Tales from the German, Comprising specimens from the most celebrated authors. Anonymous

which the soul of the man, and the circumstances by which he was surrounded, had upon each other. Everywhere do we find natural connexion; not a link in the chain is wanting. This psychological novel, like a tragedy, awakens in the reader not only pity, but terror. He feels that in the situation of the unhappy man, he would not have been better himself. The writer fulfils his purpose of plucking us down from our proud security. Man is just as good or bad, we say to ourselves, as his external situation; out external situation is the fate of all of us; and we see in the history of a single individual a sketch of the common lot of man. Moreover, this history of the 'criminal' is so remarkable in point of style, that one always reads it with fresh interest. The language is extremely simple, clear, and natural, and there is not a trace of the wearisome, constantly occurring breaks, and the affected antitheses that marked Schiller's early style. Every thing shows that the author moved in a clear, free element. In some portions he has been eminently successful; as, for instance, in describing the poacher's state of mind, when he is about to point his gun, at his evil genius, Robert. If, after all our praise, we have one particular to blame, it is this circumstance, that the weakly and delicate 'host of the Sun,' who had not as yet distinguished himself in the trade of thieving, should have been unanimously chosen by the robbers for their leader, on his first entrance into their cave. Although he was well known to them as a good poacher, they might yet have reasonable doubts whether he was qualified to be their captain."

      Before quitting Göthe and Schiller, it is as well to state that Göthe was born at Frankfort on the Maine, on the 28th of August, 1749, and died at Weimar on the 22nd of March, 1832; and that Schiller was born at Marbach, on the Neckar, on the 10th of November, 1759, and died at Weimar on the 9th of May, 1805.

      Johann August Musäus, one of the most popular tale writers of Germany, was born at Jena, in 1735. His father was a justice there, and was soon afterwards removed to Eisenach, by an official appointment. Young Musäus was educated by a relation named Weissenborn, who held the situation of "General Superintendent" at Eisenach, and with whom he lived from the age of nine to that of nineteen. He studied theology for four years at Jena, and it is thought he might have succeeded as a pastor had not the peasants of Eisenach refused to accept him, because he had been convicted of the grievous crime of—dancing. In consequence of this check to his theological career, he turned his thoughts to literature, and made his first essay by a parody on Richardson's celebrated novel, called Grandison the Second, which first appeared in 1760. In 1763 he was made Pagenhofmeister (governor of the pages) at the court of Weimar, and some years afterwards professor at the Gymnasium of that place. A considerable period elapsed before he again appeared as an author, when he satirised Lavater in a novel called the Physiognomical Travels. This had an immense success, encouraged by which, he proceeded to collect materials for his Popular Tales of the Germans. This collection he made in a singular manner. Sometimes he would gather round him a crowd of old women with their spinning-wheels and listen to their gossip, sometimes he would hear the stories of children from the street. On one occasion, his wife, returning from a visit, was surprised, as she opened the room-door, by a cloud of tobacco smoke, through which she at last discovered her husband sitting with an old soldier, who was telling him all sorts of tales. On the stories collected by him thus strangely, and afterwards narrated with great humour, though with occasional vulgarity, the fame of Musäus chiefly depends. They were written under the assumed name of Runkel, and were designed, according to the author's own statement, to put an end to the taste for sentimentality. He began a new series of tales called Ostrich Feathers, of which he only completed one volume. On the 28th of October, 1787, he died of a polypus in the heart, and a handsome monument was erected to him by an unknown hand. His Popular Tales were, at the request of his widow, re-edited after his death by the celebrated Wieland, and this is the edition now current. The story of Libussa, which is taken from the Popular Tales is founded on the Latin history of Bohemia, by Dubravius, and the work of Æneas Sylvius, De Boliemorum gestis et origine. The fables which are uttered by the personages will be found in Dubravius.

      The name of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is almost as well known here as that of Göthe and Schiller; but the eccentricity of his style, and the quantity of local allusions with which he abounds, will probably for ever prevent his works from being extensively read out of Germany. Jean Paul was born at Wimsiedel, in the Baireuth territory, in the early part of 1763, and died at Baireuth on the 14th of November, 1825. He first wrote under the signature of "Jean Paul" only, this he extended to "J. P. F. Halsus," and it was to his Quintus Fixlein (1796), that he first affixed his real and entire name. In 1780 he went to Leipzig, but this he soon abandoned and resided for some time at Schwarzbach. He visited various cities where he was greatly respected, and received the title of "Legationsrath" from the Duke of Sachsen-Hildburghausen, with a pension, which was afterwards paid by the King of Bavaria. His favourite residence was, however, his native Baireuth. A complete edition of his works, which are very numerous, was published at Berlin in 21 vols., small octavo, in the year 1840, and another in 4 vols., royal octavo, has been published by Baudry of Paris. The short tale of the Moon will give the reader a slight notion—only a slight one—of Jean Paul's peculiarities. It is prefixed in the original to Quintus Fixlein. An interesting paper on Jean Paul will be found in Mr. Carlyle's admirable Miscellanies.

The fame of Ludwig Tieck as a writer of romances, and an enthusiastic admirer of all that belongs to the romantic period of literature, is almost as great in England as in Germany. In the history of the "romantic" school, Tieck takes a most prominent position, being one of the chief colleagues and most zealous partisans of the brothers Schlegel. He was born at Berlin on the 31st of May, 1773, and even at school displayed his talents for composition by the commencement of his Abdallah. He studied at Halle, Göttingen, and Erlangen, and read history and poetry, both ancient and modern, with great assiduity. In 1796, his novel, William Lovell, was published at Berlin. A journey from Berlin to Jena made him acquainted with the Schlegels and Hardenberg (Novalis), and at Weimar he became intimate with Herder. His satirical dramas of Blue Beard and Puss in Boots, displayed an Aristophanic vein, and his works relating to art, began to attract general attention. These were The Outpourings from the Heart of an Art-loving Cloister-brother (Berlin, 1797), the Fantasies of Art (Hamburg, 1799), and Franz Sternbald's Travels (Berlin, 1798), in all of which his friend Wackenrode more or less took a part. Tieck cultivated his taste for the fine arts by a residence in Dresden, Munich, and Rome, and at Jena kept up his acquaintance with Schelling and the Schlegels. In the years 1799–1801, he published his translation of Don Quixote, and about the same period several works of imagination. In 1801–2 he resided at Dresden, and edited, with A. W. Schlegel, the Musenalmanach. For the diffusion of a taste for the middle-age literature of Germany, Tieck made an important contribution by his publication of a selection of the Minnelieder from the Swabian period, that is to say, the period of the German emperors during the dynasty of the Hohenstauffen family, with an elaborate preface, in which he called the attention of the Germans to their old poetry. In 1804 appeared his romantic drama of The Emperor Octavian, and in 1805 he published, in connexion with T. Schlegel, the works of his deceased friend Hardenberg (Novalis),[3] which may be classed among the most extraordinary phenomena of modern literature. The preface to this edition is entirely by Tieck. A long pause now ensued in the midst of his literary productiveness, during which he visited Rome. In 1814 and 1816 appeared his Old English Theatre, consisting of translations from our early drama, and in the same year he published the work to which, more than to any other, he owes his celebrity in this country, his Phantasus. The entire work has never been translated, but the tales which are introduced into it, such as the Blond Eckbert and the Trusty Eckart, are generally known. Another contribution to the study of the old German literature he made by his edition of Ulrich von Lichtenstein's Frauendienst (service of ladies), a kind of romance, by a celebrated Minnesänger, and a collection of plays under the title of Old German Theatre. In 1818 he visited London, where he was received with great respect, and employed his time in making collections for the study of Shakspeare, in Schlegel's translation of whom he has taken an important part. Since 1821 he has chiefly been engaged with a series of novels, which are widely different from his former manner, and he is now (we believe) resident at Berlin. The tales from the Phantasus being already