TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
A work which has three prefaces by its author may be thought by some to need, and by others not to permit, a very long one from its translator. This is the first of Richter's romances which took hold of the German public. After he had long tried in vain, by a variety of literary devices, to entice or provoke the people's attention, and win or force a way to their hearts for his wit and his wisdom, his odd fancies and his noble sentiments, on the appearance of Hesperus, the siege, as Carlyle says, ("the ten-years'-siege of a poverty-stricken existence" Jean Paul himself calls it,) may be said to have terminated by storm.
It was the Hesperus that brought Richter to Weimar. It was in Hesperus, and as Hesperus, that this singular genius rose on the horizon of Goethe and Schiller,—the latter of whom (as will be well remembered) tells his great friend that he has met "Hesperus," a strange being, like a man who has dropped from the moon. English readers may have different opinions on the question whether he "came down too soon" or too late. The Translator seems to see signs that Jean Paul is to be better and better understood and appreciated among us in this free and forming Western world, and he concludes his introduction of this second great labor to the public with the benediction upon the book which, in the closing paragraph of his second Preface, the author so touchingly pronounces on this evening and morning star of his heart.
The Translator is exceedingly indebted to his friend, Professor Knorr of Philadelphia, and to his former teacher, Dr. Beck of Cambridge, for their kind and patient assistance in correcting the proof-sheets of his work; and from the keen and practised eye of Mr. George Nichols he also received for some time valuable aid.
Newport, R. I.
