For this, and many other offences of my Author, apologies might be attempted; but much as I wish for a favourable sentence, it is not meet that Richter, in the Literary Judgment-hall, should appear as a culprit; or solicit suffrages, which, if he cannot claim them, are unavailing. With the hundred real, and the ten thousand seeming weaknesses of his cause, a fair trial is a thing he will court rather than dread.'

GOETHE.

THE distinguished and peculiar man, who occupies the last volume in our Collection, has lightened the task of his biographers and critics, by a work of great interest, which he has himself given to the world, and of which some more or less accurate resemblance is also before the English reader. In his Dichtung und Wahrheit, Goethe has accomplished the difficult problem of autobiography with what seems a singular success: here, in the kindest and coolest spirit, he conducts us through the scenes of his past existence; unfolds with graphic clearness, and light gay dignity, whatever influenced the formation of his character and mode of thought; depicting all with the knowledge of a chief actor, and the calm impartial penetration of a spectator; speaking of himself as many would wish, but few are able, to speak of themselves: In the temper of a third party, and not sooner or not farther than others are desirous and entitled to hear that subject treated. If the old remark is true, that a faithful secret-history of the humblest human being would be attractive and instructive to the highest, this picture of the spiritual and moral growth of a Goethe may well be considered as deserving no common attention. I am sorry to understand that the English version of the work is not from the German, but from the French: judging by the size of the book, the business of curtailment in this Life of Goethe must have been proceeded in with a liberal and fearless hand; it seems also that there are additions, which probably are still more offensive. To this copy of the portrait, defaced and distorted as it cannot fail to be, I must not refer the reader: yet all that can be attempted here is a few slight sketches, more in the way of commentary than of narrative.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born at Frankfort on the Mayn, on the 28th of August 1749. The station and circumstances of his family were of a favourable sort: his father bore the title of Imperial Councillor, and though personally unconnected with active affairs, stood in close relation with the influential and cultivated classes of the community. Both parents appear likewise to have been of a determinate and genuine form of mind, possessing many virtues, and no

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inconsiderable share of intellectual gifts and attainments. In the height of his fame, it was observed of Goethe, that his true-hearted, idiomatic and expressive style of speech recalled his mother to memory; who, while nursing her fair boy on her knee, had little dreamed that in him her own good and kindly character was to be transfigured to such beauty and enlargement, and transmitted in glorious emblems to distant countries and succeeding ages. The father, of course, was fashioned in a more rugged mould, and seems also to have been originally of sterner stuff; a rigorous, abrupt, positive and thoroughgoing man; somewhat of a humorist, for he actually built his house from the top downwards; testy and indomitable, but not ill-natured or ungenerous; clear in his perceptions, as he was resolute in his actions; and withal of an honest and manly heart. Both these modes of character appear to have united in the son; the liveliest susceptibility of all sorts was superadded to them; and the scene he lived in acted on him with strong and complicated influences. These earliest images of his memory he has set before us with the most graceful simplicity in the work above referred to: the aspects of life in Gothic Frankfort, with its old German minds and old German manners, are brought home to our eyes; we walk among rich old-fashioned wondrous objects, and converse with originals as wondrous and old-fashioned as their abode.

Goethe was destined, as his father had been, for the profession of law; and in due time, he went successively to Leipzig and Strasburg, to prepare for, and to undertake, the study of it. But his quick, impassioned and discursive mind, impressed by the most varied impulses, was continually diverging into many provinces remote enough from this his appointed occupation; for which, as was naturally to be expected, he had never shown any preference; though, from time to time, he had not failed to prosecute, with fits of resolute diligence, the tasks prescribed by it. In 1771, he obtained his degree: but if the form of his outward life might now seem clear and determined, his inward world was still in a state of uproar and disorder. The ambition of wealth and official celebrity would not seize him with due force a thousand vague purposes, and vehement wishes, and brightest and blackest forecastings, were conflicting within him; for a strong spirit was here struggling to body itself forth from the most discordant elements; and what was at last to rise as a fair universe of thought still rolled as a dim and wasteful chaos.

By degrees, however, after not a little suffering in many hard contests with himself and his circumstances, he began to emerge from these troubles: light dawned on his course; and his true destination, a life of literature, became more and more plain to him. His first efforts were crowned with a success well calculated to confirm him

in such purposes. Götz von Berlichingen, an historical drama of the Feudal Ages, appeared in 1773; by the originality both of its subjects and its execution, attracting the public eye to the young author: and next year his Sorrows of Werter rose like a literary meteor on the world; and carried his name on its blazing wings, not only over Germany, but into the remotest corners of Europe. The chief incident of this work had been suggested by a tragical catastrophe, which had occurred in his neighbourhood, during a residence at Wetzlar: the emotions and delineations which give life to it; the vague impassioned longing, the moody melancholy, the wayward love and indignation, the soft feeling and the stern philosophy, which characterise the hero, he had drawn from his own past or actual experience. The works just mentioned, though noble specimens of youthful talent, are still not so much distinguished by their intrinsic merits, as by their splendid fortune. It would be difficult to name two books, which have exercised a deeper influence on the subsequent literature of Europe, than these two performances of a young author; his first-fruits, the produce of his twenty-fourth year. Werter appeared to seize the hearts of men in all quarters of the world, and to utter for them the word which they had long been waiting to hear. As usually happens, too, this same word once uttered was soon abundantly repeated; spoken in all dialects, and chanted through all the notes of the gamut, till at length the sound of it had grown a weariness rather than a pleasure. Sceptical sentimentality, view-hunting, love, friendship, suicide and desperation, became the staple of literary ware; and though the epidemic, after a long course of years, subsided in Germany, it reappeared with various modifications in other countries; and everywhere abundant traces of its good and bad effects are still to be discerned. The fortune of Berlichingen with the Iron Hand, though less sudden, was by no means less exalted. In his own country, Götz, though he now stands solitary and childless, became the parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry plays, feudal delineations, and poetico-antiquarian performances; which, though long ago deceased, made noise enough in their day and generation: and with ourselves his influence has been perhaps still more remarkable. Sir Walter Scott's first literary enterprise was a translation of Götz von Berlichingen: and if genius could be communicated like instruction, we might call this work of Goethe's the prime cause of Marmion and the Lady of the Lake, with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed that has lighted in the right soil! For if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all the nations of the Earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit.

But overlooking these spiritual genealogies, which bring little cer

tainty and little profit, it may be sufficient to observe of Berlichingen and Werter, that they stand prominent among the causes, or, at the very least, among the signals, of a great change in modern Literature. The former directed men's attention with a new force to the picturesque effects of the Past; and the latter, for the first time, attempted the more accurate delineation of a class of feelings, deeply important to modern minds; but for which our elder poetry offered no exponent, and perhaps could offer none, because they are feelings that arise from passion incapable of being converted into action, and belong chiefly to an age as indolent, cultivated and unbelieving as our own. This, notwithstanding the dash of falsehood which may exist in Werter itself, and the boundless delirium of extravagance which it called forth in others, is a high praise which cannot justly be denied it. The English reader ought also to understand that our current version of Werter is mutilated and inaccurate: it comes to us through the all-subduing medium of the French; shorn of its caustic strength; with its melancholy rendered maudlin; its hero reduced from the stately gloom of a broken-hearted poet to the tearful wrangling of a dyspeptic tailor.

One of the very first to perceive the faults of these works, and the ridiculous extravagance of their imitators, was Goethe himself. In this unlooked-for and unexampled popularity, he was far from feeling that he had attained his object: this first outpouring of his soul had calmed its agitations, not exhausted or even indicated its strength; and he now began to see afar off a much higher region, as well as glimpses of the track by which it might be reached. To cultivate his own spirit, not only as an author, but as a man; to obtain dominion over it, and wield its resources as instruments in the service of what seemed Good and Beautiful, had been his object more or less distinctly from the first, as it is that of all true men in their several spheres. According to his own deep maxim, that 'Doubt of any sort can only be removed by Action,' this object had now become more clear to him; and he may be said to have pursued it to the. present hour, with a comprehensiveness and unwearied perseverance, rarely if ever exemplified in the history of such a mind.

His external relations had already ceased to obstruct him in this pursuit, and they now became more favourable than ever. In 1776, the Heir Apparent of Weimar was passing through Frankfort; on which occasion, by the intervention of some friends, he waited upon Goethe. The visit must have been mutually agreeable; for a short time afterwards, the young author was invited to Court; apparently, to contribute his assistance in various literary institutions and arrangements, then proceeding or contemplated; and in pursuance of this honourable call, he accordingly settled at Weimar, with the title

of Legationsrath, and the actual dignity of a place in the Collegium, or Council. The connexion, begun under such favourable auspices, and ever since continued unimpaired, has been productive of important consequences, not only to Weimar, but to all Germany. The noble purpose undertaken by the Duchess Amelia, was zealously forwarded by the young Duke on his accession; under whose influence, supported and directed by his new Councillor, this inconsiderable state has gained for itself a fairer distinction than any of its larger, richer, or more warlike rivals. By degrees, whatever was brightest in the genius of Germany had been gathered to this little Court: a classical theatre was under the superintendence of Goethe and Schiller; here Wieland taught and sung; in the pulpit was Herder: and possessing such a four, the small town of Weimar, some twenty years ago, might challenge the proudest capital of the world to match it in intellectual wealth. Occupied so profitably to his country, and honourably to himself, Goethe continued rising in estimation with his Prince by degrees, a political was added to his literary influence ; in 1779 he became Privy Councillor; President in 1782; and, at length, after his return from Italy, where he had spent two years in various studies and observation, he was appointed Minister; a post which he only a few years ago resigned, on his final retirement from public affairs. In this, his second country, he still resides. The German biographies are careful to inform us that by the Duke of Weimar he was ennobled; and decorated by Alexander and Napoleon, and various other kings and kaisers, with their several insignia of honour.

A much purer and more imperishable series of honours he has earned for himself, by the peaceful efforts of his own genius. His active duties were, at all times, more or less intimately connected with literature; they seem not to have obstructed the silent labours of his closet; and perhaps they rather forwarded the great business of his life, a thorough universal culture of all his being. Goethe's history is a picture of the most diverse studies and acquisitions: Literature he has tried successfully in nearly every one of its departments; with Art, ancient and modern, he has familiarised himself beyond a rival; Science, also, he seems to have surveyed with no careless or feeble eye, and his contributions to several of its branches, particularly of Botany and Optics, have been thankfully received by their professors. Some of our readers may be surprised to learn, that the painted Diagram of Mountain-altitudes which ornaments their libraries, exhibiting in one view the successive elevations of the Globe, was devised by the Author of Faust and The Sorrows of Werter.

Goethe's purely literary works amount to between twenty and thirty considerable volumes. A bare enumeration of their names,