it is not strange that Richter was commonly called an atheist, and all the other scholars who were intimate with him received the same appellation.

At Hof, Richter formed an intimacy with some of his fellowpupils, which continued through his life. The most noted of these seems to have been Hermann, who subsequently published, under the name of Marne, two small treatises "On the Plurality of the Elements," and "On Light, Fire, and Heat." A very characteristic passage occurs in a letter which he wrote to Richter from Göttingen in 1789. "I am and continue a Kantian, and believe that, unless all other philosophy is sent to the bottomless pit, there is no hope for true science." (See No. IV, page 148.) It is to be remembered that this was written from Göttingen.

It is singular that Richter remained, if not entirely, yet so far free from the influence of the Werther and Siegwart period; especially as another of the friends of his youth, Adam von Oerthel, shared strongly in the general enthusiasm; but Richter's spirit at this time was more devoted to invigorating satire, than to the enervating sentimentality for which he subsequently manifested so much fondness. It would even appear, that, if he now and then sighed and sentimentalized, it was to gratify his friends rather than his own inclination. "If I did not fall in love," he says, "though I did read Werther, it was owing to my being so much occupied."

At the season of Easter in 1781, Richter entered the University of Leipsic with the view of studying theology, but soon proved faithless to this science. In fact the University courses in general were only collateral to his private studies. His estimate of the professors then at Leipsic shows the keenness of his observation and the early maturity of his judgment. His opinion of these gentlemen is confirmed by the literary history of that period. This University," he writes, on the 17th of September, "cannot boast of many distinguished men; with the exception of Platner, Morus, Clodius, and Dathe, the instructers are all persons of but moderate ability." Many readers may be surprised at not finding the name of the celebrated Ernesti mentioned; but Richter was not acquainted with him, having entered the University the very year that he died. He appears, however, in general not to have held philologists, that is, verbal critics, in high esteem, perhaps as a subject of the Literary Republic of Klopstock, for he writes thus of the deceased Ernesti in one of his letters; "Perhaps here on earth he did not learn Latin enough, and in heaven attaches himself to Cicero to become a perfect Roman. He was hung round with so many titles and honorary designations, that the man himself could scarcely be seen. His Roman head, his brain full of Cicero's phrases, and his whole store-house of ancient learning are now mouldering in the grave;" (page 124). From the frivolity which then prevailed at Leipsic, he was saved by his poverty and the elevated tone of his spirit. His opinions on this subject deserve to be mentioned, because they afford a deep insight into his young

-

heart, and disclose sentiments to which he remained faithful through his life. "Fashion," says he, "is the tyrant at Leipsic, to which all else pays homage, though it is in a state of perpetual change. The petit-maîtres swarm in the streets, and in pleasant weather flutter round like butterflies. They are the figures of a puppet-show, and no one has the heart to be himself. The beau flits from toilet to toilet, from assembly to assembly, everywhere steals away one or two follies, laughs or weeps as others please, entertains one company with the crudities which he has collected in another, and devotes his body to eating and his soul to indolence, till he sinks weary to sleep. Such as are not compelled by poverty to be wise, are in Leipsic the fools I have described. The most of the rich students are of this character."

Of the freedom of thought and speech then enjoyed at Leipsic, he says in another letter (page 131) well deserving of mention, "The information which I have to give you respecting religious orthodoxy at Leipsic may be comprised in a short compass. Most of the students incline to heterodoxy. I have attended a professor who is also a preacher, and who incessantly attacked the spirit of system, the mystical interpretation of the Bible, the straining after allegories, the attachment to groundless proofs, and the ignorance of Hebrew in the commentators on the New Testament; but still the professor dared not openly deny any received doctrine; he merely treated of the difficulties attending it, and left his hearers to decide on its merits." This is a true representation of the course of Morus. Can we then be surprised, that so active and acute an intellect as that of Richter could not be enchained by theology or even attracted by it?

As Richter while at Hof had composed for himself his "Exercises in Thinking," so at Leipsic he began a similar production under the title of "Journal of my Labors," but this embraces only two months, August and September, 1781. The reflections on human life contained in these journals exhibit throughout the marks of a fertile and strong mind, the calmest contemplation, and acute investigation. They are entirely free from those ebullitions of an unnatural sentimentality which pervade his later works to such a degree, that we might offer a prize for the discovery of a strong manly character in any part of them without fearing that any one could entitle himself to the reward. If Richter had proceeded in the course on which he first entered, and which he himself acknowledged to be correct, he would have stood higher in

our esteem.

We should be tempted to make extracts from the volumes before us, if we were not straitened for room. One passage however we must quote, for we do not recollect to have any where seen the spirit of the last quarter of the eighteenth century described in an equally condensed and striking manner. "Perhaps our century," says Richter, "is tolerant towards opinions and intolerant towards actions. Every truth may be freely spoken, but every virtue can

not be exercised without fear of derision. Men are allowed to form opinions without taking the opinions of others as their model, but they are not allowed to act without considering whether others act in the same manner. We endure all sorts of free-thinkers, but not all sorts of saints. We have thrown off the yoke of systems, and fastened the bonds of conventional propriety doubly tight. I would rather at the present day be Epicurus than Diogenes, an atheist than a mystic."

Equally illustrative of his tone of thought at that time is an observation, which occurs a year later in a letter of his to a friend. "It was a time," he writes, " when truth pleased me less than its trappings, and thought than its imagery.' This confession was made in 1782; and we must say that the use of the past tense in this connexion strikes us as somewhat strange, when we think of the subsequent writings of Richter, which a short time since led the laughing philosopher to remark, that "the license of a fertile fancy overstepping the rules of art appeared to Jean Paul the true life of genius, and his example produced many an imitator who mistook negligence for humor, and became lachrymose when his sportive mood failed to attract." We think, however, this writer is too hard, and on the whole unjust, when he objects to Richter a piquant insipidity, leaden arabesques in the Nuremberg style,* grotesque china and pewter figures, drummed together like a contingent of troops for the army of the Empire."+ During his residence at Leipsic, Richter had prepared his Sketches, published in 1783 by Voss at Berlin, which received little praise but much attention.

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Now follows (page 195-238) an episode on Paul's costume ; an interesting sketch of the pedantry of a Leipsic magistrate and of the spirit of little German towns. This volume closes with Richter's flight from Leipsic in consequence of a deficit in his finances, and his return to Hof, where, however, his pecuniary troubles began to increase; for, well as he understood how to store his head with all kinds of knowledge, his purse always remained empty.

The fourth number describes Richter's life at Hof and afterwards at Topen, where he was a domestic tutor, and lastly at Schwarzenbach, where he also instructed the children of several families together. Of the numerous letters in this volume, very many contain nothing to entitle them to publication; the others exhibit Richter such as he appeared in his subsequent works. In this portion of his life he gave up satire, and devoted himself more and more to the exercise of that peculiar turn of mind, through which he had such power to stir the feelings, and which existed in him to excess.

Referring to the playthings and toys made at Nuremberg.]

The friend who furnished us with the translation of this article, omitted this sentence as "somewhat too Teutonic for Anglification." It seemed to us however that so savoury a morsel was not to be thrown away. - EDD.]

The fifth volume contains an account of the life of Richter from 1794 to 1797. The most interesting part of it is the description of his first residence at Weimar. Here he was received by Von Knebel, Von Einsiedel, Böttiger, Herder, Wieland, and others, with friendship; and was the idol of certain ladies. Goethe, however, manifested a degree of coldness and stiffness towards him, and Schiller whom he visited at Jena was still more repulsive. The judgment which Richter pronounced upon the latter shows that he did not rightly apprehend Schiller's disposition. Perhaps the difference of his reception by the other men of letters may have influenced his opinion of the poet. "I entered yesterday," says he (page 122), "into the presence of the craggy Schiller, from whom strangers start back as from a cliff. He expected me, however, in consequence of a letter from Goethe. He appears confused, strongheaded, full of angles, full of sharp, cutting ability, but without love." We cannot condemn Schiller, if, having been often deceived, he did not think fit immediately to open his heart to every stranger, or to enter instinctively into the enthusiasm of others. The correspondence of Goethe and Schiller clears up this subject. This volume we must confess has affected us more unpleasantly than the four preceding. It contains nothing but incense and panegyric. No weakness of Richter, nor any powerful passion, such as every great man must have, is presented to our view. We do not see him act but only write, and this mostly in answer merely to complimentary addresses. The unvaried monotony of these letters wearies the reader. We are fully persuaded that Richter himself would hardly have given to the public all these epistles with his answers. Such a collection would certainly have appeared to his fertile imagination as holding him up in the light of a quack, with his bundle of affidavits and letters of thanks from those who have been benefited by his wonderful medicines.

The editor of the "Wahrheit" ought to have had this in mind, and to have recollected that every thing relating to a great man is not necessarily worthy of publication or interesting to the community, however much so it may be to private friends. In that case he would probably have given us one volume instead of five; and both Richter and the public would have been gainers thereby. At present it is necessary to collect with labor a little wheat from an abundance of chaff; and at the end, the reader finds himself less satisfied than he had expected to be at the beginning. In the volumes yet to follow may the editor keep in mind the old but true maxim of Multum non multa. The paper and print of this edition are unexceptionable.

[From "The Athenæum," Nos. 307, 308.]

ART. XII. - La Vendée et Madame. Par Général DERMONCOURt. 8vo. Paris. 1833.

[The Duchess of Berri in La Vendée. By General DERMONCOURT. 8vo. Lond. Lond. 1833.]

We need not enlarge upon the high interest of this work. The personal adventures of the Princess, her journeyings on foot and on horseback, in disguise and in her own character, her mental and bodily sufferings, her hopes and her despair, are a romance, and seem to belong to another age: they recall the wanderings and the perils of our own Charles Edward, with all the additional interest which must attach to the daring and the suffering of a

woman.

The volume opens with a brief historical sketch of the position of France in relation to Europe, and of La Vendée to France, when the Duchess ventured to throw herself upon the country and hazard the fortunes of a civil war. The peculiar position of La Vendée, its old Bourbon prejudices, with the clashing interests of the new proprietors, the liberal feelings of the conscript soldiers, and the enlarged views and interests consequent on trade and manufactures which had penetrated the country by the roads made by Napoleon, are here traced with great fidelity. In 1794, the whole country was occupied by seigneurs and their serfs, nobles and farmers, almost to a man Bourbonists; but in 1832 the purchasers of the national property, the returned conscript soldiers, the merchants and traders, were with and for the revolution; upon the line of the great roads, where information had spread, the people," says the General, "are liberal in opinion, but this feeling cools in proportion as you advance on either side, into the less frequented parts of the country."

General Dermoncourt is of opinion, that the government of Louis-Philippe was not anxious, in the first instance, to quiet La Vendée; -- the troubles there served to distract public attention from the temporizing foreign policy of the ministry; therefore General Lamarque was superseded in command by General Bonnet; but as this latter was equally firm and resolute, he too refused to temporize according to instructions, sent in his resignation, and was succeeded by Solignac. But the time arrived when the insurrection was to be put down, and General Dermoncourt was appointed to command the military subdivision at Nantes.

"At my time of life," says the General, "a man may speak of himself with the same freedom as of another, and my appointment was proof that the ministers intended no longer to temporize with the insurgents. Forty-four years of service in Europe, in Asia, in America, and in Africa,

the giant battles in which I have shared, and compared with which our battles of the present day are utterly insignificant, have made me careless