THE LIFE OF HEYNE1

[1828]

THE labours and merits of Heyne being better known, and more justly appreciated in England, than those of almost any other German, whether scholar, poet or philosopher, we cannot but believe that some notice of his life may be acceptable to most readers. Accordingly, we here mean to give a short abstract of this Volume, a miniature copy of the 'biographical portrait'; but must first say a few words on the portrait itself, and the limner by whom it was drawn.

Professor Heeren is a man of learning, and known far out of his own Hanoverian circle, indeed, more or less to all students of history,—by his researches on Ancient Commerce, a voluminous account of which from his hand enjoys considerable reputation. He is evidently a man of sense and natural talent, as well as learning; and his gifts seem to lie round him in quiet arrangement, and very much at his own command. Nevertheless, we cannot admire him as a writer; we do not even reckon that such endowments as he has are adequately represented in his books. His style both of diction and thought is thin, cold, formal, without force or character, and painfully reminds us of college lectures. He can work rapidly, but with no freedom, and, as it were, only in one attitude, and at one sort of labour. Not that we particularly blame Professor Heeren for this, but that we think he might have been something better: these 'fellows in buckram,' very numerous in certain walks of literature, are an unfortunate

1 FOREIGN REVIEW, No. 4.-Christian Gottlob Heyne biographisch dargestellt von Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren. (Christian Gottlob Heyne biographically portrayed by Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren.) Göttingen.

rather than a guilty class of men; they have fallen, perhaps unwillingly, into the plan of writing by pattern, and can now do no other; for, in their minds, the beautiful comes at last to be simply synonymous with the neat. Every sentence bears a family-likeness to its precursor; most probably it has a set number of clauses (three is a favourite number, as in Gibbon, for the Muses delight in odds '); has also a given rhythm, a known and foreseen music, simple but limited enough, like that of ill-bred fingers drumming on a table. And then it is strange how soon the outward rhythm carries the inward along with it; and the thought moves with the same stinted, hamstrung rub-a-dub as the words. In a state of perfection, this species of writing comes to resemble powerloom weaving; it is not the mind that is at work, but some scholastic machinery which the mind has of old constructed, and is from afar observing. Shot follows shot from the unwearied shuttle; and so the web is woven, ultimately and properly, indeed, by the wit of man, yet immediately and in the mean while by the mere aid of time and steam.

But our Professor's mode of speculation is little less intensely academic than his mode of writing. We fear he is something of what the Germans call a Kleinstädter; mentally as well as bodily, a 'dweller in a little town.' He speaks at great length, and with undue fondness, of the 'Georgia Augusta'; which, after all, is but the University of Göttingen, an earthly and no celestial institution: it is nearly in vain that he tries to contemplate Heyne as a European personage, or even as a German one; beyond the precincts of the Georgia Augusta his view seems to grow feeble, and soon dies away into vague inanity; so we have not Heyne, the man and scholar, but Heyne the Göttingen Professor. But neither is this habit of mind any strange or crying sin, or at all peculiar to Göttingen; as, indeed, most parishes in England can produce more than one example to show. And yet it is pitiful, when an establishment for universal science, which ought to be a watchtower where a man might see all the

kingdoms of the world, converts itself into a workshop, whence he sees nothing but his toolbox and bench, and the world, in broken glimpses, through one patched and highly discoloured pane!

Sometimes, indeed, our worthy friend rises into a region of the moral sublime, in which it is difficult for a foreigner to follow him. Thus he says, on one occasion, speaking of Heyne: Immortal are his merits in regard to the catalogues -of the Göttingen library. And, to cite no other instance except the last and best one, we are informed, that when Heyne died, the guardian angels of the Georgia Augusta waited, in that higher world, to meet him with blessings.' By Day and Night! there is no such guardian angel, that we know of, for the University of Göttingen; neither does it need one, being a good solid seminary of itself, with handsome stipends from Government. We had imagined too, that if anybody welcomed people into heaven, it would be St. Peter, or at least some angel of old standing, and not a mere mushroom, as this of Göttingen must be, created since the year 1739.

But we are growing very ungrateful to the good Heeren, who meant no harm by these flourishes of rhetoric, and indeed does not often indulge in them. The grand questions with us here are, Did he know the truth in this matter; and was he disposed to tell it honestly? To both of which questions we can answer without reserve, that all appearances are in his favour. He was Heyne's pupil, colleague, son-in-law, and so knew him intimately for thirty years he has every feature also of a just, quiet, truth-loving man; so that we see little reason to doubt the authenticity, the innocence, of any statement in his Volume. What more have we to do with him, then, but to take thankfully what he has been pleased and able to give us, and, with all despatch, communicate it to our readers?

Heyne's Life is not without an intrinsic, as well as an

VOL. I.

X

external interest; for he had much to struggle with, and he struggled with it manfully; thus his history has a value independent of his fame. Some account of his early years we are happily enabled to give in his own words: we translate a considerable part of this passage; autobiography being a favourite sort of reading with us.

He was born at Chemnitz, in Upper Saxony, in September 1729; the eldest of a poor weaver's family, poor almost to the verge of destitution.

'My good father, George Heyne,' says he, 'was a native of the principality of Glogau, in Silesia, from the little village of Gravenschütz. His youth had fallen in those times when the Evangelist party of that province were still exposed to the oppressions and persecutions of the Romish Church. His kindred, enjoying the blessing of contentment in a humble but independent station, felt, like others, the influence of this proselytising bigotry, and lost their domestic peace by means of it. Some went over to the Romish faith. My father left his native village, and endeavoured, by the labour of his hands, to procure a livelihood in Saxony. "What will it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul!" was the thought which the scenes of his youth had stamped the most deeply on his mind. But no lucky chance favoured his enterprises or endeavours to better his condition never so little. On the contrary, a series of perverse incidents kept him continually below the limits even of a moderate sufficiency. His old age was thus left a prey to poverty, and to her companions, timidity and depression of mind. Manufactures at that time were visibly declining in Saxony; and the misery among the working-classes, in districts concerned in the linen trade was unusually severe. Scarcely could the labour of the hands suffice to support the labourer himself, still less his family. The saddest aspect which the decay of civic society can exhibit has always appeared to me to be this, when honourable, honour-loving, conscientious diligence, cannot, by the utmost efforts of toil, obtain the necessaries of life; or when the working man cannot even find work, but must stand with folded arms, lamenting his forced idleness, through which himself and his family are verging to starvation, or it may be, actually suffering the pains of hunger.

'It was in the extremest penury that I was born and brought up. The earliest companion of my childhood was Want; and my first impressions came from the tears of my mother, who had not bread for her children. How often have I seen her on Saturday nights wringing her hands and weeping, when she had come back with what the hard toil, nay, often

the sleepless nights, of her husband had produced, and could find none to buy it! Sometimes a fresh attempt was made through me or my sister I had to return to the purchasers with the same piece of ware, to see whether we could not possibly get rid of it. In that quarter there is a class of so-called merchants, who, however, are in fact nothing more than forestallers, that buy-up the linen made by the poorer people at the lowest price, and endeavour to sell it in other districts at the highest. Often have I seen one or other of these petty tyrants, with all the pride of a satrap, throw back the piece of goods offered him, or imperiously cut off some trifle from the price and wages required for it. Necessity constrained the poorer to sell the sweat of his brow at a groschen or two less, and again to make good the deficit by starving. It was the view of such things that awakened the first sparks of indignation in my young heart. The show of pomp and plenty among these purse-proud people, who fed themselves on the extorted crumbs of so many hundreds, far from dazzling me into respect or fear, filled me with rage against them. The first time I heard of tyrannicide at school, there rose vividly before me the project to become a Brutus on all those oppressors of the poor, who had so often cast my father and mother into straits: and here, for the first time, was an instance of a truth which I have since had frequent occasion to observe, that if the unhappy man, armed with feeling of his wrongs and a certain strength of soul, does not risk the utmost and become an open criminal, it is merely the beneficent result of those circumstances in which Providence has placed him, thereby fettering his activity, and guarding him from such destructive attempts. That the oppressing part of mankind should be secured against the oppressed was, in the plan of inscrutable Wisdom, a most important element of the present system of things.

'My good parents did what they could, and sent me to a child's-school in the suburbs. I obtained the praise of learning very fast, and being very fond of it. My schoolmaster had two sons, lately returned from Leipzig; a couple of depraved fellows, who took all pains to lead me astray; and, as I resisted, kept me for a long time, by threats and mistreatment of all sorts, extremely miserable. So early as my tenth year, to raise the money for my school-wages, I had given lessons to a neighbour's child, a little girl, in reading and writing. As the common school-course could take me no farther, the point now was to get a private hour and proceed into Latin. But for that purpose a guter groschen weekly was required; this my parents had not to give. Many a day I carried this grief about with me: however, I had a godfather, who was in easy circumstances, a baker, and my mother's half-brother. One Saturday I was sent to this man to fetch a loaf. With wet eyes I entered his house, and chanced to find my godfather himself there. Being questioned why I was crying, I tried to answer, but a whole stream of