Schalet is the food of heaven, Schalet ist die Himmelspeise, Wo der Allerhöchste gleichfalls -Prinzessin Sabbath We should not pass too harsh a judgment, however, on Heine, but rather take into account the circumstances in which he was placed. We are bound to remember that his early disappointments and mortification soured the mind of one naturally sensitive and proud, though as naturally warm-hearted and affectionate. We should also bear in mind how much he suffered from ill health; how much of what is most reprehensible and objectionable in his writings, especially of his attacks on religion, and on his former personal friends, was written while he was unable to leave his bed. All will be the more willing to make allowance in this way when they see that he often regretted himself what he had done under the influence of those morbid feelings: "Alas!" he says, "one ought really to write against no one in this world. We are all of us sick and suffering enough in this great lazaretto, and many a piece of polemical reading involuntarily reminds me of a revolting quarrel in a little hospital at Cracow, where I was an accidental spectator, and where it was terrible to hear the sick mocking and reviling each other's infirmities, how emaciated consumptives ridiculed those who were bloated with dropsy, how one laughed at the cancer in the nose of another, and he again jeered the locked-jaw and distorted eyes of his neighbors, until finally those who were mad with fever sprang naked from bed, and tore the coverings and sheets from the maimed bodies around, and there was nothing to be seen but revolting misery and mutilation." At a later period, while suffering the most acute pain, and scarcely expecting ever again to enjoy any of the pleasures of the outer world, he writes as follows: "My bed reminds me of the singing grave of the magician Merlin, which lies in the forest of Brozeliard, in Bretagne, under tall oaks whose tops soar like green plumes towards heaven. I envy thee, brother Merlin, those trees and the fresh breeze which moves their branches, for no green leaf nestles about my mattress grave in Paris, where late and early I hear nothing else than the rolling of carriages, ham Pictures of Travel, pp. 378, 379. mering, quarrelling, and piano-tuning. Long ago the measure has been taken for my coffin and my obituary, but I die so slowly that the process is tedious for me and my friends too." The kindness of Heine to his mother would show by itself that he was good-natured at heart. After suffering for months, nay, for years, he wrote to her in the most cheerful mood, not saying a word about his illness, but rather giving her to understand that he was in the enjoyment of perfect health, lest she might feel uneasy about him. Influenced by the same natural affection, he visited her twice at Hamburg, after he had settled permanently in Paris, although well aware that he was in danger of being seized by the Prussian police and placed in some dungeon which he might never leave. He never published any work in which he did not allude to her in one form or other in terms of the warmest affection; from his several addresses to her, made under different names, we select the following sonnet as a specimen : "With foolish fancy I deserted thee; I fain would search the whole world through, to learn I sought for love as far as eye could see, My hands extending at each door in turn, Begging them not my prayer for love to spurn— And ever search'd I after love; yes, ever Search'd after love, but love discovered never, And so I homeward went, with troubled thought; But thou wert there to welcome me again, That was the sweet love I so long had sought." Nor are there any willing to do him justice, who were personally acquainted with himself and his wife, that do not bear unequivocal testimony to his kindness as a husband. There is sufficient reason to believe that Madame Heire was a good wife, but she was no better than he gave her full credit for, a fact of which we have evidence in several of his finest effusions. To her, too, he addressed sonnets at different periods of his married life. When he felt his end approaching, he was in the habit of rallying her as to the affection or want of affection she would evince for him after his death; it was in one of these moods he wrote the following stanzas which can hardly be excelled in their kind: THE ANNIVERSARY. "Not one mass will e'er be chanted, Not one Hebrew prayer be muttered; GEDACHTNISSFEIER. "Keine Messe wird man singen, Keinen Kadosch wird man sagen, While he was thus kind and affectionate to his wife and mother, his constant sufferings made him hate the world. Of this fact, also, we have a beautiful and touching record, although we cannot admire the philosophy which would teach us to hate the whole world because one who lives in a small corner of it happens to be afflicted, and perhaps owing more, if all were known, to his own imprudence in early life than to any other cause. But if the philosophy is bad the poetry is undoubtedly good-full of tenderness and pathos : IN MAY. "The friends whom I kiss'd and caress'dof yore With smiles is hailing the sweet month of love. Spring blooms around. In the greenwood is The echoing song of each happy bird, Yes, Orcus' self I well-nigh praise; That sad and melancholy stream, These match full well with sorrow and pain. In the region of shadows, the valley of sighs, But here above, like hateful things, IM MAI. Die Freunde, die ich geküsst und geliebt Es blüht der Lenz. Im grünen Wald O schöne Welt, du bist abscheulich! Da lob' ich mir den Orcus fast; Sein melancholisches Geräusch, Das passt verdreisslich zu Unglück und Im Schattenreich, dem traurigen Thal, Hier oben aber, wie grausamlich I'm mock'd by the heavens, so May-like and Mich höhnt der Himmel, der bäulich und blue O beauteous world, I hate thee anew !" -Bowring's Heine, p. 510. mailich O schöne Welt, du bist abscheulich !" -Ruhelsehzend. Heine has written several prose works, which, being chiefly local in their character, are little known abroad, except in France, where all his writings have been trans lated and published under his own supervision. The most important of these is his "Contributions to the History of German Literature" (Beitrage zur Geschichte der neu en schönen Literatur in Deutschland); although it must be admitted that it is by no means reliable in its criticisms. There are very few of the authors of Germany whom he does not bring under review in this work; but with two or three exceptions he condemns all, especially those to whom he might be compared himself, as little better than stupid pretenders to an inspiration of which they knew nothing. Even Uhland is treated after this fashion; nor does Schiller escape altogether free, or without his pretensions to genius being somewhat questioned. It is in the same work he attacks his old friend and benefactor, Augustus William Schlegel. His letters from Paris to the Augsburgh Gazette were also published in book form both in German and French. Although embracing multifarious topics, they are devoted chiefly to literature, the fine arts, and politics. No other productions of his pen show a more cultivated taste or a truer appreciation of the beautiful, thrown off, as they evidently were in much haste, and almost without any preparation. They are marred, however, by his usual faults. Senators and other politicians of the first rank, to whose generous hospitality he was often indebted, find themselves held up to public ridicule in this work, as if they had been the most unprincipled of men and his worst enemies. But we have already shown that there are extenuating circumstances in his case; and we are glad to add, for the credit of human nature, that those whom he attacked most violently and most unjustly have freely forgiven him on the grounds alluded to. But his end was now approaching. The last time he ever left his house was in May, 1848; often previously, when he did attempt to walk out, he had to be carried home. Of his struggles in this way we have some touching accounts from his own pen: "With difficulty," he says, on one occasion, "I dragged myself to the Louvre, and I almost sank down as I entered that magnificent hall where the ever-blessed goddess of beauty, our beloved Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. At her feet I lay long, and wept so bitterly that a stone must have pitied me. The goddess looked compassionately on me, but at the same time disconsolately, as if she would say: Dost thou not see, then, that I have no arms, and thus can not help thee?" For eight years after this he was con fined to his bed; and he tells us himself that his condition was that of death without its repose, and without the privileges of the dead, who have no need to spend money, no letters or books to write." Who will pass a harsh judgment on such a sufferer in view of the many brilliant pages he has written and the many melodious songs he has sung, and taught others to sing? As a man his faults are indeed many and grave; but as a poet he is undoubtedly the best that Germany has produced since Goethe's time; and what other country has produced his equal during the same period? ART. IV.-1. History of the Italian Opera. By M. ARTEAGA. London. Lives and Labors of Musical Composers. From the German of J. H. BAPIST. London. 3. The Musical Journals of New York, &c. WE design to show in this brief paper that the admirers of the opera in New York are much too easily pleased; far too indulgent to the self-appointed caterers for their musical tastes. But let us not be misunderstood; we do not undertake the task in any dictatorial spirit, or with the view of annoying or pleasing any faction or individual. We have nothing to do with the squabbles of managers, either as friends or opponents, further than they may serve to illustrate our own views; at the same time we shall not shrink from examining into their causes and trying to ascertain whether they are the results of superior qualifications or of ignorance and imbecility. That music exercises an educational influence is no longer regarded as a problem in any enlightened country; on no other point do men and women of intelligence more unanimously agree than that it produces a refining effect on the mind; and be it remembered that whatever serves to refine the mind serves to develop its faculties. It is on this ground that it is included among the fine arts, and it requires but little reflection to see that it is justly entitled to that distinction. There is, indeed, great expression in a fine painting; still more, perhaps, in a fine piece of sculpture. Any of the works of the great masters might be mentioned as an illustration of eloquence as well as beauty. Even Dante himself does not describe the infernal regions, in his Inferno, with more startling vividness than Angelo does in his paint |