Tieck mentions an argument with him, concerning landscape painting, in which Novalis expressed views, which he could not comprehend; but which in part were realized, by the rich and poetical mind of the excellent landscape painter, Friedrichs, of Dresden. In the land of Poetry he was in reality a stranger. He had read but few poets, and had not busied himself with criticism, or paid much attention to the inherited system, to which the art of poetry had been reduced. Goethe was for a long while his study, and Wilhelm Meister his favorite work; although we should scarcely suppose so, judging from his severe strictures upon it in his fragments. He demanded from poesy the most everyday knowledge and inspiration; and it was for this reason, that, as the chief masterpieces of poetry were unknown to him, he was free from imitation and foreign rule. He also loved, for this very reason, many writings, which are not generally highly prized by scholars, because in them he discovered, though perhaps painted in weak colors, that very informing and significant knowledge, which he was chiefly striving after. Those tales, which we in later times call allegories[1] with their peculiar style, most resemble his stories; he saw their deepest meaning, and endeavored to express it most clearly in some of his poems. It became natural for him to regard what was most usual and nearest to him, as full of marvels, and the strange and supernatural as the usual and common-place. Thus everyday life surrounded him like a supernatural story; and that region, which most men can only conceive as something distant and incomprehensible, seemed to him like a beloved home. Thus uncorrupted by precedents, he discovered a new way of drawing and exhibiting his pictures; and in the manifold variety of his relation to the world, from his love and the faith in it, which at the same time was his instructress, wisdom, and religion, since through them a single great moment of life, and one deep grief and loss became the essence of his poesy and of his contemplation, he resembles among late writers the sublime Dante alone, and like him sings to us an unfathomable mystical song, very different from that of many imitators, who think, that they can assume and lay aside mysticism as they could a mere ornament. Therefore his romance is both consciously and unconsciously the representation of his own mind and fate; as he makes Henry say, in the fragment of the second part, "Fate and mind are but names of one idea." Thus may his life justly appear wonderful to us. We shudder too, as though reading a work of fiction, when we learn, that of all his brothers and sisters only two brothers are now alive; and that his noble mother, who for several years has also been mourning the death of her husband, is in solitude, devoting herself to her grief and to religion with silent resignation. HENRY OF OFTERDINGEN. PART FIRST.