Victor Hugo.
But there are thousands, of people in this good realm of England, who
actually consider such beings a Spindler and Vandervelde superior to the
noble genius who created _Notre Dame de Paris_. Poor as our own
novel-writers, by profession, have shown themselves of late years, their
efforts are infinitely superior to the very best of the German
novelists; and yet we see advertisements every day in the newspapers, of
new translations from fourth or fifth-rate scribblers for Leipsic fair,
which would lead one to expect a far higher order of merit than any of
our living authors can show. "A new work by the Walter Scott of
Germany!" A new work by the Newton of Stoke Pogis! A new picture by the
Apelles of the Isle of Man! The Walter Scott of Germany, according to
somebody's saying about Milton, is a very _German_ Walter Scott; and, if
under this ridiculous pull is concealed some drivelling historical hash
by Spindler or Tromlits, the force of impudence can no farther go.

But we must take care not to be carried too far in our depreciation of
German light literature by our indignation at the over-estimate formed of
some of its professors. Let us admit that there are admirable authors--a
fact which it would be impossible to deny with such works before us as
Tieck's, and Hoffman's, and a host of others--_quos nunc perscribere
longum est_. Let us leave the small fry to the congenial admiration of the
devourers of our circulating libraries, and form our judgment of the
respective methods of conducting a story of the French and Germans, from a
comparison of the heroes of each tongue. Let us judge of Greek and Roman
war from the Phalanx and the Legion, and not from the suttlers of the two
camps. A great excellence in a German novelist is the prodigious faith he
seems to have in his own story; he relates incidents as if he knew them of
his own knowledge; and the wilder and more incredible they are, the more
firm and solemn becomes his belief. The Frenchman never descends from
holding the wires of the puppets to be a puppet himself, or even to delude
spectators with the idea that they are any thing but puppets; he never
forfeits his superiority over the personages of the story, by allowing the
reader to lose sight of the author; no, he piques himself on being the
great showman, and would scarcely take it as a compliment if you entered
into the interest of the tale, unless as an exhibition of the narrator's
talent. But then h