The conquests achieved by literary genius over the impenetrable dulness which is, in the most enlightened, as well as in the darkest ages, the portion of the general mass of humankind, are, like other great conquests, not the work of a moment: the day on which the victory is decided and proclaimed is preceded by many a conflict of doubtful issue, and many a forlorn hope has to be led on before a breach can be effected in the massive fortifications of intellectual impassibility. Such forlorn hopes are the various attempts which have been made to introduce to the English reading public, by translations and biographies, one of the most distinguished literary characters of what may well be termed our German brotherland.
The first of these attempts proceeded, some twenty years ago, from no mean pen, that of the veteran of German criticism in the field of English literature. By two reviews of the two principal biographies of the author, the one authentic[1], the other apocry-
- ↑ Wahrheit aus Jean Paul's Leben, which contains the autobiography of Jean Paul, in the form of humoristic lectures, extending, however, no further than his boyhood; followed by the continuation of his history by his intimate personal friend and literary confidant, Otto, who himself, also, did not live to complete it, having died a few months after Jean Paul, from grief, it is said, for the loss of his friend. The conclusion is from the pen of Dr. Förster, Jean Paul's son-in-law, to whom, after Otto's death, the completion both of his biography, and of the complete edition of his works, was committed. The first volumes of this biography were reviewed by Mr. Carlyle, in No. IX. of the Foreign Review. The article is reprinted in the second volume of Carlyle's Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.
