Espérances.

I. J'espère que la pièce ci-jointe, quoiqu'elle flatte plus qu'elle ne peint prouvera a votre Altesse, que j'ai obtenu quelques souf. frages de ma nation pour mes œuvres romantiques, philosophiques et morales.

II. J'espère, qu'en cas de guerre ma maison, ou plutôt mon étude, sera exempte de la charge d'avoir des troupes en quartier et qu'elle demeurera l'asyle de ma inuse.

Demande.

J'implore l'humanité de votre Altesse a realiser ces espérances, après les avoir pardonnées. Qu'une ligne de votre main veuille m'assurer la paix, que méritent la poésie et la philosophie, parce qu' elles la propagent. La main vaillante verse le sang; la main bienfaisante tarit les larmes--mais vous avés les deux mains. Je suis, Monseigneur, avec le respect le plus profond,

won.

Votre Altesse

tres humble serviteur,

JEAN PAUL FR. RICHTER."

Through the whole of the humiliating period of the French conquest he continued resolute and hopeful. On what a noble view of human nature his confidence was founded, may be seen in the following passage from one of his letters in 1808. "I remain (inwardly) stiff and cold until the great world-game is But this holds me not back from ardent co-operation with my best energies: it rather spurs me on. He whom the times strike down, let him first raise himself up again and then the times with him. If by numbers Devils can do aught, still more can Angels do I say still more, because human nature gives ten angels the ascendant over a hundred devils. For were't not so, with the large majority of the weak, the dull, and the bad, the human race had long since sunk instead of having risen."

:

We shall find no fitter place to exhibit a few specimens from the many volumes which, under the titles of Vita book, Via recti, &c., he filled with original brief sentences, in the nature of self-comment, criticism, thoughts to be used, &c., and from which copious extracts are given in various parts of the work before us. We select those which are the most translatable as well as the most worthy to be translated.

"No author ever wrote as and like so often as myself.

"Why has Swift such a hold on me, with whom, alas! I have no resemblance in excellences, and none, thank heaven, in faults? Merely through his poetry of satire.

"I hold it to be my duty not to enjoy or acquire, but to write, whatever time or money it costs me, or even pleasure, as for exam

ple, to deny himself, on account of the time it would consume, a visit to Switzerland.

Eating, drinking, money, yea health, are to me nought in comparison with æsthetical work. For this, on the contrary, I eat, drink, &c. Only the enjoyments of Nature and of Religion maintain their proper supremacy.

"I have often abstained from drinking in company, in order not to waste excitement without a pen in my hand.

"Calculation of what a work costs before it brings any thing in; 1, copyists; 2, wine; 3, two kinds of paper; 4, postage; 5, ink ; 6, pens.

"How often have I desired to know the right in Politics,--that is, the universally useful,-in order then to disclose and sacrifice my. self.

"Nothing moves and exhausts me so much as giving reins to my imagination at the piano: I could in this way play myself to death. [Ich könnte mich todt phantasieren.] All the quiescent feelings and spirits rise up: hand, eye, and heart know no bounds. At last I close with some ever-returning tremendous tones. One can get satiated with hearing music, but not with making it; and every musician could, like the Nightingale, shatter himself to death.

"The sons of great men come to nothing, because they taste all that is excellent before they desire it, and to them the elevation of the father, inasmuch as they are born thereon, seems a plain.

"We exhibit with less shame the passions of hate than of love. "You often bind a man to you by asking the name of his dog. "Throw off immediately small sorrows.

"Have nothing to regret in company, and be rather too timid than too bold.

"To love only one man thoroughly,-what an enjoyment and reward.

"Through strife, a third only is obtained: through love or yield. ing, the whole.

"What is it to me, that in Bayreuth or elsewhere I lose a little praise, when in other cities I have already received so much that is unmerited? Much that is undeserved must be taken from me in one place before I feel the loss of what is deserved in another.

"Children need love more than instruction, and only thy practice and thy example can give it to them."

Besides Herder and those already named whom Richter's genius and lovable nature bound to him by the double tie of friendship and literary sympathy, several others, belonging to the high circle of German letters, were among his personal friends and admirers;-Henry Voss, the worthy son of an eminent father; Louis Tieck, who still lives in the enjoyment of fame; and Jacobi, called the German Plato. Tieck writes to him as follows in 1812.

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Ziebingen, near Frankfort on the Oder, June 17th, 1812. "In the hope, my highly honored friend, that the remembrance of me is not entirely effaced from your mind, I send you through my wife this note. You can believe, how much it has grieved me that my feeble health prevented me from accompanying her to such delightful regions as your Franconia. Did I live near you, I would urge you to go on with the incomparable Flegeljahre.* I much regret that you have discontinued them, as the conception is admirable, and opens to you a wider field of wit and variety than any other of your works. With Jacobi in Munich, I have talked very often of you, and in this revered man you have one of the sincerest friends and warmest admirers in Germany. You lose very much by not knowing him personally, for he is even more than his writings, and through his estimable and noble personal character every thing in them derives new life and higher significance. Do you ever think of the hours we spent together in Jena and Berlin? I delight in the recollection of them. What a pleasure it had been to me to be able to embrace you as it is, I can do it only in thought. But be assured (whatever tatlers may have said to you), that among the men whom I most love and whose talents I most admire, you hold one of the first places in my heart, and that I shall esteem you so long as I live and have power to think.

"Entirely yours,

"LOUIS TIECK."

Young men of melancholy temperaments wrote to Richter, as to a father, for counsel and consolation in the morbid desolate state into which such natures are liable to be wrought. His admirable letters to these applicants generally had the effect of restoring them to a healthy condition of mind. One case, however, occurred, which for a while painfully affected his happiness. A young girl, whose parents were both of ardent dispositions, and who herself, living by choice in solitude, dwelt in an ideal world, conceived for him, from reading his works, a romantic affection; and though his judicious paternal letters calmed for a while what may be justly termed her erotic phrensy, the cure was but temporary, and she was consumed through her imagination by an attachment to one whom she had never beheld. She committed suicide by drowning.

In the latter years of his life,-which we have now reached, —he was in the habit in the summer of making visits to some city within two or three days' journey of Bayreuth,--to Heidelberg, or Frankfort, or Munich. On those excursions, which

Flegeljahre is, literally, clown-years, flegel signifying a coarse, rude fellow, or clown. The Germans call clown-years the period of awkwardness between youth and manhood.

he never commenced against the warnings of the barometer,for, like Goethe, he was a confident meteorological observer,— he took with him in the carriage piles of books, and writing materials, continuing on the journey his daily work of reading and composing. For the conduct during his absence of his department of the household, he left always minute directions, prescribing to his youngest daughter the course to be daily pursued with his tree-frogs, canary birds, spiders, and other zoological pets, and writing down for his wife's guidance a set of orders, may we venture to call them, in the following form.

"1. In case of fire, the black-bound excerpt books to be saved first then in the black trunk the money and box containing papers.

2. Keep all my windows closed on account of flies: open them only a day before my expected return.

3. Have the window curtain fastened.

4. Lend no book out without writing it down.

5. Have the hair in the sofa on the sunken side made firm.

6. Be sure to keep both doors of my room always shut: nor must the squirrel go into it.

7. Break open all packages, and send me the letters.

8. Note down only each dollar that you take out, without any further account of the expenditure.

9. The wine that arrives during my absence to be treated ac cording to Otto's rules.

10. Send me immediately the newspaper."

Of these visits we will let himself describe the one which seems to have been the most fruitful of enjoyment.

"Heidelberg, July 18th. 1817. "The day, my beloved wife, on which I have become Doctor of Philosophy, will I write to you. My prognostications, from the difficulties on setting out, of my happiness here, heaven has most richly verified. Only with the endless visits and visitors, there are too many things to write about. On Tuesday I was at Consistorial Counsellor Schwartz's, with whom I am going to lodge on condi tion of my being permitted to pay; on Wednesday at Madame von Ende's, whose kindness, refinement and originality, I cannot enough praise; in the evening at Dr. Ditmar's, who, like Voss, loads me with kindness and attention. On Saturday noon Madame Ende gave a party in the beautiful castle-garden to fifty-persons; and in the evening she hired a room in the tavern to witness the proces. sion of students who came to salute me. On Sunday a pleasure. boat, with eighty persons, made an excursion on the Neckar as far as Hirshe, for a description of which I refer you to a letter I shall

write to Emanuel. I am out every evening at the houses of Schwartz, Paullus, Hegel, Thibaut and his singing academy, and to-day at Kreutzer's. How shall I describe the love and respect I experience here to overflowing? My dog only could do it, for he never was so well fed from beautiful hands as here.

"To-day Professors Hegel and Kreutzer, with the beadles behind them, brought me, in the name of the University, the parchment Doctor's Diploma* in a long red case. Max [his son] must translate it for you: you can then show it about to our friends.

"I have lived here hours such as I never experienced in the happiest days of my life, particularly the excursion on the water, the salute of the students, and the songs yesterday from the old Italian music. But I thank the All-bountiful as much as I can, by mildness, calmness, modesty, love, and right feeling towards every

one.

"Ease, propriety, and mirth, constitute the tone of society here. Four bowls of punch emptied at Voss's, and a hundred bottles of wine on the pleasure boat, did not destroy this tone. Don't ask me to say any thing of the country around here, except in the evenings when I shall be once more seated opposite to you.

"With the German-souled Voss, whose heart is so full of love and healthy vigor, I gave up the "You" on the boat; and thus have I in my old days made a new "thou."t

"Max must study in Heidelberg: he will be surrounded by tutelar angels in the form of my friends. I am uncommonly well, and drink, talk, and sit up as much as I please.

"What a splendid evening circle and rainbow around the dinnertable yesterday, formed entirely by professors and artists, physicians, philosophers, philologists, theologians, jurists, naturalists, connoisseurs and owners of works of art, and the mirthful Kreutzer.

"Whether I go to Frankfort or not is still, on account of the expense, undecided; your wish that I should, and the good roads tempt me strongly. I shall travel to Manheim with a party.

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Enjoy yourself as much as you can, so that I may not be happy alone.

"R."

In this diploma Richter is addressed as,-"Poetam immortalem; lumen et ornamentum sæculi; decus virtutum; principem ingenii, doctrinæ, sapientiæ, Germanorum libertatis assertorem acerrimum; debellatorem fortissimum mediocritatis, superbiæ, Virum qualem non candidiorem terra tulit; ut dotibus ejus omni concentu Consensuque laudis nostræ sublimioribus, tribuerimus amorem, pietatem, reverentiam. Doctoris Philosophiæ et liberalium Artium magistri nomen, privilegia et jura ite honorisque causa contulimus," &c.

It is the custom in Germany for brothers and sisters, husband and wife, parents to children, and intimate friends, to use the second person singular in addressing one another. The adoption of this affectionate form by persons not related generally takes place in the presence of Bacchus, who presides over the ceremony, which consists in the two interlocking their right arms, and in this corporeal union emptying a bumper.