In addition to her De l'AUe-
magne, Carlyle knew also, as early as 1819, her Considerations
sur les principaux evenements de la revolution francaise, Paris
and London, 1818, 3 vols.
magne, Carlyle knew also, as early as 1819, her Considerations
sur les principaux evenements de la revolution francaise, Paris
and London, 1818, 3 vols.
Thomas Carlyle
Since these stray words
no longer seem to have any significance, I have dropped them
from the Text and have recorded them only in the present note.
187. Here again Carlyle suggests that Might is subordinate to
Right.
188. This sympathetic interpretation of medieval asceticism
and Catholic Christianity is a note that is rare in nineteenth-
century Protestant England's literature.
189. See Note 62.
190. Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752-1827), Geschichte der
Litteratur von ihrem Anfang bis auf die neuesten Zeiten, Gott-
ingen, 1805-1811, 6~"Bde. Carlyle's close translation improves
upon Eichhorn's structure and style.
By October 19, 1827, in "The State of German Literature, "
Carlyle knew something of what he called Eichhorn's frightfully
laborious work (Essays, I, 27). And his opinion seems not to
have improved on January 5, 1830, when he announced that Eich-
horn's work -- a minute chronicle-detail, a terrific farrago -- was
then lying beside him at Craigenputtock. At the same time, he
alluded to the author himself as the most unspeakably stupid man
of learning who had lived in modern centuries (Early Letters of
Jane Welsh Carlyle, pp. 162, 164). Possibly by that time, in
preparation for the writing of the present History, he had ac-
quired the set of Eichhorn's Geschichte now listed among the
books at the Carlyle House in Chelsea (Carlyle's House Catalogue,
7th ed. , Item 171, where the date of publication is given as 1805-
1810; and Item 172 lists a volume of Eichhorn's Lite rar geschichte,
1812). By April 12, 1830, in "On History, " Eichhorn still seemed
to him to lack the qualities necessary for a historian of poetry
(Essays, II, 94).
191. Jean Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (1697-1781),
Memoires sur l'ancienne chevalerie, considered comme un etab-
lissement politique et militaire, Paris, 1759-1781, 3 torn.
Carlyle's first mention of Sainte Palaye's work occurred on
December 3-4, 1826, when he noted the French writer among
others recommended in Herder's Ideen (Two Note Books, pp. 75-
76). Presumably at that time Carlyle did not know this work on
chivalry. Just when he acquired his own copy of the three-volume
(Paris, 1781) edition is uncertain (Carlyle's House Catalogue,
7th ed. , Item 151), for in the present History he does not allude
to the 1781 edition.
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? 134
EDITOR'S NOTES
192. An extra word is, which occurs in the manuscript after
even, I have dropped from the text as an obviously unintentional
repetition.
193. The notion of a modern chivalry of labor, which Carlyle
was to suggest repeatedly in his later social and economic writ-
ings (from Chartism through Latter-Day Pamphlets), included
some of what in the present History he calls the perennially
true elements in the spirit of medieval chivalry. That is, in
the new chivalry, concerted industrial labor would be unselfishly
motivated by loyalty and honor, and unselfishly directed by know-
ledge and culture, for the benefit of all. In it, co-operation
would replace competition. Indeed, several passages in the im-
mediately following pages of the present History glance pointedly
at nineteenth-century social and economic conditions. Carlyle's
notion of the new chivalry was of course not based entirely upon
ideas in medieval chivalry, but owed considerable debt to other
widely divergent modern sources of influence such as the French
socialistic Saint-Simonians, the German artistic Goethe, and the
English Tory-reviewer Southey. Carlyle's suggestions concern-
ing the new chivalry proved highly fertile in the mind of Ruskin
and were elaborated after mid-century in the social and economic
writings of that disciple.
194. Carlyle's particular statement here on the superiority of
the moral philosophy of the twelfth century over that of the eight-
eenth century (and a partly similar statement on p. 76), his
pointed insistence a few pages later that the Middle Ages -- at
least from Charlemagne's time on -- had been no Dark Age (p.
76) and the whole high estimate of medieval chivalry (pp. 69-
72) should be considered alongside of Notes 62 and 73 and his
characterization of the great importance in European culture
of the period that began with the Northern immigrations (p. 20).
195. The word Manhood (here and after the semicolon) is writ-
ten in the manuscript as a revision to replace the original word
Humanity, which is crossed out. By both words Carlyle apparent-
ly meant the highest development of human nature. Though that
concept is hardly implied in the English word Humanity, it is
implied in the German word Humanit3t as Herder had used it in
his Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte der Menschheit. That
the word had for Carlyle's mind the Herderian connotation is
suggested by a notebook entry of December 3, 1826, in which
Carlyle commented thus on Herder's Ideen: ''Humanitat fis said
by Herder to be] the great object of Nature in all her arrangements
of society . . . How true is this? At least this ought to be our
object. On the whole Herder shews much of it himself" (Two
Note Books, p. 73).
196. Though said to have been a monk of St. Gall in the eighth
century, Kero may have been a fictitious name for the author of
Interpretatio vocabulorum Barbaricorum in regulam S. Benedicti
abbatis.
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
135
197. Otfridi Euangeliorum liber: ueterum Germanorum gram-
maticae, poeseos, theologiae, praeclarum monimentum. Euan-
gelien Buch, in altfrenckischen Reimen, durch Otfriden von
Weissenburg, Mu? nch zu S. Gallen vor siebenhundert jaren be-
schritten: Jetz aber . . . in truck verfertiget. Basileae, 1571.
198. Carlyle's footnote was written on a short piece of paper,
which was then attached to the left side of manuscript p. 94.
Bibliographical data concerning the seven works mentioned in
tarlyle's footnote follow: (1) Johann Schilter (1632-1705),
Thesaurus Antiquitatum Teutonicarum, Ecclesiasticarum,
Civilium, Literarium, Ulmae, 1726-1728, 3 vols. (2) Me 1 -
chior Goldast (1578-1635), Alemannicarum rerum scriptores
aliquot . . . . Francofurti, 1606, 3 vols. (3) Johann Georg von
Eckhart (1674-1730), Gommentarii de rebus Franciae Orientalis
et Episcopatus Wirceb'urgensis, in quibus Regum et Imperatorum
. . . gesta I ~. exponuntur et figuris . . . illustrantur, Wirce-
burgiT 1729, 2 vo? lst (4) Johann Joachim Eschenburg (1743-1820),
Denkma? ler Altdeutscher Dichtkunst, Bremen, 1799. (As early
as 1827, Carlyle had merely listed this author and title in his
Two Note Books, p. 105. ) (5) Concerning Docen's Miscellaneen,
see Note 174. (6) Concerning Von der Hagen and Bu? sching's
Altdeutsche Gedichte, see Note 141. (7) F. D. Gra? ter's Bragur,
Band V, Abtheil I, is referred to in Bouterwek's Geschichte der
Poesie und Beredsamkeit, DC (1812), 99, Note N; and Band VII
of Bragur is referred to in Docen's Miscellaneen, I, 25. Bragur.
Ein litterarisches Magazin der Deutschen und Nordischen Vorzeit
was published by Bo? ckh, Hasslein, and Gra? ter at Leipzig and
Breslau, 1791-1812, in 8 volumes.
199. Friedrich Bouterwek (1766-1828), Geschichte der Poesie
und Beredsamkeit seit dem Ende des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts,
GO? ttingen, 1801-1819, 12 vols. (Vols. IX-XI deal specifically with
German literature. ) Carlyle's only departure from his source
(DC ? l812], 78-79) occurs in the second line : Bouterwek reads EUian-
licho as two words. In making the English translation of the passage,
Carlyle was aided by Bouterwek's modern Germanprose version.
Carlyle had known something of Bouterwek's work since Octo-
ber 19, 1827, by which date he had finished his "The State of
German Literature. " In the essay he classed Bouterwek with
Eichhorn as a frightfully laborious historian (Essays, I, 27).
The date at which Carlyle acquired his own set of Bouterwek --
12 volumes in 6 -- is not known (Carlyle's House Catalogue, 7th
ed. , Item 269). He made frequent use of the work in Chapter
VI of the present History. Indeed, from Carlyle's mention of
Kero (manuscript p. 94) through his quotation from the Annolied
(manuscript p. 96), nearly every item that Carlyle noticed in
any way whether in text or in footnotes -- that is, the literary
men and monuments, the reference works, and the poems quoted
-- can be found in Bouterwek's Geschichte, IX, 69-99.
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? 136
EDITOR'S NOTES
200. Bouterwek, Geschichte, IX, 77 and Note O, points out
Monumenta Boica's mistake concerning Kazungali, and attributes
the correction of the mistake to Docen, Miscellaneen, I, 24 (ac-
tually I, 24-25).
201. Bernard Joseph Docen's edition of Ludwigslied: Lied eines
fra? nkischen Dichters auf Ko? nig Ludwig III (Mu? nchen, 1813) was
the first edition in strophic arrangement. It shows several dif-
ferences from Carlyle's (and Bouterwek's) text. That is, in line
3 of the quotation, Docen reads rachon; in line 5, bora- lang[d);
in line 6, lhia; in line 7, Gode lob; in line 8, ihes; in line 9, ther
kuning; in line 10, frono; in line 11, alle saman sungun; in line
16, Spilionder; and in line 17, vaht thegano.
202. Possibly Carlyle was alluding to Johann Christoph Adelung
(1732-1806), the author of Grammatisch-kritisches Wo? rterbuch
der hoch-deutschen Mundart . . . (Leipzig] 1774-1786, 5 Th. )
And possibly here he had in mind Adelung's A? lteste Geschichte
der Deutschen, ihrer Sprache und Litteratur, Leipzig, 1806.
203. The Annolied is now believed to date from about 1130. In
this paragraph, most of the facts and all of the quoted phrases
characterizing the poem are found in Bouterwek's Geschichte,
IX, 80-88.
204. For the following quotation, Carlyle omitted his usual di-
rections to the printer to use small type (italic for the German).
205. Bouterwek's Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, DC
(1812), 85, note C, which was Carlyle's source for this quotation
from Das Annolied, shows thirteen differences from Carlyle's
22-line passage. That is, Bouterwek reads in line 1, DU? ; in line
4, sach; in line 7, vart; in line 8, unte and hizze; in line 10, unte,
irin, and terminal comma; in line 11, reginguz; in line 16, is and
terminal comma; in line 18, virgabit and terminal comma. Some
of those departures seem to have been influenced by Bouterwek's
modern German prose version.
Joseph Kehrein's edition Das Annolied. Genauer Abdruck
des Opitzischen Textes mit Anmerkungen und Worterbuch (Frank-
furt a. M. , 1865) reads in line 1, Du, sich, du; in line 2, Wort;
in line 3, Du, sigis; in line 4, sini, sach, rechte; in line 5,
Manen; in line 6, Die, ire; in line 7, Die behaltent, vart; in line
8, geberent, unte, hizze, stare, and terminal colon; in line 9,
sinin and terminal semicolon; in line 10, Dunnir, unte, irin; in
line 11 , reginguz and terminal colon; in line 12, terminal colon;
in line 13, blumin and terminal colon; in line 14, dekkit and ter-
minal colon; in line 15, havit and terminal colon; in line 16, vu? gil-
sanc and terminal period; in line 17, no terminal punctuation; in
line 18, virgab; in line 19, Ne were, die, gescephte; in line 20,
gescuph, die, and terminal colon; in line 21, Die; in line 22, leiht.
206. The interpretation found in this paragraph and the next one,
concerning the Middle Ages --namely, that the Middle Ages, at
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
137
least from the time of Charlemagne, was no dark or barbarous
age, but rather was one in which civilization, learning, culture,
and the diffusion of those values were notable -- strongly recalls
several passages in Lectures VI and VII of F. Schlegel's Vorle-
sungen liber die Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur. In
connection with this interpretation of the Middle Ages, see also
Notes 73 and 194 and the other passages suggested in those Notes.
207. 1561 seems to be an error for 1501. Bouterwek's Ge-
schichte, IX, 48-49, and note tt -- from which some but not all of
the characterization of Hroswitha was derived--gives the date
as 1501. In 1561, Conrad Meissel (Conrad Celtes), 1459-1508,
had been dead for half a century. The edition alluded to was
Opera Hrosvite illustris virginis et monialis Germane gente
Saxonica orte nuper a Conrado Celte inventa. Norimbergae, 1501.
208. The brilliant Italian woman Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-
1799) was a mathematician, linguist, and philosopher. Her prin-
cipal work--Instituzioni, Milan, 1748, 2 vols. -- was translated
into English in 1801. Her sister Maria Teresa Agnesi (1724-
1780) was a pianist and composer.
209. Unquestionably Madame de Stael's (1766-1817) De l'Alle-
magne (London, 1813, 3 torn. ; translated into English as Ger-
many, London, 1813, 3 vols. ) had a great deal of influence in
leading the young Carlyle to study modern German literature
and thought. Indeed De l'AUemagne is the first of her works
that he is known to have read, and it is the one that he most fre-
quently alluded to. Though in his old age he suggested that he
had read it around 1815, that date seems actually to be two years
too early (Norton's Letters, I, 480-81; Early Letters of Thomas
Carlyle, I, 119). Ten years later -- by October 19, 1827, in his
"State of German Literature" -- he credited her with having made
Britain aware of something deep, imposing, and wonderful in
German thought; but, he added, she did not adequately satisfy or
even properly direct the curiosity she had thus aroused (Essays,
I, 35). And shortly before he began the present History, he
called her De l'AUemagne the precursor, if not the parent, of
British acquaintance with German literature (Essays, I, 476).
Though his allusions to her during those years from 1817 to
1830 were frequent and usually illustrated his high regard for
her main work and for her great abilities, most of his allusions
to her came during the relatively short period from 1821 through
1823 (Essays, V, 96; Love Letters of Carlyle, I, 2-4, 6, 39, 57,
67, 186; Two" Note Books, pp. 29, 34; London Magazine, X, 159;
Essays, I, 5, 87, 135 footnote, 384).
In addition to her De l'AUe-
magne, Carlyle knew also, as early as 1819, her Considerations
sur les principaux evenements de la revolution francaise, Paris
and London, 1818, 3 vols. (Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I,
213; Archiv, CII, 323-24; London Magazine, IX, 58, footnote).
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? 138
EDITOR'S NOTES
By June, 1820, he knew her Memoires sur la vie privee de mon
pere [kecker), Londres, 1818 (Fortnightly, CXVI, 680, and note).
And, t>y summer, 1822, he knew her two novels Delphine, Paris,
1803 (Love Letters of Carlyle, I, 42 and note, 167, 190 and note),
and Corinne, ou l'ltalie, Paris, 1807 (Love Letters of Carlyle,
I, 54, 164).
210. Michael Ignatz Schmidt (1737-1794), Geschichte der Teut-
schen (fortgesetzt von Joseph Milbiller) . . . Nach der neuen
von dem Verfasser verbesserten und unter seinen Augen veran-
stalteten Auflage. 22 Thle. Ulm, 1785-1808. Th. 6-22, en-
titled Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen, are also divided into
17 Ba? nde, and have each two title-pages. Th. 12-22 are by
Milbiller. Th. 1 and 2 seem to have been printed first in 1778
at Vienna. Bouterwek, Geschichte, DC, 48-49, note tt, refers
to Bd. II, s. 371 ff, of Schmidt. That is only one of Bouterwek's
numerous references to the historian. Possibly Carlyle him-
self knew Schmidt's work; for, on January 27, 1830, he had
mentioned to Macvey Napier his need of it (Napier Correspond-
ence, p. 78).
211. Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer (1781-1873), Ges-
chichte der Hohenstauffen und ihrer Zeit, Leipzig, 1823-1825,
6 Bde.
212. Six of the last seven sentences before this break eventually
were used again (three with changes and three without) in the
periodical essay "German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fif-
teenth Centuries" (Foreign Quarterly Review, VIIl? l83lJ, 348),
and reprinted under the title "Early German Literature, " in
Essays, II, 275-76.
213. There is little probability that Carlyle had seen J. C.
Adelung's "Chronologisches Verzeichniss der Dichter und Ge-
dichte aus dem Swa? bischen Zeitpunkte, " in Adelung's Magazin
fur die deutsche Sprache (Leipzig, 1782-1784), Bd. II, Stuck 3,
s. 3-92~ It is referred to in Bouterwek's Geschichte, IX, 95-96,
note L (as well as DC, 103, note 0), and in Jordens' Lexikon, III,
594.
214. By "Eschenburg's Beitra? ge, " Carlyle may have meant
parts of Zur Geschichte und Litteratur. Aus den Scha? tzen dei*
Herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Wolfenbuttel, Braunschweig, 1773-
1781, 3 vols. Beitrag 5 is by J. J. Eschenburg and Lessing:
see Lessings sa? mmtliche Schriften, Leipzig, 1898, Bd. XIV.
215. Erduin Julius Koch (1764-1834), Compendium der deutschen
Literaturgeschichte bis auf d. j_. 1781, Berlin, 1790. A two-vol-
ume revised edition with changed title appeared at Berlin, 1795-
1798. Carlyle seems to have known this reference work by June
26, 1827 (Essays, I, 2). On January 5, 1830, while attempting
to gather books to aid him in this History, he stated his belief
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
139
that Koch's work was excellent in its kind; and he wished to bor-
row the second volume of it from Aitken (Early Letters of Jane
Welsh Carlyle, p. 164).
216. A second preposition in -- an obvious case of unconscious
repetition in the manuscript -- is here dropped from the text.
217. Claude Fauchet (1 530-1601), Recueil de l'origine de la lan-
gue et poesie francaise, rymes. et romans. Plus les noms et
sommaire des oeuvres de CXXVII poetes francais, vivans ayant
l'an MCCC, Paris, 1581.
218. Francois Juste Marie Raynouard (1761-1836), Choix des
poesies originates des Troubadours, Paris, 1816-1821, 6 torn.
Vol. II was also published separately under the title Des Trouba-
dours et des cours d'amour, Paris, 1817.
219. A second and enlarged edition of Johann Carl Salomo Thon's
Schloss Wartburg: Ein Beytrag zur Kunde der Vorzeit was pub-
lished at Gotha in 1795. *
220. Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristran was written about 1210.
221. At this point Carlyle wrote, and later crossed off, two
sentences -- the first a continuation from Jflrdens, the second
Carlyle's own supposition about the origin of Arthur: " 'This
event (arrival of emerald Cup in 1100], ' continues he fjordens],
'being of the highest importance for those times, set the imagina-
tions of men aworking, and especially in France, a long series
of devotional Romances founded hereon was the consequence. '
Such we suppose was the origin of Arthur. "
222. Johann Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), Minnelieder aus dem
Sw'abischen Zeitalter neu bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Lude-
wig Tieck, Berlin, 1805 (also an earlier, 1803, ed. ).
Though Carlyle seems to have paid little or no attention to
Tieck before 1825, from that date on until the writing of the pres-
ent History in 1830 he mentioned some twenty of Tieck's com-
positions and made at least thirty-five allusions to him. More
than half of those allusions occurred within the years 1825 and
1826, while Carlyle was engaged upon German Romance (Revue
Germanique, 1912, p. 41; Two Note Books, p. 66; Love Letters
of Carlyle, II, 173, 188; German Romance, I, 257-382, includ-
ing Carlyle's biographical and critical sketch of Tieck and his
translation of five tales from Tieck). At that time Carlyle was
especially appreciative of modern literary men who had emerged,
after a difficult apprenticeship, into a mastery of life. And to
him Tieck seemed an example -- one who had worked his way
spiritually from confusion and tormenting negations into a rela-
tive clarity and a calm and unwearying activity in combining
goodness and the noble aspects of Nature into images of Poetic
Beauty (German Romance, I, 258). In addition to noting that in-
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? 140
EDITOR'S NOTES
teresting spiritual-biographical development in Tieck, Carlyle
recognized then -- and later was to continue to stress -- Tieck's
true poetical vein (ibid. . I, 264-65; see also Two Note Books, pp. 73-
74, in December, 1826; Essays, I, 64-65", in 1827; Essays, I,
284, in 1828; Essays, II, 43, in 1829); Tieck's satiric gift and
his warm comic sense for the ridiculous (German Romance, I,
259-60, 265; see also Essays, I, 18, in 1827); and Tieck's sig-
nificance as a critic (German Romance, I, 260-61; see also Es-
says , I, 53, 69-70, in 1827). Late in 1826, upon reading Leben
und Tod der heiligen Genoveva -- which appeared in Tieck's Ro-
mantische Dichtungen, Jena, 1799-1800, 2 vols. -- Carlyle be-
came highly appreciative of Tieck as a poetical dramatist; said
Tieck was one of his chief favorites; and ranked Tieck next to
Goethe, now that Richter was dead (Two Note Books, pp. 73-74;
Revue Germanique, 1908, pp. 306-307; see also Essays, I, 155-
56 footnote, and 359, in 1828). Twice at the end of 1826 he quot-
ed unidentified passages from Tieck, and in one statement called
him "my friend" (Two Note Books, p. 81; Conway, p. 234). In
1828 the fact that Tieck was still alive and active seemed to Car-
lyle one of the encouraging factors concerning the status and pros-
pects of German literature (Speck, p. 4). And finally, in the
year before he used Tieck as the interpreter of courtly love po-
etry from the chivalric period in the present History, Tieck's
"Vorrede" to Novalis Schriften seems to have been one of his
chief aids in approaching the mystic Novalis (Essays, II, 8-14,
18-21, 23, 52-53; see also Essays, I, 231, and Revue Germanique,
1908, p. 301, which contains a phrase quoted by Tieck from
Novalis). Though Carlyle was eventually to own a copy of Nova-
lis Schriften (Berlin, 1826, 2 vols. ) which contained Tieck's
"Vorrede, that particular copy was presented to him by John
Sterling some years after 1830 (Sotheby Catalogue, Item 125).
223. Walther von der Vogelweide, Middle High German lyric
poet, died at WUrzburg about 1230. He is considered the great-
est Minnesinger_ of medieval Germany.
224. Robert Burns (1759-1796), "Mary Morison, " probably writ-
ten 1784, published 1800. Except in punctuation Carlyle's ver-
sion (apparently from memory) of the second stanza differs from
the standard version at only four points: Carlyle uses stented
(line 1) instead of trembling, o' (line 6) instead of of, and sigh'd
(line 7) instead of sighed; and he omits quotation marks around
the final lin*.
By the time of this History, Carlyle had studied at least
three editions of Burns's works and several biographical accounts
of him; he had alluded specifically to more than twenty of the po-
ems and some letters; and he had talked with people who had
known Burns personally. Though Carlyle's interest in Burns's po-
etry has sometimes been assigned an origin at the end of the boy's
first decade (1805: see Wilson, I, 58), I have found no authentic
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
141
evidence until eight or nine years later, in 1813-1814 (Wilson,
I, 91; see also Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I, 45-46,204,
353). That Carlyle knew Burns well, no one can doubt; but that
he considered Burns's work critically, is not evidenced until
late -- 1828. In the spring of that year, 1828, he alluded to
Burns's ability to create convincing and true peasant characters
(Two Note Books, p. 127). And his full-length treatment in the
essay "Burns" was finished in the fall of that year. That es-
say is so well known that only a few points from it need to be
mentioned here. Though primarily interested there in portray-
ing the development of Burns as a sincere and true man in the
midst of most untoward circumstances (Essays, I, 267, 269-70),
Carlyle considered him also a notably true poet-soul (I, 264-65),
an artist of finest possibilities, superior to Byron in etherial
endowment (I, 314-15). Though Burns died without fulfilling his
high promise (I, 316), he nevertheless showed the rarest ex-
cellencies in both poetry and prose (I, 267). Of all Burns's
writings, Carlyle considered "The Jolly Beggars" the most po-
etic: in it he found both natural and artistic truth, technical ex-
cellence, and Burns's universal sympathy with mankind (I, 284-
85). "The Holy Fair" he found instinct with satire and genuine
comic life (I, 274; see also I, 283, on humor). The "Ode Sacred
to the Memory of Mrs Oswald" he ranked among the best indig-
nation-verse ever written, and pronounced it worthy to have been
chanted by the Furies of Aeschylus (I, 281, a passage not in the
Edinburgh Review version of the essay: see Mims' ed. of "Burns"
[New York, 19031, p. 86). "Bruce's March to Bannockburn"
seemed to him the best war-ode ever written (I, 282). "McPher-
son's Farewell" appealed to him especially as the wild song of
man's freewill in mortal clash against material fate (I, 282). On
the whole, Burns's greatest artistic significance, Carlyle re-
peatedly stressed, was as an inspried writer of song; and since
the time of Elizabeth in England there had been no song-writer
comparable to him (I, 285, 287).
225. This paragraph is made up of two passages translated from
the "Vorrede" to Tieck's Minnelieder. In the Berlin, 1805, edi-
tion, the passages occur on pp. xix and xiv, respectively.
226. This translated passage, though assigned to Schiller, is
not otherwise identified.
227. See Milton's "L'Allegro," line 134.
228. This insistence upon studying any phase of the past in its
own connections, as part of an organic whole, is an essential
point in Carlyle's concept of historical and critical method. In-
deed, the tenets that history is a developing whole without abrupt
beginning or ending, that the interpretation of a past person or
thing or tendency must be based upon contemporary evidence,
and that the evidence must be studied exhaustively without dis-
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? 142
EDITOR'S NOTES
coloring prejudice are responsible for many of the advances in
nineteenth-century historiography. Though the present History
of German Literature remained unfinished and unpublished --
except for certain fragments -- and therefore could not itself
exert full direct influence upon the nineteenth century's his-
toriographical development, the writer of the present History
did exert a considerable influence on both methodology and in-
terpretation in several fields of historical study. Neither the
true significance nor the true extent of Carlyle's influence as a
historian has been adequately worked out. Though the various
histories of history-writing are inadequate with respect to Car-
lyle, studies on special aspects of Carlyle the historian have
been published recently by that greatest of Carlyle scholars,
the late Professor Harrold (PMLA, XLIII, and Journal of English
and Germanic Philology, XXVII, both in 1928), by Mrs. Louise
MerwinYoung (Philadelphia, 1939), by Professors Brooks and
Wellek, and by myself.
229. These two sentences from Tieck Carlyle was to use in
Foreign Quarterly Review, VIII (1831), 348 (reprinted in Es-
says , II, 276).
After the close of the passage translated from Tieck, Car-
lyle wrote the following long sentence of his own and then cross-
ed it out:
Poetry was no struggle against anything, no proof or quarrel
for anything: in fine innocence, it presupposed the belief in
what it meant to sing: hence its unsought, simple speech;
of that time, its graceful sporting and fondling, the perpetu-
al delight in Spring and its flowers and splendour, the praise
of fair women, complaints of their cruelty, or joy in re-
warded love.
230. Concerning the analogy between the stages of a nation's
cultural development and the stages of an individual's cultural
development, see Note 113.
231. In the lower half of the last page of this manuscript and
at right angles to the lines of the text, Carlyle when past seventy
wrote three brief annotations. Though they were written in ink,
the handwriting of Carlyle in his eighth decade was of course dif-
ferent from that in his fourth decade; and two small bits are not
clearly legible. In the following reading of these annotations,
the square-bracketed marginal numerals are mine (inserted for
convenience of reference), and all square brackets within the
annotations are also mine.
Jl Q This [Vol. I of this History] was written at Craigenputtock,
I think in 1829 (London people then failed, or a certain
poor "Wm Fraser Esq &&c" did, -- and thereupon the
Enterprise dropped). First Chapter still exists: --if
discoverable, shd go here+ (T. C. Augt 1866).
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
143
[2 . In. b. I don't now think there ever was any other "First
Chapter"?
no longer seem to have any significance, I have dropped them
from the Text and have recorded them only in the present note.
187. Here again Carlyle suggests that Might is subordinate to
Right.
188. This sympathetic interpretation of medieval asceticism
and Catholic Christianity is a note that is rare in nineteenth-
century Protestant England's literature.
189. See Note 62.
190. Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752-1827), Geschichte der
Litteratur von ihrem Anfang bis auf die neuesten Zeiten, Gott-
ingen, 1805-1811, 6~"Bde. Carlyle's close translation improves
upon Eichhorn's structure and style.
By October 19, 1827, in "The State of German Literature, "
Carlyle knew something of what he called Eichhorn's frightfully
laborious work (Essays, I, 27). And his opinion seems not to
have improved on January 5, 1830, when he announced that Eich-
horn's work -- a minute chronicle-detail, a terrific farrago -- was
then lying beside him at Craigenputtock. At the same time, he
alluded to the author himself as the most unspeakably stupid man
of learning who had lived in modern centuries (Early Letters of
Jane Welsh Carlyle, pp. 162, 164). Possibly by that time, in
preparation for the writing of the present History, he had ac-
quired the set of Eichhorn's Geschichte now listed among the
books at the Carlyle House in Chelsea (Carlyle's House Catalogue,
7th ed. , Item 171, where the date of publication is given as 1805-
1810; and Item 172 lists a volume of Eichhorn's Lite rar geschichte,
1812). By April 12, 1830, in "On History, " Eichhorn still seemed
to him to lack the qualities necessary for a historian of poetry
(Essays, II, 94).
191. Jean Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (1697-1781),
Memoires sur l'ancienne chevalerie, considered comme un etab-
lissement politique et militaire, Paris, 1759-1781, 3 torn.
Carlyle's first mention of Sainte Palaye's work occurred on
December 3-4, 1826, when he noted the French writer among
others recommended in Herder's Ideen (Two Note Books, pp. 75-
76). Presumably at that time Carlyle did not know this work on
chivalry. Just when he acquired his own copy of the three-volume
(Paris, 1781) edition is uncertain (Carlyle's House Catalogue,
7th ed. , Item 151), for in the present History he does not allude
to the 1781 edition.
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? 134
EDITOR'S NOTES
192. An extra word is, which occurs in the manuscript after
even, I have dropped from the text as an obviously unintentional
repetition.
193. The notion of a modern chivalry of labor, which Carlyle
was to suggest repeatedly in his later social and economic writ-
ings (from Chartism through Latter-Day Pamphlets), included
some of what in the present History he calls the perennially
true elements in the spirit of medieval chivalry. That is, in
the new chivalry, concerted industrial labor would be unselfishly
motivated by loyalty and honor, and unselfishly directed by know-
ledge and culture, for the benefit of all. In it, co-operation
would replace competition. Indeed, several passages in the im-
mediately following pages of the present History glance pointedly
at nineteenth-century social and economic conditions. Carlyle's
notion of the new chivalry was of course not based entirely upon
ideas in medieval chivalry, but owed considerable debt to other
widely divergent modern sources of influence such as the French
socialistic Saint-Simonians, the German artistic Goethe, and the
English Tory-reviewer Southey. Carlyle's suggestions concern-
ing the new chivalry proved highly fertile in the mind of Ruskin
and were elaborated after mid-century in the social and economic
writings of that disciple.
194. Carlyle's particular statement here on the superiority of
the moral philosophy of the twelfth century over that of the eight-
eenth century (and a partly similar statement on p. 76), his
pointed insistence a few pages later that the Middle Ages -- at
least from Charlemagne's time on -- had been no Dark Age (p.
76) and the whole high estimate of medieval chivalry (pp. 69-
72) should be considered alongside of Notes 62 and 73 and his
characterization of the great importance in European culture
of the period that began with the Northern immigrations (p. 20).
195. The word Manhood (here and after the semicolon) is writ-
ten in the manuscript as a revision to replace the original word
Humanity, which is crossed out. By both words Carlyle apparent-
ly meant the highest development of human nature. Though that
concept is hardly implied in the English word Humanity, it is
implied in the German word Humanit3t as Herder had used it in
his Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte der Menschheit. That
the word had for Carlyle's mind the Herderian connotation is
suggested by a notebook entry of December 3, 1826, in which
Carlyle commented thus on Herder's Ideen: ''Humanitat fis said
by Herder to be] the great object of Nature in all her arrangements
of society . . . How true is this? At least this ought to be our
object. On the whole Herder shews much of it himself" (Two
Note Books, p. 73).
196. Though said to have been a monk of St. Gall in the eighth
century, Kero may have been a fictitious name for the author of
Interpretatio vocabulorum Barbaricorum in regulam S. Benedicti
abbatis.
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
135
197. Otfridi Euangeliorum liber: ueterum Germanorum gram-
maticae, poeseos, theologiae, praeclarum monimentum. Euan-
gelien Buch, in altfrenckischen Reimen, durch Otfriden von
Weissenburg, Mu? nch zu S. Gallen vor siebenhundert jaren be-
schritten: Jetz aber . . . in truck verfertiget. Basileae, 1571.
198. Carlyle's footnote was written on a short piece of paper,
which was then attached to the left side of manuscript p. 94.
Bibliographical data concerning the seven works mentioned in
tarlyle's footnote follow: (1) Johann Schilter (1632-1705),
Thesaurus Antiquitatum Teutonicarum, Ecclesiasticarum,
Civilium, Literarium, Ulmae, 1726-1728, 3 vols. (2) Me 1 -
chior Goldast (1578-1635), Alemannicarum rerum scriptores
aliquot . . . . Francofurti, 1606, 3 vols. (3) Johann Georg von
Eckhart (1674-1730), Gommentarii de rebus Franciae Orientalis
et Episcopatus Wirceb'urgensis, in quibus Regum et Imperatorum
. . . gesta I ~. exponuntur et figuris . . . illustrantur, Wirce-
burgiT 1729, 2 vo? lst (4) Johann Joachim Eschenburg (1743-1820),
Denkma? ler Altdeutscher Dichtkunst, Bremen, 1799. (As early
as 1827, Carlyle had merely listed this author and title in his
Two Note Books, p. 105. ) (5) Concerning Docen's Miscellaneen,
see Note 174. (6) Concerning Von der Hagen and Bu? sching's
Altdeutsche Gedichte, see Note 141. (7) F. D. Gra? ter's Bragur,
Band V, Abtheil I, is referred to in Bouterwek's Geschichte der
Poesie und Beredsamkeit, DC (1812), 99, Note N; and Band VII
of Bragur is referred to in Docen's Miscellaneen, I, 25. Bragur.
Ein litterarisches Magazin der Deutschen und Nordischen Vorzeit
was published by Bo? ckh, Hasslein, and Gra? ter at Leipzig and
Breslau, 1791-1812, in 8 volumes.
199. Friedrich Bouterwek (1766-1828), Geschichte der Poesie
und Beredsamkeit seit dem Ende des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts,
GO? ttingen, 1801-1819, 12 vols. (Vols. IX-XI deal specifically with
German literature. ) Carlyle's only departure from his source
(DC ? l812], 78-79) occurs in the second line : Bouterwek reads EUian-
licho as two words. In making the English translation of the passage,
Carlyle was aided by Bouterwek's modern Germanprose version.
Carlyle had known something of Bouterwek's work since Octo-
ber 19, 1827, by which date he had finished his "The State of
German Literature. " In the essay he classed Bouterwek with
Eichhorn as a frightfully laborious historian (Essays, I, 27).
The date at which Carlyle acquired his own set of Bouterwek --
12 volumes in 6 -- is not known (Carlyle's House Catalogue, 7th
ed. , Item 269). He made frequent use of the work in Chapter
VI of the present History. Indeed, from Carlyle's mention of
Kero (manuscript p. 94) through his quotation from the Annolied
(manuscript p. 96), nearly every item that Carlyle noticed in
any way whether in text or in footnotes -- that is, the literary
men and monuments, the reference works, and the poems quoted
-- can be found in Bouterwek's Geschichte, IX, 69-99.
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? 136
EDITOR'S NOTES
200. Bouterwek, Geschichte, IX, 77 and Note O, points out
Monumenta Boica's mistake concerning Kazungali, and attributes
the correction of the mistake to Docen, Miscellaneen, I, 24 (ac-
tually I, 24-25).
201. Bernard Joseph Docen's edition of Ludwigslied: Lied eines
fra? nkischen Dichters auf Ko? nig Ludwig III (Mu? nchen, 1813) was
the first edition in strophic arrangement. It shows several dif-
ferences from Carlyle's (and Bouterwek's) text. That is, in line
3 of the quotation, Docen reads rachon; in line 5, bora- lang[d);
in line 6, lhia; in line 7, Gode lob; in line 8, ihes; in line 9, ther
kuning; in line 10, frono; in line 11, alle saman sungun; in line
16, Spilionder; and in line 17, vaht thegano.
202. Possibly Carlyle was alluding to Johann Christoph Adelung
(1732-1806), the author of Grammatisch-kritisches Wo? rterbuch
der hoch-deutschen Mundart . . . (Leipzig] 1774-1786, 5 Th. )
And possibly here he had in mind Adelung's A? lteste Geschichte
der Deutschen, ihrer Sprache und Litteratur, Leipzig, 1806.
203. The Annolied is now believed to date from about 1130. In
this paragraph, most of the facts and all of the quoted phrases
characterizing the poem are found in Bouterwek's Geschichte,
IX, 80-88.
204. For the following quotation, Carlyle omitted his usual di-
rections to the printer to use small type (italic for the German).
205. Bouterwek's Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, DC
(1812), 85, note C, which was Carlyle's source for this quotation
from Das Annolied, shows thirteen differences from Carlyle's
22-line passage. That is, Bouterwek reads in line 1, DU? ; in line
4, sach; in line 7, vart; in line 8, unte and hizze; in line 10, unte,
irin, and terminal comma; in line 11, reginguz; in line 16, is and
terminal comma; in line 18, virgabit and terminal comma. Some
of those departures seem to have been influenced by Bouterwek's
modern German prose version.
Joseph Kehrein's edition Das Annolied. Genauer Abdruck
des Opitzischen Textes mit Anmerkungen und Worterbuch (Frank-
furt a. M. , 1865) reads in line 1, Du, sich, du; in line 2, Wort;
in line 3, Du, sigis; in line 4, sini, sach, rechte; in line 5,
Manen; in line 6, Die, ire; in line 7, Die behaltent, vart; in line
8, geberent, unte, hizze, stare, and terminal colon; in line 9,
sinin and terminal semicolon; in line 10, Dunnir, unte, irin; in
line 11 , reginguz and terminal colon; in line 12, terminal colon;
in line 13, blumin and terminal colon; in line 14, dekkit and ter-
minal colon; in line 15, havit and terminal colon; in line 16, vu? gil-
sanc and terminal period; in line 17, no terminal punctuation; in
line 18, virgab; in line 19, Ne were, die, gescephte; in line 20,
gescuph, die, and terminal colon; in line 21, Die; in line 22, leiht.
206. The interpretation found in this paragraph and the next one,
concerning the Middle Ages --namely, that the Middle Ages, at
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
137
least from the time of Charlemagne, was no dark or barbarous
age, but rather was one in which civilization, learning, culture,
and the diffusion of those values were notable -- strongly recalls
several passages in Lectures VI and VII of F. Schlegel's Vorle-
sungen liber die Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur. In
connection with this interpretation of the Middle Ages, see also
Notes 73 and 194 and the other passages suggested in those Notes.
207. 1561 seems to be an error for 1501. Bouterwek's Ge-
schichte, IX, 48-49, and note tt -- from which some but not all of
the characterization of Hroswitha was derived--gives the date
as 1501. In 1561, Conrad Meissel (Conrad Celtes), 1459-1508,
had been dead for half a century. The edition alluded to was
Opera Hrosvite illustris virginis et monialis Germane gente
Saxonica orte nuper a Conrado Celte inventa. Norimbergae, 1501.
208. The brilliant Italian woman Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-
1799) was a mathematician, linguist, and philosopher. Her prin-
cipal work--Instituzioni, Milan, 1748, 2 vols. -- was translated
into English in 1801. Her sister Maria Teresa Agnesi (1724-
1780) was a pianist and composer.
209. Unquestionably Madame de Stael's (1766-1817) De l'Alle-
magne (London, 1813, 3 torn. ; translated into English as Ger-
many, London, 1813, 3 vols. ) had a great deal of influence in
leading the young Carlyle to study modern German literature
and thought. Indeed De l'AUemagne is the first of her works
that he is known to have read, and it is the one that he most fre-
quently alluded to. Though in his old age he suggested that he
had read it around 1815, that date seems actually to be two years
too early (Norton's Letters, I, 480-81; Early Letters of Thomas
Carlyle, I, 119). Ten years later -- by October 19, 1827, in his
"State of German Literature" -- he credited her with having made
Britain aware of something deep, imposing, and wonderful in
German thought; but, he added, she did not adequately satisfy or
even properly direct the curiosity she had thus aroused (Essays,
I, 35). And shortly before he began the present History, he
called her De l'AUemagne the precursor, if not the parent, of
British acquaintance with German literature (Essays, I, 476).
Though his allusions to her during those years from 1817 to
1830 were frequent and usually illustrated his high regard for
her main work and for her great abilities, most of his allusions
to her came during the relatively short period from 1821 through
1823 (Essays, V, 96; Love Letters of Carlyle, I, 2-4, 6, 39, 57,
67, 186; Two" Note Books, pp. 29, 34; London Magazine, X, 159;
Essays, I, 5, 87, 135 footnote, 384).
In addition to her De l'AUe-
magne, Carlyle knew also, as early as 1819, her Considerations
sur les principaux evenements de la revolution francaise, Paris
and London, 1818, 3 vols. (Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I,
213; Archiv, CII, 323-24; London Magazine, IX, 58, footnote).
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? 138
EDITOR'S NOTES
By June, 1820, he knew her Memoires sur la vie privee de mon
pere [kecker), Londres, 1818 (Fortnightly, CXVI, 680, and note).
And, t>y summer, 1822, he knew her two novels Delphine, Paris,
1803 (Love Letters of Carlyle, I, 42 and note, 167, 190 and note),
and Corinne, ou l'ltalie, Paris, 1807 (Love Letters of Carlyle,
I, 54, 164).
210. Michael Ignatz Schmidt (1737-1794), Geschichte der Teut-
schen (fortgesetzt von Joseph Milbiller) . . . Nach der neuen
von dem Verfasser verbesserten und unter seinen Augen veran-
stalteten Auflage. 22 Thle. Ulm, 1785-1808. Th. 6-22, en-
titled Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen, are also divided into
17 Ba? nde, and have each two title-pages. Th. 12-22 are by
Milbiller. Th. 1 and 2 seem to have been printed first in 1778
at Vienna. Bouterwek, Geschichte, DC, 48-49, note tt, refers
to Bd. II, s. 371 ff, of Schmidt. That is only one of Bouterwek's
numerous references to the historian. Possibly Carlyle him-
self knew Schmidt's work; for, on January 27, 1830, he had
mentioned to Macvey Napier his need of it (Napier Correspond-
ence, p. 78).
211. Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer (1781-1873), Ges-
chichte der Hohenstauffen und ihrer Zeit, Leipzig, 1823-1825,
6 Bde.
212. Six of the last seven sentences before this break eventually
were used again (three with changes and three without) in the
periodical essay "German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fif-
teenth Centuries" (Foreign Quarterly Review, VIIl? l83lJ, 348),
and reprinted under the title "Early German Literature, " in
Essays, II, 275-76.
213. There is little probability that Carlyle had seen J. C.
Adelung's "Chronologisches Verzeichniss der Dichter und Ge-
dichte aus dem Swa? bischen Zeitpunkte, " in Adelung's Magazin
fur die deutsche Sprache (Leipzig, 1782-1784), Bd. II, Stuck 3,
s. 3-92~ It is referred to in Bouterwek's Geschichte, IX, 95-96,
note L (as well as DC, 103, note 0), and in Jordens' Lexikon, III,
594.
214. By "Eschenburg's Beitra? ge, " Carlyle may have meant
parts of Zur Geschichte und Litteratur. Aus den Scha? tzen dei*
Herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Wolfenbuttel, Braunschweig, 1773-
1781, 3 vols. Beitrag 5 is by J. J. Eschenburg and Lessing:
see Lessings sa? mmtliche Schriften, Leipzig, 1898, Bd. XIV.
215. Erduin Julius Koch (1764-1834), Compendium der deutschen
Literaturgeschichte bis auf d. j_. 1781, Berlin, 1790. A two-vol-
ume revised edition with changed title appeared at Berlin, 1795-
1798. Carlyle seems to have known this reference work by June
26, 1827 (Essays, I, 2). On January 5, 1830, while attempting
to gather books to aid him in this History, he stated his belief
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
139
that Koch's work was excellent in its kind; and he wished to bor-
row the second volume of it from Aitken (Early Letters of Jane
Welsh Carlyle, p. 164).
216. A second preposition in -- an obvious case of unconscious
repetition in the manuscript -- is here dropped from the text.
217. Claude Fauchet (1 530-1601), Recueil de l'origine de la lan-
gue et poesie francaise, rymes. et romans. Plus les noms et
sommaire des oeuvres de CXXVII poetes francais, vivans ayant
l'an MCCC, Paris, 1581.
218. Francois Juste Marie Raynouard (1761-1836), Choix des
poesies originates des Troubadours, Paris, 1816-1821, 6 torn.
Vol. II was also published separately under the title Des Trouba-
dours et des cours d'amour, Paris, 1817.
219. A second and enlarged edition of Johann Carl Salomo Thon's
Schloss Wartburg: Ein Beytrag zur Kunde der Vorzeit was pub-
lished at Gotha in 1795. *
220. Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristran was written about 1210.
221. At this point Carlyle wrote, and later crossed off, two
sentences -- the first a continuation from Jflrdens, the second
Carlyle's own supposition about the origin of Arthur: " 'This
event (arrival of emerald Cup in 1100], ' continues he fjordens],
'being of the highest importance for those times, set the imagina-
tions of men aworking, and especially in France, a long series
of devotional Romances founded hereon was the consequence. '
Such we suppose was the origin of Arthur. "
222. Johann Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), Minnelieder aus dem
Sw'abischen Zeitalter neu bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Lude-
wig Tieck, Berlin, 1805 (also an earlier, 1803, ed. ).
Though Carlyle seems to have paid little or no attention to
Tieck before 1825, from that date on until the writing of the pres-
ent History in 1830 he mentioned some twenty of Tieck's com-
positions and made at least thirty-five allusions to him. More
than half of those allusions occurred within the years 1825 and
1826, while Carlyle was engaged upon German Romance (Revue
Germanique, 1912, p. 41; Two Note Books, p. 66; Love Letters
of Carlyle, II, 173, 188; German Romance, I, 257-382, includ-
ing Carlyle's biographical and critical sketch of Tieck and his
translation of five tales from Tieck). At that time Carlyle was
especially appreciative of modern literary men who had emerged,
after a difficult apprenticeship, into a mastery of life. And to
him Tieck seemed an example -- one who had worked his way
spiritually from confusion and tormenting negations into a rela-
tive clarity and a calm and unwearying activity in combining
goodness and the noble aspects of Nature into images of Poetic
Beauty (German Romance, I, 258). In addition to noting that in-
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? 140
EDITOR'S NOTES
teresting spiritual-biographical development in Tieck, Carlyle
recognized then -- and later was to continue to stress -- Tieck's
true poetical vein (ibid. . I, 264-65; see also Two Note Books, pp. 73-
74, in December, 1826; Essays, I, 64-65", in 1827; Essays, I,
284, in 1828; Essays, II, 43, in 1829); Tieck's satiric gift and
his warm comic sense for the ridiculous (German Romance, I,
259-60, 265; see also Essays, I, 18, in 1827); and Tieck's sig-
nificance as a critic (German Romance, I, 260-61; see also Es-
says , I, 53, 69-70, in 1827). Late in 1826, upon reading Leben
und Tod der heiligen Genoveva -- which appeared in Tieck's Ro-
mantische Dichtungen, Jena, 1799-1800, 2 vols. -- Carlyle be-
came highly appreciative of Tieck as a poetical dramatist; said
Tieck was one of his chief favorites; and ranked Tieck next to
Goethe, now that Richter was dead (Two Note Books, pp. 73-74;
Revue Germanique, 1908, pp. 306-307; see also Essays, I, 155-
56 footnote, and 359, in 1828). Twice at the end of 1826 he quot-
ed unidentified passages from Tieck, and in one statement called
him "my friend" (Two Note Books, p. 81; Conway, p. 234). In
1828 the fact that Tieck was still alive and active seemed to Car-
lyle one of the encouraging factors concerning the status and pros-
pects of German literature (Speck, p. 4). And finally, in the
year before he used Tieck as the interpreter of courtly love po-
etry from the chivalric period in the present History, Tieck's
"Vorrede" to Novalis Schriften seems to have been one of his
chief aids in approaching the mystic Novalis (Essays, II, 8-14,
18-21, 23, 52-53; see also Essays, I, 231, and Revue Germanique,
1908, p. 301, which contains a phrase quoted by Tieck from
Novalis). Though Carlyle was eventually to own a copy of Nova-
lis Schriften (Berlin, 1826, 2 vols. ) which contained Tieck's
"Vorrede, that particular copy was presented to him by John
Sterling some years after 1830 (Sotheby Catalogue, Item 125).
223. Walther von der Vogelweide, Middle High German lyric
poet, died at WUrzburg about 1230. He is considered the great-
est Minnesinger_ of medieval Germany.
224. Robert Burns (1759-1796), "Mary Morison, " probably writ-
ten 1784, published 1800. Except in punctuation Carlyle's ver-
sion (apparently from memory) of the second stanza differs from
the standard version at only four points: Carlyle uses stented
(line 1) instead of trembling, o' (line 6) instead of of, and sigh'd
(line 7) instead of sighed; and he omits quotation marks around
the final lin*.
By the time of this History, Carlyle had studied at least
three editions of Burns's works and several biographical accounts
of him; he had alluded specifically to more than twenty of the po-
ems and some letters; and he had talked with people who had
known Burns personally. Though Carlyle's interest in Burns's po-
etry has sometimes been assigned an origin at the end of the boy's
first decade (1805: see Wilson, I, 58), I have found no authentic
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
141
evidence until eight or nine years later, in 1813-1814 (Wilson,
I, 91; see also Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I, 45-46,204,
353). That Carlyle knew Burns well, no one can doubt; but that
he considered Burns's work critically, is not evidenced until
late -- 1828. In the spring of that year, 1828, he alluded to
Burns's ability to create convincing and true peasant characters
(Two Note Books, p. 127). And his full-length treatment in the
essay "Burns" was finished in the fall of that year. That es-
say is so well known that only a few points from it need to be
mentioned here. Though primarily interested there in portray-
ing the development of Burns as a sincere and true man in the
midst of most untoward circumstances (Essays, I, 267, 269-70),
Carlyle considered him also a notably true poet-soul (I, 264-65),
an artist of finest possibilities, superior to Byron in etherial
endowment (I, 314-15). Though Burns died without fulfilling his
high promise (I, 316), he nevertheless showed the rarest ex-
cellencies in both poetry and prose (I, 267). Of all Burns's
writings, Carlyle considered "The Jolly Beggars" the most po-
etic: in it he found both natural and artistic truth, technical ex-
cellence, and Burns's universal sympathy with mankind (I, 284-
85). "The Holy Fair" he found instinct with satire and genuine
comic life (I, 274; see also I, 283, on humor). The "Ode Sacred
to the Memory of Mrs Oswald" he ranked among the best indig-
nation-verse ever written, and pronounced it worthy to have been
chanted by the Furies of Aeschylus (I, 281, a passage not in the
Edinburgh Review version of the essay: see Mims' ed. of "Burns"
[New York, 19031, p. 86). "Bruce's March to Bannockburn"
seemed to him the best war-ode ever written (I, 282). "McPher-
son's Farewell" appealed to him especially as the wild song of
man's freewill in mortal clash against material fate (I, 282). On
the whole, Burns's greatest artistic significance, Carlyle re-
peatedly stressed, was as an inspried writer of song; and since
the time of Elizabeth in England there had been no song-writer
comparable to him (I, 285, 287).
225. This paragraph is made up of two passages translated from
the "Vorrede" to Tieck's Minnelieder. In the Berlin, 1805, edi-
tion, the passages occur on pp. xix and xiv, respectively.
226. This translated passage, though assigned to Schiller, is
not otherwise identified.
227. See Milton's "L'Allegro," line 134.
228. This insistence upon studying any phase of the past in its
own connections, as part of an organic whole, is an essential
point in Carlyle's concept of historical and critical method. In-
deed, the tenets that history is a developing whole without abrupt
beginning or ending, that the interpretation of a past person or
thing or tendency must be based upon contemporary evidence,
and that the evidence must be studied exhaustively without dis-
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? 142
EDITOR'S NOTES
coloring prejudice are responsible for many of the advances in
nineteenth-century historiography. Though the present History
of German Literature remained unfinished and unpublished --
except for certain fragments -- and therefore could not itself
exert full direct influence upon the nineteenth century's his-
toriographical development, the writer of the present History
did exert a considerable influence on both methodology and in-
terpretation in several fields of historical study. Neither the
true significance nor the true extent of Carlyle's influence as a
historian has been adequately worked out. Though the various
histories of history-writing are inadequate with respect to Car-
lyle, studies on special aspects of Carlyle the historian have
been published recently by that greatest of Carlyle scholars,
the late Professor Harrold (PMLA, XLIII, and Journal of English
and Germanic Philology, XXVII, both in 1928), by Mrs. Louise
MerwinYoung (Philadelphia, 1939), by Professors Brooks and
Wellek, and by myself.
229. These two sentences from Tieck Carlyle was to use in
Foreign Quarterly Review, VIII (1831), 348 (reprinted in Es-
says , II, 276).
After the close of the passage translated from Tieck, Car-
lyle wrote the following long sentence of his own and then cross-
ed it out:
Poetry was no struggle against anything, no proof or quarrel
for anything: in fine innocence, it presupposed the belief in
what it meant to sing: hence its unsought, simple speech;
of that time, its graceful sporting and fondling, the perpetu-
al delight in Spring and its flowers and splendour, the praise
of fair women, complaints of their cruelty, or joy in re-
warded love.
230. Concerning the analogy between the stages of a nation's
cultural development and the stages of an individual's cultural
development, see Note 113.
231. In the lower half of the last page of this manuscript and
at right angles to the lines of the text, Carlyle when past seventy
wrote three brief annotations. Though they were written in ink,
the handwriting of Carlyle in his eighth decade was of course dif-
ferent from that in his fourth decade; and two small bits are not
clearly legible. In the following reading of these annotations,
the square-bracketed marginal numerals are mine (inserted for
convenience of reference), and all square brackets within the
annotations are also mine.
Jl Q This [Vol. I of this History] was written at Craigenputtock,
I think in 1829 (London people then failed, or a certain
poor "Wm Fraser Esq &&c" did, -- and thereupon the
Enterprise dropped). First Chapter still exists: --if
discoverable, shd go here+ (T. C. Augt 1866).
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
143
[2 . In. b. I don't now think there ever was any other "First
Chapter"?
