'ME; to which it thenceforth cleaves, more tenaciously '(for there are Names that have lasted nigh thirty cen'turies) than the very skin. And now from without, 'what mystic influences does it not send inwards, even 'to the centre; especially in those plastic first-times, ' when the whole soul is yet infantine, soft, and the in'visible seed-grain will grow to be an all over-shadowing tree! Names? Could I unfold the influence of Names, ' which are the most important of all Clothings, I were ' a second greater Trismegistus. Not only all common Speech, but Science, Poetry itself is no other, if thou consider it, than a right Naming. Adam's first task was giving names to natural Appearances: what is ours still but a continuation of the same; be the Appearances exotic-vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars, or starry movements (as in Science); or (as in 'Poetry) passions, virtues, calamities, God-attributes, Gods? In a very plain sense the Proverb says, Call one a thief and he will steal; in an almost similar sense, may we not perhaps say, Call one Diogenes Teufelsdröckh and he will open the Philosophy of Clothes.'

·

Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant of his Why, his How or Whereabout, was opening his eyes to the kind Light; sprawling out his ten fingers and toes; listening, tasting, feeling; in a word, by all his Five Senses, still more by his Sixth 'Sense of Hunger, and a whole infinitude of inward, spiritual, half awakened Senses, endeavouring daily to acquire for himself some knowledge of this strange Universe where he had arrived, be his task therein 'what it might. Infinite was his progress; thus in

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some fifteen months, he could perform the miracle of -Speech! To breed a fresh Soul, is it not like 'brooding a fresh (celestial) Egg; wherein as yet all is formless, powerless; yet by degrees organic elements ' and fibres shoot through the watery albumen; and out ' of vague Sensation, grows Thought, grows Fantasy and Force, and we have Philosophies, Dynasties, nay Poetries and Religions!

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'Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such diminutive had they in their fondness named him, travelled forward to those high consummations, by ' quick yet easy stages. The Futterals, to avoid vain ' talk, and moreover keep the roll of gold Friedrichs safe, gave out that he was a grand-nephew; the orphan of some sister's daughter, suddenly deceased, in Andreas's 'distant Prussian birth-land; of whom, as of her indigent sorrowing widower, little enough was known at Entepfuhl. Heedless of all which, the Nurseling took 'to his spoon-meat, and throve. I have heard him ' noted as a still infant, that kept his mind much to 'himself; above all, that seldom or never cried. He already felt that time was precious; that he had ' other work cut out for him than whimpering.'

Such, after utmost painful search and collation among these miscellaneous Paper-masses, is all the notice we can gather of Herr Teufelsdröckh's genealogy. More imperfect, more enigmatic it can seem to few readers than to us. The Professor, in whom truly we more and more discern a certain satirical turn, and deep undercurrents of roguish whim, for the present stands pledged in honour, so we will not doubt him: but seems it not

conceivable that, by the good Gretchen Futteral,' or some other perhaps interested party, he has himself been deceived? Should these Sheets, translated or not, ever reach the Entepfuhl Circulating-Library, some cultivated native of that district might feel called to afford explanation. Nay, since Books, like invisible scouts, permeate the whole habitable globe, and Tombuctoo itself is not safe from British Literature, may not some Copy find out even the mysterious Basket-bearing stranger, who in a state of extreme senility perhaps still exists; and gently force even him to disclose himself; to claim openly a son, in whom any father may feel pride?

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CHAPTER II.

IDYLLIC.

'HAPPY season of Childhood!' exclaims Teufelsdröckh Kind Nature, that art to all a bountiful 'mother; that visitest the poor man's hut with auroral 'radiance; and for thy Nurseling hast provided a soft 'swathing of Love and infinite Hope, wherein he waxes and slumbers, danced-round (umgäukelt) by sweetest 'Dreams! If the paternal Cottage still shuts us in, its ' roof still screens us; with a Father we have as yet a 'prophet, priest and king, and an Obedience that makes Free. The young spirit has awakened out of Eter'nity, and knows not what we mean by Time; as yet Time is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful sunlit 6 ocean; years to the child are as ages: ah! the secret of Vicissitude, of that slower or quicker decay and 'ceaseless downrushing of the universal World-fabric, from the granite mountain to the man or day-moth, is yet unknown; and in a motionless Universe, we taste, 'what afterwards in this quick-whirling Universe is forever denied us, the balm of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair 'Child, for thy long rough journey is at hand! A little 'while, and thou too shalt sleep no more, but thy very 'dreams shall be mimic battles; thou too, with old 'Arnauld, must say in stern patience: "Rest? Rest? 'Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in ?" Celestial

'Nepenthe! though a Pyrrhus conquer empires, and an 'Alexander sack the world, he finds thee not; and thou hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on the eye6 lids, on the heart of every mother's child. For as yet, 'sleep and waking are one: the fair Life-garden rustles infinite around, and everywhere is dewy fragrance, and 'the budding of Hope; which budding, if in youth, too 'frostnipt, it grow to flowers, will in manhood yield no fruit, but a prickly, bitter-rinded stone-fruit, of which 'the fewest can find the kernel.'

In such rose-coloured light does our Professor, as Poets are wont, look back on his childhood; the historical details of which (to say nothing of much other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells on, with an almost wearisome minuteness. We hear of Entepfuhl standing in trustful derangement' among the woody slopes; the paternal Orchard flanking it as extreme outpost from below; the little Kuhbach gushing kindly by, among beech-rows, through river after river, into the Donau, into the Black Sea, into the Atmosphere and Universe; and how the brave old Linden,' stretching like a parasol of twenty ells in radius, overtopping all other rows and clumps, towered up from the central Agora and Campus Martius of the Village, like its Sacred Tree; and how the old men sat talking under its shadow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the wearied labourers reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the young men and maidens often danced to flute-music. Glorious summer twilights,' cries Teufelsdröckh,' when the Sun like a proud Conqueror and 'Imperial Taskmaster turned his back, with his gold'purple emblazonry, and all his fire-clad bodyguard (of