HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

xlvi
3^ntrotiu(tton.
air of his Matntzzerirgruft, his "mattress-grave,"
— to see Heine's width of
range; the most varied figures succeed
one another, — Rhainpsinitus, Edith
with the Swan Neck, Charles the First,
Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine
of Mabille, Melisanda of Tripoli,
Richard Coeur de Lion, Pedro the Cruel,
Firdusi, Cortes, Dr. Dollinger; — but
never does Heine attempt to be hubsch
objectiv, "beautifully objective," to become
in spirit an old Egyptian, or an
old Hebrew, or a Middle-Age knight, or
a Spanish adventurer, or an English
royalist; he always remains Heinrich
Heine, a son of the nineteenth century.
To give a notion of his tone, I will
quote a few stanzas at the end of the
Spanish Atridce, in which he describes,
in the character of a visitor at the court
of Henry of Transtamare at Segovia,
Henry's treatment of the children of
his brother, Pedro the Cruel. Don
Diego Albuquerque,his neighbour,stroll8
after dinner through the castle with
him :
" In the cloister-passage, which leads
to the kennels where are kept the king's
hounds, that with their growling and
yelping let you know a long way off
where they are,
" There I saw, built into the wall, and
with a strong iron grating for its outer
face, a cell like a cage.
"Two human figures sate therein,
two young boys; chained by the leg,