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    DECSiaaaiBB2,1854.] THE LB1D.EB. l l^g

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    We have received the sixth volume of M. ...

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    HEINRICH HEINE. Vermischte Schrtften von...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Tho Death Of John Gibson Looiuiart, If I...

    had a dinner party , and assist in pulling up the wine from , a well into which it bad been let down to cool . There are delightful pictures of these domesticities in the Life of Scott . During these calm years Logkhart wrote his novels—Valerius , Reginald Daltort , Adam Blair , & c . —Still esteemed by the judicious as excellent works of fiction . In . 1825 he wrote for Constable ' s Miscellany his " Life of Bums , " the merits of which are attested by the praises of Mr . Ga . bz . tjce , whose Essay on Bubns was in the form of a review of that work . In the same year he succeeded Gtffob : d as editor of the Quarterly—an . office -which he retained till very recently . It is chiefly as editor of the Quarterly that Locke : abt lias , during the last thirty years or so , besn known ; though during that time he has appeared more than once

    in the independent walks of authorship , as in his Spanish Ballads , and , most notably and beautifully of all , in Uis Life of Scott . Family bereavements accumulating upon hiin ( the death of his wife , that of his favourite son , the " Hugh Littlejohn . " of the Tales of a Grandfather , and that of Scott himself , happened close upon each other ; and another son . died at a later period ) had left a certain moroseness and gloom over Lockhart ' s character , which made him . chary of society towards the end of his life , and not very popular in it- With health completely shattered he died at Abbotsfordnow , by the failure of the male line of Scotts , becoming the property of Locbchakt ' s only surviving daughter and her husband , Mr . Hope , both of whom are Catholics .

    Decsiaaaibb2,1854.] The Lb1d.Eb. L L^G

    DECSiaaaiBB 2 , 1854 . ] THE LB 1 D . EB . l l ^ g

    We Have Received The Sixth Volume Of M. ...

    We have received the sixth volume of M . Louis Blakc ' s History of the French Revolution , the most brilliant and powerful in style , the most laborious and exact in its accumulation and analysis of original documents , of the many "Histories" of that colossal epoch . The heroes and the victims of the Revolution have been subjected to trans formations so violent and so capricious at the hands of fanatical partisans and unscrupulous literary jobbers , ; that the very scene of a . drama played out before the eyes of our fathers has faded into a mirage , and the leading actors appear like the fantastic shadows of a magic lantern .

    ^ Perhaps the time is hardly yet arrived to pronounce a solemn and dispassionate judgment upon the men who consummated the conquests of 1789 . Certainly pamphlets and romances , equally assuming the noble name of history , have done enough to distort and disfigure their words , their acts , their motives , and their memory- " History" ( to quote a recent French writer ) , " instead of being , as Cicero says , ' the counsellor and guide of the human race , 'is too often in these days of ours a mercenary advocate , or a false witness . Tlie greatest of men are at the mercy of historical jobbers , in ¦ whose hands they become so many automata , so constructed as to reply yes or no , as the finger on the spring dictates . "

    Is not this more especially true of the Trench Revolution ? We shall return to the great work of M . Louis Blanc , which , let us hasten to affirm , excels in accuracy as it does in composition . This assertion will encounter the surprise , if not the distrust , of many of our readers , to whom the name of Louis Bianc is the name of a party , and of a party for the moment defeated and proscribed . Let us disarm these prejudices , by remindino our readers thatM . Louis Bla . nc has lived in exile six years , and this exile lie

    has passed among us in . England , in the midst of honourable labours and consoling friendships . Banishment , with all its bitterness , and all its sorrow , has at least this compensation ; it restores to the writer calmness , and to the thinker solitude ; it enables the statesman , withdrawn i ' the interests and passions of the hour , to seek a refuge from disenchantment and disgust in the study cf a nobler past , and in the tranquil expectation of a better future , and in the mean while to judge the passing illusions with somethin g like the retrospection of posterity .

    We have glanced at the chapter in the present volume , in which the celebrated Day of Dupes , Juno 20 , 1792 , and tho invasion of the Tuileries , are described with extraordinary force of narrative painting . In this episode M . Louis Blanc corrects tho numerous errors and omissions of Lamahxiivis atid Micueust , having himself consulted with indefatigable diligence the ample resources of tho British Museum , so rich in the official reports and flying sheets of tho period . " No doubt , " says M . Louis Blanc , in a long note appended to this chapter , " M . db Lamartixb has involuntarily misled his readers , having been himself misled . " But this only shows with what cure historical . researches should bo conducted . When there is an abundance

    of contradictory evidence on an event , it is indispensable to take them one by one , to weigh , compare , confront thorn . A tedious and distasteful task , no doubt ! But truth requires it . Au historian should bo an examining magistrate before being a painter . This excellent doctrine has , we think wo may say , boon practised by the preacher , avnd it will give this history a permanent nnd particular value . Ol course M . Louis Bi . anc 1 ms his predilections ; but nothing is mom remarkable than tho respect , wo wore about to my tho emotion , with which ho brings out all that deserves our sympathy and our coimnisumtion in the suffering dynasty of tho unfortunate king , the victim ufc onoo of folly and futnlity .

    I < W delightful reading this history is not auvpnssed . Tho magic of the stylo ia intoxicating , and yet with all its warmth and colour it never loses tlio masculine terseness of Thucydides and tlic epigrammatic concision of Tacitus .

    Alexasdre Dumas , the 1 ^^ ° ?^ surpasssed himself in his latest dedication . This is the form W which he inscribes a drama , which he had concocted without acknowledgment ^ m e P lays of an obscure Germa ^ to Victor Hugo : — " To you , my dear Hugo , I dedicate my drama of Conscience . " Receive it as the testimony of an affection which has survived exile , and which , IT trust , -will survive death itself . " I believe in the immortality of the soul . " Alexandre Dttmas *' - Is not this confession , of faitjb . -worthy of the early martyrs ?

    Heinrich Heine. Vermischte Schrtften Von...

    HEINRICH HEINE . Vermischte Schrtften von Heinrick Heine . 3 Band . Hamburg : Hoffman and Campe , 1854 . London : Trttbner and Co . Some three months ago the advance-guard ( in these warlike times , military expressions are perhaps admissable ) of these volumes appeared in the Revue des deux Mondes in the shape of a French version of the greater portion of the chief and most important article of this collection . A . few weeks ago we also gave our readers an account of that remarkable article ; and now that we have since read , not only that article in its entirety , and in the native language of . its author , but the whole of the multifarious contents of this publication , we hasten to supplement our former notice . To those who full y know the accurate rank of Heinrich Heine in the selectest aristocracy of letters no apology for returning to these , his novissima verba . will be .

    needed . Jhose who do cot , should this notice lead them , by a perusal of his writings , to arrive at that knowledge , will not only require no apology ,, hut will return ns their sincerest thanks . For the rest , it is not saying much , that in these times when literature has become in all Europe a mere vade-mecum to the attainment of an accurate knowledge of the war , in all its branches , this publication is by far the most important the literary world has seen this many a day . The only hiatus in the French version of the Confessions , was an attack of light raillery on Madame de Stael and her celebrated DeVAUemagne , which is a masterpiece of Heine ' s peculiar manner of thought and diction . The more salient portions of this attack the reader will find appended . This renowned book , written secretly from pique at the authoress ' s treatment in France , but ostensibly to glorify the Germans , has met with small favour from

    the pens of Germans , Fas est ab hoste doceri may be true enough ; but . / its est ab hoste laudari , appears to be a maxim repugnant to our German brothers . Shortly after the publication of De VAllernagne , ltichter cut it up in detail ; . and now Heine has given it an effectual coup de grace , by assailing its fundamental spirit , and has hung upon its grave immortelles of wit and . humour , ilichter's intellectual calibre , by fifty years' labour , has now got solemnly recognised by the English reading world ; if that same world take the trouble to read Heine and Kichter here on the same ground , any gloomy ideas as to the degeneracy of to-day . will be happily dissipated . In additioa to this article , Volume I . contains the original version of The Gods in Exile , -which appeared in the Revue in the spring ; a fanciful ballet-piece , called The Goddess Diana ; a memorial of the late Ludwig Marcus ; and some hundred pages of fugitive poems , all written from his sick bed since the Romanzero . To those who value Heine chiefly as a poet ( and it is difficult

    to say whether he is greater as poet or prosaist ) , this will be the most acceptable portion of these volumes . As far as exquisite melody , as far as performing on the intricacy of the German language with an ease never approached , as far as playful humour and biting sarcasm are concerned , they are equal to any of Heine ' s poems in his best days ; his seriousness and feeling for the purely beautiful are not here , however . But these poems are chiefly valuable to the student of human nature , as presenting a , spectacle perhaps unique in the history of that remarkable biped , the literary man . Poor and broken in body and purse , Heine calls himself fitly enough Lazarus , but instead of whining and lying a beggar at Dives' gates , the imperial mind assorts her supremacy over the shattered body , refuses to surrender the fleshly fortress while a chance remains , and taking up the lyre that has won him his glory , Heine solaces his misery in a most characteristic fashion—by getting out of it all the humour he can . Wo may mention , in leaving these poems , that for the most part they defy translation .

    Volumes IT . and III . have a sub-title of Lutezia , and consist of Heine ' s letters from Paris , and elsewhere in France , to the Augsburg Allgenwine Zeitung in tho years 1840 to 1844 , revised , corrected , and with explanations , and additions written at the present time . They give a full picture of the political , social , musical and art worlds of Paris in tho hey-day of Louis Philippe ' s roign . Especially are they valuable in their accounts and « stimatos of men . In these psiges ono may get an idea of Guizot , Thiers ^ Berryer , Larochef ' oueauld , Baron Rothschild , Louis Blanc , and nearly all the celebrities of France from 1830 to 1848 , clearer , more vivid , and , in the

    intensost spiritual sense , truer , than from any other sourco with which wo are acquainted . In the- whole series there is not a dull page ; always there is elegance of composition , humour , > vit , sarcasm , and refinement of taste and expression . But not unfrequcntly there are opinions and judgments so acute as , read by tho light of subsequent events , to appear almost prophetic Also in tho addenda there is much interesting information regarding the past life of Heine ; but aa wo believe that he is at present engaged on a complete autobiography , we may well leave these without calling especial attention to them . Wo may observe that tho whole of our extracts ( except that about Do SUol ) arc taken from Lutezia .

    In a hundred years , or loss , wlion Heine has become n « thoroughly pasajt as hu is now intensely modern , nnd when a now Hoino is craving recognition , tho British public will haive pcirooivod what manner of man no was , as ( hey liavo just recently come to perceive wlmt , miuiner of men ( jouthc , Schiller , and Itichter wore . Thy wiao bow before tlio Inevitable . It ia iiKulusn to sock to forivsUl cventH , else wo might close our notice by endeavouring to indicate what IK-inu ' . s liturury rank is , and why it ia so ; olso wo might nave pointed out , tlml , for yours ntudontn of foreign literature : liavo desired tho union of tho French genius with tho Gorman , to produce a literary compound possible but improbable ; and wo might have asked whether

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 2, 1854, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02121854/page/15/