[1] SÄmmtliche werke, vorrede, p. 8. vol. 6.

[2] Count Maistre.—See his SoirÉes de St. Petersbourg.

[3] The aristocracy of French literature, and a very splendid aristocracy it is, has been for the last twenty years decidedly Catholic. The enemies of the church are to be found almost exclusively in the bourgeoisie, and still more in the canaille, of that literature.

[4] The words which the King of Bavaria used at the moment of founding this University, are remarkable. "I do not wish," said he, "that my subjects should be learned at the cost of religion, nor religious at the cost of learning."—See Baader's opening speech in 1826. Philosophische Schriften, page 366. These are golden words, which ought to be engraven on the hearts of all princes. In other words, the monarch meant to say, I wish to consecrate science by religion, and I wish to confirm and extend religion by science. This sovereign is the most enlightened, as well as munificent, patron of learning in Europe; and whether we consider his zeal in the cause of religion—his solicitude for the freedom and prosperity of his subjects—his profound knowledge, as well as active patronage, of art and science—and his true-hearted German frankness and probity; he is, in every respect, a worthy namesake of the illustrious Emperor Maximilian. He has assisted in making his capital a true German Athens; and, small as it is, it may at this moment compete in art, literature, and science, with the proudest cities in Europe.

[5] Geschichte der Religion.—1804-11.

[6] Essai sur l'indifference en matiere de religion: 4 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1823;—a work where learning, eloquence, and philosophy have laid their richest offerings at the shrine of Christianity.

[7] In the beautiful critique inserted in the Concordia on M. de la Martine's "Meditations poetiques," (1820) Schlegel observes that Lord Byron was the representative of a by-gone poesy, and La Martine the herald of a new Christian poetry that was to come. Comparing the three greatest contemporary poets out of his own country, Scott, Byron, and La Martine, Schlegel saw in the productions of the first, the poetry of a vague reminiscence—in those of the second, the poetry of despair; and in those of the last, the commencement of a poetry of hope.[8] Much as he reprobated the anti-christian spirit and tendency of Lord Byron's muse, and much as he rejoiced that its pernicious influence was in some degree counteracted by the noble effusions of the French rhapsodist, he still rendered full justice to the great genius of the British bard. He calls him in one of his last works, "the wonderful English poet—perhaps the greatest—certainly the most remarkable poet of our times:"[9]—an encomium which Byron's admirers may learn to appreciate, when they remember who his contemporaries were, and who the critic was, that pronounced this judgment.

[8] See his History of Literature, vol. 2. New edition in German.

[9] Philosophie des ebens, page 21.

[10] See the Preface to the Lectures on Dramatic Literature, in the French translation.

[11] See SÄmmtliche werke. vol. x. p. 267.

[12] Concordia, page 59.

[13] Concordia, page 363.

[14] See Concordia.

[15] In a number of the Concordia for 1820, Adam MÜller frankly declared his opinion, that all the friends of social order would soon concur in the necessity of re-establishing the constitution of the three estates. This is language which at Vienna is as bold as it is auspicious.

[16] Those political changes which since Schlegel's death have occurred in the British constitution, while they have deprived property of much of its legitimate influence, have caused intelligence to be even less represented than heretofore in the legislature.

[17] Philosophische Schriften. vol. ii.

[18] See Concordia, page 66.

[19] According to the just remark of Burke, the states-constitution was in latter ages, better preserved in the Republics than in the monarchies of Europe.—See his letters on a regicide peace.

[20] Among these great conservatives, M. de Bonald is the only one who can be regarded as favourable to Absolutism. As long as this great writer deals in general propositions, he seldom errs; but when he comes to apply his principles to practice, then the political prejudices in which he was bred, and which a too limited course of reading has failed to correct—lead him sometimes into exaggerations and errors. On the whole he is as inferior to Burke as a publicist, as he is superior to him as a metaphysician.

[21] This view of the matter is confirmed by the high authority of the great Catholic philosopher—Molitor. Speaking of Schelling and his disciples, he says, (in the words of his recent French translator,) Quoique leurs premier ouvrages ne respirent pas encore entierement l'esprit pur et vÉritable, mais soient entachÉs plus ou moins de panthÉisme ou de naturalisme, comme cela etoit presque necessaire À une Époque encore si profondÉment enfoncÉe dans l'incrÉdulitÉ et l'orgueil, cependant leurs principes ont eveillÉ l'esprit religieux, et donnÉ une base plus profonde aux veritÉs de cet ordre. C'est dans ce sens qu'on a retravaillÉ toutes les sciences, et l'on peut dire que ces hommes ont plus contribuÉ Á conduire vers la religion, que cette multitude de compendium dogmatiques du siecle dernier. He then adds, "Ou peut se faire une idÉe de la direction religieuse de la physique par les Écrits de Steffens, Schubert, Pfaff, et Baader. Cet esprit conduira encore Á de plus grands resultats; et bientot de nouvelles dÉcouvertes faites au ciel etoilÉ, sur la terre et dans son interieur, aussi bien que dans l'organisme, affermiront et mettront dans une nouvelle lumiÈre ces hautes veritÉs connues des anciens, mais que le sens stupide des modernes rejetait comme des songes et des superstitions." p.p. 165-6. Philosophie de la Tradition, traduite de l'Allemand. Paris. 1834.

[22] Philosophie der Sprache, p. 118-19.

[23] Ibid. p. 121.

[24] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 142. N.B. I have somewhat abridged the author's words.

[25] Philosophie des Lebens. pp. 86-7.

[26] Ibid, p. 85.

[27] See Philosophie de la Tradition, traduit de l'Allemand, p. 26. Paris, 1834.

[28] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 126.

[29] Philosophie des Lebens, p. 129.

[30] A complete edition of Frederick Schlegel's works in fifteen volumes 8vo. was announced in 1822. Of this edition ten volumes only, as I am informed, have appeared. To these fifteen volumes must be added the four which were published in the last years of the author's life, making in all nineteen volumes.

[31] This translation I have not read, nor would I be at all competent to pronounce any opinion on its merits; but a very able judge, the Baron d'Eckstein, has declared that in point of grace, energy, and dignity, it surpasses, as far as it goes, the famous translation by Schleiermacher.

[32] The AbbÉ Gerbet.

[33] N. B. The authorities on which the several facts relative to Schlegel's personal history have been advanced are the following: 1. The Biographic des Vivans. Paris. 2ndly. An article for July, 1829, in the French Globe (apparently an abridgment of the account of Schlegel in the German work, Conversations Lexicon). 3. A fuller and better account of the author in a French work published several years ago at Paris, entitled, "Memoirs of distinguished Converts." For the knowledge of some facts, the writer is also indebted to the interesting journal "Le Catholique," which Schlegel's able friend and disciple, the Baron d'Eckstein, edited at Paris, from 1826 to 1829.

[34] The author is now known to be Professor Molitor. The second part of this work has just appeared in Germany. Trans.

[35] Schlegel's first great work was entitled "the Greeks and the Romans," published in the year 1797.

[36] The result of our author's researches on Hindoo literature and philosophy was evidenced in his work entitled "The Language and Wisdom of the Indians," published in 1808.

[37] Schlegel alludes to "The Lectures on Modern History," which he delivered at Vienna in the year 1810.

[38] The History of Religion by Count Frederick Stolberg;—a noble monument raised by genius and learning to the honour of Religion.—Trans.

[39] Schlegel alludes to Alexander Von Humboldt.—Trans.

[40] See Ritter's Geography, 1st part, page 548,—1st Edition in German.

[41] We must not suppose that the impiety of the Cainites was of a dogmatic kind. How could those primitive men, living so near the Fountain-head of revelation, conversing with those who had witnessed the rise and first development of man's marvellous history, endowed with that quick, intuitive science which, in the operations of external nature, revealed to them the agency of invisible spirits, witnessing the wondrous manifestations of God's love and power, the active ministry of his messengers of light; and, lastly, engaged themselves in a close communication with the infernal powers; how could they, I say, fall into atheism or any other species of speculative unbelief? Their impiety was of a more practical nature, displaying itself in a daring violation of the precepts of Heaven, and in the practice of a dark, mysterious magic. By the allurements of sense, and the fascination of their false science, they by degrees inveigled the great mass of mankind into their errors. Their vast powers, supported and strengthened by infernal agency, were calculated to introduce disorder and confusion in the economy of the moral and physical universe, and to let loose on this probationary world the science of the abyss. What do I say? The barrier between the visible and invisible world would have been broken down—Hell would have ruled the earth, had not the Almighty by an awful judgment buried the guilty race of men and their infernal knowledge in the waters of the Deluge. In the race of Cham, however, which perpetuated so many traditions of the early Cainites, some fragments of this ante-diluvian science of evil were preserved; and traces of it may still be discerned among the worshippers of Siva in India.—Trans.

[42] Noah affords another striking example of a wonderful prolongation or delay of time. The first nine Patriarchs of the primitive world propagated their race at the mean or average term of the hundredth year of their lives:—some near that period—others considerably earlier—and others again much later. But in the case of Noah we find that, to the mean term of a hundred years, four hundred were yet added; and that the Patriarch was five hundred years of age when he propagated his race. The high motive of this evidently supernatural delay may be traced to the fact that, although during this long prophetic period of preparation, the holy Seer well foresaw and felt firmly assured of the judgments impending over a degenerate and corrupt world, it was not equally clear to him that he was destined by God to be the second progenitor of mankind, and the renovator of the human race. But that great doom of the world, already foretold by Enoch, Noah probably expected to be its last end; and hence perhaps might consider the propagation of his race as not altogether conformable to the divine will, till the hidden decrees of the Eternal were more fully and more clearly revealed to him.

[43] Entitled Ju-Kiao-li, or the Cousins.

[44] There are some exceptions to the truth of these remarks respecting Chinese symbols. For instance, the idea of "dispersion" is expressed in the Chinese writing by the sign of a tower. What a beautiful and profound allusion to the great events of primitive history!—Trans.

[45] The author alludes to Schelling's philosophy, which is called sometimes the "Philosophy of Nature," and sometimes the "Philosophy of Identity." M. Cuvier in his masterly introduction to his great work on Fossile Remains, mentions some of the extravagant theories broached in the department of geology alone by those German naturalists, who some years ago attempted to apply to natural philosophy, the metaphysical system of Schelling.—Trans.

[46] M. Abel Remusat.

[47] No Gentile people preserved so long and in such purity the worship of the true God as the Chinese. This no doubt must be ascribed to the secluded situation of the country—to the great reverence of the Chinese for their ancestors, as well as to the patriarchal mildness of their early governments; and, we must add, to the unpoetical character of the nation itself, which was a safeguard against Idolatry. There is historical evidence that, up to two centuries before the Christian era, idolatry had made little progress among this people. So vivid was their expectation of the Messiah—"the Great Saint who, as Confucius says, was to appear in the West"—so fully sensible were they not only of the place of his birth, but of the time of his coming, that, about 60 years after the birth of our Saviour, they sent their envoys to hail the expected Redeemer. These envoys encountered on their way the Missionaries of Buddhism coming from India—the latter, announcing an incarnate God, were taken to be the disciples of the true Christ, and were presented as such to their countrymen by the deluded ambassadors. Thus was this religion introduced into China, and thus did this phantasmagoria of Hell intercept the light of the gospel. So, not in the internal spirit only, but in the outward history of Buddhism, a demoniacal intent is very visible.—Trans.

[48] Schlegel here alludes to the celebrated Lessing, who in his work entitled "The Education of the Human Race," had maintained the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, a doctrine doubly absurd in a Deist, like Lessing, for the metempsychosis was a philosophical, though false, explanation of the primitive and universal dogma of an intermediate or probationary state of souls.—Trans.

[49] The four secondary faculties of human consciousness are, according to our author, the memory, the conscience, the impulses or passions, and the outward senses.—Trans.

[50] ??Üs??.

[51] Schlegel here alludes to that sort of intuitive mysticism in matters of religion, which was the boast of the adherents of Schelling's philosophy.—Trans.

[52] The valuable articles by this great Sanscrit scholar on Hindoo philosophy, have excited a greater sensation in France and Germany, than in his own country. It would be well if the Asiatic Society were to publish those articles in a separate form.—Trans.

[53] We have transcribed Sir William Jones's own words, as given in his Translation of SacontalÁ.—Trans.

[54] See Colebrooke's article on the Vedas, in the 8th volume of Asiatic Researches.

[55] These are usually termed the Indo-Germanic race of languages—Trans.

[56] Schlegel here supposes that the triplicity of roots in the Semitic languages contains a mystic allusion to the Tri-une God-head, the root and principle of all existence.

[57] The Aswameda.

[58] The reader may derive both pleasure and instruction from the perusal of a most masterly Treatise on Sacrifices, by the late Count Maistre, inserted at the end of the 2nd volume of his SoirÉes de St. Petersbourg. No where have the learning, the eloquence, the bold and profound philosophy of the noble author been more strikingly displayed, than in that short but admirable tract.—Trans.

[59] "And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech; for I have slain a man to the wounding of myself, and a stripling to my own bruising."—Gen. iv 23.

This obscure text has long perplexed the Commentators:—Schlegel, I think has furnished an explanation as solid as it is ingenious. Thus Lamech to whom the introduction of polygamy is generally ascribed, was probably, also, the founder of human sacrifices. According to our great poet, lust sits enthroned hard by hate.—Trans.

[60] The author alludes to Condorcet.

[61] This is an allusion to the Pantheistic Naturalism of Schelling.—Trans.

[62] In the German "Lichtsage," or Tradition of light.—Trans.

[63] In the German Vernunft-staat, the government of reason.

[64] Perseus.