the privileges of Constitutional freedom for his country, than all the professional politicians and agitators put together. True, the scenes of fearful disorder and bloodshed, by which the two French revolutions that Heine had witnessed, were accompanied, disgusted him with the manner in which people try to carry out their Republican ideas; and he, like most clear-thinking men, came to the conclusion that a Republic was too lofty a dream to be realized until a better moral and mental education had been given to the masses. Heine even went so far as to openly proclaim that he was a Monarchist by inclination and conviction; but this he did only in order not to be mistaken for one of those sham democrats whom he despised, His heart loved liberty and hated slavery, and that the Prussian Government did. not take him for its friend, nor for the friend of any absolute Monarchy, will be best seen from the fact that the poet lived twenty-five years in exile, and is buried beneath French soil.

The political poems of Heinrich Heine, and especially one entitled "Wintermaerchen," are the most destructive satirical blows that have ever been directed by a writer against the misuse of

Monarchical institutions; and although the poet often checks the Republican enthusiasm which he parades in the beginning, by ridiculing it in the end, this proves just as little that he was not sincere in his propaganda for freedom, as the ironical conclusions of his amatory verses, prove that his heart was void of love. On the contrary, the reader ought never to forget that Heine usually laughs when the tears are ready to come into his eyes; and that, while the surface of his poetry reflects a cold cynicism, there is almost always a warm undercurrent of profound feeling quite perceptible to those who enter deeply enough into the works of this brilliant author.

In his prose writings his sentiments become still more evident, and the same man who wrote: "I am a Royalist from inclination, and in France I have become a Royalist from conviction," never ceased to admire the Republicans of France for the manly daring of their representatives, of whose honesty of sentiment he was persuaded.

In his "Correspondence from Paris "he glorifies with enthusiastic words the martyrdom of the "heroes of St. Méry," and in an article dated June 7th, 1832, he writes: "A handful of patriots, or as

The

they are called at present, rebels, fought yesterday in the Rue St. Martin against 6,000 men. heroism of these daring fellows is unanimously admired; they are said to have performed marvels of valor. They cried continually: 'Vive la République!' but they found no echo in the hearts of the people. Had they instead of these words cried: 'Vive Napoleon!' the soldiers, so it is said amongst all classes to-day, would hardly have fired upon them, and a large number of ouvriers would have assisted them. But they disdained to lie. They were the most honest, but certainly not the wisest friends of liberty.

I am, God knows! no Republican. I know that when the Republicans get the upper hand, they will cut my throat, for the reason that I do not admire all that they admire; but burning tears came into my eyes to-day, when I visited the places which are still red with their blood. I would have preferred that I and all my moderate colleagues had perished in place of these Republicans."

The apparent contradictions in Heine's remarks on politics and political principles, induced Boerne to say that Heine had no character, and this

assertion was repeated and endorsed by thousands of the poet's enemies. To this accusation Heine, in his book on Boerne, replies as follows: "What is meant by the word character? He possesses character who strives within the determined limits of a determined view of life, who identifies himself, so to say, with this view, and never contradicts himself in his thoughts and sentiments. Of an extraordinary geuius, who is ahead. of his time, the multitude, therefore, is never able to judge as to whether he has character or not, for the crowd is not far-seeing enough to survey the grand circles within which a great genius moves. The masses, not comprehending the limits. of the will and the capability of a man of genius, do not easily discover whether his actions are permissible or necessary, and they, therefore, often attribute to him wilfulness, inconsistency, and want of character."

This may justly be applied to the poet himself. Heine's views were too broad, too lofty, and too ideal, to be correctly understood by his critics ; and in his changing praise or blame of the one or the other political system, they saw simply a want of character; while those who really under

stand his writings, will readily arrive at the conclusion that Heine recognized and approved what was good in all political systems; that he ridiculed the weakness of every party; that he was neither a Bonapartist, a Royalist, nor even a Republican, in the sense most generally accepted, by a genius whose intelligence was above party strife, and, more than all this, that he was a poet.

A very correct appreciation of the apparent contradiction in Heine's writings has been given. by Alexander Jung, at the end of his rather severe criticism in the periodical Literarischer Zodiacus (1835): "We must come to the conclusion," he says in the article alluded to, "that Heine ought only to be judged as a poet, and as a poet, too, the like of whom has not existed heretofore, and, will probably never be produced by any other nation. From this point of view, all the writings of Heine only form the component parts of a great poem of nature and of humanity, parts which are frequently connected in a rather odd manner, and the transitions in which often appear as sudden as they are artificial, as daring as they are pleasing, as tragically serious as they are comically bur