mons, at the realized possi-
bilities of man's depravity and guilt. In view of these
things, which would seem fit to move the universe with
anguish, this philosophy is calm and cold as an iceberg, as
unmoved and passionless, as the granite ranges that bind
a continent. It has no tears, nor consolation for the soul-
stricken slave; no groans, that a light from Heaven has
been extinguished. But it takes the slave-holder by the
hand as a brother; offers him its sympathy, if a light
cloud but arise in the horizon, threatening him with dan-
ger; and again pledges itself to interpose the whole might
of a nation between him and the retributions of omnipo-
tence : aye, soberly thinks to encourage his trembling
spirit, by holding up before him a piece of parchment, —
a written constitution — the Constitution of the free United
States — which, it solemnly assures him, guaranties his
domestic institutions of oppression and blood. Pitiable


102
[July,
Transcendentalism.
philosopher ! Grovelling, earth-burrowing mole! to be
pitied, and not reproached, that thou shouldst have con-
ceived, that human constitutions could nullify the laws of
the universe ; that political arrangements could extinguish
the eternal instincts of man's soul, through which the Al-
mighty declares him to be free, and impels him, as with
the voice of necessity, of destiny, to struggle for his birth-
right. Hadst thou been aught but a burrowing, purblind
mole, thou wouldst have known, that every human being
is bound, by the fixed and fateful laws of his being, to
opposition to such a constitution; that the universe abhors,
and will not endure it. Such a constitution is a lie, earth-
formed and material; the Spirit of the Universe, which is
truth, will not suffer a lie, be it individual, or national.
All the powers of nature, unseen but irresistible agents of
truth, are at work, and this stupendous imposture must
soon explode. The whole moral force of humanity is
pledged for its extinction. Come out of the earth then, ye
purblind statesmen, and sense-fettered politicians! It is
for you to determine, in some measure, whether the ex-
plosion shall take place by a silent, scarcely felt transfusion
of moral-electrical force, operating by gentle shocks, or
whether it shall burst upon the world like “a doom's
thunder-peal.”
As the human mind can have no direct perception of
truth ; the inquiry after truth is a mere matter of logic and
syllogism; and truth, or rather the logical probabilities of
truth, are attainable only by the few, who have the oppor-
tunities and leisure to pursue it. The masses are incapable
of determining for themselves what is right and good in
relation to anything; are as impotent to discover political,
as we have seen them to be to find moral and religious
truth. Hence, they are incapable of governing themselves,
and are of necessity in a state of pupilage to those, whom
circumstances have placed in a situation to investigate.
The social order, once established, is sacred; for as au-
thority is the supreme law of this system, a precedent,
once settled, is inviolable. Hereditary ranks of governors
and governed, or kindred social organizations, with their
consequences of privilege, wealth, and power, on the one
side, and oppression, poverty, and degradation on the
other, become fixed social laws, invested with a divine


1841.]
103
Progress.
sanction. There is no foundation for individual freedom ;
but the masses are doomed, by an inexorable destiny, to
hopeless bondage. As this philosophy begets skepticism
and infidelity in religion, so it has no faith, and no promise
for man in his social and political relations.
It has no element of, and contains no provisions for
social progress. It can discover no change, no improve-
ment in that outward creation, from which alone it gets all
its ideas. The same stars, which beamed upon man's
cradle, shine upon his tomb. History, its highest authority,
assures us they are the same, which sang together at the
creation. Except a lost Pleiad, whose place none comes
to supply, there they are, identical in number and place.
There they shine, and as they shone to Adam, shine they
to us. Our faltering steps creep feebly along the same
unaltered hills, over which our bounding feet once leaped
with ecstasy. The same echoes repeat the complaint of
our age's weariness, which were once awakened by our
jubilant shouts of youthful gladness. We repose at last
beneath the turf of the same unaltered valley, whose early
flowers were, in other days, the beautiful emblems of our own
spring-time. Alternation we behold, indeed, but no change ;
succession of individuals, but the same habits, without
alteration, increase, or diminution. One generation is the
exact counterpart of its predecessor. The flowers of this
year are like the flowers of the last. The robin and the
thrush bring back no new harmonies from their sunny
wanderings. The river of our valley is the same, as when
the wild Indian rippled its current with his light canoe.
Other harvests are reaped here now, than the red man
gathered ; but they spring up by the same unchanging law
of germination, growth, and reproduction. The corn of
the savage Pocomptuck was as perfect as that, which the
more skilful cultivation of the civilized Pocomptuck pro-
duces. Nature is ever the same ; and her constancy is
her perfection. It is from the unchangeableness of her
beautyandder, that man drives the dive m e
was intended to communicate. The material creation was
pronounced good. It was created at first in the full per-
fection for which it was destined. Its successive tribes
appear and vanish, according to their periods, without im-
provement, and without change. To have lived, and died,


104
Progress.
(July,
and reproduced, has fulfilled the law of their being. Man,
the last and noblest work of creation, was not pro-
nounced good. Progress is his law; and the perfection
of his nature must be the work of his own earnest and
faithful strivings.
If in her transient generations Nature thus communicates
to man no thought of progress; from her more enduring
forms still less can he acquire it. Her everlasting hills are
the highest symbols sense can furnish him of duration,
unchangeableness. The primeval constellations occupy
unmoved their ancient habitations; each star fixed change-
lessly to its own celestial space, even be that space an
orbit. How then can man infer the mighty law of progress
from these fixed and changeless emblems, or which only
change without advancing ? Chain man to the material,
limit him to the knowledge which sensation furnishes, and
where were now the race? “One generation passeth away,
and another generation cometh,” would have comprised
the whole of its history, as it does that of the trees of the
forest, and of all the forms of animal life.
But such is not the sum of man's history. On the
contrary, it is a perpetual proof, to which every era adds
its own confirmation, that his destinies are guided by an
intuition of something higher, than sense can give him any
conception of. It has been, and will ever be a history of
progress, constant, perpetual. One form of social organ-
ization disappears, and it may seem for a time, that there
has been retrogression, instead of progress. This may,
perhaps, be the case with single generations. But a gener-
ation does not embody, nor but partially typify the history
of the race. Every form of civilization, every social insti-
tution, which in their first establishment are the result and
expression of the transcendental element of man's nature,
has its mission to fulfil. When that is accomplished, it
has ceased to be useful, and must give place to some better
expression of the existing attainments of Humanity. But
it is only by battle that it can be overthrown; and in the
evil passions excited by this contest of the past with the
present, society may appear to recede. The age, which
immediately succeeds a great social revolution, may seem
to have gone back towards barbarism. But the recession
is only apparent, or at most, but temporary. In the seem-


1841.]
105
Progress.
ing chaos the elements of order are silently and powerfully
at work; whatever there was of living truth in the extin-
guished forms, is diffusing itself with a more vital energy,
now that it is rid of its hindrances of formulas; a thousand
falsehoods, and false seemings are annihilated in the
tumultuous heaving of the social elements; and out of the
chaos arises at length a higher, and truer, and wider
civilization, embracing a larger portion of humanity in its
benefits and blessings. More perfect institutions are estab-
lished, in their turn, when their work is done, to give
place to something nobler.
The warlike barbarians of the North of Europe over-
threw the Roinan empire, which contained all that the
world then possessed of science, art, and culture. The
period, that succeeded, history, with little insight, has been
accustomed to regard, under the name of the Middle Age,
as the return of the ages of darkness. Yet in this darkness,
how many principles most important to Humanity, but
unknown to Rome, were at work, and taking deep root in
the general mind. Individual man began to be of account;
the masses, by means of the religious orders, to emerge
from their social degradation; and in the fit time, a new
civilization commenced, more comprehensive than the
Roman, based on higher and broader principles, and
aiming at higher attainments, embracing all that was true
and living in that of Rome, and much besides that the
Roman did not dream of.
Or to take a more recent example. How many false-
hoods, by which man had so long been defrauded of his
birthright, robbed, beaten, and trampled on, were extin-
guished by that transcendental French Revolution. How
many forms of social injustice and oppression did it destroy.
How many hidden truths did it develope. What lessons
of the worth and the might of man, aye, of peasant man,
did it force into the quailing hearts of despots of every
grade, from the castellated baron of the banks of the
Garonne, to the terrible autocrat of the Neva, whose will
is absolute over half a continent. What tokens of love
and hope did it send forth to the prostrate, waiting nations.
Blind sense looked with horror and dismay, as if it were a
volcano of wrath and destruction, upon that beacon light
of deliverance.
VOL. 11. — NO. I. 14


106
(July,
Progress.
Thus, through perpetual revolution and change, society
casts off its worn out forms, and the symbols that have
lost their significance, and by conflict prepares the way
for new and fairer developments of Humanity. Every
generation has felt that it had a work of its own to do,
and not merely to receive, and to enjoy what it received
from its predecessor; not merely to transmit its own inheri-
tance of arts, institutions, opinions, unimpaired to its
successor, but to leave them more improved and perfected
than it found them. Let not generations more than indi-
viduals dream that they have already attained perfection;
but forgetting the things that are behind, labor to build
monuments of progress in advance of those, which are
crumbling around them.
It would be a mistake to suppose that revolutions are
the causes of progress. They are only its indications.
They do not originate, or discover truth, but only labor to
establish and give it utterance. The progress has been
already made in the general mind; the revolution is need-
ed to sweep obstructions from its path. They announce,
not generate improvment. They are, therefore, the results,
not the originators of advancement. The forms and insti-
tutions of society are, as I have said, the expressions of
its existing attainments; the attempts of society to preserve
what from period to period it has gained, and thus prevent
the race from retrograding. They may be regarded as the
monuments of its spiritual acquisitions; as historical mon-
uments, the obelisk, the pyramid, and the triumphal arch,
preserve the memory of its material conquests. All mon-
uments, from their very nature and design, belong to the
past almost from the moment of their erection. As Hu-
manity by the laws of its being, must continue to advance,
it will leave its forms and institutions, of which permanence
is necessarily a chief object, behind it. They cease to
represent its spiritual state, and as far as it is bound by
them, they impede its onward march; they become not
only useless, but an incumbrance, which it cannot bear,
and must throw off. The difficulty of relief arises in part
from the reverence for the established, especially when
time has given it a species of consecration, which, as well
as progress, is a law of humanity. But the chief obstacle
is in the difference of individual progress. Institutions


1841.]
107
Progress.
represent only the average attainments of a community ;
the majority may even be below, rather than above the
standard. To this portion, whatever its relative numbers,
the institution, or the form will continue to be a holy
symbol, long after it has lost its holiness, and become to
another portion, an antiquated absurdity to be rejected, or
a crushing burthen to be got rid of at any rate. In this
difference of individual progress, commences the struggle
of the present with the past. In this conflict Humanity
may be sometimes overthrown for a season. But it rises
again, strengthened even by its defeats; and revolution,
with the reform, or utter subversion, of the old, spiritless
forms, and the building of new, more finished, and beauti-
ful monuments, commemorates its triumph, and indicates
its progress.
As with individuals, so with nations, every step of pro-
gress makes each succeeding one easier. Every improve-
ment in the social institutions of a nation prepares the way
for another, that is to follow it, brings it nearer, and gives
assurance that it shall be accomplished with less expense
of human happiness. Benjamin Constant, in his Essay on
“the Progressive Development of Religious Ideas," has
given a striking illustration of this majestic law of acceler-
ation. He has noted four distinguished stages in the
civil and political progress of man, as he has departed from
the savage state; each stage terminated by a revolution
more or less sudden and violent. The first stage is a
theocracy, the period denoted by the reign of the Gods,
to which the annals of every people go back. This is the
reign of the priesthood, a consecrated caste, claiming a
commission from Heaven, and a mysterious, but absolute
supremacy. All men out of the sacerdotal caste were
regarded as unclean and degraded by their nature ; and
hence slavery under a theocracy was most severe, humilia-
ting, and least susceptible of mitigation, still less of aboli-
tion.
When the warrior caste superseded the sacerdotal,
indicating the second stage of progress, slavery, though
more cruel and bloody, lost the sanction of religion, the
consecration of mystery. It no longer existed by the
divine will. It was the fortune of battle, and the slave, by
a reverse of fortune, might become the master.


108
[July,
Progress.
Feudalism, the third stage, was not precisely slavery.
The slave became a serf, attached to the soil, instead of
being merely a personal chattel. His life became of some
consideration, and he had a sort of precarious right of
property.
A privileged order of nobility, divested of feudal privi-
leges, indicates the destruction of feudalism. The serf
has become a commoner. In this new revolution the life,
liberty, and property of the plebeian have acquired safe-
guards, and though still exposed to great injury and
oppression, his condition is immeasurably in advance of
that of the slave of the theocracy, the Helot of military
conquest, or the serf of feudalism.
These successive revolutions seem to have followed each
other with the accelerated velocity of a falling body. The
duration of the theocracy is unknown; but it is probable
that it continued longer than the institution, which suc-
ceeded it; for the earliest traditions of the race point to it
as belonging even then to the hoariest antiquity. Slavery
by conquest existed more than three thousand years ;
feudalism, to which it gave place, continued eleven hun-
dred; while within two hundred years after the overthrow
of feudalism, a privileged nobility had ceased to exist in
France, and the American Revolution had annihilated
forever, as a social institution, all distinction of ranks —
in the Caucasian race. Constant wrote his work, I believe,
before the noted “ Three Days of Paris," and the conse-
cration of the “Citizen King." Be it added now, then,
that that almost bloodless revolution was separated by an
interval of only forty years from the so-absurdly-enough
called “Horrors of the French Revolution,” and by only
ten or fifteen years from the battle of Waterloo, and the
restoration of the old dynasty in the person of “Louis the
Desired ;” and we may say with a comfortable degree of
courage and hope, as Constant said, "They, who write
within the next fifty years, will have many other steps to
trace." And when we remember, that within the last
lustrum, the magnificent West India Revolution has been
effected; that a similar revolution is preparing, and almost
ready to be evolved in the French Indies of both hemi-
spheres; that the “pledged philanthropy of earth" has
assembled, in the commercial metropolis of the world, in


1841.
109
Progress.
a “World's Convention," in sympathy and for the redress
- of the black man's wrongs; and that seven thousand men
in these United States have bound themselves by an oathi
to take no rest, till they have vanquished slavery here with
the freeman's weapon at the ballot-box; may we not
include the African race with the Caucasian, in our encour-
aging cry,-“ Frisch zu, Bruder,'' — Courage, brother;
much as the devil has to do in it, the earth still belongs to
the Lord!
I have indicated thus particularly the political progress
of mankind, because political institutions and monuments
denote, more conclusively than any other, the actual
condition of Humanity, of man in his spiritual develop-
ment; and because this progress seems to me to be more
decisively transcendental. Popular institutions, including
in this connexion religious establishments, inasmuch as the
religious and political development of nations are very
intimately connected, — being, as has been said and re-
peated, the expression of the prevailing ideas of a nation;
its forms of government and legislation, which are con-
cerned with the rights of man, as man, are the only
tolerably accurate tests of the position of man in the mass,
of the progress of Humanity towards individual freedom, and
universal equality. Hence, his social and political environ-
ments are of much higher importance than his scientific
progress. Man's freedom is the essence of his being; and
the nearer he is to a state of absolute independence
of will and action, the more perfectly will his whole
nature be developed, and his destiny on earth accom-
plished. Man's scientific culture, as science is under-
stood, is by no means the highest object, and is for the
most part material and mechanical. His progress in
science, practical arts, industry, mechanical invention, in
everything relating to the outward embellishment and
physicial comfort of society, has been rapid in proportion
as progress in these is more easy, as it depends more on
individual endeavor, as it is aided, if not wholly carried
on by sensation and mechanism, as it does not require the
largest development of the highest powers of the mind,
and as it is opposed by few inward or outward difficulties.
Political institutions, the most hostile to individual liberty,
have been, and are, the most zealous promoters of letters,


110
July
Progress.
science, and exterior culture. The reign of the Roman
Augustus has passed into a proverb. The Augustan age
of France denotes the reign of him, who could say, “ I am
the State," and carry it out. We all know how it is at
present with the three imperial and royal personages, who
conceived and instituted the “ Holy Alliance.”
But in all the relations of man the law of progress is
constant and universal. In all departments it has been
transcendental. Man has been indebted to mechanism
only for the means of effecting it, and the modes of re-
cording and perpetuating it. The great ideas, in which
reforms and revolutions have originated, have not resulted
from any calculation of profit and loss, ingenious inquiries
concerning the balance of trade, nor any of the processes
of the logic of experience, or of mechanical combination.
They have been founded in the perception of a spiritual
truth, an insight of the invisible, an invincible dissatisfac-
tion with the seen and actual, and a strong yearning for
something yet unknown, better able than the present to
realize the deep-felt possibilities, the infinite yearnings of
man's spirit. This seems to me to be obvious enough in
relation to religious and political reforms. But even in
things more immediately connected with the material
world, and within the more direct sphere of the senses,
we find the same necessity of referring to a higher faculty
than sensible experience, to account for progress. The
falling of an apple is said to have suggested to Newton
the law of gravity. If all the ideas in the universe, ac-
cessible to the senses, had been in Newton's mind at that
moment, and the wonder-working apple had fallen plump
into the midst of them all; still, how were it possible, with
those materials alone, to work out the immaterial, purely
abstract idea of gravity, a pure force, invisible, but all-
pervading and universal, intangible, yet all-controlling, not
to be perceived by any one, nor all the senses, and yet
binding the material universe together in unfailing order,
and perfect harmony ? In like manner it may be seen,
that the great discoveries in science, and inventions in arts,
presuppose an order of ideas not supplied by the external
senses; beyond their reach; and which are necessary to
give vitality, practicability, and even reality, to the com-
munications of the senses.


1841.]
111
. Progress.
But, returning to the political progress of mankind; it
is evident that this progress is the result of a perception,
faint at first, but becoming clearer in each epoch, of the
principle of the natural equality of all men. This is one
of the ultimate facts in man's history. The earliest politi-
cal convulsions exhibit glimpses of it. The earliest political
and religious revolutions have aimed at, and tended to
develope it. From theocratic slavery, through military servi-
tude, feudal vassalage, the almost empty subordination to
a privileged nobility, and the nominal parity of rights in a
republic, this great principle has steadily advanced, in a
great degree unconsciously on the part of the agents in
revolutions, towards its fulfilment. Every new revolution
is a new approximation to it. Every successful resistance
of oppression is an earnest of its triumph. Even those
revolutions, in which liberty seems to be cloven down,
scatter wider its seeds, and prepare the way for a broader
regeneration. These times are full of " millennial fire-
shadowings” of its coming. Its ultimate establishment,
as the universal law of earth, towards which the march of
progress is advancing with accelerating steps, will be the
consummation of man's political destinies.
It is not an unimportant inquiry, but one of the deepest
significance, what is the origin and foundation of this idea ?
Does its truth depend on our being able to deduce it argu-
mentatively from outward experience ? to prove it as the nett
result of an arithmetical calculation and balancing of pro
and con, why and why not? Can man's equal right to
freedom be legitimated only from without? Is it the con-
clusion of a syllogism, of which the eye and the ear alone
can furnish the major and minor propositions ? Or is it
an essential element of self-consciousness, without which
we cease to be ? a truth to be attained and comprehended
as readily and as fully, by the ignorant peasant, as by the
subtlest dialectician; and the proof of which lies not in
an appeal to earth, and the earthly in man, but to Heaven,
and the universal spiritual intuitions of Humanity ?
The idea of man's equality is not derived from his birth.
Inequalities of physical organization, and moral and intel-
lectual differences, which cannot be accounted for by the
observation of outward phenomena, are apparent almost
from the moment of his entrance into life. The condition


112
[July
Progress.
of his earliest years would lead to a different view of his
appointed destiny.
It would not be the result of the observation of his
social condition, in any age or nation. Inequality appears
every where to be the law of his present being. Some of
the race are born in the purple, inheritors of absolute au-
thority over the liberties and lives of their fellows; sur-
rounded from the cradle by all the environments of gran-
deur and luxury; to whom Nature and Art seem appointed
to minister with all their treasures. Others, and far a
greater number, whose doom, too, is not written upon the
skin, first look out into life from squalid hovels ; cradled in
poverty and rags; with no inheritance but the universal
air, which cannot be exclusively appropriated ; doomed to
go on from infancy to age, the slaves of toil, laboring and
suffering that others may be idle and enjoy ; debarred from
all knowledge but what is derived from having sounded all
the depths of wretchedness; and thus pass to their graves
from generation to generation, degraded and hopeless in
life, and the consciousness of a higher life almost erased.
Between these extremes society is a system of inequality
in manifold gradations. The intellectual manifestations of
men, though by no means coincident with their physical
condition, would lead to a similar result. What premises
has logic here, by what induction can it draw forth the
regenerating doctrine of equality ?
Nor is this idea presented in the sum total of man's
condition, as wrought out in history. There man is always
and everywhere exhibited in the horizontal division of
rulers and subjects by inheritance; of those, whose right
it is to oppress, and those, whose inexorable duty is sub-
mission. The social institutions of every nation in every
age have been founded upon a denial of this principle.
The republics of antiquity had no conception of it. No
revolution, till within the last half century, though aiming
expressly at the improvement of the condition of the sub-
ject orders, has asserted it. One recent attempt to embody
it in political institutions terminated in a military despotism;
from which logic, justly enough according to its light, con-
cluded that it was a falsehood and chimera, without foun-
dation in the universe. One nation has solemnly announced
it as the highest social truth, and professedly made it the


1841.]
113
Progress.
basis of its political establishments. Yet that same nation
has shown that it has little practical faith in it; and that
the most hopeful believers believe in it with important
limitations, and regard it very much in the light of a phi-
lanthropic experiment, of which the result is rather doubt-
ful. One half of the nation openly treats it in practice as
a lie, to which it is not bound to pay even an outward
respect. The other half not only acquiesces in this con-
tumely on the part of the first, but in the development of
its own institutions has effectively nullified it, in manifold
respects, and fully realized it in none. The logic of
sense, then, if we allow it the power to draw moral
conclusions, would infer from the condition and history
of the race, either that this idea is a falsehood unmixed;
or, if it may contain a portion of truth, that it is a pure,
useless abstraction, or only applicable on certain condi-
tions, and in certain circumstances, which have not yet
occurred in its experience, and of the occurrence of which
all its analogies contain no promise.
But this idea is, nevertheless, a reality, in spite of the
lame conclusions of forensic logic. It rests on a surer
basis than sensation, or reasoning from outward phenom-
ena, or any of the mechanical elements of man's nature.
And well for man that it has a higher sanction ; that it is
not of the earth, earthy, and subject to be cavilled at,
doubted, or denied, according to the reflection it receives
from outward things, from the contradictions of his social
condition, and the anomalies of the political systems to
which he has been subjected. State to any one, whose
interests or passions are not concerned in denying it, that
a man is a man: that simple declaration invests him with
sacredness, strips off all the outward garbs of reverence or
shame, which accident has put upon him, and places him,
in his original divinity, upon that broad platform, where
there is nothing above him, or below him. This principle,
then, in the words of another, is "a deep, solemn, vital
truth, written by the Almighty in the laws of our being,
and pleaded for by all that is noble and just in the prompt-
ings of our nature.” It is, as the noblest declaration of
human rights ever announced to the world, asserts, “a
self-evident truth;” a truth based, like the faith in the
All-perfect, in the intuitions of man's soul, placing his
VOL. II. —NO. 1.
15


114
[July,
Progress.
right to freedom on an immovable basis, as unchangeable
as the attributes of the Creator, and making every act of
oppression of man by his fellow, not only a personal wrong,
but a crime against Heaven. This truth, thus authenti-
cated, inspires a deep, religious love of man as a friend,
and a brother united to ourselves by a common and equal
destiny ; a truth, which scorns the miserable distinctions
of color, birth, and condition, and compels us, whatever
defacements he may have suffered from society, or himself,
still to regard him as a brother, whom we are to love and
labor for ; a truth, which gives and receives illustration
from all the events in man's history, when viewed in its
light, and forbids us to despair for Humanity, even in
its darkest fortunes. A truth, which inspires invincible
faith in man, and confidence in his fortunes; and in rela-
tion to him, as to all things, leaving the dead past to bury
its dead, and retaining only “its immortal children,” re-
joices and courageously acts in the living present, trusting,
with unwavering hope, in the transcendent destiny, which
lies rolled up for him in the future, and which the past and
the present have been, and are, working together with the
future in unfolding.
Let me illustrate the relations of this subject in another
aspect. The most striking characteristic of this age is its
mechanical tendency. This is observable not only where
it might be expected, in the industry and physical culture
of society, of which mechanism is the appropriate instru-
ment. The old modes of production are superseded by
easier and more rapid mechanical processes. Machinery
supplies the place of human labor ; the fleet horse has
yielded to fleeter steam ; and the winds become laggards
before its powerful and untiring wings. All the material
business of society is accomplished with a precision, rapid-
idity, and productiveness, more than realizing the most
fantastic visions of the seers of the past.
But this mechanical tendency is observable, and its foot-
steps are becoming daily more deeply imprinted in the
departments of society, not apparently lying within its
province. And this seems to be the natural result of a
philosophy relying exclusively upon the senses, or which,
at the most, can have conceptions of the spiritual only
through the medium of matter. The results of such a


1841.)
115
Progress.
philosophy must be essentially material. Beholding the
almost omnipotence of machinery over the material forces
of nature, and the physical miracles it works ; its logical
inference must be, that mechanism is the ultimate force in
the universe, and an equal wonder-worker in moral, as in
physical things. Moral force, if there be such a force, is
absolutely inert and powerless, unless set in motion by a
material mainspring. The indications of such a faith are
but too apparent in the whole life and activity of society.
They are visible in the almost exclusive devotion to the
sciences conversant alone with the outward. The physical
sciences are chiefly cultivated, and that mechanically, being
reduced to mere classification and nomenclature. - In the-
ology, which has no absolute demonstration of a God; but
only some ambiguous glimpses of him in the curious me-
chanical contrivances and adaptations of matter, which it
has discovered by means of its telescopes, microscopes,
dissections, and other mechanical aids. — In morals, which
look for a sure foundation, not in the infinite, intuitive
sentiment of duty, of right, " which enters every abode,
and delivers its message to every breast;” but in some
demonstrable fitness of things, some calculation of profit
and loss, which it calls utility, or at the highest, some
single, positive, material revelation of the divine will to
a remote age. — As in its foundation moral science is thus
material, it is equally mechanical in its instruments. Moral
reformers seldom rely upon the spiritual power of their
doctrine, but upon the aptness of their contrivances, the
mechanical power of association, the material energy of
combined action, and the force of public opinion. The
prophet is of less account than the warrior. — In politics,
government is a machine, by the gradual perfecting of
which mankind is to be made free and happy; instead of
being regarded as the result and the record of man's pro-
gressive advance towards freedom and happiness. Hence
too exclusive reliance is placed upon institutions, statutes,
forms, and material forces. — In the aims of politicians,
which point only to the improvement of the physical, eco-
nomical, immediately practical condition of the people. —
In the means of political operation most relied on; trained
and drilled organizations, and other mechanical appliances,
too often subjecting the individual judgment to the party


116
[July,
Progress.
will, and thus in effect imposing upon him the slavery
he seeks by these means to get rid of. - In the
popular rules of judgment and action in morals and politics.
Here the inquiry is not concerning the absolutely right, the
right in itself; but what will be profitable, what politic.
The ultimate appeal is not to man's conscience, but to his
interests. Expediency sits upon the throne; and men, as
politicians, feel at liberty to postpone their most solemn
convictions of truth, when it appears at present unattain-
able, and to aid in upholding an acknowledged falsehood,
until the political machinery, in some of its chance evolu-
tions, shall come against and crush it.
This tendency is exhibited in the reverence for public
opinion, the fear of uttering boldly what is in the thought;
forgetting that as truth is to the ALL, so to each individual
man his own convictions are the highest thing in the
universe ; and that whoso falsifies the truth in his mind,
were it only by compromising it, pays sacrifice to the devil,
and enlarges the borders of the empire of darkness.
In the ends and modes of education, which aims chiefly
at the outward, the material, physical science, by means of
Peter Parleys and Boards of Education, with their systems
diagrams, atlases, pretended purports of history, and other
machinery adapted to attain the great end of knowledge
made easy.
And finally, this tendeney is manifested in its great
result, — the prevailing unbelief in the power of individual
endeavor. “I am but one, and the race is numberless.
What can I do?” And thus no man thinks of undertaking
any enterprise without first securing the aid of an associa-
tion or party, provided with all the nicely adjusted, patent
machinery, by which society is regulated and impelled.
Failing in this, with his most earnest canvassing for parti-
sans, he consoles himself for giving it up by the reflection,
that the times and the fates are unpropitious. Short-
sighted coward! If but one, does he not know that he is
omnipotent for himself, and responsible for himself, and
not another for him? Was it truth he was desirous to
promote? And does he not know; does not the whole
past, with its Christs, Luthers, Foxes, Wesleys, and its
hosts of prophets and reformers, answer to his own deep
hopes; that truth, and not mechanism, governs the uni-


1841.]
117
Progress.
verse; that it is faith, and not machinery, which is to work
out the infinite destinies of mankind; that the poorest,
toil-begrimed and disfigured workman, with living faith in a
truth, is a match for all the machinery in the world, set in
motion by falsehood; nay, more than a match, by the whole
difference between Heaven and earth, time and eternity ?
Thus everything is reduced to logic and ratiocination;
and as men believe nothing but what there is a visible or
tangible reason for; so they have no conception of power,
but as an engine, with wheels, and springs, and levers.
Through the whole compass of society, “this faith in
mechanism has now struck its roots deep into man's most
intimate primary sources of conviction; and is thence
sending up, over his whole life and activity, innumerable
stems, fruit-bearing and poison-bearing. The fact is, men
have lost their faith in the invisible, and believe, and hope,
and work only in the visible.”
This exclusive cultivation of the outward, in so far as it
has facilitated and increased the productiveness of industry,
and multiplied the means and rapidity of communication,
has undoubtedly been attended with many benefits; though
perhaps the evils as yet have exceeded them. The present
perfection of machinery has increased wealth, and the means
of wealth ; but it has increased accumulation, tended to
concentrate wealth in few hands, and thus enlarge the
inequalities of social conditions, and by the machinery of
associations founded on wealth, to give to classes and
corporations advantages similar to those possessed by the
feudalisms and aristocracies, which our social systems have
rejected. Besides, it is asserted by competent observers,
that modern machinery has actually increased the daily
amount, and diminished the reward of individual human
labor. In introducing the labor of children in the opera-
tions of machinery, an amount of evil has been inflicted
on the world, of which the revelations of eternity alone
can disclose the extent. At present, the perfection of
machinery has given a new impulse to, if it has not
created the inordinate, all-engrossing desire of wealth, so
strongly marked in the character of our times.
Yet these results, even if they were to be permanent,
are less pernicious than the destruction of moral force, of
faith and hope in its power, which is indicated and caused


118
Progress.
[July,
by the mechanical character of the age. But this is not
the end. The ultimate effects of machinery upon society
have scarcely yet been conceived of. Moral force is, after
all, the parent of all other force, creating and controlling,
and making all subservient to the spiritual advancement of
man. Material mechanism cannot extinguish the deep,
primary intuitions of the soul; but for a time suppress
them. The mighty power acquired by mechanical combi-
nations is not long to be monopolized, but to be made the
grand instrument of individual and social progress. Man
has not been permitted to discover, and subject to his use,
so many physicial agents, only that he might “ build more
houses, weave more cloth, forge more iron,” and multiply
his material enjoyments, without any direct regard to his
moral and intellectual improvement. The abridgments of
labor are destined to benefit all mankind, and every indi-
vidual; and the abundance of production is to be commu-
nicated impartially to the whole race. It would not be
difficult to point out some of the steps, by which this
result is to be reached ;- a result not the less certain,
though we could trace no step of the process, by which it
may be wrought out — when every man, by the impartial
enjoyment of the advantages of machinery, shall be released
from the necessity of more labor, than is necessary to
secure a sound mind in a sound body; when not a portion
only of society shall live in luxury, while the masses
remain slaves of toil, mere beasts of burden; but every
inan shall enjoy undisturbed leisure for the cultivation of
his higher nature; when all the Lord's people shall be
prophets, and the transcendental principle of the entire
equality of all men before the Common Father be estab-
lished, as the universal law of earth, superseding institu-
tions, and abolishing all the distinctions which now divide
man into governors and people, representatives and con-
stituents, employers and employed, givers and receivers of
wages, artizans, laborers, lawyers, priests, kings, and com-
moners; and man be reckoned as man, not to be charac-
terized and defined by his accidents, not to be measured
by what is lowest, but by what is highest in him.
Does this seem a mere phantasm - a delusion ? Nay,
if there be anything to be learned from man acting in the
past, it is that his whole history has been preparing for


1841.]
119
Progress.
such a consummation. If there be any certainty in the
deepest convictions of man's soul, such is the destiny
appointed him. If there be any truth in the symbols
of that Book, which Christians receive as a revelation of
the highest truth, God himself has announced it.
Man's past history, as we have seen, is the record of his
obedience to that “deep commandment," dimly at first,
but in each succeeding epoch more clearly discerned, of
his whole being, “to have dominion," - to be free. “Free-
dom is the one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of
all man's toilings, struggles, sufferings in this earth.” The
generation of the present man is busily doing its part in
unfolding this destiny, and giving its demonstration of the
universal intuitions. Active as are the movements, deep-
rooted and widely-spread the power of mechanism; the
moral force of man is still asserting its right to rule his
fortunes. Behind the mechanical movement, there is a
deeper, more earnest spiritual movement, in which the
former must be absorbed, and made to coöperate. This
movement is expressed in the wide-felt dissatisfaction with
the present, the earnest inquiry for something better than
the past has transmitted, or the present attained, in morals,
religion, philosophy, education, in everything that concerns
the spiritual culture of man. It is indicated most deci-
sively, where perhaps it is needed most, in the popular
efforts for large civil and religious liberty. The depth of
this movement cannot be measured by the senses. It
defeats all the calculations of logic. The old despotisms
are not alone affected by it; but it is most earnest in the
freest nations. It laughs at all the political mechanisms,
which are contrived to restrain it, whether in the shape of
“Restoration of the Bourbons," Holy Alliances, Citizen
Kings, Reform Bills, or Constitutional Compromises. The
advent of a “ Louis the Desired,” cannot prevent “ Three
Days of July;" Carbonari and Chartist rebellions break
out in spite of Congresses of Vienna, and disfranchisement
of rotten boroughs; Citizen Kings do not find their
thrones couches of down, nor their crowns wreaths of
roses; and fraudulent Constitutions of the United States,
which guaranty perpetual slavery to one sixth of the
people, do not satisfy the remaining five sixths, that, with
respect to them, the right of suffrage, and a parchment


120
[July,
Progress.
declaration of rights, fill all man's conceptions of the
liberty for which he was created. Doubtless there is much
folly, even madness, and much aimless endeavor, in these
movements; as no popular movement, nor even much
earnest individual striving after an object worth striving
for, is without a portion, more or less, of such. I am not
now characterizing the present movements by their degree
of wisdom or folly, insight or blindness. I refer to them
as the working of a principle deep planted in the inmost
being of man, and pointing to a state of higher attainment
and more perfect freedom ; of which we can, at present,
conceive but the faintest foreshadowings; higher than mere
political freedom, and perfecting of institutions; which in-
stitutions can in no wise represent or embody; which all
uttered and unuttered prophecy indicates; when Christ, in
all his true, divine significance, shall reign upon the earth.
Through toil, and suffering, and blood, the race has
advanced thus far towards its destiny. Through toil, and
suffering, and blood, the remainder of its course is doubtless
appointed. Through suffering alone can the race, as
the individual, be perfected. The progress and the
result are to be obtained by man's endeavor. To the race,
too, as to the individual, is it appointed to work out its
own salvation, in coöperation with Him, who is also work-
ing in man's purposes. For this was man endowed with
the faculty of prophecy and insight, that he might be a
prophet and a seer. But it is to be remembered, that only
the power is given to man, with freedom of will. The
rest must be all his own work. The Lord's people are not
all prophets; and doubtless most of the evils humanity has
suffered and is suffering, the crimes and follies which
disfigure its history, are the consequences of his want of
faith in his intuitions. Man's true life is in the unseen.
His truest culture is of those faculties, which connect him
with the invisible, and disclose to him the meaning, which
lies in the material forms by which he is surrounded. The
highest science is that, “ which treats of, and practically
addresses the primary, unmodified forces and energies of
man, the mysterious springs of love, and fear, and wonder,
and enthusiasm, poetry, religion, all which have a truly
vital and infinite character." For this culture the spirit
of man has its own exhaustless resources within, and the


1841.)
121
Sonnet.
material creation speaks to it in thousand-voiced prophecy.
The heavens and the earth, the stars and the flowers, the
winds and the waves, all that is seen, and felt, and heard,
contain revelations. Infancy is a prophecy, with its un-
clouded eye, over which the shadows of earth have not
yet passed, to dim the hues of its celestial birthplace.
Childhood, yet bright in its beautiful unfolding; manhood,
with its dissatisfaction, its busy restlessness, ever seeking,
never finding, its scheming activity, with or without an
end, or conscious aim; age, approaching the summing up
of life, and recounting its chequered experience; history,
as it traces the eventful progress of the race; science,
unfolding the immensity of the material universe; the great
and good of the past, revealing the wondrous possibilities
of man's nature; the good he enjoys, no less than the evil
he suffers; even his follies and crimes; all phenomena,
and all events in his experience; all suggest inquiry into
the problem of life, and man's destiny, and at the same
time furnish him the means of solving it.
SONNET TO
-
Thou art like that which is most sweet and fair,
A gentle morning in the youth of Spring,
When the few early birds begin to sing,
Within the delicate depths of the fine air;
Yet shouldst thou these dear beauties much impair,
Since thou art better, than is everything
Which or the woods, or skies, or green fields bring,
And finer thoughts hast thou than they can wear.
In the proud sweetness of thy grace, I see
What lies within, --- a pure and steadfast mind,
Which its own mistress is, of sanctity,
And to all gentleness hath it been refined,
So that thy least thought falleth upon me
As the soft breathing of midsummer-wind.
VOL. II. — NO. I.
16


122
. [July,
Letter.
LETTER.
Zoar, Ohio, Aug. 9, 1838.
“ Have you ever been to Zoar?” said a gentleman to a
lady in our presence the other evening. “Where is Zoar?”
said I, and then followed the description which induced us
to take the canal boat for this place at four o'clock, Tues-
day afternoon. About the same hour, Wednesday, we per-
ceived an enormous edifice, new and beautifully white,
contrasting with the green of the woods, built on each
side of the canal, and forming a pretty arched bridge over
it; this we were told was the new mill at Zoar, the largest
to be seen in the country. Here committing our luggage
to the barrow of a stout little German boy, we wound our
way up the bank, and through shady lanes planted with
rows of trees on each side for half a mile, to the inn of the
community, which, with its red sloping roof and pretty
piazzas shaded with locusts, stands in the midst of the
settlement. But I will give some little history of this place,
before I describe our visit to it. About twenty years since
two hundred individuals, men, women, and children, who
had separated themselves sometime before from the Luth-
eran church, and resemble the Quakers more than any
other sect, and who had selected a teacher by the name of
Baumler for their teacher and leader, came out to this
country to seek a retreat where they might enjoy undis-
turbed their own faith. They selected this lovely valley
on the banks of the Tuscarawas, and side by side with the
river the canal now runs. The valley contains some of
the most fertile land in the State. It was then uncleared
forest. They encamped under a wide spreading oak,
whose stump they yesterday showed us, and went to work.
Three trustees were appointed to counsel their leader and
limit his power, and the little band formed themselves into
a society, which should have all things in common, the
land to be held in the name of Baumler, and all the re-
sponsibility and headwork to devolve upon him.
They were in debt for their land when they began, and now
are said to have a capital of three hundred thousand dollars,
and the interest of this they do not encroach upon, unless


1841.).
123
Letter.
some great enterprise is to be undertaken, as the building
of a mill, &c. They cleared the land, built houses regu-
larly arranged in squares, separated by pretty shady lanes,
surrounded by little grass plats and ornamented by vines,
and at first adopted the Shaker method of men and women
living separately, those who were already married relin-
quishing their husbands and wives, and the young persons
forbidden to form any connexions. This regulation was
observed for fourteen years, and then was abolished, each
man returning to his former wife, and those who had none
selecting them. They also relinquish the use of pork, on
account of the evil spirits which they suppose still have
possession of the swine, and the exquisite neatness of their
lanes and yards may be attributed in great part to the
absence of these filthy animals, which overrun every town
and village of the western country. The population of
Zoar has diminished rather than increased. Fifty inhabi-
tants died of the cholera, and all the young persons, who
were bound to them, at the end of their apprenticeship
prefer the risk of self-support with independence, to the
safe and tranquil but constrained mode of life of the com-
munity; and as they are permitted to leave if they choose,
are many of them enjoying their flourishing farms in other
parts of the State, probably prizing the little word mein,
more than any in their native tongue. The children of
the settlers usually remain, and there are at present in the
society about a hundred and forty individuals. They have
a justice of the peace who attends to their little legal busi-
ness, but no physician and no minister. Baumler attends
to their few and simple maladies, and preaches to them
on Sundays; not, as one of them told us, that the elder
ones did not know how to behave and conduct according
to the golden rule as well as he, but the young folks need
to be taught.
When we had taken possession of the neat and airy parlor
of the inn, whose plain white walls were adorned with a
few colored engravings, in good taste, imported by B-
for the purpose, our landlady was summoned by her hus-
band to welcome us; and a more beautiful face I never saw
in her class of life, so kind and benignant in its expres-
sion. Her dress was precisely that of every individual of
the society on working days. An indigo blue calico, such


124
(July,
Letter.
as is worn by many of our people, tight sleeves, a white,
homespun, twilled cotton shirtee with a square collar, a
large long tire coming down to the bottom of the dress,
white as snow, and a little cap on the back of the head
without a frill, of the same material as the dress, and very
becoming to old and young, with the hair carried strait
back from the forehead. The field hands, who are prin-
cipally young girls, wear in addition enormous hats of
coarse straw, with very low crowns. All have small, colored
handkerchiefs round their necks crossed before. These and
the calico are purchased and distributed in the society ; but
everything else is of domestic manufacture. While our
gute frau had gone to make ready our room, the guter
mann brought us a bottle of the pure juice of the grape,
nine years old, made from their own wine garden ; this
with water was a cool and refreshing beverage for us, who
were almost frantic with heat. We were soon shown to
our room, a white-washed one, neat as possible, with its
snow-white curtains, green blinds, and window looking out
upon the piazza, overhung with the branches of the large
locust trees, through which a glimpse could be caught of
the lovely country at a distance. We were refreshed with
the coolest spring water. The bed was of sweet corn
husks, covered with home-made check clothes and home-
made linen sheets of the purest whiteness.
When we went below our supper was ready in the neat
back parlor, and we found it the perfection of rural fare,
the richest of milk and butter, the best of cheese, the
whitest and lightest of bread, and simple cake, with
dried beef. After tea the gentlemen of our party sent
to see if Baumler was disengaged, for he receives visits
like a king, and it is evidently his policy to keep at a
dignified distance both from his own people and strangers ;
but he was occupied with his three trustees, who meet
him every evening to make arrangements and plan work
for the community for the next day. The only car-
riage and horses in the village, though nominally be-
longing to the community, are kept in Baumler's barn.
The people choose their leader should have the best
house in the place; accordingly the palace opposite
the inn is the best built dwelling we have seen in the
country, spacious, and in thorough order. After our
their leaderely the pala seen in the


1841.)
125
Letter.
breakfast, at which we found a few more guests than the
night before, Mr. — went over to pay his respects to B.,
whom he found rather advanced in years, dressed in a
plain blue sailor's jacket and trowsers, with a straw hat,
which he doffs for no one. His address was polite, but
very distant. No compliments were offered by him, and
no interest expressed in what was going on abroad. His
countenance is striking, decided but calm, with a full grey
eye, very mild in its expression. He evidently is nothing
of a philanthropist, and this lessens our interest in the com-
munity. His business talents are great, and he bears
lightly the responsibility of all the pecuniary transactions
of the society, which are extensive. He loves influence,
and has consummate skill in the exercise of it, and we could
see oppression nowhere, abundance every where, but the
most rigid discipline connected with it. The punishments
are very simple. If persons conduct ill, they are sometimes
sent to the opposite side of the river, to reside for a few
months on probation, and if they are found incorrigible,
they are banished entirely from the society. Intemperance
is unknown, strong drink being forbidden, and idleness
quite unheared of. No one is hurried or busy, though all
are employed.
After Mr. returned from his visit, we went to
see the garden which was very near, intending to extend
our walk farther, if the extreme heat of the day was not
too overpowering; but our interest was so great, and the
places where we stopped so exquisitely neat and cool, that
we seemed to feel the heat less and less as we advanced,
and we were out the whole morning, without suffering
from it. First we went through the garden of two acres
with its turfed walks, grape-vine arbors, with seats under
the shade, and came to the green-house, surrounded with
large lemon and orange trees. The collection of plants is
small, but in high order; and as it is the only establishment
of the kind in the vicinity, persons come a hundred miles,
to purchase flowers and seeds from it. A few shillings
repaid the gardener for our pleasant walk and cool seat
in the shade, and induced him cheerfully to show us some
of the most interesting parts of the establishment. We
passed down a shady lane to the cool baking house (which
seems a contradiction in terms) where two single wo-


126
(July,
Letter.
men, in their picturesque dress, do all the baking for
the community; each family sending morning and night
for its allowance, which consists of five loaves, or one
according to its size. After this we went to the dairy,
where all the butter and cheese are made, cool as an ice
house, with running water passing through it. Pots of
milk, with the cream rising, were ranged around. Small
new cheeses were piled on the shelves, and large tubs of
butter in the centre. The gardener's introduction, and
the information that we had come “eighty mile” to see
their settlement, and were from “ Boston tausend mile off”
on a “Just-reise," filled them with wonder and delight,
and was a sure passport to their good graces. So many
smiling, benevolent, and intelligent faces I never saw in
so short a time; and it was amazing to find how our Ger-
man vocabulary expanded under the influence of the kind
reception we met with, and by the effort to repay these
words of kindness by intelligible language; for there is
hardly any English spoken here, particularly among the
women.
The dairy women treated us to a clean mug of but-
termilk, and we went to the weavers, where we found
the good-man and his wife, who supply the society with
woollen cloth, working in their pleasant airy rooms, while a
child of twelve tended the baby. The women here are
as much at leisure, so far as household affairs and tending
children is concerned, as the most fashionable lady could
desire ; for the cooking is done at one large establishment,
where they go to eat, and have every variety of country
fare, but are allowed meat only twice a week, and their
children are taken from them at three, and put under the
care of matrons, the boys in one house, and the girls in
another, till they are old enough to be of use, when they
tend cattle, mow, reap, or do any other kind of field work.
They have no task set, at least among the older members;
but each does the most he can out of doors and in. The
gardener consigned us to the care of the weaver, who
devoted the whole morning to us. We found him a very
intelligent man, who spoke English well, and gave us all
the information we desired. He first took us to the boys'
dwelling, where we found fifteen or twenty healthy, happy
little urchins braiding coarse straw hats; for they have no


1841.]
127
Letter.
school in summer, and I rather think receive very little
education at any season. We went up to their sleeping
apartment, a large airy room with clean beds, and a
furnace by which it can be heated in winter. By the time
we came down, some of the field hands had come to the
piazza to take their lunch of bread and home-made beer,
of which we felt no reluctance to partake. We then went
to the house for little girls, where there seemed to be more
play going on than work, and where I was particularly
charmed with their clean and abundant wardrobes, arranged
in partitions against the walls of their sleeping room, with
a closet full of little colored muslin, and white linen caps,
with white frills for their Sunday wear.
Their church is a simple apartment, where they assemble
on Sunday, carefully dressed, and commence with music,
which is said to be remarkably good. They have no devo-
tional exercises but those of the heart. After a short period
of silence, Baumler addresses a discourse to them, and
music closes the service. He plays on the piano, and
others on the flute and bass viol. Attendance on worship
among the elder people is entirely voluntary. They have
no ceremony at their weddings but assembling two or
three witnesses, who sign a paper, that they have been
present at this union; and their funerals are without any
form whatever, except that the family follows the body of
their friend to the grave. We next visited the carding
room, where we found machinery similar to that in our
manufactories, tended by old people and children. We
visited the mill used by the community, after we had ex-
amined the landscapes and flowerpieces of the head man
at the last place, a very old person and self-taught, whose
devotion of his leisure hours to the fine arts, and the
triumphant exhibition of them by our guide, were produc-
tive of more pleasure to us, as indicating some love of
culture, amid all the toil of their active lives, than we
could obtain from the works themselves. We next visited
the cabinet maker, who, like all the other persons we saw,
was laboring tranquilly and leisurely without any appear-
ance of task work. From the cabinet maker's we ascended
half way a beautifully wooded hill with the orchard on top,
passing through a wicket gate and up a little winding path
among the trees, we came to the cottage of Katrina and


128
(July,
Letter.
her old assistant, who take care of the poultry. A large
hen barn, duck and turkey house comprise this establish-
ment, and we found the mistress of it with her big hat on
supplying their little troughs with fresh water. After
looking at her poultry, she took us to the room where she
keeps the pottery made in the community, which is of
the plainest and neatest kind, and out of one of her little
mugs she fed us, as she does her poultry, with a cool
draught of spring water. We returned to our inn to
dinner, where we found a large company from the neigh-
boring towns. At four P. M., after a delightful shower,
that made all nature radiant, though it did not diminish
the intense heat, we took the carriage, and drove through
a romantic country to Bolivar, to visit the furnace and iron
works which belong to the settlement, though out of it, and
carried on by hired persons not of the community. Return-
ing we stopped at the wine garden. It covers the slope of a
sunny hill, half a mile from the village. The vines are
trained on short poles like hops, and bear the fruit princi-
pally on the lower part. We rode home by the way of
the extensive hop garden, luxuriant and fragrant, and more
graceful and beautiful than all the vineyards in the world.
After tea we went out to see the milking, the most inter-
esting scene of the place. Down a lane, just opposite the
inn, is an immense barn-yard and barn, with a house at
one end for the cow girls and another at the other for cow
boys. There are three houses. At early morning they
go out to their milking, and after it they may be seen with
their leathern wallets containing their food for the day, slung
under one arm, sallying forth, some with their detachments
of cows and sheep, and others with the young cattle, to
their respective grazing spots; while you meet women with
large tubs of milk on their heads taking it to the village
dairy. About seven in the evening the whole herd is
back again; you hear the cow bells far off in the distance,
and then commences the evening milking. After this the
horn is blown, and one may see the lads and lasses, each
by themselves, collecting in the piazzas of their houses for
their evening meal. Our trunks are packed, and in a few
minutes we are to leave this lovely spot, probably never to
realize the wish, that we might pass a season in the midst
of its rural pleasures and country fare. We may see fine


1841.]
129
Lines. - Sonnet.
scenery, but nowhere in our country such easy counte-
nances, free from care, and so picturesque a population.
Every individual gives a smiling greeting, and even the
young girl driving her team speaks in a gentle musical
tone.
LINES.
You go to the woods - what there have you seen?
Quivering leaves glossy and green;
Lights and shadows dance to and fro,
Beautiful flowers in the soft moss grow.
Is the secret of these things known to you?
Can you tell what gives the flower its hue?
Why the oak spreads out its limbs so wide ?
And the graceful grape-vine grows by its side?
Why clouds full of sunshine are piled on high?
What sends the wind to sweep through the sky ?
No! the secret of Nature I do not know-
A poor groping child, through her marvels I go!
SONNET.
1. To die is gain.”
WHERE are the terrors that escort King Death,
That hurl pale Reason from her trembling throne ?
Why should man shudder to give up his breath?
Why fear the path, though naked and alone,
That must lead up to scenes more clear and bright,
Than bloom amid this world's dim clouded night?
Is not his God beside, around, above,
Shall he not trust in His unbounded love?
Oh, yes! Let others dread thee if they will,
I'll welcome thee, O death, and call thee friend,
Come to release me from these loads of ill,
These lengthened penances I here fulfil,
To give me wings, wherewith I may ascend,
And with the soul of God my soul may blend!
Hugh PETERS.
VOL. II. — NO. I.


130
(July,
Notices of Recent Publications.
NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.
Essays and Poems. By Jones Very. Boston: C. C. Little and
James Brown.
This little volume would have received an earlier notice, if
we had been at all careful to proclaim our favorite books. The
genius of this book is religious, and reaches an extraordinary
depth of sentiment. The author, plainly a man of a pure and
kindly temper, casts himself into the state of the high and
transcendental obedience to the inward Spirit. He has appa-
rently made up his inind to follow all its leadings, though he
should be taxed with absurdity or even with insanity. In this
enthusiasm he writes most of these verses, which rather flow
through him than from him. There is no composition, no
elaboration, no artifice in the structure of the rhyme, no va-
riety in the imagery; in short, no pretension to literary merit,
for this would be departure from his singleness, and followed
by loss of insight. He is not at liberty even to correct these
unpremeditated poems for the press; but if another will pub-
lish them, he offers no objection. In this way they have come
into the world, and as yet have hardly begun to be known.
With the exception of the few first poems, which appear to be
of an earlier date, all these verses bear the unquestionable
stamp of grandeur. They are the breathings of a certain en-
tranced devotion, which one would say, should be received
with affectionate and sympathizing curiosity by all men, as if
no recent writer had so much to show them of what is most
their own. They are as sincere a litany as the Hebrew songs
of David or Isaiah, and only less than they, because indebted
to the Hebrew muse for their tone and genius. This makes
the singularity of the book, namely, that so pure an utterance
of the most domestic and primitive of all sentiments should in
this age of revolt and experiment use once more the popular
religious language, and so show itself secondary and morbid.
These sonnets have little range of topics, no extent of obser-
vation, no playfulness; there is even a certain torpidity in the
concluding lines of some of them, which reminds one of church
hymns; but, whilst they flow with great sweetness, they have
the sublime unity of the Decalogue or the Code of Menu, and


1841.]
131
Notices of Recent Publications.
if as monotonous, yet are they almost as pure as the sounds
of surrounding Nature. We gladly insert from a newspaper
the following sonnet, which appeared since the volume was
printed.
THE BARBERRY BUSH.
The bush that has most briars and bitter fruit,
Wait till the frost has turned its green leaves red,
Its sweetened berries will thy palate suit,
And thou may'st find e'en there a homely bread.
Upon the hills of Salem scattered wide,
Their yellow blossoms gain the eye in Spring;
And straggling e'en upon the turnpike's side,
Their ripened branches to your hand they bring,
I've plucked them oft in boyhood's early hour,
That then I gave such name, and thought it true;
But now I know that other fruit as sour
Grows on what now thou callest Me and You;
Yet, wilt thou wait the autumn that I see,
Will sweeter taste than these red berries be.
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. By
THOMAS CarlyLE. 1841.
Although the name of Thomas Carlyle is rarely mentioned
in the critical journals of this country, there is no living writer
who is more sure of immediate attention from a large circle of
readers, or who exercises a greater influence than he in these
United States. Since the publication of his article on the
characteristics of our time in the Edinburgh Review, and
afterwards of the Sartor, this influence has been deepening
and extending year by year, till now thousands turn an eager
ear to the most distant note of his clarion. To be and not to
seem; to know that nothing can become a man which is not
manlike; that no silken trappings can dignify measures of
mere expediency; and no hootings of a mob, albeit of critics
and courtiers, can shame the truth, or keep Heaven's dews
from falling in the right place; that all conventions not founded
on eternal law are valueless, and that the life of man, will he
or no, must tally with the life of nature; - this creed indeed
is none of the newest! No! but as old and as new as truth
itself, and ever needing to be reënforced. It is so by Carlyle
with that depth of “Truthful earnestness” he appreciates so
fully in his chosen heroes, as also with a sarcastic keenness,
an overflow of genial wit, and a picturesque skill in the de-
lineation of examples, rarely equalled in any age of English
literature.


132
(July,
Notices of Recent Publications.
How many among ourselves are his debtors for the first as-
surance that the native disdain of a youthful breast for the
shams and charlatanries that so easily overgrow even our free
society was not without an echo. They listened for the voice
of the soul and heard on every wind only words, words. But
when this man spoke every word stood for a thing. They had
been taught that man belonged to society, the body to the
clothes. They thought the reverse, and this was the man to
give distinct expression to this thought, which alone made life
desirable.
Already he has done so much, that he becoines of less im-
portance to us. The rising generation can scarcely conceive
how important Wordsworth, Coleridge, and afterwards Carlyle
were to those whose culture dates farther back. A numerous
band of pupils already, each in his degree, dispense bread of
their leaven to the children, instead of the stones which care-
ful guardians had sent to the mill for their repast.
But, if the substance of his thought be now known to us,
where shall we find another who appeals so forcibly, so vari-
ously to the common heart of his contemporaries. Even his
Miscellanies, though the thoughts contained in them have now
been often reproduced, are still read on every side. The
French Revolution stands alone as a specimen of the modern
Epic. And the present volume will probably prove quite as
attractive to most readers.
Though full of his faults of endless repetition, hammering on
a thought till every sense of the reader aches, and an arrogant
bitterness of tone which seems growing upon him (as alas! it
is too apt to grow upon Reformers; the odious fungus that
deforms the richest soil), though, as we have heard it express-
ed, he shows as usual “ too little respect for respectable people,"
and like all character-hunters, attaches an undue value to his own
discoveries in opposition to the verdict of the Ages, the large
residuum of truth we find after making every possible deduc-
tion, the eloquence, the wit, the pathos, and dramatic power of
representation, leave the faults to be regarded as dust on the
balance.
Among the sketches, Odin is much admired, and is certainly of
great picturesque beauty. The passages taken from the Scandi-
navian Mythology are admirably told. Mahomet is altogether fine.
Dante not inaccurate, but of little depth. Apparently Mr. Car-
lyle speaks in his instance from a slighter acquaintance than is
his wont. With his view of Johnson and Burns we were al-
ready familiar ; both are excellent, as is that of Rousseau,
though less impressive than are the few touches given him
somewhere in the Miscellanies. Cromwell is not one of his


1841.]
133
Notices of Recent Publications.
best, though apparently much labored. He does not adequately
sustain his positions by the facts he brings forward.
This book is somewhat less objectionable than the French
Revolution to those not absolutely unjust critics, who said they
would sooner “ dine for a week on pepper, than read through
the two volumes." Yet it is too highly seasoned, tediously
emphatic, and the mind as well as the style is obviously in want
of the verdure of repose. An acute observer said that the best
criticism on his works would be his own remark, that a man
in convulsions is not proved to be strong because six healthy
men cannot hold him. We are not consoled by his brilliancy
and the room he has obtained for an infinity of quips and
cranks and witty turns for the corruption of his style, and the
more important loss of chasteness, temperance, and harmony
in his mind observable since he first was made known to the
public.
Yet let thanks, manifold thanks, close this and all chapters
that begin with his name.
A Year's Life. By James Russell LOWELL. Boston: C. C.
Little and James Brown. 1841.
We are late in a notice of this volume. But not only do we
consider this delay complimentary as intimating that we sup-
pose the book still fresh in the public mind, but, in truth, we
are timid with regard to all comments upon youthful bards.
We doubt the utility whether of praise or blame. No criti-
cism from without is of use to the true songster; he sings as
the bird sings, for the sake of pouring out his eager soul, and
needs no praise. If his poetic vein be abundant enough to
swell beyond the years of youthful feeling, every day teaches
him humility as to his boyish defects; he measures himself
with the great poets; he sighs at the feet of beautiful Nature;
his danger is despair. The proper critic of this book would
be some youthful friend to whom it has been of real value as
a stimulus. The exaggerated praise of such an one would be
truer to the spiritual fact of its promise, than accurate measure-
ment of its performance. To us it has spoken of noble feelings,
a genuine love of beauty, and an uncommon facility of execu-
tion. Neither the imagery nor the music are original, but the
same is true of the early poems of Byron ; there is too much
dwelling on minute yet commonplace details, so was it with
Coleridge before he served a severe apprenticeship to his art.
The great musicians composed much that stands in the same re-
lation to their immortal works that those productions perhaps may


134
[July,
Notices of Recent Publications.
to those of Mr. Lowell's riper age; superficial, full of obvious
cadences and obvious thoughts; but sweet, fluent, in a large
style, and breathing the life of religious love.
We have never acknowledged the receipt from Mr. Bixby
of Lowell, of copies from his editions of Hayward's Faust, and
Goethe's Correspondence with a Child. It is ungrateful not to
express the pleasure we felt in such works being made accessi-
ble to innumerable inquirers who were ever pursuing the for-
tunate owners of the English copies. All translations of
Faust can give no better idea of that wonderful work than a
Silhouette of one of Titian's beauties; but we much prefer
the prose translation to any of the numerous metrical attempts
which are an always growing monument to the power of the
work, which kindles its admirers to attempt the impossible.
We cannot but wonder that any one who aims at all at literary
culture can remain ignorant of German, the acquisition of
which language is not a year's labor with proper instruction,
and would give them access to such wide domains of thought
and knowledge. But if they will remain, from indolence, beg-
gars, this translation will give them the thought, if not the
beauty, of Goethe's work.
The Correspondence is as popular here as in Germany, but
we intend in the next number of the Dial to give a brief notice
of Bettina Brentano, and the correspondence with Günderode,
which she is now publishing in Germany. It is to be hoped she
will translate that also into the same German English of irre-
sistible naiveté, of which she has already given us a specimen.
The Hour and the Man. By Harriet Martineau.
This work, whose very existence tells a tale of heroic cheer-
fulness, such as its author loves to celebrate, would do honor
to her best estate of health and hopeful energy. It has all the
vivacity, vigor of touch, and high standard of character, which
commanded our admiration in Ella of Garveloch; the sweet.
ness and delicate sentiment of the Sabbath Musings; the lively
feeling of Nature and descriptive talent which were displayed
in her work on this country. The book is overladen with in-
cident and minute traits of character, yet is in these respects a
great improvement on Deerbrook. As an artist Miss Marti-
neau wants skill in selection among her abundant materials,
and in effective grouping of her figures; but this, should life
be prolonged, she seems likely to attain. The conception of


1841.]
135
Notices of Recent Publications.
Toussaint's character is noble and profound; its development
and execution by new circumstances on the whole managed
with skill, though the impression is somewhat marred where
an attempt is made to heighten it by surrounding him with
objects of luxury. This part is not well managed, and pro-
duces an effect, probably very different from what the writer
intended. The men are not real live men, but only paper
sketches of such; but in this Miss Martineau only shares the
failure of all her contemporaries. Scott was the only heir of
Fielding's wand. This novel deserves a place in the next rank
to those which made the modern novel no unworthy successor
to the ancient drama.
Tennyson's Poems. — Stirling's Poems. — Festus.
The pleasure we have derived from all of these books is such
that we are most desirous they may be made accessible to read-
ers in general. The rivers of song have dwindled to rills, and
the ear is very impatient during the long intervals, that it misses
entirely the melody of living waters. Tennyson is known by
heart, is copied as Greek works were at the revival of litera-
ture; nothing has been known for ten years back more the
wish to know the flavor of strawberries or cherries, ask chil-
dren and birds." We understand he is preparing for a new
edition, which will, we hope, be extensively circulated in this
country.
The Sexton's Daughter is better known than Stirling's other
poems. Many of them claim a tribute which we hope to ren-
der in the next number.
Of Festus, too, we shall give some account and make many
extracts, as we understand the first edition is already sold in
England, and we do not hope to see one here as yet.
We recommend a little paper published in Providence, The
Plain Speaker, to the attention of those who, instead of wishing
to close their eyes to every movement not quite congenial to
their tastes and views, think that nothing which busies the
heart of man is foreign to them, and that very crude thought
may be worth attention from pure lips and a sincere soul.
The numbers we have seen give clearer indications than most
printed papers of the under-current of feeling among our
people. Of their views of the uses of life the following lines
by one of the contributors may serve as an index; may they
be true to such desires for individual growth! we will then


136
[July, 1841.
To Contributors.
consider them Radicals not in the way of cutting away the
root of the fair tree of civilization, but as striving to clear from
it the earthworms, which, if left undisturbed, would drain life
at the source.
LINES.
We grope in dimness of light, seeing not ourselves,
We sleep, and dreams come to us of something better,
We wake, and find that our life is not of Truth.
We strive, and the powers of darkness contend with our Hope.
We pray, and the availance is great in our own souls.
We trust, and the light breaks promising the day.
We act, the day dawns, how beauteously bright!
We love in faith, - casting out fear; so we Live.
We see God, and our eyes are no more closed.
God is in us — our souls are Life - our bodies die.
We ascend to the Father and are one with Deity.
S. A. C.
TO CONTRIBUTORS.
We trust that our unknown friends are not greatly disap-
pointed that so many of their requests are neglected, and their
gifts apparently unheeded. Our space is limited, and much
that is not without merit must lie unpublished. As we observe
that those who find themselves unanswered do not honor us
again, we would urge them not to be deterred by the omission
of their articles. It was our hope that the perfect freedom
guaranteed for the Dial would make it the means of developing
young talent. We should like to hear from our friends again
and again, and be the means of their serving an apprenticeship
to the pen. Whenever any contribution combines, in our
view, individuality of character with vigor and accuracy of
style, it will be inserted. Those which do not satisfy us can be
returned if such be the writer's desire, provided the address is
given us. Several persons have requested to be answered
through the post-office on points which interest them. They
will find in the Dial expressions of sentiment and opinion on
those points probably more satisfactory than any which could
be rendered in a private correspondence, to which there are
many objections. Communications are to be addressed, For the
Dial, 121, Washington Street.


THE DIAL.
Vol. II.
OCTOBER, 1841.
No. II.
CUPID'S CONFLICT.
BY DR, HENRY MORE.
1647.
[This poem is inserted at the request of a friend, in place of the con-
tribution requested from himself, as the best prologue to any work that
could be offered to men in the present time. Apart from its pertinence
to thoughts that are continually presenting themselves among us, it is
a privilege to meet with a production of Henry More's, copies of whose
works are rarely to be found here.]
MELA. — CLEANTHES.
CLE. - Mela, my dear! why been thy looks so sad
As if thy gentle heart were sunk with care ?
Impart thy case; for be it good or bad,
Friendship in either will bear equall share.
MEL. — Not so, Cleanthes, for if bad it be,
Myself must bleed afresh by wounding thee:
But what it is, my slow, uncertain wit
Cannot well judge. But thou shalt sentence give
How manfully of late myself I quit,
When with that lordly lad by chance I strive.
CLE. -- Of friendship, Mela! let's that story hear.
MEL.— Sit down, Cleanthes, then, and lend thine ear.
Upon a day as best did please my mind,
Walking abroad amidst the verdant field,
VOL. II. — NO. 11. 18


138
[Oct.
Cupid's Conflict.
Scattering my carefull thoughts i'th' wanton wind,
The pleasure of my path so farre had till'd
My feeble feet, that without timely rest,
Uneath it were to reach my wonted nest.
In secret shade farre moved from mortalls' sight,
In lowly dale my wandering limbs I laid,
On the cool grasse where nature's pregnant wit
A goodly bower of thickest trees had made.
Amongst the leaves the chearful birds did fare
• And sweetly carold to the echoing air.
Hard at my feet ran down a crystall spring,
Which did the cumbrous pebbles hoarsly chide
For standing in the way. Though murmuring,
The broken stream his course did rightly guide,
And strongly pressing forward with disdain
The grassy flore divided into twain.
The place awhile did feed my foolish eye,
As being new, and eke mine idle ear
Did listen oft to that wild harmonie,
And oft my curious phansie would compare
How well agreed the brook's low muttering base
With the birds' trebbles perch'd on higher place.
But sense's objects soon do glut the soul,
Or rather weary with their emptinesse;
So I, all heedless how the waters roll
And mindless of the mirth the birds expresse,
Into myself 'gin softly to retire
After hid heavenly pleasures to enquire.
While I this enterprise do entertain,
Lo! on the other side in thickest bushes,
A mighty noise! with that a naked swain
With blew and purple wings streight rudely rushes,
He leaps down light upon the floury green,
Like sight before mine eyes had never seen.
At's snowy back the boy a quiver wore,
Right fairly wrought and gilded all with gold;
A silver bow in his left hand he bore,
And in his right a ready shaft did hold.
Thus armed stood he, and betwixt us tway,
The labouring brook did break its toilsome way.
The wanton lad, whose sport is others' pain,
Did charge his bended bow with deadly dart,
And drawing to the head with might and main,
With fell intent he aimed to hit my heart.


1841.]
139
Cupid's Conflict.
But ever as he shot his arrows still
In their mid course dropt down into the rill.
Of wondrous virtues that in waters been,
Is needlesse to rehearse, all brooks do sing
Of those strange rarities. But ne're was seen
Such virtue as resided in this spring.
The noveltie did make me much admire,
But stirr'd the hasty youth to ragefull ire.
As heedlesse fowls that take their perlous flight
Over that bane of birds, Averno lake,
Do drop down dead; so dead his shafts did light
Amid the stream, which presently did slake
Their fiery points, and all their feathers wet,
Which made the youngster Godling inly fret.
Thus lustfull Love (this was that love I ween,)
Was wholly changed to consuming ire,
And eath it was, sith they 're so near of kin,
They be both born of one rebellious fire.
But he supprest his wrath, and by and by
For feathered darts he winged words let flie.
Vain man! said he, and would thou wer'st not vain,
That hid'st thyself in solitary shade,
And spil'st thy precious youth in sad disdain,
Hating this life's delights. Hath God thee made
Part of this world, and wilt not thou partake
Of this world's pleasure for its maker's sake?
Unthankfull wretch! God's gifts thus to reject,
And maken nought of nature's goodly dower,
That milders still away through thy neglect,
And dying fades like unregarded flower.
This life is good, what's good thou must improve,
The highest improvement of this life is love.
Had I, (but O that envious destanie,
Or Stygian vow, or thrice accursed charm,
Should in this place free passage thus denie
Unto my shafts as messengers of harm!)
Had I but once transfixt thy forward breast,
How wouldst thou then - I staid not for the rest;
But thus half angry to the boy replide;
How would'st thou then my soul of sense bereave!
I blinded, thee more blind should choose my guide!
How would'st thou then my muddied mind deceive,
With fading shows, that in my error vile
Base lust, I love should tearm; vice, virtue stile.


140
Oct.
Cupid's Conflict.
How should my wicked rhymes then idolize
Thy wretched power, and with impious wit
Impute thy base-born passions to the skies,
And my soul's sickness count an heavenly fit,
My weaknesse strength, my wisdom to be caught,
My bane my blisse, mine ease to be o're wraught.
How often through my fondly feigning mind
And frantick phansie, in my mistris' eye,
Should I a thousand fluttering cupids find,
Bathing their busy wings? How oft espie
Under the shadow of her eyebrows fair,
Ten thousand graces sit all naked bare.
Thus haunted should I be with such fell fiends,
A pretty madnesse were my portion due;
Foolish myself, I would not hear my friends,
Should deem the true for false, the false for true;
My way all dark, more slippery than ice;
My attendants, anger, pride, and jealousies.
Unthankfull then to God, I should neglect
All the whole world for one poor sorry wight,
Whose pestilent eye into my heart project,
Would burn like poysonous comet in my spight.
Aye me! how dismall then would prove that day
Whose only light sprang from so fatall ray.
Who seeks for pleasure in this mortall life
By diving deep into the body base,
Shall loose true pleasure; but who gainly strive
Their sinking soul above this bulk to place,
Enlarged delight they certainly shall find,
Unbounded joyes to fill their boundlesse mind.
When I myself from mine own self do quit,
And each thing else, then an all-spreden love
To the vast universe my soul doth fit,
Makes me half equall to all-seeing Jove;
My mightie wings, high stretch'd then clapping light,
I brush the starres and make them shine more bright.
Then all the works of God with close embrace
I dearly hug in my enlarged arms,
All the hid paths of heavenly love I trace,
And boldly listen to his secret charms.
Then clearly view I where true light doth rise,
And where eternall Night low pressed lies.
Thus lose I not by leaving small delight,
But gain more joy, while I myself suspend


1841.)
141
Cupid's Conflict.
From this and that; for then with all unite
I all enjoy, and love that love commends,
That all is more then loves the partiall soul
Whose petty love th' impartiall fates controll.
to
Ah, son! said he, (and laughed very loud,)
That trickst thy tongue with uncouth, strange disguise,
Extolling highly that with speeches proud
To mortall men that humane state denies,
And rashly blaming what thou never knew;
Let men experienced speak, if they 'll speak true.
Had I once lanced thy froward, flinty heart,
And cruddled bloud had thawn with living fire,
And prickt thy drowsie sprite with gentle smart,
How would'st thou wake to kindle sweet desire !
Thy soul fill’d up with overflowing pleasures
Would dew thy lips with honey'd, topping measures.
Then would thou caroll loud and sweetly sing
In honour of my sacred Deity,
That all the woods and hollow hills would ring
Reëchoing thy heavenly harmony;
And eke the tardy rocks with full rebounds
Would faithfully return thy silver sounds.
Next unto me would be thy mistresse fair,
Whom thou might setten out with goodly skill
Her peerlesse beauty and her virtues rare,
That all would wonder at thy graceful quill,
And lastly in us both thyself should'st raise
And crown thy temples with immortal bayes.
But now thy riddles all men do neglect,
Thy rugged lines of all do ly forlorn ;
Unwelcome rhymes that rudely do detect
The reader's ignorance. Men holden scorn
To be so often non-plus'd, or to spell,
And on one stanza a whole age to dwell.
Besides this harsh and hard obscurity,
Of the hid sense, thy words are barbarous,
And strangely new, and yet too frequently,
Return, as usuall, plain and obvious,
So that the snow of the new thick-set patch
Marres all the old with which it ill doth match.
But if thy haughty mind, forsooth would deign
To stoop so low, as t' hearken to my lore,
Then wouldst thou with trim lovers not disdeign
To adorn th' outside, set the best before ;


142
(Oct.
Cupid's Conflict.
Nor rub nor wrinkle would thy verses spoil ;
Thy rhymes should run as glib and smooth as oyl.
If that be all, said I, thy reasons slight
Can never move my well established mind;
Full well I note always the present sprite,
Or life that doth possesse the soul, doth blind,
Shutting the windows 'gainst broad open day,
Lest fairer sights its uglinesse bewray.
The soul then loves that disposition best
Because no better comes into her view;
The drunkard drunkennesse, the sluggard rest,
Th' ambitious honour and obeysance due;
So all the rest do love their vices base,
Cause virtue's beauty comes not into place.
And looser love 'gainst chastity divine,
Would shut the door, that he might sit alone;
Then wholly should my mind to him incline,
And woxen strait, (since larger love was gone,)
That paltry spirit of low contracting lust
Would fit my soul as if 't were made for 't just.
Then should I with my fellow bird or brute,
So strangely metamorphosed, either ney,
Or bellow loud; or if’t may better sute,
Chirp out my joy pearch'd upon higher spray,
My passions fond with impudence rehearse,
Immortalize my madnesse in a verse.
This is the summe of thy deceiving boast,
That I vain rudenesse highly should admire,
When I the sense of better things have lost,
And changed my heavenly heat for hellish fire;
Passion is blind; but virtue's piercing eye,
Approaching danger can from farre espie.
And what thou dost pedantickly object,
Concerning my rude, rugged, uncouth style,
As childish toy I manfully neglect,
And at thy hidden snares do inly smile;
How ill alas! with wisdome it accords
To sell my living sense for livelesse words.
My thoughts the fittest measure of my tongue,
Wherefore I'll use what's most significant,
And rather than my inward meaning wrong,
Or my full-shining notion trimly skant,
I'll conjure up old urns out of their grave,
Or call fresh forrein force in if need I crave.


1841.)
143
Cupid's Conflict.
And these attending to my moving mind
Shall only usher in the fitting sense.
As oft as meet occasion I find,
Unusuall words oft used give lesse offence;
Nor will the old contexture dim or marre,
For often used they're next to old thred-bare.
And if the old seem in too rusty hew,
Then frequent rubbing makes them shine like gold,
And glister all with colour gayly new;
Wherefore to use them both we will be bold,
Thus lists me fondly with fond folk to toy,
And answer fools with equal foolery.
The meaner mind works with more nicetie
As spiders wont to weave their idle web,
But braver spirits do all things gallantly,
Of lesser failings nought at all affred.
So Nature's careless pencill dipt in light
With sprinkled starres hath spattered the night.
And if my notions clear though rudely thrown,
And loosely scattered in my poesie,
May lend new light till the dead night be gone,
And morning fresh with roses strew the sky;
It is enough, I meant no trimmer frame,
Nor by nice needle-work to seek a name.
Vain man! that seekest name 'mongst earthly men,
Devoid of God and all good virtuous lore,
Who groping in the dark do nothing ken,
But mad with griping care their souls so tore,
Or burst with hatred, or with envie pine,
Or burn with rage, or melt out at their eyne.
Thrice happy he whose name is writ above,
And doeth good though gaining infamy;
Requiteth evil turns with hearty love,
And recks not what befalls him outwardly;
Whose worth is in himself, and onely blisse
In his pure conscience that doth nought amisse.
Who placeth pleasure in his purged soul,
And virtuous life his treasure doth esteem;
Who can his passions master and controll,
And that true lordly manlinesse doth deem,
Who from this world himself hath clearly quit,
Counts nought his own but what lives in his spright.
So when his spright from this vain world shall fit,
It bears all with it whatsoever was dear


144
TOct.
Cupid's Conflict.
Unto itself, passing in easy fit,
As kindly ripen'd corn comes out of th' ear,
Thus mindlesse of what idle men will say
He takes his own and stilly goes his way.
But the retinue of proud Lucifer,
Those blustering poets that fly after fame,
And deck themselves like the bright morning starre,
Alas! it is but all a crackling flame,
For death will strip them of that glorious plume,
That airie blisse will vanish into fume.
For can their carefull ghosts from Limbo Lake
Return, or listen from the bowed skie,
To heare how well their learned lines do take ?
Or if they could, is Heaven's felicitie
So small, as by man's praise to be encreased,
Hell's pain no greater than hence to be eas'd ?
Therefore once dead in vain shall I transmit
My shadow to gazing posterity,
Cast far behind me I shall never see 't,
On heaven's fair sunne having fast fixt mine eye,
Nor while I live, heed I what man doth praise
Or underprise mine unaffected layes.
What moves thee then, said he, to take the pains
And spenden time if thou contemn'st the fruit?
Sweet fruit of fame, that fills the poet's brains
With high conceit and feeds his fainting wit;
How pleasant 't is in honours here to live,
And dead, thy name forever to survive!
Or is thy abject mind so bascly bent,
As of the muse to maken merchandise?
(And well I note this is no strange intent)
The hopeful glimpse of gold from chattering pies,
From daws and crows and parrots, oft hath wrong
An unexpected Pegaseian song.
Foul shame on him, quoth I, that shameful thought
Doth entertain within his dunghill breast,
Both God and nature hath my spirits wrought
To better temper, and of old hath blest
My loftie soul with more divine aspires,
Than to be touched with such vile, low desires.
I hate and highly scorn that cestrell kind
Of bastard scholars that subordinate
The precious, choice induements of the mind
To wealth and worldly good. Adulterate


1841.]
145
Cupid's Conflict.
And cursed brood! Your wit and wile are born
Of the earth and circling thither do return.
Profit and honour be those measures scant
of your slight studies and endeavours vain,
And when you once have got what you did want
You leave your learning to enjoy your gain;
Your brains grow low, your bellies swell up high,
Foul sluggish fat ditts up your dulled eye.
Thus, what the earth did breed to th' earth is gone,
Like fading hearb or feeble drooping flower,
By feet of men and beast quite trodden down,
The mucksprung learning cannot long endure,
Back she returns lost in her filthy source,
Drown'd, choked, or slocken by her cruel nurse.
True virtue to herself 's the best reward,
Rich with her own and full of lively spirit,
Nothing cast down for want of due regard,
Or cause rude men acknowledge not her merit;
She knows her worth, and stock from where she sprung
Spreads fair without the warmth of earthly dung,
Dewed with the drops of heaven shall flourish long;
As long as day and night do share the skie,
And though that day and night should fail, yet strong
And steddie, fixed on eternitie,
Shall bloom forever. So the soul shall speed,
That loveth virtue for no worldly meed.
Though sooth to say, the worldly meed is due
To her more than to all the world beside ;
Men ought do homage with affections true,
And offer gifts, for God doth there reside;
The wise and virtuous soul is his own seat,
To such what's given God himself doth get.
But worldly minds, whose sight seal'd up with mud,
Discern not this flesh-clouded Deity,
Ne do acknowledge any other good
Than what their mole-warp hands can feel and trie,
By groping touch; (thus worth of them unseen,)
Of nothing worthy that true worth they ween.
Wherefore the prudent lawgivers of old,
Even in all nations, with right sage foresight,
Discovering from farre how clums and cold
The vulgar wight would be to yield what's right
To virtuous learning, did the law designe
Great wealth and honor to that worth divine.
VOL. II. —NO. II.


,146
[Oct.
Cupid's Conflict.
But nought's by law to poesy due, said he,
Ne doth the solemn statesman's head take care
Of those that such impertinent pieces be
Of commonweals. Thou'd better then to spare
Thy useless vein. Or tell else, what may move
Thy busie muse such fruitlesse pains to prove.
No pains but pleasure to do th' dictates dear
Of inward living nature. What doth move
The nightingale to sing so sweet and clear,
The thrush or lark, that mounting high above
Chants her shrill notes to heedlesse ears of corn
Heavily hanging in the dewy morn.
When life can speak, it cannot well withhold
T expresse its own impressions and hid life,
Or joy or grief that smothered lie untold
Do vex the heart and wring with restless strife,
Then are my labors no true pains but ease,
My soul's unrest they gently do appease.
Besides, that is not fruitlesse that no gains
Brings to myself. I others' profit deem
Mine own; and if at these my heavenly flames
Others receiven light right well I ween
My time's not lost. Art thou now satisfide ?
Said I ; to which the scoffing boy replide;
Great hope indeed, thy rhymes should men enlight,
That be with clouds and darknesse all o'ercast,
Harsh style and harder sense void of delight
The reader's wearied eye in vain do wast;
And when men win thy meaning with much pain,
Thy uncouth sense they coldly entertain.
For wot'st thou not that all the world is dead
Unto that genius that moves in thy vein
Of poetrie? But like by like is fed ;
Sing of my trophies in triumphant strain,
Then correspondent life thy powerful verse
Shall strongly strike and with quick passions pierce.
The tender frie of lads and lasses young,
With thirstie care thee compassing about,
Thy nectar-dropping muse, thy sugar'd song
Will swallow down with eager, hearty draught,
Relishing truly what thy rhymes convey,
And highly praising thy soul-smiting lay.
The mincing maid her mind will then bewray,
Her heart-bloud flaming up into her face,


1841.]
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Cupid's Conflict.
Grave matrons will wax wanton and betray
Their unresolv'dnesse in their wonted grace;
Young boys and girls would feel a forward spring,
And former youth to old thou back wouldst bring.
All sexes, ages, orders, occupations,
Would listen to thee with attentive ear,
And eas’ly moved with sweet persuasions,
Thy pipe would follow with full merry chear;
While thou thy lively voice didst loud advance
Their tickled blond for joy would inly dance.
But now, alas! poor solitarie man!
In lonesome desert thou dost wander wide,
To seek and serve thy disappearing Pan,
Whom no man living in the world hath eyde;
Sir Pan is dead, but I am still alive,
And live in men who honor to me give.
They honour also those that honour me
With sacred songs. But thou now sing'ts to trees,
To rocks, to hills, to caves, that senselesse be
And mindless quite of thy hid mysteries,
In the void air thy idle voice is spread,
Thy muse is musick to the deaf or dead.
Now out alas! and well-away,
The tale thou tellest I confess too true,
Fond man so doteth on this living clay,
His carcase dear, and doth its joys pursue,
That of his precious soul he takes no keep
Heaven's love and reason's light lie fast asleep.
This bodies life vain shadow of the soul
With full desire they closely do embrace,
In fleshly mud like swine they wallow and roll,
The loftiest mind is proud but of the face
Or outward person; if men but adore
That walking sepulchre, cares for no more.
This is the measure of man's industry,
To wexen somebody and gather grace
For outward presence; though true majestie,
Crown'd with that heavenly light and lively rayes
Of holy wisdome and seraphick love
From his deformed soul he farre remove.
Slight knowledge and lesse virtue serves his turn
For this designe. If he hath trod the ring
Of pedling arts; in usuall pack-horse form
Keeping the rode; O! then 't's a learned thing;


148
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Lives of the Great Composers.
If any chanc'd to write or speak what he
Conceives not,'t were a foul discourtesie.
To cleanse the soul from sinne and still diffide
Whether our reason's eye be clear enough,
To intromit true light, that fain would glide
Into purg'd hearts, this way's too harsh and rough,
Therefore the clearest truths may well seem dark,
When sloathfull men have eyes so dimme and stark.
These be our times. But if my minds' presage
Bear any moment, they can ne're last long,
A three-branch'd flame will soon sweep clear the stage
Of this old dirty drosse and all wex young.
My words into this frozen air I throw
Will then grow vocal at that generall thraw.
Nay, now thou 'rt perfect mad, said he, with scorn,
And full of foul derision quit the place;
The skie did rattle with his wings ytorn
Like to rent silk. But I in the mean space
Sent after him this message by the wind;
Be't so I'm mad, yet sure I am thou 'rt blind.
By this the outsretch'd shadows of the trees
Pointed me homeward, and with one consent
Foretold the daye's descent. So straight I rise
Gathering my limbs from off the green pavement,
Behind me leaving the sloping light.
CLE. — And now let's up. Vesper brings in the night.
LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS, HAYDN, MOZART,
HANDEL, BACH, BEETHOVEN.
The lives of the musicians are imperfectly written for
this obvious reason. The soul of the great musician can
only be expressed in music. This language is so much
more ready, flexible, full, and rapid than any other, that
we can never expect the minds of those accustomed to its
use to be expressed by act or word, with even that degree
of adequacy, which we find in those of other men. They
are accustomed to a higher stimulus, a more fluent exis-
tence. We must read them in their works; this, true of


1841.) Lives of the Great Composers.
149
artists in every department, is especially so of the high-
priests of sound.
Yet the eye, which has followed with rapture the flight
of the bird till it is quite vanished in the blue serene,
reverts with pleasure to the nest which it finds of mate-
rials and architecture, that, if wisely examined, corre-
spond entirely with all previously imagined of the song-
ster's history and habits. The biography of the artist is a
scanty gloss upon the grand text of his works, but we ex-
amine it with a deliberate tenderness, and could not spare
those half-effaced pencil marks of daily life.
In vain the healthy reactions of nature have so boldly
in our own day challenged the love of greatness, and bid us
turn from Boswellism to read the record of the village
clerk. These obscure men, you say, have hearts also,
busy lives, expanding souls. Study the simple annals of
the poor, and you find there, only restricted and stifled by
accident, Milton, Calderon, or Michel Angelo. Precisely
for that, precisely because we might be such as these,
if temperament and position had seconded the soul's be-
hest, must we seek with eagerness this spectacle of the
occasional manifestation of that degree of development
which we call hero, poet, artist, martyr. A sense of the
depths of love and pity in our obscure and private breasts
bids us demand to see their sources burst up somewhere
through the lava of circumstance, and Peter Bell has no
sooner felt his first throb of penitence and piety, than he
prepares to read the lives of the saints.
Of all those forms of life which in their greater achieve-
ment shadow forth what the accomplishment of our life
in the ages must be, the artist's life is the fairest in this, that
it weaves its web most soft and full, because of the mate-
rial most at command. Like the hero, the statesman, the
martyr, the artist differs from other men only in this, that
the voice of the demon within the breast speaks louder,
or is more early and steadily obeyed than by men in gen-
eral. But colors, and marble, and paper scores are more
easily found to use, and more under command, than the
occasions of life or the wills of other men, so that we see
in the poet's work, if not a higher sentiment, or a deeper
meaning, a more frequent and more perfect fulfilment than
in him who builds his temple from the world day by day,
or makes a nation his canvass and his pallette.


150
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Lives of the Great Composers.
desistretch vision beys the growth of apparition of only the
It is also easier to us to get the scope of the artist's
design and its growth as the area where we see it does
not stretch vision beyond its power. The Sybil of Michel
Angelo indeed shares the growth of centuries, as much as
Luther's Reformation, but the first apparition of the one
strikes both the senses and the soul, the other only the
latter, so we look most easily and with liveliest impression
at the Sybil.
Add the benefits of rehearsal and repetition. The
grand Napoleon drama could be acted but once, but Mo-
zart's Don Giovanni presents to us the same thought seven
times a week, if we wish to yield to it so many.
The artists too are the young children of our sickly
manhood, or wearied out old age. On us life has pressed
till the form is marred and bowed down, but their youth is
immortal, invincible, to us the inexhaustible prophecy of a
second birth. From the naive lispings of their uncalcu-
lating lives are heard anew the tones of that mystic song
we call Perfectibility, Perfection.
Artist biographies, scanty as they are, are always beauti-
ful. The tedious cavil of the Teuton cannot degrade, nor
the sultry superlatives of the Italian wither them. If any
fidelity be preserved in the record, it always casts new
light on their works. The exuberance of Italian praise
is the better extreme of the two, for the heart, with all its
blunders, tells truth more easily than the head. The re-
cords before us of the great composers are by the patient
and reverent Germans, the sensible, never to be duped
Englishman, or the sprightly Frenchman; but a Vasari
was needed also to cast a broader sunlight on the scene.
All artist lives are interesting. And those of the musicians,
peculiarly so to-day, when Music is the living, growing art.
Sculpture, Painting, Architecture are indeed not dead,
but the life they exhibit is as the putting forth of young
scions from an old root. The manifestation is hopeful
rather than commanding. But music, after all the won-
derful exploits of the last century, grows and towers yet.
Beethoven, towering far above our heads, still with colos-
sal gesture points above. Music is pausing now to ex-
plain, arrange, or explore the treasures so rapidly accumu-
lated ; but how great the genius thus employed, how vast
the promise for the next revelation ! Beethoven seems to


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Lives of the Great Composers.
have chronicled all the sobs, the heart-heavings, and god-
like Promethean thefts of the Earth-spirit. Mozart has
called to the sister stars, as Handel and Haydn have told
to other spheres what has been actually performed in this ;
surely they will answer through the next magician.
The thought of the law that supersedes all thoughts,
which pierces us the moment we have gone far in any de-
partment of knowledge or creative genius, seizes and lifts
us from the ground in Music. “Were but this known all
would be accomplished " is sung to us ever in the tri-
umphs of Harmony. What the other arts indicate and
Philosophy infers, this all-enfolding language declares, nay
publishes, and we lose all care for to-morrow or modern
life in the truth averred of old, that all truth is comprised
in music and mathematics.
By one pervading spirit
Of tones and numbers all things are controlled,
As sages taught where faith was found to merit
Initiation in that mystery old.
WORDS WORTH. “Stanzas on the power of sound.”
A very slight knowledge of music makes it the best
means of interpretation. We meet our friend in a melo-
dy as in a glance of the eye, far beyond where words
have strength to climb; we explain by the corresponding
tone in an instrument that trait in our admired picture, for
which no sufficiently subtle analogy had yet been found.
Botany had never touched our true knowledge of our
favorite flower, but a symphony displays the same attitude
and hues; the philosophic historian had failed to explain
the motive of our favorite hero, but every bugle calls and
every trumpet proclaims him. He that hath ears to hear,
let him hear!
Of course we claim for music only a greater rapidity,
fulness, and, above all, delicacy of utterance. All is in
each and each in all, so that the most barbarous stammer-
ing of the Hottentot indicates the secret of man, as clear-
ly as the rudest zoophyte the perfection of organized be-
ing, or the first stop on the reed the harmonies of heaven.
But music, by the ready medium, the stimulus and the
upbearing elasticity it offers for the inspirations of thought,
alone seems to present a living form rather than a dead
monument to the desires of Genius.


152
(Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
The feeling naturally given by an expression so facile
of the identity and universality of all thought, every
thought, is beautifully expressed in this anecdote of
Haydn.
When about to compose a symphony he was in the
habit of animating his genius by imagining some little
romance. An interesting account of one of these is given
in Bombet's life of Haydn, p. 75.
“ But when his object was not to express any particular
affection, or to paint any particular images, all subjects were
alike to him. "The whole art consists,' said he, in taking up
a subject and pursuing it.' Often when a friend entered as
he was about to compose a piece, he would say with a smile,
"Give me a subject,' - 'Give a subject to Haydn ! who would
have the courage to do so ?' 'Come, never mind,' he would
say, 'give me anything you can think of,' and you were
obliged to obey."
“Many of his astonishing quartetts exhibit marks of this
(piece of dexterity, the French Chevalier is pleased to call it.)
They commence with the most insignificant idea, but, by de-
grees, this idea assumes a character; it strengthens, increases,
extends itself, and the dwarf becomes a giant before our won.
dering eyes."
This is one of the high delights received from a musical
composition more than from any other work of art, except
perhaps the purest effusions of lyric poetry, that you feel
at once both the result and the process. The musician
enjoys the great advantage of being able to excite himself
to compose by his instrument. This gives him a great ad-
vantage above those who are obliged to execute their de-
signs by implements less responsive and exciting. Bach
did not consider his pupils as at all advanced, till they could
compose from the pure mental harmony, without the out-
ward excitement of the instrument; but, though in the
hours of inspiration the work grows of itself, yet the in-
strument must be of the greatest use to multiply and pro-
long these hours. We find that all these great composers
were continually at the piano. Haydn seated himself
there the first thing in the morning, and Beethoven, when
so completely deaf, that he could neither tune his violin
and piano, nor hear the horrible discords he made upon
them, stimulated himself continually by the manual utter-


1841.]
153
Lives of the Great Composers.
ance to evolution of the divine harmonies which were lost
forever to his bodily ear.
It is mentioned by Bombet, as another advantage
which the musician possesses over other artists, that —
“His productions are finished as soon as imagined. Thus
Haydn, who abounded in such beautiful ideas, incessantly en-
joyed the pleasure of creation. The poet shares this advan-
tage with the composer ; but the musician can work faster.
A beautiful ode, a beautiful symphony, need only be imagined,
to cause, in the mind of the author, that secret admiration,
which is the life and soul of artists. But in the studies of the
military man, of the architect; the sculptor, the painter, there
is not invention enough for them to be fully satisfied with
themselves; further labors are necessary. The best planned
enterprise may fail in the execution ; the best conceived pic-
ture may be ill painted; all this leaves in the mind of the in-
ventor an obscurity, a feeling of uncertainty, which renders
the pleasure of creation less complete. Haydn, on the con-
trary, in imagining a symphony, was perfectly happy; there
only remained the physical pleasure of hearing it performed,
and the moral pleasure of seeing it applauded."
Plausible as this comparison appears at first; the mo-
ment you look at an artist like Michel Angelo, who, by
deep studies and intensity of survey, had attained such
vigor of conception and surety of hand, that forms sprang
forth under his touch as fresh, as original, and as powerful,
as on the first days when there was light upon the earth,
so that he could not turn his pencil this way or that, but
these forms came upon the paper as easily as plants from
the soil where the fit seed falls, — at Raphael, who
seemed to develop at once in his mind the germ of all
possible images, so that shapes flowed from his hand plen-
teous and facile as drops of water from the open sluice,
we see that the presence of the highest genius makes
all mediums alike transparent, and that the advantages of
one over the other respect only the more or less rapid
growth of the artist, and the more or less lively effect on
the mind of the beholder. All high art says but one
thing; but this is said with more or less pleasure by the
artist, felt with more or less pleasure by the beholder, ac-
cording to the flexibility and fulness of the language.
As Bombet's lives of Haydn and Mozart are accessible
VOL. II. — NO. II. 20


154
(Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
here through an American edition, I shall not speak of
these masters with as much particularity as of the three
other artists. Bombet's book, though superficial, and in
its attempts at criticism totally wanting in that precision
which can only be given by a philosophical view of the
subject, is lively, informed by a true love for beauty, and
free from exaggeration as to the traits of life which we
most care for. The life of Haydn is the better of the two,
for the calm and equable character of this great man
made not much demand on insight. It displays through-
out the natural decorum and freedom from servile and
conventional restraints, the mingling of dignity and ten-
derness, the singleness of aim, and childlike simplicity in
action proper to the artist life. It flowed a gentle, boun-
teous river, broadening ever beneath the smiles of a “calm
pouring sun.” A manly uniformity makes his life intelli-
ble alike to the genius and the citizen. Set the picture
in its proper frame, and we think of him with great pleas-
ure, sitting down nicely dressed, with the diamond on his
finger given him by the King of Prussia, to compose the
Creation, or the Seven Words. His life was never little,
never vehement, and an early calm hallowed the gush of
his thoughts. We have no regret, no cavil, little thought
for this life of Haydn. It is simply the fitting vestibule to
the temple of his works.
The healthy energy of his nature is well characterized
by what is said of his “ obstinate joy."
" The magic of his style seems to me to consist in a pre-
dominating character of liberty and joy. This joy of Haydn is
a perfectly natural, pure, and continual exaltation; it reigns in
the allegros, it is perceptible even in the grave parts, and per-
vades the andantes in a sensible degree.
“In these compositions where it is evident from the rhythm,
the tone, and the general character, that the author intends to
inspire melancholy, this obstinate joy, being unable to show it-
self openly, is transformed into energy and strength. Observe,
this sombre gravity is not pain; it is joy constrained to dis-
guise itself which might be called the concentrated joy of a
savage; but never sadness, dejection, or melancholy. Haydn
has never been really melancholy more than two or three
times ; in a verse of his Stabat Mater, and in two of the ada-
gios of the Scven Words.
“ This is the reason why he has never excelled in dramatic


1841.]
155
Lives of the Great Composers.
music. Without melancholy, there can be no impassioned
music.”
All the traits of Haydn's course, his voluntary servitude
to Porpora, his gratitude shown at so dear a rate to his
Mæcenas, the wig-maker, his easy accommodation to the
whims of the Esterhazies, and his wise views of the ad-
vantage derived to his talent from being forced to com-
pose nightly a fresh piece for the baryton of Prince Nicho-
las, the economy of his time, and content with limited
means, each and all show the man moderate because so
rich, modest because so clear-sighted, robust, ample, nobly
earnest, rather than fiery and aspiring. It is a great char-
acter, one that does not rouse us to ardent admiration, but
always commands, never disappoints. Bombet compares
him in his works to Ariosto, and the whole structure of his
character reminds us of the “ Ariosto of the North,'' Wal-
ter Scott. Both are examples of that steady and har-
monious action of the faculties all through life, so gene-
rally supposed inconsistent with gifts like theirs; both
exhibit a soil fertile from the bounties of its native forests,
and unaided by volcanic action.
The following passage is (to say nothing of its humor)
very significant on the topic so often in controversy, as to
whether the descriptive powers of music are of the objec-
tive or subjective character.
Of an opera, composed by Haydn to Curtz's order, at
the age of nineteen -
“ Haydn often says, that he had more trouble in finding
out a mode of representing the waves in a tempest in this
opera, than he afterwards had in writing fugues with a double
subject. Curtz, who had spirit and taste, was difficult to please;
but there was also another obstacle. Neither of the two au-
thors had ever seen either sea or storm. How can a man de-
scribe what he knows nothing about? If this happy art
could be discovered, many of our great politicians would talk
better about virtue. Curtz, all agitation, paced up and down
the room, where the composer was seated at the piano forte.
* Imagine,' said he,' a mountain rising, and then a valley sink-
ing ; and then another mountain and then another valley; the
mountains and the valleys follow one after another, with rapid-
ity, and at every moment, alps and abysses succeed each other.'
“This fine description was of no avail. In vain did harle-


156
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Lives of the Great Composers.
-
quin add the thunder and lightning. Come describe for me all
these horrors,' he repeated incessantly, but particularly rep-
resent distinctly these mountains and valleys.'
" Haydn drew his fingers rapidly over the key board, ran
through the semitones, tried abundance of sevenths, passed
from the lowest notes of the bass to the highest of the treble.
Curtz was still dissatisfied. At last, the young man, out of
all patience, extended his hands to the two ends of the harpsi-
chord, and, bringing them rapidly together, exclaimed “The
devil take the tempest.' 'That's it, that's it,' cried the harle-
quin, springing upon his neck and nearly stilling him. Haydn
added, that when he crossed the Straits of Dover, in bad
weather, many years afterwards, he laughed during the whole
of the passage in thinking of the storm in The Devil on two
Sticks.
“• But how,' said I to him, 'is it possible, by sounds, to de-
scribe a tempest, and that distinctly too? As this great man is
indulgence itself, I added, that, by imitating the peculiar tones
of a man in terror or despair, an author of genius may com-
municate to an auditor the sensations which the sight of a storm
would cause ; but,' said I, ‘music can no more represent a
tempest, than say · Mr. Haydn lives near the barrier of Schon-
brann.' 'You may be right,' replied he, 'but recollect,
nevertheless, that words and especially scenery guide the im-
agination of the spectator.'”.
Let it be an encouragement to the timidity of youthful
genius to see that an eaglet like Haydn has ever groped
and flown so sidewise from the aim.
In later days, though he had the usual incapacity of
spontaneous genius, as to giving a reason for the faith that
was in him, he had also its perfect self-reliance. He, too,
would have said, when told that the free expression of a
thought was contrary to rule, that he would make it a
rule then, and had no reason to give why he put a phrase
or note here, and thus, except “ It was best so. It had the
best effect so." The following anecdote exhibits in a
spirited manner the contrast between the free genius and
the pedant critic.
“ Before Haydn had lost his interest in conversation, he
related with pleasure many anecdotes respecting his residence
in London. A nobleman passionately fond of music, accord-
ing to his own account, came to him one morning, and asked
him to give him some lessons in counterpoint, at a guinea a
lesson. Haydn, seeing that he had some knowledge of music,


1841.)
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Lives of the Great Composers.
accepted his proposal. When shall we begin ?' 'Immedi-
ately, if you please,' replied the nobleman ; and he took out
of his pocket a quartett of Haydn's. 'For the first lesson
continued he, let us examine this quartett, and tell me the
reason of certain modulations, and of the general management
of the composition, which I cannot altogether approve, since
it is contrary to the rules.'
'Haydn, a little surprised, said, that he was ready to answer
his questions. The nobleman began, and, from the very
first bar, found something to remark upon every note. Haydn,
with whom invention was a habit, and who was the oppo-
site of a pedant, found himself a good deal embarrassed, and
replied continually, 'I did so because it has a good effect;
I have placed this passage here, because I think it suitable.'
The Englishman, in whose opinion these replies were nothing
to the purpose, still returned to his proofs, and demonstrated
very clearly, that his quartett was good for nothing. But, my
Lord, arrange this quartett in your own way; hear it played,
and you will then see which of the two is best.' 'How can
yours, which is contrary to the rules, be the best?' 'Because
it is the most agreeable.' My Lord still returned to the sub-
ject. Haydn replied as well as he was able ; but, at last, out
of patience, 'I see, my Lord,' said he, 'that it is you who are
so good as to give lessons to me, and I am obliged to confess,
that I do not merit the honor of having such a master.' The
advocate of the rules went away, and cannot to this day under-
stand how an author, who adheres to them, should fail of pro-
ducing a Matrimonio Segreto."
I must, in this connexion, introduce a passage from the
life of Handel. " The highest effort of genius here (in
music) consists in direct violations of rule. The very first
answer of the fugue in the overture to Mucius Scævola
affords an instance of this kind. Geminiani, the strictest
observer of rule, was so charmed with this direct trans-
gression of it, that, on hearing its effect, he cried out
Quel semitono (meaning the f sharp) vale un mondo.
That semitone is worth a world.”
I should exceedingly like to quote the passage on
Haydn's quartetts, and the comparison between the effect
produced by one of his and one of Beethoven's. But
room always fails us in this little magazine. I cannot how-
ever omit a passage, which gave me singular pleasure,
referring to Haydn's opinion of the importance of the air.
For the air is the thought of the piece, and ought never


158
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Lives of the Great Composers.
to be disparaged from a sense of the full flow of con-
cord.
“ Who would think it? This great man, under whose au-
thority our miserable pedants of musicians, without genius,
would fain shelter themselves, repeated incessantly; 'Let your
air be good, and your composition, whatever it be, will be so
likewise, and will assuredly please.'
" It is the soul of music,' continued he, it is the life, the
spirit, the essence of a composition. Without this, Tartini
may find out the most singular and learned chords, but nothing
is heard but a labored sound; which, though it may not
offend the ear, leaves the head empty and the heart cold.''
The following passage illustrates happily the principle.
“Art is called Art, because it is not Nature.”
“In music the best physical imitation is, perhaps, that
which only just indicates its object; which shows it to us
through a veil, and abstains from scrupulously representing
nature exactly as she is. This kind of imitation is the per-
fection of the descriptive department. You are aware, my
friend, that all the arts are founded to a certain degree on
what is not true; an obscure doctrine, notwithstanding its ap-
parent clearness, but from which the most important principles
are derived. It is thus that from a dark grotto springs the
river, which is to water vast provinces. You have more pleas-
ure in seeing a beautiful picture of the garden of the Tuilleries,
than in beholding the same garden, faithfully reflected from
one of the mirrors of the chateau ; yet the scene displayed in
the mirror has far more variety of coloring than the painting,
were it the work of Claude Lorraine ; the figures have motion ;
everything is more true to nature; still you cannot help pre-
fering the picture. A skilful artist never departs from that
degree of falsity which is allowed in the art he professes. He
is well aware, that it is not by imitating nature to such a degree
as to produce deception, that the arts give pleasure; he makes
a distinction between those accurate daubs, called eye-traps,
and the St. Cecilia of Raphael. Imitation should produce the
effect which the object imitated would have upon us, did it
strike us in those fortunate moments of sensibility and enjoy-
ment, which awaken the passions."
The fault of this passage consists in the inaccurate use of
the words true and false. Bombet feels distinctly that
truth to the ideal is and must be above truth to the actual ;
it is only because he feels this, that he enjoys the music


1841.]
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Lives of the Great Composers.
of Haydn at all; and yet from habits of conformity and
complaisance he well nigh mars his thought by use of the
phraseology of unthinking men, who apprehend no truth
beyond that of facts apparent to the senses.
. Let us pass to the life of Handel. We can but glance
at these great souls, each rich enough in radiating
power to be the centre of a world ; and can only hope to
indicate, not declare, their different orbits and relations.
Haydn and Mozart both looked to Handel with a religious
veneration. Haydn was only unfolded to his greatest
efforts after hearing, in his latest years, Handel's great
compositions in England.
“One day at Prince Schwartzenberg's, when Handel's
Messiah was performed, upon expressing my admiration of one
of the sublime choruses of that work, Haydn said to me
thoughtfully, This man is the father of us all.
“I am convinced, that, if he had not studied Handel, he
would never have written the Creation ; his genius was fired
by that of this master. It was remarked by every one here,
that after his return from London, there was more grandeur in
his ideas; in short, he approached, as far as is permitted to
human genius, the unattainable object of his songs. Handel
is simple; his accompaniments are written in three parts only;
but, to use a Neapolitan phrase of Gluck's, There is not a
note that does not draw blood.” — Bombet, p. 180.
“Mozart most esteemed Porpora, Durante, Leo, and Ales-
sandro Scarlatti, but he placed Handel above them all. He
knew the principal works of that great master by heart. He
was accustomed to say, Handel knows best of all of us what is
capable of producing a great effect. When he chooses, he
strikes like the thunderbolt." — Ibid. p. 291.
Both these expressions, that of Gluck and that of Mo-
zart, happily characterize Handel in the vigor and grasp of
his genius, as Haydn, in the amplitude and sunny majesty
of his career, is well compared to the gazing, soaring
eagle.
I must insert other beautiful tributes to the genius of
Handel.
After the quarrel between Handel and many of the
English nobles, which led to their setting up an opera in
opposition to his, they sent to engage Hasse and Porpora,
as their composers. When Hasse was invited over, the


160
[Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
first question he asked was, whether Handel was dead.
Being answered in the negative, he long refused to come,
thinking it impossible that a nation, which might claim the
benefit of Handel's genius could ask aid from any other.
When Handel was in Italy, Scarlatti saw him first at the
carnival, playing on the harpsichord, in his mask. Scar-
latti immediately affirmed it could be none but the famous
Saxon or the devil.
Scarlatti, pursuing the acquaintance, tried Handel's
powers in every way.
“ When they came to the organ, not a doubt remained as
to which the preference belonged. Scarlatti himself declared
the superiority of his antagonist, and owned that until he had
heard him upon this instrument, he had no conception of his
powers. So greatly was he struck with his peculiar way of
playing, that he followed him all over Italy, and was never so
happy as when he was with him. And ever afterwards, Scar-
latti, as often as he was admired for his own great execution,
would mention Handel, and cross himself in token of venera-
tion.” — Life of Handel.
These noble rivalries, this tender enthusiastic conviction
of the superiority of another, this religious
"joy to feel
A foeman worthy of our steel,”
one instance of which delights us more than all the lonely
achievements of intellect, as showing the two fold aspect
of the soul, and linking every nature, generous enough for
sympathy, in the golden chain, which upholds the earth
and the heavens, are found everywhere in the history of
high genius. Only the little men of mere talent deserve
a place at Le Sage's supper of the authors. Genius can-
not be forever on the wing; it craves a home, a holy land;
it carries reliquaries in the bosom ; it craves cordial draughts
from the goblets of other pilgrims. It is always pious,
always chivalric; the artist, like the preux, throws down
his shield to embrace the antagonist, who has been able
to pierce it; and the greater the genius the more do we
glow with delight at his power of feeling, — need of feel-
ing reverence not only for the creative soul, but for its
manifestation through fellow men. What melody of


1841.]
161
Lives of the Great Composers.
Beethoven's is more melodious, than his letter of regal
devotion to Cherubini, or the transport with which he
calls out on first hearing the compositions of Schubert;
6 Wahrlich in dem Schubert wohnt ein göttlicher Funke."
Truly in Schubert dwells a divine fire.*
But to return to Handel. The only biography of him I
have seen is a little volume from the library of the Uni-
versity at Cambridge, as brief, and, in the opinion of the
friend who brought it to me, as dry and scanty as possi-
ble. I did not find it so. It is written with the greatest
simplicity, in the style of the days of Addison and Steele;
and its limited technology contrasts strongly with the brill-
iancy of statement and infinite « nuances” of the present
style of writing on such subjects. But the writer is free
from exaggeration, without being timid or cold; and he
brings to his work the requisites of a true feeling of the
genius of Handel, and sympathy with his personal charac-
ter. This lies, indeed, so deep, that it never occurs to
him to give it distinct expression; it is only implied in his
selection, as judicious as simple, of anecdotes to illustrate
it.
For myself, I like a dry book, such as is written by men
who give themselves somewhat tamely to the task in hand.
I like to read a book written by one who had no higher
object than mere curiosity, or affectionate sympathy, and
never draws an inference. Then I am sure of the facts
more nakedly true, than when the writer has any theory of
his own, and have the excitement all the way of putting
them into new relations. The present is the gentle, faith-
ful narrative of a private friend. He does not give his
name, nor pretend to anything more than a slight essay
towards giving an account of so great a phenomenon as
Handel.
The vigor, the ready decision, and independence of
Handel's character are displayed in almost every trait of
bis youthful years. At seven years old he appears as if
really inspired by a guardian genius. His father was going
* As Schubert's music begins to be known among ourselves, it may
be interesting to record the names of those songs which so affected
Beethoven. They are Ossian's Gesänge, Die Burgschaft, Die junge
Nonne, and Die Grenze der Menschheit.
VOL. II. — NO. II.
21


162
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Lives of the Great Composers.
to Weissenfels, to visit an elder son, established at court
there. He refused to take the little Handel, thinking it
would be too much trouble. The boy, finding tears and
entreaties of no avail, stole out and followed the carriage
on foot. When his father perceived him persist in this, he
could resist no longer, but took him into the carriage and
carried him to Weissenfels. There the Duke, hearing him
play by accident in the chapel, and finding it was but a
little child, who had been obliged too to cultivate his talent
by stealth, in opposition to the wishes of his father, inter-
fered, and removed all obstruction from the course of his
destiny.
Like all the great musicians he was precocious. This
necessarily results from the more than usually delicate or-
ganization they must possess, though, fortunately for the
art, none but Mozart has burnt so early with that resplen-
dence that prematurely exhausted his lamp of life. At
nine years of age Handel composed in rule, and played
admirably on more than one instrument. At fifteen he
insisted on playing the first harpsichord at the Hamburg
opera house, and again his guardian genius interfered in a
manner equally picturesque and peculiar.
“The elder candidate was not unfit for the office, and in-
sisted on the right of succession. Handel seemed to have no
plea, but that of natural superiority, of which he was con-
scious, and from which he would not recede."
Parties ran high; the one side unwilling that a boy
should arrogate a place above a much older man, one who
had a prior right to the place, the other maintaining that the
opera-house could not afford to lose so great a composer as
Handel gave promise of becoming, for a punctilio of this
kind. Handel at last obtained the place.
"Determined to make Handel pay dear for his priority, his
rival stifled his rage for the present, only to wait an opportuni-
ty of giving it full vent. One day, as they were coming out of
the orchestra, he made a push at Handel with a sword, which
being aimed full at his heart, would forever have removed him
from the office he had usurped, but for the friendly score
which he accidentally carried in his bosom, and through which
to have forced the weapon would have demanded the might of
Ajax himself. Had this happened in the early ages, not a


1841.]
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Lives of the Great Composers.
mortal but would have been persuaded that Apollo himself had
interfered to preserve him, in the shape of a music-book.”
The same guardian demon presided always over his out-
ward fortunes. His life, like that of Haydn, was one of
prosperity. The only serious check he ever experienced
(at a very late day in England) was only so great as to
stimulate his genius to manifest itself by a still higher
order of efforts, than before (his oratorios.) And these
were not only worthy of his highest aspirations, but suc-
cessful with the public of his own day.
It is by no means the case in the arts, that genius must
not expect sympathy from its contemporaries. Its history
shows it in many instances, answering as much as prophe-
sying. And Haydn, Handel, and Mozart seemed to cul-
minate to a star-gazing generation.
While yet in his teens, Handel met the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, who was very desirous to send him to Italy, at
his own expense, that he might study the Italian music in
its native land. " But he refused to accept the Duke's
offer, though determined to go as soon as he could make
up a privy purse for the purpose. And this noble inde-
pendency he preserved through life,” and we may add the
twin sister, liberality, for we find scattered through his life
numerous instances of a wise and princely beneficence.
When he at last went to Italy, he staid six years, a peri-
od of inestimable benefit to his growth. I pause with de-
light at this rare instance of a mind obtaining the food it
craves, just at the time it craves it. The too early and too
late, which prevent so many “trees from growing up into
the heavens," withered no hour of Handel's life. True,
the compensating principle showed itself in his regard, for
he had neither patience nor fortitude, which the usual train-
ing might have given. But it seems as if what the man
lost, the genius gained, and we cannot be displeased at the
exception which proves the rule.
The Italians received him with that affectionate enthusi-
asm, which they show as much towards foreign as native
talent. The magnanimous delight, with which they greet-
ed West, and, as it is said, now greet our countryman Powers,
which not many years since made their halls resound with
the cry, “there is no tenor like Braham,” was heard in


164
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Lives of the Great Composers.
shouts of, “ Viva il caro Sassone !” at every new composi-
tion given by Handel on their stage. The people follow-
ed him with rapture; the nobles had musical festivals pre-
pared in his honor ; Scarlatti's beautiful homage has been
mentioned above; and the celebrated Corelli displayed the
same modest and noble deference to his instructions. He,
too, addressed him as “ Caro Sassone.”
A charming anecdote of Corelli is not irrelevant here.
“ A little incident relating to Corelli shows his character so
strongly, that I shall be excused for reciting it, though foreign
to our present purpose. He was requested one evening to
play, to a large and polite company, a fine Solo which he had
lately composed. Just as he was in the midst of his performance,
some of the number began to discourse together a little unsea-
sonably ; Corelli gently lays down his instrument. Being
asked whether anything was the matter with him ; nothing, he
replied, he was only afraid that he interrupted the conversation.
The elegant propriety of this silent censure, joined with his
genteel and good-humored answer, afforded great pleasure, even
to the persons who occasioned it. They begged him to re-
sume his instrument, assuring him at the same time, that he
might depend on all the attention which the occasion required,
and which his merit ought before to have commanded." —
Life of Handel.
His six years' residence in Italy educated Handel's
genius into a certainty, vigor, and command of resources that
made his after career one track of light. The forty years
of after life are one continued triumph, a showering down
of life and joy on an expectant world.
Although Germany offered every encouragement both
from people and princes, England suited him best, and be-
came the birth-place of his greatest works. For nine
years after he began to conduct the opera-house his suc-
cess with the public and happiness in his creative life ap-
pears to have been perfect. Then he came for brief
space amid the breakers. It is, indeed, rather wonderful
that he kept peace so long with those most refractory sub-
jects, the singers, than that it should fail at last. Fail at
last it did ! Handel was peremptory in his requisitions,
the singing birds obstinate in their disobedience; the pub-
lic divided, and the majority against Handel. The
following little recital of one of his many difficulties, with


1841.]
165
Lives of the Great Composers.
his prima-donnas, exhibits his character with amusing fidel-
ity.
“Having one day some words with Cuzzoni on her refusing
to sing Cara Immagine in Ottone. "Oh Madame,' said he,
* je sais bien que vous êtes une veritable Diable, mais je vous
ferai sçavoir, moi, que je suis Beelzebub le Chef des Diables.'
With this he took her up by the waist, swearing that, if she
made any more words, he would fling her out of the window. It
is to be noted, (adds the biographer with Counsellor Pleydel-like
facetiousness, that this was formerly one of the methods of
executing criminals in Germany, a process not unlike that of
the Tarpeian rock, and probably derived from it," — Life of
Handel.
Senesino, too, was one of Handel's malcontent aids, the
same of whom the famous anecdote is told, thus given in
the Life of Haydn.
“ Senesino was to perform on a London theatre the charac-
ter of a tyrant, in I know not what opera; the celebrated
Farinelli sustained that of an oppressed prince. Farinelli,
who had been giving concerts in the country, arrived only a
few hours before the representation, and the unfortunate hero
and the cruel tyrant saw one another for the first time on the
stage. When Farinelli came to his first air, in which he sup-
plicates for mercy, he sung it with such sweetness and ex-
pression, that the poor tyrant, totally forgetting himself, threw
himself upon his neck and repeatedly embraced him.”
The refined sensibility and power of free abandon-
ment to the life of the moment, displayed in this anecdote,
had made Senesino the darling, the spoiled child of the
public, so that they were ungrateful to their great father,
Handel. But he could not bow to the breeze. He began
life anew at the risk of the wealth he had already acquired,
and these difficulties only urged him to new efforts. The
Oratorio dawned upon his stimulated mind, and we may,
perhaps, thank the humors of Senesino and Faustina for
the existence of the Messiah.
The oratorios were not brought forward without opposi-
tion. That part of the public, which, in all ages, walks in
clogs on the greensward, and prefers a candle to the sun,
which accused Socrates of impiety, denounced the Tar-
tuffe of Moliere as irreligious, which furnishes largely the
Oxford press in England, and rings its little alarm bell


166
[Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
among ourselves at every profound and universal state-
ment of religious experience, was exceedingly distressed,
that Handel should profane the details of Biblical history
by wedding them to his God-given harmonies. Religion,
they cried, was lost; she must be degraded, familiarized;
she would no longer speak with authority after she had
been sung. But, happily, owls hoot in vain in the ear of
him whose soul is possessed by the Muse, and Handel,
like all the great, could not even understand the meaning
of these petty cavils. Genius is fearless; she never fan-
cies herself wiser than God, as Prudence does. She is
faithful, for she has been trusted, and feels the presence of
God in herself too clearly to doubt his government of the
world.
Handel's great exertions at this period brought on an
attack of paralysis, which he cured by a course that shows
his untamed, powerful nature, and illustrates in a homely
way the saying, Fortune favors the brave.
Like Tasso, and other such fervid and sanguine persons,
if he could at last be persuaded to use a remedy for any
sickness, he always overdid the matter. As for this pal-
sied arm, —
“ It was thought best for him to have recourse to the vapor
baths at Aix-la-Chapelle, over which he sat three times as long
as hath ever been the practice. Whoever knows anything of
the nature of these baths, will, from this instance, form some
idea of his surprising constitution. His sweats were profuse
beyond what can well be imagined. His cure, from the man-
ner as well as from the quickness with which it was wrought,
passed with the nuns for a miracle. When, but a few hours
from the time of his leaving the bath, they heard him at the
organ in the principal church, as well as convent, playing in a
manner so much beyond what they had ever heard or even im-
agined, it is not wonderful, that they should suppose the inter-
position of a higher power.”
He remained, however, some weeks longer at the baths
to confirm the cure, thus suddenly effected by means that
would have destroyed a frame of less strength and energy.
The more cruel ill of blindness fell upon his latest years,
but he had already run an Olympian course, and could
sit still with the palm and oak crowns upon his brows.
Handel is a Greek in the fulness and summer glow of


1841.)
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Lives of the Great Composers.
his nature, in his directness of action and unrepentant
steadfastness. I think even with a pleasure, in which I can
hardly expect sympathy, since even his simple biographer
shrinks from it with the air of “a Person of Quality,” on
the fact that he was fond of good eating, and also ate a
great deal. As he was neither epicure nor gourmand, I
not only accept the excuse of the biographer, that a per-
son of his choleric nature, vast industry, and energy, need-
ed a great deal of sustenance; but it seems to me perfect-
ly in character for one of his large heroic mould. I am
aware that these are total abstinence days, especially in
the regions of art and romance ; but the Greeks were
wiser and more beautiful, if less delicate than we; and I
am strongly reminded by all that is said of Handel, of a
picture painted in their golden age. The subject was
Hercules at the court of Admetus; in the back ground
handmaids are mourning round the corpse of the devoted
Alceste, while in the foreground the son of Jove is satis-
fying what seems to his attendants an interminable hun-
ger. They are heaping baskets, filling cans, toiling up the
stairs with huge joints of meat; the hero snaps his fingers,
impatient for the new course, though many an empty
trencher bears traces of what he has already devoured.
For why; a journey to Tartarus and conquest of gloomy
Dis would hardly, in the natural state of society, be under-
taken on a biscuit and a glass of lemonade. And when
England was yet fresh from her grand revolution, and John
Bull still cordially enjoyed his yule logs and Christmas
feasts, "glorious John Dryden” was not ashamed to write
thus of the heroes, —
“And when the rage of hunger was appeased.”
Then a man was not ashamed of being not only a man in
mind, but every inch a man. And Handel surely did not
neglect to labor after he had feasted. Beautiful are the
upward tending, slender stemmed plants ! Not less beau-
tiful and longer lived, those of stronger root, more power-
ful trunk, more spreading branches ! Let each be true to
his law; concord, not monotony, is music. We thank
thee, Nature, for Handel, we thank thee for Mozart!
Yet one story from the Life of Handel ere we pass on. It
must interest all who have observed the same phenomenon
of a person exquisitely alive to the music of verse, stupified
and bewildered by other music.


168
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Lives of the Great Composers.
“ Pope often met Handel at the Earl of Burlington's. One
day after Handel had played some of the finest things he ever
composed, Mr. Pope declared that they gave him no sort of
pleasure; that his ears were of that untoward make, and repro-
bate cast, as to receive his music, which he was persuaded
was the best that could be, with as much indifference as the
airs of a common ballad. A person of his excellent under-
standing, it is hard to suspect of affectation. And yet it is as
hard to conceive how an ear, so perfectly attentive to all the
delicacies of rhythm and poetical numbers, should be totally
insensible to the charm of musical sounds. An attentiveness,
too, which was as discernible in his manner of reading, as it is
in his method of writing.” — Life of Handel.
The principal facts of that apparition which bore the
name of Mozart, are well known. His precocious develop-
ment was far more precocious than that of any other artist on
record. (And here let us observe another correspondence
between music and mathematics, that is, the early prodigies
in childish form, which seem to say that neither the art nor
the science requires the slow care of the gardener, Expe-
rience, but are plants indigenous to the soil, which need
only air and light to lure them up to majestic stature.)
Connected with this is his exquisite delicacy of organiza-
tion, unparalleled save in the history of the fairy Fine Ear,
so that at six years old he perceived a change of half a
quarter of a note in the tuning of a violin, and fainted
always at sound of the trumpet. The wonderful exploits
which this accurate perception of and memory for sounds
enabled him to perform, are known to every one, but I
could read the story a hundred times yet, so great is its
childish beauty. Again, allied with this are his extreme
tenderness and loving nature. In this life (Schlichtegroll's
translated by Bombet,) it is mentioned, “He would say
ten times a day to those about him, “Do you love me
well ?' and whenever in jest they said “No,' the tears
would roll down his cheeks. I remember to have read
elsewhere an anecdote of the same engaging character.
6 One day, when Mozart, (then in his seventh year,) was
entering the presence chamber of the empress; he fell and
hurt himself. The other young princesses laughed, but
Marie Antoinette took him up, and consoled him with
many caresses. The little Mozart said to her, “ You are


1841.]
169
Lives of the Great Composers.
good; I will marry you." Well for the lovely princess, if
common men could have met and understood her lively
and genial nature as Genius could, in its childlike need of
love.
With this great desire for sympathy in the affections
was linked, as by nature it should be, an entire self-reli-
ance in action. Mozart knew nothing but music; on that
the whole life of his soul was shed, but there he was as
unerring and undoubting, as fertile and aspiring.
“At six years of age, sitting down to play in presence of the
emperor Francis, he addressed himself to his majesty and
asked ; *Is not M. Wagenseil here? We must send for him ;
he understands the thing. The emperor sent for Wagenseil,
and gave up his place to him by the side of the piano. Sir,
said Mozart, to the composer, 'I am going to play one of your
concertos; you must turn over the leaves for me.' The em-
peror said, in jest, to the little Wolfgang ; ' It is not very diffi-
cult to play with all one's fingers, but to play with only one,
without seeing the keys, would indeed be extraordinary.
Without manifesting the least surprise at this strange proposal,
the child immediately began to play with a single finger, and
with the greatest possible precision and clearness. He after-
wards desired them to cover the keys of the piano, and contin-
ued to play in the same manner, as if he had long practised it.
From his most tender age, Mozart, animated with the true
feeling of his art, was never vain of the compliments paid him
by the great. He only performed insignificant trifles when he
had to do with people unacquainted with music. He played,
on the contrary, with all the fire and attention of which he was
capable, when in the presence of connoisseurs ; and his father
was often obliged to have recourse to artifice, in order to make
the great men, before whom he was to exhibit, pass for such
with him.”
Here, in childlike soft unconsciousness, Mozart acts the
same part that Beethoven did, with cold imperial sarcasm,
when the Allied Sovereigns were presented to him at
Vienna. "I held myself vornehm,'” said Beethoven, that
is, treated them with dignified affability; and his smile is one
of saturnine hauteur, as he says it; for the nature, so deep-
ly glowing towards man, was coldly disdainful to those
who would be more than men, merely by the aid of money
and trappings. Mozart's attitude is the lovelier and more
VOL. II. — NO. II.
22


170
(Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
simple; but Beethoven's lion tread and shake of the mane
are grand too.
The following anecdote shows, that Mozart (rare praise
is this) was not less dignified and clear-sighted as a man
than in his early childhood.
“ The Italians at the court of the Emperor, Joseph the Sec-
ond, spoke of Mozart's first essays (when he was appointed
chapel-master) with more jealousy than fairness, and the em-
peror, who scarcely ever judged for himself, was easily carried
away by their decisions. One day after hearing the rehearsal
of a comic opera, which he had himself demanded of Mozart,
he said to the composer, ‘My dear Mozart, that is too fine for
my ears; there are too many notes there.' 'I ask your maj-
esty's pardon,' replied Mozart dryly; there are just as many
notes as there should be. The emperor said nothing, and ap-
peared rather embarrassed by the reply; but when the opera
was performed, he bestowed on it the greatest encomiums."
This anecdote certainly shows Joseph the Second to be
not a mean man, if neither a sage nor a connoisseur.
- Read in connexion with the foregoing, the traits record-
ed of the artist during his wife's illness, (Life of Mozart,
p. 309,) and you have a sketch of a most beautiful char-
acter
Combined with this melting sweetness, and extreme
delicacy, was a prophetic energy of deep-seated fire in
his genius. He inspires while he overwhelms you. The
vigor, the tenderness, and far-reaching ken of his concep-
tions were seconded by a range, a readiness, and flexibility
in his talents for expression, which can only be told by the
hackneyed comparison between him and Raphael. A life
of such unceasing flow and pathetic earnestness must at
any rate have early exhausted the bodily energies. But
the high-strung nerves of Mozart made him excessive
alike in his fondness for pleasure, and in the melancholy
which was its reaction. His life was too eager and keen
to last. The gift of presentiment, as much developed in
his private history as in his works, offers a most interesting
study to the philosophic observer, but one of too wide a
scope for any discussion here.
I shall not speak of Mozart as a whole man, for he was
not so; but rather the exquisite organ of a divine inspira-
tion. He scarcely took root on the soil; not knowing


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171
Lives of the Great Composers.
common purposes, cares, or discretions, his life was all
crowded with creative efforts, and vehement pleasures, or
tender feelings between. His private character was that
of a child, as ever he loved to be stimulated to compose
by having fairy tales told to him by the voice of affection.
And when we consider how any art tends to usurp the
whole of a man's existence, and music most of all to un-
fit for other modes of life, both from its stimulus to the
senses and exaltation of the soul, we have rather reason to
wonder that the other four great ones lived severe and
manlike lives, than that this remained a voluptuary and a
fair child. The virtues of a child he had, — sincerity,
tenderness, generosity, and reverence. In the generosity
with which he gave away the precious works of his gen-
ius, and the princely sweetness with which he conferred
these favors, we are again reminded of Raphael. There
are equally fine anecdotes of Haydn's value for him, and
his for Haydn. Haydn answered the critics of “Don
Giovanni," “ I am not a judge of the dispute; all that I
know is, that Mozart is the greatest composer now exist-
ing." Mozart answered the critic on Haydn, “ Sir, if you
and I were both melted down together, we should not fur-
nish materials for one Haydn.”
Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin !
We never hear the music of Mozart to advantage, yet
no one can be a stranger to the character of his melodies.
The idea charms me of a symbolical correspondence, not
only between the soul of man and the productions of na-
ture, but of a like harmony, pervading every invention of
his own. It seems he has not only “ builded better than
he knew," when following out the impulse of his genius,
but in every mechanical invention, so that all the furniture
of man's life is necessarily but an aftergrowth of nature.
It seems clear that not only every hue, every gem, every
flower, every tree, has its correspondent species in the
race of man, but the same may be said of instruments,
as obviously of the telescope, microscope, compass. It is
clearly the case with the musical instruments. As a child
I at once thought of Mozart as the Flute, and to this day,
cannot think of one without the other. Nothing ever oc-
curred to confirm this fancy, till a year or two since, in the
book now before me, I found with delight the following
passage.
We never be a stranger to symbolical corre


172
[Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
.
“ The most remarkable circumstance in his music, inde-
· pendently of the genius displayed in it, is the novel way in
which he employs the orchestra, especially the wind instru-
ments. He draws surprising effect, from the flute, an instru-
ment of which Cimarosa hardly ever made any use."
Ere bidding adieu to Mozart, to whom I have only
turned your eyes, as the fowler directs those of the by-
standers to the bird glancing through the heavens, which
he had not skill to bring down, and consoles himself with
thinking the fair bird shows truer, if farther, on the wing,
I will insert three sonnets, so far interesting as showing
the degree of truth with which these objects appear to one,
who has enjoyed few opportunities of hearing the great
masters, and is only fitted to receive them by a sincere love
of music, which caused a rejection of the counterfeits that
have been current among us. They date some years back,
and want that distinctness of expression, so attainable
to-day; but, if unaided by acquaintance with criticism on
these subjects, have therefore the merit of being a pure
New England growth, and deserve recording like Sigis-
mund Biederman's comparison of Queen Margaret to his
favorite of the Swiss pasture. “The queen is a stately
creature. The chief cow of the herd, who carries the
bouquets and garlands to the chalet, has not a statelier
pace.” — Anne of Guerstein.
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.
The charms of melody, in simple airs,
By human voices sung, are always felt;
With thoughts responsive, careless hearers melt,
Of secret ills, which our frail nature bears.
We listen, weep, forget. But when the throng
Of a great Master's thoughts, above the reach
Of words or colors, wire and wood can teach
By laws which to the spirit-world belong, -
When several parts, to tell one mood combined,
Flash meaning on us we can ne'er express,
Giving to matter subtlest powers of Mind,
Superior joys attentive souls confess.
The Harmony which suns and stars obey,
Blesses our earth-bound state with visions
of supernal day. —


1841.]
173
Lives of the Great Composers.
BEETHOVEN.
Most intellectual master of the art,
Which, best of all, teaches the mind of man
The universe in all its varied plan, —
What strangely mingled thoughis thy strains impart!
Here the faint tenor thrills the inmost heart,
There the rich bass the Reason's balance shows;
Here breathes the softest sigh that Love e'er knows;
There sudden fancies, seeming without chart,
Float into wildest breezy interludes;
The past is all forgot, - hopes sweetly breathe,
And our whole being glows, — when lo! beneath
The flowery brink, Despair's deep sob concludes!
Startled, we strive to free us from the chain, -
Notes of high triumph swell, and we are thine again!
MOZART.
If to the intellect and passions strong
Beethoven speak, with such resistless power,
Making us share the full creative hour,
When his wand fixed wild Fancy's mystic throng,
Oh nature's finest lyre! to thee belong
The deepest, softest tones of tenderness,
Whose purity the listening angels bless,
With silvery clearness of seraphic song.
Sad are those chords, oh heavenward striving soul !
A love, which never found its home on earth,
Pensively vibrates, even in thy mirth.
And gentle laws thy lightest notes control;
Yet dear that sadness! Spheral concords felt
Purify most those hearts which most they melt.
re all great foot stands firm, the divine
com wwide anów we call whose of sentrans
We have spoken of the widely varying, commanding,
yet bright and equable life of Haydn; of the victorious
procession, and regal Alexandrine aspect of Handel; of
the tender, beloved, overflowing, all too intense life of
Mozart. They are all great and beautiful ; look at them
from what side you will, the foot stands firm, the mantle
falls in wide and noble folds, and the eye flashes divine
truths. But now we come to a figure still more Roman,
John Sebastian Bach, all whose names we give to distin-
guish him from a whole family of geniuses, a race through
which musical inspiration had been transmitted, without a
break, for six generations; nor did it utterly fail, after
coming to its full flower in John Sebastian; his sons, though


174
Lives of the Great Composers. (Oct.
not equal to their father, were not unworthy their heredi-
tary honors.
The life of Bach which I have before me, (translated
from the German of J. N. Forkel, author also of the
“ Complete History of Music,'') is by far the best of any
of these records. It is exceedingly brief and simple, very
bare of facts, but the wise, quiet enthusiasm of its tone,
and the delicate discrimination of the remarks on the
genius of Bach, bring us quite home to him and his artist-
life. Bach certainly shines too lonely in the sky of his
critic, who has lived in and by him, till he cannot see
other souls in their due places, but would interrupt all
hymns to other deities with “Great is Diana of the Ephe-
sians !” But his worship is true to the object, if false to
the all, and the pure reverence of his dependence has
made him fit to reproduce the genius which has fed his
inmost life. All greatness should enfranchise its admirers,
first from all other dominions, and then from its own. We
cannot but think that Forkel has seen, since writing this
book, that he deified Bach too exclusively, but he can
never feel the shame of blind or weak obsequiousness.
His, if idolatry, was yet in the spirit of true religion.
The following extract from the preface, gives an idea of
the spirit in which the whole book is written.
“How do I wish I were able to describe, according to its
merit, the sublime genius of this first of all artists, whether
German or foreign! After the honor of being so great an
artist, so preëminent above all as he was, there is perhaps no
greater than that of being able duly to appreciate so entirely
perfect an art, and to speak of it with judgment. He who can
do the last must have a mind not wholly uncongenial to that of
the artist himself, and has therefore, in some measure, the flat-
tering probability in his favor, that he might perhaps have been
capable of the first, if similar external relations had led him
into the proper career. But I am not so presumptuous as to
believe, that I could ever attain to such an honor. I am, on
the contrary, thoroughly convinced, that no language in the
world is rich enough to express all that might and should be
said of the astonishing extent of such a genius. The more
intimately we are acquainted with it, the more does our admi-
ration increase. All our eulogiums, praises, and admiration
will always be, and remain no more than well-meant prattle.
Whoever has had an opportunity of comparing together the


1841.)
176
Lives of the Great Composers.
works of art, of several centuries, will not find this declaration
exaggerated; he will rather have adopted the opinion, that
Bach's works cannot be spoken of, by him who is fully ac-
quainted with them, except with rapture, and some of them
even with a kind of sacred awe. We may indeed conceive
and explain his management of the internal mechanism of the
art; but how he contrived at the same time to inspire into this
mechanic art, which he alone has attained in such high per.
fection, the living spirit which so powerfully attaches us even
in his smallest works, will probably be always felt and admired
only, but never conceived."
Of the materials for his narrative he says,
“I am indebted to the two eldest sons of J. S. Bach. I was
not only personally acquainted with both, but kept up a con-
stant correspondence with them for many years, chiefly with
C. Ph. Emanuel. The world knows that they were both great
artists; but it perhaps does not know that to the last moment
of their lives they never spoke of their father's genius without
enthusiasm and admiration. As I had from my early youth
felt the same veneration for the genius of their father, it was a
frequent theme of discussion with us, both in our conversa.
tions and correspondence. This made me by degrees so ac-
quainted with everything relative to J. S. Bach's life, genius,
and works, that I may now hope to be able to give to the pub-
lic not only some detailed, but also useful information on the
subject.
"I have no other object whatever than to call the attention
of the public to an undertaking, the sole aim of which is to
raise a worthy monument to German art, to furnish the true
artist with a gallery of the most instructive models, and to open
to the friends of musical science an inexhaustible source of the
sublimest enjoyment.”
The deep, tender repose in the contemplation of genius,
the fidelity in the details of observation, indicated in this
passage, are the chief requisites of the critic. But he
should never say of any object, as Forkel does, it is the
greatest that ever was or ever will be, for that is limiting
the infinite, and making himself a bigot, gentle and patient
perhaps, but still a bigot. All are so who limit the divine
within the boundaries of their present knowledge.
The founder of the Bach family in its musical phrase)
was a Thuringian miller. “In his leisure hours he amused
himself with his guitar, which he even took with him into


176
(Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
the mill, and played upon it amidst all the noise and clat-
ter.” The same love of music, for its own sake, continued
in the family for six generations. After enumerating the
geniuses who illustrated it before the time of John Sebas-
tian, Forkel says,
“Not only the above-mentioned, but many other able com-
posers of the earlier generations of the family might undoubt-
edly have obtained much more important musical offices, as
well as a more extensive reputation, and a more brilliant for.
tune, if they had been inclined to leave their native province,
and to make themselves known in other countries. But we do
not find that any one of them ever felt an inclination for such
an emigration. Temperate and frugal by nature and education,
they required but little to live ; and the intellectual enjoyment,
which their art procured them, enabled them not only to be
content without the gold chains, which used at that time to be
given by great men to esteemed artists, as especial marks of
honor, but also without the least envy to see them worn by
others, who perhaps without these chains would not have been
happy."
Nothing is more pleasing than the account of the jubi-
lee which this family had once a year. As they were a
large family, and scattered about in different cities, they
met once a year and had this musical festival.
“ Their amusements during the time of their meeting were
entirely musical. As the company wholly consisted of chant-
ers, organists, and town musicians, who had all to do with the
Church, and as it was besides a general custom to begin every-
thing with religion, the first thing they did, when they were
assembled, was to sing a hymn in chorus. From this pious
commencement they proceeded to drolleries, which often made
a very great contrast with it. They sang, for instance, popular
songs, the contents of which are partly comic and partly li-
centious, all together, and extempore, but in such a manner
that the several songs thus extemporized made a kind of har-
mony together, the words, however, in every part being differ-
ent. They called this kind of extemporary chorus 'a Quodli-
bet,' and not only laughed heartily at it themselves, but excited
an equally hearty and irresistible laughter in every body that
heard them. Some persons are inclined to consider these
facetiæ as the beginning of comic operettas in Germany ; but
such quodlibets were usual in Germany at a much earlier peri-
od. I possess myself a printed collection of them, which was
published at Vienna in 1542."


1841.]
177
Lives of the Great Composers.
In perfect harmony with what is intimated of the fami-
ly, of their wise content, loving art, purely and religiously
for its own sake, unallured by ambition or desire for ex.
citement, deep and true, simple and modest in the virtues
of domestic life, was the course of the greatest of them,
John Sebastian. No man of whom we read has lived
more simply the grand, quiet, manly life," without haste,
without rest.” Its features are few, its outline large and
tranquil. His youth was a steady aspiration to the place
nature intended him to fill; as soon as he was in that
place, his sphere of full, equable activity, he knew it, and
was content. After that he was known by his fruits. As
for outward occasions and honors, it was with him as
always with the “Happy Warrior," who must
" In himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow, on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all.”
A pretty story of his childhood shows that he was as
earnest in the attainment of excellence, as indifferent to
notoriety.
“J. S. Bach was left an orphan at ten years of age, and was
obliged to have recourse to an elder brother, John Christopher,
who was organist at Ordruff. From him he received the first
instructions in playing on the clavichord. But his inclination
and talent for music must have been already very great at that
time, since the pieces which his brother gave him to learn
were so soon in his power, that he began with much eagerness
to look out for some that were more difficult. He had observed
that his brother had a book, in which were pieces by the most
famous composers of the day, such as he wanted, and earnest-
ly begged him to give it him. But it was constantly denied.
His desire to possess the book was increased by the refusal, so
that he at length sought means to get possession of it secretly.
As it was kept in a cupboard, which had only a lattice door,
and his hands were still small enough to pass through, so that
he could roll up the book, which was merely stitched in paper,
and draw it out, he did not long hesitate to make use of these
favorable circumstances. But, for want of a candle, he could
only copy it in moonlight nights; and it took six whole months
VOL. II. — NO. II.
23


178
(Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
before he could finish his laborious task. At length, when he
thought himself safely possessed of the treasure, and intended
to make good use of it in secret, his brother found it out, and
took from him, without pity, the copy which had cost him so
much pains; and he did not recover it till his brother's death,
which took place soon after."
Without pity indeed! What a tale is told by these few
words of all the child suffered from disappointment of the
hopes and plans, which had been growing in his heart all
those six months of secret toil; hopes and plans too, so
legitimate, on which a true parent or guardian would have
smiled such delighted approval! One can scarcely keep
down the swelling heart at these instances of tyranny to
children, far worse than the knouts and Siberia of the
Russian despot, in this, that the domestic tyrant cannot be
wholly forgetful of the pain he is inflicting, though he may
be too stupid or too selfish to foresee the consequences of
these early wrongs, through long years of mental conflict.
A nature so strong and kindly as that of Bach could not
be crushed in such ways. But with characters of less
force the consequences are more cruel. I have known an
instance of life-long injury from such an act as this. An
elder brother gave a younger a book ; then, as soon as the
child became deeply interested in reading it, tore out two
or three leaves. Years after the blood boiled, and the eyes
wept bitter tears of distrust in human sympathy, at remem-
brance of this little act of wanton wrong. And the con-
duct of Bach's brother is more coldly cruel.
The facts of his life are simple. Soon his great abili-
ties displayed themselves, so as to win for him all that he
asked from life, a moderate competency, a home, and a
situation in which he could cultivate his talents with unin-
terrupted perseverance. A silent happiness lit up his
days, deliberately, early he grew to giant stature, deeply
honored wherever known, only not more widely known
because indifferent to being so. No false lure glitters on
his life from any side. He was never in a hurry, nor did he
ever linger on the syren shore, but passed by, like Orpheus,
not even hearing their songs, so enwrapt was he in the
hymns he was singing to the gods.
Haydn is the untouched green forest in the fulness of a


1841.] Lives of the Great Composers. 179
June day; Handel the illuminated garden, where splendid
and worldly crowds pause at times in the dark alleys,
soothed and solemnized by the white moonlight; with
Mozart the nightingale sings, and the lonely heron waves
his wings, beside the starlit, secret lake, on whose bosom
gazes the white marble temple. Bach is the towering,
snowy mountain," itself earth's Rosy Star," and the green,
sunny, unasking valley, all in one. Earth and heaven are
not lonely while such men live to answer to their meaning.
I had marked many passages which give a clear idea of
Bach’s vast intellectual comprehension, of the happy bal.
ance between the intuitive and the reasoning powers in
his nature, the depth of his self-reliance, the untiring. se-
verity of his self-criticism, and the glad, yet solemn relig-
ious fulness of his mental life. But already my due limits
are overstepped, and I am still more desirous to speak at
some length of Beethoven. I shall content myself with two
or three passages, which not only indicate the peculiar
scope of this musician, but are of universal application to
whatever is good in art or literature.
Bombet mentions this anecdote of Jomelli.
“On arriving at Bologna, he went to see the celebrated
Father Martini, without making himself known, and begged to
be received into the number of his pupils. Martini gave him
a subject for a fugue; and finding that he executed it in a su-
perior manner, 'Who are you?' said he, are you making
game of me? It is I who need to learn of you.' 'I am
Jomelli, the professor, who is to write the opera to be perform-
ed here next autumn, and I am come to ask you to teach me
the great art of never being embarrassed by my own ideas.'”
There seems to have been no time in Bach's life when
he needed to ask this question, the great one which Genius
ever asks of Friendship. He did not need to flash out
into clearness in another atmosphere than his own. Al-
ways he seems the master, possessing, not possessed by, his
idea. These creations did not come upon him as on the
ancient prophets, dazzling, unexpected, ever flowing from
the centre of the universe. He was not possessed by the
muse; he had not intervals of the second sight. The
thought and the symbol were one with him, and like
Shakspeare, he evolved from his own centre, rather than


180
(Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
was drawn to the centre. He tells the universe by living
a self-centred world.
As becomes the greatest, he is not hasty, never presump-
tuous. We admired it in the child Mozart, that he exe-
cuted at once the musical tour de force prepared by the
Emperor Francis. We admire still more Bach's manly
caution and sense of the importance of his art, when
visiting, at an advanced age, the great Frederic, who seems
to have received him king-like.
“The musicians went with him from room to room, and
Bach was invited everywhere to try and to play unpremeditated
compositions. After he had gone on for some time, he asked
the King to give him a subject for a fugue, in order to execute
it immediately, without any preparation. The King admired
the learned manner in which his subject was thus executed ex-
tempore; and, probably to see how far such art could be car-
ried, expressed a wish to hear a fugue with six obligato parts.
But as it is not every subject that is fit for such full harmony,
Bach chose one himself, and immediately executed it, to the
astonishment of all present, in the same magnificent and learned
manner as he had done that of the King."
The following anecdote shows the same deeply intellec-
tual modesty and candor, and when compared with the in-
spired rapidity of Mozart, marks the distinction made by
the French between “une savante originalité" and "une
rayonnante originalité.”
“He at length acquired such a high degree of facility, and,
we may almost say, unlimited power over his instrument in all
the modes, that there were hardly any more difficulties for him.
As well in his unpremeditated fantasies, as in executing his
other compositions, in which it is well known that all the fin-
gers of both hands are constantly employed, and have to make
motions which are as strange and uncommon as the melodies
themselves; he is said to have possessed such certainty that he
never missed a note. He had besides such an admirable facil-
ity in reading and executing the compositions of others, (which,
indeed, were all easier than his own,) that he once said to an
acquaintance, that he really believed he could play everything,
without hesitating, at the first sight. He was, however, mista-
ken; and the friend, to whom he had thus expressed his opin-
ion, convinced him of it before a week was passed. He in-
vited him one morning to breakfast, and laid upon the desk of
his instrument, among other pieces, one which at the first


1841.]
181
Lives of the Great Composers.
glance appeared to be very trifling. Bach came, and, accord-
ing to his custom, went immediately to the instrument, partly
to play, partly to look over the music that lay on the desk.
While he was turning over and playing them, his friend went
into the next room to prepare breakfast. In a few minutes
Bach got to the piece which was destined to make him change
his opinion, and began to play it. But he had not proceeded
far when he came to a passage at which he stopped. He look-
ed at it, began anew, and again stopped at the same passage.
'No,' he called out to his friend, who was laughing to himself
in the next room, at the same time going away from the instru-
ment, 'one cannot play everything at first sight; it is not pos-
sible.'"
A few more extracts which speak for themselves.
“The clavichord and the organ are nearly related, but the
style and mode of managing both instruments are as different
as their respective destination. What sounds well, or express-
es something on the clavichord, expresses nothing on the or-
gan, and vice versâ. The best player on the clavichord, if he
is not duly acquainted with the difference in the destination
and object of the two instruments, and does not know constant-
ly how to keep it in view, will always be a bad performer on
the organ, as indeed is usually the case. Hitherto I have met
with only two exceptions. The one is John Sebastian himself,
and the second his eldest son, William Friedemann. Both
were elegant performers on the clavichord; but, when they
came to the organ, no trace of the harpsichord player was to
be perceived. Melody, harmony, motion, all was different;
that is, all was adapted to the nature of the instrument and its
destination. When I heard Will Friedemann on the harpsi-
chord, all was delicate, elegant, and agreeable. When I heard
him on the organ, I was seized with reverential awe. There,
all was pretty, here, all was grand and solemn. The same was
the case with John Sebastian, but both in a much higher de-
gree of perfection. W. Friedemann was here but a child to
his father, and he most frankly concurred in this opinion. The
organ compositions of this extraordinary man are full of the
expression of devotion, solemnity, and dignity; but his unpre-
meditated voluntaries on the organ, where nothing was lost in
writing down, are said to have been still more devout, solemn,
dignified, and sublime. What is it that is most essential in this
art? I will say what I know; much, however, cannot be said,
but must be felt.”
Then after some excellent observations upon the organ,
he says,


182
[Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
“ Bach, even in his secular compositions, disdained everything
common; but in his compositions for the organ, he kept him-
self far more distant from it; so that here he does not appear
like a man, but as a true disembodied spirit, who soars above
everything mortal.”
It does indeed seem, from all that is said of Bach on
this score, that, as the organ was his proper instrument,
and represents him, as the flute or violin might Mozart, so
he that heard him on it enjoyed the sense of the true
as rill, or stream, or fountain, but rolling and surging like
a tide, marking its course by the large divisions of seas
and continents.
I wish there was room to quote the fine story of the
opera house at Berlin, p. 34, which shows how rapid and
comprehensive was his intellectual sight in his own depart-
ment; or the remarks on the nature of his harmony in
that it was a multiplied melody, p. 42, 43, or on the severe
truth and dignity of his conduct to his pupils and the pub-
lic, p. 76. But I must content myself with the following
passages, which beside lose much by mutilation.
“ The ideas of harmony and modulation can scarcely be
separated, so nearly are they related to each other. And yet
they are different. By harmony we must understand the con-
cord or coincidence of the various parts; by modulation, their
progression.
«In most composers you find that their modulation, or if
you will, their harmony, advances slowly. In musical pieces
to be executed by numerous performers, in large buildings, as,
for example, in churches, where a loud sound can die away but
slowly, this arrangement indisputably shows the prudence of
a composer, who wishes to have his work produce the best
possible effect. But in instrumental or chamber music, that
slow progress is not a proof of prudence, but, far oftener, a
sign that the composer was not sufficiently rich in ideas. Bach
has distinguished this very well. In his great vocal composi-
tions, he well knew how to repress his fancy, which, otherwise,
overflowed with ideas; but, in his instrumental music this re-
serve was not necessary. As he, besides, never worked for the
crowd, but always had in his mind his ideal of perfection,
without any view to approbation or the like, he had no reason
whatever for giving less than he had, and could give, and in
fact he has never done this. Hence in the modulation of his


1841.]
183
Lives of the Great Composers.
instrumental works, every advance is a new thought, a con-
stantly progressive life and motion, within the circle of the
modes chosen, and those nearly related to them. Of the har-
mony which he adopts he retains the greatest part, but, at
every advance he mingles something related to it; and in this
manner he proceeds to the end of a piece, so softly, so gently,
and gradually, that no leap, or harsh transition is to be felt;
and yet no bar (I may almost say, no part of a bar,) is like
another. With him, every transition was required to have a
connexion with the preceding idea, and appears to be a ne-
cessary consequence of it. He knew not, or rather he dis-
dained those sudden sallies, by which many composers attempt
to surprise their hearers. Even in his chromatics, the advan-
ces are so soft and tender, that we scarcely perceive their dis-
tances, though often very great."
“ In other departments he had rivals; but in the fugue, and
all the kinds of canon and counterpoint related to it, he stands
quite alone, and so alone, that all around him is, as it were,
desert and void. * * * It (his fugue) fulfils all the condi-
tions which we are otherwise accustomed to demand, only of
more free species of composition. A highly characteristic
theme, an uninterrupted principal melody, wholly derived from
it, and equally characteristic from the beginning to the end :
not mere accompaniment in the other parts, but in each of
them an independent melody, according with the others, also
from the beginning to the end ; freedom, lightness, and fluency
in the progress of the whole, inexhaustible variety of modula-
tion combined with perfect purity; the exclusion of every ar-
bitrary note, not necessarily belonging to the whole ; unity and
diversity in the style, rhythmus, and measure; and lastly, a life
diffused through the whole, so that it sometimes appears to the
performer or hearer, as if every single note were animated;
these are the properties of Bach's fugue, — properties which
excite admiration and astonishment in every judge, who knows
what a mass of intellectual energy is required for the produc-
tion of such works. I must say still more. All Bach's fugues,
composed in the years of his maturity, have the above-men-
tioned properties in common; they are all endowed with equal-
ly great excellencies, but each in a different manner. Each
has his own precisely defined character; and dependent upon
that, its own turns in melody and harmony. When we know
and can perform one, we really know only one, and can perform
but one; whereas we know and can play whole folios full of
fugues by other composers of Bach's time, as soon as we have
comprehended and rendered familiar to our hand, the turns of
a single one."


184
(Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
He disdained any display of his powers. If they were
made obvious otherwise than in the beauty and fulness
of what was produced, it was in such a way as this.
"In musical parties, where quartettes or other fuller pieces of
instrumental music were performed, he took pleasure in playing
the tenor. With this instrument, he was, as it were, in the
middle of the harmony, whence he could both hear and enjoy it,
on both sides. When an opportunity offered, in such parties,
he sometimes accompanied a trio or other pieces on the harpsi-
chord. If he was in a cheerful mood, and knew that the com-
poser of the piece, if present, would not take it amiss, he used
to make extempore out of the figured bass a new trio, or of
three single parts a quartette. These, however, are the only
cases in which he proved to others how strong he was.
“ He was fond of hearing the music of other composers. If
he heard in a church a fugue for a full orchestra, and one of
his two eldest sons stood near him, he always, as soon as he had
heard the introduction to the theme, said beforehand what the
composer nught to introduce, and what possibly might be intro.
duced. If the composer had performed his work well, what he
had said happened; then he rejoiced, and jogged his son to
make him observe it.”
He did not publish a work till he was forty years of age.
He never laid aside the critical file through all his life, so
that an edition of his works, accompanied by his own cor-
rections, would be the finest study for the musician.
This severe ideal standard, and unwearied application in
realizing it, made his whole life a progress, and the epi-
thet old, which too often brings to our minds associations
of indolence or decay, was for him the title of honor. It
is noble and imposing when Frederic the Second says to
his courtiers, “ with a kind of agitation, 'Gentlemen, Old
Bach has come.".".
"He labored for himself, like every true genius; he fulfilled
his own wish, satisfied his own taste, chose his subjects accord-
ing to his own opinion, and lastly, derived the most pleasure
from his own approbation. The applause of connoisseurs could
not then fail him, and, in fact, never did fail him. How else
could a real work of art be produced ? The artist, who en-
deavors to make his works so as to suit some particular class of
amateurs, either has no genius, or abuses it. To follow the
prevailing taste of the many, needs, at the most, some dexteri-
ty in a very partial manner of treating tones. Artists of this


1841.]
185
Lives of the Great Composers.
description may be compared to the mechanic, who must also
make his goods so that his customers can make use of them.
Bach never submitted to such conditions. He thought the
artist may form the public, but that the public does not form
the artist."
But it would please me best, if I could print here the
whole of the concluding chapter of this little book. It
shows a fulness and depth of feeling, objects are seen
from a high platform of culture, which make it invaluable
to those of us who are groping in a denser atmosphere
after the beautiful. It is a slight scroll, which implies ages
of the noblest effort, and so clear perception of laws, that
its expression, if excessive in the particular, is never ex-
travagant on the whole; a true and worthy outpouring
of homage, so true that its most technical details suggest
the canons by which all the various exhibitions of man's
genius are to be viewed, and silences, with silver clarion
tone, the barking of partial and exclusive connoisseurship.
The person who should republish such a book in this coun-
try would be truly a benefactor. Both this and the Life of
Handel I have seen only in the London edition. The
latter is probably out of print; but the substance of it, or
rather the only pregnant traits from it have been given
here. This life of Bach should be read, as its great subject
should be viewed, as a whole.
The entertaining memoir of Beethoven by Ries and
Wegeler has been, in some measure, made known to us
through the English periodicals. I have never seen the
book myself. That to which I shall refer is the life of
Beethoven by Schindler, to whom Beethoven confided the
task of writing it, in case of the failure of another friend,
whom he somewhat preferred.
Schindler, if inadequate to take an observation of his
subject from any very high point of view, has the merit of
simplicity, fidelity, strict accuracy according to his power
of discerning, and a devout reverence both for the art, and
this greatest exemplar of the art. He is one of those devout
Germans who can cling for so many years to a single flower,
nor feel that they have rifled all its sweets. There are in
Rome Germans who give their lives to copy the great mas-
ters in the art of painting, nor ever feel that they can get
deep enough into knowledge of the beauty already produced
VOL. II. — NO. II. 24


186
[Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
to pass out into reproduction. They would never weary
through the still night of tending the lights for the grand
mass. Schindler is of this stamp; a patient student, most
faithful, and, those of more electric natures will perhaps
The littled those of this standing these would
He is very indignant at the more sprightly sketches of
Ries and Bettina Brentano. Ries, indeed, is probably inac-
curate in detail, yet there is a truth in the whole impression
received from him. It was in the first fervor of his youth
that he knew Beethoven; he was afterwards long separated
from him ; in his book we must expect to see rather Ries,
under the influence of Beethoven, than the master's self.
Yet there is always deeper truth in this manifestation of life
through life, if we can look at it aright, than in any attempt
at an exact copy of the original. Let only the reader read
poetically, and Germany by Madame de Staël, Wallenstein
by Schiller, Beethoven by Ries, are not the less true for
being inaccurate. It is the same as with the Madonna by
Guido, or by Murillo.
As for Bettina, it was evident to every discerning reader
hat the great man never talked so; the whole narration is
overflowed with Bettina rose-color. Schindler grimly says,
the good Bettina makes him appear as a Word Hero; and
we cannot but for a moment share his contempt, as we ad-
mire the granite laconism of Beethoven's real style, which
is, beyond any other, the short hand of Genius. Yet“ the
good Bettina” gives us the soul of the matter. Her
description of his manner of seizing a melody and then
gathering together from every side all that belonged to it,
and the saying, “other men are touched by something good.
Artists are fiery; they do not weep," are Beethoven's,
whether he really said them or not. “You say that Shak-
speare never meant to express this! What then? his genius
meant it!”
The impression Schindler gives of Beethoven differs from
that given by Ries and Bettina only in this, that the giant
is seen through uncolored glass; the lineaments are the
same in all the three memoirs.
The direction left by Beethoven himself to his biographer
is as follows. “Tell the truth with severe fidelity of me
and all connected with me, without regard to whom it may
hit, whether others or myself."


1841.] Lives of the Great Composers. 187
He was born 17th Dec., 1770. It is pleasing to the fancy
to know that his mother's name was Maria Magdalena.
She died when he was 17, so that a cabalistic number
repeats itself the magical three times in the very first state-
ment of his destiny.
The first thirty years of his life were all sunshine. His
genius was early acknowledged, and princely friends enabled
him to give it free play, by providing for his simple wants
in daily life. Notwithstanding his uncompromising democ-
racy, which, from the earliest period, paid no regard to rank
and power, but insisted that those he met should show
themselves worthy as men and citizens, before he would
have anything to do with them, he was received with joy
into the highest circles of Vienna. Van Swieten, the Em-
peror's physician, one of those Germans, who, after the labors
of the day, find rest in giving the whole night to music, and
who was so situated that he could collect round him all
that was best in the art, was one of his firmest friends.
Prince and Princess Lichnowsky constituted themselves
his foster-parents, and were not to be deterred from their
wise and tender care by the often perverse and impetuous
conduct of their adopted son, who indeed tried them se-
verely, for he was (ein gewaltig natur) "a vehement na-
ture that broke through all limits and always had to run
his head against a barrier, before he could be convinced of
its existence. Of the princess, Beethoven says; “With
love like that of a grandmother, she sought to educate and
foster me, which she carried so far as often to come near
having a glass-bell put over me, lest somewhat unworthy
should touch or even breathe on me." Their house is
described as “ eine freihafen der Humanitat und feinem
sitte,” the home of all that is genial, noble, and refined.
In these first years, the displays of his uncompromising
nature affect us with delight, for they have not yet that hue
of tragedy, which they assumed after he was brought more
decidedly into opposition with the world. Here wildly
great and free, as afterwards sternly and disdainfully so, he
is, waxing or waning, still the same orb; here more fairly,
there more pathetically noble.
He early took the resolution, by which he held fast through
life, “against criticisms or attacks of any kind, so long as
they did not touch his honor, but were aimed solely at his


188
[Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
artist-life, never to defend himself. He was not indifferent
to the opinion of the good, but ignored as much as possible
the assaults of the bad, even when they went so far as to
appoint him a place in the mad-house." For that vein in
human nature, which has flowed unexhausted ever since the
days of “I am not mad, most noble Festus, making men
class as magic or madness all that surpasses the range of
their comprehension and culture, manifested itself in full
energy among the contemporaries of Beethoven. When
he published one of his greatest works, the critics declared
him “now (in the very meridian of his genius) ripe for the
mad-house.” For why? “We do not understand it; we
never had such thoughts; we cannot even read and execute
them.” Ah men! almost your ingratitude doth at times
convince that you are wholly unworthy the visitations of the
Divine !
But Beethoven" was an artist-nature" ; he had his work
to do, and could not stop to weep, either pitying or indignant
tears. “If it amuses those people to say or to write such
things of me, do not disturb them,” was his maxim, to which
he remained true through all the calamities of his “ artist-
life.”
Gentleness and forbearance were virtues of which he was
incapable. His spirit was deeply loving, but stern. Inca-
pable himself of vice or meanness, he could not hope any-
thing from men that were not so. He could not try experi-
ments; he could not pardon. If at all dissatisfied with a
man, he had done with him forever. This uncompromising
temper he carried out even in his friendliest relations. The
moment a man ceased to be important to him or he to the
man, he left off seeing him, and they did not meet again,
perhaps for twenty years. But when they did meet, the
connexion was full and true as at first. The inconvenien-
ces of such proceedings in the conventional world are obvi-
ous, but Beethoven knew only the world of souls.
"In man he saw only the man. Rank and wealth were to
him mere accidents, to which he attached no importance. To
bow before Mammon and his ministers he considered absolute
blasphemy; the deepest degradation to the man who had genius
for his dower. The rich man must show himself noble and
beneficent, if he would be honored by the least attention from
Beethoven.” “He thought that the Spirit, the Divine in man,


1841.)
189
Lives of the Great Composers.
must always maintain its preëminence over the material and
temporary; that, being the immediate gift of the Creator, it
obliged its possessor to go before other men as a guiding light.”
How far his high feeling of responsibility, and clear
sight of his own position in the universe were from arro-
gance, he showed always by his aversion to servile homage.
He left one of his lodging houses because the people would
crowd the adjacent bridge to gaze on him as he went out;
another because the aristocratic proprietor, abashed before
his genius, would never meet him without making so many
humble reverences, as if to a domesticated god. He says
in one of the letters to Julietta, “ I am persecuted by kind-
ness, which I think I wish to deserve as little as I really do
deserve it. Humility of man before man, – it pains me ;
—and when I regard myself in connexion with the uni-
verse, what am I? and what is he whom they name Great-
est? And yet there is the Godlike in man.”
“Notwithstanding the many temptations to which he was
exposed, he, like each other demigod, knew how to preserve
his virtue without a stain. Thus his inner sense for virtue re-
mained ever pure, nor could he suffer anything about him of
dubious aspect on the moral side. In this respect he was con-
scious of no error, but made his pilgrimage through life in un-
touched maidenly purity. The serene muse, who had so highly
gifted and elected him to her own service, gave in every wise
to his faculties the upward direction, and protected him, even
in artistical reference, against the slightest contact with vul-
garity, which, in life as in art, was to him a torture.” – "Ah,
had he but carried the same clearness into the business trans-
actions of his life!”
So sighs the friend, who thinks his genius was much imped-
ed by the transactions, in which his want of skill entangled
him with sordid, contemptible persons.
Thus in unbroken purity and proud self-respect; amid
princely bounties and free, manly relations; in the rapid
and harmonious development of his vast powers, passed
the first thirty years of his life. But towards the close of
that period, crept upon him the cruel disorder, to him of
all men the most cruel, which immured him a prisoner in
the heart of his own kingdom, and beggared him for the
rest of his life of the delights he never ceased to lavish on
others.


190
Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
After his fate was decided he never complained, but
what lay in the secret soul is shown by the following paper.
“During the summer he lived at Heiligenstadt, by the advice
of his physician, and in the autumn wrote the following testa-
ment.
"For my brothers Carl and — Beethoven.
“O ye men, who esteem or declare me unkind, morose, or
misanthropic, what injustice you do me; you know not the se-
cret causes of that which so seems. My heart and my mind
were from childhood disposed to the tender feelings of good
will. Even to perform great actions was I ever disposed. But
think only that for six years this ill has been growing upon me,
made worse by unwise physicians; that from year to year I
have been deceived in the hope of growing better; finally con-
strained to the survey of this as a permanent evil, whose cure
will require years, or is perhaps impossible. Born with a fiery,
lively temperament, even susceptible to the distractions of soci-
ety, must I early sever myself, lonely pass my life. If I attempl-
ed, in spite of my ill, intercourse with others, O how cruelly
was I then repulsed by the doubly gloomy experience of my
bad hearing; and yet it was not possible for me to say to men,
speak louder, scream, for I am deaf! Ah, how would it be
possible for me to make known the weakness of a sense which
ought to be more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I
once possessed in the greatest perfection, in a perfection cer-
tainly beyond most of my profession. O I cannot do it.
Therefore pardon, if you see me draw back when I would wil-
lingly mingle with you. My misfortune is a double woe, that
through it I must be misunderstood. For me the refreshment
of companionship, the finer pleasures of conversation, mutual
outpourings can have no place. As an exile must I live! If I
approach a company, a hot anguish falls upon me, while I fear
to be put in danger of exposing my situation. So has it been
this half year that I have passed in the country. The advice
of my friendly physician, that I should spare my hearing, suited
well my present disposition, although many times I have let
myself be misled by the desire for society. But what humilia-
tion, when some one stood near me, and from afar heard the
flute, and I heard nothing, or heard the Shepherd sing,* and I
heard nothing. Such occurrences brought me near to despair;
little was wanting that I should, myself, put an end to my life.
Only she, Art, she held me back! Ah! it seemed to me im-
possible to leave the world before I had brought to light all
* See Ries.


1841.]
191
Lives of the Great Composers.
which lay in my mind. And so I lengthened out this misera-
ble life, so truly miserable, as that a swift change can throw
me from the best state into the worst. Patience, it is said, I
must now take for my guide. I have so. Constant, I hope,
shall my resolution be to endure till the inexorable Fates shall
be pleased to break the thread. Perhaps goes it better, perhaps
not; I am prepared. Already in my twenty-eighth year con-
strained to become a philosopher. It is not easy, for the artist
harder than any other man. O God, thou lookest down upon
my soul, thou knowest that love to man and inclination to well-
doing dwell there. O men, when you at some future time read
this, then think that you have done me injustice, and the un-
happy, let him be comforted by finding one of his race, who
in defiance of all hindrances of nature has done all possible to
him to be received in the rank of worthy artists and men.
You, my brothers, Carl and — *, so soon as I am dead, if
Professor Schmidt is yet living, pray him in my name that he
will describe my disease, and add this writing to the account of
it, that at least as much as possible the world may be reconcil-
ed with me after my death. At the same time I declare you two
the heirs of my little property, (if I may call it so). Divide it
honorably, agree, and help one another. What you have done
against me has been, as you know, long since pardoned. Thee,
brother Carl, I especially thank for thy lately shown attach-
ment. My wish is that you may have a better life, freer from
care than mine. Recommend to your children virtue, that
alone can make happy, not gold. I speak from experience.
For this it was that raised up myself from misery ; this and my
art I thank, that I did not end my life by my own hand. Fare-
well and love one another. All friends I thank, especially
Prince Lichnowsky and Professor Schmidt. I wish the instru-
ments given me by Prince L. to be preserved with care by one
of you, yet let no strife arise between you on that account. So
soon as they are needed for some more useful purpose, sell
them. Joyful am I that even in the grave I may be of use to
you. Thus with joy may I greet death; yet comes it earlier
than I can unfold my artist powers, it will, notwithstanding my
hard destiny, come too early, and I would wish it delayed ;
however I would be satisfied that it freed me from a state of
endless suffering. Come when thou wilt, I go courageously to
meet thee. Farewell, and forget me not wholly in death; I
have deserved that you should not, for in my life I thought
often of you, and of making you happy ; be so.
“ LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
"Heiligenstadt, 6th October, 1802"
* He seems to have forgotten at the moment the name of his young-
er brother.


192
(Oct.
Lives of the Great Composers.
“ Postcript. 10th October, 1802.
“ So take I then a sad farewell of thee. Yes! the beloved
hope, which I brought hither, to be cured at least to a certain
point, must now wholly leave me. As the leaves fall in autumn,
are withered, so has also this withered for me. Almost as I
came hither, so go I forth, even the high courage, which in-
spired me oft in the fair summer days, is vanished. O Provi.
dence, let once again a clear day of joy shine for me, so long
already has the inward echo of true joy been unknown to me.
When, when, O God, can I feel it again in the temple of nature
and of man? — Never? No! that would be too cruel!”.
The deep love shown in these words, love such as only
proud and strong natures know, was not only destined to
be wounded in its general relations with mankind through
this calamity. The woman he loved, the inspiring muse
of some of his divinest compositions, to whom he writes,
“ Is not our love a true heavenly palace, also as firm as the
fortress of heaven," was unworthy. In a world where
millions of souls are pining and perishing for want of an
inexhaustible fountain of love and grandeur, this soul,
which was indeed such an one, could love in vain. This
eldest son, this rightful heir of nature, in some secret hour,
writes at this period, “Only love, that alone could give
thee a happier life. O my God, let me only find at last
that which may strengthen me in virtue, which to me is
lawſul. A love which is permitted, (erlaubt).”
The prayer was unheard. He was left lonely, unsus-
tained, unsolaced, to wrestle with, to conquer his fate.
Pierced here in the very centre of his life, exposed both
by his misfortune and a nature which could neither antici-
pate nor contend with the designs of base men, to the an-
guish of meeting ingratitude on every side, abandoned to
the guardianship of his wicked brothers, Beethoven walked
in night, as regards the world, but within, the heavenly
light ever overflowed him more and more.
Shall lesser beings repine that they do not receive their
dues in this short life with such an example before them,
how large the scope of eternal justice must be? Who can
repine that thinks of Beethoven ? His was indeed the best
consolation of life. “To him a God gave to tell what he
suffered," as also the deep joys of knowledge that spring
from suffering. As he descends to “the divine deeps of


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sorrow," and calls up, with spells known only to those so
initiated, forms so far more holy, radiant, and commanding
than are known in regions of cheerful light, can we wish
him a happier life? He has been baptized with fire, others
only with water. He has given all his life and won the
holy sepulchre and a fragment, at least, of the true cross.
The solemn command, the mighty control of various forces
which makes us seem to hear
“Time flowing in the middle of the night,
And all things (rushing) to the day of doom,”
the searching through all the caverns of life for the deepest
thought, and the winged uprise of feeling when it is at-
tained; were not these wonders much aided by the calamity,
which took this great genius from the outward world, and
forced him to concentrate just as he had attained command
of his forces ?
Friendly affection, indeed, was not wanting to the great
master ; but who could be his equal friend? It was impos-
sible; he might have found a love, but could not a friend
in the same century with himself. But men were earnest
to serve and women to venerate him. Schindler, as well
as others, devoted many of the best years of life to him. A
beautiful trait of affection is mentioned of the Countess
Marie Erdödy, a friend dear to Beethoven, who in the
park which surrounds her Hungarian palace erected a tem-
ple which she dedicated to him.
Beethoven had two brothers. The one, Johann, seems
to have been rather stupid and selfish than actively bad.
The character of his mind is best shown by his saying to
the great master, "you will never succeed as well as I have."
We have all, probably, in memory instances where the
reproving 'angel of the family, the one whose thinking
mind, grace, and purity, may possibly atone for the worth-
less lives of all the rest, is spoken of as the unsuccessful
member, because he has not laid up treasures there where
moth or rust do corrupt, and ever as we hear such remarks,
we are tempted to answer by asking, “ what is the news
from Sodom and Gomorrah?" But the farce of Beetho-
ven's not succeeding is somewhat broad, even in a world
where many such sayings echo through the streets. At
another time Johann, having become proprietor of a little
VOL. II. — NO. II.
25


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Lives of the Great Composers.
estate, sent in to Beethoven's lodging a new year card on
which was written Johann van Beethoven Gutsbesitzer,
(possessor of an estate,) to which the master returned one
inscribed Ludwig van Beethoven Hirnbesitzer, (possessor
of a brain.) This Gutsbesitzer refused his great brother a
trifling aid in his last illness, applied for by the friends who
had constituted themselves his attendants, and showed
towards him systematic selfishness and vulgarity of feeling.
Carl, the other brother, under the mask of affectionate at-
tention, plundered him both of his gains and the splendid
presents often made him, and kept away by misrepresenta-
tions and falsehood all those who would have sincerely
served him. This was the easier, in that the usual unfortu-
nate effect of deafness of producing distrust was increased
in Beethoven's case by signal instances of treachery, shown
towards him in the first years of incapacity to manage his
affairs as he had done before his malady. This sad distrust
poisoned the rest of his life ; but it was his only unworthi-
ness; let us not dwell upon it. This brother, Carl, was
Beethoven's evil genius, and his malignant influence did
not cease with his life. He bequeathed to his brother the
care of an only son, and Beethoven assumed the guardian-
ship with that high feeling of the duties it involved, to be
expected from one of his severe and pure temper. The
first step he was obliged to take was to withdraw the boy
from the society and care of his mother, an unworthy wo-
man, under whose influence no good could be hoped from
anything done for him. The law-suit, instituted for this
purpose, which lasted several years, was very injurious to
Beethoven's health, and effectually impeded the operations
of his poetic power. For he was one “who so abhorred
vice and meanness that he could not bear to hear them
spoken of, much less suffer them near him; yet now was
obliged to think of them, nay, carefully to collect evidence
in proof of their existence, and that in the person of a near
connexion.” This quite poisoned the atmosphere of his
ideal world, and destroyed for the time all creative glow.
On account of the van prefixed to his name, the cause
was, at first, brought before the tribunal of nobility. They
called on Beethoven to show them his credentials of noble
birth. “Here!” he replied, putting his hand to his head
and heart. But as these nobles mostly derived their titles


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from the head and heart of some remote ancestor, they
would not recognise this new peerage, and Beethoven, with
indignant surprise, found himself referred to the tribunal of
the common burghers.
The lawsuit was spun out by the obstinate resistance of
his sister-in-law for several years, and when Beethoven at
last obtained possession of the child, the seeds of vice were
already sown in his breast. An inferior man would have
been more likely to eradicate them than Beethoven, because
a kindred consciousness might have made him patient. But
the stern Roman spirit of Beethoven could not demand
less than virtue, less than excellence, from the object of his
care. For the youth's sake he made innumerable sacrifices,
toiled for him as he would not for himself, was lavish of all
that could conduce to his true good, but imperiously de-
manded from him truth, honor, purity, and aspiration. No
tragedy is deeper than the perusal of his letters to the young
man, so brief and so significant, so stern and so tender.
The joy and love at every sign of goodness, the profound
indignation at failure and falsehood, the power of forgiving
but not of excusing, the sentiment of the true value of life,
so rocky calm that with all its height it never seems exalted,
make these letters a biblical chapter in the protest of mod-
ern days against the backslidings of the multitude. The
lover of man, the despiser of men, he who writes, “Recom-
mend to your children virtue; that alone can make happy,
not gold; I speak from experience,” is fully painted in
these letters.
In a lately published novel,“ Night and Morning,” Bul-
wer has well depicted the way in which a strong character
overshoots its mark in the care of a weak one. The belief
of Philip that his weaker brother will abide by a conviction
or a promise, with the same steadfastness that he himself
could; the unfavorable action of his disinterested sacrifices
on the character of his charge, and the impossibility that
the soft, selfish child should sympathize with the conflicts
or decisions of the strong and noble mind; the undue
rapidity with which Philip draws inferences, false to the
subject because too large for it; all this tragedy of common
life is represented with Rembrandt power of shadow in the
history of Beethoven and his nephew. The ingratitude of
the youth is unsurpassed, and the nature it wronged was


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one of the deepest capacity for suffering from the discovery
of such baseness. Many years toiled on the sad drama;
its catastrophe was the death of this great master, caused by
the child of his love neglecting to call a physician, because
he wanted to play at billiards.
His love was unworthy; his adopted child unworthy;
his brothers unworthy. Yet though his misfortunes in these
respects seem singular, they sprang from no chance. Here,
as elsewhere, “mind and destiny are two names for one
idea." His colossal step terrified those around him; they
wished him away from the earth, lest he should trample
down their mud-hovels; they bound him in confiding sleep;
or, Judas-like, betrayed with a base kiss of fealty. His
genius excited no respect in narrow minds; his entire want
of discretion in the economy of life left him, they thought,
their lawful prey. Yet across the dark picture shines a
gleam of almost unparalleled lustre, for “she, Art, she held
him up."
I will not give various instances of failure in promises
from the rich and noble, piracy from publishers, nor even
some details of his domestic plagues in which he displays a
breadth of humor, and stately savage sarcasm, refreshing in
their place. But I will not give any of these, nor any of
his letters, because the limits forbid to give them all, and
they require light from one another. In such an account
as the present a mere sketch is all that can be attempted.
A few passages will speak for themselves. Goethe ne-
glected to lend his aid to the artist for whom he had expressed
such admiration, at a time when he might have done so
without any inconvenience. Perhaps Beethoven's letter
(quoted No. V. of the Dial, Essay on Goethe) may furnish
an explanation of this. Cherubini omitted to answer Bee-
thoven's affectionate and magnanimous letter, though he
complied with the request it contained. But "the good
Bettina" was faithful to her professions, and of essential use
to Beethoven, by interesting her family in the conduct of
his affairs.
He could not, for any purpose, accommodate himself to
courts, or recognise their claims to homage. Two or three
orders given him for works, which might have secured him
the regard of the imperial family, he could not obey. When-
ever he attempted to compose them, he found that the


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Lives of the Great Composers.
degree of restriction put upon him by the Emperor's taste
bampered him too much. The one he did compose for
such a purpose, the “Glorreiche Augenblick," Schindler
speaks of as one of the least excellent of his works.
He could not bear to give lessons to the Archduke
Rudolph, both because he detested giving regular lessons
at all, and because he could not accommodate himself to
the ceremonies of a court. Indeed it is evident enough
from a letter of the Archduke's, quoted by Schindler as
showing most condescending regard, how unfit it was for
the lion-king to dance in gilded chains amid these mum-
meries.
Individuals in that princely class he admired, and could
be just to, for his democracy was very unlike that fierce
vulgar radicalism which assumes that the rich and great
must be bad. His was only vindication of the rights of
man; he could see merit if seated on a throne, as clearly
as if at a cobbler's stall. The Archduke Karl, to whom
Körner dedicated his heroic muse, was the object of his
admiration also. The Empress of Russia, too, he admired.
"Whoever wished to learn of him was obliged to follow
his steps everywhere, for to teach or say anything at an
appointed time was to him impossible. Also he would stop
immediately, if he found his companion not sufficiently
versed in the matter to keep step with him." He could
not harangue; he must always be drawn out.
Amid all the miseries of his house-keeping or other dis-
turbances, (and here, did space permit, I should like to
quote his humorous notice of his " four bad days,” when he
was almost starved,) he had recourse to his art. “He would
be fretted a little while; then snatch up the scorce and write
“noten im nothen," as he was wont to call them, and forget
the plague.”
When quite out of health and spirits he restored himself
by the composition of a grand mass. This great, solemn
mass," as he calls it in his letter to Cherubini, was offered
to the different courts of Europe for fifty ducats. The
Prussian ambassador in a diplomatic letter attempted to get
it for an order and ribbon. Beethoven merely wrote in
reply, “ fifty ducats." He indeed was as disdainful of gold
chains and orders as Bach was indifferent to them.
Although thus haughty, so much so that he would never


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receive a visit from Rossini, because, though he admitted that
the Italian had genius, he thought he had not cultivated
it with that devout severity proper to the artist, and was,
consequently, corrupting the public taste, he was not only
generous in his joy at any exhibition of the true spirit from
others, but tenderly grateful for intelligent sympathy with
himself, as is shown in the following beautiful narratives.
“ Countess S. brought him on her return from German
words by Herr Scholz, written for his first mass. He opened
the paper as we were seated together at the table. When he
came to the 'Qui tollis,' tears streamed from his eyes, and he
was obliged to stop, so deeply was he moved by the inexpressibly
beautiful words. He cried, 'Ja! so habe ich gefühlt, als ich
dieses schrieb,' 'yes, this was what I felt when I wrote it.' It
was the first and last time I ever saw him in tears."
They were such tears as might have been shed on the
Jubilee of what he loved so much, Schiller's Ode to Joy.
“Be welcome, millions
This embrace for the whole world.”
Happy the man, who gave the bliss to Beethoven of feeling
his thought not only recognised, but understood. Years of
undiscerning censure, and scarcely less undiscerning hom-
age, are obliterated by the one true vibration from the heart
of a fellow-man. Then the genius is at home on earth,
when another soul knows not only what he writes, but what
he felt when he wrote it. “ The music is not the lyre nor
the hand which plays upon it, but when the two meet, that
arises which is neither, but gives each its place."
A pleasure almost as deep was given him on this occa-
sion. Rossini had conquered the German world also; the
public had almost forgotten Beethoven. A band of friends,
in whose hearts the care for his glory and for the high,
severe culture of art was still living, wrote him a noble
letter, in which they entreated him to give to the public one
of his late works, and, by such a musical festival, eclipse at
once these superficial entertainments. The spirit of this
letter is thoughtful, tender, and shows so clearly the German
feeling as to the worship of the Beautiful, that it would have
been well to translate it, but that it is too long. It should
be a remembrancer of pride and happiness to those who
signed their names to it. Schindler knew when it was to


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Lives of the Great Composers.
be sent, and, after Beethoven had had time to read it, he
went to him.
"I found Beethoven with the memorial in his hand. With
an air of unwonted serenity, he reached it to me, placing himself
at the window to gaze at the clouds drawing past. His inly
deep emotion could not escape my eye. After I had read the
paper I laid it aside, and waited in silence for him to begin