useful in the hands of English readers, should have been accompanied with copious notes and illustrations,we need scarcely add, not compiled after the fashion of Mr Hobhouse's illustrations of Childe Harold. The concluding lectures abound, however, in most profound and important reflections, with regard to subjects which all of us should at least be capable of understanding. Our own elder authors appear to have been studied by this accomplished German with an enthusiasm seldom equalled among ourselves; and if the present state of our literature be not represented by him either so fully or so favourably as might have been expected, we must attribute this solely to the distant residence and multifarious occupations of the author. How well he has studied one important part of the subject, the following extract, and it is the last we shall venture upon, will prove. "The art of historical writing is evidently quite on the decline in England. One great cause of this consists, I imagine, in the want of any stable and satisfactory philosophy, a defect sufficiently apparent even in the three great writers whom I have enumerated. Without some rational and due conceptions of the fate and destiny of man, it is impossible to form any just and consistent opinion, even concerning the progress of events, the developement of times, and the fortunes of nations. In every situation history and philosophy should be as much as possible united. Philosophy, if altogether separated from history, and destitute of the spirit of criticism, which is the result of the union to which I have alluded, can be nothing more than a wild existence of sect and formality. History, on the other hand, without the animating spirit of philosophy, is merely a dead heap of useless materials, devoid of internal unity, proper purpose, or worthy result. The want of satisfying and sane views and principles, is nowhere more conspicuous than in those histories of mankind, as they have been called, originally produced in England, and more recently written among ourselves. From the immense storehouse of travels and voyages, a few facts are collected, which make up loose portraits of the fisher, the hunter, the emigration of the early nations, and the different conditions of agricultural, pastoral, and commercial peoples. This is called a view of the history of mankind, and there is no doubt that it contains many dividual points of great interest and importance, with respect to the progress and habits of our species. Such would be the case, even if we should treat of men entirely according to their corporeal subdivisions in of white, black, red, and brown. But how little is gained by all this, as to the only real question, an answer to which should form the proper history of mankind? How little do we learn as to the origin and proper state, or the present lamentable and fallen condition, of human nature? The answer to this question, which is the essence of all history, can only be supplied by religion and philosophy; that philosophy, I mean, which has no other ambition and no other end but to support religion. In these false histories of mankind, the worthy offspring of the degraded and material philosophy of the eighteenth century, the predominant idea is always, that man sprung originally from the dust like a mushroom, and differed from it only by the possession of locomotive power and of consciousness. The ambition of their authors is to represent us as originally brutes, and to shew how, by the progress of our own ingenious contrivances, art has been added to art, and science to science, till our nature has gra dually reached the high eminence on which it now stands. The greater intimacy of connexion can be established between us and the ourang-ou-tang (that favourite of so many philosophers of the last century), the more rational are supposed to be our opinions concerning our species, and its history. "The philosophy of sensation, which was unconsciously bequeathed to the world by Bacon, and reduced to the shade of a regular system by Locke, first displayed in France the true immorality and destructiveness of which it is the parent, and assumed the appearance of a perfect sect of atheism. In England it took a different course; in that country it could not indeed be supposed likely to produce the same effects, because the old principles of religion were regarded as far too intimately connected with national welfare to be easily abandoned. The spirit of English thought was moreover naturally inclined to adopt the paradoxical and sceptical side of this philosophy rather than the material and atheistical. The most singular phenomenon in the whole history of philosophy is perhaps the existence of such a man as Berkeley, who carried the system of Locke, as far as utterly to disbelieve the existence of the external world, and yet continued all the while a devout Christian bishop. How external objects come into contact with our intellect, so that it forms notions of them-this was a point upon which the philosophy of that time neither came nor could come to any satisfactory conclusion. All that we perceive or feel of these things, is, after all, only an impression, a change upon ourselves. We may pursue it as far as we will; we can lay hold on only such a notion or perception of an object, not the object itself. That seems, the more we seek it, to fly the farther from us. If we consider nature, as either itself animated, or as truth any thing else than concealed infidels. He is a man of powerful feeling and powerful fancy; and however we may differ from him in regard to minor points, we can never hesitate to love and admire the spirit in which all his opinions are conceived and defended. "When certain panegyrists of the Reformation represent this as having been in itself alone a step forward of the human mind, and of philosophy-a deliverance from error and prejudice-they are just taking for granted the very fact upon which we are at issue. One should think also that men might be rendered more cautious in the use of such expressions, when they reflect that, by the example of many great nations of Spain-of Italy-of Catholic France during the seventeenth century and of Southern Germany even in these latest times it can be proved, with little hazard of contradiction, that a very high, nay, that the very highest degree of intellectual cultivation is perfectly compatible with the belief of those doctrines which the friends of Protestantism decry as antiquated prejudices. The admirers of the Reformation should lay less stress upon its consequences; for of these some were, as themselves admit, altogether unhappy, many remote and assisted by the co-operation of other causes. Besides, the effects are perhaps in no case perfectly decisive as to the nature of the thing itself. The bigotted Catholics, on the other hand, who despise the Reformation, and abhor it as altogether irreconcileable with their own religious opinions, should at least recollect that the later, if not the more immediate effects of that mighty convulsion, have been beneficial and salutary. If we survey the history of the world with the feeling of belief,-if we are willing to recognize, in the fortunes and fates of mankind, the interposing hand of Providence, we shall perceive the same spectacle in every direction. Everywhere we shall see men presented with the happiest opportunities, intreated as it were, to do good, to know the truth, and to reach the eminence of true greatness and true excellence; intreated however, not compelled; for their own co-operation is necessary if they would be what fits the destiny of their nature. Rarely, very rarely, do men make the proper use of the means they are intrusted to employ; often do they pervert them to the most dangerous abuses, and sink even deeper into their ancient errors. Providence is, if we may so speak, ever struggling with the carelessness and the perversity of man; scarcely by our own guilt and blindness have we been plunged into some great and fearful evil, ere the Benefactor of our nature causes unexpected blessings to spring out of the bosom of our merited misfortune-warnings and lessons, expressed in deeds and events, furnishing us with ever returning admonitions to bethink ourselves in earnest, and depart no more from the the path of truth." Patriotism, in all ages, depends in a great measure upon exclusiveness; but in regard to religion, modern Europe may be considered as one vast nation, whose interest it is to fix the Christian faith as a central standard of feeling and association in all the more serious departments of literature. The case is the same with regard to the chivalrous recollections of the middle ages, which belong in common to the several nations of Europe, as a stock whereupon to graft their heroical poetry; but it is evident, that philosophical modern Europeans can never look back upon any past age with the same serious reverence which the Greeks felt in reverting to their fabulous era of heroes and demi-gods. An heroical era should lose itself in the mists of antiquity,-but ours does not. It should likewise mingle itself with religion, but our religion admits of no mixture of fables, capable of being multiplied and diversified at will, like those of the Greeks. If the real busihuman nature partaking of the marness of heroic poetry be to represent vellous, modern Europe cannot be expected to produce any thing seriously impressive in that line. Poems may be composed exhibiting a fine play of fancy, but none of them will be capable of exerting a permanent purtions. chase over our feelings and associaIn so far as the preternatural is concerned, Paradise Lost is certainly the real heroic poem of modern Europe; and it will probably remain the only one, since it has pre-occupied almost all those parts of sacred history which were such as to be adorned, and not disfigured, by poetical colourcollected with sufficient earnestness to ing. It is the only modern poem rebe considered as a true epic. Although a great part of Schlegel's work is filled with an account of the literature of his own country, yet, here again, we suspect his labours are not much calculated for the edification of foreign readers. He touches upon every thing indeed, and he does this with a masterly hand; but, unless by a very few good German scholars among us, we fear little will be learned from a mode of writing which presupposes so much information. The translation, in order to become really useful in the hands of English readers, should have been accompanied with copious notes and illustrations,we need scarcely add, not compiled after the fashion of Mr Hobhouse's illustrations of Childe Harold. The concluding lectures abound, however, in most profound and important reflections, with regard to subjects which all of us should at least be capable of understanding. Our own elder authors appear to have been studied by this accomplished German with an enthusiasm seldom equalled among ourselves; and if the present state of our literature be not represented by him either so fully or so favourably as might have been expected, we must attribute this solely to the distant residence and multifarious occupations of the author. How well he has studied one important part of the subject, the following extract, and it is the last we shall venture upon, will prove. "The art of historical writing is evidently quite on the decline in England. One great cause of this consists, I imagine, in the want of any stable and satisfactory philosophy, a defect sufficiently apparent even in the three great writers whom I have enumerated. Without some rational and due conceptions of the fate and destiny of man, it is impossible to form any just and consistent opinion, even concerning the progress of events, the developement of times, and the fortunes of nations. In every situa tion history and philosophy should be as much as possible united. Philosophy, if altogether separated from history, and destitute of the spirit of criticism, which is the result of the union to which I have alluded, can be nothing more than a wild existence of sect and formality. History, on the other hand, without the animating spirit of philosophy, is merely a dead heap of useless materials, devoid of internal unity, proper purpose, or worthy result. The want of satisfying and sane views and principles, is nowhere more conspicuous than in those histories of mankind, as they have been called, originally produced in England, and more recently written among ourselves. From the immense storehouse of travels and voyages, a few facts are collected, which make up loose portraits of the fisher, the hunter, the emigration of the early nations, and the different conditions of agricultural, pastoral, and commercial peoples. This is called a view of the history of mankind, and there is no doubt that it contains many individual points of great interest and importance, with respect to the progress and habits of our species. Such would be the case, even if we should treat of men entirely according to their corporeal subdivisions of white, black, red, and brown. But how little is gained by all this, as to the only real question, an answer to which should form the proper history of mankind? How little do we learn as to the origin and proper state, or the present lamentable and fallen condition, of human nature? The ans answer to this question, which is the essence of all history, can only be supplied by religion and philosophy; that philosophy, I mean, which has no other ambition and no other end but to support religion. In these false histories of mankind, the worthy offspring of the degraded and material philosophy of the eighteenth century, the predominant idea is always, that man sprung originally from the dust like a mushroom, and differed from it only by the possession of locomotive power and of consciousness. The ambition of their authors is to represent us as originally brutes, and to shew how, by the progress of our own ingenious contrivances, art has been added to art, and science to science, till our nature has gradually reached the high eminence on which it now stands. The greater intimacy of connexion can be established between us and the ourang-ou-tang (that favourite of so many philosophers of the last century), the more rational are supposed to be our opinions concerning our species, and its history. The "The philosophy of sensation, which was unconsciously bequeathed to the world by Bacon, and reduced to the shade of a regular system by Locke, first displayed in France the true immorality and destructiveness of which it is the parent, and assumed the appearance of a perfect sect of atheism. In England it took a different course; in that country it could not indeed be supposed likely to produce the same effects, because the old principles of religion were regarded as far too intimately connected with national welfare to be easily abandoned. The spirit of English thought was moreover naturally inclined to adopt the paradoxical and sceptical side of this philosophy rather than the material and atheistical. most singular phenomenon in the whole history of philosophy is perhaps the existence of such a man as Berkeley, who carried the system of Locke, as far as utterly to disbelieve the existence of the external world, and yet continued all the while a devout Christian bishop. How external objects come into contact with our intellect, so that it forms notions of them-this was a point upon which the philosophy of that time neither came nor could come to any satisfactory conclusion. All that we perceive or feel of these things, is, after all, only an impression, a change upon ourselves. We may pursue it as far as we will; we can lay hold on only such a notion or perception of an object, not the object itself. That seems, the more we seek it, to fly the farther from us. If we consider nature, as either itself animated, or as the medium instrument and expression of life, then this perplexity is at an end, and every thing becomes clear. We have no difficulty in conceiving, that between two living and mutually operating spiritual natures, there may exist a third nature apparently inanimate, to serve as the bond of connexion and mutual operation, to be their word and language, or to serve as the separation and wall of partition between them. We are familiar with such an idea, from our own experience, because we cannot have any intercourse of thought with our brother men, or even analyse our thoughts, except through the operation of exactly similar means. The simple conviction, however, that the sensible world is merely the habitation of the intellectual, and a medium of separation as well as connexion between intellectual natures, had been lost along with the knowledge and idea of the world of intellect, and the animating impression of its existence. The philosophy of the senses stumbled, in this way, at the very threshold, and proceeded to become more and more perplexed in every step of its progress. Berkeley believed that the external world has no real existence, and that our notions and impressions of it are directly communicated to us by the Deity. From the same doubts Hume fell into a totally different system, the sceptical,-a philosophy which humbles itself before its doubts, and denies the possibility of attaining knowledge. This man, by the penetrating and convulsive influence of his scepticism, determined the future condition of English philosophy. Since his time nothing more has been attempted than to erect all sorts of bulwarks against the practical influence of this destructive scepticism and to maintain, by various substitutes and aids, the pile of moral principle uncorrupted and entire. Not only with Adam Smith, but with all their later philosophers, national welfare is the ruling and central principle of thought,-a principle excellent and praiseworthy in its due situation, but quite unfitted for being the centre and oracle of all knowledge and science. The two great substitutes to which I allude are neither scientifically nor practically of a durable and effective nature. Common sense is poor when compared with certain knowledge, and moral feeling is a very inadequate foundation for a proper system of ethics. Were the common sense of man even as sound and universal as these English reasoners maintain, if we should take its conclusions for the last, and subject them to no higher view, we should find it more likely to cut than to unloose the knot of the great questions in philosophy. The innate curiosity of man is not to be so satisfied, but, however frequently we may put it off, returns to the charge with undiminished pertinacity. Moral feeling and sympathy are things too frail and uncertain for a rule of moral action. We must have, in addition to these, an eternal law of rectitude, derived not from experience and feeling, but from reason or from God. A firm and unshaken faith is indispensible for our welfare. But the faith which the English philosophers have established upon the dictates of common sense and moral feeling, is like the props upon which it leans, uncer tain and unworthy of our confidence. It is not worthy of the name of faith; the name applied to the impression made upon us by reason and external experience, and, with equal propriety, to the impressions we receive in a totally different way from the internal voice of conscience and the revelations of a superior nature. That which is called faith among these men, is nothing more than the weak and self-doubting faith of necessity,-a thing as incapable of standing the test of time, as the frail faith of custom is to resist the arguments of unprincipled sophistry. This nation is powerful and free in its whole being and life. Even in poetry, it regards the profound and internal rather than the outward and ornamental,but by means of its own errors it is cramped and confined in its philosophy. In regard to this mighty department of human intellect and exertion, the English of later times are neither original nor great; they even appear to be fundamentally inferior to some of the best writers among the French. If a few authors in England have pursued an intellectual path of their own, quite different from the common one, they have exerted no powerful, or at least no extensive, influence over their fellow-countrymen. The attempts with which I myself am acquainted do not indeed display genius such as might entitle them to much consideration. "We may compare the mode of philosophical thought in England to a man who bears every external mark of health and vigour, but who is by nature prone to a dangerous distemper. He has repressed the first eruptions of the disease by means of palliatives, but the evil has on that very account had the more leisure to entwine itself with the roots of his constitution. The disease of philosophical error and unbelief can never be got the better of, unless by a thorough and radical cure. I think, for this reason, that it is extremely probable, nay, that it is almost certain, England has yet to undergo a mighty crisis in her philosophy, and, of necessity, in her morality and her religion. "If we regard not so much the immediate practical consequences, but rather the internal progress of intellect itself, we shall be almost compelled to think error is less dangerous when open and complete, than when half-formed and disguised. In the midst of moderate errors our self-love keeps us ignorant of our danger. But when error has reached its height, it is the nature of the human mind to promote a re-action, and to rise with new strength and power out of the abyss into which at last it perceives itself to have fallen." Upon the whole, we consider this work as by far the most rational and profound view of the history of literature which has yet been presented to Europe; and when we compare it with the ideas concerning the same subject which are commonly circulated in this country, it is easy to perceive that another nation has got the start of us in point of reflection, and is also much wiser in point of feeling. The considerations in which it abounds are of a kind which have been too much overlooked in this country. Our philosophy, if we be not greatly mistaken, has much need of such a supplement as the present. However noble and elevating the great scope of Schlegel's lucubrations may be, yet, when we compare them with the present state of literature in this country, the feeling with which we close the volumes is very far from being a happy one. It is a melancholy fact, that a single generation of abstract reasoners is enough to vitiate the pedigree of national sentiment and association; and although the ancient literature and history remain, they cannot resume their influence so extensively as before. Perhaps, in England, nothing has contributed so much as the host of periodical publications to obliterate sentiment, and substitute metaphysical restlessness in its place. Our journals, with their eternal disquisitions, have been operating with slow but sure effect in mouldering down all large aggregates of association, which could form centres of gravity of sufficient power to control and regulate the orbits of our feelings. For a long while not many ideas have reached the people except through their medium. But these journals are like sieves, that require every substance to be granulated before it can pass through them. SAMUEL JOHNSON AND DAVID HUME. THESE two remarkable individuals, although contemporaries, never came personally in contact. Dr. Johnson was looked upon by his friends as the colloquial champion of England; and probably the exultation which they felt in seeing him thrash every oppoVOL. III. nent, could have received little addition, except from betting. If they had met, David Hume would probably have declined the contest. There is something extremely ludicrous in this headlong pugnacity, when manifested by an individual who is supposed to make reflection his business; and Dr Johnson seems to have been the only modern philosopher whose propensities were likely to have revived those scenes described by Lucian, in his Banquet and other pieces. This was not altogether owing to bigotry. His character seems to have been originally endowed with an overplus of the noble spirit of resistance; so that even had his temperament been less morbidly irritable, and his prejudices less inveterate, he would still have betrayed an inclination to push against the movements of other minds. Upon the whole, it is probable that the cultivation of his conversational powers was not favourable to his powers of composition, because it habituated him to seek less after truth in its substantive form than truth corrective of error, and to throw his thoughts into such a form as could be most conveniently used in argument. Although gifted with great powers, both of observation and reflection, he passed his life in too great a ferment ever to make any regular philosophical use of them. He was full of those stormy and untoward energies peculiar to the English character, and would have required something to wreak himself upon, before he sat down to reflect. This English restiveness and untowardness, with which the Doctor was somewhat too much impregnated, makes a ridiculous figure in literature, but constitutes a very important ele ment when introduced into active life. It is in a great measure a blind element; but in the political dissensions of a free country, it is a far safer one than the scheming and mischievous propensities of personal vanity and ambition. It is a quality which rather inclines sturdily to keep its own place, than to join in a scramble. David Hume's temperament was well calculated for a philosopher of the Aristotelian class; that is to say, one who founds his reasonings upon experience, and upon the knowledge gathered by the senses. His whole constitution seems to have been uncommonly sedate and tranquil, and no 3 T |