New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1850-12-26

Rpt Upine's conscience is empty. lie has no
,ocYea shrine on which his passion can commit
s,c,;ece, and, truly speaking, hehas little enough
passion Tor any purpose. he IS no ropoef nor aa
saesjn. although he would gladly pass tof SUCH
THAT sentimental clerk kneeling to his mistress,
instead Of speaking FROM Alberti's Book OF Ell
quette, should venture an original compliment, IN
which he makes sport Of his own feeling, is not
excessive herosm. If be take g broader sweep,
az for instance, in the Gods Twilight you see
readily enough that he is ready to plange iato
filthy portraiure, but you do notsce the necessity
Of SO doing and you observe that not real rcck-
lessness but a miserable yanity--the wish to ez
cite attenton-has driven him into the mire.
His pathos like his frvolity, is also lie. In
this lofty soul there is no low and no hate 1t Is
not cyncism but coquetry which leads him to
mask himself with pallid, sorrowful Christ'S
face that he may declaim about innocence and
Virtue Love and Honor Treason and Fatherand.
Both his pathos and frivoty are adapted to the
meridian fhis original Old friends the clerks, the
cockneys Of the counter, upon whom both impose
because both are new.
Heine has indeed made the French romantic
school ludicrous, yet he calls his " Alta Troll in
the dedication to Varnhagen, the last echo OF
Romanticisrn. And rightly so, for his poetry tol-
lows the only course left open to that school Inc
delight in mere sing song, which fascinates be-
cause not understood, at length makes those mys-
teries lud;crous which before were solemn-a re-
suit which Frederic Schlegel's pedantry alone
prevented his reaching. In the " Lucinda" for
instance, this cue is too evident, for the mad Ca
prices Of fancy to be taken for natural impulses
But with Heine these freaks are natural. he
took up the confused spirit of the era OF the lies
toraton not, like his immediate predecessors
with the zeal of q saran astonished at new reve
lations but with the Indifference Of lazy, al
though easily impossible dettanti.
His fancy is Kaleidoscope in which the blue
flowers OF the Romanticists and the wit of the
Encyclopedias, the red flag of the Republic and
the glow OF the Lily-the phantom OF fair Hero
dias and the foul Witches; the agony Of hollow
eyed w erther and the emu Of a Banker blaSs Of
fraud, who would ask even Charlotte chow
much p continually change and interchange in
endless combinations. Graceful pictures result
from this, for his Wit is sparkling and his fancy
flows happily, bat there is never completed
| figure, never permanent model He is beat
when he is the mere puppet of caprice as in Alta
Troll where we cannot feel the reality Of the love
of the young she bear for the Prince Lichnowski,
but in which the concets tumble out upon each
other so swiftly and madly that they may almost be
| called humor
To make a convenience Of this kind of poetry,
to honor the minglng Of frivolity and pathos, of
obscenity and prayer, as the loftiest law Of beau
tifnl art to Judge the intrinsic worth of the i'm
preston by its marketable value, is the most fla
grant sin against the holy spirit of art, and for
this tendency which taints all the literature Of
the last twenty-five years, we are indebted to
Henry Heinc and his school. 1t corresponds, in
deed, with another tendency of the times, the
sophistical skill in finding unusual and surpris
ing points of view the making wit measure OF
truth. And because Heine has toned his wit
with sentiment he has attained German popa
arity which the school of pure wits could never
reach.
We will sum up this rapid sketch of Hoines
literary character aud influence by saying that
vanity is the soul of him and the secret of all that
he does He is critic, and bis inspiration is not
the intrinsic character OF the thing criticised but
the wish to say smart things. What can the infu
ence of such a spirit be upon literature art, poll
tics or society but cold, colorless and corruptlns?