66 Bartle," said Connor, laughing, your head's a little moidher 'd; give me your hand; whish! the devil take you, man, don't wring my fingers off. Say your prayers, Bartle, an' go to sleep. I say agin I wont forget your kindness to me this night." Flanagan had now deposited himself upon his straw bed, and after having tugged the bed clothes about him, said, in the relaxed indolent voice of a man about to sleep, "Good night, Connor; throth my head's a little soft tonight-good night." "Good night, Bartle." "Didn't I stand to you tonight? Very well-goo (hiccup) good night!" On Connor's return, a serious conclave was held upon the best mode of procedure in a matter which presented difficulties that appeared to be insurmountable. The father seizing upon the advice transmitted by Una her self, as that which he had already suggested, insisted that the most judicious course was to propose for her openly, and without appearing to feel that there was any inferiority on the part of Connor. "If they talk about wealth, Connor," said he, "say that you are my son, an' that-that-no-no-I'm too poor for such a boast, but say that you will be able to take good care of any thing you get." At this moment the door, which Connor had not bolted, as his father would have done, opened, and Bartle, wrapped in the treble folds of a winnow-cloth, made a distant appearance." 66 Beg pardon, Connor; I forgot to say that Una's brother, the young priest out o' Maynooth, will be at home from his uncle's, where it appears he is at present; an' Miss Una would wish that the proposial 'ud be made while he's at his father's. She says he'll stand her friend, come or go what will. I forgot, begad, to mention it before-so beg pardon, an' wishes you all good night!" This information tended to confirm them in the course recommended by Fardorougha. It was accordingly resolved upon that he (Fardorougha) himself should wait upon Bodagh Buie, and in the name of his son formally propose for the hand of his daughter. To effect this, however, was a matter of no ordinary difficulty, as they His apprehended that the Bodagh and his wife would recoil with indignation at the bare notion of even condescending to discuss a topic which, in all probability they would consider as an insult. Not, after all, that there existed, according to the opinion of their neighbours, such a vast disparity in the wealth of each; on the contrary, inany were heard to assert, that of the two Fardorougha had the heavier purse. character, however, was held in such abhorrence by all who knew him, and he ranked in point of personal respectability and style of living, so far beneath the Bodagh, that we question if any ordinary occurrence could be supposed to fall upon the people with greater amazement than a marriage, or the report of a marriage, between any member of the two families. The O'Donovans felt, however, that it was better to make the experiment already agreed on, than longer to remain in a it fail, the position of the lovers, though state of uncertainty about it. Should would be such as to suggest, so far as perhaps rendered somewhat less secure, they themselves were concerned, the necessity of a more prompt and effectual course of action. Fardorougha expressed his intention of opening the matter on the following day; but his character, deemed it more judicious to wife, with a better knowledge of female defer it until after the interview which Una on the succeeding Thursday. It was to take place between Connor and might be better, for instance, to make self, or on the other hand to the Bothe proposal first to Mrs. O'Brien herdagh, but touching that and other matters relating to what was proposed to be done, Una's opinion and advice might be necessary. Little passed, therefore, worthy of note, during the intermediate time, except a short conversation between Bartle and Connor on the following day, as they returned to the field from dinner. 66 Bartle," said the other, "you wor a little soft last night : or rather a good dale so." 66 Faith, no doubt o' that-but when a man meets an ould acquaintance or two, they don't like to refuse a thrate. I fell in wid three or four boys-all friends o' mine, an' we had a sup on account o' what's expected." As he uttered these words, he looked at Connor with an eye which seemed to say-you are not in a certain secret with which I am acquainted. "Why" replied Connor, "what do you mane, Bartle? I thought you wor with your brother-at laste you tould me so." Flanagan started on hearing this. "Wid my brother," said he-why, I-I—what else could I tell you? he was along wid the boys when I met them." "Took a sup on account o' what's expected!-an' what's the manin' o' that, Bartle ?" 66 Why, what would it mane-butbut-your marriage ?" "An' thundher an' fury," exclaimed Connor, his eye gleaming; "did you go to betray trust, an' mintion Una's name an' mine, afther what I tould you." "Don't be foolish, Connor," replied Flanagan; "is it mad you'd have me to be? I said there was something expected soon, that 'ud surprise them; and when they axed me what it was-honour bright! I gave them a knowin' wink, but said nothin'. Eh! was that breakin' trust? Arrah, be my sowl, Connor, you don't trate me well by the words you spoke this blessed minute." "An' how does it come, Bartle, my boy, that you had one story last night, an' another to-day." "Faix, very aisily, bekase I forget what I sed last night-for sure enough I was more cut than you thought but didn't I keep it well in before the ould couple?" "You did fairly enough; I grant that but the moment you got into the barn a blind man could see it." "Bekase I didn't care a button wanst I escaped from the eye of your father; any how, bad luck to it for whisky; I have a murdherin big heddick all day afther it." "I have a good dale to throuble me, Connor; you know I have; an' what we are brought down to now; I have more nor you'd believe to think of; as much, any way, as 'ill make this box an' steel useful, I hope, when I'm frettin." Flanagan spoke truth, in assuring Connor that the apology given for his intoxication on the preceding night had escaped his memory. It was fortunate for him, indeed, that O'Donovan, like all candid and ingenuous persons, was utterly devoid of suspicion, otherwise he might have perceived by the discrepancy in the two accounts, as well as by Flanagan's confusion, that he was a person in whom it might not be prudent to entrust much confidence. ANTHOLOGIA GERMANICA. NO. X. TIECK AND THE OTHER SONG-SINGERS OF GERMANY.*. LUDWIG Tieck, man-milliner to the Muses, poet, metaphysician, dramatist, novelist, moralist, wanderer, weeper and wooer, a gentleman of extensive and varied endowments, is, notwithstanding, in one respect, a sad quack. Such rubbish, such trumpery, such a farrago of self-condemned senilities, so many mouthy nothings, altogether so much snoring stupidity, so much drowsiness, dreariness, drizzle, froth and fog as we have got in this his last importation from Cloudland, surely no one of woman born before ourself was ever doomed to deal with. We now, for the first time in our life, stumble Poems and Songs, by Lewis Tieck; 2 vols. Leipsic, 1835. Popular Songs of the Germans, with Explanatory Notes, by Wilhelm KlauerKlattowski. London, Simpkin and Marshall, 1836. on the discovery that there may be less creditable methods of recruiting one's finances than even those which are recorded with reprobation in the columns of the Newgate Calendar. Our opinion of the literary merits of Tieck generally is, as Robert Owen would say, "a secret which has hitherto remained hidden from mankind." Be it then, on the 1st of March, 1837, made notorious to all whom it may concern, and also to all whom it may gladden, that for our German friend we cherish the highest imaginable veneration. As a critic we hold him perfect, as a raconteur pluperfect, as a philologist preterpluperfect. That is, he shines, we conceive, in syntax, in story-building, and in the art of twaddling on the belles-lettres. We confess we are proud, proud as a peacock, of being able to bear testimony in his favor thus far. Nothing could give us greater pleasure than the privilege of smoking the pipe of peace with him on all occasions whensoever; unless he would allow us to advance one step further and join him in grinning away his hypochondriacism, of which last article, or rather substantive, his inglorious constitution appears to have laid in a stock by no means as easily transferable as stock in general is. But Omnia vincit veritatis amor, as Ferdinand Mendez Pinto observes in his Quarto; and candor compels us to repeat that our esteemed friend is, as a poet, an egregious quack. For two hours we have been tugging at these two volumes for two consecutive stanzas that might convey to our mind some shadow of a notion of what it was that the writer fancied himself about, and we are now commencing hour the third in a vain search after the same phantom. We scan the page and blink like an owl over it, our countenance preserving the while that steady expression of stupifiedness which the plodding through Cimmerian poetry is so apt to communicate to the august lineaments of the human face divine. Certes, either he is mysterious beyond the capacity of the children of men, or we are Impenetrability personified. All that we can gather is that he is delectably miserable. He maintains almost from first to last one monotonous wail, as mournful and nearly as unvarying as the night-lament of the Whip-Poor-Will in the forests of South America. He simpers and whimpers; and yet, one cannot tell whether he would fain be thought glad or sad. He plays the poetical coquette between Fortune and Misfortune, and. might adopt for his devise the plaint of Uberto, in Pergolesi's Opera, La Serva Padrona: . O un certo che nel core, Che dir per me non sò Io sto fra il si e il nò, Fra il voglio e fra il non voglio, Trifles and things of nothing also Under such circumstances one should sures. suppose that he was much to pity. The case is the contrary. His sufferings are the sole source of his pleaReversing the saying of the frogs in the fable, what seems death to you is sport to him. Every emotion that tenants his heart must pay a rackrent, or the income of his happiness is so far deficient. Like Sindbad in the Valley of Diamonds, the lower the gulf he descends into, the wealthier he becomes. If he be found in tears, it is a proof that he is lost in extacy. He not only agrees with the author of Hudibras, that "Pain is the foil of pleasure and delight, and sets them off to a more noble height," but goes further, and, like Zeno, makes pain and pleasure identical. To help him to an annoyance or two, therefore, is to confer a favour on him that awakens his most lugubrious gratitude. He is like Brother Jack in the Tale of a Tub, whose felicity consisted in planting himself at the corners of streets, and beseeching the for the love of Heaven, passengers, to give him a hearty drubbing. Or he reminds us of Zobeide's porter in the Arabian Nights, who, as each successive load was laid upon his aching shoulders, burst forth with the exclamation: "O fortunate day! O, day of good luck!" But why waste our ink in these vain illustrations? There is no saying what he resembles, or what he is or what he does, except that he doubts and groans, and allows his latitudinarianism in the one volume to carry on the war so soporifically against his valetudinarianism in the other, that not Mercury himself, if he took either in hand, could avoid catching the lethargic infection, and dropping dead asleep over the page. The apex of Tieck's cranium must, we should think, display a mountainous development of the organ of Selfesteem. It is quite manifest that whatever he chooses to pen becomes in his own conceit inerasable and inestimable. A piece of bizarre barbarianism that Rabelais would have blotted out on a first reading is reckoned as the production of Ludwig Tieck, worthy of being enshrined in gold and amber. With submission, nevertheless, to our esteemed, he here reckons without his host; that is, without his host of readers, and also without us, his knouter, who are a host in ourself. The world, we would beg to assure him, gains nothing but dead losses by snch acquisitions to the staple stock of litera ture. Where a man's genius, indeed, is very prononcé, where "his soul is like a star and dwells apart," people have an excuse for attaching importance to his extravagances. But Tieck, if a star at all-and he is rather a starling than a star-is but one of a family constellation, whose number may hereafter, when Time shall have brushed away the dust from our moral telescopes, appear as augmented as their glory will appear diminished. If we hold up all we have got from him between our eyes and the light, we shall be rather at a loss to discover in what it is that he has transcended his neighbours. The grotesque make of an article, he ought to recollect, is but a soso set-off against its inutility. Common sense judges of all things by their intrinsic worth. A pedlar scarcely guarantees the admiration of a sensible purchaser by shewing him a pair of bamboo sandals from the shores of the Bhurrampooter, or a necklace of cherrystones strung together by a child born without arms or legs. We want not that which is unique and singular, but that which is of paramount and permanent interest. The Roman Emperor who rewarded with a bushel of milletsced the man whose highest ambition it was to cast a grain of that seed through the eye of a needle, set an example of contempt for mountebankism which we are at length beginning to copy. We do not now-a-days, like our an cestors, barter an estate for a Dutch tulip. Not exactly, Ludwig! Your thoughts, Ludwig, are not one gooseberry the more valuable to the public on the score that they are your thoughts exclusively. "I cannot be expected," says Goldsmith's Chinese, "to pick a pebble off the street, and call it a relic, because the king has walked over it in a procession." If the Useful should take precedence of the Ornamental, how far into the rear should it not hustle the Fantastic? Poets generally reflect less to the purpose than other men, or they would have long ago found out that the world is weary of their impertinences, and that nothing satisfies in the long run but what was of sterling respectability from the beginning. A publican can think of nothing better for luring the thirsty crowd into his pot-house than a Hog in Armour, and a poet must clap some parallel monstrosity over the door of his own sanctum sanctorum, or he fears that he will not be left in a situation to quarrel with his company. But Nature, after all, does not often back the appeals of the Bedlamite. "The common growth of Mother Earthher humblest tears, her humblest mirth," suffice for the generality. Few people catch mermaids in these times and still fewer are caught by them. A phoenix is a nine days' wonder-a sight to be stared at and talked of during a season; but our affections are given to the goose, and she is honored from Michaelmas to Michaelmas. Let Tieck but bring us geese into the market and we shall be satisfied. We will not even object to go to the length of puffing off all his geese as swans. The sole stipulation we make with him is, that he shall close the gates of his Phoenix-Park. Tieck is our particular friend. We have called him a quack. Our freedom of speech is a proof of our friendship. For the world we have little but hypocritic smiles and silver lies. Tieck deserves better, and we have favored him with a gentle trouncing. He must not droop, therefore, but contrariwise rejoice. He must pluck up heart. There is pith and stamina within him. We depend on him for yet giving us something rather less remarkable for platitude than his Bluebeard is. The Titian of The Pictures, the Prometheus of The Old Man of the Mountain-above all, the concoctor of The Love-charm can never be destitute of the means of retrieving his poetical reputation. But the task is one that will exact the sacrifice of his entire cistern of tears. If he undertake it, it must be with nerves of iron and a brow of brass. It was not, he should remember, by enacting Jackpudding under the mask of a Howling Dervish, that Milton or Goethe grew to be an intellectual Colossus. Annual self-exhibitions at Leipsic Fair may be all very well for nondescripts and nobodies-the awkward squad of the literary army-the tag-rag-and-bobtail of the bookmaking multitude, who are glad to pocket sixpence by hook or crook, and will bawl and bray the whole day long for half a dollar, but Tieck ought to be above those degrading shifts and antics. His mode of procedure is obvious and simple. He aspires to the title of a poet. Very good let him give us conceptions we may make something out of; and sentiments that our flesh and blood hearts will respond with a The weariful day was past, thrill to. He need neither overleap the pale of the world, nor yet grovel in the low and swampy places of the world. Enough of work, we warrant him, will he find to do in the right spot. He can build himself a magnificent mansion, with "ample room and verge enough" in it to entertain the whole circle of his acquaintance, "yea, the great globe itself," if his architecture be not of the clumsiest. Embrace, O, Tieck, the Beautiful and True! Abandon the Factitious and the False! The bowers of Poetry, bestrewn with roses, and overarched with evershining laurel, shall no man visit but with Nature's passport! You cannot assimilate Kant and Shakspeare. Metaphysics and Poetry are by no manner of means nitrogen and oxygen. They dwell best asunder. Each should be kept at a distance from the other, as brandy should be kept at a distance from water. The tertium quid produced by the attempted amalgamation of both is a nauseous humbug. If any doubt of the truth of our assertion overcast your mind, peruse your own poems and doubt no longer. One of the least unintelligible of Tieck's vagaries is a small composition entitled Ball-music. It is a tableau of the feelings of an imaginative but morbid mind, under the influence of the artificial excitement which such a scene as a ball-room presents, is calculated to engender. The lights and shades are too strongly contrasted, but the general idea is good, though not as well sustained as in more dextrous hands it might have been. It is altogether a sort of loose-jointed and rhapsodical commentary on that text of Holy Writ: In the midst of Life we are in Death. We shall hazard the selection of a few passages from this poem, which, indeed, affords about the best evidence we have been able to collect of its author's ability to put into the form of rhyme something that may escape the chance of being condemned as utterly insane. The poet begins by representing himself buried in a brown study, in the solitude of his parlour, out of which he is aroused by sounds that seem to proceed from a hundred orchestras. And chilled and chained— |