the beautiful little poem 'The Ferry' (Auf der Ueberfahrt), where he is spoken of, in company with Uhland's uncle (a very worthy country clergyman), not only as a dear friend of great promise, but as one whose society implied high intellectual enjoyment. We subjoin the extract, with the observation that the piece itself has possibly suggested the following two verses to Longfellow, in the Footsteps of Angels,' in which he marshals the spirits of the departed : He, the young and strong, who Noble longings for the strife, : They, the holy ones and weakly, Who the cross of suffering bore, Folded their pale hands so meekly, Spake with us on earth no more. One meekly passed his useful day, There were, however, members in this society of higher future note than these, amongst whom we may mention Karl Mayer (one of his biographers), Conz, Rehfues, and last, but not least, his most intimate friend and fellow-poet, Justinus Kerner. This clique of literary youths, under the guidance of the last-named, started a manuscript Journal for the Uneducated Classes,' in opposition to the then existing Journal for the Educated Classes,' which was labouring to stifle every breath of true romantic poetry. The articles contributed to this playful periodical were almost immediately inserted by Leo von Seckendorf in the Musen-Almanach for the year 1807, where for the first time our author's productions appeared in print. No less than twenty-eight pieces of Uhland's found a place in this annual, a tolerable share to be occupied in such a book by the lucubrations of a single bard, but nineteen years of age. Among these are to be found several pieces entirely conceived and executed in the romantic style, and showing an extraordinary apprehension of its finest characteristics both in form and execution. We can observe the influence of Bürger in the ballad 'Vom treuen Walther,' The Black Knight,' and other works of this period, but our criticism would be hardly just if we failed to remark the manifest immaturity of some of the more reflective and lyrical pieces by which these were accompanied ; a censure which we shall see finds its fullest justification from a comparison of the pieces in question with later efforts of his riper muse. At this period also an essay by Uhland On the Romantic' appeared in the 'Sonntagsblatt,' which laid down in a few terse and pregnant pregnant lines his views upon a subject then still fiercely debated, and has always seemed to us a sort of prose illustration of his own peculiarly clear, distinct, and uncompromising character. Leaving aside any discussion of the meaning of the word 'Romance,' he in a few pithy and lucid sentences defines his apprehension of the idea it conveys, and at the close, uniting the pluck of partisanship with the calm of conviction, invites intellectual sympathizers to the promise of that school in which he entered himself as a disciple, and of which he was destined to become an illustrious teacher. Meanwhile his studies were advancing, while one by one the companions of his intellectual spring time, mostly senior to himself, passed on from their Alma Mater to the vocations of riper life. Justinus Kerner, the most remarkable of them all, remained longest at Tübingen; but he also at last took his departure, leaving Uhland to his own poetic plannings and plottings, which were various and manifold. This period of literary loneliness, acting, as it must at times have done, on his generally high spirits, probably produced the greater part of Uhland's sentimental poetry, which the wholesome tendency of his muse happily prevented from becoming abundant. Meanwhile he contributed pieces to various periodicals, and, probably without his own knowledge, was daily making to himself a name. He received a complimentary testimonial at the conclusion of his college course in 1808, and, however he may seem to have disliked his profession (an idea which one of his pieces suggests *), studied it conscientiously, and reached to an unusually sound proficiency in it. In the year 1810 he proceeded to Paris in pursuance of a design he had long cherished, and for which the annual income of his college exhibition had been for some years reserved. The practical father and the practico-poetical son appear to have had rather different views as to the purpose of this journey, although agreed as to its utility. In the expectation that the Code Napoleon would be shortly introduced into Würtemberg, the father thought very wisely that for his son to have thoroughly studied its principles and observed its practice beforehand would greatly improve his position and prospects as an advocate, and in this opinion the son no doubt coincided; but he thought, with a bardic instinct, which led him further than plain reasoning, that there might be * See 'Die neue Muse,' Poems, p. 79:- 'I toiled at law with effort strong Against the promptings of my heart, And from the clasp of charming song Had torn myself but half apart.' better better things to study than even the Code Napoleon, and, on his arrival in Paris, flung himself with delighted ardour, not upon amusements such as charm most youths, alone for the first time and on their own resources in such a city, but upon finer sources of enjoyment which his tastes and talent fitted him for appreciating. That he studied the treasures of early French manuscript contained in the Paris library with an ardour as persevering as its results were fruitful became apparent, not only in those pieces of his poetry which are published under the distinct heading Early French Poems' (Altfranzösische Gedichte), but in others throughout his works, the origin of which we cannot be far wrong in attributing to his Parisian visit. These studies, moreover, even had they produced no special results and dictated no single page in his writings, cannot be pronounced unprofitable or vain, so long as experience shows how, to an active and awakened mind, every honest study is a gain, and every hour of steady thought a profit. Such is the constitution of a healthy intellect, pervading any literary labour, that it can grasp from every side with avidity, and yet without surfeit, thought of all sorts, studies from all directions, varieties, coincidences, differences, contrasts, and assimilate them all to the needs and the growth of that body of excellence which we look for in the finished work of every great and patient mind. No doubt many will exclaim against versatility in study as injurious, and point out instances, well enough known, where it has been destructive; but, after all, variety of knowledge is always useful when pursued with singleness of purpose, and if it result in mere superficiality, it is because, to use a homely but expressive phrase, 'it goes a bad skin;' because a mind of weak powers tries to indulge a thousand whimsical, incongruous tastes at once, and nibbles at a multitude of dishes, where it cannot digest a single wholesome meal. A varied intellectual diet is good for a many-sided mind, that takes continual exercise and exults in continual labour, as being at once a duty and a joy; but the puny, fickle, fretful intellect, that stays at home in sloth and inactivity, and 'roasteth not that which it hath slain in hunting,' must be content with mental spoon-meat as the strongest pabulum its pitiful economy can bear. Uhland's was no such mind as this: we do not pretend to rank his intellect amongst those of the giants of thought, nor to set him forth as the representative of an era; but he may be pointed out as an instance of a man conscious of possessing an intellect of a high and choice order, and yet wasting no opportunity and shunning no labour which could tend to develope his powers or ripen his taste. In Paris he found his friend Varnhagen von Ense, through whose introduction he became personally acquainted with Adelbert von Chamisso, a poet who has elsewhere expressed the hearty delight with which he learned to value both Ühland and his writings." At the same time, also through Varnhagen, he found a congenial spirit in the famous Immanuel Bekker, then also devouring the contents of the Paris library with a fine hunger of study. Devotion to medieval and romance poetry formed a ground of sympathy between these two, which made them almost inseparable. Day after day they worked together over the old manuscripts, and evening after evening found them sitting, generally in Uhland's lodging 'au cinquième,' enjoying 'a quiet read.' In those days the Parisian public library was not the most comfortable place to read in: a brazier of charcoal was the source of warmth in cold winter days, and we are told that Uhland learned to write with his left hand, to avoid losing time, while thawing the fingers of his right over the coals. His stay at Paris bore, besides the immediate fruit of poetry, to which we have already referred, useful results in his Treatise on Old-French Epic Poetry,' which contains a quantity of new and independent matter, is written in a style of remarkable clearness and brevity, and accompanied by a number of admirable imitations and translations by its author. We rejoice to say there is every prospect of this and all Uhland's other critical works, lectures, &c., being shortly before the public in a complete edition. After spending nine months in Paris, Uhland found a new and valuable intimacy awaiting him at Tübingen in the person of his junior, Gustav Schwab, a divinity student, afterwards well known as a poet throughout Germany. He found also a congenial circle in the house of Freiherr von Wangenheim, at that time curator of the University, and afterwards, as minister, opposed, and, as simple representative, supported in the Chambers by Uhland. In the Poetischer Almanach' for 1812, edited by Justinus Kerner, no less than thirty contributions of Uhland appeared; and in the Deutscher Dichterwald' for 1813 thirty-two others. These publications were at once the manifestoes of the new romantic school and samples of its productions. The whole tendency of this school is set forth with no less humour than distinctness in the contribution by Uhland which closes the 'Dichterwald,' and bears the title A Fairy Tale' (Märchen). *The following pithy sentence gives Chamisso's opinion of him :-' Whilst many produce poems of the sort which every one writes and nobody reads, Uhland produces his such as nobody writes and every one reads.' He He interprets the well-known tale' of the Princess, to whom the wicked fairy foretold misfortune from a spindle, as representing true German poetry, which had become bewitched and cast into a slumber of four hundred years by what he calls Stubenpoesie,' which school he personifies by a withered old crone at her wheel, thus describing herself and her doings: Fair maiden, Chamber Poetry Is the name by which I'm known, Since beyond my chamber's limits I've never gadding gone. 'Long, long didactic poems I spin with busy wheel, I sit where I have always sat, Unchanged, whate'er betide, And my poor old blind decrepit cat Sits purring* by my side. This long piece is well worthy of perusal, both for the sustained wit and clever satire with which it abounds and the completeness with which the fairy tale is allegorized: parts of it also are beautiful both in a poetic and rhythmical point of view, as for instance the stanza describing the awaking of the princess:— 'Sie streifte die goldnen Locken Aus ihrem Angesicht, Und hob, so süss erschrocken Ihr blaues Augenlicht,' &c. 'She swept the locks of curling gold Back from her lovely face, While thus taking his stand with many others in the ranks of a poetic school, Uhland turned his attention to the more necessary occupation of life, which he always held a poet should have in view. It is quite characteristic of his matter-of-fact common sense, that even in his young days, when almost every idea suggested a song, and almost every sound rang into measure, he condemned the silly notion of a man making versification the whole occupation of his life. In the latter part of 1812 he entered the office of the Minister of Justice at Stuttgart, as a volunteer clerk, with the understanding that after a time he should receive a respectable appointment in the department. His occupation consisted for the most part in making abstracts of criminal cases to be brought before the King for final approval of judgment; and in this capacity, if he had the misfortune to differ from his superiors in many instances, he had also the happiness of finding himself frequently instrumental in getting The pun here is untranslateable. Spinnen signifies both to spin and to purr ; the satirical implication of course is that a cat's purring is just as much true poetry as the Stuben-poesie' itself. He is said to have closed an argument on this subject, to which he had been a silent listener, by the quiet question, Suppose a man went to bed a poet, and woke in the morning a poet no longer?' and we are inclined to fancy that, without stating such to be his experience, he may have felt or fancied at times that even so the gift had deserted himself; in the last twenty-seven years of his life he did not add a hundred lines to his published works. justice |