(1740-1815)
atthias Claudius, best known as "the Wandsbecker Bote" (the Messenger from Wandsbeck), was born at Reinfeld in Holstein, August 15th, 1740. He was of excellent stock, coming from a long line of clergymen. It was said that scarcely another family in Schleswig-Holstein had given to the church so many sons.
There is but little to record of the quiet boyhood passed in the picturesque stillness of the North German village. At the outset the education of Claudius was conducted by his father, the village pastor. From beginning to end his life was simple, moderate, and well ordered. After finishing his school days at Ploen, he entered the University of Jena (1759), with the intention of studying theology, in order to follow the traditions of the family and enter the ministry. This idea he was soon obliged to relinquish on account of a pulmonary weakness, and he turned instead to the study of jurisprudence. His strongest attraction was towards literature. He became a member of the literary guild in Jena; and later, when he had attained fame as the "Wandsbecker Bote," he was intimately associated with Voss, F.L. Stolberg, Herder, and others of the Göttingen fraternity. His first verses, published in Jena in 1763, under the title "Tändeleien und Erzählungen' (Trifles and Tales), gave no indication of his talents, and were no more than the usual student efforts of unconscious imitation; they have absolutely no poetic value, and are interesting only as they indicate a stage of development. In editing his works in later years, Claudius preserved of this early poetry only one song, 'An eine Quelle' (To a Spring).
Matthias Claudius
After leaving the university in 1764, he took a position as private secretary to Count Holstein in Copenhagen; and here, under the powerful influence of Klopstock, whose friendship was at this time the most potent element of his life, and in the brilliant circle which that poet had drawn around him, Claudius entered fully into the life of sentiment and ideas which conduced so largely to his intellectual development. Some years later, after a fallow period spent in the quiet of his father's house at Reinfeld, he settled at Wandsbeck, near Altona (1771), where in connection with Bode he published the Wandsbecker Bote, the popular weekly periodical so indissolubly associated with his name. His contributions under the name of "Asmus" found everywhere the warmest acceptance. In 1775, through Herder's recommendation, Claudius was appointed Chief Land Commissioner at Darmstadt; but circumstances rendering the position uncongenial, he returned to his beloved Wandsbeck, where he supported his family by his pen until 1788, when Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark appointed him revisor of the Holstein Bank at Altona. He died in Hamburg, January 1st, 1815, in the house of his son-in-law, the bookseller Perthes.
A collection of his works, with the title 'Asmus omnia sua secum portans, oder Sämmtliche Werke des Wandsbecker Boten' (The Collected Works of the Wandsbeck Messenger), appeared at Hamburg, 1775-1812. These collected works comprise songs, romances, fables, poems, letters, etc., originally published in various places. The translation of Saint Martin and Fénelon marked the pietistic spirit of his later years, and is in strong contrast to the exuberance which produced the 'Rheinweinlied' (Rhine Wine Song) and 'Urian's Reise um die Welt' (Urian's Journey around the World).
Claudius as a poet won the hearts of his countrymen. His verses express his idyllic love of nature and his sympathy with rustic life. The poet and the man are one. His pure and simple style appealed to the popular taste, and some of his lyrics have become genuine folk-songs.
SPECULATIONS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY
From the Wandsbecker Bote
A happy new year! A happy new year to my dear country, the land of old integrity and truth! A happy new year to friends and enemies, Christians and Turks, Hottentots and Cannibals! To all on whom God permits his sun to rise and his rain to fall! Also to the poor negro slaves who have to work all day in the hot sun. It's wholly a glorious day, the New Year's Day! At other times I can bear that a man should be a little bit patriotic, and not make court to other nations. True, one must not speak evil of any nation. The wiser part are everywhere silent; and who would revile a whole nation for the sake of the loud ones? As I said, I can bear at other times that a man should be a little patriotic: but on New Year's Day my patriotism is dead as a mouse, and it seems to me on that day as if we were all brothers, and had one Father who is in heaven; as if all the goods of the world were water which God has created for all men, as I once heard it said.
And so I am accustomed, every New Year's morning, to sit down on a stone by the wayside, to scratch with my staff in the sand before me, and to think of this and of that. Not of my readers. I hold them in all honor: but on New Year's morning, on the stone by the wayside, I think not of them; but I sit there and think that during the past year I saw the sun rise so often, and the moon,—that I saw so many rainbows and flowers, and breathed the air so often, and drank from the brook,—and then I do not like to look up, and I take with both hands my cap from my head and look into that.
Then I think also of my acquaintances who have died during the year; and how they can talk now with Socrates and Numa, and other men of whom I have heard so much good, and with John Huss. And then it seems as if graves opened round me, and shadows with bald crowns and long gray beards came out of them and shook the dust out of their beards. That must be the work of the "Everlasting Huntsman," who has his doings about the twelfth. The old pious long-beards would fain sleep. But a glad new year to your memory and to the ashes in your graves!
RHINE WINE
With laurel wreathe the glass's vintage mellow,
And drink it gayly dry!
Through farthest Europe, know, my worthy fellow,
For such in vain ye'll try.
Nor Hungary nor Poland e'er could boast it:
And as for Gallia's vine,
Saint Veit the Ritter, if he choose, may toast it,—
We Germans love the Rhine.
Our fatherland we thank for such a blessing,
And many more beside;
And many more, though little show possessing,
Well worth our love and pride.
Not everywhere the vine bedecks our border,
As well the mountains show,
That harbor in their bosoms foul disorder;
Not worth their room below.
Thuringia's hills, for instance, are aspiring
To rear a juice like wine;
But that is all; nor mirth nor song inspiring,
It breathes not of the vine.
And other hills, with buried treasures glowing,
For wine are far too cold;
Though iron ores and cobalt there are growing,
And 'chance some paltry gold.
The Rhine,—the Rhine,—there grow the gay plantations!
Oh, hallowed be the Rhine!
Upon his banks are brewed the rich potations
Of this consoling wine.
Drink to the Rhine! and every coming morrow
Be mirth and music thine!
And when we meet a child of care and sorrow,
We'll send him to the Rhine.
WINTER
A SONG TO BE SUNG BEHIND THE STOVE
Old Winter is the man for me—
Stout-hearted, sound, and steady;
Steel nerves and bones of brass hath he:
Come snow, come blow, he's ready!
If ever man was well, 'tis he;
He keeps no fire in his chamber,
And yet from cold and cough is free
In bitterest December.
He dresses him out-doors at morn,
Nor needs he first to warm him;
Toothache and rheumatis' he'll scorn,
And colic don't alarm him.
In summer, when the woodland rings,
He asks "What mean these noises?"
Warm sounds he hates, and all warm things
Most heartily despises.
But when the fox's bark is loud;
When the bright hearth is snapping;
When children round the chimney crowd,
All shivering and clapping;—
When stone and bone with frost do break,
And pond and lake are cracking,—
Then you may see his old sides shake,
Such glee his frame is racking.
Near the North Pole, upon the strand,
He has an icy tower;
Likewise in lovely Switzerland
He keeps a summer bower.
So up and down—now here—now there—
His regiments manœuvre;
When he goes by, we stand and stare,
And cannot choose but shiver.
WINTER.
Photogravure from a painting by L. Munthe.
NIGHT SONG
The moon is up in splendor,
And golden stars attend her;
The heavens are calm and bright;
Trees cast a deepening shadow;
And slowly off the meadow
A mist is rising silver-white.
Night's curtains now are closing
Round half a world, reposing
In calm and holy trust;
All seems one vast, still chamber,
Where weary hearts remember
No more the sorrows of the dust.
Translations of Charles T. Brooks.
HENRY CLAY
(1777-1852)
BY JOHN R. PROCTER
enry Clay must not be judged as an orator by his reported speeches, which are but skeletons of the masterly originals, but by the lasting effect of these speeches on those who heard them, and by his ability as an originator of important measures and his success in carrying these measures to a conclusion by convincing and powerful oratory. Judged by his achievements and by his wide-spread influence, he must take rank as a statesman and orator of pre-eminent ability. The son of a poor Baptist clergyman, with but scant advantages for acquiring an education; leaving home at an early age and going among strangers to a community where family ties and social connections were a controlling element;—this poor boy, with no family influence, assumed at once, by sheer force of character and ability, a leadership which he held undisputed until his death. And years after he had passed away, it was the "followers of Henry Clay" who kept Kentucky from joining the States of the South in their unsuccessful efforts to withdraw from the Union.
Of his oratory Robert C. Winthrop wrote after a lapse of years: "I can only bear witness to an impressiveness of speech never exceeded, if ever equaled, within an experience of half a century, during which I have listened to many of the greatest orators on both sides of the Atlantic." As a parliamentary leader, Rhodes calls him the greatest in our history. "His leadership," says Mr. Schurz, "was not of that mean order which merely contrives to organize a personal following; it was the leadership of a statesman zealously striving to promote great public interests."
As a presiding officer he was the most commanding Speaker the National House of Representatives has ever had. Winthrop, who served long with him in Congress, said of him:—"No abler or more commanding presiding officer ever sat in the Speaker's chair on either side of the Atlantic. Prompt, dignified, resolute, fearless, he had a combination of intellectual and physical qualities which made him a natural ruler over men." He was six times elected Speaker, sometimes almost by acclamation; and during the many years which he presided over the House not one of his decisions was ever reversed.
As a Secretary of State, during his term of four years the treaties with foreign countries negotiated by him exceeded in numbers all that had been negotiated by other secretaries, during the previous thirty-five years of our constitutional history. As a diplomat, he showed himself at Ghent more than a match for the trained diplomatists of the old world.
And with all these he was—at his ideal country home, Ashland, surrounded by wooded lawns and fertile acres of beautiful blue-grass land—a most successful farmer and breeder of thoroughbred stock, from the Scotch collie to the thoroughbred race-horse. I have been told by one who knew him as a farmer that no one could guess nearer to the weight of a Shorthorn bullock than he. He was as much at home with horses and horsemen as with senators and diplomats. I have known many men who were friends and followers of Mr. Clay, and from the love and veneration these men had for his memory, I can well understand why the historian Rhodes says, "No man has been loved as the people of the United States loved Henry Clay."
Clay seemed to have had honors and leadership thrust upon him. Arriving in Kentucky in 1797, he at once advocated the gradual emancipation of slaves, regardless of the strong prejudices to the contrary of the rich slaveholding community in which he had cast his lot; yet, unsolicited on his part, this community elected him to the State Legislature by a large majority in 1803, and before three years of service he was chosen by his fellow members to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. And until his death in 1852, his constituents in Kentucky vied with each other in their desires to keep him as their representative in either the national Senate or House of Representatives. He entered the latter in 1811, and was selected as Speaker of that body almost by acclamation on the first day of his taking his seat. After a long life spent in his country's service he was elected unanimously to the Senate in 1848, despite party strife and the fact that the two parties were almost evenly divided in Kentucky.
No attempt can here be made to even recapitulate the events of importance connected with his long public services. I will call attention only to some of the most important measures which he carried by his magnificent leadership.
