Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 3: Essays on Literature, Biography, and AntiquitiesMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 3: Essays on Literature, Biography, and Antiquities
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Comparative linguistics; Folklore; Literature -- History and criticism; Mythology; Religions
philosopher, what becomes of Macaulay’s politics? And if Hobbes
was not a practical philosopher, what becomes of Mr. Macaulay’s
philosophy, which does homage to the theories of Hobbes?”
We have somewhat abridged M. Fischer’s argument, for, though he writes
well and intelligibly, he wants condensation; and we do not think that his
argument has been weakened by being shortened. What he has extended into a
volume of nearly five hundred pages, might have been reduced to a pithy
essay of one or two hundred, without sacrificing one essential fact, or
injuring the strength of any one of his arguments. The art of writing in
our times is the art of condensing; and those who cannot condense write
only for readers who have more time at their disposal than they know what
to do with.
Let us ask one question in conclusion. Why do all German writers change
the thoroughly Teutonic name of Bacon into Baco? It is bad enough that we
should speak of Plato; but this cannot be helped. But unless we protest
against Baco, _gen._ Baconis, we shall soon be treated to Newto, Newtonis,
or even to Kans, Kantis.
1857.
XII. A GERMAN TRAVELLER IN ENGLAND.(36)
A. D. 1598.
Lessing, when he was Librarian at Wolfenbüttel, proposed to start a review
which should only notice forgotten books,—books written before reviewing
was invented, published in the small towns of Germany, never read,
perhaps, except by the author and his friends, then buried on the shelves
of a library, properly labeled and catalogued, and never opened again,
except by an inquisitive inmate of these literary mausoleums. The number
of those forgotten books is great, and as in former times few authors
wrote more than one or two works during the whole of their lives, the
information which they contain is generally of a much more substantial and
solid kind than our literary palates are now accustomed to. If a man now
travels to the unexplored regions of Central Africa, his book is written
and out in a year. It remains on the drawing-room table for a season; it
is pleasant to read, easy to digest, and still easier to review and to
forget. Two or three hundred years ago this was very different. Travelling
was a far more serious business, and a man who had spent some years in
seeing foreign countries, could do nothing better than employ the rest of
his life in writing a book of travels, either in his own language, or,
still better, in Latin. After his death his book continued to be quoted
for a time in works on history and geography, till a new traveller went
over the same ground, published an equally learned book, and thus
consigned his predecessor to oblivion. Here is a case in point: Paul
Hentzner, a German, who, of course, calls himself Paulus Hentznerus,
travelled in Germany, France, England, and Italy; and after his return to
his native place in Silesia, he duly published his travels in a portly
volume, written in Latin. There is a long title-page, with dedications,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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