things, he resembles no one else in the world but just Jean Paul. He is Jean Paul, "the only."

He was sumptuously, marvellously endowed, and if he wanted many essential qualifications of a great poet, or even of a good writer, there are others which he possessed in unrivalled perfection. He has but one rival, and that is Shakspeare, in exuberance of fancy. The in

continent, the inconceivable, the overwhelming affluence of images and illustrations, is what first strikes us in his writings. The paragraph labors and staggers with meanings and double meanings, and after-thoughts and side-thoughts, conceits appended to every third word, and ornaments stuck in, some sufficiently bizarre, and others of supernal beauty, making altogether "a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified Mosaic," as no other writing can parallel. He has absolutely no rival in what may be called the inborn poetry of the heart, that sympathy and identification of himself with all forms and ways of being, that secret understanding with Nature, that profound humanity which, in an inferior degree, so happily distinguishes Wordsworth among English poets. Some of his pieces, for example, Fibel and Quintus Fixlein, constitute a new and higher order of idyl; combining the subjective piquancy of modern thought with the classic outwardness of the ancient model.

In power of imagination, also, he takes rank among the first. Many of his characters are wholly new creations, and have an individuality and a self-subsistence which only true genius can impart. It is in his visions, however, with which his works abound, that Richter's imagination is most active, producing an apocalypse of the most extravagant and unheard-of portents, a swarming phantasmagory of beautiful and terrible apparitions, which make the application more appropriate to him than to any other, of those lines which describe one of his contemporaries:

"Within that mind's abyss profound,
As in some limbo vast,

More shapes and monsters did abound
To set the wondering world aghast,
Than wave-worn Noah fed or starry Tuscan found."

His faults as a writer are sufficiently prominent, but, for the most part, so blended and complicated with his peculiar merits, that we cannot imagine them removed without destroying some characteristic excellence. An utter

want of grace and form, an habitual lugging in of irrelevant learning, an excessive delight in verbal quibbles and other conceits, obscurity, constant iteration of one or two types of character, exaggeration of one or two features of society, want of action in his narratives, a superfluity of tears and ecstasies not sufficiently motived, a passion for extremes - these are faults which have often been pointed out, and which his warmest admirers will hardly deny. On the other hand, the charge of affectation is unjust. A mannerist he certainly is, but it is the mannerism of idiosyncrasy, a bias in the nature of the man, a kink in his genius, a maggot in his brain, without which he would not be Jean Paul.

It is the moral qualities of Richter, far more than his intellectual, which endear him to his countrymen. To that true and loyal soul the deep heart of Germany responds with all its music. So loving, and believing, and hoping, and aspiring, so innocent of all guile, and free from all wrath, and bitterness, and evil speaking, so full of all fine sentiments and generous views, so abounding in compassion for all the suffering, willing to clasp them all to his great heart, which throbbed evermore with unebbing and unspeakable affection for all his kind; so devout, and pure, and good; he commends himself not only to his own people, but to humanity everywhere; to all that is best in the nature of man. It is good to converse with him. His word is sound and sanative, "pure as the heart of the waters," and "pure as the marrow of the earth."

The life's history of Jean Paul is gathered partly from his autobiography, commenced not many years before his death, and extending to his thirteenth year; partly from an appendix to that beginning by Herr Otto, a friend of the deceased; and partly from his correspondence with friends and contemporaries. A "Life of Jean Paul," in 2 vols. 12mo., embodying a translation of the autobiographical fragment, and continuing the narrative from the other sources above mentioned, was published in Boston,* a few years since, by a lady who seems to have spared no pains to make herself acquainted with her subject. To these two

*Life of Jean Paul Frederic Richter, compiled from various sources, together with his autobiography, transJated from the German. Boston: Charles C. Little & Jaines Brown.

volumes the editor of this work refers with pleasure, as the best biography of Richter known to him.

Richter was born at Wunsiedel, in that part of Germany called the Fichtelgebirge, or Pinemountain. His father, then organist and underteacher at the gymnasium in that town, was soon after appointed pastor (Lutheran) of a church, in the small village of Joditz, and, some years later, promoted to the larger living of Schwarzenbach, on the Saale. From his father Richter received his first instruction in the languages. At sixteen, he was placed at the gymnasium in Hof, a neighboring small city. At eighteen, he entered the university of Leipzig, where he began the study of theology, but soon gave himself up to general culture, and began his career as author, with the publication of the "Greenland Lawsuits." His father had died meanwhile, and he was thrown entirely upon himself. His first attempts at authorship were not successful, his situation was perplexing, and the future looked grimly on the penniless youth. "Fortune seemed to have let loose her bandogs, and hungry Ruin had him in the wind."* His mother had removed to Hof, her birth-place, and there Jean Paul joined her, in a house which had but one apartment, pursuing his studies amid “the jingle of household operations;" writing books which would not sell, and tasting all the bitterness of extreme penury. "The prisoner's allowance," he says, “is bread and water, but I had only the latter."--"Nevertheless, I cannot help saying to Poverty: Welcome! so thou come not at quite too late a time! Wealth bears heavier on talent than Poverty. Under gold-mountains and thrones who knows how many a spiritual giant may lie crushed down and buried! When among the flames of youth, and above all, of hotter powers, the oil of Riches is also poured in-little will remain of the phoenix but his ashes; and only a Goethe has force to keep, even at the sun of good fortune, his phoenix-wings unsinged." For ten years and upwards he fought this fight, during which time his only support was the money earned by the occasional but rare admission of one of his contributions to the public journals. Nevertheless he refused the situation of a private tutor, determined to succeed as author, or starve in the attempt. And he triumphed, at last.

Carlyle's Miscellanies, vol. II.

After repeated failures, the publication of the "Invisible Lodge," in 1793, brought money, fame, troops of friends, and, altogether, decided his future. After the death of his mother, he resided successively in several different places, and finally fixed upon Baireuth, in the neighbourhood of the Fichtelgebirge, as his home. In 1801 he married Caroline Mayer, daughter of a professor of medicine in Berlin. In 1801 he received from the Prince Primate, Von Dalberg, a small pension, which was afterward paid to him by the King of Bavaria until his

death. In 1824 the failure of his eyesight impaired his activity, without arresting it entirely. He continued to labor with the help of his nephews, revising his works in order to a uniform edition, and making the most of his declining strength, until, for all literary purposes, it failed him utterly. He died November 14, 1825. He was buried by torch-light; the unfinished manuscript of his Selina (a work on immortality) was borne upon his coffin, and Klopstock's Ode, "Thou shalt arise, my soul," was sung by the students of the Gymnasium.

ROME.*

HALF an hour after the earthquake the heavens swathed themselves in seas, and dashed them down in masses and in torrents. The naked Campagna and heath were covered with the mantle of rain. Gaspard was silent-the heavens black-the great thought stood alone in Albano that he was hastening on toward the bloody scaffold and the throne-scaffolding of humanity, the heart of a cold, dead heathenworld, the eternal Rome; and when he heard, on the Ponte Molle, that he was now going across the Tiber, then was it to him as if the past had risen from the dead, as if the stream of time ran backward and bore him with it; under the streams of heaven he heard the seven old mountain-streams, rushing and roaring, which once came down from Rome's hills, and, with seven arms, uphove the world from its foundations. At length the constellation of the mountain city of God, that stood so broad before him, opened out into distant nights; cities, with scattered lights, lay up and down, and the bells (which to his ear were alarm-bells) sounded out the fourth hour;† when the carriage rolled through the triumphal gate of the city, the Porta del Popolo; then the moon rent her black heavens, and poured down out of the cleft clouds the splendor of a whole sky. There stood the Egyptian Obelisk of the gateway, high as the clouds, in the night, and three streets ran gleaming apart. "So," (said Albano to himself, as they passed through the long Corso to the tenth ward) "thou art veritably in the camp of the God of war; here, where he grasped the hilt of the monstrous war-sword, and with the point made the three wounds in three quarters of the world!"-Rain and splendor gushed through the vast, broad streets-occasionally he passed suddenly along by gardens, and into broad citydeserts and market-places of the past. The rolling of the chariot amidst the rush and roar of the rain, resembled the thunder, whose days

From an unpublished translation (complete) of "The Titan" of J. Paul Richter, by Rev. C. T. Brooks. ↑ Ten o'clock.

were once holy to this heroic city, like the thundering heaven to the thundering earth; muffled-up forms, with little lights, stole through the dark streets; often there stood a long palace with colonnades in the light of the moon, often a solitary gray column, often a single high firtree, or a statue behind cypresses. Once, when there was neither rain nor moonshine, the carriage went round the corner of a large house, on whose roof a tall, blooming virgin, with an uplooking child on her arm, herself directed a little hand-light, now toward a white statue, now toward the child, and so, alternately, illuminated each. This friendly group made its way to the very centre of his soul, now so highly exalted, and brought with it, to him, many a recollection; particularly was a Roman child to him a wholly new and mighty idea. They alighted at last at the Prince di Lau ria's, Gaspard's father-in-law and old friend. * * Albano, dissatisfied with all, kept his inspiration sacrificing to the unearthly gods of the past round about him, after the old fashion, namely, with silence. Well might he, and could he, have discoursed, but otherwise; in odes, with the whole man, with streams which mount and grow upwards. He looked ever more and more longingly out of the window at the moon in the pure rain-blue, and at single columns of the Forum; out of doors there gleamed for him the greatest world.At last he rose up, indignant and impatient, and stole down into the glimmering glory, and stepped before the Forum; but the moonlit night, that decoration-painter, which works with irregular strokes, made almost the very stage of the scene irrecognisable to him.

*

What a dreary, broad plain, loftily encom passed with ruins, gardens and temples, covered with prostrate capitals of columns, and with single, upright pillars, and with trees and a dumb wilderness! The heaped-up ashes out of the emptied urn of Time-and the potsherds of a great world flung around! He passed by three temple columns,* which the earth had

*Of Jupiter Tonans.