'sembling slate or discoloured tin breeches, is still the Hierarch ' of this lower world?'

It is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an infant of genius is quite the same as any other infant, only that certain surprisingly favourable influences accompany him through life, especially through childhood, and expand him, while others lie close-folded and continue dunces. Herein, say they, consists the whole difference between an inspired Prophet and a double-barrelled Game-preserver: the inner man of the one has been fostered into generous development; that of the other, crushed down perhaps by vigour of animal digestion, and the like, has exuded and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably stagnant at the bottom of his stomach. With which opinion,' cries Teufelsdröckh, 'I should as soon agree as with this other, that an 6 acorn might, by favourable or unfavourable influences of soil and climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into an oak. Sohmshoul

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'Nevertheless,' continues he, 'I too acknowledge the all-but 'omnipotence of early culture and nurture: hereby we have either 'a doddered dwarf bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree; ‘either a sick yellow cabbage, or an edible, luxuriant green one. 'Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all philoso'phers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circum'stances of their Education, what furthered, what hindered, what ' in any way modified it: to which duty, now-adays so pressing for 'many a German Autobiographer, I also zealously address myself.' -Thou rogue! Is it by short clothes of yellow serge, and swineherd horns, that an infant of genius is educated? And yet, as usual, it ever remains doubtful whether he is laughing in his sleeve at these Autobiographical times of ours, or writing from the abundance of his own fond ineptitude. For he continues: 'If among the ever-streaming currents of Sighs, Hearings, Feel'ings for Pain or Pleasure, whereby, as in a Magic Hall, young 'Gneschen went about environed, I might venture to select and 'specify, perhaps these following were also of the number :

'Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, Activity, so the 'young creature's Imagination was stirred up, and a Historical 'tendency given him by the narrative habits of Father Andreas;

'who, with his battle-reminiscences, and grey austere yet hearty 'patriarchal aspect, could not but appear another Ulysses and "Mueh-enduring Man." Eagerly I hung upon his tales, when 'listening neighbours enlivened the hearth from these perils ' and these travels, wild and far almost as Hades itself, a dim 'world of Adventure expanded itself within me. Incalculable 'also was the knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old Men 'under the Linden-tree: the whole of Immensity was yet new to 'me; and had not these reverend seniors, talkative enough, been 'employed in partial surveys thereof for nigh fourscore years? 'With amazement I began to discover that Entepfuhl stood in 'the middle of a Country, of a World: that there was such a thing as History, as Biography; to which I also, one day, by 'hand and tongue, might contribute.

In a like sense worked the Postwagen (Stage-Coach), which, slow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended through our Village: northwards, truly in the dead of night; 'yet southwards visibly at eventide. Not till my eighth year, did 'I reflect that this Postwagon could be other than some terrestrial Moon, rising and setting by mere Law of Nature, like the heavenly one; that it came on made highways, from far cities towards far cities; weaving them like a monstrous shuttle into 'closer and closer union. It was then that, independently of 'Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, I made this not quite insignificant 'reflection (so true also in spiritual things): Any road, this 'simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the World!

'Why mention our Swallows, which, out of fair Africa as I 'learned, threading their way over seas and mountains, corporate 'cities and belligerent nations, yearly found themselves, with the 'month of May, snug-lodged in our Cottage Lobby? The hos'pitable Father (for cleanliness' sake) had fixed a little bracket, 'plumb under their nest: there they built, and caught flies, and twittered, and bred; and all, I chiefly, from the heart loved 'them. Bright, nimble creatures, who taught you the mason'craft; nay, stranger still, gave you a masonic incorporation, al'most social policy? For if, by ill chance, and when time 'pressed, your House fell, have I not seen five neighbourly Helpers appear next day; and swashing to and fro, with animated,

'loud, long-drawn chirpings, and activity almost super-hirundine, 'complete it again before nightfall?

'But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl child's'culture, where as in a funnel its manifold influences were con'centrated and simultaneously poured down on us, was the annual 'Cattle-fair. Here, assembling from all the four winds, came 'the elements of an unspeakable hurly-burly. Nutbrown maids and nutbrown men, all clear-washed, loud-laughing, bedizened 'and beribanded; who came for dancing, for treating, and if pos'sible for happiness. Topbooted Graziers from the North; 'Swiss Brokers, Italian Drovers, also topbooted, from the South; 'these with their subalterns in leather jerkins, leather skull-caps, ' and long ox-goads; shouting in half-articulate speech, amid the 'inarticulate barking and bellowing. Apart stood Potters from 'far Saxony, with their crockery in fair rows; Nürnberg Ped'lars, in booths that to me seemed richer than Ormuz bazaars; 'Showmen from the Lago Maggiore; detachments of the Wiener 'Schub (Offscourings of Vienna) vociferously superintending 'games of chance. Ballad-singers brayed, Auctioneers grew 'hoarse; cheap New Wine (heuriger) flowed like water, still 'worse confounding the confusion; and high over all, vaulted, in ground-and-lofty tumbling, a particoloured Merry Andrew, like 'the genius of the place and of Life itself.

Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; under the deep 'heavenly Firmament; waited on by the four golden Seasons, 'with their vicissitudes of contribution, for even grim Winter 'brought its skating-matches and shooting-matches, its snowstorms and Christmas carols,-did the Child sit and learn. 'These things were the Alphabet, whereby in after-time he was 'to syllable and partly read the grand Volume of the World: 'what matters it whether such Alphabet be in large gilt letters 'or in small ungilt ones, so you have an eye to read it? For Gneschen, eager to learn, the very act of looking thereon was a 'blessedness that gilded all his existence was a bright, soft ele'ment of Joy; out of which, as in Prospero's Island, wonder 'after wonder bodied itself forth, to teach by charming.

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Nevertheless, I were but a vain dreamer to say, that even

'then my felicity was perfect.
'from Heaven into the Earth.
'glowed on my horizon, lay even in childhood a dark ring of
'Care, as yet no thicker than a thread, and often quite overshone;
'yet always it reappeared, nay ever waxing broader and broader;
'till in after-years it almost overshadowed my whole canopy, and
'threatened to engulf me in final night. It was the ring of Ne-
'cessity, whereby we are all begirt; happy he for whom a kind
heavenly Sun brightens it into a ring of Duty, and plays round
'it with beautiful prismatic diffractions; yet ever, as basis and as
'bourne for our whole being, it is there.

I had, once for all, come down
Among the rainbow colours that

For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we 'have not much work to do; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are 'set down mostly to look about us over the workshop, and see others work, till we have understood the tools a little, and can handle this and that. If good Passivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity together, were the thing wanted, then was my early position favourable beyond the most. In all 'that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous 'Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have 'wished? On the other side, however, things went not so well. 'My Active Power (Thatkraft) was unfavourably hemmed in; of 'which misfortune how many traces yet abide with me! In an 'orderly house, where the litter of children's sports is hateful 'enough, your training is too stoical; rather to bear and forbear 'than to make and do. I was forbid much: wishes in any mea6 sure bold I had to renounce; everywhere a strait bond of Obe-` 'dience inflexibly held me down. Thus already Freewill often.· 'came in painful collision with Necessity; so that my tears flowed, 'and at seasons the Child itself might taste that root of bitter'ness, wherewith the whole fruitage of our life is mingled and 'tempered.

'In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond mea'sure safer to err by excess than by defect. Obedience is our 'universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must 'break too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to 'know that Would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero to 'Should, and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to

เ

'Shall Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly Discretion, 'nay, of Morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my upbringing! It was rigorous, too frugal, compressively secluded, every 'way unscientific yet in that very strictness and domestic soli'tude might there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the 'stem from which all noble fruit must grow Above all, how un'skilful soever, it was loving, it was well-meant, honest; whereby 'every deficiency was helped. My kind Mother, for as such I 'must ever love the good Gretchen, did me one altogether invalu'able service she taught me, less indeed by word than by act and 'daily reverent look and habitude, her own simple version of the 'Christian Faith. Andreas too attended Church; yet more like a parade duty, for which he in the other world expected pay with 'arrears,―as, I trust, he has received; but my Mother, with a 'true woman's heart, and fine though uncultivated sense, was in 'the strictest acceptation Religious. How indestructibly the 'Good grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy entan'glements of Evil! The highest whom I knew on Earth I here saw bowed down, with awe unspeakable, before a Higher in Hea'ven: such things, especially in infancy, reach inwards to the very core of your being; mysteriously does a Holy of Holies build 'itself into visibility in the mysterious deeps; and Reverence, the divinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean envelopment of Fear. Wouldst thou rather be a peasant's son that knew, were it never so rudely, there was a God in Heaven and in Man; or a duke's son that only knew there were two and thirty quarters on the family-coach ?'

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To which last question we must answer: Beware, O Teufelsdröckh, of spiritual pride!