ut its Lascaros, its leaders, its emperors, and
kings. Then and then only his hard features change, and his affected
self-possession leaves him, then and then only his mask of calmness is
thrown off, and he waxes very angry with the poet, and has his name
banished from his court and his statues turned out of his cities and
villas--nay, he would even level his gun to slay the truth-telling poet
as he slew Atta Troll._

_From which we may see that the modern Lascaro has become a sort of Don
Quixote--for, truly is it not the height of folly for a mortal emperor
to shoot at an immortal poet?_

OSCAR LEVY

London, 1913

PREFACE BY HEINE

_"ATTA TROLL" was composed in the late autumn of 1841, and appeared as a
fragment in_ The Elegant World, _of which my friend Laube had at that
time resumed the editorship. The shape and contents of the poem were
forced to conform to the narrow necessities of that periodical. I wrote
at first only those cantos which might be printed and even these
suffered many variations. It was my intention to issue the work later in
its full completeness, but this commendable resolve remained
unfulfilled--like all the mighty works of the Germans--such as the
cathedral of Cologne, the God of Schelling, the Prussian Constitution,
and the like. This also happened to "Atta Troll"--he was never finished.
In such imperfect form, indifferently bolstered up and rounded only from
without, do I now set him before the public, obedient to an impulse
which certainly does not proceed from within._

_"Atta Troll," as I have said, originated in the late autumn of 1841, at
the time when the great mob which my enemies of various complexions,
had drummed together against me, had not quite ceased its noise. It was
a very large mob and indeed I would never have believed that Germany
could produce so many rotten apples as then flew about my head! Our
Fatherland is a blessed country! Citrons and oranges certainly do not
grow here, and the laurel ekes out but a miserable existence, but rotten
apples thrive in the happiest abundance, and never a great poet of ours
but could write feelingly of them! On the occasion of that hue and cry
in which I was to lose both my head and my laurels it happened that I
lost neither. All the absurd accusations which were used to incite the
mob against me have since then been miserably annihilated, even without
my condescending to refute them. Time justified me, and the various
Ger