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light combination can make the treasures of invention comprehensible and graceful, while mere regularity presents the unpleasant dryness of an arithmetical figure. The best poetry lies quite close to us, and an ordinary object is not unfrequently its most charming material. For the poet is poetry confined to certain limited instruments, and on this account it becomes an art. Speech altogether has its determined sphere, and the compass of the speech of any particular nation is still more narrow. By reflection and practice the poet learns to know his language; perceives accurately what he can effect with it, and will make no absurd attempt to strain it beyond its power. Seldom will he compress all its powers to one point, for then he becomes fatiguing, and destroys the valuable effect of a well applied expression of power. Only a juggler, no poet, aims at strange leaps. Poets cannot learn too much from painters and musicians. In these arts it strikes us at once how necessary it is to be economical with our means, and how much is owing to apt relations. On the other hand those artists might learn of us our poetical independence, and thankfully receive the inner spirit of every invention-in fact of every genuine work of art. They, should be more poetical, and we, more musical and pictorial; both after the manner of our art."

All this is very good indeed, but little did our poet attend to his own precepts. Look at his "Hymn to Night," with his "Brilliant Clock," and his "Cots of Peace," and "Night" clasping his "Day," all in a glittering, sparkling mass-unsorted, unclassified. Verily, friend Novalis knew well how to give us the chaos, but it not only peeped or "glimmered" (schimmern) through its arrangement, but there it stood, just as he found it, or rather his imagination in one of its sportive moods flung it together.

The first part of "Ofterdingen" concludes with a mythos, the signification of which was to be unfolded by the subsequent part of the Romance.* All times and places meet in this remarkable tale, allegorical personages, heavenly bodies, beasts and birds, and insects, become acting characters, and the fulfilment of this mythos was to have been even more wondrous than itself. Heinrich was to have come into a world where water and air were of a nature quite different to their nature here. Men, beasts, plants, minerals-even tones and colours were to have spoken as one race. The world of tales was to have become real, and the real world a tale, &c. &c.; only the work stopped short, and the notes alone remain to show the public what an intellectual treat they have lost.

Strange as all this may seem, the design of the Romance was not wrong; the author had to exhibit poetry as a whole, and not as confined to any particular department; and hence all the objects of poetry, whether real events or the creations of the imagination, were correctly placed in one series, as quoad poetry, they are all equally real. The only defect is that the series itself is not suffi

I am not aware that this tale was ever translated, and, therefore, as it is complete in itself, I shall, with the Editor's permission, translate it at some period for this Magazine.-J. O.

ciently luminous, and that the wild play of imagination which created the mythos, has at the same time bewildered it so as to render interpretation difficult, and often impossible.

The joint influences of the romantic school, and Fichte's philosophy, must never be forgotten, while reading the works of Novalis. While the former kept up his veneration for the old popular tales, the latter, by asserting the absolute rule of Spirit over Nature, necessarily gave a great value to the creatures of imagination. Nature was a mass which man was to work up; what are called the laws of nature were only our own powers and faculties; and hence, by directing them to any particular art, any individual might build a world of his own. Heine has denied the influence of the Fichtean or any other philosophy, on the romantic school generally; but the aphorisms of Novalis show that an exception must be made in his particular instance, assuming that Heine's opinion is correct.

One single aphorism will suffice to show the Fichtean tendency of Novalis :

"What is nature? An encyclopediacal systematic index, or plan of our spirit. The fate which oppresses us is the indolence of our spirit. By the extension and cultivation of our activity, we shall ourselves become fate. All appears to gush upon us, because we do not gush out ourselves. We are negative, because we will to be So. The more positive we become, so much more negative will be the world around us, till at last there will be no more negation, but we shall be all in all.”

By the way, these aphorisms are the gems of the whole works, though, as they are thrown together under the unpromising title of "Fragments," they are the most likely to be overlooked. Novalis, as I have before observed, did not shine in the connection of his thoughts, and hence he appears to most advantage where the thoughts stand out singly, merely in the terms requisite to express them. Further, as they were not intended for printing, but were merely selected from a heap by the author's friends, after his decease, the reader is sure that they are the genuine unadorned expressions of his mind: the author has been at no pains to check any thought on account of its boldness or eccentricity, and hence these scattered sentences contain many original views, which, if properly studied, may become the seeds of an organised system of thought.

They are not confined to philosophical subjects, but sometimes touch on general literature. The two following, though many will not agree with the sentiment, are hit off with an acuteness worthy of Heine, though they want his graphic power:

"Göthe is quite a practical poet. He is in his works what the English are in their goods; perfectly simple, neat, convenient, and durable. He has done in German literature what Wedgwood did in English art. Like the English, he has a fine taste, naturally economical, and acquired by the understanding. Both are closely connected, and have an affinity in the chemical sense of the word." "Klopstock's works appear, for the most part, like free translations of some unknown poet, written by a very clever but a very unpoetical philologist."

It will be seen, that in the above notice, I have gone more closely into the life and works of Novalis, than into those of Lamartine. The fact is, that the life and influential circumstances of the latter have been published in so elaborate a form, in a recent periodical, as to render unnecessary any special notice in this work. I therefore merely continued Lamartine as illustrative of my views of Christian poetry in my first article, and then entered at length on the subject of Novalis, who is so little known to the English public. At some future period I shall give a sketch of the romantic school as a whole, in which Novalis will again appear as a principal figure.

As every word that falls from the pen of Heine, however we may differ from him in principle, is to be regarded as so much old gold, with a speck or two here and there, this article cannot be better concluded than by an anecdote he tells of a reader of Novalis.

"The muse of Novalis was a slender white lass, with serious blue eyes, golden hyacinth locks, smiling lips, and a little red mole on the left side of her chin. In fact, I picture to myself as the muse of the Novalisch poetry, the girl who first made me acquainted with Novalis, when I saw the red morocco volume, with gold ornaments, in her beautiful hands. She always wore a blue dress, and was named Sophia. She lived a few stations from Göttingen, with her sister, the post-mistress, a lively, fat, red cheeked lady, whose high bosom, with its stiff indented line, looked like a fortress, and an invincible fortress it was, for the lady was a Gibraltar of virtue. She was an active, frugal, practical sort of woman, and yet her whole delight lay in reading Hoffmann's Romances. In Hoffmann she found a man who knew how to shake her sturdy temperament, and set it in a pleasing motion. On the other hand, to her pale and delicate sister, the sight of a book by Hoffmann caused the most unpleasant sensations; and if one touched her by chance, she shrunk convulsively. She was as delicate as a sensitive plant, and her words were so fragrant, sounded so purely, that if arranged, they became verses. Often have I written down what she said, and it formed a singular poem, quite in the Novalisch style, but still more spiritual and fading. One of these poems which she uttered when I took leave of her to go to Italy, is very charming. In an autumnal garden, where there has been an illumination, a conversation is heard, between the last lamp, the last rose, and a wild swan. The morning mist approaches, the last lamp goes out, the rose loses its leaves, and the swan spreads its white wings, and flies off to the south.

"There are in Hannover many white swans, which, in autumn, wander to the warm south, and in summer return to us again. Probably they pass their winter in Africa, for in the heart of a dead swan we once found an arrow, which Professor Blumenbach recognised as African. The poor bird, with the arrow in its breast, had, it seems, flown back to its northern nest, to die there. However, many a swan, shot by such an arrow, may not have been in a condition to finish its journey, and, perhaps, remained powerless in a burning desert, or is now sitting, with enfeebled wing, on one

of the Egyptian pyramids, looking longingly towards the north, for its cool summer nest in the land of Hannover.

"When, late in the autumn of 1828, I returned from the south (and, indeed, with a burning arrow in my breast), my way took me near Göttingen, and I got out at the house of my friend the postmistress to change horses. I had not seen the good lady for a year and a day, and she seemed much altered. Her bosom was still like a fortress, but it was a demolished one; the bastions were razed, the two chief towers were hanging ruins, no guard was posted at the entrance, and the heart-the citadel, was broken. As I learned from the postillion Pieper, she had lost all pleasure in Hoffmann's Romances, and drank so much the more brandy before she went to sleep. And, in truth, that was much easier, for the people always have brandy at home, but they must fetch Hoffmann's Romances from Deuerlich's circulating library at Göttingen, four miles off. The postillion Pieper, was a little fellow, who looked as sour as if he had sucked vinegar, and had shrunk together in consequence. When I asked this man after the sister of the post-mistress, he answered, Mademoiselle Sophie will soon die, and is already an angel.' Now what an excellent creature must that be, of whom the sour Pieper could say, 'she is an angel!' And he said this, while with his booted foot he frightened away the fluttering and cackling poultry. The post-house, once white, had changed as well as its hostess; it had got a sickly yellow, and its walls were full of deep wrinkles. In the yard lay broken carriages, and behind the dung-hill, on a pole, was a scarlet postillion cloak, wet through, hanging to dry. Mademoiselle Sophie stood at the window above, reading, and when I went up to her, I again found in her hands a book with red morocco binding and gold ornaments, and this was the Heinrich von Ofterdingen' of Novalis. She had read and read this same book, till she had read herself into a consumption, and looked like a shining shadow. Still she had a spiritual beauty, the aspect of which, raised in me painful emotions. I took both her pale, thin hands, looked deep into her blue eyes, and said at last, Mademoiselle Sophie, how do you find yourself?" I am quite well,' she replied, and shall soon be better,' and she pointed out of window to a new church yard-a little hill near the house. On this bare hill stood a single small dry poplar, on which but a few leaves hung, and this moved in the autumn-wind, not like a living tree, but like the ghost of a tree.

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"Under this poplar now lies Mademoiselle Sophie, and the keepsake she has left me, the red morocco book with gold ornaments; the Heinrich von Ofterdingen' of Novalis, now lies on my writing desk before me, and I use it to write this article."

Is not this ironical, half pathetic treatment of all sentimentality delicious? No one can sneer amiably like Heinrich Heine. JOHN OXENFORD.

GREEN ROOM.

COVENT GARDEN THEATRE.

Performance of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer's RICHELIEU, &c.

OUR attention continues to be attracted to Covent Garden Theatre, where, only, is attempted anything worthy of the drama of England. Mr. Macready, if not a poet, is yet an actor, whose conceptions are poetical, and who makes so the parts that he embodies. Never was this better illustrated than on the evening of Thursday, the 7th of March, in the getting up of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer's play of RICHELIEU, or THE CONSPIRACY, and in the manner in which the leading character was performed, Too much praise cannot be bestowed on the splendour of the scenery and dresses, nor on the excellent caste of the dramatis persona Mr. Macready did especially well in associating with his own Richelieu so intelligent a confidante as Mr. Phelps, in the character of Father Joseph, a capuchin. Everything, in consequence, between these two performers, went off with the most admirable propriety. They played excellently into one another's hands, and maintained the illusion of the scene to perfection. Mr. Warde, as the king's favourite, Count de Baradas, was hard, noisy, and villanous, and Mr. Anderson, as the Chevalier de Mauprat, was a veritable lover. Miss Helen Faucit, the wooed of Louis XIII., of the Count de Baradas, and the wedded of the Chevalier de Mauprat, was exceedingly well fitted to her part; and Miss Charles fulfilled the duties of spy to Richelieu, and mistress to Orleans, with vivacity and grace. There is a host of other characters; but they have little either to say or do. In fact, the entire drama consists of sketches rather than portraits; even Richelieu himself is only a more careful outline, the filling up of which is entirely left to the actor.

As an exceedingly clever play, this production has been very judiciously accepted by Mr. Macready. The species of drama is almost new to the English stage; at any rate, it has never yet been executed with equal tact and merit. If it must be conceded by the most staunch of the author's admirers, that it is rather the product of the play-wright than the dramatist, and, in short, little more than a melo-drama in five acts; let it be generously conceded, on the other hand, that it ranks the first of its class. There is in it the skill and tact to be expected from a practised writer; but there is also a concentration of diction and incident, which could scarcely be hoped for, however desirable, from a novelist. In its style of execution, Richelieu sometimes reminds us of Byron's Two Foscari, with more vivacity, yet with less depth-the effects being for the most part comic, even where the situations are tragical in character. There is also an irony running throughout the dialogue-not, however, the exquisite Shaksperian irony-no-nor the Socratic-but the irony of the man of the world. We repeat, it is not the irony of poetry or philosophy, but of society. Sometimes, we confess, it grated on our feelings, and violated our susceptible sentimentality. We have yet to be hardened into contempt both for the vices and virtues of men-are too new to the stern realities of existence-have too lately left the bowers of the muses—

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