in the middle of the duct the olly in contention, despera- victories were gained and lost, dynasties tic fury; how the meek founded and subverted, revolutions accomtyr and Redeemer stills plished, constitutions sworn to; and ever the age Earth becomes "new era" was come, was coming, yet still it "habitation of came not, but the time continued sick! Alas, ce. The true all these were but spasmodic convulsions of the death-sick time; the crisis of cure and regeneration to the time was not there indicated. spired The real new era was when a Wise Man came Poet. into the world, with clearness of vision and greatness of soul to accomplish this old high enterprise, amid these new difficulties, yet in: A Life of Wisdom. Such a man be DEATH OF GOETHE. our must such Institutions deed, that they men natten fuer "as still enough left home, an' Lula ce As the world by Heaven's pre-appointment, in very the Redeemer of the time. Did he not ar the curse of the time? He was filled full with its skepticism, bitterness, hollowness, and thousandfold contradictions, till his heart was and like to break; but he subdued all this, rose majes- victorious over this, and manifoldly by word pulse of a and act showed others that come after, how to to manifest do the like. Honour to him who first, "through we may grant the impassable, paves a road!" Such indeed ore the celestial is the task of every great man; nay, of every the world will uni- good man in one or the other sphere, since , and become (like the goodness is greatness, and the good man, high n) if still not intelligible, or humble, is ever a martyr, and a "spiritual men; some generation or hero that ventures forward into the gulf for rein it has to grow, and expand, our deliverance." The gulf into which this all things, before it can reach its man ventured, which he tamed and rendered and thereafter mingling with other habitable, was the greatest and most perilous ments and new impulses, at length cease of all, wherein truly all others lie included: equire a specific observation or designa- The whole distracted Existence of man in an age on. Longer or shorter such period may be, of unbelief. Whoso lives, whoso with earnest according to the nature of the impulse itself, mind studies to live wisely in that mad element, and of the elements it works in; according, may yet know, perhaps, too well, what an enabove all, as the impulse was intrinsically terprise was here; and for the chosen of our great and deep-reaching, or only wide-spread, time, who could prevail in that same, have the superficial, and transient. Thus, if David higher reverence, and a gratitude such as beHume is at this hour pontiff of the world, and long to no other. rules most hearts, and guides most tongues, How far he prevailed in it, and by what (the hearts and tongues, even in those that in means, with what endurances and achievevain rebel against him,) there are, nevertheless, ments, will in due season be estimated; those symptoms that his task draws towards com- volumes called Goethe's Works, will receive no pletion; and now in the distance his succes- further addition or alteration; and the record sor becomes visible. On the other hand, we of his whole spiritual Endeavour lies written have seen a Napoleon, like some gunpowder there, were the man or men but ready who force (with which sort he, indeed, was appoint- could read it rightly! A glorious record; ed chiefly to work) explode his whole virtue wherein he that would understand himself and suddenly, and thunder himself out and silent, his environment, and struggles for escape out in a space of five-and-twenty years. While of darkness into light, as for the one thing again, for a man of true greatness, working needful, will long thankfully study. For the with spiritual implements, two centuries is no whole chaotic time, what it has suffered, atuncommon period; nay, on this Earth of ours, tained, and striven after, stands imaged there: there have been men whose impulse had not interpreted, ennobled into poetic clearness. completed its development till after fifteen From the passionate longings and wailings of hundred years, and might, perhaps, be seen "Werter" spoken as from the heart of all still individually subsistent after two thousand. Europe; onwards through the wild unearthly But, as was once written, "though our clock melody of "Faust" (like the spirit song of strikes when there is a change from hour to falling worlds;) to that serenely smiling wishour, no hammer in the horologe of time peals dom of "Meisters Lehrjahre," and the "Gerthrough the universe to proclaim that there is man Hafiz,”—what an interval; and all ena change from era to era." The true begin- folded in an ethereal music, as from unknown ning is oftenest unnoticed, and unnoticeable. spheres, harmoniously uniting all! A long Thus do men go wrong in their reckoning; interval; and wide as well as long; for this and grope hither and thither, not knowing was a universal man. History, Science, Art, where they are, in what course their history human Activity under every aspect; the laws runs. Within this last century, for instance, of light in his “ Farbenlehre;" the laws of with its wild doings and destroyings, what hope, grounded in miscalculation, ending in disappointment! How many world-famous wild Italian life in his "Benvenuto Cellini ;"— nothing escaped him, nothing that he did not look into, that he did not ace into. Consider looked forth; unrecognisable to all but the most observant! Accordingly it was not recognised; Johnson passed not for a fine nature, but for a dull, almost brutal one. Might not, for example, the first-fruit of such a Loving ness, coupled with his quick Insight, have been expected to be a peculiarly courteous demeanour as man among men? In Johnson's "Politeness," which he often, to the wonder of some, asserted to be great, there was indeed somewhat that needed explanation. Nevertheless, if he insisted always on handing lady-visitors to their carriage; though with the certainty of collecting a mob of gazers in Fleet Street, as might well be, the beau having on, by way of court dress, "his rusty brown morning suit, a pair of old shoes for slippers, a little shrivelled wig sticking on the top of his head, and the sleeves of his shirt and the knees of his breeches hanging loose:"-in all this we can see the spirit of true Politeness, only shining through a strange medium. Thus again, in his apartments, at one time, there were unfortunately no chairs. "A gentleman who frequently visited him whilst writing his Idlers, constantly found him at his desk, sitting on one with three legs; and on rising from it, he remarked that Johnson never forgot its defect; but would either hold it in his hand, or place it with great composure against some support; taking no notice of its imperfection to his visitor,"-who meanwhile, we suppose, sat upon folios, or in the sartorial fashion. "It was remarkable in Johnson," continues Miss Reynolds, ("Renny dear,") "that no external circumstances ever prompted him to make any apology, or to seem even sensible of their existence. Whether this was the effect of philosophic pride, or of some partial notion of his respecting high breeding, is doubt ful." That it was, for one thing, the effect of genuine Politeness, is nowise doubtful. Not of the Pharisaical Brummellian Politeness, which would suffer crucifixion rather than ask twice for soup: but the noble universal Politeness of a man, that knows the dignity of men, and feels his own; such as may be seen in the patriarchial bearing of an Indian Sachem; such as Johnson himself exhibited, when a sudden chance brought him into dialogue with his King. To us, with our view of the man, it nowise appears "strange" that he should have boasted himself cunning in the laws of Politeness; nor "stranger still," habitually attentive to practise them. More legibly is this influence of the Loving heart to be traced in his intellectual character. What, indeed, is the beginning of intellect, the first inducement to the exercise thereof, but attraction towards somewhat, affection for it? Thus too, who ever saw, or will see, any true talent, not to speak of genius, the foundation of which is not goodness, love? From Johnson's strength of Affection, we deduce many of his intellectual peculiarities; especially that threatening array of perversions, known under the name of "Johnson's Prejudices." Looking well into the root from which these sprung, we have long ceased to view them with hostility, can pardon and reverently pity them. Conider with what force early-imbibed opinions must have clung to a soul of this Affection. Those evil-famed Prejudices of his, that Jacobitism, Church-of-Englandism, hatred of the Scotch, belief in Witches, and such like, what were they but the ordinary beliefs of well-doing, well-meaning provincial Englishmen in that day? First gathered by his Father's hearth; round the kind "country fires" of native Staffordshire; they grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength: they were hallowed by fondest sacred recollec tions: to part with them was parting with his heart's blood. If the man who has no strength of Affection, strength of Belief, have no strength of Prejudice, let him thank Heaven for it, but to himself take small thanks. Melancholy it was, indeed, that the noble Johnson could not work himself loose from these adhesions; that he could only purify them, and wear them with some nobleness. Yet let us understand how they grew out from the very centre of his being: nay, moreover, how they came to cohere in him with what formed the business and worth of his Life, the sum of his whole Spiritual Endeavour. For it is on the same ground that he became throughout an Edifier and Repairer, not, as the others of his make were, a Puller-down; that in an age of universal Skepticism, England was still to produce its Believer. Mark too his candour even here; while a Dr. Adams, with placid surprise, asks, "Have we not evidence enough of the soul's immortality?" Johnson answers, "I wish for more." But the truth is, in Prejudice, as in all things, Johnson was the product of England; one of those good yeomen whose limbs were made in England: alas, the last of such Invincibles, their day being now done! His culture is wholly English; that not of a Thinker but of a "Scholar:" his interests are wholly English; he sees and knows nothing but England; he is the John Bull of Spiritual Europe: let him live, love him, as he was and could not but be! Pitiable it is, no doubt, that a Samuel Johnson must confute Hume's irreligious Philosophy by some "story from a Clergyman of the Bishopric of Durham;" should see nothing in the great Frederick but "Voltaire's lackey;" in Voltaire himself but a man acerrimi ingenii, paucarum l'erarum: in Rousseau but one worthy to be hanged; and in the universal, long-prepared, inevitable Tendency of European Thought but a greensick milkmaid's crotchet of (for variety's sake) "milking the Bull." Our good, dear John! Observe too what it is that he sees in the city of Paris: no feeblest glimpse of those D'Alemberts and Diderots, or of the strange questionable work they did; solely some Benedictine Priests, to talk kitchen-latin with them about Edi'iones Principes. “Monsheer Nongtongpaw!” Our dear, foolish John; yet is there a lion's heart within him!-Pitiable all these things were, we say; yet nowise inexcusable; nay, as basis or as foil to much else that was in Johnson, almost venerable. Ought we not, indeed, to honour England, and English Institutions and Way of Life, that they could still equip such a man; could furnish him in heart and head to be a Samuel Johnson, and yet to love them, and unyieldingly fight for them? What truth and living vigour must such Institutions once have had, when, in the middle of the Eighteenth century, there was still enough left in them for this! deed, that they were earnest men, and had subdued their wild world into a kind of temporary home, and safe dwelling. Both were, by principle and habit, Stoics: yet Johnson with the greater merit, for he alone had very much to triumph over; farther, he alone ennobled his Stoicism into Devotion. To Johnson Life was as a Prison, to be endured with heroic faith: to Hume it was little more than a foolish Bartholomew-Fair Show-booth, with the foolish crowdings and elbowings of which it was not worth while to quarrel; the whole would break up, and be at liberty, so soon. Both realized the highest task of Manhood, that of living like men ; each died not unfitly, in his way: Hume as one, with factitious, half-false gayety, taking leave of what was itself wholly but a Lie: Johnson as one, with awe-struck, yet resolute and piously expectant heart, taking leave of a Reality, to enter a Reality still higher. Johnson had the harder problem of it, from first to last: whether, with some hesitation, we can admit that he was intrinsically the better-gifted, may remain undecided. It is worthy of note that, in our little British Isle, the two grand Antagonisms of Europe should have stood imbodied, under their very highest concentration, in two men produced simultaneously among ourselves. Samuel Johnson and David Hume, as was observed, were children of the same year: through life they were spectators of the same Life-movement; often inhabitants of the same city. Greater contrast, in all things, between two great men, could not be. Hume, well-born, competently provided for, whole in body and mind, of his own determination forces a way into Literature: Johnson, poor, moonstruck, diseased, forlorn, is forced into it "with the bayonet of necessity at his back." And what a part did they severally play there! As Johnson became the father of all succeeding Tories; so was Hume the father of all succeeding Whigs, for his own Jacobitism was but an accident, as worthy to be named Prejudice as These two men now rest; the one in Westany of Johnson's. Again, if Johnson's culture minster Abbey here; the other in the Calton was exclusively English; Hume's, in Scotland, Hill Churchyard of Edinburgh. Through Life became European;-for which reason too we they did not meet: as contrasts, "like in unfind his influence spread deeply over all quar-like," love each other; so might they two have ters of Europe, traceable deeply in all specula- loved, and communed kindly, had not the tion, French, German, as well as domestic; terrestrial dross and darkness, that was in while Johnson's name, out of England, is hardly them, withstood! One day their spirits, what anywhere to be met with. In spiritual stature truth was in each, will be found working, livthey are almost equal; both great, among the ing in harmony and free union, even here begreatest: yet how unlike in likeness! Hume low. They were the two half-men of their has the widest methodizing, comprehensive time: whoso should combine the intrepid Caneye; Johnson the keenest for perspicacity and dour, and decisive scientific Clearness of minute detail: so had, perhaps chiefly, their Hume, with the Reverence, the Love, and deeducation ordered it. Neither of the two rose vout Humility of Johnson, were the whole into Poetry; yet both to some approximation man of a new time. Till such whole man arthereof: Hume to something of an Epic clear-rive for us, and the distracted time admit of ness and method, as in his delineation of the such, might the heavens but bless poor EngCommonwealth Wars; Johnson to many a land with half-men worthy to tie the shoedeep Lyric tone of plaintiveness, and impetu- latchets of these, resembling these even from ous graceful power, scattered over his fugitive | afar! Be both attentively regarded, let the compositions. Both, rather to the general sur-true Effort of both prosper;-and for the preprise, had a certain rugged Humour shining sent, both take our affectionate farewell! through their carnestness: the indication, in DEATH OF GOETHE. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 1832.] Is the obituary of these days stands one | A beautiful death; like that of a soldier found article of quite peculiar import; the time, the faithful at his post, and in the cold hand his place, and particulars of which will have to arms still grasped! The Poet's last words are be often repeated, and re-written, and continue a greeting of the new-awakened earth; his in remembrance many centuries: this, namely, last movement is to work at his appointed that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe died at task. Beautiful: what we might call a ClasWeimar, on the 22d March, 1832. It was sic, sacred death; if it were not rather an about eleven in the morning; "he expired," Elijah-translation,-in a chariot, not of fire says the record. " without any apparent suffer- and terror, but of hope and soft vernal suning, having a few minutes previously, called beams! It was at Frankfort on the Mayn, on for paper for the purpose of writing, and ex- the 28th of August, 1749, that this man entered pressed his delight at the arrival of spring." | the world-and now, gently welcoming the birth-day of his eighty-second spring, he closes | when our sunset was of a living sun; and its his eyes, and takes farewell. So then, our greatest has departed. That melody of life, with its cunning tones, which took captive ear and heart, has gone silent; the heavenly force that dwelt here victorious over so much, is here no longer; thus far, not farther, by speech and by act, shall the wise man utter himself forth. The End! What solemn meaning lies in that sound, as it peals mournfully through the soul, when a living friend has passed away! All now is closed, irrevocable; the changeful life-picture, growing daily into new coherence, under new touches and hues, has suddenly become completed and unchangeable; there, as it lay, it is dipped, from this moment, in the æther of the Heavens, and shines transfigured, to endure even so for ever, Time and Time's Empire; stern, wide devouring, yet not without their grandeur! The week-day man, who was one of us, has put on the garment of Eternity, and become radiant and triumphant; the present is all at once the past; Hope is suddenly cut away, and only the backward vistas of Memory remain, shone on by a light that proceeds not from this earthly sun. bright countenance and shining return to us, not on the morrow, but "no more again, at all, for ever!" In such a scene, silence, as over the mysterious great, is for him that has some feeling thereof, the fittest mood. Nevertheless by silence, the distant is not brought into communion: the feeling of each is without response from the bosom of his brother. There are now, what some years ago there were not, English hearts that know something of what those three words, "Death of Goethe," mean; to such men, among their many thoughts on the event, which are not to be translated into speech, may these few, through that imperfect medium, prove acceptable. "Death," says the Philosopher, "is a commingling of Eternity with Time; in the death of a good man, Eternity is seen looking through Time." With such a sublimity here offered to eye and heart, it is not unnatural to look with new earnestness before and behind, and ask, what space in those years and wons of computed Time, this man with his activity may influence; what relation to the world of change and mortality, which the earthly name Life, he who is even now called to the Immortals has borne and may bear. Goethe, it is commonly said, made a new era in Literature; a Poetic era began with him, the end or ulterior tendencies of which are yet nowise generally visible. This com mon saying is a true one, and true with a far deeper meaning than, to the most, it conveys Were the Poet but a sweet sound and singer, solacing the ear of the idle with pleasant songs, and the new Poet one who could sing his idle, The death of Goethe, even for the many hearts that personally loved him, is not a thing to be lamented over; is to be viewed, in his own spirit, as a thing full of greatness and sacredness. "For all men it is appointed once to die." To this man the full measure of a man's life had been granted, and a course and task such as to only a few in the whole generations of the world; what else could we hope or require but that now he should be called hence and have leave to depart, "hav-pleasant song, to a new air, we should account ing finished the work that was given him to him a small matter, and his performance do?" If his course, as we may say of him small. But this man, it is not unknown to many, more justly than of any other, was like the was a Poet in such a sense as the late genera Sun's, so also was his going down. For in- tions have witnessed no other; as it is, in this deed, as the material Sun is the eye and re-generation, a kind of distinction to believe in vealer of all things, so is Poetry, so is the World-Poet in a spiritual sense. Goethe's life, too, if we examine it, is well represented in that emblem of a solar Day. Beautifully rose our summer sun, gorgeous in the red fervid East, scattering the spectres and sickly damps (of both of which there were enough to scatter)-strong, benignant in his noon-day clearness, walking triumphant through the upper realms; and now, mark also how he sets! So Stirbt ein Held: anbetungsvoll! "So dies a hero; sight to be worshipped." And yet, when the inanimate, material sun has sunk and disappeared, it will happen that we stand to gaze into the still glowing West; and here rise great, pale, motionless clouds, like coulisses or curtains, to close the flametheatre within; and then, in that death-pause of the Day, an unspeakable feeling will come over us; it is as if the poor sounds of Time, those hammerings of tired Labour on his anvils, those voices of simple men, had become awful and supernatural; as if in listening, we could hear them "mingle with the ever-pealing ones of old Eternity." In such moments the secrets of Life lie opener to us; mysterious things flit over the soul; Life itself seems holier, wonderful, and fearful. How much more the existence of, in the possibility of. The true Poet is ever, as of old, the Seer; whose eye has been gifted to discern the godlike mys tery of God's universe, and decipher some new lines of its celestial writing; we can still call him a Vutes and Seer; for he sees into this greatest of secrets “the open secret;" hidden things become clear; how the future (both resting on Eternity) is but another phasis of the present; thereby are his words in very truth prophetic; what he has spoken shall be done. It begins now to be everywhere surmised that the real Force, which in this world all things must obey, is Insight, Spiritual Vision, and Determination. The Thought is parent of the Deed, nay, is living soul of it, and last and continual, as well as first mover of it; is the foundation, and beginning, and essence, therefore, of man's whole existence here be low. In this sense, it has been said, the wond of man (the uttered thoughts of man) is still a magic formula, whereby he rules the world. Do not the winds and waters, and all tumultuous powers, inanimate and animate, obey him? A poor, quite mechanieal, Magician speaksand fire-winged ships cross the ocean at his bidding. Or mark, above all, that" raging of the nations," wholly in contention, despera- victories were gained and lost, dynasties tion, and dark chaotic fury; how the meek founded and subverted, revolutions accomvoice of a Hebrew Martyr and Redeemer stills plished, constitutions sworn to; and ever the it into order, and a savage Earth becomes "new era" was come, was coming, yet still it kind and beautiful, and the "habitation of came not, but the time continued sick! Alas, horrid cruelty" a temple of peace. The true all these were but spasmodic convulsions of sovereign of the world, who moulds the world the death-sick time; the crisis of cure and relike soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he generation to the time was not there indicated. who lovingly sees into the world; the "inspired The real new era was when a Wise Man came Thinker," whom in these days we name Poet. into the world, with clearness of vision and The true sovereign is the Wise Man. greatness of soul to accomplish this old high enterprise, amid these new difficulties, yet again: A Life of Wisdom. Such a man became, by Heaven's pre-appointment, in very deed, the Redeemer of the time. Did he not bear the curse of the time? He was filled full with its skepticism, bitterness, hollowness, and thousandfold contradictions, till his heart was like to break; but he subdued all this, rose victorious over this, and manifoldly by word and act showed others that come after, how to do the like. Honour to him who first, "through the impassable, paves a road!" Such indeed is the task of every great man; nay, of every good man in one or the other sphere, since goodness is greatness, and the good man, high or humble, is ever a martyr, and a "spiritual hero that ventures forward into the gulf for our deliverance." The gulf into which this man ventured, which he tamed and rendered habitable, was the greatest and most perilous of all, wherein truly all others lie included: The whole distracted Existence of man in an age of unbelief. Whoso lives, whoso with earnest mind studies to live wisely in that mad element, may yet know, perhaps, too well, what an enterprise was here; and for the chosen of our time, who could prevail in that same, have the higher reverence, and a gratitude such as belong to no other. However, as the Moon, which can heave up the Atlantic, sends not in her obedient billows at once, but gradually; and, for example, the Tide, which swells to day on our shores, and washes every creek, rose in the bosom of the great ocean (astronomers assure us) eight and forty hours ago; and indeed all world-movements, by nature deep, are by nature calm, and flow and swell onwards with a certain majestic slowness-so, too, with the impulse of a Great Man, and the effect he has to manifest on other men. To such an one we may grant some generation or two before the celestial impulse he impressed on the world will universally proclaim itself, and become (like the working of the moon) if still not intelligible, yet palpable, to all men; some generation or two more, wherein it has to grow, and expand, and envelop all things, before it can reach its acme; and thereafter mingling with other movements and new impulses, at length cease to require a specific observation or designation. Longer or shorter such period may be, according to the nature of the impulse itself, and of the elements it works in; according, above all, as the impulse was intrinsically great and deep-reaching, or only wide-spread, superficial, and transient. Thus, if David Hume is at this hour pontiff of the world, and rules most hearts, and guides most tongues, How far he prevailed in it, and by what (the hearts and tongues, even in those that in means, with what endurances and achievevain rebel against him,) there are, nevertheless, ments, will in due season be estimated; those symptoms that his task draws towards com- volumes called Goethe's Works, will receive no pletion; and now in the distance his succes- further addition or alteration; and the record sor becomes visible. On the other hand, we of his whole spiritual Endeavour lies written have seen a Napoleon, like some gunpowder there, were the man or men but ready who force (with which sort he, indeed, was appoint- could read it rightly! A glorious record; ed chiefly to work) explode his whole virtue wherein he that would understand himself and suddenly, and thunder himself out and silent, his environment, and struggles for escape out in a space of five-and-twenty years. While of darkness into light, as for the one thing again, for a man of true greatness, working needful, will long thankfully study. For the with spiritual implements, two centuries is no whole chaotic time, what it has suffered, atuncommon period; nay, on this Earth of ours, tained, and striven after, stands imaged there; there have been men whose impulse had not interpreted, ennobled into poetic clearness. completed its development till after fifteen From the passionate longings and wailings of hundred years, and might, perhaps, be seen "Werter" spoken as from the heart of all still individually subsistent after two thousand. Europe; onwards through the wild unearthly But, as was once written, "though our clock melody of "Faust" (like the spirit song of strikes when there is a change from hour to falling worlds ;) to that serenely smiling wishour, no hammer in the horologe of time peals dom of "Meisters Lehrjahre," and the Gerthrough the universe to proclaim that there is man Hafiz,”—what an interval; and all ena change from era to era." The true begin- folded in an ethereal music, as from unknown ning is oftenest unnoticed, and unnoticeable. spheres, harmoniously uniting all! A long Thus do men go wrong in their reckoning; interval; and wide as well as long; for this and grope hither and thither, not knowing was a universal man. History, Science, Art, where they are, in what course their history human Activity under every aspect; the laws runs. Within this last century, for instance, of light in his "Farbenlehre," the laws of with its wild doings and destroyings, what hope, grounded in miscalculation, ending in disappointment! How many world-famous wild Italian life in his "Benvenuto Cellini ;"nothing escaped him, nothing that he did not look into, that he did not ace into. Consider |