Close beside the father lie Atta Troll's beloved girls, Pure, four-footed lilies they, Stretched in dreams upon their backs.

Ah, what tender thoughts must glow In the budding souls of these Snow-white virgin bearesses With their soft and dewy eyes?

And the youngest of them all Seems most deeply stirred. Her heart, Smitten by Dan Cupid's shaft, Quivers with a blissful throe.

Yea, this godling's arrow pierced Through and through her furry pelt When she saw him first—Oh, heavens! 'Tis a mortal man she loves!

Man it is—Schnapphahnski named, Who one day in mad retreat Passed her as she wandered through The dim passes of the hills.

Woes of heroes move the fair, And within our hero's face, Quite as usual, sorrow lowered, Pallid care and money-need.

Spent were all his funds of war! Two-and-twenty silver groats Taken unto Spain by him Espartero seized as spoil.

Aye, his very watch was gone! This in Pampeluna's pawnshop Lay in bondage. 'Twas a rich Heirloom all of silver made.

Little thought he as he ran On his long legs through the woods, He had won a greater thing Than a fight—a loving heart!

Yes, she loves him—him the born Enemy of bears she loves! Hapless maid! If but your sire Knew it—oh! what rage were his!

Just like Odoardo old Who in honest burgess-pride Stabbed Emilia Galotti— Even so would Atta Troll

Rather slay his darling lass, Slay her with his proper paws, Than that she should ever sink Even into princely arms!

Yet in this same moment he Is as softly moved—"no rose Would he pluck before the storm Reft it of its petals fair."

Atta Troll in saddest mood Lies within his rocky cave. Like Death's warning o'er him creeps Hunger for infinity.

"Children!" then he sobs, the tears Burst from out his mournful eyes,— "Children! soon my earthly days Shall be ended—we must part.

"Unto me this very noon Came a dream of import vast, And my soul drank in the sweet Sense of early death-to-be.

"Superstitious am I not, Nor fantastic—ah, and yet More things lie 'twixt Earth and Heaven Than philosophy may dream.

"Pondering on the world and fate, Yawning I had dropped asleep, And I dreamed that I was lying Stretched beneath a mighty tree.

"From the branches of this tree White celestial honey dripped Straight into my open jaws, Filling me with wondrous bliss.

"Peering happily aloft Soon I spied within the leaves Seven pretty little bears Gliding up and down the boughs.

"Delicate and dainty things, All with pelts of rosy hue, And their heavenly voices rang Like a melody of flutes!

"As they sang an icy chill Seized my flesh, although my soul Like a flame went soaring straight Gleaming into highest Heaven."

Thus with soft and quivering grunts, Spake our Atta Troll, then grew Silent in his wistful grief. Suddenly his ears he raised,

And in strangest wise they twitched! Then from up his couch he sprang Trembling, bellowing with joy: "Children! do you hear that voice!

"Are not those the dulcet tones Of your mother? Do I not My dear Mumma's grumbles know?— Mumma! Mumma! precious mate!"

Like a madman with these words From the cave rushed Atta Troll Swift to his destruction—oh! To his ruin straight he plunged.



CANTO XXIV

In the Vale of Roncesvalles, On that very spot where erst Charlemagne's great nephew fell, Gasping forth his warrior soul,

Fell and perished Atta Troll, Fell through ambush, even as he Whom that Judas of the Knights, Ganelon of Mainz, betrayed.

Oh! that noblest trait in bears— Conjugal affection—love— Formed a pitfall which Uraka In her evil craft prepared.

For so truly mimicked she Coal-black Mumma's tender growls, That poor Atta Troll was lured From the safety of his lair.

On desire's wings he ran Through the valley, halting oft By a rock with tender sniff, Thinking Mumma there lay hid.

There Lascaro lay, alas, With his rifle. Swift he shot Through that gladsome heart a ball, And a crimson stream welled forth.

Twice or thrice he shakes his head To and fro, at last he sinks Groaning, seized with ghastly shudders;— "Mumma!" is his final sob!

Thus our noble hero fell— Perished thus. Immortal he Yet shall live in strains of bards, Resurrected after death.

He shall rise again in song, And his wide renown shall stalk In this blunt trochaic verse O'er the round and living Earth.

In Valhalla's Hall a shaft Shall King Ludwig build for him,— In Bavarian lapidary Style these words be there inscribed:

ATTA TROLL, REFORMER, PURE, PIOUS: HUSBAND WARM AND TRUE, BY THE ZEIT-GEIST LED ASTRAY— WOOD-ENGENDERED SANS-CULOTTE:

DANCING BADLY: YET IDEALS BEARING IN HIS SHAGGY BREAST: OFTTIMES STINKING VERY STRONGLY, TALENT NONE: BUT CHARACTER.



CANTO XXV

Three-and-thirty wrinkled dames, Wearing on their heads their Basque Scarlet hoods of ancient style, Stood beside the village gate.

One of them, like Deborah, Beat the tambourine and danced While she sang a hymn in praise Of the slayer of the bear.

Four strong men in triumph bore Slaughtered Atta, who erect In his wicker litter sat Like some patient at a spa.

To the rear, like relatives Of the dead, Lascaro came With Uraka, who abashed, Nodded to the right and left.

Then the town-clerk at the hall Spoke as the procession came To a halt. Of many things Spoke that dapper little man.

As, for instance, of the rise Of the navy, of the Press, Of the sugar-beet debates, And that hydra, party strife.

All the feats of Louis Philippe Vaunted he unto the skies,— Of Lascaro then he spoke And his great heroic deed.

"Thou Lascaro!" cried the clerk, As he mopped his streaming brow With his bright tri-coloured sash— "Thou Lascaro! thou that hast

"Freed Hispania and France From that monster Atta Troll, By both lands shalt be acclaimed the Pyreneean Lafayette!"

When Lascaro in official Wise thus heard himself announced As a hero, then he smiled In his beard and blushed for joy.

And in stammering syllables And in broken phrases he Stuttered forth his gratitude For the honour shown to him.

Wonder-smitten then stood all At the unexpected sight, And in low and timid tones Thus the ancient women spoke:

"Did you hear Lascaro laugh? Did you see Lascaro blush? Did you hear Lascaro speak? He the witch's perished son!"

On that very day they flayed Atta Troll. At auction they Sold his hide. A furrier bid Just an even hundred francs.

And the furrier decked the skin Handsomely, and mounted it All on scarlet. For this work He demanded twice the cost.

From a third hand Juliet Then received it. Now it lies As a rug before her bed In the city by the Seine.

Oh, how many nights I've stood Barefoot on the earthly husk Of my hero great and true, On the hide of Atta Troll!

Then by sorrow deeply touched Would I think of Schiller's words: "That which song would make eternal First must perish from the Earth."



CANTO XXVI

What of Mumma? Mumma, ah! Is a woman. Frailty Is her name! Alas, that women Should be frail as porcelain!

Now when Fate had parted her From her great and noble mate, Did she perish of her woe, Sinking into hopeless gloom?

Nay, contrarywise, she lived Merrily as ever—danced For the public as before, Eager for their plaudits too.

And at last a splendid place And support for all her days Was procured for her in Paris At the old Jardin-des-Plantes.

There, last Sunday as I strolled Through that place with Juliet, Baring Nature's realms to her— Animal and vegetable,—

Tall giraffes, and cedars brought Out of Lebanon, the huge Dromedary, golden pheasants, And the zebra;—chatting thus,—

We at last stood still and leaned O'er the rampart of that pit Where the bears are safely penned— Heavens! what a sight we saw!

There a huge bear from the wastes Of Siberia, snowy-white, Dallied in a love-feast sweet With a she-bear small and dark.

This was Mumma! This, alas, Was the mate of Atta Troll! Well I knew her by the soft Glances of her dewy eye.

It was she! the daughter dark Of the Southland! Mumma lives With a Russian now; she lives With this savage of the North!

Smirking spake a negro then, Coming up with stealthy pace: "Could there be a fairer sight Than a pair of lovers, say?"

Then I answered him: "Pray, who Honours me by this address?" Whereupon he cried amazed: "Have you quite forgotten me?

"Why I am that Moorish prince Who beat drums in Freiligrath— Times were bad—in Germany I was lonely and forlorn.

"Now as keeper I'm employed In this garden,—here I find All the flowers of my native Tropics,—lions, tigers, too.

"Here I feel content and gay, Better than at German fairs, Where each day I beat the drum And was fed but scantily.

"Late in wedlock was I bound To a blonde Alsatian cook, And within her arms I feel All my native joys again!

"And her feet remind me ever Of my blessed elephants, And her French has quite the ring Of my sable mother-tongue.

"When she coughs, the rattle fierce Moves me of that famous drum Which, bedecked with human skulls, Drove the snakes and lions far.

"But when moonlight charms her mood, Like a crocodile she weeps, Which from out some luke-warm stream Lifts to gape in cooler air.

"And she cooks me dainty bits. See, I thrive! I feed again As upon the Niger I Fed with gusto African!

"Mark the nicely rounded paunch I possess! Behold it peeps From my shirt like some black moon Stealing forth from whitest clouds."



CANTO XXVII

(To August Varnhagen von Ense)

"Heavens! where, dear Ludoviso, Did you steal this crazy stuff?" With these words did Cardinal D'Este Ariosto greet

When that poet read his work On Orlando's madness. This He unto His Eminence Humbly sought to dedicate.

Yes, Varnhagen, dear old friend, Yes, I see these very words Tremble on thy lips, that same Faint and devastating smile.

Sometimes o'er a book thou laughest, Then again in earnestness Thy high forehead wrinkles o'er As old memories come to thee.

Hark unto the dreams of youth! Such Chamisso dreamed with me, And Brentano, Fouque, too, In blue nights beneath the moon.

Comes no sound of saintly chimes From that vanished forest fane, And no tinkling of the gay Unforgotten cap-and-bells?

Through the choir of nightingales Rumbles now the growl of bears, Low and fierce, and changes then To the gibbering of ghosts!

Madness in the guise of sense, Wisdom with a broken spine! Dying sobs which suddenly Into hollow laughter pass!

Aye, my friend, such strains arise From the dream-time that is dead, Though some modern trills may oft Caper through the ancient theme.

Spite of waywardness thou'lt find Here and there a note of pain;— To thy well-proved mildness now Do I recommend my song!

'Tis, perchance, the final strain Of the pure and free Romance:— In to-day's wild battle-clash, Miserably it must end.

Other times and other birds! Other birds and other songs! What a chattering as of geese That had saved a capitol!

What a chirping!—sparrows these Penny tapers in their claws, Yet have they assumed the ways Of Jove's eagle with the bolt.

What a cooing! Turtle-doves, Cloyed with love, now long to hate, And thenceforth in place of Venus' They would drag Bellona's car!

What a buzz that shakes the skies!— These must be the great May-beetles Of the nation's dawning Spring, With a Viking fury seized!

Other times and other birds! Other birds and other songs;— These, perchance, might yield delight Were I blest with other ears!



NOTES TO "ATTA TROLL"

BY DR. OSCAR LEVY



PREFACE

THE GOD OF SCHELLING. The German philosopher Schelling (1775-1854) was at first a follower of Spinoza, and had published in his youth a pantheistic philosophy which had made him famous. In later life he began to doubt his former beliefs, and promised to the world another and more Christian explanation of God and the universe. The promised book, however, never appeared.

The gap, thus left by Schelling, has since been filled up by a host of more courageous, if less conscientious, investigators.

"SEA-SURROUNDED SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN" OYSTERS. "Schleswig-Holstein Meerumschlungen (sea-surrounded)" was the German Marseillaise after 1846 and again in 1863-64.

ARNOLD RUGE (1802-1880) was the leader of the New Hegelian school, and published certain famous annuals for art and science at Halle. In 1848 he was elected to the Parliament at Frankfort, but was forced to flee to London, where he struck up a fast friendship with Mazzini. In the Revolutionary Committee of London he represented Germany, as Ledru-Rollin represented France and Mazzini Italy.

CHRISTIAN-GERMANIC. One of the favourite phrases and shibboleths of the Romantic School, which may still be heard in the Germany of to-day.

FERDINAND FREILIGRATH (1810-1876). A well-known poet and skilful translator of French and English poets, such as Burns, Byron, Thomas Moore, and Victor Hugo. His own poems betray his dependence upon Hugo. Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, bestowed a pension upon him in 1842. When his friends, however, charged him with having sold himself to the Government, the poet refused the pension. Thereafter he devoted himself more and more to the democratic party and wrote many political poems. In 1848 he went abroad, living in London the greater part of the time. He returned to Germany in 1868, and in 1870 published several patriotic poems which met with great acclaim.

The sudden conversion from international Democracy to Nationalism is easily explained. Modern states have become democratic, and democrats—but they alone—find it easy to feel comfortable and patriotic in such a milieu.

CANTO I

DON CARLOS. After the death of Ferdinand VII of Spain (1833) a lengthy civil war broke out between his younger brother, Don Carlos, and the Queen-widow Christina, who had assumed the regency for her daughter Isabella.

SCHNAPPHAHNSKI. A comic word composed of the German word "schnappen," to snap, and "hahn," cock. It has also been incorporated into French in the form "chenapan." It is applied here to Prince Felix Lichnowski (1814-1848), who left the Prussian Army in 1838 and entered the service of Don Carlos, who appointed him a brigadier-general. After his return from Spain, Lichnowski wrote his "Reminiscences," the publication of which involved him in a duel in which he was badly wounded. The "Reminiscences" are couched in Heine's own style, and their hero is called Schnapphahnski.

JULIET. Juliet is to be understood as referring to Heine's mistress and subsequent wife, Mathilde.

CANTO II

QUEEN MARIA CHRISTINA. She was the wife of Ferdinand VII and assumed the regency after his death. Soon after the king's demise, she married a member of her bodyguard, one Don Ferdinand Munoz, who was afterwards given the title of Duke of Rianzares. She bore him several children.

PUTANA. Italian for strumpet.

CANTO IV

MASSMANN. A German philologist and one of Heine's favourite butts. He was one of the most enthusiastic advocates of German gymnastics. Athletics was one of the pet ideas of the German patriots; the Government, however, held it in suspicion, inasmuch as the so-called "Turner" (gymnasts) cherished political ambitions. In time, however, the exercise of the muscles cured the revolutionary brain-fag, and the Government was enabled to assume a sort of protectorship over gymnastics. Though enthusiastically carried on to this very day in Germany, the movement no longer has any political significance.

FRESH, PIOUS, GAY, AND FREE. FRISCH, FROMM, FROeHLICH, FREI—the four F's—formed the motto of the German "Turner."

CANTO V

BATAVIA. Apparently a well-known female ape in Heine's day, trained in theatrical feats of skill.

FREILIGRATH (see above). As a refuge from the crassness of his times, Freiligrath usually chose exotic themes for his poems, frequently African in nature, as, for instance, in his "Loewenritt." The allusion to the mule (in German "camel," which bears the same opprobrious meaning as "ass") gives us reason to believe that Heine's preface must not be taken too seriously and that his opinion of the poet Freiligrath was by no means a high one.

FRIEDRICH LUDWIG GEORG VON RAUMER (1781-1873). A well-known German historian, author of the "History of the Hohenstaufens."

CANTO VIII

TUISKION. The god whom the Germans, according to Tacitus (vide "Germania," cap. II) regard as the original father of their race.

LUDWIG FEUERBACH (1804-1872). An honest thinker, who recognised that there was an unbridgable gulf between philosophy and theology. He left the Hegelian school, which can be so well adapted to the need of theologians, and considered as the only source of religion—the human brain. "The Gods are only the personified wishes of men," he used to say. He brought German philosophy down from the clouds to cookery by declaring: "Der Mensch ist, was er isst" ("Man is what he eats"). He was a believer in what he called "Healthy sensuality," which made him the philosopher of artists in the 'thirties and 'forties of the last century, amongst others of Richard Wagner. The latter, however, afterwards repented, and, by way of Schopenhauer, turned Christian.

Feuerbach came from a family that would have been the delight of Sir Francis Galton, author of "Hereditary Genius." Feuerbach's father was a famous jurist, who had five sons, all of whom attained the honour of appearing in the German Encyclopaedias. The philosopher was the fourth son. Again: the famous painter Anselm Feuerbach was his nephew, the son of his eldest brother.

BRUNO BAUER (1809-1882). A destructive commentator of the New Testament. He belonged to the school of "higher" criticism which has done so much to "lower" Christianity in the eyes of savants and professors and so little in those of mankind at large. His "Critique of the Evangelistic History of Saint John" (1840) and his "Critique of the Evangelistic Synoptists" (1841-42) had just been published when Heine wrote "Atta Troll."

CANTO IX

MOSES MENDELSOHN (1729-1786). Grandfather of the famous composer. He was a Jewish philosopher and a friend of Lessing's, who, it is supposed, took him as his model for "Nathan the Wise." He freed his German co-religionaries from the oppressive influence of the Talmud.

CANTO X

PROPERTY IS THEFT. A dictum of Prudhon.

CANTO XII

REIGN OF DWARFS. The approaching rule of clever little trades-people, whose turn it will soon be if democracy progresses as at present. Compare Nietzsche's "Zarathustra," Part III, 49, "The Bedwarfing Virtue": "I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they have become smaller, and ever become smaller: the reason thereof is their doctrine of happiness and virtue."

THIS CONCLUSION. "Lo, I kiss, therefore I live"—a witty travesty of Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum."

CANTO XIV

SO I TOOK TO HUNTING BEARS. Heine considers Atta Troll, the bear bred by the French Revolution, as a much greater and more dangerous foe, and therefore a worthier opponent of his than the sorry German bears—or patriots—with whom he was forced to contend in his native country and who incessantly worried (and still worry) him.

CANTO XV

CAGOTS. The remnant of an ancient tribe, driven out of human society as unclean—Cagot from Canis gothicus. The Cagots may still be found in obscure parts of the French Pyrenees; they have their own language and are distinguished by their yellow skins from the peoples of Western Europe. In the Middle Ages they were persecuted as heretics and were excluded from all contact with their neighbours. They were forced to bear a tag upon their clothes so that they might be known as inferiors. Even to-day, despite the fact that they possess the same rights as other Frenchmen, they are considered as somewhat debased and unclean.

CANTO XVIII

THE WILD HUNT which Heine describes in this canto is an old German legend which poets and painters have found to be a fertile source of inspiration. The wild huntsman must ride through the world every night, followed by all evil-doers, and wherever he appears, thither, according to old folk-belief, does misfortune come. Tradition herds all the foes of Christianity among this rout of evil-doers; for this reason does Heine include Goethe—the "great pagan," as the Germans call him—in that crew. There have been other foes of Christianity since, and some very great figures amongst them, so that in time the Wild Huntsman's Company may become quite presentable.

HENGSTENBERG (1802-1869). A fanatical theologian professor at Berlin who made an attack upon Goethe's "Elective Affinities," which then had not yet become a classic, and was thus still liable to the attacks of the "learned."

FRANZ HORN. A contemporary of Heine's of no particular importance, a poet of the Romantic School and a verbose literary historian. He wrote a work in five volumes upon Shakespeare's plays. In this he interprets the poet in a wholly romantic sense and winds up by presenting him as an enthusiastic Christian.

CANTO XIX

ABUNDA—in the Celtic (Breton) folk-lore Dame Abonde and even Dame Habonde. The Celtic element (as, for instance, the legend of King Arthur's Round Table) played a great part in the romantic poetry of Germany, and later in the music dramas of Wagner. Romanticism is therefore represented in Heine's poem by the fairy Abunda, in contradistinction to the Greek and Semitic inspiration—represented by Diana and Herodias. Heine's conception of Herodias as being in love with the Baptist and taking her revenge on him for his Josephian attitude towards her, has, no doubt, influenced later writers on the subject, especially Flaubert and Oscar Wilde, save that these had not the courage (nor perhaps the insight) to regard the hero in question as a "block-head."

CANTO XX

SIX-AND-THIRTY KINGS. At once an allusion to Shakespeare's "A kingdom for a horse!" ("Richard III") and a side-stroke glancing at the various kings and princes of Germany—some thirty-six in Heine's time.

CANTO XXI

HELLISH HERBS. The foul and mouldy herbs and medicines in Uraka's hut represent a collection of remedies for the cure and preservation of decaying feudalism and Christian mediaevalism, which, however, no remedy can restore to health. The smell in Uraka's hut is the smell of the "rotting past," that, in spite of all nostrums and artificial revivals, goes on decomposing. The stuffed birds which glare so fixedly and forlorn, and have long bills like human noses, are members of Heine's own race. These stuffed birds are the symbols of Judaism which according to our Hellenistic poet, possesses, as religion, as little life as the Christianity that is based upon it.

CANTO XXII

A SWABIAN BARD. The Swabian school of poetry, of which Uhland was the leader, was the chief representative of German Chauvinism in Heine's day. W. Menzel, the critic who denounced "Young Germany" to the Government, belonged to this school. Boerne answered him in his "Menzel der Franzosenfresser" ("The Gallophobe"), and Heine mocked at him in his paper "The Denunciator." Gustav Pfizer (who had provoked Heine) and Karl Meyer were members of the Swabian school, and prided themselves particularly upon their morality and religiosity, for which reason they set themselves in antagonism to the "heathen" Goethe. Goethe, on his part, estimated this school as little as did Heine. In a letter to Zelter dated October 5, 1831, Goethe writes thus of Pfizer: "...I read a poem lately by Gustav Pfizer ... the poet appears to have real talent and is evidently a very good man. But as I read I was oppressed by a certain poverty of spirit in the piece and put the little book away at once, for with the advance of the cholera it is well to shield oneself against all debilitating influences. The work is dedicated to Uhland, and one might well doubt if anything exciting, thorough, or humanly compelling could be produced from those regions in which he is master. I will therefore not rail at the work, but simply leave it alone. It is really marvellous how these little men are able to throw their goody-religious-poetic beggar's cloak so cleverly about their shoulders that, whenever an elbow happens to stick out, one is tempted to consider this as a deliberate poetic intention."

METZEL-SOUP. A Swabian soup of the country districts, glorified in the poetry of Uhland. It is usually prepared from the "insides" of pigs.

CHRISTOPHER FRIEDRICH K. VON KOeLLE (1781-1848). A Privy Councillor of the Legation of Wuertemberg—composer of many poems and political pamphlets.

JUSTINUS KERNER (1786-1862) was also a poet of the Swabian school. He believed in spirits, and made many observations and experiments in his house at Weinsburg in order to obtain some knowledge of the supernatural world. Thousands of those who believed, or wished to believe, came to his "seances." He worked in conjunction with a celebrated medium of his time, and later published a very successful book about this lady. Heine, no doubt, had this medium in mind when he mentioned Kerner.

CANTO XXIII

BALDOMERO ESPARTERO (1792-1879). A celebrated Spanish general who fought against Don Carlos on the side of Maria Christina. He was later given the title of Duke of Vittoria.

EMILIA GALOTTI. This refers to the heroine of Lessing's drama of the same name, in which old Odoardo Galotti slays his daughter in order to protect her from dishonour. The theme is derived from the story of Virginia and Tarquin.

"NO ROSE WOULD HE PLUCK, ETC." Lessing's drama closes thus: "Odoardo: 'God! what have I done!' Emilia: 'Thou hast merely plucked a rose ere the storm reft it of its petals.'"

CANTO XXIV

GANELON OF MAINZ was the stepfather of Roland, against whom he bore a grudge. He contrived to bring about his destruction by betraying him to the Saracens, who over-powered and killed him in the Valley of Roncesvalles, as related in the well-known "Chanson de Roland."

VALHALLA'S HALL. King Ludwig I of Bavaria ordered a Greek temple to be built on the banks of the Danube near Regensburg, to which he gave the name of Valhalla. In this the busts of all great Germans are placed—as, for instance, with great ceremony, that of Bismarck some years ago, and recently that of Wagner. Atta Troll's epitaph is a satirical imitation of the poetic effusions of Ludwig I, who considered himself a poet but was nothing more than an affected versifier. His mania for compression and for participial forms (not to be tolerated in German) more than once drew the arrows of Heine's wit. The last line: "Talent none, but character," has become a familiar phrase in Germany.

CANTO XXV

PYRENEEAN LAFAYETTE. Lafayette fought for the Revolution in France as well as in America.

"THAT WHICH SONG WOULD MAKE ETERNAL," &c. A quotation in a semi-satiric vein from Schiller's "The Gods of Greece."

CANTO XXVI

DROVE THE SNAKES AND LIONS FAR. A burlesque quotation from Freiligrath's poem "Der Loewenritt," from which also the reference later on to the crocodile is taken.

CANTO XXVII

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE (1785-1858). After abandoning his career as a diplomat, von Ense married the celebrated Rahel. He lived in Berlin, where the salon of his wife became the meeting-ground for artists and writers. In his youth he associated closely with the romantics—de la Motte Fouque, Chamisso, and Clemens Brentano, the brother of Bettina von Arnim. Though imitating the heavy and cautious style of the later Goethe he was a good writer, and his biographies of celebrated men belong to the best in German literature. He endeavoured, but without success, to win over the all-powerful Austrian Minister Metternich to the cause of "Young Germany."

OTHER TIMES AND OTHER BIRDS! These words refer to the new generation of poets—Georg Herwegh, Friedrich Freiligrath, Dingelstedt, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, and Anastasius Gruen—who came upon the scene about 1840, cherished mechanic-democratic ideals and brought about the Revolution of 1848. Heine, by nature an aristocratic poet, who instinctively dreaded the competition of "noble bears," saw all his loftiest principles trodden into the mire by these Utopian hot-heads and the crew of politicians that came storming after them. This doctrinaire and numerical interpretation of the rights of man—for which rights in their proper application the poet himself had fought so valiantly—caused him great unhappiness. He now saw his fairest concepts (as is made clear in his own introduction) distorted as in some crooked mirror, and so, filled with anger, grief and disgust, he conceived and wrote his lyrico-satiric masterpiece, "Atta Troll." The poem has been misunderstood to this very day, for the mechanics and theorists have practically won. The day it is understood, their reign will be over.

PRINTED AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS LONDON

NOTES OF THE TRANSCRIBER

Three instances of "Willy Pogany" were corrected to "Willy Pogany."

"ond entreaties" was changed to "fond entreaties."

THE END