As far as earthly potentates are concerned, Heine's comic assaults are not less audacious, not less fantastic than those of Aristophanes. Aristophanes showed courage in his attacks on Kleon and Theramenes; he occasionally chanced to defend the good cause; but as a rule it was the bad cause he upheld, for he made himself the spokesman of an indefensible conservatism, and of unjust personal animosities. Heine was less frequently unjust or mean, and he was never conservative. But he recalls Aristophanes to us by his aristocratic propensities, by the grim character of his personal attacks (those on Meyerbeer, for instance), and also by the form of these attacks, for example the amusing way in which he turns to account well-known, pathetic passages from other poets.
He made witty attacks on Frederick William IV., in Deutschland, where Hammonia warns Heine himself against "the king of Thule," and in the poem Der neue Alexander; and he wrote a whole series of satirical poems on King Ludwig of Bavaria and his doings. This latter king, whom Heine in past days had extolled, was flattered as a Mæcenas by a whole band of contemporary artists and poets. In the Lobgesänge auf König Lüdewig, Heine falls foul of all his weaknesses, his gallery of beauty in the Munich palace, his bad verses, his annoyance when several of the famous men of science and artists whom he patronised allowed themselves to be persuaded to leave Bavaria and settle in Prussia. On the subject of the gallery of beauty we have:
"Er liebt die Kunst, und die schönsten Frau'n,
Die lässt er porträtiren,
Er geht in diesem gemalten Serail
Als Kunst-Eunuch spazieren."[2]
[2] In love with art, he collects fair dames
In counterfeit presentment,
And in this painted harem finds,
Art-eunuch-like, contentment.
When writing of the migration to Prussia of the various men of note, Heine seizes the opportunity to give a side-hit at his old scape-goat, Massmann:
"Der Schelling und der Cornelius,
Sie mögen von dannen wandern.
Dem einen erlosch im Kopf die Vernunft,
Die Phantasie dem Andern.
Doch dass man aus meiner Krone stahl
Die beste Perle, dass man
Mir meinen Turnkunstmeister geraubt,
Das Menschenjuwel, den Massmann,
Das hat mich gebeugt, das hat mich geknickt,
Das hat mir die Seele zerschmettert,
Mir fehlt jetzt der Mann, der in seiner Kunst
Den höchsten Pfahl erklettert...."[3]
[3] That Schelling should go, and Cornelius too,
Without a tear I can see—
The one has lost his reasoning power,
The other all his fancy.
But to steal from my crown its brightest gem,
Its pearl of price, was cruel;
My master-gymnast they've filched away,
Massmann, mankind's chief jewel.
This crime has bent and broken me,
'Tis soul-destroying, cynical—
I have lost the man who had clambered up
To his art's supremest pinnacle.
Of King Ludwig's essays in poetry he writes:
"Herr Ludwig ist ein grosser Poet,
Und singt er, so stürzt Apollo
Vor ihm auf die Knie und bittet und fleht:
Halt ein! ich werde sonst toll, o!"[4]
[4] King Ludwig is a poet great;
When he sings, the mighty Apollo
Falls on his knees and begs and prays:
O stop! or my death will follow!