utes before he ascends the scaffold. Clara, who is dead, appears to him during his sleep, surrounded with celestial brilliancy, and informs him that the cause of liberty, which he had served so well, will one day triumph. This wonderful dénoûment cannot accord with an historical performance. The Germans are, in general, embarrassed about the conclusion of their pieces; and the Chinese proverb is particularly applicable to them, which says, “When we have ten steps to take, the ninth brings us half way." The talent necessary to finish a composition of any kind, demands a sort of skill and measure which scarcely agrees with the vague and indefinite imagination displayed by the Germans in all their works. Besides, it requires art, and a great deal of art, to find a proper dénoùment, for there are seldom any in real life: facts are linked one to the other, and their consequences are lost in the lapse of time. The knowledge of the theatre alone teaches us to circumscribe the principal event, and make all the accessory ones concur to the same purpose. But to combine effects

thoroughly imbued with his subject; from him, such traits escape unconsciously, and without design, as they do from the individuals whose characters they serve to portray.

"The few scenes in which the citizens of Brussels are introduced, appear to us to be the result of profound study, and it would be difficult to find, in so few words, a more admirable historical monument of the Netherlands of that period.

"Equally graphic is that portion of the picture which portrays the spirit of the Government, though it must be confessed that the artist has here somewhat softened down the harsher features of the original. This is especially true in reference to the character of the Duchess of Parma. Before his Duke of Alva we tremble, without, however, turning from him with aversion; he is a firm, rigid, inaccessible character: "a brazen tower without gates, the garrison of which must be furnished with wings." The prudent forecast with which he makes his arrangements for Egmont's arrest, excites our admiration, while it removes him from our sympathy. The remaining characters of the drama are delineated with a few masterly strokes. The subtle, taciturn Orange, with his timid, yet comprehensivs and all-combining mind, is depicted in a single scene. Both Alva and Egmont are mirrored in the men by whom they are surrounded. This mode of delineation is admirable. The poet, in order to concentrate the nterest upon Egmont, has isolated his hero, and omitted all mention of Count Horn, who shared the same melancholy fate." "-(Miss Swanwick. Dramatic Works of Goethe, pp. xv. xvi. London, 1851.)-Ed.

seems to the Germans almost like hypocrisy; and the spirit of calculation appears to them irreconcilable with inspiration.

Of all their writers, however, Goethe is certainly best able to unite the skill of genius with its boldness; but he does not vouchsafe to give himself the trouble of arranging dramatic situations so as to render them properly theatrical. If they are fine in themselves, he cares for nothing more. His German audience at Weimar ask no better than to wait the development of his plans, and to guess at his intention; as patiens as intelligent as the ancient Greek chorus, they do not expect merely to be amused, as sovereigns commonly do; whether they are people or kings, they contribute to their own pleasure, by analyzing and explaining what did not at first strike them: such a public is truly like an artist in its judg ments.

CHAPTER XXII.

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS, TORQUATO TASSO, ETC., ETC.

IN Germany were represented familiar comedies, melodra mas, and grand spectacles, filled with horses and knights. Goethe wished to bring back literature to the_severity of ancient times, and he composed his Iphigenia in Tauris, which is the chef-d'œuvre of classical poetry among the Germans. This tragedy recalls the sort of impression which we receive in contemplating Grecian statues; the action of it is so commanding, and yet so tranquil, that even when the situation of the personages is changed, there is always in them a sort of dignity which fixes the recollection of every moment on the

memory.

The subject of Iphigenia in Tauris is so well known, that it was difficult to treat it in a new manner. Goethe has, nevertheless, succeeded in giving a character truly admirable to his peroine The Antigone of Sophocles is a saint, such as a

religion more pure than that of the ancients might have represented to us. The Iphigenia of Goethe has not less respect to truth than Antigone; but she unites the calmness of a philosopher with the fervor of a priestess: the chaste worship of Diana, and the asylum of a temple, satisfy that contemplative existence which the regret of being exiled from Greece imparts to her. She wishes to soften the manners of the barbarous country which she inhabits; and though her name is unknown, she sheds benefactions around her befitting a daughter of the King of Kings. Nevertheless, she ceases not to regret the beautiful country in which her infancy was passed, and her soul is filled with a firm yet gentle resignation, which it may be said holds the middle space between Stoicism and Christianity. Iphigenia somewhat resembles the divinity she serves; and imagination represents her as surrounded with a cloud, which conceals from her her country. In reality, could exile, and exile far from Greece, allow any enjoyment except that which is found in the internal resources of the mind? Ovid also, when condemned to spend his days not far from Tauris, in vain uttered his harmonious language to the inhabitants of those desolate shores: in vain he sought the arts, a favoring sky, and that sympathy of thought which makes us taste some of the pleasures of friendship, even in the society of those who have no responsive feeling, and would be otherwise indif ferent to us. His genius recoiled on itself, and his suspended lyre breathed none but plaintive sounds, a mournful accompaniment to the northern blast.

It appears to me that no modern work surpasses the Iphigenia of Goethe in depicting the destiny which hung so heavily on the race of Tantalus, and the dignity of the misfortunes caused by an invincible fatality. A religious dread is felt through the whole narration, and the personages themselves seem to speak prophetically, and to act under the immediate influence of the gods.

Goethe has made Thoas the deliverer of Iphigenia. A ferocious character, such as many authors have represented him, would not have accorded with the general color of the piece'

he would have destroyed its harmony. In many tragedies a tyrant is exhibited as a sort of machine on which the business of the piece depends; but the reflecting mind of Goethe would never have brought such a personage into action without developing his character. Now a criminal character is always. too complicated to enter properly into a subject treated in so imple a manner as this is. Thoas loves Iphigenia; he cannot resolve to separate himself from her by suffering her to return into Greece with her brother Orestes. Iphigenia might indeed depart unknown to Thoas: she debates with her brother and with herself, whether she ought to allow herself to act in so deceitful a manner, and this forms the plot or the intrigue of the last part of the piece. At length Iphigenia avows her whole design to Thoas, combats his opposition to it, and obtains from him the word adieu, after which the curtain drops.

Certainly the subject thus conceived is pure and noble, and it would be desirable that an audience might be interested and affected merely by a scruple of delicacy; but in the present state of the theatre this is not sufficient, and we are therefore interested more in reading this piece than in seeing it represented. Such a tragedy excites admiration rather than sympathy; we listen to it as to a canto of an epic poem; and the calm which pervades the whole reaches almost to Orestes himself. The scene in which Iphigenia and Orestes recognize each other is not the most animated, though it is perhaps the most poetical part of the piece. The family of Agamemnon is recalled to remembrance in a manner so admirably skilful, that the pictures with which both history and fable have enriched antiquity seem all to pass before our eyes. We are interested also by the finest language and most elevated sentiments. Poetry so sublime raises the soul to noble contemplation, which renders dramatic variety and action almost unnecessary.

Among the great number of passages worthy of quotation in this piece, there is one which seems perfectly new. Iphigenia, in her affliction, recollects a song formerly known in her family, and taught her by her nurse in her infancy: 'tis

the song which the Parcæ address to Tantalus in the infernal regions. They recall to his recollection his former glory, when he was the guest of the gods at the golden table; they describe the terrible moment when he was hurled from his throne, the punishment inflicted on him by the gods, the tranquillity of those deities who preside over the universe-a tran quillity not to be shaken even by the torments and lamenta tions of hell. These menacing Parcæ inform the descendants of Tantalus that the gods will forsake them, because their features recall the remembrance of their father. The aged Tantalus, plunged in eternal night, hears this sad song, thinks on his children, and bows down his guilty head. Images the most striking, and a rhythm peculiarly adapted to the sentiment, give to this poetry the air and energy of a national song. It is the greatest effort of talent thus to familiarize us with antiquity, and to seize at the same time what would have been popular among the Greeks, and what produces also, at the distance of so many ages, an impression equally solemn.

The admiration of Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris, which it is impossible for us not to feel, does not contradict what I have said on the more lively interest and warmer degree of feeling which we may experience from modern subjects. Those manners and that religion, the traces of which are almost effaced through the lapse of ages, present man to us almost as an ideal being, who scarcely touches the earth on which he moves; but in the epochs and events of history which still influence the present moment, we feel the warmth of our own existence, and we expect affections similar to those by which we are agitated.

It appears to me then that Goethe ought not to have placed in his piece of Torquato Tasso, the same simplicity of action and calm dignity of dialogue which was suitable to his Iphigenia. That calmness and simplicity appears cold and unnatural in a subject so modern in every respect as that of the personal character of Tasso and the intrigues of the court of Ferrara. Goethe wished to display in this piece the opposition which exists between poetry and the relations of social life; between