before I made his acquaintance, when I was a student at Berlin. The
Duchess of Anhalt-Dessau, my own peculiar duchess, had in her youth been
much admired by the Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Frederick
William IV. She was herself a Prussian princess, a daughter of Prince
Frederick Ludwig Karl of Prussia, who died 1796, and of a Princess of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who after the death of her husband married the
Duke of Cumberland, and became Queen of Hanover. This princess, a lady
of great natural gifts, highly cultivated and well read, was personally
acquainted with some of the most distinguished men in Germany. Even in
the narrow sphere in which she had learnt to move and act in Dessau, she
did much good in trying to discover young men of talent, and assisting
them in their studies. She had always been very gracious to me, and even
as a boy I was often invited to play with her _à quatre mains_ at the
Castle. I saw her for the last time after I had begun my Oriental
studies at Leipzig, and before I went to Berlin. She told me then that
she herself had known a little Sanskrit, that she and the young Crown
Prince of Prussia had learnt the Sanskrit alphabet, and had corresponded
in it, to the great annoyance of people who opened or read all letters
that were not meant for them. “When you go to Berlin,” she said, “you
must see Rückert, but do not be frightened. I was myself most anxious to
see him. The King invited him to dinner, together with a number of his
illustrious ménagerie. I asked the King where Rückert was sitting, the
poet of ‘Frauenliebe’ and ‘Liebesfrühling.’ ‘Look there,’ the King said.
‘That broad-shouldered boor with his elbows on the table, eating a hunk
of bread, that is your poet!’ And a _désillusionnement_ it was,” she
said. “Still, I was proud to have seen him and to have talked to him.”
So I was prepared.
Frederick William IV. had tried hard to attract a number of the most
eminent men in Germany to Berlin. Berlin by itself is not attractive,
and it seemed as if the men who were then best known in Germany had
chosen the South, rather than the North, for their residence. The
Brothers Grimm Schelling, Cornelius and many more were tempted to Berlin
by large salaries, and among them was Rückert also, not so much the
Oriental scholar as the poet. He went to Berlin, after long hesitation
and misgivings, and announced lectures on Arabic, Persian, and other
Oriental languages. But he could not brook the restraints of official
life. He had a little _Landgut_, Neusess, near Coburg, and thither he
felt so strongly drawn during the summer that he soon appealed to the
Minister of Public Instruction for leave of absence during each summer.
This was most graciously granted by the King, but soon after followed a
petition for leave of absence during a particularly severe winter. This
too was granted, though the Minister ventured to say: “But, my dear
Professor, if you are always absent during the summer semester, and now
ask for leave of absence during the winter semester also, when do you
mean to lecture?” Nor was this all. When I called on the Professor to
enter my name for his lectures on the “Gulistan,” a Persian poem, he
received me very coldly. He was indeed the broad-shouldered giant whom
the Duchess had described to me. He wore a long dressing-gown, and his
hair, parted in the middle, was hanging wildly about his temples.
“Why do you want to learn Persian?” he said. I humbly explained my
reason. “It is no use your learning Persian,” he continued, “if you do
not know Arabic.” To this I was able to reply that I had studied Arabic
for a year under Professor Fleischer at Leipzig. However, the Professor
was not to be foiled. He wanted to get away to Neusess, but at the same
time to be able to satisfy the Minister that he had done his duty in
offering to lecture. “You know,” he said, “_tres faciunt collegium_. I
cannot lecture for one.” This was unanswerable, according to German
academical etiquette. So I bowed, and went into the highways and hedges
to secure the help of two _commilitones_. Accompanied by them, I invaded
the Professor once more in his den. All three of us told him that we
were most anxious to learn Persian.
One of them actually did wish to learn Persian, and became afterwards a
very distinguished scholar. He was then called Paul Bötticher, but he is
best known by his later name, Paul de Lagarde, a man of extraordinary
power of work and an enormous accumulation of knowledge. When Rückert
saw there was no escape, he yielded, at first not with a very good
grace; but he soon became most delightful. We were really working
together, and when he found out that I was the son of his old friend
Wilhelm Müller, nothing could exceed his kindness to me. At first he
often confessed to his pupils that he had forgotten his Persian, but
with every week it seemed to come back to him. Nothing more was said
about Neusess, and the fields and meadows and woods that he had to
desert for our sakes. Whatever may have been said about Rückert as a
professor, he was more useful in his informal teaching than many learned
professors who year after year read their lectures to large admiring
audiences.
“I cannot teach you Persian,” he used to say, “I can only tell you and
show you how to learn it. I learnt everything I know by myself, and so
can you. We will work together, but that is all I can do.” It was
astounding to see how this giant had worked, all by himself. No one at
that time thought, for instance, of studying Tamil. He showed me a copy
of a complete Tamil, or was it Telugu, dictionary in folio, which he had
copied and largely added to. He had studied Chinese too. He was far
advanced in Sanskrit and Zend, and in Arabic and Persian he had probably
read more, though in his own way, than many a learned professor. Such an
honest student as Rückert was could do more good to his pupils in one
hour than others by a whole semester of lecturing. And this is the
secret of the success of German professors. They take their pupils into
their work-shops, they do not keep them standing and gaping at the
show-window. Thus the immense advantage which English Universities enjoy
in being able to combine professorial with tutorial teaching, is made up
for to a certain extent by the devotion of the German professors, who
give up their time in their seminaries and so-called societies for the
benefit of students who want to learn how to work, and do not wish to be
simply crammed for examinations. They make friends of their pupils,
their pupils are proud to do much of the drudgery work for them, while
they remain for life their grateful pupils and afterwards their loyal
colleagues. After term was over, there was, of course, no holding
Rückert in Berlin, but he invited me to see him at Neusess, which a few
years afterwards I did.
There I found the old man working in his farmyard like a real peasant,
pitchforking manure into his cart, and carting it off to the fields. He
was delighted to see me, and when he had washed his hands he came into
his study to shake hands, and to talk about the work on which I was then
engaged. Rückert was a scholar with whom one could discuss any question
quite freely. Even if one had to differ from him, he was never offended
by contradiction. When we could not agree he used to say: “We will leave
this for the present, and discuss it another time.” He told me, among
other things, how my father had saved his life.
The two young men were travelling together on foot in Italy. Italy was
at that time, in the beginning of the century, the cynosure of every
German student, and of every German poet. Goethe had described it, and
they all wanted to follow in Goethe’s footsteps, and pass their
“Wanderjahre” in the “Land wo die Citronen blühn!” How they did it with
a few thalers in their pockets we can hardly understand, but it was
done.
Rückert and my father were travelling on foot, and they had often to
sleep in the poorest _osterias_. In these wretched hovels they got more
than they had bargained for, and one fine morning, after getting out
into the fresh air, they saw a lake, and my father jumped in to have a
bath. Rückert could not resist, and followed. But he could not swim, the
lake was deeper than he had thought, and he was on the point of drowning
when my father swam towards him and rescued him. “I wrote my first epic
poem then, in the style of Camoens,” said Rückert, with a loud chuckle,
“and I called it the ‘Lousiade,’ but it has never been published.” After
this visit I lost sight of Rückert, as of many of my German friends. But
I still possess the manuscript of a metrical and rhymed version of the
Sanskrit poem the “Meghadûta, the Cloud Messenger,” which I made and
afterwards published (in 1847), and which contains a number of
corrections and suggestions made by Rückert in pencil. “I translated it
myself,” he said to me, “but I shall not publish my translation now.”
During my stay in Paris, as I remarked, there was no time for poets or
poetry. I had to sit up night after night to copy and collate Sanskrit
MSS., and I shall never forget how often I screwed down my green-shaded
lamp in the morning and saw the sun slowly rising over the Boulevard,
and lighting up the arch of the Porte St. Martin. I lived _au cinquième_
in a corner house of the Boulevard de la Madeleine, in a house which
exists no longer, or at all events has been very much changed, so that
on my last visit I could not find my windows again.
LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS
II
When I had settled in England in 1847, my literary acquaintances began
afresh. I have had the good fortune of being on more or less intimate
terms with such poets as Kingsley, Clough, Matthew Arnold, Tennyson,
Browning, and with poets in prose such as Froude, Ruskin, Carlyle, and I
may add, in spite of the Atlantic, Emerson, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell
Holmes. I knew other writers such as Macaulay, Arthur Helps, Arthur
Stanley, Frederick Maurice, Dr. Martineau; I may add even the names of
Faraday, Lyall, Sedgwick, Thirlwall, Grote, Whewell, Richard Owen,
Darwin, Huxley, among my personal acquaintances or friends.
Kingsley was married to one of my wife’s aunts. She was one of six most
remarkable sisters, all married except the eldest and, I believe, the
most gifted, who had devoted her life to the education of her younger
sisters. Besides Charles Kingsley, the husbands of the other sisters
were Froude, the historian; Lord Wolverton, of high standing in the
financial world as the head of the house of Glyn, and the valued adviser
of Mr. Gladstone in his earlier financial reforms; R. Mertyns Bird, an
illustrious name in the history of India as the organiser of the
North-Western Provinces; and “S. G. O.”
How soon popularity vanishes! There was a time when everybody knew and
spoke of “S. G. O.” He was Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne, an influential
writer on political and social subjects, a frequent contributor to _The
Times_ during the Crimean War, a man of great force and independence of
character. He was a giant in stature, and extremely attractive by his
varied knowledge in different branches of physical science. He was a
well-known microscopist, and when it was wanted, a doctor, a nurse, a
surgeon, a dentist. However, he was not a poet, like his two
brothers-in-law. He was an active clergyman, a sanitary reformer, a
ready helper wherever poor people were ready to be helped. These five
men, the husbands of five remarkable sisters—of whom one, Mrs. Bird, is
still living at the age of ninety-six (she died this year), and not only
living, but alive to all that is interesting in the world, and full of
good works—represented a power in England. “S. G. O.” moved in a sphere
of his own, and seldom came to Oxford. But Kingsley and Froude soon
became my intimate friends.
If I call Froude a poet it is because, as I explained before, I do not
consider rhyme as essential to poetry. But for really poetical power,
for power of description, of making the facts of history alive, of
laying bare the deepest thoughts of men and the most mysterious feelings
of women, there was no poet or historian of our age who came near him. I
knew him through all his phases. I knew him first when he was still a
fellow of Exeter College. I was at that time often with him in his rooms
in High Street, opposite to St. Mary’s Church, when he was busy writing
novels, and I well remember passing an evening with him and trying to
find the right name for a novel which afterwards appeared under the
title of “Nemesis of Faith.” I saw him almost daily while his
persecution at Oxford was going on, gaining strength every day. He had
to give up his fellowship, on which he chiefly depended. I will not
repeat the old story that his novel was publicly burnt in the quadrangle
of Exeter College. The story is interesting as showing how quickly a
myth can spring up even in our own lifetime, if only there is some
likelihood in it, and something that pleases the popular taste. What
really happened was, as I was informed at the time by Froude himself, no
more than that one of the tutors (Dr. Sewell) spoke about the book at
the end of one of his College Lectures. He warned the young men against
the book, and asked whether anybody had read it. One of the
undergraduates produced a copy which belonged to him. Dr. Sewell
continued his sermonette, and warming with his subject, he finished by
throwing the book, which did not belong to him, into the fire, at the
same time stirring the coals to make them burn. Of what followed there
are two versions. Dr. Sewell, when he had finished, asked his class,
“Now, what have I done?” “You have burned my copy,” the owner of the
book said in a sad voice, “and I shall have to buy a new one.” The other
version of the reply was, “You have stirred the fire, sir.”
And so it was. A book which at present would call forth no remark, no
controversy, was discussed in all the newspapers, and raised a storm all
over England. Bishops shook their heads, nay even their fists, at the
young heretic, and even those among his contemporaries at Oxford who
ought to have sympathised with him, and were in fact quite as unorthodox
as he was, did not dare to stand up for him or lend him a helping hand.
Stanley alone never said an unkind word of him. The worst was that
Froude not only lost his fellowship, but when he had accepted the
Headmastership of a college far away in Tasmania, his antagonists did
not rest till his appointment had been cancelled. Froude unfortunately
was poor, and his father, a venerable and well-to-do Archdeacon, was so
displeased with his son that he stopped the allowance which he had
formerly made him. It seems almost as if the poverty of a victim gave
increased zest and enjoyment to his pursuers. Froude had to sell his
books one by one, and was trying hard to support himself by his pen.
This was then not so easy a matter as it is now. At that very time,
however, I received a cheque for £200 from an unknown hand, with a
request that I would hand it to Froude to show him that he had friends
and sympathisers who would not forsake him. It was not till many years
later that I discovered the donor, and Froude was then able to return
him the money which at the time had saved him from drowning. I should
like to mention the name, but that kind friend in need is no longer
among the living, and I have a feeling that even now he would wish his
name to remain unknown. This is by no means the only instance of true
English generosity which I have witnessed. But at the time I confess
that I was surprised, for I did not yet know how much of secret
goodness, how much of secret strength there is in England, how much of
that real public spirit, of that chivalrous readiness to do good and to
resist evil without lifting the vizor. Froude had a hard struggle before
him, and, being a very sensitive man, he suffered very keenly. Several
times I remember when I was walking with him and friends or
acquaintances of his were passing by without noticing him, he turned to
me and said: “That was another cut.” I hardly understood then what he
meant, but I felt that he meant not only that he had been dropped by his
friends, but that he felt cut to the quick. Persecution, however, did
not dishearten him; on the contrary, it called forth his energies, and
the numerous essays from his pen, now collected under the title “Short
Studies on Great Subjects,” show how he worked, how he thought, how he
followed the course that seemed right to him without looking either
right or left. Bunsen, who was at the time the Prussian Minister in
London, and had heard from me about Froude, took a deep interest in him,
and after consulting with Archdeacon Hare and Frederick Maurice,
suggested that he should spend a few years at a German university. I was
asked to bring my young friend to Carlton Terrace, where Bunsen received
him with the truest kindness. What he tried to impress on him was that
the questions which disturbed him required first of all a historical
treatment, and that before we attempt to solve difficulties we should
always try to learn how they arose. Froude was on the point of going to
Germany with the assistance of some of Bunsen’s friends when other
prospects opened to him in England. But frequently in later life he
referred to his interview with Bunsen and said, “I never knew before
what it meant that a man could drive out devils.”
I confess I was somewhat surprised when Froude suddenly told me of his
plan of writing a History of England, beginning with Henry VIII. My idea
of a historian was that of a professor who had read and amassed
materials during half his life, and at the end produced a ponderous
book, half text, half notes. But, hazardous as the idea of writing a
History of England seemed to me for so young a man, I soon perceived
that Froude had an object in writing, and he certainly set to work with
wonderful perseverance. Few of his critics have given him credit for
what he did at Simancas and at the Record Office in London. I have seen
him at work, morning and evening, among piles of notes and extracts. I
know how the pages which are such pleasant light reading were written
again and again till he was satisfied. Often I had to confess to him
that I never copied what I had once written, and he was outspoken enough
to tell me, “But you ought; and you will never write good English if you
don’t.” He learnt Spanish, French, and German, so as to be able to read
new and old books in these languages. He always kept up his classical
reading, and translated, as far as I remember, several Greek texts from
beginning to end. To these he afterwards referred, and quoted from them,
without always, as he ought, going back again to the original Greek.
It is not for me to say that he did not make mistakes, and that he was
not weak in some branches of historical knowledge. I cannot deny that in
his translations also there are mistakes, arising from haste rather than
from ignorance. But who has ever examined any translation from any
language, without finding signs of what seems carelessness or ignorance?
Four eyes see more than two. We have translations of Plato and Aristotle
in Latin and in almost every language of Europe. The text has been
critically examined for hundreds of years, and every difficult passage
has been explained again and again. But is there any one translation
which could be called immaculate? Was not even the last translation of
Plato which is so deservedly popular, characterised by the late Rector
of Lincoln, in the well-known words of a French writer, as _très belle,
mais peu fidèle_? Now, while the true scholar, when examining a new
translation, rejoices over every new happy rendering, the ill-natured
critic, particularly if he wants to display his own superior knowledge,
can easily pick out a number of passages where a mistake has been made,
or where he thinks that a mistake has been made, and then proceed to
show that the very best Greek scholar of the day does not know “what
every schoolboy ought to know,” etc. There are many passages in Greek
and other authors that admit of more than one translation. If the
translator adopts one and rejects another, the game of the critic is
easy enough: he has only to adopt the rejected rendering, and his
triumph is secured. If that is so in Greek, how much more is it the case
in translating passages from faded documents written in antiquated
Spanish, nay, even letters of Erasmus written in his peculiar Latin, or
statutes in Norman-French.
Translation is a difficult art, and scholars, particularly those who
know the language from which, or the language into which, they translate
as well as their own, consider a good translation almost impossible. I
have had some experience in translating, and I know something of the
treatment which translators may expect from conceited critics. The
Sacred Books of the East, translated by myself and a number of friends,
the best scholars I could find, have not escaped that kind of pedantic
criticism. Impartial and honest critics have recognised the difficulties
under which scholars labour in translating, often for the first time,
ancient texts, whether Greek or Sanskrit. It is easy enough to translate
a text, after it has once been translated; it is easy even to improve in
a few places on the translations of the first pioneers. But to translate
for the first time an ancient text, badly edited or not yet edited at
all, is a totally different thing, and those who undertake it have a
right not only to the indulgence, but to the gratitude of all who come
after them. No one in our sphere of studies would call himself a scholar
who has not edited a text never edited before, or at least translated a
text that never was translated before. There are some critics who think
they have done their duty if they can discover a few flaws in a
translation, though they cannot even appreciate the labours and the
brilliant though silent discoveries of a first translator. The work that
has to be done by a first translator of an ancient text is often the
work of a real decipherer. He has to grope his way through Egyptian
darkness like the first interpreter of an Egyptian or Babylonian
inscription. He cannot help making mistakes. But though we know now how
often even a Champollion (died 1832) was mistaken, do we not feel
ashamed if we read what another most eminent Egyptologist and Coptic
scholar, Amadeo Peyron (died 1870), the head of the Egyptian Museum at
Turin, said of Champollion? “I have known Champollion,” he said, “the
so-called decipherer of hieroglyphics, very well, from his first visits
to our Museum. I took him for an ordinary swindler, and his publications
have afterwards confirmed me in my views. His philological labours have
remained to me unsolved riddles.”[7]
I have lately had another experience. I had to revise my translation of
Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” and I was surprised to see how many
passages there were which I had to alter, not because I did not know
either German or English, but because in many places a translation can
only be approximately faithful; and it is only a happy thought that
enables us now and then to approach nearer to the German original,
though in that case often at the expense of the English idiom.