(KARL AUGUST LUDWIG PHILIPPI), was born at Dusseldorf, 21st February, 1785. To his own countrymen, a writer of great mark, and a publicist of tried and varied service, he is chiefly notable abroad for his close connection throughout a long life with men of European fame; for the contributions he has made towards the just appreciation of some of those men; and for the many remarkable incidents of a career that, in an unusual degree, mirrors the age in which it has been run. To Englishmen, what Varnhagen saw and described is, perhaps, more considerable than what he thought or did.

In 1803, while attending the medical college at Berlin, he formed the acquaintance of Chamisso (the author of Peter Schlemihl), and with him made his first literary venture in the Musen Almanach of 1804. There, too, he obtained an introduction to Fichte, "to whom," he says, "I listened as to a divine man," and there he met, for the first time, Rahel Levin. In 1806 he went to the University of Halle, but soon returned to Berlin, for the purpose, as he thought, of merely spending his vacation there.

He found the Prussian capital the scene of a proud excitement. Troops were marching out in quick succession, to check, as it was hoped, the progress of Napoleon. But a very brief interval brought the news of Auerstadt and Jena. Not a Prussian soldier was to be seen or heard of. It seemed to Varnhagen, he tells us, as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up. In October he witnessed the entry of the French. Halle University was now closed, and many both of the professors and the students flocked to Berlin. Varnhagen attended the lectures of Fichte and of Schleiermacher, and eagerly improved his acquaintance with Rahel, who had long occupied a conspicuous place in the best society of the town. Without possessing either rank, or wealth, or beauty, or, indeed (as Carlyle puts it), any artificial nimbus whatsoever, this lady was the queen of a distinguished circle, in which the youth, just entering on life, enjoyed the fellowship of Friedrich von Gentz, of Tieck, of Prince Lewis Ferdinand of Prussia, of Friedrich Schlegel, and of the two Humboldts. But Rahel herself was ever the central object, and friendship ripened into love.

This eminent woman exercised her singular influence over all who were privileged to approach her, partly by the force and freshness of an intellect which gushed forth in conversation all the more vigorously for its freedom from the tasks of authorship, and partly from the habit of speaking her thoughts with little regard to the conventionalisms of the fashionable world. One who knew her well has said of her, "She had the head of a sage and the heart of an apostle, and yet she was as much a child and a woman as anyone can be." In these days, it is only by such mere reports—unsatisfactory as they are—that she can be estimated. Her correspondence, indeed, is abundant, but it does not reflect her mind. Only in speaking face to face with those to whom she addressed herself does she seem to have had the command of her own powers. When the intercourse between Varnhagen and Rahel first became intimate, he was but twenty-four years of age; she was thirty-six. Seven years more of adventure and of struggle lay before him, ere he could join his lot with hers. Yet, when twenty-four years had passed, we find him writing:—

"Rahel is still to me the freshest and brightest feature in my life (das neueste und frischste meine ganzes Leben)." These words were written just before her loss (1833). Shortly after it, he added, "In her, nature and intellect were ever in free reciprocity; great in innocence as well as in wisdom, her utterances, both of mind and heart, were original and vivid; her words and deeds were quick, appropriate, decisive. To force of character she added womanly gentleness and grace." Such a woman may well have done her life-task, and have done it faithfully and fully, without writing any books.

In 1809, Varnhagen entered the Austrian army as an ensign in the Count von Bentheim's regiment, and was severely wounded at Wagram. Count von Bentheim was one of several Austrian officers who, on the conclusion of the short-lived peace, accompanied Prince Charles von Schwarzenberg on an embassy to Paris, and shared in the festivities which attended the marriage of Napoleon with Maria Louise. Varnhagen went with his commander. Beneath at Paris the smiling surface be found mutual distrust and hostility. Frenchmen were dwelling with more pleasure on their past victories than on their new alliance. Germans were already rejoicing in the hope of another appeal to the arbitrement of the sword. For a moment, however, both gaieties and heartburnings were stilled, under the impressions of grief and terror caused by the calamity at the ambassador's house on the night of the 1st July 1810. Varnhagen saw the splendid beginnings of the festival; noticed the significant smile with which Napoleon looked at a certain German transparency announcing the return of the golden age; witnessed the bursting forth of the flames, the strange alarm created by a cry that there was a conspiracy to kill the emperor, and the terrible rush which followed the emperor's quiet departure. He saw Napoleon's unexpected return, to direct in person the extinction of the fire, and stood beside the spot on which were discovered the blackened remains of the poor princess who, a few hours before, radiant with beauty and hospitality, had opened the ball. Such a shock must needs have thrown gloom over all the pomps of Paris, and may have deepened the prepossessions which already made it hard for Varnhagen to give an impartial picture of the court and of the man on whose words and deeds all Europe was then intent. His chapter, Am Hofe Napoleons is the least satisfactory one in the Denkwürdigkeiten. He represents Napoleon's speeches as "those of a schoolboy; count of insignificant in substance and in expression; without Napoleon spirit, wit, or force (gering so wohl dem Inhalte als dem Wortausdrucke nach; ohne Geist, ohne Witz, ohne Kraft), and speaks of "his ridiculous attempts to shine." We possess too many of Napoleon's utterances—from Paris streets in 1793; from the rock of St Helena in 1816-21; and from almost every intermediate stage of the marvellous

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1 De Custine, in the Revue de Paris of November 1837. Varnhagen's principal works, in addition to those of which the titles have been sufficiently given in the text, are as follows:—1. *Verwaltete Gedichte*, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1816. 2. *Gedicht in den Zeugnissen der Mitbunden*, Zum 28th Aug., 1823, Berlin, 1823. This is a series of appreciations and eulogies of the great poet, printed to commemorate his birthday. 3. *Biographische Denkmale*, 5 Vols., Berlin, 1824-30. This admirable work includes lives of adventurers, soldiers, poets, and musicians. The contents of the several volumes are as follows.—Vol. I. Count Wilhelm zur Lippe; Count Matthias von der Schulenburg; Theodore, king of Corsica. II. Baron Georg von Derrlingger; Prince Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau; Hl. Blücher; IV. Paul Flora; Friedrich von Canitz; Johann von Besser; V. Zinzendorf. Alex. von Humboldt has characterized these and the biographies which follow as "a series of life-pictures, well-modelled in German work." 4. *Angela Silesia und Satan Martin*, Auszüge, als Handschrift [i.e., privately printed], Berlin, 1833. This curious little work contains selections from the *Cherubinischer Wanderer* of Johann Schiller (who wrote in the seventeenth century under the pseudonym of Angelus Silesius), and from St. Martin's *Portrait historique et philosophique*; with remarks on both by Rahel. 5. *Zur Geschichtschreibung und Literatur, Berichte und Beurteilungen*; aus den Jahrbüchern für Kritik und andere Zeitschriften gesammelt, Hamburg, 1833. 6. Rahel: ein Buch der Andenkens für ihre Freunde, 3 Bde., Berlin, 1834. 7. *Galerie von Bildnissen aus Rahels Umgang und Briefwechsel*, 2 Bde., Berlin, 1837. The first of these Rahel books contains a copious selection of her correspondence; the second consists of a series of delineations of the chief members of her circle. 8. *Denkmalbüchlein und Vermächtnisse Schriften*, 4 Bde., Mannheim, 1837; to which was added a "Second Series," 3 Bde., Leipzig, 1840-46. The interest and value of this book are lessened by a very incoherent sequence, which, it is to be hoped, the future publishers will amend. 9. *Voltaire in Frankfurt-am-Main*, 1753. In this remarkable essay, Varnhagen endeavours to show, that outrageous as was Voltaire's treatment, he was himself chiefly blamable for it. The copy before us has neither date nor place of printing. 10. *Hans von Held: ein Karakterbild*, Leipzig, 1845. 11. *Schlichter Vortrag an die Deutschen über die Aufgabe des Tages*, Berlin, 1848. 12-17. Lives of Generals von Seydlitz, von Winterfeldt, von Schwerin, Jakob Keith, and Bülow von Dennewitz; and of Sophia Charlotte, queen of Prussia. These biographies were published between the years 1836 and 1833. Varnish, to be found than those few sentences of his Diary which indicate the conclusions and the omens that, ten years ago, came upon his mind as to the future of Prussia, from all he had seen and heard during the years 1840 to 1849. If a happier issue may now be hoped for, than at that time he could foresee, his own writings and influence—and those of men likeminded—have had no inconsiderable share in bringing about the improved prospect which, as we trust, is opening before his country.

(V. E.)