like some guiding and protecting spirit, shall ever be affectionately near me, to whom I can, without scruple or disguise, impart my thoughts even amidst all the feeble and unexpanded immaturity of their first conception, and not through the colder and more formal medium of written correspondence, or of concerted visits. Even the circumstance, seemingly so trivial, that in proceed ing to visit my friend, I may perhaps be compelled to pass some hundred yards along the public street, and the consequent necessity of previously arranging my dress, would assuredly detract from the more full and unrestrained enjoyment of such an intercourse; and indeed it might frequently happen, that the peculiar cast and bias of thought or feeling which had prompted me, perhaps, to court so eagerly his society, might in this way be chilled of its interest and fervour, and no longer solicit or allure me to the enjoyments of confidential intercourse. Perhaps, my dear friend, you may feel disposed to view such considerations as wholly unimportant. But how frequently, may I not ask, do these form the delicious and cherish ed ingredient, without which the measure of our happiness would be incomplete? If I am not deceived, I possess no imperfect knowledge and appreciation of the true qualities and peculiarities of my own character ;and I know well, indeed, how few slender aids and appliances I often only require to taste the truest and most lively enjoyment. But perhaps I ought here to pause, and ask myself, whether I feel indeed assured of obtaining the objects of my eager wishes and desires, in my intended removal to Leipsic? Were it possible that, without begetting inconvenience, I could be received as an inmate of your family, then I might say, that all solicitude, as to my domestic arrangements, would at once be at an end. I may perhaps with truth affirm, from what you already know of me, that I should possibly be found no disagreeable domestic associate. I possess, I think, a sufficient gentleness and pliancy of disposition to accommodate myself with ease to the biasses and humours of others; and, like Yorick, I may perhaps be found, in some things, to possess the power of enlivening and improving others. Could you, at the same time, in addition to what I now propose, provide for me the menial attendance I might require, I should then be relieved from all anxiety in those matters so foreign to my natural temper and biasses. As to my accommodation, I should require a bed-room, which I would also use as my place of study, and a separate apartment for the reception of visitors. The furniture I should wish to consist merely of a good chest of drawers, a writing-desk, a bed, and sopha, together with a table and a few chairs. These I should deem sufficient for my full comfort and conveniency. I am desirous of not having my rooms on the groundfloor, as, among other reasons, I should, in this way, be debarred, amidst my musings, from directing my look towards the adjoining burying-ground. I cherish a benevolent regard towards mankind; but, at the same time, as a poet, I love, by such a powerful and impressive aid, to stimulate my more intense and touching contemplation of those dire ills and calamities by which human life, to its close, is often so darkly and eventfully chequered. Should it be found impossible so to arrange matters, that we (meaning here our small society of especiallyendeared friends *) can take our meals together, I shall then resort to the Table d'Hôte, for I would more willingly endure the privation of fasting, than, at such times, not enjoy the exhilarating influence of social converse. I write you, my dear friend, thus minutely, to prepare you somewhat for the peculiarity and eccentricity of my humours, and to enable you, with a view to my establishment at Leipsic, to take what preliminary measures of preparation your affectionate regard may sug Those to whom Schiller here alludes were Jünger, Moritz, and Göschen, with whom he first became acquainted during a summer residence of several months at Gohlis, in the neighbourhood of Leipsic. Jünger was, in his time, a very popular and successful writer for the German stage. His pieces are very numerous; and if they do not perhaps display the most fertile and gest. My wishes you may perhaps regard as exacting of you too large and minute a compliance; but should I have now been hurried into too great a freedom, I fear you must alone impute it to the effects of your own affectionate and perhaps too forbearant indulgence. You will, ere this, I presume, have perused the first Number of the "Thalia," and formed your critical estimate of the merit of the first act of my "Don Carlos." I reserve, however, for myself, till we meet, the satisfaction of hearing your candid and enlightened sentiments upon it. May I not here fondly flatter myself with the belief, that, had we five not been already personally known to each other, I might perhaps have owed it to the poetical merits and influence of my Carlos, that I should first have been drawn into that close and endeared union of cherished friendships which I now so truly value, and would desire, with the most ardent solicitude of affection, to maintain and perpetuate? &c. &c. original dramatic invention, he has yet appropriated to his own poetical uses, with considerable dexterity, the thoughts or hints of others: he is so great an adept in the resources and difficult requisites of scenic effect, and his dialogue is at all times so gaily and sportively animated, and so purely elegant and natural in its expression, that it cannot perhaps appear singular if he drew to himself a larger share of the ge neral favour than several of his cotemporaries of more noble, and original, and com. prehensive dramatic genius. Jünger was also the writer of various novels, as “ Huldreich Wurmsamen von Wurmfeld," "Fritz," and others; into which he has transfused his characteristic gaiety and buoyancy of genius, and imparted to them high fascination, by the grace and felicitous ease of his narrative. Moritz, to whom Schiller also above alludes, was the author of a variety of works upon Antiquities, Mythology, Psychology, and Grammar. His life appears to have been singularly marked throughout by the restless inconstancy of his disposition, and the untamed eccentricity of his habits. In the outset of his career, he became a convert to the singular opinions of Basedow, which at that time excited such general interest throughout Germany; and during some time he acted as the assistant of this eloquent and enthusiastic visionary, in his great seminary of education at Dessau. The fervours of his youthful conviction seem, however, speedily to have subsided. After endeavouring in vain to obtain some situation in his profession of a clergyman, he was appointed Extraordinary Professor to the Berlin Gymnasium, and delivered prelections on the German language and the Belles-lettres. This situation, with several others highly honourable and respectable, which he subsequently obtained, the inconstancy of his temper prompted him inconsiderately to resign. He seems to have been no sooner established in the literary quiet and security of a new situation, than the spirit of wandering and adventure came upon him; and he at once renounced, as irksome and dis. tasteful, what had previously appeared to him, amidst the hazard and difficulty of its attainment, so peculiarly inviting and desirable. He travelled, at different periods of his life, into England, Switzerland, and Italy; and the narratives which he published of these expeditions, so congenial to the restless spirit of change and observation which possessed him, are highly interesting and instructive. His better fortune, amidst all the inconsiderate caprice and inconstancy of his disposition, seems never wholly to have forsaken him. When in Italy, he became known to his great countryman, Goethe, who, in the exercise of that ardent and affectionate generosity of temper, which led him so strikingly and beneficently to promote the fortunes of his distinguished cotempora ries, Herder and Schiller, obtained for Moritz, through the intercession of his illustrious friend, the Duke of Saxe-Weimer, the honourable distinction of Member of the Berlin Academy. Moritz, some time afterwards, was nominated Professor of Antiquities, and the Theory of the Fine Arts, at Berlin, in which situation he died in 1793. He may be said to have contributed much to the advancement of literature, in a variety of its most opposite and dissimilar branches, if the singular vicissitudes and fluctuations of his life, and the frequent interruptions, and capricious and changing direction of his pursuits, be considered ;-and he has frequently written with so rare a justness and force of discrimination, with such a masculine vigour, and rich originality of thought, with such vivid intensity of feeling, and the seducing graces of so richlycoloured and impressive an eloquence, that it is impossible not deeply to regret, that the fullest and most felicitous expansion of so gifted a mind should have been so unceasingly marred and impeded in its exercise by that ever-active spirit of inconstancy, and restless love of adventure, which seem to have animated and beguiled him to the last.-Tr. CLASSICAL REVERIES. No. V. Of all the ballads which have been bequeathed to us by antiquity, there is none which, in my estimation, ranks above the "Mariner's Wife.' There is so much of the spirit of the true song in it, so much expressed, and so much left to be understood,such a sustained interest, and passion, and glee, through the whole, that I have resolved to give you, as Lady Wallace would have expressed it, "a few loose thoughts" upon the subject. "But are ye sure the news is true And are ye sure he's weel? Is this a time to think o' wark ? - Ye jades, fling by your wheel!" Nothing can excel this exordium ; here there is no prefatory explanation, like the lumbering and impertinent chorusses of antiquity, informing you of circumstances and histories, which you had far better be left to gather from the spirit of the song. Here you have no household god, no "Deus Lar," no winged Mercurius, starting from the hearth, and reading you a lecture upon past events. The ode runs, or rather dashes at once "in medias res," and you have not read or heard two lines till you are better acquainted with the whole affair than you would have been by a whole page of prosing explanation: "But are ye sure the news is true?" But,-why but? to what does this conjunction, all adversative, as it has been denominated by grammarians, refer? Why commence by a word, be its grammatical designation what it may, which manifestly requires you to suppose that some previous conversation has been going on. For this very reason, that some such conversation as the following is manifestly understood to have taken place betwixt the good woman and her neighbour gossips, who have come all panting, with haste, to inform her of the arrival in the Roads of the ship in which her husband had sailed. VOL. XIV. Isbol Gossip.-Was ye out on the Castle-hill this morning, gudewife? Marion Stedfast.-Na, at weel,no me, I ha'e something else ado, than idling away my time on Castlehills, or ony sic idle, loitering gaits. Isbol Gossip.-Hout ay! nae dou't it's a' true, and your weans, puir things, maun e'en be looked after in their daddy's absence; but I was just thinking ye might, maybe, ha'e likit to see the guid ship "Rover" come in this morning wi' full sail, and streamers flying. Marion Stedfast.-Ay! what say ye, woman? tak' tent what ye say; am no a woman to trifle wi'; for if I find ye trying to trifle wi' me on sic a subject, "Little haud my hands-confound ye! But I'll cleave ye to the teeth." Marion, for I 'ken fu' weel that your Isbol Gossip.-Nae sic cleaving, ain gudeman is arrived safe and sound, and that whenever the tide makes, he'll be ashore himsel' to tell ye sae. Marion Stedfast.-No possible, Isbol; it is not possible; I tell you, woman, he has nae had time, by six that me and wee Jenny, there, saw days and a half, since the last time him sail; and a wae and sorrowful an' there was nae mony dry een man was he, I wat weel, that day; mair than our ain, that saw the parting. Isbol Gossip. That may a' be true, and what for no?-but if ever I spoke a word o' God's truth in a' my born days, I speak the verity when I tell you, that I saw Jamie Miller this morning, no ten minutes byegane, and he tauld me that he had just forgathered wi' the captain's wife, wha had informed him that Marion Stellfast.-Hout, woman, ha'e done wi' yere lang round-about palaver. Is Colin Stedfast alive, and weel, and down in the bay there? Isbol Gossip.-There canna be a dou't o't. Marion Stedfast.-(Meditating a little, as if incapable of coming all at once to any fixed resolution, then 30 breaks out at last in the above abrupt His coming home to her at all, under almost any circumstances, however unfavourable, would, at the first blush of the intelligence, have been comparatively good news; but his coming home, his returning to his native shore, and his own fireside, in health, (weel,) is enough to drive the good woman distracted; and accordingly her first distinct reflection respects his health. Having ascertained, partly by direct colloquy, and partly by the language of signs, by the respondency of eyes, and nods, and gestures, that "Colin Stedfast" is alive, and well, and in the very act of landing, Marion's attention is instantly and instinctively directed to the objects immediately under her eye. Her eldest daughter, who has been sitting all this while employed in spinning, strikes her now with something approaching to abhorrence. At any season less intoxicating than this, Marion would have viewed her daughter's industry with complacency and approbation; but to sit still, and birr birr, and bob bob, and tug tug at a "bunch o' tow," as if nothing extraordinary had taken place, was quite intollerable. It was a kind of high treason in the court of affection, ,—a rebelling against the kindlier and more interesting sympathies of our nature. And accordingly, the mother, feeling, rather than seeing the incongruity of her daughter's present industrious attitude, lets slip the vengeance of harsh words; and instead of "my dear Nancy," or "my sweet lassie," at once assails her with the second most opprobrious female epithet with which the language could supply her "Ye jade (says she) fling by your wheel." Allan Ramsay has something manifestly in the same spirit with this, when he makes the arrival of "guid Sir William" an occasion of such joy, that the "tow is to be burnt," and even the "muckle peat-stack" at the end of the house to be "set in a lowe." Upon the whole, then, this abrupt and striking exordium may serve as a key to all those instances of Greek ode, or song in particular, where yag naiyag, or even μ and òs, are used at the very outset of the subject; there being a constant reference on all such occasions to something that is not expressed, but that is understood to have taken place previous to the opening of the song. Were verbal critics a little better acquainted with those idiomatic usages which originate in, and are established upon the mental habits, they would come nearer the truth than in general they are found to do. The chorus of this song is admirable, and as all chorusses, as well as tunes, should be,-in perfect unison with the burden or tenor of the song itself: "There's nae luck about the house, There's little luck ava; Whan our gudeman's' awa'." Where is there a Scotch man, woman, or child, that does not apprehend the full force and meaning of the phrase "our gudeman?" "Our John," "our Thomas," "our Will," or "our Colin,”-et omnia similiaidea of the most firm reliance upon, are phrases calculated to convey an the most complete appropriation, as the most perfect confidence in, and it were, of the individual referred to. My gudeman" would not convey the same couthy notion of family, and guidwifish comfort and authority; besides, my gudeman is never used unless by way of emphatical reference to some other "wife's man;" whereas " our gudeman" stands out in distinguished importance above, and independent of all other "gudemen" whatever. "Quoth ( our gudeman' to our gude Get up and bar the door." "There's nae luck about the house." The Romans built I don't know how many temples to the goddess Fortune, under I don't know how many and how various designations; and "luck," or good fortune," is the common divinity of almost all classes and professions amongst men. The soldier, in parting with his sweetheart, and when he is on the eve of some perilous expedition, informs her, with the view of yielding her comfort and consolation, that if he has "luck," she shall see him again, and shall want for nothing. The merchant speaks of " luck" every day of his life, in reference to his ships and adventures; and I have dined in a company of farmers, where no other toast was given during the whole evening, but, "Come, here's luck!" The sailor, in particular, regards himself as at the mercy of Fortune; and there is not a wind that blows, or an hour that passes, in which the presence of good or bad "luck" is not recognised and acknowledged. Well, therefore, and most appropriately, docs the mariner's wife, in the expression of her feelings upon this occasion of high excitement, talk of "luck," in reference to herself and family, in the absence of her husband;-and surely, if there is any truth or verisimilitude (which is, in fact, the only immutable and certain truth) in poetry, the presence of a beloved object is calculated to throw, as it were, a kind of interesting, and prepossessing, and fortunate expression, over all present events and all associated objects. "The desert were a paradise, An thou wert there, an thou wert there." Of this truth, Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Catullus, Propertius, Ramsay, Burns, and Anacreon More, have borne ample testimony. "There's nae luck about the house, There's little luck ava." 66 39 At first view, this mode of expressing the negative, first by a nae, and latterly by a "little," may seem to imply a receding, as it were, upon recollection, from the position which the honest woman has laid down, and to which, in fact, she, in the third line, pertinaciously adheres. Had she expressed herself, in the first place, by the limited word "little," and in the second line by the unlimited negative "nae," then we should have been led to conceive her to be advancing in the climax, as she became more and more impressed and warmed with her subject. But there is more meant here than meets the ear; and the full import of this mode of expression can only be felt by those who are intimately acquainted with the Scottish idiom. If you hear a man say, "there's little doubt of that," you may safely swear, that, in his opinion, the matter is quite certain, and settled. "Death," said my uncle Thomas, " will find us all out at last-there's little doubt of that." By fixing upon a limited extent, or degree of doubt, he means to signify that the doubt is nothing. "Point de tout," "not at all," means, on the same principle, in the literal sense, a point in all, a mere nothing, a nonentity. "Is this a time to think o' wark, When Colin's at the door? And see him come a-shore." This is manifestly a continuance of the address to her eldest daughter, and whilst the mother enforces her who had been employed in spinning; orders to throw aside the wheel, she accompanies this injunction by an affirmation, which is, in fact, untrue, that "Colin's at the door." Colin had not yet, even according to the good woman's own finding and apprehension, landed; for she expects, after having put on her cloak, and travelled to the quay, to see him come a-shore ;-but her averment of Colin's being at the door is made with the view of arousing her daughter to a more distinct perception of the necessity of immediate dispatch. We use similar licences, and for the like purposes, every day of our lives. "How can you sit here and debate, when the enemy is at the door?" or, as the Romans expressed it, "within your jaws," "in faucibus?" "My father is just at hand," may mean, that he is within a few miles of the place where the intimation is given. These, and similar phrases, are all understood as conveying an intimation in an arresting manner. "Rax me my cloak." |