Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 by Various

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"'Have you, or have you not given to Gilbert, for these heavy sums, a
power of attorney? Has he got it? Answer me in a word.'

"'He advanced me money,' I replied, 'and I gave him such documents as he
required.'

"'Enough!' said my uncle. 'You are a beggar!'--and without another word he
left me.

"For a week my wife remained in a dangerous condition. Threatened with the
loss of her, I did not leave her side. What was the business to me at such
a time?--what was reputation--what life? Life!--sir, I carried about with
me a potent poison, and I waited only for her latest breath to drink it
off, and join her in the grave. She rallied, however, and once more I
walked abroad--to find myself a bankrupt and a castaway. The very day that
my uncle quitted me, he called my creditors together--exposed the state of
my affairs--and accused me of the vilest practices. A docket was struck
against me. Every thing that I possessed was dragged away--even to the bed
on which my Anna had been cast, and which she so much needed now. Every
thing was gone; but the blow had fallen, and I was callous to the loss. In
the midst of the desolation I struggled to preserve one trifle from the
common wreck. Do not smile, sir, when I mention _my reputation_. Yes, I
felt that if it could be rescued all might be spared, and I might yet defy
and shame my persecutors. I appealed to the commissioner who had charge of
my estate. I proclaimed aloud, and in the face of men, my innocence. I
conjured him to subject me to the severest trial--to compel the closest
examination of my affairs--my books--and every individual connected with
the house. I demanded it for the sake of justice--for my own sake, and for
the sake of the poor creatures--I was a father now--whose fortunes were
linked with mine, whose bread depended upon the verdict which should be
pronounced against me. My passionate supplication was not in vain. The
affairs of our house were looked into--the business that had been done for
years was sifted--and clerks and men were subjected to every interrogatory
that could elucidate a fact. At the end of six months it was publicly
announced that an important error had been discovered--that the estimate
given to me was incorrect, _and by many thousand pounds greater than the
true value_.

"There had been a _mistake_! The bankrupt departed from the court without
a blemish on his character. He had been indiscreet in entering heedlessly
upon so large an undertaking, and must pay dearly for that in discretion.
He was strictly liable and bound to pay what he had acknowledged with his
hand to be a lawful debt. There was no help for him. The young man was
worthy of commiseration, and his creditors should show him mercy." This
was the verdict of the commissioner, spoken in the ears of one who was a
stranger to mercy, and who had vowed to show me _none_. Guilt, however,
attached to my good name no longer, and I smiled at his malignity. It was
too soon _to smile_. The secret of all my difficulty was now explained.
Trading upon a false capital, to an extravagant extent beyond the real
one--draining my exchequer of its resources to pay an ever-recurring
interest, whilst the principal was but a fiction in the estate, it was no
wonder that I became hemmed in by claims impossible to meet, and that the
services of Mr Gilbert were so soon in requisition. In giving to Mr
Gilbert a power over the firm, I acted according to my ideas of justice.
When I was impoverished, he furnished me with the means of keeping up the
credit of the house. But for him it must have fallen. I believed that I
was solvent. Why should I hesitate to make this man secure? But it is for
this preference, which rendered my uncle's dividend comparatively nothing,
that I have been followed through my life with rancour and malevolence
unparalleled. Mark me, sir; the _mistake_, as it was called--the vital
_error_--was a deliberate fraud committed by my uncle at the outset.

He had withdrawn this heavy sum of money at the beginning--he had resolved
to keep me for my life his servant and his slave--to feast upon the
dropping sweat of my exhausted mind--to convert my heart's blood into
gold, which was his god. He hated me for my conduct towards him in my
boyhood, which he had neither forgotten nor forgiven; and his detestation
gave zest to his hellish desire of accumulating wealth at any cost. Had I
applied to _him_, had I entered into new engagements with _him_, given to
_him_ the securities which, from a notion of right, I had presented to
Gilbert--had I made over to the fiend soul as well as body, I might still
have retained his friendship, still been permitted to labour and to toil
for his aggrandizement and ease. It was Gilbert himself who revealed to me
his patron's villany. It was time for the vultures to quarrel when they
could not both fatten on my prostrate carcass; but they were bound
together by the dark doings of years, and it was only by imperfect hints
and innuendoes that I was made aware of their treachery. If proofs existed
to convict my uncle, Gilbert could not afford to produce them. The price
was life, or something short of it; but I heard enough for satisfaction.
Although I was deprived of everything that I possessed, my mind recovered
its buoyancy, and my spirit, after the first shock, grew sanguine. I had
been proclaimed an innocent and injured man, and my beloved Anna was at my
side smiling and rejoicing. In our overthrow, she beheld only the dark
storm of morning, that sometimes ushers in the glorious noon and golden
sunset. I spoke of the past with anger; she reverted to it with the
chastened sorrow of a repentant angel. I looked to the future with
distrust and apprehension, she, with a bright, abiding confidence. Never
had she appeared so happy, so contented--never had the smile remained so
constant to her cheek, so unalloyed with touch of care, as when we stood
houseless and homeless in the world, and nothing but her fortitude and
love were left me to rely upon. My first care after my dismission into
life again, was to obtain my certificate from my creditors, and with
almost all of them I was successful. The exceptions were my uncle, and
three individuals--his creatures, and willing instruments of torture. They
were sufficient to brand me with disgrace, and to affix for ever to my
name that mark of infamy which an after life of virtue shall never wash
away or hide. UNCERTIFICATED BANKRUPT was the badge I carried with me.
From this period my decline was rapid and unequivocal. A creditor, who had
not proved his debt upon the estate, hearing tell of my defenceless
situation, cast me forthwith into prison. I will not tell you of the
sufferings we endured during a two years' cruel incarceration. Starvation
and its horrors came gradually upon us. Application upon application was
made to my uncle; entreaties for nothing more than justice; and my poor
meek Anna was turned with contumely from his doors. After years of
privation, a glimmering of light stole in upon us, to be soon
extinguished. I obtained temporary employment in a school far away from
the scenes of my misery, and hither my evil fortune followed me. The
schoolmaster was an ignorant, gross man. He gained my services for a song,
and he treated me with disrespect in consequence. I had been with him
about six months when some silver spoons were stolen from his house. The
thief escaped detection; but the master received an anonymous
communication, containing a false history of my life, with a true
statement of my unfortunate position. He at once charged me with the crime
of being an uncertificated bankrupt. I confessed to it, and the very day I
was dragged before a magistrate on suspicion of felony. I was acquitted,
it is true, for want of evidence; but what could acquit me--what could
release me from the super-added stigma? _An uncertificated bankrupt, and a
suspected felon_! Alas! the charity of man will not look further than the
surface of things, and is it not secretly pleased to find there, rather an
excuse for neglect, than a reason for exertion? Excited almost to madness
by privation and want, and unable to get assistance from a human being, I
visited my uncle. I could not see my wife and children drooping and
sinking day by day, and not make one great struggle for their rescue. I
resolved to accost him with meekness and humility--yes, to fall upon my
knees and kiss the dust before him, so that he would fill their famished
mouths. He would not see me. I watched for him in the street, and there
addressed him. He reviled me--cast me off--provoked me to exasperation,
and finally gave me into custody for an attempt upon his life. Again I was
taken to the magistrate, but not again discharged so easily. My character
and previous _offences_ were exhibited. The magistrate, serious with
judicial sorrow, looked upon me as you would turn an eye towards a reptile
that defiles the earth. I appealed to him, and in a loud and animated
voice proclaimed my grievances. It was suggested that I was a lunatic, and
whilst the justice committed me to hard labour, he benevolently promised
that the prison surgeon should visit me, and pronounce upon my fitness for
Saint Luke's. It was during my temporary confinement for this offence,
that I was seized with the illness from which I have never since been
free. For three years I was unable to work for my family, and by the end
of that period we were sunk into the lowest depths. My Anna sickened
likewise; but as long as she was able she laboured for our support. We
have been hunted and driven from place to place, and the little which we
have been able to earn in our wanderings, has hardly kept us alive. Twice
have I stolen a loaf of bread to appease the children's hunger. What could
I do? I could not bear to see their languid glassy eyes, and hear their
little voices imploring for the food--God knows, I could not let them die
before my face--I could not be their murderer--I could not--"

"Stay, Mr Warton," said I, interrupting the narrator, "I have heard
enough. Spare me for the present. Your statements must be corroborated.
This is all I ask. Leave the rest to me."

If the reader has perused, with painful interest, the account that I have
laid before him, let me gratify him with the intelligence that I have
accomplished for this unfortunate family all that I could wish. Warton's
account of himself was strengthened and confirmed by the strict enquiry
which I set on foot immediately. He was, as he asserted, _an innocent and
injured man_. Satisfied of this, I transmitted to the worthy judge, who
had been moved by the man's misfortunes, a faithful history of his life. I
was not disappointed here. It was that functionary who obtained for Warton
the situation which he at present fills--and for his children the
education which they are now receiving. Nor was this his first exertion on
their behalf. It was he who furnished them with clothing on the night of
the criminal's discharge. They are restored to happiness, to comfort, and
to health. The moderate ambition of the faithful Anna is realized, and my
vision is a vision no longer.

Reader, I have nothing more to add. I have told you a simple tale and a
true one. It is for you to say whether it shall be--useless and
uninstructive.

* * * * *

FREDERICK SCHLEGEL.[1]

[Footnote A: 1. _Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur von_ FRIEDRICH
SCHLEGEL. _Neue auflage. Berlin_, 1842.

2. Lectures on the History of Ancient and Modern Literature, from the
German of Frederick Schlegel. New edition. Blackwood: Edinburgh and
London, 1841.

3. The Philosophy of History, translated from the German of FRIEDRICH VON
SCHLEGEL, with a Memoir of the Author, by JAMES BURTON ROBERTSON, Esq. In
two vols. London, 1835. Reprinted in America, 1841.

4. _Philosophie des Lebens_ von FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL. Wien, 1828.]

"I would not have you pin your faith too closely to these SCHLEGELS," said
FICHTE one day at Berlin to VARNHAGEN VON ENSE, or one of his friends, in
his own peculiar, cutting, commanding style--"I would not have you pin
your faith to these Schlegels. I know them well. The elder brother wants
depth, and the younger clearness. One good thing they both have--that is,
hatred of mediocrity; but they have also both a great jealousy of the
highest excellence; and, therefore, where they can neither be great
themselves nor deny greatness in others, they, out of sheer desperation,
fall into an outrageous strain of eulogizing. Thus they have bepraised
Goethe, and thus they have bepraised me."[B]

[Footnote B: _Denkwuerdigkeiten_ von K. A. VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. Mannheim,
1837. Vol. ii. p. 60.]

Some people, from pride, don't like to be praised at all; and all
sensible people, from propriety, don't like to be praised extravagantly:
whether from pride or from propriety, or from a mixture of both,
philosopher Fichte seemed to have held in very small account the
patronage with which he was favoured at the hands of the twin aesthetical
dictators, the Castor and Pollux of romantic criticism; and, strange
enough also, poet Goethe, who had worship enough in his day, and is said
to have been somewhat fond of the homage, chimes in to the same tune
thus: "the Schlegels, with all their fine natural gifts, have been
unhappy men their life long, both the one and the other; they wished both
to be and do something more than nature had given them capacity for; and
accordingly they have been the means of bringing about not a little harm
both in art and literature. From their false principles in the fine
arts--principles which, however much trumpeted and gospeled about, were
in fact egotism united with weakness--our German artists have not yet
recovered, and are filling the exhibitions, as we see, with pictures
which nobody will buy. Frederick, the younger of these Dioscouri, choked
himself at last with the eternal chewing of moral and religious
absurdities, which, in his uncomfortable passage through life, he had
collected together from all quarters, and was eager to hawk about with
the solemn air of a preacher to every body: he accordingly betook
himself, as a last refuge, to Catholicism, and drew after him, as a
companion to his own views, a man of very fair but falsely overwrought
talent--Adam Mueller.

"As for their Sanscrit studies again, that was at bottom only a _pis
aller_. They were clear-sighted enough to perceive that neither Greek nor
Latin offered any thing brilliant enough for them; they accordingly threw
themselves into the far East; and in this direction, unquestionably, the
talent of Augustus William manifests itself in the most honourable way.
All that, and more, time will show. Schiller never loved them: hated them
rather; and I think it peeps out of our correspondence how I did my best,
in our Weimar circles at least, to keep this dislike from coming to an
open difference. In the great revolution which they actually effected, I
had the luck to get off with a whole skin, (_sie liessen mich noth duerftig
stehen_,) to the great annoyance of their romantic brother Novalis, who
wished to have me _simpliciter_ deleted. 'Twas a lucky thing for me, in
the midst of this critical hubbub, that I was always too busy with myself
to take much note of what others were saying about me.

"Schiller had good reason to be angry with them. With their aesthetical
denunciations and critical club-law, it was a comparatively cheap matter
for them to knock him down in a fashion; but Schiller had no weapons that
could prostrate them. He said to me on one occasion, displeased with my
universal toleration even for what I did not like. 'KOTZEBUE, with his
frivolous fertility, is more respectable in my eyes than that barren
generation, who, though always limping themselves, are never content with
bawling out to those who have legs--STOP!'"[C]

[Footnote C: Briefwechse Zwischen GOETHE und ZELTER. Berlin, 1834. Vol. vi.
p. 318.]

That there is some truth in these severe remarks, the paltry personal
squibs in the _Leipzig Almanach_ for 1832, which called them forth, with
regard to Augustus Schlegel at least, sufficiently show: but there is a
general truth involved in them also, which the worthy fraternity of us
who, in this paper age, wield the critical pen, would do well to take
seriously to heart; and it is this, that great poets and philosophers have
a natural aversion as much to be praised and patronized, as to be rated
and railed at by great critics; and very justly so. For as a priest is a
profane person, who makes use of his sacred office mainly to show his gods
about, (so to speak,) that people may stare at them, and worship him; so a
critic who forgets his inferior position in reference to creative genius,
so far as to assume the air of legislation and dictatorship, when
explanation and commentary are the utmost he can achieve, has himself only
to blame, if, after his noisy trumpet has blared itself out, he reaps only
ridicule from the really witty, and reproof from the substantially wise.
Not that a true philosopher or poet shrinks from, and does not rather
invite, true criticism. The evil is not in the deed, but in the manner of
doing it. Here, as in all moral matters, the tone of the thing is the soul
of the thing. And in this view, the blame which Fichte and Goethe attach
to the Schlegels, amounts substantially to this, not that in their
critical vocation the romantic brothers wanted either learning or judgment
generally, but that they were too ambitious, too pretenceful, too
dictatorial that they must needs talk on all subjects, and always as if
they were the masters and the lions, when they were only the servants and
the exhibitors; that they made a serious business of that which is often
best done when it is done accidentally, viz. discussing what our
neighbours are about, instead of doing something ourselves; and that they
attempted to raise up an independent literary reputation, nay, and even to
found a new poetical school, upon mere criticism--an attempt which, with
all due respect for Aristarchus and the Alexandrians, is, and remains, a
literary impossibility.

But was Frederick Schlegel merely a critic? No He was a philosopher also,
and not a vulgar one; and herein lies the foundation of his fame. His
criticism, also, was thoroughly and characteristically a philosophical
criticism; and herein mainly, along with its vastness of erudition and
comprehensiveness of view, lies the foundation of its fame. To understand
the criticism thoroughly, one must first understand the philosophy. Will
the _un_philosophical English reader have patience with us for a few
minutes while we endeavour to throw off a short sketch of the philosophy
of Frederick Schlegel? If the philosophical system of a transcendental
German and _Viennese_ Romanist, can have small intrinsic practical value
to a British Protestant, it may extrinsically be of use even to him as
putting into his hands the key to one of the most intellectual, useful, an
popular books of modern times--"The history of ancient and modern
literature, by Frederick Von Schlegel,"--a book, moreover, which is not
merely "a great national possession of the Germans," as by one of
themselves it has been proudly designated, but has also, through the
classical translation of Mr Lockhart,[D] been made the peculiar property of
English literature.

[Footnote D: Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern.
Blackwoods, Edinburgh, 1841.]

In the first chapter of his "_Philosophie des Lebens_," the Viennese
lecturer states very clearly the catholic and comprehensive ground which
all philosophy must take that would save itself from dangerous error. The
philosopher must start from the complete living totality of man, formed as
he is, not of flesh merely, a Falstaff--or of spirit merely, a Simon
Pillarman and Total Abstinence Saint--but of both flesh and spirit, body
and soul, in his healthy and normal condition. For this reason
clearly--true philosophy is not merely sense-derived and material like
the French philosophy of Helvetius, nor altogether ideal like that of
Plotinus, and the pious old mathematical visionaries at Alexandria; but
it stands on mother earth, like old Antaeus drinking strength therefrom,
and filches fire at the same time, Prometheus-like, from heaven, feeding
men with hopes--not, as Aeschylus says, altogether "blind," ([Greek:
tuphlas d eu autois eloidas katokioa)] but only blinking. Don't court,
therefore, if you would philosophize wisely, too intimate an acquaintance
with your brute brother, the baboon--a creature, whose nature speculative
naturalists have most cunningly set forth by the theory, that it is a
parody which the devil, in a fit of ill humour, made upon God's noblest
work, man; and don't hope, on the other hand, as many great saints and
sages have done, by prayer and fasting, or by study and meditation, to
work yourself up to a god, and jump bodily out of your human skin. Assume
as the first postulate, and lay it down as the last proposition of your
"philosophy of life," that a man is neither a brute, nor a god nor an
angel, but simply and sheerly a MAN. Furthermore, as man is not only a
very comprehensive and complex, but also, (to appearance at least,) in
many points, a very contrary and contradictory creature, see that you
take the _whole_ man along with you into your metaphysical chamber; for
if there be one paper that has a bearing in the case amissing out of your
green bag, (which has happened only too often,) the evidence will be
imperfect, and the sentence false or partial--shake your wig as you
please. Remember, that though you may be a very subtle logician, the soul
of man is not all made up of logic; remember that reason, (_Vernunft_,)
the purest that Kant ever criticized withal, is not the proper vital soul
in man; is not the creative and productive faculty in intellect at all,
but is merely the tool of that which, in philosophers no less than in
poets, is the proper inventive power, IMAGINATION, as Wordsworth phrases
it: Schlegel's word is _fantasie_. Remember that in more cases than
academic dignities may be willing to admit, the heart (where a man has
one) is the only safe guide, the only legitimate ruler of the head; and
that a mere metaphysician, and solitary speculator, however properly
trimmed,

"One to whose smooth-rubb'd soul can cling
Nor form nor feeling, great nor small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual all-in-all,"

may write very famous books, profound even to unintelligibility, but can
never be a philosopher. Therefore reject Hegel, "that merely thinking, on
a barren heath speculating, self-sufficient, self-satisfied little EGO;"[E]
and consider Kant as weighed in the balance and found wanting on his own
showing: for if that critical portal of pure reason had indeed been
sufficient, as it gave itself out to be, for all the purposes of a human
philosophy, what need was there of the "practical back-door" which, at the
categorical command of conscience, was afterwards laid open to all men in
the "Metaphysic of Ethics?" As little will you allow your philosophical
need to be satisfied with any thing you can get from SCHELLING; for
however well it sounds to "throw yourself from the transcendental
emptiness of ideal reason into the warm embrace of living and luxuriant
nature," here also you will find yourself haunted by the intellectual
phantom of absolute identity, (say absolute inanity,) or in its best
phasis a "pantheizing deification of nature." Strange enough as it may
seem, the true philosophy is to be found any where rather than among
philosophers. Each philosopher builds up a reasoned system of a part of
existence; but life is based upon God-given instincts and emotions, with
which reason has nothing to do; and nature contains many things which it
is not given to mortal brain to comprehend, much less to systematize. True
philosophy is not to be found in any intellectual system, much less in any
of the Aristotelian quality, where the emotional element in man is
excluded or subordinated; but in a living experience. To know philosophy,
therefore, first know life. To learn to philosophize, learn to live; and
live not partially, but with the full outspread vitality of human reason.
You go to college, and, as if you were made altogether of head, expect
some Peter Abelard forthwith, by academic disputation, to _reason_ you
into manhood; but neither manhood nor any vital WHOLE ever was learned by
reasoning. Pray, therefore, to the Author of all good, in the first place,
that you may _be_ something rather than that you may _know_ something. Get
yourself planted in God's garden, and learn to GROW. Woo the sun of life,
which is love, and the breeze which is enthusiasm, an impulse from that
same creative Spirit, which, brooding upon the primeval waters, out of
void brought fulness, and out of chaos a world.

[Footnote E: This is Menzel's phrase, not Schlegel's. "Hegel's _centrum war
ein blos denkendes, auf oeder Heide spekulirendes, kleines, suffisantes,
selbstgenuegsames Ichlein_." The untranslatable beauty of the German is in
the diminutive with which the sentence closes. It is difficult to say
whether Menzel or Schlegel shows the greater hostility to the poor Berlin
philosopher.]

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