"Undoubtedly we have,' replied the Eldest. 'Of this we make no secret; but we draw a veil over these sufferings, even because we reverence them so highly. We hold it a damnable audacity to bring forth that torturing Cross, and the Holy One who suffers on it, or to expose them to the light of the Sun, which hid its face when a reckless world forced such a sight on it; to take these mysterious secrets, in which the divine depth of Sorrow lies hid, and play with them, fondle them, trick them out, and rest not till the most reverend of all solemnities appears vulgar and paltry. Let so much for the present suffice- The rest we must still owe you for a twelvemonth. The instruction, which in the interim we give the children, no stranger is allowed to witness: then, however, come to us, and you will hear what our best Speakers think it serviceable to make public on those matters.""

Festival, and see how far your son is advanced: [doubt, and discontent, into freedom, belief, and then shall you be admitted into the Sanctuary clear activity: such a change as, in our opinion, of Sorrow." must take place, more or less consciously, "Permit me one question,' said Wilhelm: in every character that, especially in these 'as you have set up the life of this divine times, attains to spiritual manhood; and in Man for a pattern and example, have you like-characters possessing any thoughtfulness and wise selected his sufferings, his death, as a sensibility, will seldom take place without a model of exalted patience?' too painful consciousness, without bitter conflicts, in which the character itself is too often maimed and impoverished, and which end too often not in victory, but in defeat, or fatal compromise with the enemy. Too often, we may well say; for though many gird on the harness, few bear it warrior-like; still fewer put it off with triumph. Among our own poets, Byron was almost the only man we saw faithfully and manfully struggling, to the end, in this cause; and he died while the victory was still doubtful, or at best, only beginning to be gained. We have already stated our opinion, that Goethe's success in this matter has been more complete than that of any other man in his age; nay, that, in the strictest sense, he may also be called the only one that has so succeeded. On this ground, were it on no other, we have ventured to say, that his spiritual history and procedure must deserve attention; that his opinions, his creations, his mode of thought, his whole picture of the world as it dwells within him, must to his contemporaries be an inquiry of no common interest; of an interest altogether peculiar, and not in this degree exampled in existing literature. These things can be but imperfectly stated here, and must be left, not in a state of demonstration, but, at the utmost, of loose fluctuating probability; nevertheless, if inquired into, they will be found to have a precise enough meaning, and, as we believe, a highly important one.

Could we hope that, in its present disjointed state, this emblematic sketch would rise before the minds of our readers, in any measure as it stood before the mind of the writer; that, in considering it, they might seize only an outLine of those many meanings which, at less or greater depth, lie hidden under it, we should anticipate their thanks for having, a first or a second time, brought it before them. As it is, believing that to open-minded, truth-seeking men, the deliberate words of an open-minded, truth-seeking man can in no case be wholly unintelligible, nor the words of such a man as Goethe indifferent, we have transcribed it for their perusal. If we induce them to turn to the original, and study this in its completeness, with so much else that environs it, and bears on it, they will thank us still more. To our own judgment, at least, there is a fine and pure significance in this whole delineation: such phrases even as "the Sanctuary of Sorrow," the divine depth of Sorrow," have of them-such attention as they merit: and by no other selves pathetic wisdom for us; as indeed a tone of devoutness, of calm, mild, priestlike dignity pervades the whole. In a time like ours, it is rare to see, in the writings of cultivated men, any opinion whatever, bearing any mark of sincerity, on such a subject as this: yet it is and continues the highest subject, and they that are highest are most fit for studying it, and helping others to study it.

Goethe's Wanderjahre was published in his seventy-second year; Werter in his twenty-fifth: thus in passing between these two works, and over Meisters Lehrjahre, which stands nearly midway, we have glanced over a space of almost fifty years, including within them, of course, whatever was most important in his public or private history. By means of these quotations, so diverse in their tone, we meant to make it visible that a great change had aken place in the moral disposition of the man; a change from inward imprisonment,

For the rest, what sort of mind it is that has passed through this change, that has gained this victory; how rich and high a mind; how learned by study in all that is wisest, by expe rience in all that is most complex, the brightest as well as the blackest, in man's existence; gifted with what insight, with what grace and power of utterance, we shall not for the present attempt discussing. All these the reader will learn, who studies his writings with

means. Of Goethe's dramatic, lyrical, didactic poems, in their thousandfold expressiveness, for they are full of expressiveness, we can here say nothing. But in every department of Literature, of Art ancient and modern, in many provinces of Science, we shall often meet him; and hope to have other occasions of estimating what, in these respects, we and all men owe him.

Two circumstances, meanwhile we have remarked, which to us throw light on the nature of his original faculty for Poetry, and go far to convince us of the Mastery he has attained in that art; these we may here state briefly, for the judgment of such as already know his writings, or the help of such as are beginning to know them. The first is his singularly emblematic intellect; his perpetual never-failing tendency to transform into shape, into life, the opinion, the feeling that may dwell in him; which, in its widest sense, we reckon to be

essentially the grand problem of the Poet. | for his pretensions to mastery and completeWe do not mean mere metaphor and rheto- ness in his heart, we can but reckon this rical trope: these are but the exterior concern, among the surest. Tried by this, there is ne often but the scaffolding of the edifice, which living writer that approaches within many is to be built up (within our thoughts) by degrees of Goethe. means of them. In allusions, in similitudes, though no one known to us is happier, many are more copious, than Goethe. But we find this faculty of his in the very essence of his intellect; and trace it alike in the quiet, cunning epigram, the allegory, the quaint device, reminding us of some Quarles or Bunyan; and in the Fausts, the Tassos, the Mignons, which, in their pure and genuine personality, may al-racter, personality,-for these, with whatever most remind us of the Ariels and Hamlets of Shakspeare. Every thing has form, every thing has visual existence; the poet's imagination bodies forth the forms of things unseen, his pen turns them to shape. This, as a natural endow ment, exists in Goethe, we conceive, to a very high degree.

efforts; but it stands on no hollow or deceitful | some experiences, of business done in the basis: for his peace is not from blindness, but great deep of the spirit; a maxim, trivial to the from clear vision; not from uncertain hope careless eye, will rise with light and solution of alteration, but from sure insight into what over long perplexed periods of our own history. cannot alter. His world seems once to have It is thus that heart speaks to heart, that the been desolate and baleful as that of the dark- life of one man becomes a possession to all. est skeptic: but he has covered it anew with Here is a mind of the most subtile and tumultubeauty and solemnity, derived from deeper ous elements; but it is governed in peaceful sources, over which Doubt can have no sway. diligence, and its impetuous and ethereal faHe has acquired fearlessly, and fearlessly culties work softly together for good and noble searched out and denied the False; but he has ends. Goethe may be called a Philosopher; not forgotten, what is equally essential and in- for he loves and has practised as a man the finitely harder, to search out and admit the wisdom which, as a poet, he inculcates. ComTrue. His heart is still full of warmth, though posure and cheerful seriousness seem to his head is clear and cold; the world for him breathe over all his character. There is no is still full of grandeur, though he clothes it whining over human woes: it is understood with no false colours; his fellow-creatures are that we must simply all strive to alleviate or still objects of reverence and love, though their remove them. There is no noisy battling for basenesses are plainer to no eye than to his. opinions; but a persevering effort to make To reconcile these contradictions is the task Truth lovely, and recommend her, by a thouof all good men, each for himself, in his own sand avenues, to the hearts of all men. Of his way and manner; a task which, in our age, personal manners we can easily believe the is encompassed with difficulties peculiar to universal report, as often given in the way of the time; and which Goethe seems to have ac- censure as of praise, that he is a man of concomplished with a success that few can rival. summate breeding and the stateliest presence: A mind so in unity with itself, even though it for an air of polished tolerance, of courtly, we were a poor and small one, would arrest our might almost say, majestic repose, and serene attention, and win some kind regard from us; humanity, is visible throughout his works. In but when this mind ranks among the strong- no line of them does he speak with asperity of est and most complicated of the species, it any man: scarcely ever even of a thing. He becomes a sight full of interest, a study full of knows the good, and loves it; he knows the deep instruction. bad and hateful, and rejects it; but in neither case with violence: his love is calm and active; his rejection is implied, rather than pronounced; meek and gentle, though we see that it is thorough, and never to be revoked. The noblest and the basest he not only seems to comprehend, but to personate and body forth in their most secret lineaments: hence actions and opinions appear to him as they are, with all the circumstances which extenuate or endear them to the hearts where they originated and are entertained. This also is the spirit of our Shakspeare, and perhaps of every great dramatic poet. Shakspeare is no sectarian; to all he deals with equity and mercy; because he knows all, and his heart is wide enough for all. In his mind the world is a whole; he figures it as Providence governs it; and to him it is not strange that the sun should be caused to shine on the evil and the good, and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust."

"Such a mind as Goethe's is the fruit not only of a royal endowment by nature, but also of a culture proportionate to her bounty. In Goethe's original form of spirit, we discern the highest gifts of manhood, without any deficiency of the lower: he has an eye and a heart equally for the sublime, the common, and the ridiculous; the elements at once of a poet, a thinker, and a wit. Of his culture we have often spoken already; and it deserves again to be held up to praise and imitation. This, as he himself unostentatiously confesses, has been the soul of all his conduct, the great enterprise of his life; and few that understand him will be apt to deny that he has prospered. As a writer, his resources have been accumulated from nearly all the provinces of human intellect and activity; and he has trained himself to use these complicated instruments, with a light expertness which we might have admired in the professor of a solitary department. Freedom, and grace, and smiling earnestness are the characteristics of his works: the matter of them flows along in chaste abundance, in the softest combination; and their style is referred to by native critics as the highest specimen of the German tongue.

"But Goethe's culture as a writer is perhaps less remarkable than his culture as a man. He has learned not in head only, but also in heart; not from Art and Literature, but also by action and passion, in the rugged school of Experience. If asked what was the grand characteristic of his writings, we should not say knowledge, but wisdom. A mind that has seen, and suffered, and done, speaks to us of what it has tried and conquered. A gay delineation will give us notice of dark and toil

Considered as a transient, far-off view of Goethe in his personal character, all this, from the writer's peculiar point of vision, may have its true grounds, and wears at least the aspect of sincerity. We may also quote something of what follows on Goethe's character as a poet and thinker, and the contrast he exhibits in this respect with another celebrated, and now altogether European author.

"Goethe," observes this critic, "has been called the German Voltaire,' but it is a name which does him wrong and describes him ill. Except in the corresponding variety of their pursuits and knowledge, in which, per haps, it does Voltaire wrong, the two cannot be compared. Goethe is all, or the best of all, that Voltaire was, and he is much that Voltaire did not dream of. To say nothing of his dig

nified and trutnful character as a man, he belongs, as a thinker and a writer, to a far higher class than this enfant gâté du monde qu'il gáta. He is not a questioner and a despiser, but a teacher and a reverencer; not a destroyer, but a builder up; not a wit only, but a wise man. Of him Montesquieu could not have said, with even epigrammatic truth: Il a plus que personne l'esprit que tout le monde a. Voltaire is the cleverest of all past and present men; but a great man is something more, and this he surely was not."

like baked bread, savoury and satisfying for a single day;" but, unhappily, "flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground." We proceed with our Critic in his contrast of Goethe with Voltaire.

"As poets," continues he," the two live not in the same hemisphere, not in the same world. Of Voltaire's poetry, it were blindness to deny the polished, intellectual vigour, the logical symmetry, the flashes that from time to time give it the colour, if not the warmth, of fire: but it is in a far other sense than this that Goethe Whether this epigram, which we have seen is a poet; in a sense of which the French in some Biographical Dictionary, really be- literature has never afforded any example. We longs to Montesquieu, we know not; but it may venture to say of him, that his province is does seem to us not wholly inapplicable to high and peculiar; higher than any poet but Voltaire, and at all events, highly expressive himself, for several generations, has so far of an important distinction among men of succeeded in, perhaps even has steadfastly at talent generally. In fact, the popular man, tempted. In reading Goethe's poetry, it perand the man of true, at least of great origin-petually strikes us that we are reading the ality, are seldom one and the same; we suspect that, till after a long struggle on the part of the latter, they are never so. Reasons are obvious enough. The popular man stands on our own level, or a hair's breadth higher; he shows us a truth which we can see without shifting our present intellectual position. This is a highly convenient arrangement. The original man, again, stands above us; he wishes to wrench us from our old fixtures, and elevate us to a higher and clearer level: but to quit our old fixtures, especially if we have sat in them with moderate comfort for some score or two of years, is no such easy business; accordingly we demur, we resist, we even give battle; we still suspect that he is above us, but try to persuade ourselves (Laziness and Vanity earnestly assenting) that he is below. For is it not the very essence of such a man that he be now? And who will warrant us that, at the same time, he shall only be an intensation and continuation of the old, which, in general, is what we long and look for? No one can warrant us. And, granting him to be a man of real genius, real depth, and that speaks not till after earnest meditation, what sort of a philosophy were his, could we estimate the length, breadth, and thickness of it at a single glance? And when did Criticism give two glances? Criticism, therefore, opens on such a man its greater and its lesser batteries, on every side: he has no security but to go on disregarding it; and "in the end," says Goethe, "Criticism itself comes to relish that method." But now let a speaker of the other class come forward; one of those men that "have more than any one, the opinion which all men have!" No sooner does he speak, than all and sundry of us feel as if we had been wishing to speak that very thing, as if we ourselves might have spoken it; and forthwith resounds from the united universe a celebration of that surprising feat. What clearness, brilliancy, justness, penetration! Who can doubt that this man is right, when so many thousand votes are ready to back him? Doubtless, he is right; doubtless, he is a clever man; and his praise will long be in all the Magazines.

Clever men are good, but they are not the dest. "The instruction they can give us is

poetry of our own day and generation. No demands are made on our credulity: the light, the science, the skepticism of our age, is not hid from us. He does not deal in antiquated mythologies, or ring changes on traditionary poetic forms; there are no supernal, no infernal influences, for Faust is an apparent, rather than a real exception; but there is the barren prose of the nineteenth century, the vulgar life which we are all leading, and it starts into strange beauty in his hands, and we pause in delighted wonder to behold the flowerage of poesy blooming in that parched and rugged soil. This is the end of his Mignons and Harpers, of his Hermanns and Meisters. Poetry, as he views it, exists not in time or place, but in the spirit of man; and Art with Nature is now to perform for the poet what Nature alone performed of old. The divinities and demons, the witches, spectres, and fairies, are vanished from the world, never again to be recalled: but the Imagination, which created these, still lives, and will for ever live, in man's soul; and can again pour its wizard light over the Universe, and summon forth enchantments as lovely or impressive, and which its sister faculties will not contradict. To say that Goethe has accomplished all this, would be to say that his genius is greater than was ever given to any man: for if it was a high and glorious mind, or rather series of minds, that peopled the first ages with their peculiar forins of poetry, it must be a series of minds much higher and more glorious that shall so people the present. The angels and demons, that can lay prostrate our hearts in the nineteenth century must be of another, and more cunning fashion, than those that subdued us in the ninth. To have attempted, to have begun this enterprise, may be accounted the greatest praise. That Goethe ever meditated it, in the form here set forth, we have no direct evidence: but, indeed, such is the end and aim of high poetry at all times and seasons; for the fiction of the poet is not falsehood, but the purest truth; and, if he would lead captive our whole being, not rest satisfied with a part of it, he must address us on interests that are, not that were, ours; and in a dialect which finds a response, and not a contradiction, within our bosoms."*

* German Romance, vol. iv. pp. 17—25.