SCHLEGEL, Frederick, an eminent German critic and philosophical writer, was born at Hanover in 1772, of a family which had already produced more than one writer of ability. He was the third son of the family, being three years younger than his distinguished brother, who is still alive, Augustus William. In his earlier years he is said to have displayed no remarkable genius. Though intended for the mercantile profession, he received an admirable classical education; and ultimately prevailed on his father to allow him to follow the bent of his own inclination, and to devote himself to literature. He then began to devote himself in earnest to study, which he pursued first at Göttingen and afterwards at Leipsig. From the age of seventeen, as he himself informs us, the writings of the Greek tragedians, and of Plato, combined with Winkelmann’s enthusiastic criticisms on art, formed the intellectual world in which he lived. This admiration for the antique was increased by a visit which he was enabled to pay to Dresden in 1789, where he was for the first time enabled to contemplate, in their marble forms, those gods, heroes, and sages, who had been the companions of his thoughts. “These firm indelible impressions,” he adds, “were in succeeding years the firm enduring groundwork for my study of classical antiquity.”

As might be expected, his first literary effort, which appeared in 1794, took the direction of these his early studies.[7:19:686] It was a short Essay on the different Schools of Greek Poetry, which appeared in the Berlinn Monatsehrift, displaying not only an erudition of considerable depth and extent, but an elegance of style and a clearness of classification less frequently to be found among his countrymen. Two little treatises followed, composed in 1795 and 1796; the Dio-tema, a view of the condition of the female sex in Greece; and a parallel between Caesar and Alexander, which, however, was not published till twenty-six years afterwards. In this work we trace the first indications of that talent which was afterwards so conspicuously displayed in the field of philosophical and critical history.

A more important work, entitled the Greeks and Romans, appeared in 1797. which was highly praised by Heine. It was followed two or three years afterwards by a History of Greek Poetry, in which, taking Winkelmann’s History of Art as his model, he has thrown into criticism an imaginative and poetical tone, which, combining as it did with profound learning and breadth of philosophical views, succeeded in bringing before the mind the true spirit of antiquity, with a freshness and distinctness of portraiture which mere erudition could not have effected. The work, however, is incomplete. In the portion which is finished, but which was afterwards considerably modified, and incorporated with another work, Frederick Schlegel reviews the Orpheic poetry, which he considers to be of the age of Hesiod; the Homeric poems, his criticism on which forms indeed the most important and the best executed part of the work; the Hesiodic epos; the middle epos, or the works of the Cydic poets; and, lastly, the productions of the Ionic, AEolic, and Doric schools of lyric poetry. The portion of the work which treats of the lyric poets is unfinished; nothing indeed but a few fragments, full of promise, affording an imperfect idea of the style in which it would have been executed. The strong hold, in fact, which the literary scepticism of Wolff had taken of the German mind, and the ardent application of his principles, not merely to the Homeric poems, but to all compositions claiming a remote antiquity, appear to have discouraged Schlegel from persevering, and the work accordingly was dropt.

In 1799 he published his Lucinde, a work, as Mrs Austin describes it, “of fancy, sentiment, and reflection,” in which, however, the very anti-platonic character of his descriptions of love occasioned not a little scandal and censure. What the precise object of the author in this equivocal novel was, may admit of question, though, perhaps, it is not unaptly characterized by a German critic as a fantastic and dreamy attempt to exalt and sublimate sensual love. Certain it is, that the public in general conceived, and not without some reason, that, like Hemse’s Ardinghello, it was an elaborate effort to invest sensuality with grace, and to lavish a poetical colouring on scenes and incidents of a very questionable character. Frederick Schlegel appears to have felt that the cold reception of this philosophical experiment was not without foundation; for though he threatened the public in the Europa with a continuation, the work remained a fragment. In the year 1800 he established himself as a private teacher in Jena, where he delivered a course of philosophical lectures with success. His first poetical compositions, which appeared in the Athenaeum, seem to have been the productions of this period. In 1801 he published, in conjunction with his brother Augustus W. Schlegel, two volumes, entitled Characteristiken und Critiken, one of the most popular and pleasing of his works. The second volume includes his Hercules Musagetes, an elegiac poem of some length; and in 1802 he published a tragedy, Alarcos, in which he has tried, with no remarkable success, to impart the severe and gloomy simplicity of AEschylus to a le gend of the middle ages. In fact, it is neither as a lyric nor as a dramatic poet that the name of Frederick Schlegel is likely to be remembered. Goethe, at least, always appeared to estimate the poetical talent of Schlegel at a low standard.^[1. Characteristics of Goethe, vol. i. p. 120. ] Still he may fairly be admitted to possess a chaste classical diction, great harmony and flexibility of diction, with considerable tenderness, while in the poetical compositions which he wrote on patriotic subjects there appears real feeling and enthusiasm. In boldness and originality of conception his poetry is unquestionably deficient; and, on the whole, it may be said that the philosophical element preponderates in the character of Frederick Schlegel, nearly as much as the poetical does in that of his brother.

But the study of the poetry and literature of the west was near about to be exchanged for that of the eastern nations. Following in the footsteps of Sir William Jones, and filled with the idea of the important additions which might be made to Europe by naturalizing in Germany the results of Indian research, and of the still greater benefits which he conceived might be derived from the pursuit of Indian literature, philosophy, and antiquities, in an enlarged, philosophical, and at the same time religious spirit, he resolved to devote himself to the study of Sanscrit. He probably overrated, on the whole, both the importance of the labour in which he was about to engage, and its probable interest to the public mind. With a view, however, to his intended investigations, he repaired to Paris in 1802, accompanied by his wife, the daughter of the celebrated Moses Mendelsohn, and, with the assistance afforded by the valuable stores of the National Library, and the hints derived from those distinguished orientalists, MM. de Langlès and Chézy, he is said to have made considerable progress in the study of Persian and Sanscrit poetry.

But he was by no means so entirely absorbed in his new task as not to find time for other studies, having contrived during his residence in France, which continued till 1805, to deliver a course of lectures on metaphysics, which appear to have met with but partial success; a result by no means surprising, when the lofty and Platonic character of Schlegel’s philosophy is contrasted with the strong material tendencies which had long encumbered the metaphysical views of the French. During the same period he wrote a variety of articles on the early Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Provençal poetry; and published, in 1804, a collection of the romantic poems of the middle ages, and a series of letters on the different schools and epochs of Christian painting and Gothic architecture, a work for which the temporary concentration of the various treasures of modem art in the Parisian capital afforded ample materials. These letters, which he afterwards revised and enlarged, form one of the most pleasing of his compositions. He takes up the subject nearly where Winkelmann had left it, and performs, in the same spirit of love, the same service for the arts of the middle ages, which that critic had done for those of antiquity.

It was at this period of Frederick Schlegel’s life (1805) that he took the step which occasioned so much surprise in some quarters, and such bitter hostility and censure in others, namely, his forsaking the tenets of the Protestant church, in which he had been brought up, and embracing Catholicism, as Count Stolberg had done a few years before. His conversion was ascribed by Voss, who, in addition to the rancour of religious opposition, was probably influenced by the jealousy of literary rivalry, to the most unworthy and interested motives, as resulting entirely from a time-serving spirit, and the prospect of honours and promotion in the service of Austria, which Protestant Germany was less likely to supply. Now that personal animosity is at an end, it seems to be conceded that there is[7:19:687] little reason to question the sincerity of Frederick Schlegel’s change of religious belief. To his poetical and enthusiastic mind, long occupied with the study of the religion, monuments, and literature of the middle ages, Catholicism presented many more attractive features than the rationalizing and semi-infidel spirit which too generally pervaded German Protestantism, in which, to use an expression of Hegel, the disciples of Luther and Calvin had “united on a basis of nullity.” Of course the accession of such a convert was hailed with enthusiasm by the Catholic priesthood; and his example was shortly afterwards followed by several Protestants of rank or literary ability.

In 1808 appeared his work on the Language and Wisdom of the Indians. The first part of this work is occupied with a comparative examination of the etymology and grammatical structure of the Sanscrit, Persian, Greek, Roman, and German languages. The second traces the connection of the different religions and philosophical systems that prevailed in the ancient oriental world. The last consists of metrical versions from the sacred and didactic poems of the Hindus. It cannot be denied that this work, with all its learning and sagacity of conjecture, is yet a very imperfect one. The profounder learning of Jacob Grimm has demolished many of the ingenious theories of Schlegel as to the original monuments of the German language. Much, too, has of course been added to Indian learning since it appeared; many of its views have so completely passed into commonly-received opinions, that they have ceased to strike us as novelties; and other truths which are there only hinted at, have been elucidated and confirmed. But it had the merit of opening a comparatively new path in Germany, and perhaps in other countries of Europe. “Prior to the publication of this work, the Semitic languages of the East, were alone, I believe, cultivated with much ardour in Germany; its appearance had the effect of directing the national energies towards an intellectual region, where they were destined to meet with the most brilliant success; and Germany may now boast with reason of her illustrious professors of Sanscrit. If France under the restoration made such progress in oriental literature; if England, roused from her inglorious apathy, has at last founded an Asiatic Society in London, and, more recently, the Boden professorship at Oxford; these events are in a great degree attributable to the enthusiasm which this little book excited.”^[2. Life of Frederick Seblegel, prefixed to his Philosophy of History, by J. Burton Robertson, p. 26. ]

After Schlegel’s return from France, he proceeded in 1808 to Vienna, with the view, it is said, of completing from historical documents an unfinished drama on the subject of Charles V. In the following year he was appointed imperial secretary at the Archduke Charles’s head-quarters, and contributed much, by his spirited proclamations, towards rousing the patriotic ardour of the country in the contest against Napoleon. After the unfortunate issue of the war, he resumed his literary activity, and in 1810 delivered his course of lectures on modern history. By many these lectures were considered as his masterpiece. They embodied in a systematic form the various opinions and incidental views which he had thrown out in his earlier essays, and contained, in a more detailed form, the proofs of many of those positions which he afterwards stated in a more brief and general form in his Philosophy of History.

In 1812 Schlegel delivered, before a numerous and distinguished audience in Vienna, his celebrated Lectures on the History of Literature, the work by which he is best known beyond the limits of his own country. Of course a work which exhibits an outline of the literary history of the world, and traces the influence of its various literatures on one another, within the compass of two volumes, cannot descend to much minuteness of detail, or delineate, with that precision which would be desirable, the characteristics of individuals. Yet, in addition to the broad and striking views which the History of Literature exhibits, to the skill and sagacity with which it traces the divergence and reunion of the various streams of literature, as if the whole had been contemplated from some vast elevation in which their mutual relations were visible as on a map, and to the general spirit of candour and impartiality which pervades the work, it may be added, that some of Schlegel’s brief sketches of the great ornaments of literature are among the happiest specimens of pregnant and characteristic delineation which are to be met with in any language. The style, too, of the work is elegant and enthusiastic without being extravagant. Yet some deductions must be made, both from the impartiality of the work, and from the soundness of its views. It is difficult to conceive on what grounds of sound criticism the Lusiad of Camaens can be exalted above the Jerusalem of Tasso ;. and still more how the “romantic witchery” of the drama of Calderon, rich and fantastical as it is, can ever be placed on the same level with the profound imagination which combines with this romantic beauty in the theatre of Shakspeare. English literature, with the exception of Shakspeare, can hardly be said to be appreciated at all. French literature, at least after the time of Corneille, is treated with great injustice; Pascal is passed over with a single word; Malebranche is not mentioned at all. And indeed the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is discussed in a very perfunctory and unsatisfactory manner. Some of the faults of the work are undoubtedly owing to the strong religious bias of the author. For the Catholic literature of Spain and Italy he shows an undue preference, with a corresponding coldness and indifference towards that of Protestant nations. “Frederick Schlegel,” says Heine, in his lively work on Germany, “has examined all literatures from a lofty point of view; but this high position of his is always on the belfry of the Catholic Church; and whatever Schlegel says, you can’t help hearing the bells jingle about him, and now and then the croaking of the ravens that haunt the old weathercock.” “Yet,” he adds, “I know no better book of the kind; and indeed I know not where one can procure such a complete view of the literature of all nations, unless by putting together the multifarious lucubrations of Herder.”

With the History of Literature the critical career of Frederick Schlegel may be said to have closed; for a flattering and somewhat exaggerated criticism on Lamartine’s Meditations Poétiques, which appeared in the Concordia, scarcely deserves to be noticed as an exception. From 1812 he was much occupied with political and diplomatic employments. Having acquired the friendship and confidence of Prince Metternich, he was employed by him in various diplomatic missions; and for several years after the peace of 1814 he was one of the representatives of the court of Vienna at Francfort. A pension, with letters of nobility, and the title of councillor confessor, were conferred upon him by the emperor. These diplomatic functions, of course, occasioned a temporary interruption to his literary pursuits; but in 1818 he returned to Vienna, where they were resumed with ardour. The years 1819 and 1820 were marked by the simultaneous outbreak of revolutions in different countries in Europe; by a wild republican spirit among the youth of Germany, leading, as in the case of Kotzebue, to the assassination of those who were at the time considered as enemies of their country; by the formation of associations for disseminating pernicious and anti-social doctrines, often countenanced even from academical chairs; in short, by evident symptoms of a wide-spread conspiracy against the existing forms of government and society. It was to counteract this spirit, which preventive measures of force might con-[7:19:688] trol but could not eradicate, that Frederick Schlegel, in conjunction with his friend Adam Müller founded a religious and political journal, entitled concordia, in which, while opposing the irreligious and dangerous notions which were abroad, he propounded not a few principles as to government, which excite surprise when coming from such a quarter, and addressed to the subjects of a government supposed to be so attached to absolutism, and so bent on maintaining the existing state of things, as the Austrian government.

In 1827 he delivered at Vienna another course of Lectures on the Philosophy of Life, of which, indeed, an outline had appeared in the concordia for 1820. The work is of great, nay even of startling originality, and deep interest, embracing questions of the most solemn importance, which are discussed with a grave eloquence, and in a deeply religious strain of feeling, but strangely immethodical in its arrangement, and, whether from the imperfection of their expression, or the real obscurity of the ideas themselves, in some parts scarcely intelligible. This work was almost immediately followed by another course of Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which have lately been translated into English, and which appear not unworthy of the reputation of the author. Towards the close of the year 1828 Schlegel went to Dresden, where he delivered nine Lectures on the Philosophy of Language, in which he farther developed and expanded those philosophical views which he had already laid down in his Philosophy of Life. The course, however, was interrupted by death. “On Sunday the 11th of January 1829, he was, between ten and eleven o’clock at night, preparing a lecture which he was to deliver on the following Wednesday, and had begun a sentence with the remarkable words, ‘But the consummate and perfect knowledge,’ when sickness suddenly arrested his pen. From that illness he never recovered.”

We have already briefly expressed our opinion of the nature of Schlegel's genius. It was philosophical and critical, rather than poetical; but he had that species of poetical imagination without which there can be no lofty or useful criticism, which enables the critic to rise above artificial and natural peculiarities, and to judge with truth and certainty upon broad and universal principles. Even when his criticism is imperfect or erroneous, it is often valuable; for it abounds in new and original views, excites the mind to independent speculation, and teaches the habit of viewing literature, the arts, and philosophy, not as isolated subjects of study, but as acting and re-acting with the most important influences upon each other. From his powerful and inventive mind many of the speculations of his brother appear to have been derived. In the study of the oriental languages and literature, the poetry of the Provencals, and that of Spain, Frederick Schlegel led the way; and in the History of Literature will be found the germs of many of those views which were developed at greater length by his brother in his Dramatic Course. (w. w. w. w.)