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Ye 'll try the world soon, my lad;
And, Andrew dear, believe me,
Ye 'll find mankind an unco1 squad,
And muckle they may grieve ye:
For care and trouble set your thought,
Ev'n when your end 's attained;
And a' your views may come to nought,
Where ev'ry nerve is strainèd.

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But keek 1 thro' ev'ry other man,
Wi' sharpen'd, sly inspection.

The sacred lowe 2 o' weel-plac'd love,
Luxuriantly indulge it;

But never tempt th' illicit rove,
Tho' naething should divulge it:
I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing;
But och it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling!

To catch dame Fortune's golden smile,
Assiduous wait upon her;
And gather gear by ev'ry wile
That's justify'd by honor;
Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train attendant;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.

The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip,
To haud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honor grip,
Let that ay be your border:
Its slightest touches, instant pause—
Debar a' side-pretences;
And resolutely keep its laws,

Uncaring consequences.

The great Creator to revere

Must sure become the creature ;

But still the preaching cant forbear,

And ev❜n the rigid feature:

1 Peer keenly.

2 Flame.

3 Hold, keep.

Yet ne'er with wits profane to range,
Be complaisance extended;

An atheist laugh's a poor exchange
For Deity offended!

When ranting round in pleasure's ring,

Religion may

be blinded;

Or if she gie1 a random sting,

It may be little minded;

But when on life we 're tempest-driv❜n —
A conscience but 2 a canker

A correspondence fix'd wi' Heaven,
Is sure a noble anchor.

Adieu, dear, amiable youth!

Your heart can ne'er be wanting! May prudence, fortitude, and truth, Erect your brow undaunting!

In ploughman phrase, "God send you speed, Still daily to grow wiser;

And

1 Give.

may ye better reck the rede 3

Than ever did th' adviser!

2 Without.

8 Attend to the counsel.

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JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER

(A. D. 1763-1825.)

66

"RICHTER," writes Carlyle, whose thought and style were profoundly influenced by him, was born at Wonsiedel in Baireuth, in the year 1763; and as his birthday fell on the 21st of March, it was sometimes wittily said that he and the Spring were born together. . . . Destiny, he seems to think, made another witticism on him; the word Richter being appellative as well as proper, in the German tongue, where it signifies Judge. His Christian name, Jean Paul, which long passed for some freak of his own, and a pseudonym, he seems to have derived honestly enough from his maternal grandfather, Johann Paul Kuhn, a substantial clothmaker in Hof; only translating the German Johann into the French Jean. The Richters, for at least two generations, had been schoolmasters, or very subaltern churchmen, distinguished for their poverty and their piety; the grandfather, it appears, is still remembered in his little circle as a man of quite remarkable innocence and holiness. The father,

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who at this time occupied the humble post of Tertius (Underschoolmaster) and Organist at Wonsiedel, was shortly afterwards appointed Clergyman in the hamlet of Jodiz; and thence, in the course of years, transferred to Schwarzenbach on the Saale." The removal to Schwarzenbach occurred in the thirteenth year of Jean Paul. Three years later the father died, leaving his family in poverty and debt. Nevertheless, suffering infinite hardships, Paul struggled through the Hof Gymnasium and through Leipzig University, and entered his career of authorship at nineteen, when he produced the satirical sketches which he called "Grönländische Prozesse" (Greenland Lawsuits). "He lived as the young ravens; he was often in danger of starving. "The prisoner's allowance,' says he, is bread and water; but I had only the latter.' Richter does not anywhere appear to have

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faltered in his progress; for a moment to have lost heart, or even to have lost good humour. In 1784 he rejoined his mother, who had taken up her residence at Hof, and the family, sometimes including several brothers, lived in a single apartment. It was not till 1788 that he could find a publisher for his next book, the "Selection from the Papers of the Devil," and then few readers. "It appears that the 'Unsichtbare Loge' (Invisible Lodge) sent forth from the Hof spinning establishment in 1793, was the first of his works that obtained any decisive favour. With the appearance of Hesperus,' another wondrous novel, which proceeded from the same single apartment,' in 1796, the siege may be said to have terminated by storm. In 1797 the mother died, and in the following year Richter married, settling himself shortly afterwards at Weimar, where he lived for several years "in high favour with whatever was most illustrious in that city.

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"Titan,' one of his chief romances (published at Berlin in 1800), was written during his abode at Weimar; so likewise the Flegeljahre' (Wild Oats); and the Eulogy of 'Charlotte Corday.' . . . Richter's other novels published prior to this period are the Invisible Lodge;' the 'Siebenkas' (or Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces); the 'Life of Quintus Fixlein;' the 'Jubalsenior' (Parson in Jubilee): Jean Paul's Letters and Future History,' the Déjeuner in Kuchschnappel,' the Biographical Recreations under the Cranium of a Giantess,' scarcely belonging to this species. The novels published afterwards are the 'Leben Fibels' (Life of Fibel); Katzenbergers Badereise' (Katzenberger's Journey to the Bath); Schmelzles Reise nach Flätz' (Schmelzle's Journey to Flätz); the Comet,' named also Nicholaus Margraf.'

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"We hope many will agree with us in honouring Richter, such as he was; and, in spite of his hundred real, and his ten thousand seeming faults,' discern under this wondrous guise the spirit of a true Poet and Philosopher. A Poet, and among the highest of his time we must reckon him, though he wrote no verses; a Philosopher, though he promulgated no systems: for, on the whole, that Divine Idea of the World' stood in clear, ethereal light before his mind; he recognized the Invisible, even under the mean forms of these

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