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ingly forward. But here, in the epic, not even the slightest intimation of such things ensues; it strides rapidly on without tarrying-following only the decisive events, leaving the coloring to the mind of the reader or hearer. I need scarcely observe, that the enjoyment of those who understand how to enjoy, is in this manner infinitely heightened. A romance of modern time is read out when it is read through; the true epic can, no more than fresh life itself, be read out and hastily used up in the service of idle entertainment. Gerlinde, the mother of Hartmut, at first receives Gudrun kind ly; but as she also uses her persuasive powers upon the faithful one in vain, she soon passes on in her wolfish' nature to cruelty and ill-treat

ment.

"She who should wear a crown must now perform the service of the lowest menial-heat the stove, and wash linen upon the sea-shore. But her heart remains patient and her soul true; patient and true through many a year of wrong and humiliation, ever repeated, ever heightened.

"The time at length arrives, when an army can be equipped in Gudrun's fatherland for her deliverance. After a long and dangerous voyage, the Frislandish heroes reach an island, from whose lofty trees they see the distant Norman castles shining up out of the sea. Gudrun, as she has been accustomed for years, goes daily to the sea-shore to wash linen; there an angel is sent to her in the form of a bird, to comfort her; and what comfort does she desire?-her deliverance from disgraceful servitude-from the shameful ill-treatment and strokes of bondage? Does Hilde yet live, the mother of poor Gudrun? Does Ortwin still live, my brother, and Herwig, my betrothed, and Horant and Wate, my father's faithful ones?" And no word of her deliverance? Through the long day she converses with her companions of the dear ones at home. But angry scolding from the wicked Gerlinde awaits the comforted one on her return, because she has been the whole day washing; and the next morning, early in the year, before Easter, though a deep snow had fallen overnight, at break of day she must wade barefooted through the snow down to the wild shore to complete her task. On this very morning, Ortwin and Herwig, to gain intelligence, come in a barque near the place where the king's daughter, trembling with cold, in her wetgarments, washes linen by the tide streaming with ice, and in the stormy March winds, which throw her beautiful hair wildly round her neck and shoulders. The two warriors approach the maidens, who are already about to fly, and offer them the morning salutation, so long unheard; for with Frau Gerlinde good morning and good evening' are scarce. Gudrun they do not recognize in her disgraceful lowliness, dress, and servitude; they question res

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clothes upon my body.' Then her brother Ortwin asks if a maiden, Gudrun, had not once been carried off and brought hither; and Herwig repeatedly compares the features of the poor serving-maid with those of the king's daughter, who was to be his bride; he also calls Ortwin by name. Oh,' says Gudrun, if Herwig and Ortwin still lived, they would long since have come to rescue us; I also aim one of those carried away, but the poor Gudrun is long since dead.' Then the King of Zealand stretches out his hand: If thou art one of those who were robbed, thou must know the gold which I wear on my finger; and with this ring was Gudrun betrothed to love me.' Then the eyes of the maiden sparkle with bright joy; and however she might wish to conceal the disgrace of her servitude, is now overpowered. The gold I well recognize, for it was mine before; I also still wear this gold which Herwig once sent to me. But brother and betrothed cannot believe otherwise than that she has become the wife of Hartmut, and express their horror that, in spite of it, she must perform so low a service. But when they learned why she endured this humiliation so many years, Herwig will instantly take her with him. And does it so happen, we shall ask? No, it does not so happen. The manners of the olden time were for that too firm, too strict, too noblethe manners of a time which we too gladly look upon as one of barbarism. • That which is taken from men in the storms of war,' replies Ortwin, will I not secretly steal away? and rather than steal what I must win by strife of weapon, had I a hundred sisters, they might all die here.' The two princes return to their war-fleet, and preparations are made for storming the Norman castle. Gudrun, however, in proud, awakened independence, and in the joyous expectation of an honorable rescue by hero hands, throws the linen, instead of washing it, into the sea. She anticipates a wrathful reception, and shameful blows from the enraged Gerlinde; and in order to escape the evil treatment, now pretends she is willing to marry Hartmut-in the perfect confidence that, by the morrow's break, all will be quite otherwise at the castle than it now is in the evening. When Herwig and Ortwin return to the army, and announce the wrong which has been done to Gudrun through so many years, the heroes raise a loud cry of lamentation; but the old Wate tells them to serve the daughter of their king in another manner, and dye red the clothes which she has washed white. Now, in the night-the air is clear, the heavens far and wide, bright in the shining moonlight-the storm on the Norman castle shall be begun. The morning star is still high in the heavens; a companion of Gudrun looks through the window, and toward the sea; all the fields are illumined with the bright lustre of steel helmets and glittering

pecting the people and land, hear that it is well- shields; and immediately the watchman also calls armed and strongly guarded; but that apprehension from the battlements Up, ye proud heroes, to is entertained only of one enemy-the Frislanders arms! lords, to arms! Ye Norman heroes, up!(Hegilingen). During the long conversation, the ye have slept too long.' The strife commences; maidens stand trembling in the bitter cold before bravely fighting, the Norman King Ludwig falls the inquiring heroes, who compassionately offer beneath the strokes of Herwig; the evil Gerlinde their mantles to wrap them; but Gudrun re-wishes that Gudrun should be killed, in revenge; plies, God forbid that any one should see man's and the drawn sword is already above her head,

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when Harmut, who from below had known his could only be a man perfect in purity, furious mother's murderous design, nobly averts humility and fidelity. Parcival is heir to the crime. Hartmut is taken prisoner, and the the guardianship, but from his haughty,

wrathful Wate forces his way into the apartments of the ladies, to take the merited revenge upon

Gerlinde. As nobly as Hartmut had previously rescued Gudrun from death, she now denies the queen; but Wate knows how to find the right, and strikes off her head, together with that of a servant of Gudrun, who sought to win thanks from the cruel queen by becoming the tormentor of her own mistress; he knew,'said Wate, how to deal with women, therefore was he chamberlain.' Upon this follows the journey home, reconciliation, and three-fold marriages: between Herwig and Gudrun, between the Norman King Hartmut and

Hildburg, one of the companions of Gudrun, and between Ortwin and Ortrun, the daughter of Ludwig the Norman king. The only one in the strange land who had felt compassion for Gudrun,

and in her deep injury had stood comforting beside

her."

Among the productions of the art epic, at which we now arrive, those most celebrated are the legends of the Holy Gral, and Parcival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the greatest poet of that period, and one of the greatest among German poets generally. He had his place with those poets and minstrels who, at the close of the twelfth cen

defiant spirit, and his rebellion against God, is unable to take possession of it until the purification of his soul has been accomplished, after which he enters the Gral Castle with his wife and two sons, whose histories are also included in the poem. A few words respecting Wolfram's work may, perhaps, be quoted:

"No lightly reaped enjoyment is offered us in Wolfram's Parcival; it must be read not once, but

many times, in order to be throughout loved and admired, though numerous details interest at the first glance, partly through their tenderness, partly through their power and depth. At the first, or superficial reading, we are disturbed by a mass of

material apparently too vast, the number of persons and events which Wolfram has introduced into those pieces designed to represent the brilliancy of worldly chivalry, the adventures of Gaweins, and the length of these passages, will at first appear almost wearisome. Upon a closer investigation of the plan and object of the poem, this earlier objection passes away. The aim of these passages was to set forth perfectly the gay variety, the throng and confusion, of worldly life; the clear, conscious security of the heroes of this

tury, assembled at the court of the Land-life, who see themselves hemmed in with difficul

grave von Thüringen; but little of his personal history has been transmitted to us, and even the year of his death remains unknown. Parcival, brought up by his mother in a lonely forest, is inspired by the sudden appearance of three armed knights, with an uncontrollable desire to go forth into the world to Arthur's court, and as he disappears in the last deep forest shade, his mother falls to the ground never to rise. His first deed on arriving there is the rescue of the Princess Kouduiramur, whose castle is besieged by her suitors. He marries her, but is soon again driven forth by his restless disposition. In his wanderings he reaches the castle of the Holy Gral, and there meets with wonderful and inte

and entangled anew at every step, but who still, through victory over these impediments, preserve their address and ability, directed indeed to the most immediate objects, but with a firm gaze and clear decision."

The ruling element of Wolfram's poetry is seen in the profound and earnest gravity with which he strove to stem the torrent of worldly desires and enjoyments then so prevalent in France and Italy, and also, though in a less degree, in Germany. The great contemporary poct of Wolfram, Gottfried von Strassburg, presents, in every respect, the most striking contrast to him to be found in the literature of the age :-

"To a child of the world, in so eminent a sense as was Gottfried, the severe, almost holy, gravity, the proud dignity of thought, and the sublimity of a heavenly aim, as we find them in Wolfram, must have been unseasonable, even unendurable. He swims in full current with, even before, the world, its guide to desire and enjoyment; whilst Wolfram, resisting the stream of the world's course, hurls the strong, almost threatening, voice of an instructor of a prophet, into the universal tumult."

resting adventures, which the poem describes with great beauty. All, however, bear reference to the mysterious legend of the Gral. This Gral was a vessel of precious stone possessed by Joseph of Arimathea; from it our Lord distributed his body to his disciples on the night of his betrayal; in it was caught the blood which flowed from his side for the redemption of the world. It was endowed with many miracuHis chief poem is Tristan and Isolt, a lous powers, and preserved in a superb Celtic narrative marked, as are the majoritemple under the guardianship of a chosen ty of that cycle, by its recklessness as rerace of kings. The guardian of the Gral gards all custom and honor, faith and chastity, but handled with skill, grace, and leither sensations and feelings common to all, beauty. Here

"Divine and human laws, divine and human rights, are trampled upon with an ease and open shamelessness, which astonishes and often dis. gusts. A most disgraceful mockery of wedded faith is the subject of the poem Tristan and Isolt, Out of the rude mass of colors transmitted to him by the British or French poet, he has created a psychological painting, which in truth and depth transcends all ever composed in a similar manner. But what does he describe what soul does he breathe into the subject? It is earthly love, the glow of love consuming man, and represented as the sole object of life. He himself says the aim of the poem is the scope of love.”

After the notice of some antique poems, as Lamprecht's Alexander the Great, Veldekin's Encas, and others, follow sacred legends and narratives, also the tradition of the brute epic.

"The roots of this tradition lie in the harmless, natural simplicity of the oldest races in the deep and affectionate feeling for nature experienced by a healthy, vigorous, natural people. As such a nature attaches itself with fervency, with impassioned sensibility to the appearances of natural objects as it exults with summer, mourns with autumn, and with winter feels itself bound in chains of heavy imprisonment; as it lends to these natural appearances its own form, own human sensations; and as it has cultivated these

personifications of natural elements into magnifi. cent myths, clothed in forms, now of lovely kindness, now of fearful splendor, as in Sigfrid and Brunhild, thus does it closely attach itself to the brute world with which it is more nearly connected. And, further, not only attaches, but opens itself to it, and draws it in to its own life, its own intercourse, as a constituent part of its being, given and necessary, not made, feigned, or invented. The source of the narratives of brutes in the brute tradition and the brute epic, is in the pure, harmless joy of the natural man in inimals in their slender form, their sparkling eye, their bravery and ferocity, their cunning and dexterity-it is the joy in that which he perceives in brutes, and learns from his intercourse with them."

Concerning the Minne-song, which follows the fable and didactic poetry, we select an extract from the several pages devoted to it:

"The old heroic song, which sings the deeds of a whole nation, and by the mouth of that whole nation, is followed, among every people, by a song which, instead of issuing from the heart of the

whole, proceeds only from individuals, poetry

shared by each, and which have moved, and still move, in a similar manner, the hearts of all, are sung, which is the Volkslied-the song of the people; or the exclusive experiences of one, which, as they have moved the heart in varied change, now also sound forth in divers forms and deeply-stirring lays; they are the joyous notes of the happy and the glad, or they are the mournful melody of a sorrowing and solitary heart, which seeks after sympathy, and, through the pure form in which grief and gladness are portrayed in the lay, wins the sought-for sympathy. This is the lyric of art, which, like the epic in its various forms and grades, unfolds itself during the course of the thirteenth century among the Germans, with unusual richness, bearing the most lovely, delicate blossoms, of ever-varying love and fragrance: it is the minne-poesie, (the poetry of love), the love

song of the glad spring of our poet-life, which once re-echoed like the nightingale's trill in the fresh verdure of the May woods, from every grove, on every heath, in every castle, through every town of our fatherland, in graceful lays from thousands of joyous and longing hearts."

The most remarkable of the Minne-singers was Walther von der Vogelweide, whose last songs were written about 1228. Scarcely less celebrated than his famed strophe in praise of woman, is one of his political songs, addressed to the Emperor Philip.

In the succeeding fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we find German fidelity and Christian faith weak and trembling, and German poetry also, as resting mainly on those foundations.

• In the fifteenth century began the so called reawakening of letters, i e., the acqua ntance with the originals in Greek and Roman literature, and of necessity, beside these, our poetry made the most wretched figure. Now with the poetry of our fatherland all was passed, passed our national feelingour national consciousness. Henceforth nothing was valued, nothing read or practised, save Latin poetry. Scholars were now, in the strictest sense, ashamed of their mother tongue, and were simple enough to term themselves barbarians, men who had known, had been, nothing; capable of nothing, until the light of the Greek and Roman poetry broke in upon them! The ancient glory of the German emperor, the ancient glory of the German empire, were forgotten as though they never had existed. Philological poetry took its place upon the throne, and, three centuries long, ruled the world with fine phrases."

After touching upon the epic of the sixteenth century, Hans Sachs, Fischart, and others, the first grand period of German literature closes with the prose of Luther and the sixteenth century. The new period

celebrating no longer deeds, but sensations and feelings-which sings the grief and joy of one man, and of his own heart. This lyric, in the stricter sense, is, however, of a twofold nature- | commences in 1624 with Martin Opitz. It is distinguished from the old by its striving mental excitement which Goëthe produced to blend foreign poetic elements with the has not yet sufficiently subsided to admit of German, and as accomplishing its object in anything purely historic and conclusive

the height of the second classic period. From 1624 to 1720, was the interval in which German poetry suffered its greatest. deterioration. It then fell under the dominion of foreign elements. This last period was followed by a second classic period, as Dr. Vilmar styles it, "the blooming time of the New Period," extending from 1750

to 1832:

"Poetry now unfolds itself, not as in the Old Period, self-dependent, in the perfect tranquillity of a development of slumbering germs and buds, through a secure, firm, natural impulse, conscious of itself-but out of protracted error, deep confusion, and coarse irregularity, it becomes formed on the basis of criticism, through strife and conflict."

Here follow some remarks upon the contest between Bodmer and Gottsched, which characterized the preparatory stages of this period. Noticing, among others, Gellert, Weisse, and Klopstock, Dr. Vilmar proceeds to remark on the genius and works of Lessing, whom he thus contrasts with his predecessor, Klopstock :

"Yonder is Klopstock, tranquil, gentle, retiring, confined within himself-here, Lessing, restless, acute, everywhere taking the most lively interest in the life of the world, going forth out of himself, and entering with conscious energy into the spirit of his time; there, a lyric strain of melting softness here, prose, with the most sober intellect, and the clearest, coolest, thoughtfulness; there, a yielding to matter which becomes subordination-here, a warding off of the same, and authoritative demands upon it; there, the good-natured-let it be, let it pass-here, a keen, sword-like criticism, and a scepticism reaching the highest point; there, a fervent union with Christianity and childlike faith-here, indifference toward revealed religion, and a hostile position toward the church; there, almost all is German and Christian-here almost all is antique and heathenish; there, the matter overflows the form-here the most rigid measure and narrow form holds the matter within strictest

bounds. Klopstock and Lessing are the great

contrast from which grew our new classic period."

Wieland, Gleim, Jacobi, Tiedge, &c., are followed by Herder, whose universality of genius rendered service to the literature of his country rather by rousing consciousness and elevating mind and intellect, than by the actual creation of poetic works. His immediate successor was Goëthe, who realized and completed what Herder had prepared the way for and commenced. The VOL. XV. No. III.

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being arrived at in regard to him. Of this Dr. Vilmar makes us well aware, yet the pages upon Goëthe's capabilities and performances are among the truest and ablest of the whole work, and bear the marks of far-reaching penetration, of sound judgment, and of careful and scholar-like reflection. A passage may be extracted from them:

"Goëthe was the poet who united in himself all that which Herder had been able prospectively to recognize, but was not himself able to attain; he was the genius who, with the fullest, strongest, immediate poetic perception, without books, without model, was capable of passing on to poetry out of life itself; who possessed the ability to lay felicitous hold on poetic matter in life, and power and gentleness enough to form the real into. the poetic; who sang, as in the old time, (whose oracle was Herder), not merely upon and for paper, but upon and for the heart, with and for the mouth's living voice. All that was known, made, and artistic, which had possessed its sway in past times, and from which even Klopstock was not altogether free, passed suddenly away. It was an immediate surrender; it was genius become reality, after which the time had hoped and waited in the firm consciousness of its necessity. The supremacy also of matter over the poet now disappeared; a supremacy yielded to by the first poet-genius, Klopstock. This power, on which so many contemporaries should yet founder, crouched down, before the daring, onward, cheerfully victorious energy of the youthful poet who conquered without battle... These qualities, the immediate truth and warmth of feeling, surrounded by clear, deep and spiritual peace; this free and rapid motion governed by the greatest inward tranquillity; this profound and perfect selfmerging in the poetic object, in order occasionally to draw the same back into that self, and to mould it according to sure forms and measures; this soft and mouldable objectiveness, and this self-conscious energetic subjectiveness; this ability to conquer in being overcome, and this enjoyment and denial in one act-these are the properties bestowed by nature upon our Goethe, and which constitute his inaccessible greatness and immortality. Through

them he takes his place beside the greatest poets

of all ages and nations-beside the Greeks, beside our greatest ancient singers, beside Shakspeare, beside the national lyric-thus remaining but one step behind the national epic, the greatest poetic creation of the human mind, unattainable to one individual.

Kotzebue, Jean Paul, Hoffman, and others, here follow, and give place to the successors of Goethe and Schiller, and to the romantic school, comprising the two Schlegels, Novalis, Tieck, Achim, von

Arnim, Clemens Brentano, Fouque, Hölder- | extracted enough, to enable our readers to

lin, Schulze, Chamisso, Uhland and Schwab, Kleist and Werner, and one or two beside. The romantic school was followed by the Fatherland poets, at the head of whom stands the aged Arndt, the last of these are Count August Platen, and Karl Zimmermann, whose Munchhaussen is the only romance known to the present time as of any artistic worth.

We think we have now said enough, and

form their own judgment concerning Dr. Vilmar's publication. We know of no other book so fitted, on the whole, to instruct our countrymen on the interesting subject to which it relates, and we are happy to inform our readers that a translation of the work is nearly completed, and may be expected to appear early in the

autumn.

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From the Dublin University Magazine.
CHINA AND THE CHINESE.

(Continued from the Eclectic Magazine for October.)

CHAPTER X.

| nation, in contradistinction to the many heavy blows and great discouragements in

AGRICULTURE-CHINESE AN AGRICULTURAL flicted upon it in Great Britain, by modern

PEOPLE-EMPEROR ATTENDING AGRICULTURAL FESTIVAL-INGENUITY IN IRRIGATION-DWARF VEGETATION-FRUITS AND VEGETABLES-TEA, AND MODE OF PREPARATION--MODE OF PREPARING SEEDS FOR THE GROUND VALUABLE TO BRITISH

AGRICULTURISTS.

THE Chinese are a nation of the most industrious habits, and must be considered as as an agricultural people. They have most wisely established laws for the protection and encouragement of agriculture, and to such an extent is it carried, that the emperor does not think it derogatory to his dignity, once in every year, at the agricultural festival, to descend from his throne, clad as a husbandman, to set the laudable example to his subjects of tilling the earth; his family and courtiers, similarly habited with himself, attend him on the occasion. The appointed day having been previously proclaimed throughout the empire, the emperor goes forth and ploughs a particular field, and every farmer through his vast territories simultaneously turns up the earth. The produce of the field ploughed by the emperor is always most carefully preserved, being considered far superior to any other. The ancient laws are so particular upon the subject, that they even declare the peculiar manner in which the sovereign shall perform this ceremony. So essential do the Chinese consider agriculture to the prosperity of a

legislation. By another ancient law, all uncultivated or neglected lands are declared forfeited to the emperor, who grants them to farmers, on condition of their being kept in proper cultivation. The consequence of this is, that, in China there is not an uncultivated spot to be seen. A fifth, and in some instances, a fourth part, of all produce is reserved for the emperor, which is paid in kind to the principal mandarin of the prince, who farms the tax. There is one great peculiarity in Chinese agriculture, which, if adopted, might prove highly advantageous to British farmers. All seeds, previous to being sown, are steeped in liquid manure until they germinate, and to this, coupled with their system of irrigation, may be attributed the rich luxuriance and abundance of their various crops. Their ingenuity and perseverance may daily be witnessed in the terraces, built one above the other, up to the summit of a rocky mountain, where paddy is cultivated. They form reservoirs and dams on each platform, and the water having passed along one terrace, is received into the reservoir of the next below, and thus descends, step by step, in its irrigatory course. After the rainy season, when the water has been exhausted which was saved in these reservoirs, the water is carried both by hand and ingenuity, to the heights above. Their various modes of irrigation have been frequently described. Their methods of threshing rice or paddy are numerous.

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