ns, a
literary impossibility.

But was Frederick Schlegel merely a critic? No He was a philosopher also,
and not a vulgar one; and herein lies the foundation of his fame. His
criticism, also, was thoroughly and characteristically a philosophical
criticism; and herein mainly, along with its vastness of erudition and
comprehensiveness of view, lies the foundation of its fame. To understand
the criticism thoroughly, one must first understand the philosophy. Will
the _un_philosophical English reader have patience with us for a few
minutes while we endeavour to throw off a short sketch of the philosophy
of Frederick Schlegel? If the philosophical system of a transcendental
German and _Viennese_ Romanist, can have small intrinsic practical value
to a British Protestant, it may extrinsically be of use even to him as
putting into his hands the key to one of the most intellectual, useful, an
popular books of modern times--"The history of ancient and modern
literature, by Frederick Von Schlegel,"--a book, moreover, which is not
merely "a great national possession of the Germans," as by one of
themselves it has been proudly designated, but has also, through the
classical translation of Mr Lockhart,[D] been made the peculiar property of
English literature.

[Footnote D: Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern.
Blackwoods, Edinburgh, 1841.]

In the first chapter of his "_Philosophie des Lebens_," the Viennese
lecturer states very clearly the catholic and comprehensive ground which
all philosophy must take that would save itself from dangerous error. The
philosopher must start from the complete living totality of man, formed as
he is, not of flesh merely, a Falstaff--or of spirit merely, a Simon
Pillarman and Total Abstinence Saint--but of both flesh and spirit, body
and soul, in his healthy and normal condition. For this reason
clearly--true philosophy is not merely sense-derived and material like
the French philosophy of Helvetius, nor altogether ideal like that of
Plotinus, and the pious old mathematical visionaries at Alexandria; but
it stands on mother earth, like old Antaeus drinking strength therefrom,
and filches fire at the same time, Prometheus-like, from heaven, feeding
men with hopes--not, as Aeschylus says, altogether "blind," ([Greek:
tuphlas d eu autois eloidas katokioa)] but only blinking. Don't court,
therefore, if you would philosophize wisely, too intimate an acquaintance
with your brute brothe