France has a glorious literature; in science, the best in the world. In history, Guizot; in jurisprudence, in its widest sense, Montesquieu; and in picturing the literary history of a nation, Taine, stand unrivalled anywhere. Among essayists, Montaigne; among writers of fiction, Le Sage, Victor Hugo, and Balzac; among the dramatists, Corneille the grand, Racine the graceful and tender, and Molière the creator of modern comedy; and among fabulists, the inimitable poet of fable, La Fontaine, demand a share of our time with the best. Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Comte belong in every liberal scheme of culture and to every student of philosophy.
Spain gives us two most glorious names, Cervantes and Pedro Calderon de la Barca,—the former one of the world's very greatest humorists, the brother spirit of Lowell; the latter, a princely dramatist, the brother of Shakspeare.
Germany boasts one summit on which the shadow of no other falls. Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" and his minor poems cannot be neglected if we want the best the world affords; Schiller, too, and Humboldt, Kant and Heine, Helmholtz and Haeckel must be read. In science and history, the list of German greatness is a very long and bright one.
Persia calls us to read her magnificent astronomer-poet, Omar Khayyám; her splendid epic, the Shah Nameh of Firdusi, the story of whose labors, successes, and misfortunes is one of the most interesting passages in the history of poetry; and taste at least of her extravagant singer of the troubles and ecstasies of love, Hafiz.
Portugal has given us Camoens, with his great poem the "Luciad." Denmark brings us her charming Andersen; and Russia comes to us with her Byronic Pushkin and her Schiller-hearted poet, Lermontoff, at least for a glance.
We have thus named as the chiefs, twenty authors in English, ten in Greek, three of Rome, two of Italy, ten of France, two of Spain, seven of Germany, three of Persia, one of Portugal, one of Denmark, and two of Russia,—sixty-one in all,—which, if read in the manner indicated, will impart a pretty thorough knowledge of the literary treasures of the world.
THE FOUNTAINS OF NATIONAL LITERATURES.
In the early history of every great people there has grown up a body of songs celebrating the heroism of their valiant warriors and the charms of their beautiful women. These have, generation after generation, been passed by word of mouth from one group of singers to their successors,—by each new set of artists somewhat polished and improved,—until they come to us as Homer's Iliad, the "Nibelungenlied" of the Germans, the "Chronicle of the Cid" of the Spanish, the "Chansons de Gestes," the "Romans," and the "Fabliaux" of the French, and "Beowulf" and the "Morte D'Arthur" of English literature. These great poems are the sources of a vast portion of what is best in subsequent art. From them Virgil, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Rabelais, Molière, Shakspeare, Calderon, and a host of others have drawn their inspiration. Malory has wrought the Arthurian songs into a mould of the purest English. The closing books, in their quiet pathos and reserved strength,—in their melody, winged words, and inimitable turns of phrase,—rank with the best poetry of Europe. Southey called the "Cid" the finest poem in the Spanish language, and Prescott said it was "the most remarkable performance of the Middle Ages." This may be going rather too far; but it certainly stands in the very front rank of national poems. It has been translated by Lockhart in verse, by Southey in prose, and there is a splendid fragment by Frere. Of the French early epics, the "Chanson de Roland" and the "Roman du Renart" are the best. The "Nibelungenlied" is the embodiment of the wild and tragic,—the highest note of the barbaric drama of the North. That last terrific scene in the Hall of Etzel will rest forever in the memory of every reader of the book. Carlyle has given a sketch of the poem in his "Miscellanies," vol. iii., and there exists a complete but prolix and altogether miserable translation of the great epic, but we sadly need a condensed version of the myth of "Siegfried" the brave, and "Chriemhild" the beautiful, in the stirring prose of Malory or Southey. No reader will regret a perusal of these songs of the people; it is a journey to the head-waters of the literary Nile.
The reader of this little book we hope has gained an inspiration—if it were not his before—that, with a strong and steady step, will lead him into all the paths of beauty and of truth. Each glorious emotion and each glowing thought that comes to us, becomes a centre of new growth. Each wave of pathos, humor, or sublimity that pulses through the heart or passes to the brain, sets up vibrations that will never die, but beautify the hours and years that follow to the end of life. These waves that pass into the soul do not conceal their music in the heart, but echo back upon the world in waves of kindred power; and these return forever from the world into the heart that gave them forth. It is as on the evening river, where the boatman bends his homeward oar. Each lusty call that leaves his lips, or song, or bugle blast that slips the tensioned bars, and wings the breeze, to teach its rhythm to the trees that crown the rocky twilight steep o'er which the lengthening shadows creep, returns and enters, softened, sweet, and clear, the waiting portal of the sender's ear. The man who fills his being with the noblest books, and pours their beauty out in word and deed, is like the merry singers on the placid moonlit lake. Backward the ripples o'er the silver sheet come on the echoes' winged feet; the hills and valleys all around gather the gentle shower of sound, and pour the stream upon the boat in which the happy singers float, chanting the hymns they loved of yore, shipping the glistening wave-washed oar, to hear reflected from the shore their every charmèd note. Oh, loosen from thy lip, my friend, no tone thine ear would with remorseful sorrow hear, hurling it back from far and near, the listening landscape oft repeat! Rather a melody send to greet the mountains beyond the silver sheet. Life's the soul's song; sing sweetly, then, that when the silence comes again, and ere it comes, from every glen the echoes shall be sweet.