brave words on behalf of his
fellow-men. He is, moreover, a suffering man, who, with all the
highly-wrought sensibility of genius, has to endure terrible physical
ills; and as such he calls forth more than an intellectual interest. It
is true, alas! that there is a heavy weight in the other scale--that
Heine's magnificent powers have often served only to give electric force
to the expression of debased feeling, so that his works are no Phidian
statue of gold, and ivory, and gems, but have not a little brass, and
iron, and miry clay mingled with the precious metal. The audacity of his
occasional coarseness and personality is unparalleled in contemporary
literature, and has hardly been exceeded by the license of former days.
Hence, before his volumes are put within the reach of immature minds,
there is need of a friendly penknife to exercise a strict censorship.
Yet, when all coarseness, all scurrility, all Mephistophelean contempt
for the reverent feelings of other men, is removed, there will be a
plenteous remainder of exquisite poetry, of wit, humor, and just thought.
It is apparently too often a congenial task to write severe words about
the transgressions committed by men of genius, especially when the censor
has the advantage of being himself a man of _no_ genius, so that those
transgressions seem to him quite gratuitous; _he_, forsooth, never
lacerated any one by his wit, or gave irresistible piquancy to a coarse
allusion, and his indignation is not mitigated by any knowledge of the
temptation that lies in transcendent power. We are also apt to measure
what a gifted man has done by our arbitrary conception of what he might
have done, rather than by a comparison of his actual doings with our own
or those of other ordinary men. We make ourselves overzealous agents of
heaven, and demand that our brother should bring usurious interest for
his five Talents, forgetting that it is less easy to manage five Talents
than two. Whatever benefit there may be in denouncing the evil, it is
after all more edifying, and certainly more cheering, to appreciate the
good. Hence, in endeavoring to give our readers some account of Heine
and his works, we shall not dwell lengthily on his failings; we shall not
hold the candle up to dusty, vermin-haunted corners, but let the light
fall as much as possible on the nobler and more attractive details. Our
sketch of Heine's life, which has been drawn from various sources, will
be free fr