ced by the infection of Thimm and Farn, who have abjured all this, and more also, before us.

THE LITERATURE OF GERMANY BY THIMM! Peace to the manes of Cottle. A bard once sung:

Oh Amos Cottle! Phoebus, what a name

To fill the speaking trump of fame!

but Thimm! Thimm!! Thimm!!! Why Cottle, Amos Cottle is sonorous, mellifluous, and altisonant to it. Let it be remembered that it is to be pronounced Anglice, Tim! Now, what's in a name? Alas! not much in this. When the patriarch exclaimed: "Oh! that mine adversary had writ ten a book!" he must have hoped for some such shaveling as the present, that the offspring might damn the parent to everlasting memory.

But, if there be nothing in Mein Herr Thimm's patronymic to justify vast expectations, we ask, what is there in Thimm's Book? And here again we are compelled to answer not much! No more than in his name! It is a loose concoction of wild hallucinations sown together as a rhap sody of critical opinions upon German Literature and German authors-being itself most truly germane to the subject. The scanty biographical chronology, prefixed to the notice of each writer, might indeed be of service, if it could not be gleaned from any Encyclopedia; and as for the restit is all "leather and prunella."

We are not, however, going to take leave thus hastily of Mr. Thimm, and his Thimmblerig. The dish, such as it is, has only been announced-it has to be served up, to be carved, distributed, and tasted and if we are disposed to have a feast of the Dipnosophists over a sorry mouthful, we may chat for some minutes over the mysterious peculiarities of its organization.

We have already apprised our guests that it was a strange dish with which they were about to be regaled. From the honourable names, which head the scanty subscription list, consisting of Highnesses, Graces, and Ambassadors-or, to speak more correctly, of one He, and one She Highness, one Grace, an Irish Canonical Grace, which like most Irish graces, has been too often of late years, a devout expression of thanks for what is not to be received and one Ambassador, Dutch at that-from these honourable names we might infer that Thimm's Book has been considered "a dainty dish

to set before a king." If so, "the four and twenty black birds" must be held to represent allegorically the German authors baked in the book; and the king must be such an one as King Log, or le bon roi Dagobert, both of whom were, equally, we conceive, uncognizant of Gammer Goose, and guiltless of the Horn-book. It will thus be seen, however, that this is no ordinary fare on which we are about to banquet: and as Mr. Thimm has already provided us with a Grace-remove the covers, and let us commence our re

past.

The volume is dedicated with filial piety to Mr. and Mrs. Thimm, Seniors, or to the elder Herr Thimm and Frau Thimm. The dedication scrambles over the page, like a long-legged spider, with a most mystical arrangement of its members; and is left in the still more mystical gloom of the German language-thus reminding us of our crony Charles Anthon, who gives us a Latin Preface to a work with English notes. We can hardly refrain from a shrewd suspicion when we observe the lines so diligently arrayed in couplets, that the author probably intended to furnish his subscribers with his autograph, in the shape of an interlinear Hamiltonian translation, for the spaces are most conveniently contrived for permitting such an explanation of the original, which must be conceived to be utterly cabalistic to them. But as there is no such aid afforded in the copy before us, and as others may be left in similar gloom, we subjoin the dedication done into English. He addresses the precious deposit: "To his most inwardly-beloved parents, at home dedicates this work, with gratitude and affectionate fidelity, Franz Thimm." Such is the Teutonesque faithfully exhibited in the vernacular, or, as Touchstone would have it, in the vulgar. We may doubt whether the said most inwardly-beloved parents knew that the child was out: or, if they did, we may regret that they did not keep him too daheim, at home: or, if there be any thing more than a barren compliment designed, we may express our sorrow, that they did not secure it from the light with gratitude and affectionate fidelity.

The History of Literature in Germany is undoubtedly a noble field for the exercise and display of historical knowledge and critical acumen. It is rich in its fruits, and has been in the last half century singularly feracious. Moreover, the subsidiary works recently published, would afford

ample materials for many instructive articles. With this, however, we will not concern ourselves yet awhile. It is Thimm, and not the length of his tether-the calf, and not the pasture, which we have at present under consideration.

So far we have only been fluttering around the edges of our dish, and detaining our readers from a personal acquaintance with it. From the odours, which have already been inhaled by our anxious olfactories, we can already form some anticipation of the nature of our banquet. In the commencement of his introduction, Mr. Thimin assures us, that the tone of thought and the complexion of feeling, evinced by a community, cannot but be accepted as the index, in some degree at least, of its measure of intellectual progress, at the same time that it leads us into the most secret fountains of natural thought, and passes under our review, the earliest operations of the human understanding? The first part of this sentence is intelligible enough, and true enough we can all understand it and assent to it: but it is not equally comprehensible how these phenomena can have such a wonderful significance as is attributed to them in the latter part. Adam Clarke speaks of "the energy of ratiocination,"* and by its exercise is shortly afterwards brought to talk about "the vitality of death." We suspect Mr. Thimm of having tested the energy of his ratiocination with a similar result of incomprehensibility.

We should have supposed that none but professed psychologists, themselves transcendentalists also, would have started on such a wild-goose chase, as prying into the most secret fountains of natural thought and the carliest operations of the human understanding? We are familiar with the doctrine that truth resides in the bottom of a well, but we had thought that it was a dry well, for if it is not so, we know not how the good lady has contrived to live there so long. We discover, however, from Mr. Thimm, that she is "not alone in her glory" there-but that she has the companionship of natural thought--which can be allured from its hiding place as Mr. Thimm's experience shows, with no greater ease than herself. As for "the earliest operations of the human understanding" we should deem them still more difficult of discovery, for these must have been the senti

* Clarke's Comm: St. Matthew, c. ii, not: ad fin.

+ 'Death lived.' Ejud. op. c. iv. v. 16, not: both of these expressions as well as Thimm's are, what Coleridge calls "air articulated into nonsense."

ments of Adam when he first rubbed his eyes, woke up, and found himself a living being in an habitable world. Such, at least, we should conceive them to be in any scheme "historically developed." But we know not how we are to arrive at their knowledge of these things, or of anything else that may be indicated by Mr. Thimm's words, by the processes which he suggests. The whole fancy is mysterious, and mysteriously rather than "historically developed."

The excuse, or the eulogy, as the author would have it, of this dark utterance, may perhaps be found in his own caution "still, it must be remembered that the Philosophy of Germany speaks a language entirely its own: a language be it observed, of philosophical terminology, which a native even has to study, before he can follow the chain of reasoning." It is true that this remark is made only of philosophy proper, but its application may be appropriately extended to all German Literature of the present day. German authors have, indeed, a language entirely their ownas distinctly and peculiarly theirs as the language of Balaam's ass was of that remarkably intelligent animal. They claim to utter oracles beneath that peculiar phraseology, in the same way that the Delphic Priestess could give no response unless drunk or crazy. 'The Mormons have an unknown tongue, which is said to resemble the utterance of a guinea fowl this too every Mormon has to study or to leave uninterpreted: so that other things come under the same category with the German Literature: but they cannot be very significant if they cannot be understood. The speaking of Balaam's ass was a miracle; but unless the Germans, or Mr. Thimm for them can prove a miracle in their case, we must class their language so entirely their own, along with that of Balaam's ass when uninspired. Such, at any rate, Mr. Thimm's may be safely held to be.

He naively continues his remarks, by adding: "it is easy to imagine how much more difficult it must be for any foreigner to make himself master of this matter"--scilicet, of German Philosophy, German phraseology, or Thimm's obscurity.

But we are only commencing our repast: let us advance "into the bowels of the feast." He thus describes Klopstock's funeral. "Amidst all that fascinates, while it solemns" (Mr. Farn has forgotten Johnson) "the mind, all that might hallow the outer token, arrest the public sympathy, foresha

dow the unspoken sorrow, and insinuate the solicitude of affection, Klopstock's coffin, draperied (consult Johnson) with laurel wreaths, and crowned with a copy of his own 'Messias,' was slowly borne towards its last "resting place." We may admit that the phrases in the above sentence which to us appear wholly unmeaning, might be possibly employed on some other occasion, and applied in some different way so as not to be utterly devoid of truth. We might comprehend the hallowing of the outer token, if good gold were drawn from the vaults of the bank to be given for a bad bill, but nevertheless we should deem this a questionable figure of speech, as the action itself would be a hazardous one. We cannot acquiesce in the propriety of declaring that any circumstances could foreshadow the unspoken sorrow, at the time when the sorrow was actually present and ostentatiously displayed; though we may easily concede that, had Mr. Thimm's parents-seinem innigetgeliebten altern daheim-been suddenly overwhelmed with gloom, consternation, and shame, on the announcement of his designto publish this book, and yet after this promulgation uttered no word of complaint or regret -this would have truly been "to foreshadow the unspoken sorrow."

"insinuating the solicitudes of affection," we cannot see much need for solicitude after a man is dead-this might be an agreeable occupation for Mr. Thimm while living, if he could find a suitable living subject to listem to him, provided he be neither married nor resolved to die single, and would consent to his language being interpreted flirtation. But we should like to be informed how he would insinuate the "solicitude of affection" to Klopstock, while "borne to his last resting place."

While led to mention Klopstock by the singular language in which Thimm has depicted the solemnities of his interment, we may appropriately dwell upon the historian's characterization of the poet, and add a few words, to illustrate the mode in which authors are honored in the present work. Richness of fancy, tenderness of feeling, fine manly thoughts, a maze of tropes, choice ornaments and elegant allusion, are in his estimation the peculiar attributes of the Messiad. "All that Klopstock had to do was to overpass the evangelic record," which, to a man of his "zeal in the cause of religion," would doubtless have appeared a more arduous task than it seems to have been thought by his en