faded like a cloud-speck from the azure of the All! What then is man! What then is man? He endures but for an hour, and is crushed before the moth. Yet in the being and in the working of a faithful man is there already (as all faith, from the beginning, gives assurance) a something that pertains not to this wild death-element of TIME; that triumphs over Time, and is, and will be, when Time shall be no more. And now we turn back into the world, with drawing from this new made grave. The man whom we love lies there: but glorious, worthy: and his spirit yet lives in us with an authentic life. Could each here vow to do his little task, even as the Departed did his great one; in the manner of a true man, not for a Day, but for Eternity! To live, as he counselled and commanded, not commodiously in the Repu table, the Plausible, the Half, but resolutely in the Whole, the Good, the True: "Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren resolut zu leben! GOETHE'S WORKS." [FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW, 1832.] Ir is now four years since we specially in-ness, and now seriously ask itself a question, vited attention to this Book; first in an essay on the graceful little fantasy-piece of Helena, then in a more general one on the merits and workings of Goethe himself: since which time two important things have happened in reference to it; for the publication, advancing with successful regularity, reached its fortieth and last volume in 1830; and now, still more emphatically to conclude both this "completed final edition," and all other editions, endeavours and attainments of one in whose hands lay so ach, come tidings that the venerable man has been recalled from our earth, and of his long labours and high faithful stewardship we have had what was appointed us. perhaps never seriously asked before: What the purport and character of his presence here was now when he has gone hence, and is not present here, and will remain absent for evermore. It is the conclusion that crowns the work; much more the irréversible conclusion wherein all is concluded: thus is there no life so mean but a death will make it memorable. At all lykewakes, accordingly, the doings and endurances of the Departed are the theme: rude souls, rude tongues grow eloquently busy with him; a whole septuagint of beldames are striving to render, in such dialect as they have, the small bible, or apochrypha, of his existence, for the general perusal. The least famous of The greatest epoch in a man's life is not mankind will for once become public, and have always his death; yet for bystanders, such as his name printed, and read not without interest: contemporaries, it is always the most notice- in the Newspaper obituaries; on some frail able. All other epochs are transition-points memorial, under which he has crept to sleep. from one visible condition to another visible; Foolish lovesick girls know that there is one the days of their occurrence are like any other method to impress the obdurate, false Lovelace, days, from which only the clearer-sighted will and wring his bosom; the method of drowning: distinguish them; bridges they are, over which foolish ruined dandies, whom the tailor will no the smooth highway runs continuous, as if no longer trust, and the world turning on its heel Rubicon were there. But the day in a mortal's is about forgetting, can recall it to attention by destinies which is like no other, is his death-report of pistol; and so, in a worthless death, day: here too is a transition, what we may call if in a worthless life no more, re-attain the topa bridge, as at other epochs; but now from the gallant of renown,-for one day. Death is keystone onwards half the arch rests on in- ever a sublimity, and supernatural wonder, Visibility; this is a transition out of visible were there no other left: the last act of a most Time into invisible Eternity. strange drama, which is not dramatic but has Since death, as the palpable revelation (not now become real: wherein, miraculously, Futo be overlooked by the dullest) of the mystery ries, god-missioned, have in actual person of wonder, and depth, and fear, which every-risen from the abyss, and do verily dance where from beginning to ending through its whole course and movement lies under life, is in any case so great, we find it not unnatural that hereby a new look of greatness, a new interest should be impressed on whatsoever has preceded it and led to it; that even towards some man, whose history did not then first become significant, the world should turn, at bus departure, with a quite peculiar carnest Goethes Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe letzer Hand, the's Works. Completed, final edition,) 40 voll. Murge:1 and Tübingen. 1827-30 there in that terror of all terrors, and wave their dusky-glaring torches, and shake their serpent-hair! Out of which heart-thrilling, so authentically tragic fifth act there goes, as we said, a new meaning over all the other four: making them likewise tragic and authentic, and memorable in some measure, were they formerly the sorriest pickle-herring farce. But above all, when a Great Man dies, then he was alive: biographies and biographic has the time come for putting us in mind that sketches, criticisms, characters, anecdotes reminiscences, issue forth as from opened highest is not independent of him; his suffrage springing fountains; the world, with a passion whetted by impossibility, will yet a while retain, yet a while speak with, though only to the unanswering echoes, what it has lost without remedy thus is the last event of life often the loudest; and real spiritual Apparitions, (who have been named Men,) as false imaginary ones are fabled to do, vanish in thunder. For ourselves, as regards the great beauty, if not seeking to be foremost in this natural movement, neither do we shun to mingle in it. The life and ways of such men as he, are, in all seasons, a matter profitable to contemplate, to speak of; if in this death season, long with a sad reverence looked forward to, there has little increase of light, little change of feeling arisen for the writer, a readier attention, nay a certain expectance, from some readers is call sufficient. Innumerable meditations and disquisitions on this subject must yet pass through the minds of men; on all sides must it be taken up, by various observers, by successive generations, and ever a new light may evolve itself: why should not this observer, on this side, set down what he partially has seen into, and the necessary process thereby be forwarded, at any rate, continued? A continental Humourist, of deep-piercing, resolute, though strangely perverse faculty, whose works are as yet but sparingly if at all cited in English literature, has written a chapter, somewhat in the nondescript manner of metaphysico-rhetorical, homiletic-exegetic rhapsody, on the Greatness of great men; which topic we agree with him in reckoning one of the most pregnant. The time, indeed, is come when much that was once found visibly subsistent Without must anew be sought for Within; many a human feeling, indestructible, and to mau's well-being indispensable, which once manifested itself in expressive forms to the Sense, now lies hidden in the formless depths of the Spirit, or at best struggles out obscurely in forms become superannuated, altogether inexpressive, and unrecognisable; from which paralysed, imprisoned state, often the best effort of the thinker is required, and moreover were well applied, to deliver it. For if the Present is to be the "living sum-total of the whole Past," nothing that ever lived in the Past must be let wholly die; whatsoever was done, whatsoever was said or written aforetime, was done and written for our edification. In such state of imprisonment, paralysis and unrecognisable defacement, as compared with its condition in the old ages, lies this our feeling towards great men; wherein, and in the much that else belongs to it, some of the deepest human interests will be found involved. A few words from Herr Professor Teufelsdreck, if they help to set this preliminary matter in a clearer light, may be worth translating here. Let us first remark with him, however, "how wonderful in all cases, great or little, is the importance of man to man:" "Deny it as he will," says Teufelsdreck, "man reverently loves man, and daily by action evidences his belief in the divineness of What a more than regal mystery encircles the poorest of living souls for us! The man. has value: could the highest monarch convince himself that the humblest beggar with sincere mind despised him, no serried ranks of halberdiers and body-guards could shut out some little twinge of pain; some emanation from the low had pierced into the bosom of the high. Of a truth, men are mystically united; a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one. "Thus too has that fierce hunting after Popa. larity, which you often wonder at, and laugh at, a basis on something true: nay, under the other aspect, what is that wonderful spirit of Inter ference, were it but manifested as the paltriest scandal and tea-table backbiting, other than, inversely or directly, a heartfelt indestructibl. sympathy of man with man? Hatred itself is but an inverse love The philosopher's wife complained to the philosopher that certain twolegged animals without feathers spake evil of him, spitefully criticised his goings out and comings in; wherein she too failed not of her share: Light of my life,' answered the philo sopher, it is their love of us, unknown to themselves, and taking a foolish shape; thank them for it, and do thou love them more wisely. Were we mere steam-engines working here under this rooftree, they would scorn to speak of us once in a twelve-month.' The last stage of human perversion, it has been said, is when sympathy corrupts itself into envy; and the indestructible interest we take in men's doings has become a joy over their faults and mis fortunes: this is the last and lowest stage; lower than this we cannot go: the absolute petrifaction of indifference is not attainable on this side total death. "And now," continues the Professor, "rising from these lowest tea-table regions of human communion into the higher and highest, is there not still in the world's demeanour towards Great Men, enough to make the old practice of Hero-worship intelligible, nay, signi ficant? Simpleton! I tell thee Hero-worship still continues; it is the only creed which never and nowhere grows or can grow obso lete. For always and everywhere this remains a true saying: Il y a dans le cœur humain un fibre religieux. Man always worships something; always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in something finite; and indeed can and must so see it in any finite thing, once tempt him well to fir his eyes thereon. Yes, in practice, be it in theory or not, we are all Supernataralists; and have an infinite happiness or an infinite wo not only waiting us hereafter, but looking out on us through any pitifullest present good or evil;-as, for example, on a high poetic Byron through his lameness; as on all young souls through their first lovesuit; as on older souls, still more foolishly, through many a lawsuit, paper-battle, political horse-race or ass race. Atheism, it has been said, is unposse ble; and truly, if we will consider it no Atheist denies a Divinity, but only some Nava (Nomen, Numen) of a Divinity: the God is stil present there, working in that benighted hear were it only as a god of darkness. Thousandı of stern Sansculottes, to seek no other instance, go chanting martyr hymns to their guillotine these spura at the name of a God; yet worship one (as hapless Proselytes without the Gate') under the new pseudonym of Freedom. What indeed is all this that is called political fanaticism, revolutionary madness, force of hatred, force of love, and so forth; but merely under new designations, that same wondrous, wonder-working reflex from the Infinite, which in all times has given the Finite its empyrean or tartarean hue, thereby its blessedness or cursedness, its marketable worth or unworth? "Remark, however, as illustrative of several things, and more to the purpose here, that man does in strict speech always remain the clearest symbol of the Divinity to man. Friend Novalis, the devoutest heart I knew, and of purest depth, has not scrupled to call man what the Divine Man is called in Scripture, a 'Revelation in the Flesh.' "There is but one temple in the world,' says he, and that is the body of man. Bending before men is a reverence done to this revelation in the flesh. We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body. In which notable words, a reader that meditates them, may find such meaning and scientific accuracy as will surprise him. "The age of superstition, it appears to be suficiently known, are behind us. To no man, were he never so heroic, are shrines any more built, and vows offered as to one having Supernatural power. The sphere of the TRANCENDENTAL cannot now, by that avenue of heroic worth, of eloquent wisdom, or by any other avenue, be so easily reached. The worth that in these days could transcend all estimate or survey, and lead men willingly captive into infinite admiration, into worship, is still waited for (with little hope) from the unseen Time. All that can be said to offer itself in that kind, at present, is some slight household devotion, (Haus-Andacht,) whereby this or the other enthusiast, privately in all quietness, can love his hero or sage without measure, and idealize, and, so in a sense, idolize him; which practice, as man is by necessity an idol-worshipper, (no offence in him so long as del means accurately vision, clear symbol,) and all wicked idolatry is but a more idolatrous worship, may be excusable, in certain cases, praiseworthy. Be this as it will, let the curious Eve gratify itself in observing how the old antediluvian feeling still, though now struggling out so imperfectly, and forced into unexpected shapes, asserts its existence in the newest man: and the Chaldeans or old Persians, with their Zerdusht, differ only in vesture and alect from the French, with their Voltaire Confié sous des roses." This, doubtless, is a wonderful phraseology, but referable, as the Professor urges, to that capacions reservoir and convenience, the nature of the time:" "A time," says he, "when as in some Destruction of a Roman Empire, wrecks of old things are everywhere confusedly jumbled with rudiments of new; so that, till ence the mixture and amalgamation be complete, and even have long continued complete, and universally apparent, no grammatical lanque d'or or langue d'oui can establish itself, but The Maider: ihr Werden und Wirken Von D. TELOCK. Wejies nichtwo. Stillschweign'sche BuchBailing, 1830. only some barbare as mixed lingua rustwa, more like a jargon than a language, must prevail; and thus the deepest matters be either barbarously spoken of, or wholly omitted and lost sight of, which were still worse." But to let the homily proceed: 46 Consider, at any rate," continues he else. where, "under how many categories, down to the most impertinent, the world inquires concerning Great Men, and never wearies striving to represent to itself their whole structure, aspect, procedure, outward and inward! Blame not the world for such minutest curiosity about its great ones: this comes of the world's old. established necessity to worship: and, indeed, whom but its great ones, that "like celestial fire-pillars go before it on the march," ought it to worship? Blame not even that mistaken worship of sham great ones, that are not celestial fire-pillars, but terrestrial glass-lanterns with wick and tallow, under no guidance but a stupid fatuous one; of which worship the litanies, and gossip-homilies are, in some quarters of the globe, so inexpressibly uninteresting. Blame it not; pity it rather, with a certain loving respect. "Man is never, let me assure thee, altogether a clothes-horse; under the clothes there is always a body and a soul. The Count von Bügeleisen, so idolized by our fashionable classes, is not, as the. English Swift asserts, created wholly by the Tailor: but partially, also, by the supernatural Powers. His beautifully cut apparel, and graceful expensive tackle and environment of all kinds, are but the symbols of a beauty and gracefulness supposed to be inherent in the Count himself; under which predicament come also our reverence for his counthood, and in good part that other notabie phenomenon of his being worshipped, because he is worshipped, of one idolater, sheep-like, running after him, because many have already run. Nay, on what other principle but this latter hast thou, O reader, (if thou be not one of a thousand,) read, for example, thy Homer, and found some real joy therein? All these things, I say, the apparel, the counthood, the existing popularity, and whatever else can com bine them, are symbols;-bank notes, which, whether there be gold behind them, or only bankruptcy and empty drawers, pass current for gold. But how, now, could they so pass, if gold itself were not prized, and believed and known to be somewhere extant? Produce the actual gold visibly, and mark how, in these distrustful days, your most accredited bankpaper stagnates in the market! No holy Alliance, though plush, and gilding, and genealogical parchment, to the utmost that the time yields, be hung round it, can gain for itself a dominion in the heart of any man; some thirty or forty millions of men's hearts being, on the other hand, subdued into loyal reverence by a Corsican Lieutenant of Artillery. Such is the difference between God-creation and Tailorcreation. Great is the tailor, but not the greatest. So, too, in matters spiritual, what avails it that a man pe Doctor of the Sorbonne Doctor of Laws, of Both Laws, and can cover half a square foot in pica-type with the list of his fellowships, arranged as equilateral triangle at the vertex an '&c.' over and above, and with the parchment of his diplomas could thatch the whole street he lives in: What Avails it? The man is but an owl; of prepossessing gravity indeed; much respected by simple neighbours; but to whose sorrowful hootings no creature hastens, eager to listen. While, again, let but some rid.ng ganger arrive under cloud of night at a Scottish inn, and word be whispered that it is Robert Burns; in few instants all beds and truckle-beds, from garret to cellar, are left vacant, and gentle and simple, with open eyes and erect ears, are gathered together." with, and the new-born golden age prove: always to be still-born: neither is there, was there, or will there, be any other golden age pos sible, save only in this: in new increase of worth and wisdom;—that is to say, therefore, is the new arrival among us of wise and worthy men. Such arrivals are the great occurrences, though unnoticed ones; all else that can occur, in what kind soever, is but the road, up hill or down hill, rougher or smoother: nowise the power that will nerve us for travelling forward thereon. So little comparatively can forethought or the cunningest mechanical pre-contrivance do for a nation, for a world! Ever must we wait on the bounty of Time, and see what leader shall be born for us, and whither he will lead. Thus too, in defect of great men, noted men become important: the Noted Man of an age is the emblem and living summary of the Ideal which that age has fashioned for itself: show me the noted man of an age, you show me the age that produced him. Such figures walk in the van, for great good, or for great evil; if not leading, then driven and still farther misleading. The apotheosis of Beau Brummel has marred many a pretty youth; landed him not at any goal where oak garlands, earned by faithful labour and valour, carry men to the immortal gods; but, by a fatal inversion, at the King's Bench gul, where he that has never sowed shall not any longer reap, still less any longer burn his barn, but scrape himself with potsherds among the ashes thereof, and consider with all deliberation what he wanted, and what he wants." Whereby, at least, from amid this questionable lingua, "more like a jargon than a language," so much may have become apparent What unspeakable importance the world attaches, has ever attached, (expressing the same by all possible methods,) and will ever attach, to its great men. Deep and venerable, whether looked at in the Teufelsdreck manner or otherwise, is this love of men for great men, this their exclusive admiration of great men; a quality of vast significance, if we consider it well; for, as in its origin it reaches up into the nighes, and even holiest provinces of man's nature, so, in his practical history it will be found to play the most surprising pai. Does not, for one example, the fact of such a amper indestructibly existing in all men, point out man as an essentially governable and teachable creature, and for ever refute that calumny of his being by nature insubordinate, prone to rebellion? Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against To enlighten this principle of reverence for any thing that does not deserve rebelling against. the great, to teach us reverence, and whom we Ready, ever zealous is the obedience and de-are to revere and admire, should ever be a chief votedness they show to the great, to the really high; prostrating their whole possession and self, body, heart, soul, and spirit, under the feet of whatsoever is authentically above them. Nay, in most times, it is rather a slavish devotedness to those who only seem and pretend to be above them that constitutes their fault. But why seek special instances? Is not Love, from of old, known to be the beginning of all things? And what is admiration of the great but love of the truly loveable? The first product of love is imitation, that allimportant peculiar gift of man, whereby Mankind is not only held socially together in the present time, but connected in like union with the past and the future; so that the attainment of the innumerable Departed can be conveyed down to the Living, and transmitted with increase to the Unborn. Now great men, in particular spiritually great men, for all men have a spirit to guide, though all have not kingdoms to govern and battles to fight, are the men universally imitated and learned of, the glass in which whole generations survey and shape themselves. aim of Education, (indeed it is herein that in struction properly both begins and ends ;) and in these late ages, perhaps more than ever, so indispensable is now our need of clear reve rence, so inexpressibly poor our supply. “ Clear reverence!" it was once responded to a seeker of light: "all want it, perhaps thou thyself." What wretched idols, of Leeds cloth, stuffed out with bran of one kind or other, do mea either worship, or being tired of worshipping. (so expensively without fruit,) rend in pieces and kick out of doors, amid loud shouting and crowing, what they call "tremendous chiers," as if the feat were miraculous! In private life, as in public, delusion in this sort does its work; the blind leading the blind, both fall into the ditch. "For alas!" cries Teufelsdreck on this oc casion, "though in susceptive hearts it is felt that a great man is unspeakably great, the specific marks of him are mournfully mistaken. thus must innumerable pilgrims journey, in toil and hope, to shrines where there is no healing. On the fairer half of the creation. above all, such error presses hard. Womer Thus is the Great Man of an age, beyond are born worshippers; in their good little comparison, the most important phenomenon hearts lies the most craving relish for greal therein; all other phenomena, were they Water-ness: it is even said, each chooses her hus loo Victories, Constitutions of the year One, band on the hypothesis of his being a grea glorious revolutions, new births of the golden man-in his way. The good creatures, vel the age, in what sort you will, are small and trivial. foolish! For their choices, no insight, or best Alas, all these pass away, and are left extinct to none, being vouchsafed them, are unatter behind, like the tar-barrels they were celebrated able. Yet how touch.ag, also to see, let a ample, Parisian ladies of quality, all rustling | Teufelsdreck Homily on the Greatness of Great In silks and laces, visit the condemned-cell of | Men, it may now be high time to proceed with a fierce Cartouche, and in silver accents, and the matter more in hand; and remark that with the looks of angels, beg locks of hair our much calumniated age, so fruitful in noted from him; as from the greatest, were it only men, is also not without its great. In noted in the profession of highwayman! Still more men, undoubtedly enough, we surpass all ages fatal is that other mistake, the commonest of since the creation of the world; and from two all, whereby the devotional youth, seeking for plain causes: First, that there has been a a great man to worship, finds such within his French Revolution, and that there is now own worthy person, and proceeds with all zeal pretty rapidly proceeding a European Revolu to worship there. Unhappy enough! to realize, tion; whereby every thing, as in the Termin an age of such gas-light illumination, this day of a great city, when all mortals are rebasest superstition of the ages of Egyptian moving, has been, so to speak, set out into darkness. the street; and many a foolish vessel of dis"Remark, however, and not without emo- honour, unnoticed, and worth no notice in its tion, that of all rituals, and divine services, own dark corner, has become universally reand ordinances ever instituted for the worship cognisable when once mounted on the summit of any god, this of Self-worship is the ritual of some furniture-wagon, and tottering theremost faithfully observed. Trouble enough (as committee-president, or other head-direchas the Hindoo devotee, with his washings, tor,) with what is put under it, slowly onwards and cookings, and perplexed formularies, to its new lodging and arrangement, itself, tying him up at every function of his exist- alas, hardly to get thither without breakage. ence: but is it greater trouble than that of his Secondly, that the Printing Press, with stitched German self-worshipping brother; is it trouble and loose leaves, has now come into full aceven by the devoutest Fakir, so honestly un- tion; and makes, as it were, a sort of univerdertaken and fulfilled? I answer, No; for the sal day-light for removal and revolution, and German's heart is in it. The German wor- every thing else, to proceed in, far more comshipper, for whom does he work, and scheme, modiously, yet also far more conspicuously. and struggle, and fight, at his rising up and A complaint has accordingly been heard that lying down, in all times and places, but for his famous men abound, that we are quite overrun god only! Can he escape from that divine with famous men: however, the remedy lies presence of Self; can his heart waver, or his in the disease itself; crowded succession alhand wax faint in that sacred service? The ready means quick oblivion. For wagon after Hebrew Jonah, prophet as he was, rather than wagon rolls off, and either arrives or is overtake a message to Nineveh, took ship to Tarsh-set; and so, in either case the vessel of disho ish, hoping to hide there from his Sender; but nour, which, at worst, we saw only in crossing what ship-hull or whale's belly, shall the some street, will afflict us no more. madder German Jonah cherish hope of hiding from-Himself! Consider too the temples he builds, and the services of (shoulder-knotted) priests he ordains and maintains; the smoking sacrifices, thrice a day or oftener, with perhaps a psalmist or two, of broken-winded laureats and literators, if such are to be had. Nor are his votive gifts wanting, of rings, and jewels, and gold embroideries, such as our Lady of Loretto might grow yellower to look upon. A toilsome, perpetual worship, heroically gone through; and then with what Issue! Alas, with the worst. The old Egyptian leek-worshipper had, it is to be hoped, seasons of light and faith: his leek-god seems to smile on him; he is humbled, and in humitxalted, before the majesty of something, were it only that of germinative Physical Nathe, seen through a germinating, not unnourishing potherb. The Self-worshipper, again, has no seasons of light, which are not of blue sulphur-light; hungry, envious pride, not huility in any sort, is the ashy fruit of his worship: his self-god growls on him with the perpetual wolf-cry, Give! Give! and your deout Byron, as the Frau Hunt, with a wise simplicity (geistreich naiv,) once said, 'must sit saiking like a great schoolboy, in pet because they have given him a plain bun and not a piced one. His bun was a life-rent of God's universe, with the tasks it offered, and the tools to do them with; à priori, one might bave fancied it could be put up with for once." After which wondrous glimpses into the Of great men, among so many millions of noted men, it is computed that in our time there have been two; one in the practical, another in the speculative province: Napoleon Bonaparte and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In which dual number, inconsiderable as it is, our time may, perhaps, specially pride itself, and take precedence of many others; in particular, reckon itself the flower-time of the whole last century and half. Every age will, no doubt, have its superior man or men: but one so superior as to take rank among the high of all ages; this is what we call a great man; this rarely makes his appearance, such bounty of nature and accident must combine to produce and unfold him. Of Napoleon and his works all ends of the world have heard; for such a host marched not in silence through the frighted deep: few heads there are in this Planet which have not formed to themselves some featured or featureless image of him; his history has been written about, on the great scale and on the small, some millions of times, and still remains to be writ ten: one of our highest literary problems For such a "light-nimbus" of glory and renown encircled the man; the environment he walked in was itself so stupendous that the eye grew dazzled and mistook his proportions; or quite turned away from him in pain and temporary blindness. Thus even among the clear-sighted there is no unanimity about Napoleon; and only here and there does his own greatness begin to be interpreted, and accu |