massive structure reared upon the slenderest foundation. The reason for introducing a paraphrase by De Quincey, in place of a literal translation, was that the original is of too mystical a nature to present so sublime a picture of space to the reader, as the admirable composition referred to. With this exception, and that of the "Dream of the Dead Christ," no piece translated in this little work has, as far as the writer can ascertain, ever before appeared in English. There is no author that requires more study and reflection than Jean Paul, and often that which at first appears mere high-sounding nonsense, is found to be deep comprehensive truth. If, from the intricacy of the sentences, or an insufficient acquaintance with the peculiarities of the German language, the translator has anywhere misapprehended or perverted the meaning of Richter, none will be more glad to see his error exposed and corrected, than himself. In conclusion, if the tendency of this little volume be to refine the feelings, to enlarge the understanding, to exalt and purify the imagination, and to expand the heart; and if it give to the reader a juster and grander conception of the sublime in man, the sublime in nature, and the sublime in God-it will not have been written in vain.

THE AUTHOR.

This volume has been principally compiled from the following

Sources:

Jean Paul's Sämmtliche Werke.

Wahrheit aus meinem Leben-Jean Paul.

Biographie Jean Paul's von Ernst Förster.

Carlyle's Essays, from one of which is taken the criticism on Richter, quoted at the end of this volume, originally extracted from "German Romance," a work the writer has never seen.

"Life of Richter," published originally in Boston, and subsequently in Chapman and Hall's Catholic Series.

Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces, translated by Noel.

Jean Paul.

Ir is a common remark in the present day, that great men are scarce; and although this may be but partially true, yet as a rule, it is undoubtedly correct. This paucity of genius in the present age, is the more striking when contrasted with the galaxy of talent which graced the generation immediately preceding it. The civil commotions, wars, and revolutions, which shook kingdoms to their foundations, overturned monarchies, and freed nations that had been groaning under despotism for hundreds of years, seemed but gently to rock the cradle of the muses, to arouse nature from her lethargy, and to bring forth men, who were to instruct, adorn, dazzle, and enlighten, not only the period that gave them birth, but all succeeding ages. Germany, more especially in the time of her greatest national degradation and misery, was to take up a position in the literary world, to which she had never before aspired.

The language in which Luther taught and wrote, was before this time held in but very low esteem, and whilst French was spoken in every court in Europe, German was scarcely understood at its own. It was reserved for Schiller, Goethe, and their con

B

temporaries, to raise the literature of their country from its then ignoble position, and to bring out and develop the resources of their long neglected mother tongue.

Among the mighty spirits of this age, none stands more conspicuous for depth of thought, beauty of expression, richness of diction and grandeur of imagination, though veiled in a very difficult and original style, than he whose life and writings we would fain portray; he who has been termed by his admiring countrymen, Jean Paul der Einzige-Jean Paul the only.

In the heart of Germany, at the North of Bavaria, is situated a table-land, which takes its name from the pine forests with which it is clad, the Fichtelgebirge. Here in the spring of 1763, in the midst of this isolated mountain region, was born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter. His pedigree was not long, nor his ancestors noble; his mother was the daughter of a cloth weaver of Hof, whilst his paternal grandfather was a schoolmaster and under-curate; as he himself says, in the highest degree poor and pious.

His father for some time occupied the same position; but in consequence of a slight preferment, he removed to Regensburg, and subsequently to Wonsiedel, where he settled, and our poet was born. The youthful Richter's path lay not through the flowery meadows of luxury, which so often engender sloth, even in great minds;-he had to climb the steep hill of adversity, with the sharp blasts of poverty in his face. His father was kind but severe, and his plan of education was very peculiar. He on one occasion, when our poet was between eight and nine years

old, brought him a Latin Dictionary to learn off by heart, but upon the repeated mispronunciation of the word "lingua" he took it away, much to the mortification and chagrin of the youthful student. In the little village of Joditz, to which the elder Richter subsequently removed, the "happy days of childhood," which left such an indelible impression on the mind of our author, were spent, and here he formed those simple tastes, and that ardent attachment to his native mountain home, which never deserted him through life.

In his autobiography occurs the following description of a winter evening in the little parsonage of Joditz. "In the long twilight, the father paced to and fro, and the children trotted after him, creeping under his dressing-gown, and clinging if possible to his hands. At the sound of the vesper-bell, we placed ourselves in a circle, and devoutly chanted the hymn." 'Die finstre Nacht bricht stark herein.' "In villages only, for in towns there is more night than day work, have the evening bells a genuine significance, and are indeed the swan song of the day; the evening bell is, as it were, a muffle to the overloud heart, and like a Ranz des Vaches of the plains, calls man from labour and turmoil to the land of stillness and of dreams."

It was with the utmost difficulty that the poor parish priest contrived to make his meagre income meet the requirements of his young family, and many were the excursions which young Fritz had to take to his grandmother, in Hof, who, for a merely nominal payment, often assisted in re

plenishing the exhausted larder of the honest minister of Joditz. In the autumn, after the seven hours lessons, for the father was a rigid disciplinarian, the two boys, Paul and Adam, counted it one of their greatest pleasures to be permitted to accompany him into his little potato plot on the other side of the Saale, where they by turn assisted him in collecting the potatoes which he dug for the family supper, and gathered nuts from the hazel bushes by which the field was surrounded. Such were the simple joys which gladdened Jean Paul's childhood, and to which he constantly recurs with ever increasing fondness. Through the patronage of Frau von Plotho, the exertions of the disinterested and indigent minister were rewarded by his being made pastor to the market-town of Schwarzenbach. Thus in each of his removals he followed the course of the Saale.

Insignificant as this offspring of the pine clad summits of Central Europe must appear, to those who only know it on the map-to those who, as we, have seen it either in summer when it winds like a silver thread through the dark foliage of the Fichtelgebirge, or when the autumn rains have sufficiently filled its stony bed to permit it to bear upon its bosom the timber rafts, which, having been cut down and constructed in this little mountain island, are carried by its current into the Elbe and the ocean; or in winter, when it noiselessly glides under its hard, bright, covering of ice, or in spring when the snows having dissolved on the surrounding hills, swelling the little brooks, its tributaries, it bursts the icy manacles in which it has lain fettered through the long winter months, and