From the Eclectic Review.

ULRICH

VON HÜTTEN:

THE SECOND LUTHER OF GERMANY.

with a sketch of his life, and a brief account of some of his most celebrated writings. The subject is one of great interest; for few historical characters exhibit more originality than that of Hütten. One of the representative men of his age and nation, he unites in himself some of their noblest features. Born at a crisis when the European mind, stirred to its foundations, was straining after a freer and nobler life, but a life as yet imperfectly conceived and comprehended, he became one of the most energetic exponents of the wants and aspirations of his time, and one of the most powerful agents in giving these aspirations a definite form, and removing the obstacles that prevented their fulfillment. A worthy fellow-worker with Luther, he seconded him in all his efforts for religious freedom; inspired with the warmest and most disinterested love of liberty, he was, throughout life, her most eloquent defender, and, at last, died a martyr in her cause. Seldom, indeed, has she had a nobler champion; he offered her no mere lip-homage, but acts and those burning words that rouse others to action. His exertions were unceasing; his activity of thought prodigious, and his productive

MORE than three centuries have rolled away since a noble Franconian knight was buried in the green island of Uffnau, which lies at the extremity of the Lake of Zurich, almost within the shadow of the lofty Alps. That knight was Ulrich von Hutten, who died at the early age of thirty-six, forsaken by his friends, persecuted, destitute; but who, in the course of his short and brilliant career, did more than any man of his time, with the single exception of Luther, to liberate Germany from the tyranny of the Papal yoke. He also took a prominent part in forwarding the cause of classical learning, and in emancipating the world of mind from the iron bondage in which it had for ages been bound, by the false teaching and useless subtleties of the scholastic system. All this he did, in spite of poverty, persecution, and disease, by the power of his eloquent and spirit-stirring writings, which, in a literary point of view, are honorable to the age in which they appeared; which produced an unparalleled effect upon the German mind, and which -even at the present day-are deeply interesting; not only as exhibiting noble and liberal views of politics and religion, far in advance of their age, and as con-ness no less remarkable. During his short taining the most cutting and effective satires that have ever been penned against the vices and corruptions of the monastic system and of the court of Rome; but, also, as presenting the most vivid and faithful pictures of the age in which they appeared, in its varied forms of life and

action.

As the very name of Ulrich von Hütten is far less generally known in this country than it deserves to be, and as his works are but little read, we propose, in the present article, to present our readers

Etudes sur les Réformateurs du Seizième Siècle. Ulrich de Hütten. Par V. Chauffour-Kestner. Paris: Charles Hingray, Libraire-Editeur. 1853.

life he composed not fewer than fifty separate works, one of which still ranks as the national satire of Germany. Among them are editions of the classics, treatises on a variety of subjects, many of them poetical, orations, and letters. Most of them, however, are satires. Satire and invective were, indeed, at that time the prevalent modes of writing in Germany, as a glance at the literature of the age will show, and Hütten was led to adopt them, both by the force of circumstances, and by the character of his genius. He pursued them with his usual impetuosity and ardor, and is often to blame for his violence and want of delicacy; but, in spite of these faults-which, indeed, deform

and repaid his reception by his first poem.

to

true, nobility, and that they alone are fit for great enterprises both in peace and war?"

This expression of Hütten's sense of the degradation of the German nobility, is often repeated in his writings, where he reproaches them with coarseness, drunkenness, and contempt for the arts and sciences; and one of his designs was to combat and destroy that prejudice which considered the cultivation of letters a mark of base birth. Yet with all his appreciation of the silly and narrow prejudices of the German nobles, Hutten himself was sufficiently proud of his own high birth; which he shows with great naïveté in a letter to his friend Piscator, requesting him to choose a wife for him. "Give me a wife," he says, "young, handsome, welleducated, gay, virtuous, patient, and possessed of a moderate fortune. I do not look for riches; and, as to birth, she will always be sufficiently noble if she is the

From 1506 to 1514, Hütten only appears at long intervals. He seems to have traveled extensively in order to add to his knowledge, visiting Bohemia, Moravia, Vienna, and many other parts of the north of Europe. During these travels, undertaken almost without resources, he frequently suffered much distress and hardship. On the Baltic he was exposed the fury of a terrible tempest, and in Pomerania he was plundered of his baggage. Occasionally, however, the charms of his conversation procured him a flattering reception, as at Olmutz, where the bishop, after having hospitably entertained him for several days, gave him at his departure a horse and a purse of gold. In 1512 we find him at Pavia, where the French were besieged by the Swiss. His sojourn there was a succession of mishaps. He had a quarrel with some of the soldiers of the garrison, and was regularly besieg-wife of Hütten." ed by them in his lodgings. He gave Hütten was now about to commence himself up for lost, and, in order to die his work, for which he possessed every as became a poet, composed his own epi- requisite; for not only was he an admi taph, which is very beautiful. The town, rable scholar and elegant poet, but his however, was at length taken by the travels had given him the great gift of exSwiss, and Ulrich thought his troubles perience. He had examined the world and dangers over; but his captors, pre- close at hand, and knew its passions, its tending to take him for a German in the needs, its vices, its aspirations. He knew service of France, maltreated and plunder that it was in a state of agitation, only ed him, so that he was glad to escape with waiting for an impulse to direct it. He life from their hands. He found a refuge had himself suffered much, and could apat Bologna, but here his resources entire-peal to all who suffered. He had visited ly failed, and he was oblige to enlist as a Rome, and studied there the secret corprivate soldier in the army of the Em-ruptions of the Roman tyranny, and knew peror Maximilian.

On his return to Germany, his friend Ethelwolf von Stein recommended him to the Archbishop of Mayençe, who received and treated him as a friend, and in his honor he composed one of his most elegant Latin poems, which he was only persuaded to publish at the instance of his patron. His dislike to its publication is thus accounted for by himself:

"You are acquainted with the ideas and manners of the German nobles; one would take them for centaurs rather than for knights. If a young man applies himself to study, they point the finger of scorn at him as a degenerate being, a disgrace to his family and to nobility. Thus many who were on the high road to learning have turned back, and bowed the neck to the yoke of prejudice. Are not we condemned each day to hear these centaurs boast that they are the pillars of the country, that in them alone is

how to strike at its heart; and the spirit of liberty, strong from his boyhood, had been confirmed, enlarged, and purified by meditation and labor. In person Hütten was short and slight, and his frame was bent by early hardships and disease; but his face was animated, and his eyes bril liant and piercing. His personal character was very amiable, without haughtiness,. and full of readiness to oblige women and... children, and even the humblest of men; while his conversation was instructive and sparkling, and abounded in sallies of wit. Such was Ulrich von Hütten, when a tra gical event plunged him at once into the public strifes of the time, in which the remainder of his life was destined to be spent.

That event was the cowardly assassination of his cousin, the youthful Jean von Hütten, (esteemed the flower of Francon ian chivalry,) by the Duke of Wurtemberg.

lastics, or supporters of the old system. This contest, long impending, was at length called into action almost by an accident. Jean Reuchlin, the most learned man in Germany-who had published a Latin dictionary and a Greek grammar-who first in Germany possessed a complete copy of Homer, and first among the learned men of Europe attained a profound acquaintance with the Hebrew language and literature, was the man destined to bring this great struggle to its crisis. A converted Jew, named Pfefferkorn, had published a book in which he accused his former coreligionists of adoring the sun and moon, and of outraging Christ in the most disgraceful manner. This work was wel

This crime was the blacker, as, in the peasant war, the Hüttens had brought to the Duke's assistance the Franconian knighthood, and thus secured to him the victory. Jean was the intimate friend and favorite of the Duke, until the latter conceived a guilty passion for the handsome wife of the young knight; to gratify which he invited him to a huntingparty, and, in a retired part of the forest, killed him with his own hand. Universal indignation was excited by this cowardly murder; but the Duke believed himself above vengeance, and lived publicly with the widow of his victim. Ulrich von Hutter was at this time (1515) residing at the Castle of Ems; but when he learned the crime he at once determined to pur-comed by the theologians of Cologne, and sue the murderer, and hastened to recon- especially by Hochstraten, prior of the cile himself with his father previously to Dominicans, and inquisitor for the three adopting the vengeance of the family. ecclesiastical electorates. They insisted He employed letters, poems, orations, to that all Jewish books, excepting the Bible, arouse Germany against the criminal. were dangerous and heretical, and deHe directed against him five Latin har- manded from the Emperor that they should angues in terms full of eloquent indignation. be burned. The Emperor remitted the He demanded of the princes of the land matter to the Archbishop of Mayence, and that justice should be done upon the he naturally consulted Reuchlin, as the guilty, and declared that if they refused, best authority upon the subject. Reuchlin the Hüttens would not hesitate to right decided in favor of the Hebrew books; themselves. In addition to these orations, but his memorial, intended only for the Hütten also published a dialogue entitled eyes of the Archbishop, was by some "Phalarismus," which supposes the meet- means communicated to Pfefferkorn and ing of Phalaris and the Duke of Wurtem- the theologians of Cologne, whose fanatiburg in the infernal regions. Phalaris re- cism was roused to the highest pitch by joices to see a man his equal in cruelty, the moderation of Reuchlin's memorial. and gives him some good lessons in tyran- They assailed him with the utmost veheny. These writings created an immense mence in print, to which he made a crushsensation throughout Germany, and Ul- ing reply. They retorted, and he wrote a rich found himself an important political second answer. He was then summoned character. He had, by the force of his before the Inquisition, and a variety of eloquence, made his private wrongs a na- procedure took place, which resulted in tional affair; but the Emperor for a long the whole matter being referred to the time hesitated to punish a sovereign Pope, who remitted it, with full powers, prince, and it was not until 1519 that to the Bishop of Spires, who decided in vengeance overtook the Duke. He was favor of Reuchlin, and found his opponents then put to the ban of the empire, and liable in the expenses of the suit. In spite driven from his dominions by an army of this, the theologians of Cologne and of commanded by Franz von Sickingen, and the University of Paris burned the writin which Ulrich had the pleasure of servings of Reuchlin; and Hochstraten started ing. This affair had a great influence upon the mind of Hütten; it gave him a deep insight into the politics of Germany, which he had studied from all points, in order to assist him in obtaining justice upon the murderer of his cousin. But the struggle in which Hütten earned his greenest laurels was that waged between the Humanists-as the supporters of classical learning were called and the Scho

for Italy, with a numerous retinue and good store of money, in order to influence the infallible court of Rome.

This controversy called forth a host of publications on each side of the question; and of these by far the most effective was the "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," which inflicted the most deadly blow that had ever been dealt against scholasticism, the monastic system, and the Papacy, and

which, in the words of a distinguished the greater portion; but some of the letwriter, " gave the victory to Reuchlin ters appear to have been written by his over the begging friars, and to Luther friends, Crotus Rubianus and Hermann over the court of Rome." Its construc- Burchius. The first volume of the Epistion is very simple. Before the com- tola Obscurorum Virorum, appeared in mencement of the controversy Reuchlin 1516; and another able work, arising out had published a volume of letters from his of the same controversy, written before correspondents; and Ortunius, an adher- the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum, ent of Hochstraten, and enemy of Reuch- but not published until 1519, is the Trilin, is in like manner supposed to print a umphus Capinonis, in which Hütten celevolume of epistles addressed to him by his brates in eloquent verse the triumph of friends. The title of Reuchlin's volume Reuchlin over his accusers. is, Epistolæ Illustrium Virorum ad Reuchlinum, Virum nostræ Etatis Doctissimum; and Ortunius, in ridicule of this somewhat pompous title, is supposed to entitle his work Epistolæ Obscurorum Vivorum ad Ortunium. The foes of Reuchlin and of classical learning are thus made to represent themselves. Most of the letters bear to be written by monks and theologians, and a few by medical men and priests. To give greater color and probability to the work, these are written in bad Latin, the usual medium of communication employed by the monks; and the very phrases and idioms familiar to these supporters of scholasticism are most happily introduced. These letters display with the utmost apparent simplicity and candor the secret history of the mendicant orders, their vices, indolence, ignorance, their plots against Reuchlin and the Humanists, and their hatred of all serious and useful instruction. They are made, as it were, to dissect and condemn themselves; to tear the vail from their own follies and vices. The satire is most savage and bitter; no quarter is given, no mercy shown. It struck hard, but it struck home, and never did ridicule more effectually contribute to the service of During this visit to Italy, Hütten wittruth. Such is the apparent seriousness nessed, with strong indignation, the vices of this the national satire of Germany, and corruption of the Papal court. Althat several, even of those against whom most all the great men who have seen it was directed, were deceived by it; so Papal Rome, during the period of its much So, that a prior of a Dominican con- grandeur, have, however, felt and recordvent in Brabant bought a number of co-ed the same impression; few more strongpics, in order to present to his friends, believing that it had been written in praise of his order.

Hütten's extraordinary abilities were not appreciated by his own family. They considered one of the most popular poets and learned men of the day as a disgrace to their nobility. Three courses only were open to him without, in their eyes, soiling his nobility. For one of these war-his delicate frame unfitted him; for another-the Church-he had early shown an insuperable dislike; the third alone the law-remained open. Doctors of law often became the counselors and agents of princes; and it was decided by the friends of Hütten that he should again repair to Italy, in order to obtain that legal diploma, which even a noble Franconian might bear, without detracting from his dignity. He departed unwillingly; but, in deference to the wishes of his friends, applied himself to legal studies with conscientious ardor. But in vain he tried to take an interest in that subtle and perplexing science; and, in some of his subsequent works, he speaks in strong terms of reprobation and dislike of the civilians, and the expense and complication of the system which they had substituted for the old laws and customs of Germany.

ly than Petrarch. Boccaccio, Luther, Hütten, Montaigne, Rabelais, were all disgusted with the vice, venality, and luxury, which they witnessed. At this period, under Leo X., assassination, the most shameful vices, debauchery of every kind, and unbridled luxury, were rife in Rome; in every relation of public and private life, idleness, ignorance, and bad faith, were commonly practiced; every thing could be bought, even pardon for the