Heine on Louis PhilippeAuthor(s): Edgar WindReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 3, No. 1/2 (Oct., 1939 - Jan.,1940), pp. 160-161Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750207 .Accessed: 23/04/2012 03:30

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60o MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

thought wisest, he imputes rather than to himself, want of reason, neglect of the Public, interest of parties, and particularitie of private will and passion; but with what modesty or likelihood of truth it will be wearisom to repeat so oft'n (Eikonoklastes, chap. 6).

Such ideas as those in Milton's comment are a sufficient basis for the metaphor in Paradise Regained. He was surely as capable of giving figurative quality to the crown of thorns worn by Jesus as was James the First, nor is there any reason why, like James, he should not in his concern with a political truth have turned away from theological implications. Saavedra arrives at the same result as the King, but apparently without beginning with the Saviour's crown of thorns; to him thorns are afflictions, as the "thorns in your eyes" of Joshua XXIII. 13, or the "grieving thorn" of Ezekiel XXVIII. 24. Whether or not Milton knew of his prede- cessors, he is at any rate using here not a figure wholly new, but one already in some sense tested. Adaptation of old material appears to be his normal poetic practice. It is more likely that he had read the Medi- tation on Matthew XXVII than Saavedra's book of emblems. Yet the emblematic picture with its appeal to the eye, with the compression of the Miltonic figure already accomplished in it, is one of the best of stimuli to the poetic imagination. Milton's metaphor is in the emblematic spirit, even though it be supposed that the poet had never turned the pages of Symbola Politica.

ALLAN H. GILBERT

2. HEINE ON Louis PHILIPPE

n the Postscript of his 'Romanzero', Heine speaks of Louis Philippe as "the best

monarch who ever wore the constitutional crown of thorns" ("des besten Monarchen, der jemals die konstitutionelle Dornenkrone trug"). Being written after the fall of Louis Philippe, the passage was calculated to offend the sensibilities of reactionary and revolution- ary readers alike. Loyal royalists and orthodox Christians must have thought it a blasphemy to let the crown of thorns descend upon the head which had been successfully portrayed in the shape of a pear; and revolutionary republicans had their own reasons for refusing to think of the bourgeois king as a martyr. Only Heine, the demo-

cratic royalist, believed in monarchy as a popular form of Government, expressive of the will of the people, and he trusted that it could be established in Europe if only the privileges of aristocracy, which prevented the evolution of popular kingship, were abolished. He hailed with enthusiasm the advent of a bourgeois monarchy in the July revolution of I830; and though he admitted by 1833 that "mein Monar- chismus mir etwas sauer gemacht wird", he took pride in sustaining his unpopular opinion "in the face of intrigues, caresses and threats." When he felt that the whole institution might collapse under the pressure of foreign powers and the agitation of demagogues at home, he issued his ironical warning to the kings of Europe :

"Oh, with justice you call yourselves kings by the grace of God! It was a particular grace of God that once more he sent to the kings a man who saved them . . . For God is reasonable, and he recognizes that the republican form of government is very unsuitable, unprofitable and unpleasant for the old Europe. And I too recognise this. But perhaps we shall both be unable to achieve anything against the blindness of the princes and demagogues."'

The absolutism of princes on the one hand, the despotism of the masses on the other, this was the sharp alternative which he found left over after the '"juste milieu" had been destroyed. "Je entschiedener die Ge-

mtiter, desto leichter werden sie das Opfer solcher Dilemmen."2 He knew that if it ever came to a clash between these two extreme factions, his sympathies would be with the revolutionary party because it was, in however misguided a form, the party of freedom. But he declared openly that the methods and aims of the "republican demagogues" were not his own, and he viewed with frank disfavour the events of 1848. His co-revolutionaries of 1830 accused him of treason, but his answer was more penetrating than their rebuke: "Who does not go as far as his heart urges and his reason permits, is a coward; who goes further than he wanted to go, is a slave."

Heine's religious and philosophical views are an imaginative projection of his political faith. Religious orthodoxy was as distasteful to him as the political absolutism of despotic princes. On the other hand, philosophical atheism suffered in his opinion from the same lack of imaginative insight with which

1 Franzisische Maler; .Nachtrag. 2 Nachwort zum "Romanzero'.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 161

he reproached the radical republican de- magogues. Again he felt that if these were the only alternatives to choose from, his sympathies would be with the atheists because they represented, in however dis- torted a form, the side of freedom. But he himself favoured a more personal and imaginative view-or, to put it in the favourite phrase of the romantique defroque', a more ironic view-of religion. In an entry in his notebook entitled "Notwendigkeit des Deismus" he says of God: " HE is as indispensable as Louis Philippe; HE is the Louis Philippe of Heaven."

As a "prodigal son" he returned to the idea of a personal god after having "fed the swine with the Hegelians."l Against the speculations of old Ruge, the "grimme TorhUiter des Hegelianismus", and against the deductions of "my even more obstinate friend Marx," he liked to quote the book of Daniel, the story of Nebuchadnezzar who thought he could rely on himself and did not require the fiction of a god, but who ended as a beast eating grass (which, as Heine comfortingly suggests, may have been salad). Heine's so-called 'conversion' before his death is really a return to what he had previously described as the religion of "little Samson" (der kleine Simson) who fought a duel in defence of Jehovah but was completely forsaken by the god whom he championed, and fell with the words: "Ach Gott!''2

The simple decision would have been either to raise oneself to a belief in a powerful God, or to reject the idea of God altogether. But Heine did neither. He deliberately sustained his mind in a state of suspense which enabled him to observe-more penetratingly perhaps than any of his contemporaries-the "mysteri6se Ybergangskrise" through which they were

passing. Conceiving of monarchy as an indispensable but ironic institution, he chose the fat face of Louis Philippe as most deserv- ing of a crown of thorns. This grotesquely distorted image of divinity was meant by him as a portent. "Das neue Geschlecht wird auch die Windeln sehen wollen, die seine erste Hiille waren."

E. W.

1 Preface to Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland. 2 Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schmabelewopski.

TWO UNKNOWN LETTERS OF CHARLES BURNEY

The manuscripts of both the following let- ters are in the possession of Mrs. Charles

Winnington-Ingram, to whose kindness I am indebted for permission to print them. Their publication is perhaps not unwelcome as a supplement to the selection of letters presented in the Appendix of the new edition of Burney's "A General History of Music"3 : To

Mrs. Chambers at Charles Grant's Esq.

Battersea Rise, Surrey.

Chelsea College, 3rd November I797.

My dear Madam, Nothing gives me more pleasure than to

be remembered by yourself and dear Mrs. Grant; particularly, when my limited powers enable me to be of the least use. I inclose a copy of the Minor Hexachords, in all the I2 keys so denominated. I have likewise added a lesson of common chords, in which the major and minor chords are mixed, to try the strength of your little scholars in this kind of simple harmony, before they proceed to the figures. You will remind them, that only one note in the chord is changed each time, and that that one note is always an octave to the new base. It will be necessary to practise these chords in 3 different parts of the Instrument, beginning with ' above the Base-next with 3 -and

3 8

lastly with 8. If no mistake is made, the 5

last chord of each series will be an octave above the first. This lesson includes every common chord on the instrument, major and minor.

I forget whether you and Mrs. Grant had proceeded so far in accompaniment before we parted, as to begin to learn to figure a base for yourselves, or to play without figures; a science which becomes more and more necessary every day, as the Bases of very few new compositions that are now printed, are ever figured. As I had a card to explain the use of figures over the base, I framed another for figuring most bases in modern music, or playing without figures.

3 With critical and historical notes by Frank Mercer (1935).