between these, and the produce of his
own pen, which could move with equal facility in French as in German, he
managed not merely to keep himself and his wife alive, but to transport
himself to Paris in the year 1802, and remain there for a year or two,
laying the foundation for that oriental evangel which, in 1808, he
proclaimed to his countrymen in the little book, _Ueber die Sprache und
Weisheit der Indier_. Meanwhile, in the year 1805, he had returned from
France to his own Germany--alas, then about to be _one_ Germany no more!
And while the sun of Austerlitz was rising brightly on the then Emperor
of France, and soon to be protector of the Rhine, the future secretary of
the Archduke Charles, and literary evangelist of Prince Metternich, was
prostrating himself before the three holy kings, and swearing fealty to
the shade of Charlemagne in Catholic Cologne. There were some men in
those days base enough to impeach the purity of Schlegel's motives in the
public profession thus made of the old Romish faith. Such men wherever
they are to be found now or then, ought to be whipped out of the world.
If mere worldly motives could have had any influence on such a mind, the
gates of Berlin were as open to him as the gates of Vienna. As it was,
not wishing to expatriate himself, like Winkelmann, he had nowhere to go
to but Vienna; in those days, indeed, mere patriotism and Teutonic
feeling, (in which the Romantic school was never deficient,)
independently altogether of Popery, could lead him nowhere else. To
Vienna, accordingly, he went; and Vienna is not a place--whatever
Napoleon, after Mack's affair, might say of the "stupid Austrians"--where
a man like Schlegel will ever be neglected. Prince Metternich and the
Archduke Charles had eyes in their head; and with the latter, therefore,
we find the great Sanscrit scholar marching to share the glory of Aspern
and the honour of Wagram; while the former afterwards decorated him with
what of courtly remuneration, in the shape of titles and pensions, it is
the policy alike and the privilege of politicians to bestow on poets and
philosophers who can do them service. Nay, with some diplomatic missions
and messages to Frankfurt also, we find the Romantic philosopher
entrusted and even in the great European Congress of Vienna in 1815, he
appears exhibiting himself, in no undignified position, alongside of
Gentz, Cardinal Gonsalvi, and the Prince of Benevento.[M] We are not to
imagine, ho