Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/98

 86 RECENT FOREIGN LITERATURE. Grabeskammern ' ; c let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediment ' by c Dass jemals treuer Seelen Bund entschwindet Nie werd' ich glauben ' ; or ' on the top of happy hours ' by ' im Zenit von goldnen Tagen,' we can scarcely help feeling that the fine poetical flavour of the original has melted away in the process of transmutation. The most interesting thing in Friedrich Mensel's learned work ' Edmund Burke und die franzos- ische Revolution. Zur Entstehung historisch- politischen Denkens zumal in England' is the chapter entitled Burke and Herder. Its contents will be new to English readers who are not con- versant with Herder's achievements at first hand. The likeness of view in the two men is remark- able, especially in esthetics and moral philosophy. That they differ in some important questions must be admitted, but historically and intelleftually they belong together. Burke, under many of his aspefts, might well be called the English Herder. Lamartine said of Petrarch c pour les uns il est poesie, pour les autres histoire ; pour ceux-ci amour, pour ceux-la politique. Sa vie est le roman d'une grande ame.' These words might be applied to Lamartine himself. In a volume by Henry Cochin, entitled ' Lamartine et la Flandre,' the political side of Lamartine's life is brought out, his dreams of the government of men. There Lamartine, neither poet nor lover, was really de- lightful and great, a country gentleman of old France. We get a pleasing pidture of a somewhat