b) “The German Coleridge” [Thomas De Quincey, Works, 1863, XII, Article on Herder, pp.116-132.] [BL.: 12276 AA 1 vol. 12]


Was Herder a great man? I protest, I cannot say. He is called the German Plato. I will not be so satirical as Coleridge, who, being told by the pastor of Ratzeburg, that Klopstock was the German Milton, said to himself, “Indeed!- I should fancy a very German Milton.” The truth is, Plato himself is but an idea to most men; nay, even to most scholars; nay, even to most Platonic scholars.1* Still, for that very reason, the word “Plato” has a grandeur to the mind, which better acquaintance, if it did not impair, would tend at least to humanize and to make less seraphic. As it is, with the advantage, on Plato’s side, of this ideal existence, and the disadvantage on Herder’s of a language so anti-Grecian as the German in everything except its extent, the contest is too unequal. Making allowances for this, however, I still find it difficult to form any judgment of an author so “many-sided” (to borrow a German expression)- so polymorphous as Herder: there is the same sort of difficulty in making an estimate of his merits, as there would be to a political economist in appraising the strength and weakness of an empire like the Chinese, or like the Roman under Trajan: to be just, it must be a representative estimate, and therefore abstracted from works, not only many, but also various, and for asunder in purpose and tendency. Upon the whole, the best notion I can give of Herder to the English reader, is to say that he is the German Coleridge; having the same all-grasping erudition, the same spirit of universal research, the same disfiguring superficiality and inaccuracy, the same indeterminateness of object, the same obscure and fanciful mysticism (Schwärmerey), the same plethoric fulness of thought, the same fine sense of the beautiful, and (I think) the same incapacity for dealing with simple and austere grandeur. I must add, however, that in fineness and compass of understanding, our English philosopher appears to me to have greatly the advantage. In another point they agree,- both are men of infinite titlepages. I have heard Coleridge acknowledge that his titlepages alone (titles, that is, of works meditated but unexecuted) would fill a large volume: and, it is clear that, if Herder’s power had been commensurate with his will, all other authors must have been put down: many generations would have been unable to read to the end of his works. The weakest point about Herder that I know of, was his admiration of Ossian; a weakness from which, I should think, Coleridge must have been preserved* , if by nothing else, by his much more accurate acquaintance with the face and appearances, fixed and changing, of external nature. I have been lately much interested by a life of Herder, edited by Professor J. G. Müller, but fortunately written (or chiefly so) by a person far more competent to speak of him with love and knowledge: viz, Maria Caroline, the widow of Herder. Herder had the unspeakable blessing in this world of an angelic wife, whose company was his consolation under a good deal of wordly distress from secret malice and open hostility. She was admirably fitted to be the wife of a philosopher; for, whilst her excellent sense and her innocent heart enabled her to sympathize fully with the general spirit of Herder’s labours, she never appears for a moment to have forgotten her feminine character, but declines all attempt to judge of abstruse questions in philosophy- whatever weight of polemic interest may belong to them in a life of Herder.
tending, and, perhaps, may not have been designed for the public: for it was not published until more than ten years after her death. The title of the book is Erinnerungen aus dem Leben Joh. Gottfrieds von Herder (Recollections from the Life of J. G. Herder). 2 vols. Tübingen, 1820.

It appears that Herder rose from the very humblest rank; and, of necessity, therefore, in his youth, but afterwards from inclination, led a life of most exemplary temperance: this is not denied by those who have attacked him. He was never once intoxicated in his whole life: a fact of very equivocal construction! His nerves would not allow him to drink tea; and, of coffee, though very agreeable to him, he allowed himself but little.

All this temperance, however, lead to nothing: for he died when he was but four months advanced in his sixtieth year. Surely, if he had been a drunkard or an opium-eater, he might have contrived to weather the point of sixty years. In fact, opium would, perhaps, have been of service to him. For all his sufferings were derived from a most exquisite and morbid delicacy of nervous temperament; and of this it was that he died. With more judicious medical advice, he might have been alive at this hour. His nervous system had the sensitive delicacy of Cowper’s and of Rousseau’s, but with some peculiarities that belong (in my judgment) exclusively to German temperaments. I cannot explain myself fully on this occasion: but, in general, I will say, that from much observation of the German literature, I perceive a voluptuousness- an animal glow- almost a sensuality in the very intellectual sensibilities of the German, such as I find in the people of no other nation. The French, it will be said, are sensual. Yes: sensual enough. But theirs is a factitious sensuality: a sensual direction is given to their sensibilities by the tone of a vicious literature, and a tone of public and domestic life certainly not virtuous. The fault however in the French is the want of depth and simplicity in their feelings. But, in Germany, the life and habits of the people are generally innocent and simple. Sensuality is nowhere less tolerated: intellectual pleasures nowhere more valued. Yet, in the most intellectual of their feelings, there is still a taint of luxury and animal fervour. Let me give one illustration: In the paradise Lost, what man must have an impure mind who finds the least descent into the sensuality in any parents which relate to our first parents in Eden: in no part of his divine works does the purity of Milton’s mind shine forth more bright and unsullied: but there is one infirm passage; viz., where Raphael is made to blush in Adam’s questioning him about the loves of the heavenly host. The question, in fact, was highly improper, as implying an irregular and unhallowed curiosity not incident to a paradisiacal state. But to make the loves of the heavenly and unhallowed curiosity not incident to a paradisiacal state. But to make the archangel blush, is to load him with a sin-born shame from which even Adam was free. Now this perhaps, this single infirm thought of Milton’s, is entirely to the taste of Germany; and Klopstock even, who is supposed to support the Hebraic- sublime- and unsensualizing nature against(119) (120) the more Grecian- voluptuous- and beautiful nature of Wieland, &c., yet indulges in this sensualism to excess. But to return to Herder: his letters to his wife and children (of which many are given in this work) are delightful; especially those to the former, as they show the infinite, the immeasurable depth of affection which united them. Seldom, indeed, on this earth can there have been a fireside more hallowed by love and pure domestic affections than that of Herder. He wanted only freedom from the cares which oppressed him, and perhaps a little well boiled opium, combined with a good deal of lemonade or orangeade (of which, as of all fruits, Herder’s elegance of taste made him exceedingly fond), to have been the happiest man in Germany. With an angel of a wife, with the love and sympathy of all Germany, and with a medicine for his nerves, what more could the heart of man desire? Yet not having the last, the others were flung away upon him; and, in his latter years, he panted after the invisible world, merely because the visible (as he often declared) ceased to stimulate him. That worst and most widely spread of all diseases, weariness of daily life, irritability of the nerves to the common stimulants which life supplies, seized upon him to his very hearts core: he was sick of the endless revolution upon his eyes of the same dull unimpassioned spectacle: tædet me harum quotidianorum formarum, was the spirit of his ceaseless outcry. He fought with this soul-consuming evil; he wrestled with it as a maniac. Change of scene was suggested; undoubtedly one of the best nervous medicines. Change of scene he tried: he left his home at Weimar, and went to Dresden. There one would think the magnificent library was alone sufficient to stir the nerves even of a paralytic. And so it proved. Herder grew much better: the library, the pic(121)ture-gallery, the cathedral service, all tended to regenerate him: he received the most flattening attentions: the Elector of that day (1903) expressed a wish to see him. Herder went, and was honoured with a private interview; in the course of which the Elector, who was a prince of great talents and information, paid him a very high and just compliment. “The impression which the noble-minded prince made upon Herder,” says Mrs. Herder, “was deep and memorable. On his part, the Elector was highly pleased with Herder, as we have learned from the best authority; and is represented as having afterwards consulted a minister on the possibility of drawing him into his service.” From Dresden Herder returned home in high spirits, but soon began to droop again. His last illness and death soon followed; these I shall report from the authentic narrative of Mrs. Herder. “Full of gratitude, and with many delightful remembrances, did Herder leave Dresden. The three last weeks of his residence in that city were the last sun-gleam that illumined his life. He purposed for the future to spend a few weeks there every now and then, in order to make use of the superb library. On the 18th of September he arrived at home happy and in high spirits. He found our William with us, and gave him such consolation as he could upon the loss of his Amelia. William had some, as if sent from heaven, to support us all in the months of affliction which succeeded, and to tend the rich-bed of his father with Godfrey, Emilius, and Louisa. Herder was full of plans the most elaborate for the approaching winter, such as the consolidation of the secondary schools; the third part of the spirit of the Hebrew poetry; and the letters from Persepolis; of all which, however, it was the will of God that nothing should ever be accomplished. Sometimes (122) even up to the last weeks of his life, he confessed to me a strange misgiving, seated in the very depths of his heart- that he should soon be summoned away from Weimar. On the last day of September he held an examination for orders, and in a tone of extraordinary elevation of mind, as all who were present afterwards declared. The subject was – Upon the Heavenly Hierarchies. The tenth number of the Adrastea (a periodical work conducted by Herder) was almost arranged and written, in the former half, when the first attack of indisposition seized him ( on the 17th or 18th of October).* He soon recovered, and did not keep his bed. At favourable opportunities he continued to labour upon the Adrastea up to that impressive passage with which that number concludes.”[this passage speaks of the northern mythology as given in the Edda, and closes with a few verses describing the awe-stricken state of a human spirit on its first entrance into the presence of God. Mrs Herder, whose tenderness makes her superstitious, sees in this, as in other incidents of that period, ominous signs of Herder’s approaching death.]
“Something it was his intention to have added, and so the sheet lay open on his writing-table. Our dear Godfrey saw that prophetic leaf daily, which was constantly drawing nearer to its fulfilment, with an anxious and foreboding heart, as he afterwards told me. Two months long did the conflict last between his powerful nature and his debilitated and shattered nerves. All his old complaints were re-(123) awakened. If the physicians prescribed remedies for them, then it irritated his nerves; and so vice versa. At length a total atony of all the vital functions came on, which was susceptible of no relief from medicine. And thus he witnessed all his powers sinking, in the fullness of his consciousness, in perfect possession of his intellectual faculties, and in daily hopes of amendment. Except Godfrey (for whose attendance he yearned with inexpressible anxiety) and our own family circle, he would see nothing- at least not with pleasure. To read, or to hear another read, was his dearest consolation. Among the books which were at that time read aloud at his request, I still remember these which follow: - Ossian, Lipsius De Constantia, Thorild’s Maximum (but this was soon laid aside, because it affected him too much), G. Müller’s Remains , and The Bible, especially the Prophets. These we exchanged by turns for other works of a more amusing class that would less affect his head; but we never advanced far in any, being soon obliged to lay them by: reading, we found, must not be persevered in for any length of time; so we varied it with talking and with silence. Even the harpsichord, for which he longed so often, affected him too powerfully; and we were soon obliged to interrupt the performance. Often, in the first weeks of his illness, often did he say, - ‘Oh! If some original, some grand, some spiritual idea would but come to me from whatsoever quarter, would but possess and penetrate my soul, I should be well in a moment.’ Yet this feeling was unsteady and often fluctuated. When his sleepless and agitated nights continued, he said, ‘My complaint is quite incomprehensible to me; my mind is well, and nothing but my body sick: could I but quit my bed, oh, what labours I would go through!’ Certainly he would most gladly have lived, if but for a short time longer, for the sake of executing many designs; at any rate, to give utterance once again, fully and finally, to the thoughts which lay nearest to his heart.* This feeling he confessed to the physician, Dr. Stark, and to God-[125]
_______________________
* This is more fully expressed by Mrs. Herder upon another occasion in the course of the interesting account she gives of Herder’s gigantic plans and sketches: “A few only of his later works were written not altogether from any strong impulse of his own nature, but chiefly with a view to the benefit of others. Hence, alas! More important labours went unfinished- labours that lay near to his inmost heart. In the last day of his life he said to our Godfrey, ‘He wished he might be permitted to write but two numbers more of the Adrastea: those two should be his last and consummate labour; in them he would deliver his entire Confession of Faith, seeing that many subjects now appeared to him in a far different light.’ He complained that he had accomplished so little in his life;’ said’ that men pitched the tone of their investigations too high and too artificial, when yet human nature lay broad and open before our eyes- like an unrolled manuscript: nothing was required of us but that we should read; instead of which we fancy and devise all sorts of difficulties.”
It may be judged, from all this, how straitend in point of time Herder must have found himself: so delusive is the impression which Mr. Coleridge has sought to convey in his Biographia Literaria, that Herder had found his various duties, as a man of business, reconcilable with his higher duties as an intellectual being, working for his own age and posterity! Indeed, of no man who ever lived, is this more emphatically untrue: but of a hundred similar complaints, in the same passionate style, I select two by way of correcting the misrepresentation of Mr. Coleridge. 1. At p.214, Mrs. Herder says, “How often would he ejaculate- ‘Ah, that I had but time- time- time!’ His heart was ready to break at the thought of how much that he wished to communicate must be sealed up with himself in the grave.” 2. (P.224) “Many a time in company, when the conversation happened to turn upon confinement in a fortress, he would say pleasantly, but at the same time earnestly- ‘For my part, I envy the man who is thrown into a dungeon, provided he has a good conscience, and knows how to employ his time. To me no greater service could be rendered, than exactly to shut me up for some years in prison, with permission to pursue my labours, and to procure the books I might want. Oh! Never was poor soul more wearied out than I am with this hurry of business amongst crowds.” If, therefore, Herder contrived to do a great deal of business, in the common sense of the word, combined with a great deal of intellectual work, he did it only by sacrificing an answerable proportion of the latter: to do that which any stout man might have been hired to do far better for a guinea a day, he left undone that which only intellectual men, sometimes only himself, could have done. Mr. Coleridge’s object could not have been to show us that by a sacrifice to that extent a man might gain time for ordinary business: that had never been doubted. His thesis was, that the performance of this ordinary business might be so managed as not only to subtract nothing from the higher employments, but even greatly to assist them: and Herder’s case was alleged as a proof and an illustration; with what countenance from Herder himself we here see. How immense were Herder’s plans may be judged by the reader, when he is informed that the following are but a slight fraction of his entire scheme of outlines:-
Spanish Literature,…….
Hebrew; the elder and the Latter Jewish Literature,
Icelandic,…..
Grecian Mythology to be delivered and interpreted.
Natural Philosophy to be studied for some years: this plan was much ripened and extended on occasion of the discovery of galvanism- of his personal acquaintance with Werner, who explained to him in conversation his system of geology- and on occasion of Dr. Gall’s Craniological Lectures.
Select Tragedies from Shakspere and from the Greek,…..
Horace,…..
Pindar,…..
The Bible,….
Ossian,….
A History of Poetry,
A Life of Luther,…..to be completed: in 4to, of course.

frey. Often did he fling his arms about Godfrey’s neck, and said, ‘Oh, friend! Oh, most beloved friend! Deliver me; even yet save me, if it be possible! Ah, heavens! What a spectacle of anguish for us all! Our hopes, though [126] continually weaker, did not wholly decline, up to the last day: not until, after a mighty struggle of pain in his breast, did he fall into his final slumber on Sunday morning, December 18th. The whole day through he slept in profound tranquillity; nor in this world ever woke again; but at half past eleven at night, gently and without a groan, slumbered away into the arms of God. Oh! Tears and anguish that could never waken him again! Him that was the only one for whom we lived- our guardian-angel that lived for us. Oh! Counsels of the unfathomable God! But thou, heavenly Father, wilt take away the veil from my eyes: all will be revealed; and, perhaps, in no long* period of time!” ]


* She died about two years after writing this passage.

Having expressed my inability to adjust the balance of Herder’s claims, even to my own satisfaction, it will gratify the reader to see this deficiency supplied by one of the most original men of any age- John Paul Richter, the Rousseau and the Sterne of Germany; whose opportunities for judging of Herder were great beyond those of any other contemporary, with talents equal to the task. Herder was in the habit of holding weekly conversaziones to save his own time form unprofitable interruptions: but John Paul was so select a favourite, that, on his visits to Weimar, he seldom attended the public nights, being a privileged guest in the family circle at all times, and when others were excluded. “Of this dear friend,” says Mrs. Herder, “I must make a separate mention. He first came to Weimar in the latter half of the year 1790, as if sent by Providence for the especial consolation of Herder, at a time when he was universally misrepresented, and by some people actually shunned, on account of the political and philosophic principles ascribed to him. Different as were their views in regard to many subjects, yet in principle and in feeling they were thoroughly[127] united. The high moral tone of both writers, and their rank as great intellectual physicians for their own age, furnished a natural ground of sympathy with each other that led to the closest friendship. Herder soon loved his young friend; and his reverance for the great endowments of his mind increased daily. The happy evenings which Richter spent with us, the serenity and youthful freshness of his mind, his burning eloquence, and the inexhaustible life, humour, and originality of his conversation upon everything that came before him, re-animated Herder’s existence. Oh! How often has the genial humour of this great favourite of Germany, in the course of an evenings walk or ride to Ettersberg, beguiled Herder of a world of sad thoughts, and cheated him into smiles and cheerfulness! In many respects, it is true, that Herder did not approve of John Paul’s style and manner: and their amicable differences on this point often led to very instructive conversation.

“It was the fate of this great spirit to be misunderstood. For he had this defect, that he was no star, whether of the first, second, or any other magnitude, but a whole cluster and fasciculus of stars, out of which it is for every one to compose at pleasure a constellation shaped after his own preconception “(p.128)

He wanted only freedom from the cares which oppressed him, and perhaps a little well boiled opium, combined with a good deal of lemonade or orangeade (of which, as of all fruits, Herder’s elegance of taste made him exceedingly fond), to have been the happiest man in Germany (120)


All his old complaints were reawakened. If the physicians prescribed remedies for them, then it irritated his nerves; and so vice versa (122/3)

“by way of correcting the misrepresentation of Mr Coleridge.”9p.124)





perhaps with some ill-natured aggravations, so wounded his own self-esteem, that he attempted to avenge himself by an attack upon Kant’s great work, the Kritik der R. Vernunft, in a Metakritik. Of this attack, which was in truth perfectly feeble, kant took no sort of notice: and it fell into immediate contempt. But the followers of Kant through-[132] out Germany could not forgive the insult offered to their master; and too often allowed themselves, in their indignation at this instance of infirmity in Herder, to forget his real services to literature and philosophy. [End]


Note.- Many readers will have read, in the public journals of Europe, that one eminent litterateur of Germany within the last hald century had died in the act of shouting out clamorously- “Light, I say!- more light!” But, on reading the life of another not less celebrated, we find that he died in effect shouting with agonizing emphasis- “Time, I say!- more time!” And who was this frantic patient that signalised his farewell intercourse with the world by manacal shrieks for time? It was Herder, the very man (or leader of the men) whom Coleridge alleged in proof of his position- that intellectual labours need not so to press upon any man’s nervous system, but that he might still find ample openings for every sort of wordly business. This doctrine I subsequently disputed, and out of my paper arose, some years later, a very beautiful vindication of her father’s views, from the pen of his most accomplished daughter (the widow of her cousin). Entertaining myself the very highest respect for the great natural endowments and really astonishing attainments of this interesting lady. I had fancied that the best way to show this respect, was by a grave examination of her arguments and her exemplifications. But before I could accomplish this task satisfactorily, to my own profound sorrow Mrs. Coleridge was carried off by an organic malady for which medicine has no relief. I am suddenly reminded of it however, and in an impressive way, by the statements of Mrs. Herder, especially at pp. 124, 125. These revelations fall with crushing effect- not upon anything separately belonging to Mrs. Coleridge, but upon the whole conduct of the argument (as it stands in his Biographia Literaria) by her father. Mrs Coleridge’s own beautiful papers will be found towards the end of some volume in the series of her father’s select works, as republished by herself.


1* As, for example, to our English translators, who make the Attic bee talk like an old drone both as to sense and expression. See, too, for a specimen of what Plato does not mean, the Geist der Speculativen Philosophie, by a tedious man- one Tiedemann.

2* There is, indeed, a metrical version of Niny-what? “Ninithona,” or Niny- something in Coleridge’s earliest volume of Poems: but that was a very juvenile performance.

3* i.e. Thorén, afterwards Thorild, Thomas(1759-1808) "Es ist ein Buch herausgekommen: Maximum seu Archimetria, Berlin bei Lange. Zugleich auch einige Bogen Ankündigung dieses Buchs deutsch. Mein Mann hält das lateinische Buch sehr hoch- er liest jeden tag darinnen, er glaubt, es müße vor der Hand die Philosophie aller Schulen werden. Suchen Sie den Verfasser davon zu erfahren u. theilens uns mit."[Karoline Herder an Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Weimar, 14. Februar 1800, SB 8 124: 49-53.]

4* Johann Georg Müller’s, ‚Reliquien alter Zeiten, Sitten und Meinungen. Für Jünglinge nach Bedürfnissen unseres Zeitalters, 4 Bde. Leipzig 1803-1806.’