It is alleged that English and German tragedies contain so many shocks to good taste. French tragedies are one single and entire shock. For what can be more repugnant to good taste than to write and to delineate what is completely out of nature? A. W. v. Schlegel.

THE ARTIST TO HIS PUPIL.

MY DEAR EMILIUS,

I AM anxious before we part to speak with you once more, and to repeat to you in writing what I have such countless times sought to impress upon your heart still more urgently and distinctly by word of mouth. That you were my pupil, sufficed to inspire me with a feeling of duty as to your character and conduct generally; for I cannot separate the Art from the Man, who should learn to reverence the whole of an existence dedicated to her.

You know how I despise that so-called geniality which regards the life of an artist as a letter of license for every extravagance, for every offence against morality and against what is most venerable in civil society. There is no question but that the rejection of all restraint excites the fancy, or that the intentional and necessary abandonment of the mind to every gay dream but too easily comes to infect the

whole of practical life. It is but too sweet to float along unresisting with the stream. But here the true strength of the man must be proved; it must be seen whether he rules the spirits, and only permits them to display their power and activity within the circle he prescribes to them, or whether he is possessed by them, and whirled about in the frenzied mazes of an Indian fakeer.

The first and most potent spell by which to elevate their promptings into pure inspirations, is persevering industry. How foolish is it to imagine that the earnest study of means cripples the genius! It is only from a mastery of them that free creative power can emanate; it is only when familiar with all the paths which have already been trodden, and moving with ease in them, that the mind can discover

new ones.

For more than two years I gave you instruction. All the experience that heaven had permitted me to acquire I have laid bare before you, with that joy with which one spares a friend the labour one has gone through oneself. Can I now part from you with the tranquillizing assurance that you have thoroughly possessed yourself of all this? Can I say, here stands one who has learnt his business, and who can answer all the demands that the world and cir.cumstances may make upon his productive talent? Can I feel secure that the ground-work is firm?

Dear Emilius, you have so much acuteness, so much ambition, so much talent,-you will sin against God, your parents, art, yourself and me, if you give yourself up longer to this dreamy intoxication; if you do not learn to live for the world and in the world with stedfast perseverance in good, and with that order which alone gives warrant of a soul truly devoted to honour. Your uncertainty, your disregard of every promise and every engagement, is become proverbial among all your acquaintances. It is the grace and glory of a man to be the slave of his word. Delude not yourself with the notion that you may be untrue and uncertain in trifles, and in important things the contrary. Trifles make up existence, and give the observer the measure by which to try us; and the fearful power of habit, after a time, suffers not the best will to ripen into action.

My dear Emilius, whatever pain the repetition of all this may give you, it gives me much more. You are become a part of myself—you are so near to me; and must I again say such things to you?

In

But I commit you to Him who leads all to good.

every life there are critical turns which determine the colour of all the remainder. Let this be such an one. Impose on yourself wants which may call out your art; place your honour in being independent, and you will feel yourself richly indemnified and rewarded for every privation.

I embrace you from my heart, and give you my sincerest good wishes as companions of your way. May you give the lie to all my fears, and hereafter be able to reach out your hand to me from above

me.

Heaven's best blessings be upon you.

Your faithful teacher and friend,

C. M. V. WEBER.

(Hinterlassene Schriften.)

ENTHUSIASM is always connected with the senses, whatever be the object that excites it. The true strength of virtue is serenity of mind, combined with a deliberate and stedfast determination to execute her laws. That is the healthful condition of the moral life; on the other hand, enthusiasm, even when excited by representations of goodness, is a brilliant but feverish glow which leaves only exhaustion and languor behind.

Kant. (Tugendlehre.)

EVERY thing that tends to emancipate us from external restraint, without adding to our own power of self-government, is mischievous.

Goethe

WAS then the migration of tribes and the consequent state of society in the middle ages, a necessary antecedent of our better times?

Asia can resolve us this question. Why did not free Greek states flourish in the track of Alexander's expeditions? Why do we see China, condemned to a melancholy stability, grow old in eternal childhood? Because Alexander conquered with humanity: because the small band of his Greeks were lost among the millions of the great king. Because the hordes of Mantchu were imperceptible in the huge territory of China. They subjected only men; laws and manners, religion and the constitution of the state, remained victorious. For countries despotically governed there is no salvation save in complete overthrow. Lenient conquerors only transplant fresh tribes among them, nourish the sickly body, and perpetuate its disease. That the infected land might not poison the healthful conqueror,—that the German in Gaul might not sink into a Roman, as the Greek in Babylon degenerated into a Persian, it was necessary that the form which might be dangerous to his imitative spirit should be shivered in pieces, and that he should remain in every respect the strongest, on the new theatre which he now trod.

Schiller.