"Yes, another era is already dawning upon earth, when it shall be light, when man shall wake from high and lofty dreams; and these dreams he shall find realised, and that he has lost nothing but sleep.
"The rocks and stones which two veiled figures, Sin and Destiny, like Deucalion and Pyrrha, fling behind them at their true prophet, shall rise and be new men.
"And at the sunset gate of this age stands written, 'Here lies the way to wisdom and to virtue;' as at the west gate of the Chersonese the proud writing, 'Here lies the way to Byzantium.'
"O eternal Providence, thou wilt that it shall be light!"
Whether this prophecy be fulfilled or fulfilling, and whether Germany has yet done any thing to the accomplishment of it, is for time to shew. So much is clear, that not here in England only, but all Europe over, there is a move forward—a cry of hunger and thirst for something deeper and truer; and to this move no living man has more contributed than Ludwig Tieck. He is the last, the only survivor of the noble band of German poets; and Europe has not a man of whom she is more justly proud.
The morning of his life broke in storm and tempest. Like some infant river just starting from its snowy cradle in its native mountains, foaming and dashing down its narrow bed, bounding from rock to rock, and powdering the air with vapour, which catches the sun's rays as it rises, and shivers them into a thousand brilliant hues,—his strong mind broke fiercely and impetuously from the clouds of error, and unbelief, and freezing scepticism, in which it was nurtured; at first, with loud questionings of fate, troubled and dark, yet, with all its fallings, flinging round itself in the wildest profusion rays and flashes of exquisite beauty. It rolls on down from its mountains; it has swept now over every rock and shoal, and flows on calm, serene, and deep, and clear through smiling fields, and woods, and villages, and happy men and women, bearing on its broad bosom all who trust themselves on it for profit or enjoyment, from the tiny pleasure-boat of the young lover to the tall ship sweeping proudly forward, laden with the choicest fruits and produce of every clime. As the heavens draw up the water from the ocean, and, lading their clouds with it, bear it off into the centre of huge continents, and with it start new fountains into life, which again, winding as veins through all lands, and scattering blessings as they go, flow back at last into their parent sea,—so in all ages pure wisdom, entering into lofty spirits, sends them down through their generation, scoring out deep channels on it as they pass: the stream of life and light makes its way again to the source from which it came; but with this mortal life it ceases not to flow: its recipients become the veins of the world, and while the world lasts they endure—as the channels of truth where men drink and live. And one of them is Tieck.
J. A. F.
