GOETHE.*

[FOREIGN REVIEW, 1828.]

Ir is not on this "Second Portion" of Goethe's [racter: but here, unhappily, our knowledge works, which at any rate contains nothing new to us, that we mean at present to dwell. In our last Number, we engaged to make some survey of his writings and character in general; and must now endeavour, with such insight as we have, to fulfil that promise.

Viewed in his merely external relations, Goethe exhibits an appearance such as seldom occurs in the history of letters, and indeed, from the nature of the case, can seldom occur. A man, who, in early life, rising almost at a single bound into the highest reputation over all Europe; by gradual advances, fixing himself more and more firmly in the reverence of his countrymen, ascends silently through many vicissitudes to the supreme intellectual place among them; and now, after half a century, distinguished by convulsions, political, moral, and poetical, still reigns, full of years and honours, with a soft undisputed sway; still labouring in his vocation, still forwarding, as with knightly benignity, whatever can profit Goethe's Sämmtliche Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe the culture of his nation: such a man might letter Hand. (Goethe's Collective Works. Complete justly attract our notice, were it only by the Edition, with his final Corrections.) Zweite Lieferung, Bde. vi.-X. Cotta: Stuttgard and Tübingen. 1827. singularity of his fortune. Supremacies of

this sort are rare in modern times; so univer- | cannot unriddle, learns to trust;" each takes sal, and of such continuance, they are almost with him what he is adequate to carry, and deunexampled. For the age of the Prophets and parts thankful for his own allotments. Two Theologic Doctors had long since passed of Goethe's intensest admirers are Schelling away; and now it is by much slighter, by of Munich, and a worthy friend of ours in transient and mere earthly ties, that bodies of Berlin; one of these among the deepest men men connect themselves with a man. The in Europe, the other among the shallowest. wisest, most melodious voice cannot in these days pass for a divine one; the word Inspiration still lingers, but only in the shape of a poetic figure, from which the once earnest, awful, and soul-subduing sense has vanished without return. The polity of Literature is called a Republic; oftener it is an Anarchy, where, by strength or fortune, favourite after favourite rises into splendour and authority, but like Masaniello, while judging the people, is on the third day deposed and shot. Nay, few such adventurers can attain even this painful pre-eminence; for at most, it is clear, any given age can have but one first man; many ages have only a crowd of secondary men, each of whom is first in his own eyes: and seldom, at best, can the "Single Person" long keep his station at the head of this wild commonwealth; most sovereigns are never universally acknowledged, least of all in their lifetimes; few of the acknowledged can reign peaceably to the end.

Of such a perpetual dictatorship Voltaire among the French gives the last European instance; but even with him it was perhaps a much less striking affair. Voltaire reigned over a sect, less as their lawgiver than as their general; for he was at bitter enmity with the great numerical majority of his nation, by whom his services, far from being acknowledged as benefits, were execrated as abominations. But Goethe's object has, at all times, been rather to unite than to divide; and though he has not scrupled, as occasion served, to speak forth his convictions distinctly enough on many delicate topics, and seems, in general, to have paid little court to the prejudices or private feelings of any man or body of men, we see not at present that his merits are anywhere disputed, his intellectual endeavours controverted, or his person regarded otherwise than with affection and respect. In later years, too, the advanced age of the poet has invested him with another sort of dignity; and the admiration to which his great qualities give him claim, is tempered into a milder, grateful feeling, almost as of sons and grandsons to their common father. Dissentients, no doubt, there are and must be; but, apparently, their cause is not pleaded in words: no man of the smallest note speaks on that side; or at most, such men may question, not the worth of Goethe, but the cant and idle affectation with which, in many quarters, this must be promulgated and bepraised. Certainly there is not, probably there never was, in any European country, a writer who, with so cunning a style, and so deep, so abstruse a sense, ever found so many readers. For, from the peasant to the king, from the callow dilettante and innamorato, to the grave transcendental philosopher, men of al degrees and dispositions are familiar with the witings of Goethe: each studies them with affection, with a faith which, “where it

All this is, no doubt, singular enough; and a proper understanding of it would throw light on many things. Whatever we may think of Goethe's ascendency, the existence of it remains a highly curious fact; and to trace its history, to discover by what steps such influence has been attained, and how so long preserved, were no trivial or unprofitable inquiry. It would be worth while to see so strange a man for his own sake; and here we should see, not only the man himself, and his own progress and spiritual development, but the progress also of his nation; and this at no sluggish or even quiet era, but in times marked by strange revolutions of opinions, by angry controversies, high enthusiasm, novelty of enterprise, and doubtless, in many respects, by rapid advancement: for that the Germans have been, and still are, restlessly struggling forward, with honest unwearied effort, sometimes with enviable success, no one, who knows them, will deny; and as little, that in every province of Literature, of Art, and humane accomplishment, the influence, often the direct guidance of Goethe may be recognised. The history of his mind is, in fact, at the same time, the history of German culture in his day; for whatever excellence this individual might realize has sooner or later been acknowledged and appropriated by his country; and the title of Musagetes, which his admirers give him, is perhaps, in sober strictness, not unmerited. Be it for good or for evil, there is certainly no German, since the days of Luther, whose life can occupy so large a space in the intellectual history of that people.

In this point of view, were it in no other, Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit, so soon as it is completed, may deserve to be reckoned one of his most interesting works. We speak not of its literary merits, though in that respect, too, we must say that few Autobiographies have come in our way, where so difficult a matter was so successfully handled; where perfect knowledge could be found united so kindly with perfect tolerance; and a personal narrative, moving along in soft clearness, showed us a man, and the objects that environed him, under an aspect so verisimilar, yet so lovely, with an air dignified and earnest, yet graceful, cheerful, even gay: a story as of a Patriarch to his children; such indeed, as few men can be called upon to relate, and few, if called upon, could relate so well. What would we give for such an Autobiography of Shakspeare, of Milton, even of Pope or Swift! Dichtung und Wahrheit has been censured considerably in England; but not, we are inclined to believe, with any insight into its proper meaning. The misfortune of the work among us was, that we did not know the narrator before his narrative; and could not judge what sort of narrative he was bound to give, in these circumstances, or whether he was bound to

It would appear, then, that for inquirers into Foreign Literature, for all men, anxious to see and understand the European world as it lies around them, a great problem is presented in this Goethe; a singular, highly significant phenomenon, and now, also, means more or less complete for ascertaining its significance. A man of wonderful, nay unexampled reputation and intellectual influence among forty millions of reflective, serious, and cultivated men, invites us to study him; and to determine for ourselves whether and how far such influence has been salutary, such reputation merited. That this call will one day be answered, that Goethe will be seen and judged of in his real character among us, appears certain enough. His name, long familiar everywhere, has now awakened the attention of critics in all European countries to his works: he is studied wherever true study exists; eagerly studied even in France; nay, some considerable knowledge of his nature and spiritual importance seems already to prevail there.

give any at all. We say nothing of his situa- | wise that German translator, whom indignant tion; heard only the sound of his voice; and Reviewers have proved to know no German, hearing it, never doubted that he must be per- were a highly reprehensible man. His work, orating in official garments from the rostrum, it appears, is done from the French, and shows instead of speaking trustfully by the fireside. subtractions, and, what is worse, additions. For the chief ground of offence seemed to be, But the unhappy Dragoman has already been that the story was not noble enough; that it chastised, perhaps too sharply. If warring entered on details of too poor and private a with the reefs and breakers and cross eddies nature; verged here and there towards garru- of Life, he still hover on this side the shadow lity; was not, in one word, written in the style of Night, and any word of ours might reach of what we call a gentleman. Whether it might him, we would rather say: Courage, Brother! be written in the style of a man, and how far Grow honest, and times will mend! these two styles might be compatible, and what might be their relative worth and preferableness, was a deeper question, to which apparently no heed had been given. Yet herein lay the very cream of the matter; for Goethe was not writing to "persons of quality" in England, but to persons of heart and head in Europe: a somewhat different problem perhaps, and requiring a somewhat different solution. As to this ignobleness and freedom of detail, especially, we may say, that, to a German, few accusations could appear more surprising than this, which, with us, constitutes the head and front of his offending. Goethe, in his own country, far from being accused of undue familiarity towards his readers, had, up to that date, been labouring under precisely the opposite charge. It was his stateliness, his reserve, his indifference, his contempt for the public, that were censured. Strange, almost inexplicable, as many of his works might appear; loud, sorrowful, and altogether stolid as might be the criticisms they underwent, no word of explanation could be wrung from him; he had never even deigned to write a preface. And in later and juster days, when the study of Poetry came to be prosecuted in another spirit, and it was found that Goethe was standing, not like a culprit to plead for himself before the literary plebeians, but like a higher teacher and preacher, speaking for truth, to whom both plebeians and patricians were bound to give all ear, the outward difficulty of interpreting his works began indeed to vanish; but enough still remained, nay, increased curiosity had given rise to new difficulties, and deeper inquiries. Not only what were these works, but how did they originate, became questions for the critic. | Yet several of Goethe's chief productions, and, of his smaller poems, nearly the whole, seemed so intimately interwoven with his private history, that without some knowledge of this, no answer to such questions could be given. Nay, commentaries have been written on single pieces of his, endeavouring, by way of guess, to supply this deficiency. We can thus judge whether, to the Germans, such minuteness of exposition in this Dichtung und Wahrheit may have seemed a sin. Few readers of Goethe, we believe, but would wish rather to see it extended than curtailed.

For ourselves, meanwhile, in giving all due weight to so curious an exhibition of opinion, it is doubtless our part, at the same time, to beware that we do not give it too much. This universal sentiment of admiration is wonderful, is interesting enough; but it must not lead us astray. We English stand as yet without the sphere of it; neither will we plunge blindly in, but enter considerately, or, if we see good, keep aloof from it altogether. Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, bul only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a property, of a man; like light, it can give little or nothing, but at most may show what is given; often, it is but a false glare, dazzling the eyes of the vulgar, lending by casual, extrinsic splendour the brightness and manifold glance of the diamond to the pebbles of no value. A man is in all cases simply the man, of the same intrinsic worth and weakness, whether his worth and weakness lie hidden in the depths of his own consciousness, or be betrumpeted and beshouted from end to end of the habitable globe. These are plain truths, which no one should lose sight of; though, whether in love or in anger, for praise or fot condemnation, most of us are too apt to forget them. But least of all can it become the critic to "follow a multitude to do evil," even when that evil is excess of admiration; on the contrary, it will behove him to lift up his voice, how feeble soever, how unheeded soever, against the common delusion; from which, if Witness Le Tasse, Drame par Duval, and the CritiSee, in particular, Dr. Kannengiesser Ueber Goethe's cisms on it. See also the Essays in the Globe, Nos 55, Hausreise in Winter, 1820. 64, (1826.)

It is our duty also to remark, if any one be still unaware of it, that the Memoirs of Goethe, published some years ago in London, can have no real concern with this autobiography. The rage of hunger is an excuse for much; other

he can save, or help to save, any mortal, his | Goethe besides appears to us a person of that endeavours will have been repaid.

deep endowment, and gifted vision, of that experience also and sympathy in the ways of all men, which qualify him to stand forth, not only as the literary ornament, but in many respects too as the Teacher and exemplar of his age. For, to say nothing of his natural gifts, he has cultivated himself and his art, he has studied how to live and write, with a fidelity, an unwearied earnestness, of which there is no other living instance; of which, among British poets especially, Wordsworth alone offers any resemblance. And this in our view is the result: To our minds, in these soft, melodious

With these things in some measure before us, we must remind our readers of another influence at work in this affair, and one acting, as we think, in the contrary direction. That pitiful enough desire for "originality," which lurks and acts in all minds, will rather, we imagine, lead the critic of Foreign Literature to adopt the negative than the affirmative with regard to Goethe. If a writer, indeed, feel that he is writing for England alone, invisibly and inaudibly to the rest of the Earth, the temptations may be pretty equally balanced; if he write for some small conclave, which he mis-imaginations of his, there is embodied the Wistakenly thinks the representative of England, dom which is proper to this time; the beautithey may sway this way or that, as it chances. ful, the religious Wisdom, which may still, But writing in such isolated spirit is no long- with something of its old impressiveness, speak er possible. Traffic, with its swift ships, is to the whole soul; still, in these hard, unbeuniting all nations into one; Europe at large lieving, utilitarian days, reveal to us glimpses is becoming more and more one public: and of the Unseen but not unreal World, that so in this public, the voices for Goethe, compared the Actual and the Ideal may again meet towith those against him, are in the proportion, gether, and clear Knowledge be again wedded as we reckon them, both as to the number and to Religion, in the life and business of men. value, of perhaps a hundred to one. We take Such is our conviction or persuasion with in, not Germany alone, but France and Italy; regard to the poetry of Goethe. Could we denot the Schlegels and Schellings, but the Man-monstrate this opinion to be true, could we zonis and de Staëls. The bias of originality, even exhibit it with that degree of clearness therefore, may lie to the side of the censure: and consistency which it has attained in our and whoever among us shall step forward, with such knowledge as our common critics have of Goethe, to enlighten the European public, by contradiction in this matter, displays a heroism, which, in estimating his other merits, ought nowise to be forgotten.

own thoughts, Goethe were, on our part, sufficiently recommended to the best attention of all thinking men. But, unhappily, it is not a subject susceptible of demonstration: the merits and characteristics of a Poet are not to be set forth by logic; but to be gathered by personal, and as, in this case, it must be, by deep and careful inspection of his works. Nay, Goethe's

Our own view of the case coincides, we confess, in some degree with that of the majority. We reckon that Goethe's fame has, to a conside-world is every way so different from ours; it costs rable extent, been deserved; that his influence has been of high benefit to his own country; nay more, that it promises to be of benefit to us, and to all other nations. The essential grounds of this opinion, which to explain minutely were a long, indeed boundless task, we may state without many words. We find, then, in Goethe, an Artist, in the high and ancient meaning of that term; in the meaning which it may have borne long ago among the masters of Italian painting, and the fathers of Poetry in England; we say that we trace in the creations of this man, belonging in every sense to our own time, some touches of that old, divine spirit, which had long passed away from among us, nay, which, as has often been laboriously demonstrated, was not to return to this world any more.

Or perhaps we come nearer our meaning, if we say that in Goethe we discover by far the most striking instance, in our time, of a writer who is, in strict speech, what Philosophy can call a Man. He is neither noble nor plebeian, neither liberal nor servile, nor infidel, nor devotee; but the best excellence of all these, joined in pure union; "a clear and universal Man." Goethe's poetry is no separate faculty, no mental handicraft; but the voice of the whole harmonious manhood: nay it is the very harmony, the living and life-giving harmony of that rich manhood which forms his poetry. All good men may be called poets in act, or in word; all good poets are so in both. But

us such effort, we have so much to remember and so much to forget, before we can transfer ourselves in any measure into his peculiar point of vision, that a right study of him, for an Englishman, even of ingenuous, open, inquisitive mind, becomes unusually difficult; for a fixed, decided, contemptuous Englishman, next to impossible. To a reader of the first class, helps may be given, explanations will remove many a difficulty; beauties that lay hidden may be made apparent; and directions, adapted to his actual position, will at length guide him into the proper track for such an inquiry. All this, however, must be a work of progression and detail. To do our part in it, from time to time, must rank among the best duties of an English Foreign Review. Meanwhile, our present endeavour limits itself within far narrower bounds. cannot aim to make Goethe known, but only to prove that he is worthy of being known; at most, to point out, as it were afar off, the path by which some knowledge of him may be obtained. A slight glance at his general literary character and procedure, and one or two of his chief productions, which throw light on these, must for the present suffice.

We

A French diplomatic personage, contemplating Goethe's physiognomy, is said to have observed: Voilà un homme qui a eu beaucoup de chagrins. A truer version of the matter, Goethe himself seems to think, would have been: Here is a man who has struggled toughly; who has es sich recht sauer werden lassen. Goethe's