Uhland wrote his own themes, and, we doubt not, those of many schoolmates, in German prose and in German verse; but this did not hinder his Latin composition becoming so exuberant as to make one of his teachers, to whom he brought a hundred and one hexameters as an afternoon's work, exclaim in very comprehensible impatience, "Why, boy, do you imagine I have nothing else to do than to correct your Latin?' It can occasion us no surprise to learn that the boy's mind was specially fascinated by the romantic, as opposed to the classical and reflective styles of poetry. In his earlier writings we already see a strong leaning to that branch of literature in which he always excelled-the ballad style; and it is natural enough that we should learn of the absolute enthusiasm with which he fell upon the Lay of the Nibelungs when it was first placed in his hands. We defy any lad who has a spark of true poetry in his constitution to take up that wonderful epic for the first time without experiencing the emotion of a discoverer, or, having read over with attention a single division of the poem, to leave it without a clearer notion than he had before of the true meaning and the distinct nature of real ballad style; and further we believe that the taking up of such a book (not in a modern translation, but in the original text) is calculated to give the most active stimulus not merely to poetic taste but to linguistic study. There can be no doubt that the delight which the boy Uhland experienced at his first introduction to the Nibelungen Lied, while it gave direction to his most characteristic style of production, at the same time laid the foundation of that earnest study which led him even in those early days through the whole field of German and Scandinavian lay and legend, and made him all his life pursue, almost with passion, the various paths of letters, learning, dialects, mythology, &c., which tended to saturate himself and his productions with the deepest feeling and the fullest knowledge of German nature and of German life. As to his future course and calling, he appears to have entertained for some short period the idea of taking orders, more, however, as a means of devoting himself, during his university course, to the study of philology than from any sense of the necessity and solemnity of an inward calling. Again, the medical profession seemed to be bidding for him, when his choice was decided by a law-exhibition, founded by an ancestor, and worth some 301. a year, becoming vacant at the University of Tübingen; and his nomination in his fourteenth year to that piece of family patronage decided his future calling. Though so early matriculated, he did not enter on his regular regular university course until his eighteenth year; this early matriculation was in fact common at Tübingen, as setting youths free from compulsory attendance on the grammar school, and enabling them to continue whatever special courses they desired, under private tutors, while attending college lectures on the general branches of study. During this period Uhland wrote a multitude of pieces, which, however, a ripening taste restrained him from publishing in after years. One of the earliest productions of his muse (published in his lifetime) may be considered The Blind King, and in its simplicity, spirit, and completeness, is surprising as the work of a boy in his sixteenth year. The piece is so well known that we shall only call attention to the sixth and seventh stanzas. The blind king consents to his son's crossing over to the island to fight the giant who has carried off his daughter. And hark! the boat speeds o'er the wave, And loud the ripples sound; The blind king stands and listens Till all grows silent round; And then the clash of sword and shield With battle-cry and din of strife, The old man cries in trembling joy, I know my good sword by its ring, So rang it oft with me." They answer, "Fallen is thy foc," &c. The blindness and helplessness of the father, his distress, the feeling of desertion by his followers, his anguish for his daughter, his fear for his son, his instinct of confidence in a good cause and a young courage, are all finely indicated, almost without a thought of description; but if we could put ourselves for a moment in a blind man's place under such circumstances as the ballad sets forth, we should find no truer idea of the very climax of anxiety than that expressed in the awful silence which follows the rippling of the departing boat when its sound is lost in the distance before the strife begins. 6 This early effusion, with its contemporary one 'Die Sterbenden Helden,' show us clearly the influence of the Scandinavian literature upon their author; two other pieces, written about this time, and published in the Musen-Almanach' for the year 1807, exhibit very distinctly his appreciation of the old-German element. They are fragments from the Heldenbuch, entitled "The Linden-tree in the Garden' and 'Otnit's Revenge.' They have not been published with his poems, probably from the fact of their occupying more space than was considered advisable for mere fragmentary translations. We insert a few stanzas of the Linden-tree, as unlikely otherwise to reach many of our readers : 'Wol vor der Burg zu Garten 'Von hoher Zinne schaute Da sprach sie gar geschwinde 'Der Kaiser rief behende : In the quaint expression, truthful simplicity, and free swing of these lines, readers acquainted with the Heldenbuch will not fail to recognise a power of appreciation and reproduction which may cause regret that this treasury of ancient minstrelsy has not yet found such an interpreter as Uhland doubtless would have made; and can only console themselves by the reflection that greater work was waiting for him to do in his generation. It is worth remarking as we pass, as showing the early excellence of Uhland's taste, that a number of pieces written from his fourteenth to his nineteenth year are so complete and finished as to have received no alteration from their author's hands through all the many years in which edition has followed edition to no less a number than fifty-six.† On the other hand, some productions of his earliest period, beautiful in themselves, are now found in his MSS., which manifestly were withheld from press for many years, from a feeling that the day might come for him to write still better on the same or kindred subjects as those then treated. We are tempted to give a version of one of these, 'The Wallfahrtskirche,' written certainly no later than his seventeenth year, in order to compare it with the fuller and more beautiful setting forth of a kindred idea in one of his masterpieces, The Pilgrim,' written a quarter of a century later:The Shrine. Oh ruined shrine! How silent now In doleful whispers over thee; Thee far-sped pilgrims once beheld, And heard thy festal chimes, as far Along the rocky vale they swelled. "The holy dawn hath filled the sky, And high is raised the solemn song; The consecrated banners fly, And clouds of incense float along. The priests in golden vestments dight, The knights in glittering steel array, And dames bedecked with raiment white, Up to the shrine pursue their way. • One, midst the rest sublimely fair, Mourns in the gladness of the rest, And, sighing, droops her close-veiled head Upon her sorrow-stricken breast. She fondly plighted heart and hand. 'Strange prescience fills her as she moves Beneath the high-arched darkling dome, To where the fragrant altar sheds Faint taper's light upon the gloom; Where by the crucifix she made Her thankful prayers in happier years, Lowly she kneels while swiftly fall From her blue eyes the trembling tears. And as, throughout the dim-lit nave, Her stricken spirit on the wave Of conscious blessedness ascends. All earthly sounds appear to fade, She hears a chorus from on high, While he smiles welcome on her sight. Her toil is o'er, her call is come, And sealed is her entranced gaze, Upon the altar steps she dies, With glory gleaming on her face; While all men wonder to behold The passing bell the air doth fill, And through the kneeling multitude A holy shudder seems to thrill.', If we now turn to the Pilgrim (Der Waller), we shall see with what cause, or rather with what prescience of power, Uhland withheld the former piece from his works. In the 'Waller' we have many of the ideas, including the main one, repeated, but every one without exception not only amplified, but beautified. The 'rocky vale' in the one, becomes a rocky coast' in the other, which allows him, instead of speaking of the church as merely an object flashing on the pilgrim's gaze, to take in at once sea and land in his idea and say : 'To 6 To the lost ones in the desert It shines forth as a guiding star, To the storm-tossed mariner.' In the one there is mere mention made of the fact of the bells pealing, in the other we have a beautiful legend of their power: • When its bell is tolled for vespers, Wide it vibrates all around; And in convent and in city Every bell awakes to sound; And the angry waves in silence, Hushed and broken, reach the shore, Kneels until his prayer be o'er.' So, in the later poem, the waving of banners is amplified by the saluting from the sea of ships' flags, and the ascending train of pilgrims towards the church becomes a ladder to the skies.' Then the main idea is changed, and greatly for the better; instead of a lady dying of grief at the absence of her lord, the tragic element is introduced, and a man, weighed down by remorse for the crime of fratricide, dies, not on the altar steps, but at the door of the church, beyond which he was not permitted to pass, and seems to receive from heaven at last the seal of pardon and release which he had sought and sought in vain upon the earth. Space will not allow us a further comparative analysis of this most beautiful poem, our own appreciation of which we have found greatly awakened by comparing it with that first sketch of the subject which its author so judiciously withheld. We must return to our account of his life. It cannot be said of Uhland that the Fates were unpropitious to his poetical aspirations. From the time of his actually entering on his university course he appears to have been surrounded by a clique of rhymesters, some of whom have gained a more than passing fame, while others have found their true level in forgetfulness; two of these friends, at first more especial 'chums' of our poet, met untimely deaths; the one Harpprecht, who lost his life in Napoleon's Russian campaign, the other Schoder, an original but extravagant genius, who perished by drowning in the North Sea in 1811. With reference to the latter Haug, the epigrammatist, penned the following couplet: 'Apollo sprach zu Schoder To the former, Harpprecht, we find a touching reference in the |