quires the purest of all studies; if he recollect that the new may not always be the false; that the excellence which can be seen in a moment is not usually a very deep one; above all, if his own heart be full of feelings and experiences, for which he finds no name and no solution, but which lie in pain imprisoned and unuttered in his breast, till the Word be spoken, the spell that is to unbind them, and bring them forth to liberty and light; then, if I mistake not, he will find that in this Goethe there is a new world set before his eyes; a world of Earnestness and Sport, of solemn cliff and gay plain; some such temple-far inferior, as it may well be, in magnificence and beauty, but a temple of the same architecture-some such temple for the Spirit of our age, as the Shakspeares and Spensers have raised for the Spirit of theirs.

This seems a bold assertion: but it is not made without deliberation, and such conviction as it has stood within my means to obtain. If it invite discussion, and forward the discovery of the truth in this matter, its best purpose will be answered. Goethe's genius is a study for other minds than have yet seriously engaged with it among us. By and by, apparently ere long, he will be tried and judged righteously; he himself, and no cloud instead of him; for he comes to us in such a questionable shape, that silence and neglect will not always serve our purpose. England, the chosen home of justice in all its senses, where the humblest merit has been acknowledged, and the highest fault not unduly punished, will do no injustice to this extraordinary man. And if, when her impartial sentence has been pronounced and sanctioned, it shall appear that Goethe's earliest admirers have wandered too far into the language of panegyric, I hope it may be reckoned no unpardonable sin. It is spirit-stirring rather than spirit-sharpening, to consider that there is one of the Prophets here with us in our own day : that a man who is to be numbered with the Sages and Sacri Vates, the Shakspeares, the Tassos, the Cervanteses of the world, is looking on the things which we look on, has dealt with the very thoughts which we have to deal with, is reigning in serene dominion over the perplexities and contradictions in which we are still painfully entangled.

That Goethe's mind is full of inconsistencies and shortcomings, can be a secret to no one who has heard of the Fall of Adam. Nor would it be difficult, in this place, to muster a long catalogue of

darknesses defacing our perception of this brightness: but it might be still less profitable than it is difficult; for in Goethe's writings, as in those of all true masters, an apparent blemish is apt, after maturer study, to pass into a beauty. His works cannot be judged in fractions, for each of them is conceived and written as a whole; the humble and common may be no less essential there than the high and splendid: it is only Chinese pictures that have no shade. There is a maxim, far better known than practised, that to detect faults is a much lower occupation than to recognise merits. We may add also, that though far easier in the execution, it is not a whit more certain in the result. What is the detecting of a fault, but the feeling of an incongruity, of a contradiction, which may exist in ourselves as well as in the object? Who shall say in which? None but he who sees this object as it is, and himself as he is. We have all heard of the critic fly; but none of us doubts the compass of his own vision. It is thus that a high work of art, still more that a high and original mind, may at all times calculate on much sorriest criticism. In looking at an extraordinary man, it were good for an ordinary man to be sure of seeing him, before attempting to oversee him. Having ascertained that Goethe is an object deserving study, it will be time to censure his faults when we have clearly estimated his merits; and if we are wise judges, not till then.

Whether this work of Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre15 will exalt or depress our actual judgment of him, I pretend not to predict. Like all Goethe's works, its immediate reception is doubtful, or rather, perhaps, it is not doubtful. That these Travels will surprise and disappoint the reader, is too likely; and perhaps the reader of the

15 Wanderjahre denotes the period which a German artisan is, by law or usage, obliged to pass in travelling, to perfect himself in his craft, after the conclusion of his Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship), and before his Mastership can begin. In many guilds this custom is as old as their existence, and continues still to be indispensable: it is said to have originated in the frequent journeys of the German Emperors to Italy, and the consequent improvement observed in such workmen among their menials as had attended them thither. Most of the guilds are what is called geschenkten, that is, presenting, having presents to give to needy wandering brothers. This word Wanderjahre I have been obliged to translate by Travels, after in vain casting about for an expression that should more accurately represent it. Our mechanics have a word much nearer the mark: but this was never printed; and must not be printed, for the first time, here.

Apprenticeship will be more surprised than any other. The book is called a romance; but it treats not of romance characters or subjects; it has less relation to Fielding's Tom Jones than to Spenser's Faëry Queen. The scene is not laid on this firm Earth, but in a fair Utopia of Art and Science and free Activity: the figures, light and aëriform, come unlooked for, and melt away abruptly, like the pageants of Prospero in his enchanted Island. Whether this the baseless fabric of their vision is beautiful and significant like his, or vague and false, our readers are now to determine. To a reader of the original this question may appear already pretty well decided: in both languages, it is true, the work is still a fragment, hanging suspended in middle. air; but the matchless graces of its workmanship, the calm fulness, the noble simplicity of its style, are, in many points, for the one language only.

Nevertheless, I present this work to the English people without reluctance or misgivings, persuaded that though it may be caviare to the general, there are not wanting tastes among us to discern its worth and worthlessness, even under its present disadvantages, and to pronounce truly on both. Of his previous reception in this country neither Goethe nor his admirers have reason to complain. By all men who have any pretension to depth or sensibility of mind, the existence of a high and peculiar genius has been cheerfully recognised in him; a fact which, considering the unwonted and in many points forbidding aspect of his chief works, does honour both to the author and his critics; while their often numerous and grave objections have proved only that they had studied him with the cursory eye, which may suffice for cursory writers, but for him is not sufficient, nor likely to be final. In no quarter has there appeared any tendency to wilful unfairness, any jealousy as towards a stranger, any disposition to treat him otherwise than according to his true deserts. Indeed, wherefore should there? We of England have of all nations, past and present, the least cause to be jealous with this mean jealousy. Our own literature is peopled with kingly names; our language is beautiful with their English intellects and English characters; their works live forever in our hearts. If we cannot love and hold fast our own, and yet be just to others, who is there that can? In soliciting and anticipating a true estimate of Goethe, I have only to wish that the same sentiments may continue with us.

For the rest, if it seem that I advocate this cause too warmly; that Goethe's genius, whether it be good or bad, is in truth a very small concern to us, I may be allowed to remind my readers, that the existence or non-existence of a new Poet for the World in our own time, of a new Instructor and Preacher of Truth to all men, is really a question of more importance to us than many that are agitated with far greater noise.

No. 3.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION OF MEISTER'S APPRENTICESHIP AND MEISTER'S TRAVELS.

[London, 1839.]

THESE two Translations, Meister's Apprenticeship and Meister's Tra vels, have long been out of print, but never altogether out of demand; nay, it would seem, the originally somewhat moderate demand has gone on increasing, and continues to increase. They are therefore here republished; and the one being in some sort a sequel to the other, though in rather unexpected sort, they are now printed together. The English version of Meister's Travels has been extracted, or extricated, from a Compilation of very various quality named German Romance; and placed by the side of the Apprenticeship, its forerunner, which, in the translated as in the original state, appeared hitherto as a separate work.

In the Apprenticeship, the first of these Translations, which was executed some fifteen years ago, under questionable auspices, I have made many little changes; but could not, unfortunately, change it into a right translation: it hung, in many places, stiff and laboured, too like some unfortunate buckram cloak round the light harmonious movement of the original; and, alas, still hangs so, here and there; and may now hang. In the second Translation, Meister's Travels, two years later in date, I have changed little or nothing: I might have added much; for the Original, since that time, was as it were taken to pieces by the Author himself in his last years, and constructed anew; and in the Final Edition of his Works appears with multifarious intercalations, giving a great expansion both of size and of scope. Not Pedagogy only, and Husbandry and Art and Religion and Human Conduct in the Nineteenth Century, but Geology, Astronomy, Cotton-spinning, Metallurgy, Anatomical Lecturing, and VOL. VI. (Misc. vol. 1.)

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