Biographia Literaria
the cold mechanism of a worth less because compulsory assent. The belief
of a God and a future state, (if a passive acquiescence may be flattered
with the name of belief,) does not indeed always beget a good heart;
but a good heart so naturally begets the belief, that the very few
exceptions must be regarded as strange anomalies from strange and
unfortunate circumstances.
From these premises I proceeded to draw the following conclusions.
First, that having once fully admitted the existence of an infinite yet
self-conscious Creator, we are not allowed to ground the irrationality
of any other article of faith on arguments which would equally prove
that to be irrational, which we had allowed to be real. Secondly, that
whatever is deducible from the admission of a self-comprehending and
creative spirit may be legitimately used in proof of the possibility
of any further mystery concerning the divine nature. Possibilitatem
mysteriorum, (Trinitatis, etc.) contra insultus Infidelium et
Haereticorum a contradictionibus vindico; haud quidem veritatem, quae
revelatione sola stabiliri possit; says Leibnitz in a letter to his
Duke. He then adds the following just and important remark. “In
vain will tradition or texts of scripture be adduced in support of a
doctrine, donec clava impossibilitatis et contradictionis e manibus
horum Herculum extorta fuerit. For the heretic will still reply, that
texts, the literal sense of which is not so much above as directly
against all reason, must be understood figuratively, as Herod is a fox,
and so forth.”
These principles I held, philosophically, while in respect of revealed
religion I remained a zealous Unitarian. I considered the idea of the
Trinity a fair scholastic inference from the being of God, as a creative
intelligence; and that it was therefore entitled to the rank of an
esoteric doctrine of natural religion. But seeing in the same no
practical or moral bearing, I confined it to the schools of philosophy.
The admission of the Logos, as hypostasized (that is, neither a mere
attribute, nor a personification) in no respect removed my doubts
concerning the Incarnation and the Redemption by the cross; which I
could neither reconcile in reason with the impassiveness of the Divine
Being, nor in my moral feelings with the sacred distinction between
things and persons, the vicarious payment of a debt and the vicarious
expiation of guilt. A more thorough revolution in my philosophic
principles, and a deeper insight into my own heart, were yet wanting.
Nevertheless, I cannot doubt, that the difference of my metaphysical
notions from those of Unitarians in general contributed to my final
re-conversion to the whole truth in Christ; even as according to his own
confession the books of certain Platonic philosophers (libri quorundam
Platonicorum) commenced the rescue of St. Augustine’s faith from the
same error aggravated by the far darker accompaniment of the Manichaean
heresy.
While my mind was thus perplexed, by a gracious providence for which
I can never be sufficiently grateful, the generous and munificent
patronage of Mr. Josiah, and Mr. Thomas Wedgwood enabled me to finish
my education in Germany. Instead of troubling others with my own crude
notions and juvenile compositions, I was thenceforward better employed
in attempting to store my own head with the wisdom of others. I made the
best use of my time and means; and there is therefore no period of my
life on which I can look back with such unmingled satisfaction. After
acquiring a tolerable sufficiency in the German language [38] at
Ratzeburg, which with my voyage and journey thither I have described in
The Friend, I proceeded through Hanover to Goettingen.
Here I regularly attended the lectures on physiology in the morning, and
on natural history in the evening, under Blumenbach, a name as dear to
every Englishman who has studied at that university, as it is venerable
to men of science throughout Europe! Eichhorn’s lectures on the New
Testament were repeated to me from notes by a student from Ratzeburg,
a young man of sound learning and indefatigable industry, who is now,
I believe, a professor of the oriental languages at Heidelberg. But my
chief efforts were directed towards a grounded knowledge of the German
language and literature. From professor Tychsen I received as many
lessons in the Gothic of Ulphilas as sufficed to make me acquainted with
its grammar, and the radical words of most frequent occurrence; and with
the occasional assistance of the same philosophical linguist, I read
through [39] Ottfried’s metrical paraphrase of the gospel, and the most
important remains of the Theotiscan, or the transitional state of the
Teutonic language from the Gothic to the old German of the Swabian
period. Of this period--(the polished dialect of which is analogous to
that of our Chaucer, and which leaves the philosophic student in doubt,
whether the language has not since then lost more in sweetness and
flexibility, than it has gained in condensation and copiousness)--I
read with sedulous accuracy the Minnesinger (or singers of love, the
Provencal poets of the Swabian court) and the metrical romances; and
then laboured through sufficient specimens of the master singers, their
degenerate successors; not however without occasional pleasure from the
rude, yet interesting strains of Hans Sachs, the cobbler of Nuremberg.
Of this man’s genius five folio volumes with double columns are
extant in print, and nearly an equal number in manuscript; yet the
indefatigable bard takes care to inform his readers, that he never made
a shoe the less, but had virtuously reared a large family by the labour
of his hands.
In Pindar, Chaucer, Dante, Milton, and many more, we have instances of
the close connection of poetic genius with the love of liberty and of
genuine reformation. The moral sense at least will not be outraged, if
I add to the list the name of this honest shoemaker, (a trade by the by
remarkable for the production of philosophers and poets).
His poem entitled THE MORNING STAR, was the very first publication that
appeared in praise and support of Luther; and an excellent hymn of Hans
Sachs, which has been deservedly translated into almost all the European
languages, was commonly sung in the Protestant churches, whenever the
heroic reformer visited them.
In Luther’s own German writings, and eminently in his translation of
the Bible, the German language commenced. I mean the language as it is
at present written; that which is called the High-German, as
contra-distinguished from the Platt-Teutsch, the dialect on the flat or
northern countries, and from the Ober-Teutsch, the language of the
middle and Southern Germany. The High German is indeed a lingua
communis, not actually the native language of any province, but the
choice and fragrancy of all the dialects. From this cause it is at once
the most copious and the most grammatical of all the European tongues.
Within less than a century after Luther’s death the German was inundated
with pedantic barbarisms. A few volumes of this period I read through
from motives of curiosity; for it is not easy to imagine any thing more
fantastic, than the very appearance of their pages. Almost every third
word is a Latin word with a Germanized ending, the Latin portion being
always printed in Roman letters, while in the last syllable the German
character is retained.
At length, about the year 1620, Opitz arose, whose genius more nearly
resembled that of Dryden than any other poet, who at present occurs to
my recollection. In the opinion of Lessing, the most acute of critics,
and of Adelung, the first of Lexicographers, Opitz, and the Silesian
poets, his followers, not only restored the language, but still remain
the models of pure diction. A stranger has no vote on such a question;
but after repeated perusal of the works of Opitz my feelings justified
the verdict, and I seemed to have acquired from them a sort of tact for
what is genuine in the style of later writers.
Of the splendid aera, which commenced with Gellert, Klopstock, Ramler,
Lessing, and their compeers, I need not speak. With the opportunities
which I enjoyed, it would have been disgraceful not to have been
familiar with their writings; and I have already said as much as the
present biographical sketch requires concerning the German philosophers,
whose works, for the greater part, I became acquainted with at a far
later period.
Soon after my return from Germany I was solicited to undertake the
literary and political department in the Morning Post; and I acceded to
the proposal on the condition that the paper should thenceforwards be
conducted on certain fixed and announced principles, and that I should
neither be obliged nor requested to deviate from them in favour of any
party or any event. In consequence, that journal became and for many
years continued anti-ministerial indeed, yet with a very qualified
approbation of the opposition, and with far greater earnestness and zeal
both anti-Jacobin and anti-Gallican. To this hour I cannot find reason
to approve of the first war either in its commencement or its conduct.
Nor can I understand, with what reason either Mr. Perceval, (whom I
am singular enough to regard as the best and wisest minister of this
reign,) nor the present Administration, can be said to have pursued the
plans of Mr. Pitt. The love of their country, and perseverant hostility
to French principles and French ambition are indeed honourable qualities
common to them and to their predecessor. But it appears to me as clear
as the evidence of the facts can render any question of history, that
the successes of the Perceval and of the existing ministry have been
owing to their having pursued measures the direct contrary to Mr.
Pitt’s. Such for instance are the concentration of the national force to
one object; the abandonment of the subsidizing policy, so far at least
as neither to goad nor bribe the continental courts into war, till
the convictions of their subjects had rendered it a war of their own
seeking; and above all, in their manly and generous reliance on the good
sense of the English people, and on that loyalty which is linked to
the very [40] heart of the nation by the system of credit and the
interdependence of property.
Be this as it may, I am persuaded that the Morning Post proved a far
more useful ally to the Government in its most important objects,
in consequence of its being generally considered as moderately anti-
ministerial, than if it had been the avowed eulogist of Mr. Pitt. The
few, whose curiosity or fancy should lead them to turn over the journals
of that date, may find a small proof of this in the frequent charges
made by the Morning Chronicle, that such and such essays or leading
paragraphs had been sent from the Treasury. The rapid and unusual
increase in the sale of the Morning Post is a sufficient pledge, that
genuine impartiality with a respectable portion of literary talent
will secure the success of a newspaper without the aid of party
or ministerial patronage. But by impartiality I mean an honest and
enlightened adherence to a code of intelligible principles previously
announced, and faithfully referred to in support of every judgment
on men and events; not indiscriminate abuse, not the indulgence of an
editor’s own malignant passions, and still less, if that be possible,
a determination to make money by flattering the envy and cupidity, the
vindictive restlessness and self-conceit of the half-witted vulgar; a
determination almost fiendish, but which, I have been informed, has
been boastfully avowed by one man, the most notorious of these
mob-sycophants! From the commencement of the Addington administration to