GERMANY. (LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.) 



heverel works of an early date, prove its adaptation 

 to the purposes of a written language. This dialect 

 is smooth. The vowels are full, and the consonants 

 pronounced softly. It has less accent than melody. 

 Through the greater part of Lower and Upper 

 Saxony, Hanover, and Prussia, and the Russian pro- 

 vinces of Esthonia and Courland, the dialect 

 approaches more to the forms of the written language 

 than in other places. Through Hesse, along the 

 Maine, in Central Germany and in Franconia, the 

 Franconian dialect prevails (with short vowels, sharp, 

 hissing consonants, and an easy and quick pronuncia- 

 tion.) In Suabia, a great part of Bavaria, Alsatia, and 

 the German countries of Switzerland, the Suabian or 

 Alemannic dialect prevails, with broad but soft 

 vowels and diphthongs, characterized, besides, in the 

 mountainous regions, and along the Upper Rhine, 

 by strongly aspirated gutturals. The pronunciation 

 is mostly slow. It has much melody and accent. 

 In many places, it differs but little from the language 

 of the Minnesingers, and of the Niebelungenlied ; yet 

 it is deprived of one of its former chief beauties, of 

 the participle and the simple preterite and imperfect, 

 which are now always supplied by the auxiliaries 

 seyn and haben. In the eastern part of Bavaria, in 

 the Tyrol, Austria, the German part of Bohemia, the 

 dialect is a medium between the Franconian and 

 Suabian. This dialect is distinguished by frequent 

 diminutives in /. Besides these, there are many 

 transitions and mixtures, as, for instance, the idiom 

 of the Riesengebirge in Silesia, rougher and broader ; 

 that of the Erzgebirge and of Thuringia, distinguished 

 equally by harsher and deeper sounds. The language 

 of conversation, among thecultivated classes through- 

 out Germany, and the language of public speakers, 

 is the written High German, pronounced the purest 

 in some parts of Hanover, by the Courlandish 

 nobility, and in some parts of Prussia, yet every- 

 where more or less aU'ected by provincialisms. The 

 German language in general is distinguished by its 

 richness in words, far exceeding that of any other 

 European language ; and it is capable of being contin- 

 ually developed from its own substance. As an ori- 

 ginal language, it has its accents on the radical sylla- 

 bles. Hence the additional accents in combinations 

 can be changed with ease, according to the sense. 

 The prepositions may be either connected closely with 

 the chief word, or separated in the construction, 

 which imparts to the language a great pliability of 

 construction, which is still increased by the number 

 of syllables of inflexion and derivation. It is thus 

 particularly fitted for a concise, scientific style, in 

 which it is of importance to give a series of ideas, 

 which belong together, in the same period, and in 

 logical order; though, by this very quality, the 

 German prose writers are often seduced to swell and 

 prolong their periods to a tiring and confounding 

 extent. The richness of words, and the life and 

 capacity for variations, in the language, have pre- 

 vented the origin of fixed phrases, in which the same 

 words are exclusively used for the same notions. 

 For this reason, the language of conversation is not 

 so easily to be learned, ana not to be used with so 

 great precision, as the French, for instance ; but the 

 writer retains, in a higher degree, the power of us- 

 ing the words in such a way as to show and impress 

 tiie full force of his ideas, independent of any 

 phrase or construction, as well as to produce, 

 on the other hand, the finest shades in the mean- 

 ing and strength of words, by varying their place and 

 rank in the construction. From these united causes, 

 its fitness for poetical expression, its susceptibility of 

 all kinds of rhythm and verse, and its capacity of 

 entering into the spirit of every foreign language, are 

 easily explained. The Germans have translations of 



Shakspeare and Calderon, of Ariosto and Tasso, of 

 Plato's Dialogues, of Homer and Virgil, in which the 

 spirit of the original is faithfully rendered in the 

 rhythm and metre of the original. The very plays 

 upon words are preserved, or analogous ones substi- 

 tuted. Foreigners often consider the language 

 harsh. Mela declares that Roman lips could hardly 

 pronounce it, and Nazarius asserts that the hearing 

 of it excited a shudder. It is true that the aspirated 

 consonants and rough vowels, which prevail in the 

 German mountain districts, do, indeed, strike the. 

 ear harshly ; and, in general, the accumulation of 

 the consonants seems incompatible with a soft and 

 harmonious utterance; but that this is not necessarily 

 the case is shown in the pronunciation of the High 

 German by the higher classes, and of some provincial 

 dialects, as in the Polish and other languages. The 

 long and pure vowels of the language, and their 

 capability of being lengthened and shortened, as time 

 and rhythm require, make it well adapted for music. 

 There is no dictionary which comprehends the whole 

 verbal treasure of the language, comprising, also, 

 provincialisms. Excellent foundations are laid for 

 such a work in the dictionaries of Adelnng, Campe, 

 Fulda, Kinderling, Voigtel, Stosch, Eberhard, Hein- 

 sius, &c. The best modern grammars are those oi 

 Adelung, Heynatz, Moritz, Roth, Hunerkoch, Rein- 

 beck, Heyse, Heinsius, Politz, and Grimm. German 

 prosody has been very ably treated by Voss Zeit- 

 messung der Deutschen Sprache. The following 

 G erman-English dictionaries may be recommended to 

 students : Eber's, in 5 vols., 8vo ; Kuttner anil 

 Nicholson's, also in five vols. 8vo ; Bailey and 

 Fahrenkruger's (new edition by Wagner), 2 vols. 

 8vo ; Pick's Erlangen ; Burckhard's Pocket Diction- 

 ary, I vol. ; Rabenhorst's, 1 vol. Of grammars, 

 that of Doctor Follen is superior, in practical useful- 

 ness, to those of Nohden and Rowbotham. 



German Literature and Science. It has been 

 questioned, even by Germans, whether there is a 

 German literature. If we consider national litera- 

 ture as the expression of the character of a nation, 

 contained in a series of original works, which bear a 

 common stamp of nationality, we shall not hesitate 

 to call the body of German works a national litera- 

 ture. We may, perhaps, say that it is not yet com- 

 plete ; but then we must allow that it is capable oi 

 developing itself further. We shall see in it parts of 

 a more comprehensive whole, than the spirit and 

 taste of a court or of an academy can give. If wo 

 find it deficient in finish, yet we shall see that it is 

 penetrated with a love for liberty and independence 

 of thought, an impartial zeal for the truth, and a sub- 

 ordination of art to nature. (Of German poetry, we 

 shall treat in a separate section.) The earliest writ- 

 ten monument of the German language, dates from 

 the year 360. It is the translation of the four Gos- 

 pels into the Mresogothic, by bishop Ulphilas. The 

 German language was therefore written earlier than 

 any of the living European tongues. The Franks 

 established schools in Gaul, in the sixth century, 

 which, taught, however, only reading, writing, and 

 a little bad Latin. 



I. The first period of German literature begins 

 with the reign of Charlemagne (768), who established 

 several monastic schools, formed a kind of learned 

 society at his court, collected the monuments of the 

 German language, in particular the ancient lawsane 

 songs, ordered the preaching to be in German, and 

 caused several translations to be made from the Latin. 

 His successors did not preserve the same spirit; but 

 the separation of Germany from the Prankish empire 

 was favourable to the independent development of 

 the German language and character. The greatest 

 progress was made under the Saxon emperors 'J 



