HEINRICH HEINE.

J.

IF

F Dante could arise from the grave, and re-write the Divine Comedy so as to bring it into harmony with the circumstances and feelings of our age, he might well discover some spot on the mountain of purification from which the intellectual leaders of mankind might behold the result of their teachings. There, if anywhere, they might learn humility and be cleansed from the last taint of pride and self-sufficiency. For every idea which becomes a part of the spiritual life of a nation suffers metamorphosis on metamorphosis, until it assumes a form which would fill its original advocate with horror. Luther's doctrine of justification, which was founded on a personal religion so intense as to set history and tradition at naught and bid defiance to all the powers of earth and hell, has become the pathway by which Germany has passed to religious indifference. The sword with which Butler slew the Deism of his own day has been snatched by the eager hands of his opponents, and is turned with deadly force against Theism in ours. How both would shudder if, with their old feelings, they could see the outcome of the work on which their lives were spent. Still, the warmest corner in that snug little Purgatorial nook would have to be reserved for the artists and poets. Fancy Raphael compelled to gaze continually on the pictures of Guido Reni; Michael Angelo bending for centuries over the canvas of the Caracci; Shakspeare wearily studying the "Shakspearean" absurdities of his first German admirers; and Goethe yawning a mea culpa as he ponders the incoherencies of Bailey.

Since Goethe's death Heinrich Heine has been the only German man of letters who has exercised a wide and direct influence on the literature of Europe. His books are read and admired in France, studied and imitated, as I hear, in Russia, and they have powerfully affected the taste of the rising poets of Italy. This is something-nay, it is a great

thing for every new point of view that we attain is a distinct gain for our culture, and no poet is more original in his point of view, none more suggestive, than Heine. Nor is this all. Daring as his conceptions are, his execution is equal to them; in his later poems, whether in prose or verse, it is a marvel of freedom, truth, and delicacy. If in this respect he never rises to quite the level of Goethe's noblest work, he never sinks so low as the greater poet occasionally did, and at his best he leaves every other German author far behind. We should, therefore, greet this increase of his fame and influence with unmixed pleasure were it not for a doubt which obstinately returns: Do these enthusiastic admirers of Heine really understand him better than Lenz did Shakespeare, or the author of "Festus" the author of "Faust?"

It is at least remarkable that they so often betray a marked preference for the poet's immature work, for the "Book of Songs" and the "Reisebilder" rather than for "Romancero" and the "Gods in Exile." It may be that in this they are following a healthy instinct, that they discover in the unfinished work of the youth the hints of a perfection different from that which the man attained, and deliberately choose to follow these out, because they feel how hopeless would be the attempt to rival the productions of his later years, since

"What's whole, can increase no more,

Is dwarfed and dies."

But this is hardly a consideration that ought to have weight with the critic, who has to judge not of what might have been, but what is accomplished, and nothing can be more certain than that-changeable as many of his aims and opinions were-Heine consistently, through his whole life, endeavoured to get rid of the very qualities which some at least of his disciples are most anxious to imitate. He began, like many young poets, with frequent passages of mere rhetoric; not one of these is to be found in his mature works. In the "Reisebilder" and the "Songs" we constantly meet with stereotyped rhymes and expressions, either borrowed from others or invented by himself; we hear a great deal too much of oak trees and the fragrance of violets, for instanceexcellent things in their way, but no spells which gain in potency by every repetition: we should seek in vain in "Atta Troll" or "Romancero" for the trace of any such stylistic crutch. Finally, the youth was pardonably desirous of displaying his skill to the best advantage: the mature poet carefully concealed his art. We have been told by, perhaps, the only living man of literary reputation who had an opportunity of watching him in his poetical workshop, that he corrected small apparent inaccuracies into his verse." * There is something irritating in hearing a great poet constantly praised, not only for what is in truth weakest in his work, but for what he himself distinctly recognized as being so,

*Karl Hillebrand, in a letter to Professor Hüffer, published in the latter's "Aus dem Leben Heinrich Heine's." I may take this opportunity of directing the reader's attention to Mr. Hillebrand's recent "Lectures on German Thought," in which the historian has for once returned to, and, as it were, summed up, the literary studies of his earlier years.

HEINRICH HEINE.

J.

IF

F Dante could arise from the grave, and re-write the Divine Comedy so as to bring it into harmony with the circumstances and feelings of our age, he might well discover some spot on the mountain of purification from which the intellectual leaders of mankind might behold the result of their teachings. There, if anywhere, they might learn humility and be cleansed from the last taint of pride and self-sufficiency. For every idea which becomes a part of the spiritual life of a nation suffers metamorphosis on metamorphosis, until it assumes a form which would fill its original advocate with horror. Luther's doctrine of justification, which was founded on a personal religion so intense as to set history and tradition at naught and bid defiance to all the powers of earth and hell, has become the pathway by which Germany has passed to religious indifference. The sword with which Butler slew the Deism of his own day has been snatched by the eager hands of his opponents, and is turned with deadly force against Theism in ours. How both would shudder if, with their old feelings, they could see the outcome of the work on which their lives were spent. Still, the warmest corner in that snug little Purgatorial nook would have to be reserved for the artists and poets. Fancy Raphael compelled to gaze continually on the pictures of Guido Reni; Michael Angelo bending for centuries over the canvas of the Caracci; Shakspeare wearily studying the "Shakspearean" absurdities of his first German admirers; and Goethe yawning a mea culpa as he ponders the incoherencies of Bailey.

Since Goethe's death Heinrich Heine has been the only German man of letters who has exercised a wide and direct influence on the literature of Europe. His books are read and admired in France, studied and imitated, as I hear, in Russia, and they have powerfully affected the taste of the rising poets of Italy. This is something-nay, it is a great

thing-for every new point of view that we attain is a distinct gain for our culture, and no poet is more original in his point of view, none more suggestive, than Heine. Nor is this all. Daring as his conceptions are, his execution is equal to them; in his later poems, whether in prose or verse, it is a marvel of freedom, truth, and delicacy. If in this respect he never rises to quite the level of Goethe's noblest work, he never sinks so low as the greater poet occasionally did, and at his best he leaves every other German author far behind. We should, therefore, greet this increase of his fame and influence with unmixed pleasure were it not for a doubt which obstinately returns: Do these enthusiastic admirers of Heine really understand him better than Lenz did Shakespeare, or the author of "Festus" the author of "Faust ?"

It is at least remarkable that they so often betray a marked preference for the poet's immature work, for the "Book of Songs" and the "Reisebilder" rather than for "Romancero" and the "Gods in Exile." It may be that in this they are following a healthy instinct, that they discover in the unfinished work of the youth the hints of a perfection different from that which the man attained, and deliberately choose to follow these out, because they feel how hopeless would be the attempt to rival the productions of his later years, since

"What's whole, can increase no more,

Is dwarfed and dies."

But this is hardly a consideration that ought to have weight with the critic, who has to judge not of what might have been, but what is accomplished, and nothing can be more certain than that-changeable as many of his aims and opinions were-Heine consistently, through his whole life, endeavoured to get rid of the very qualities which some at least of his disciples are most anxious to imitate. He began, like many young poets, with frequent passages of mere rhetoric; not one of these is to be found in his mature works. In the "Reisebilder" and the "Songs" we constantly meet with stereotyped rhymes and expressions, either borrowed from others or invented by himself; we hear a great deal too much of oak trees and the fragrance of violets, for instanceexcellent things in their way, but no spells which gain in potency by every repetition: we should seek in vain in "Atta Troll" or "Romancero" for the trace of any such stylistic crutch. Finally, the youth was pardonably desirous of displaying his skill to the best advantage: the mature poet carefully concealed his art. We have been told by, perhaps, the only living man of literary reputation who had an opportunity of watching him in his poetical workshop, that he corrected small apparent inaccuracies into his verse.* There is something irritating in hearing a great poet constantly praised, not only for what is in truth weakest in his work, but for what he himself distinctly recognized as being so,

*Karl Hillebrand, in a letter to Professor Hüffer, published in the latter's "Aus dem Leben Heinrich Heine's." I may take this opportunity of directing the reader's attention to Mr. Hillebrand's recent "Lectures on German Thought," in which the historian has for once returned to, and, as it were, summed up, the literary studies of his earlier years.

and this is what Heine's oldest and most patient students have not unfrequently to bear.

Well, Es iert der Mensch so lang er strebt, and our misconceptions sce at times so mary steps forward on the path of truth. There is every vessar * hoạt that this will be the case with Heine. Wordsworth wax might in speng that it is the young who are chiefly susceptible to TOP NEA wey, and it is natural that the earlier www xhaul lore a noiar attraction for them. As wing day vil dubs Tram to appreciate his later 2.5 naked gaimai. Erie's name has become de tondi hilly and a general interest with respect to

this seems to be the case. f the number of 1. dis was of his verse and pse which are Lately appeared. te lac. Mr. Suclmss's volume leserves honourable No sclcctica, of course. Lowever careful, man give an adequate Adica o fodie's power as a prose writer. fr. brant as the single passages are, their highest charm is owing to the delicate transitions that lead up to them, and the striking courmast in which they stand to what goes betere and what follows. In the present condition of English taste, however, a faithful rendering of Heine's complete werks is scarcely posable, and so a volume of extracts was perhaps the only available means of conveying to the general Engish reader a faint impression of the vast wealth and power of Heine's prese.

We are all tempted to be unjust to a translation from a favourite author. It brings us nothing new; when most successfil it does not strike us, and we keenly feel every failure and inadequacy. But such books are not written for those who are familiar with the original, and no Englishmau of culture who is unacquainted with Heine can fail to derive a new intellectual pleasure from Mr. Snodgrass's pages.

One high quality is, however, unavoidably absent in this as in every translation, the charm of the author's style, and this is one of Heine's peculiar excellencies. The modern Eglish writer of whom in this respect he most frequently reminds us is Charles Lamb. In both we find the same nervous, idiomatic purity of language, the same racy individual flavour, the same oddities of expression which are only felicities in disguise. But Heine's touch is bolder and his range more varied. He wrote German prose as Lamb might have written English had he lived in the age of Shakspeare. Both here and in his verse we are constantly sensible of that perfection to which a language attains but once in a thousand years.

During the whole of the classical period the greatest stylists of Germany had faithfully followed the precept of Luther. They sought instruction in their native language from the lips of women, of child and the common people. They studied the ballads and popular dom, and Pathos, from the Prose of Heinrich Heine." Trübner & Co. 1879.