However, the characters are all respectably connected at last, and the reader does not care to understand how they were ever disconnected: for Lord Horion's motive in putting the children of the old Prince out of the way, and keeping up such an expensive mystification, can be justified only by an interesting plot. But American readers have learned by this time, much to their credit, not to apply to Jean Paul for the sensation of a cunningly woven narrative, like that of the English school, which furnishes verisimilitude to real life that is quite as improbable, though less glaringly so, than his departures from it. "Hesperus" is filled with pure and noble thought. The different types of female character are particularly well-defined; and if Jean Paul sometimes affects to say cynical things of women, he cannot veil his passionate regard for them, nor his profound appreciation of the elements of their influence in forming true society and refining the hearts of men. Notice the delicacy of the "Extra Leaf on Houses full of Daughters." It is chiefly with the women of his romances that Jean Paul succeeds in depicting individuals. And when we recollect the corrupt and decaying generation out of which his genius sprang, like a newly created species, to give a salutary shock to Gallic tastes, and lend a sturdy country vigor to the new literature, we reverence his faithfulness, his incorruptible humanity, his contempt for petty courts and faded manners, his passion for Nature, and his love of God. All these characteristics are so broadly printed upon his pages that the obsoleteness of the narrative does not hide them.
In view of a second edition, we refer to Mr. Brooks's consideration a few places, with wonder at his general accuracy in the translation of obscure passages and the explanation of allusions.
Vol. I. page 22.Sakeph-Katon(Zaqueph Qaton) is an occasional pause-accent of the Hebrew, having the sense of "elevator minor," and is peculiar to prose.
Page 68. The famous African Prince Le Boo deserves a note.
Page 111.Ripienois an Italian musical term, meaning that which accompanies and strengthens.
Page 114.Gränswildpretdoes not mean "frontier wild-game," but game that, straying out of one precinct into another, gets captured: stray game, or impounded waif.
Page 139. The note gives the sense, but the corresponding passage in the text would stand clearer thus: "not a noble heart, by any means; for such things Le Baut's golden key, though bored like a cannon, could fasten rather."
Page 179. A note required: the passage of Shakspeare is, "Antony and Cleopatra," Act V., Scene 2:—
"His face was as the heavens; and therein stuckA sun and moon; which kept their course, and lightedThe little O, the earth."
"His face was as the heavens; and therein stuckA sun and moon; which kept their course, and lightedThe little O, the earth."
Territory of an old ladyshould be "prayer of an old lady."Gebet, notGebiet.
Page 209.Eirunde Lochwould be better represented by its anatomical equivalent,foramen ovale. It should be closed before birth; in the rare cases where it is left open after birth, the child lives half asphyxiated.
Page 224, note.Semperfreieis not from the Latin, but comes fromsendbarfreie, that is, eligible, free to be sent or elected to offices, and consequently, immediately subject to theReich, or Holy Roman Empire.
Page 235. AnOdometeris an apparatus for measuring distances travelled by whatsoever vehicle.
Page 275.Incunabulameans specimens of the first printed edition of a work; also the first impressions of the first edition, the firstlings of old editions.
Page 317.Wackelfigurenmeans figures made ofWacke, a greenish-gray mineral, soft and easily broken.
Page 322. The note is equivocal, since the phrase is used by fast women who keep some one in their pay.
Vol. II., page 122.Columbineis not equivalent to ballet-dancer; it is the old historical personage of the pantomime, confederate and lover of Harlequin, who protects her from false love.