intellect, and,
altogether, they form a complete and consistent body of Schlegelism.
Three works more speculatively complete, and more practically useful in
their way, the production of one consistent architectural mind, are, in
the history of literature, not easily to be found.

[Footnote N: _Ueber die neuere Geschichte Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im
Jahre 1810; Wien, 1811_.]

Towards the close of the year 1828, Schlegel repaired to Dresden, a city
endeared to him by the recollections of enthusiastic juvenile studies.
Here he delivered nine lectures _Ueber die Philosophie der Sprache, und
des Worts_, on the Philosophy of Language, a work which the present writer
laments much that he has not seen; as it is manifest that the prominency
given in Schlegel's Philosophy of Life above sketched to living experience
and primeval tradition, must, along with his various accomplishments as a
linguist, have eminently fitted him for developing systematically the high
significance of human speech. On Sunday the 11th January 1829, he was
engaged in composing a lecture which was to be delivered on the following
Wednesday, and had just come to the significant words--"_Das ganz
vollendete und voll-kommene Verstehen selbst, aber_"--"The perfect and
complete understanding of things, however"--when the mortal palsy suddenly
seized his hand, and before one o'clock on the same night he had ceased to
philosophize. The words with which his pen ended its long and laborious
career, are characteristic enough, both of the general imperfection of
human knowledge, and of the particular quality of Schlegel's mind. The
Germans have a proverb:--"_Alles waere gut waere kein ABER dabei_"--"every
thing would be good were it not for an ABER--for a HOWEVER--for a BUT."
This is the general human vice that lies in that significant ABER. But
Schlegel's part in it is a virtue--one of his greatest virtues--a
conscientious anxiety never to state a general proposition in philosophy,
without, at the same time, stating in what various ways the eternal truth
comes to be limited and modified in practice. Great, indeed, is the virtue
of a Schlegelian ABER. Had it not been for that, he would have had his
place long ago among the vulgar herds of erudite and intellectual
dogmatists.

Heinrich Steffens, a well-known literary and scientific character in
Germany, in his personal memoirs recently published,[O] describes
Frederick Schlegel, at Jena in 1798, as "a remarkable