2

3

The literature of Germany was for De Quincey, to use his own distinction, a literature of knowledge rather than one of power. "The German literature is at this time", he writes (1819-20), “beyondall question, for science and philosophy, so called, the wealthiest in the world".1 The strength of the German mind is not to be sought in its poetry. "Poetry apart", he writes, "the current literature of Germany appears to me by much the best in Europe what weighs most with me is the promise and assurance of future excellence, held out by the originality and masculine strength of thought which has moulded the German mind since the time of Kant". Yet, though De Quincey was so much impressed with the energy of the German mind and the variety and boldness of German speculation, he did not grasp the development of the new philosophy as a whole; he did not see it in its natural and necessary evolution; he did not realize the relations between its different systems. He writes of "the endless freaks in philosophy of modern Germany, where the sceptre of mutability gathers more trophies in a year, than elsewhere in a century; the anarchy of dreams presides in her philosophy". This is especially true of German theology. It is a complete chaos, subject to all impulses, with no court of appeal; valuable for its exactness in philological research, but far below the English in real constructive power. Yet it must have produced a strong effect upon him, for late in life he

1 Page's Life I, 212.

2 Works XI, 156.

3 Ib. XI, 261 f.

4 Works II, 202.

5 Ib. IV, 325 f, note.

5

refers to it, as something which he studied “at his peril” thirty or forty years before. 1

From the last remark it is easy to realize De Quincey's attitude; he finds the German mind "singularly disposed to skepticism". "Amongst much that is sagacious", he writes, in connection with some of the German historians, "I feel, and I resent with disgust, a taint of falsehood diffused over these recent speculations from vulgar and counterfeit incredulity." That is De Quincey's attitude not only to critical scholarship but also to much in German philosophy. De Quincey was in no large sense a critical mind; not merely his beliefs, but his intellectual desires had often too much influence over his judgment; how much, will be seen in his study of Kant.

This skeptical tendeney is, according to De Quincey, the first great vice of the German mind; the second is its lack of form; "first, vague, indeterminate conception; secondly, total lack of power to methodise and combine the parts, and indeed, generally a barbarian inaptitude for composition." No one subject has been touched so often by De Quincey's humor as that of German style. The effect which Kant's style produced upon his rhetorical and imaginative sensibilities almost outlived his interest in the Transcendental Philosophy. Among the many specimens of his good-natured satire we quote the following: "We doubt whether any German has written prose with grace, unless he had lived abroad (like Jacobi), or had at least cultivated a very large acquaintance with English and

1 Page's Life I, 384.

2 Works VII, 46.

3 Ib. VI, 16.

▲ Works II, 83 ff.; X, 121 ff.; 159 ff.; 257 ff.; XI, 13.

French models. Every German regards a sentence in the light of a package, and a package not for the mail-coach but for the waggon, into which his privilege. is to crowd as much as he possibly can. Having found a sentence, therefore, he next proceeds to pack it, which is effected partly by unwieldy tails and codicils, but chiefly by enormous parenthetic involutions. All quali-i fications, limitations, exceptions, illustrations are stuffed and violently rammed into the bowels of the principal proposition. It does not occur to him as a fault. To him it is sufficient that they are there." "A German sentence describes an arch between the rising and the setting sun."2 German poetry therefore is less difficult for a beginner than German prose. The necessities of metre impose some restraint at least on style. "Infinity, absolute infinity, is impracticable." With such a style. the Germans have naturally no eloquence. Lessing, Herder, Jean Paul and a few others, who were familiar with foreign models, are the only Germans who have written prose with any rhetorical feeling. This lack of form and clearness is the natural defect of the German mind. Its dominant and positive qualities are its powers of research, its "originality and boldness of speculation", its "masculine austerity and precision in science". De Quincey was impressed with the sincerity and integrity of the German character; in comparison with the English, however, he finds the Germans a "docile" people." They have not the same moral energy. Germany too is weak in religious

philosophy. Even practical piety is more emotional and effeminate there.1 German sentiment is less manly and less sane; it degenerates easily into the sentimental and falsetto. This pervades even literature. "In general, I will say, that from much observation of the German literature, I perceive a voluptuousness

an animal glow almost a sensuality in the very intellectual sensibilities of the German, such as I find in the people of no other nation. . . . Sensuality is nowhere less tolerated, intellectual pleasures nowhere more valued. Yet, in the most intellectual of their feelings there is still a taint of luxury and animal fervor." This effeminacy and what he calls "animal glow" he finds in Klopstock as compared with Milton, and his sense of it in Goethe destroys all fair criticism in dealing with the poet.

For the rest, De Quincey's observations show an acute and curious mind, but little that is of any significance in an estimate of German culture, or in a study of De Quincey himself. Most of them are truisms as regards the history of those times. He speaks of "the torpor of German patriotism"; of the incapacity for practical politics in Germany; of the lack of a sense for public affairs; of the lack of eloquence therefore, and deliberative assemblies; of the development in selfconsciousness and national dignity at the end of the 18th. century; of the gain to scholarship and general culture from so many centres of learning; of the faults of the

1 Works IV, 403.

4

2 Ib. IV, 361, note. XII, 403, note. For scattered references to German customs see Appendix II.

3 Works IV, 382.

4 Ib. I, 402; VI, 190.

5 Ib. IV, 324, note.

German lecture system and "its haberdashers of knowledge, cap in hand to opulent students, servile to their caprices ; . . . all hating, fighting, calumniating each other, until the land is sick of its base knowledge-mongers";1 of the class-spirit of German society in comparison with the English; of the arrogance of the military aristocracy and the consequent contempt for any profession not directly in the service of the state; 2 of the pedantic character of German society and conversation, the materials of which are drawn "from the systems of a few rival professors"; of the lack of public conscience in Germany in matters of thought and feeling; for example, a Conversations-Lexicon would be under much more severe moral restraints in England.3

It is not difficult to recognize in these criticisms something at least of the common English feeling at that time. De Quincey judges everything from his inherited standpoint; he measures things in Germany by purely English standards.

With most German authors of any significance from the time of Gottsched on, De Quincey shows some acquaintance, and with a few important exceptions, an understanding of their place and influence. To expect new information, carefully weighed opinions, philosophical or historical criticism, is obviously out of the question, any more than we could expect to find them in a clever German who had an interest in English literature, read important books as they appeared, especially those of his favorite authors, had acquaintance with current ideas in England, and reproduced them again for the reviews.

1 Works II, 32 ff.

2 Ib. II, 38.

3 Uncoll. Writ. I, 275.