your ways; consider first, Whether you cannot | figures of the popular oratory kind, Goethe, do with being weak! If the answer still prove throughout his Writings at least, is nowise the negative, consider, secondly, what strength actually is, and where you are to try for it. A certain strong man, of former time, fought stoutly at Lepanto; worked stoutly as Algerine slave; stoutly delivered himself from such working, with stout cheerfulness endured famine and nakedness and the world's ingratitude; and sitting in jail, with the one arm left him, wrote our joyfullest, and all but our deepest, modern book, and named it Don Quixote: this was a genuine strong man. A strong man, of recent time, fights little for any good cause anywhere; works weakly as an English lord; weakly delivers himself from such working; with weak despondency endures the cackling of plucked geese at St. James's, and, sitting in sunny Italy, in his coach-and-four, at a distance of two thousand miles from them, writes, over many reams of paper, the following sentence, with variations: Saw ever the world one greater or unhappier? this was a sham strong man. Choose ye. Of Goethe's spiritual Endowment, looked at on the Intellectual side, we have, (as indeed lies in the nature of things, for moral and intellectual are fundamentally one and the same,) to pronounce a similar opinion; that it is great among the very greatest. As the first gift of all, may be discerned here, utmost Clearness, all-piercing faculty of Vision; whereto, as we ever find it, all other gifts are superadded; nay, properly they are but other forms of the same gift. A nobler power of insight than this of Goethe, you in vain look for, since Shakspeare passed away. In fact, there is much every way, here in particular, that these two minds have in common. Shakspeare too does not look at a thing, but into it, through it; so that he constructively comprehends it, can take it asunder, and put it together again; the thing melts, as it were, into light under his eye, and anew creates itself before him. That is to say, he is a Thinker in the highest of all senses: he is a Poet. For Goethe, as for Shakspeare, the world lies all translucent, all fusible, (we might call it,) encircled with WONDER; the Natural in reality the Supernatural, for to the seer's eyes both become one. What are the Hamlets and Tempests, the Fausts and Mignons, but glimpses accorded us into this translucent, wonder-encircled world: revelations of the mystery of all mysteries, Man's Life as it actually is? Under other secondary aspects, the poetical faculty of the two will still be found cognate. Goethe is full of figurativeness; this grand light-giving Intellect, as all such are, is an imaginative one,—and in a quite other sense than most of our unhappy Imaginatives will imagine. Gall the Craniologist declared him to be a born Volksredner, (popular orator,) both by the figure of his brow, and what was still more decisive, because “he could not speak but a figure came." Gall saw what was high as his own nose reached, High as the nose doth reach, all clear! A far different figurativeness was this of Goethe than popular oratory has work for. In most copious man known to us, though on a stricter scrutiny we may find him the richest. Of your ready-made, coloured-paper metaphors, such as can be sewed or plastered on the surface, by way of giving an ornamental finish to the rag-web already woven, we speak not; there is not one such to be discovered in all his Works. But even in the use of genuine metaphors, that are not haberdashery ornament, but the genuine new vesture of new thoughts, he yields to lower men, (for example, to Jean Paul;) that is to say, in fact, he is more master of the common language, and can oftener make it serve him. Goethe's figurativeness lies in the very centre of his being; manifests itself as the constructing of the inward elements of a thought, as the vital imbodyment of it: such figures as those of Goethe you will look for through all modern literature, and except here and there in Shakspeare, nowhere find a trace of. Again, it is the same faculty in higher exercise, that enables the poet to construct a Character. Here too Shakspeare and Goethe, unlike innumerable others, are vital; their construction begins at the heart and flows outward as the life-streams do: fashioning the surface, as it were, spontaneously. Those Macbeths and Falstaffs, accordingly, these Fausts and Philinas, have a verisimilitude and life that separates them from all other fictions of late ages. All others, in comparison, have more or less the nature of hollow vizards, constructed from without inwards, painted like, and deceptively put in motion. Many years ago on finishing our first perusal of Wilhelm Meister, with a very mixed sentiment in other respects, we could not but feel that here lay more insight into the elements of human nature, and a more poetically perfect combining of these than in all the other fictitious literature of our generation. Neither, as an additional similarity, (for the great is ever like itself,) let the majestic Calmness of both be omitted; their perfect tolerance for all men and all things. This too proceeds from the same source, perfect clearness of vision: he who comprehends an object cannot hate it, has already begun to love it. In respect of style, no less than of character, this calmness and graceful smooth-flowing softness is again characteristic of both: though in Goethe the quality is more complete, having been matured by far more assiduous study. Goethe's style is perhaps to be reckoned the most excellent that our modern world, in any language, can exhibit. "Even to a foreigner,' says one, “it is full of character and secondary meanings; polished, yet vernacular and cordial, it sounds like the dialect of wise, antiqueminded, true-hearted men in poetry, brief, sharp, simple, and expressive: in prose, perhaps, still more pleasing; for it is at once concise and full, rich, clear, unpretending, and melodious; and the sense, not presented in alternating flashes, piece after piece revealed and withdrawn, rises before us as in continuous dawning, and stands at last simultaneously complete, and bathed in the mellowest and ruddiest sunshine. It brings to mind what the prose of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, Browne, would attained, we too in our degree have to aim at; have been, had they written under the good, let us mark well the road he fashioned for without the bad influences of that French pre- himself, and in the dim weltering chaos rejoice cision, which has polished and attenuated, to find a paved way. trimmed and impoverished all modern languages; made our meaning clear, and too often shallow as well as clear." * Finally, as Shakspeare is to be considered as the greater nature of the two, on the other hand we must admit him to have been the less cultivated, and much the more careless. What Shakspeare could have done we nowhere discover. A careless mortal, open to the Universe and its influences, not caring strenuously to open himself; who, Prometheus-like, will scale Heaven, (if it so must be,) and is satisfied if he therewith pay the rent of his London Playhouse; who, had the Warwickshire Justice let him hunt deer unmolested, might, for many years more, have lived quiet on the green earth without such aerial journeys: an unparalleled mortal. In the great Goethe, again, we see a man through life at his utmost strain; a man that, as he says himself, "struggled toughly;" laid hold of all things, under all aspects, scientific or poetic: engaged passionately with the deepest interests of man's existence, in the most complex age of man's history. What Shakspeare's thoughts on "God, Nature, Art," would have been, especially had he lived to number fourscore years, were curious to know: Goethe's, delivered in many-toned melody, as the apocalypse of our era, are here, for us to know. Here, moreover, another word of explanation is perhaps worth adding. We mean in regard to the controversy agitated (as about many things pertaining to Goethe) about his Political Creed and practice, whether he was Ministerial or in Opposition? Let the political admirer of Goethe be at ease: Goethe was both, and also neither! The "rotten whitewashed (gebrechliche übertünchte) condition of society" was plainer to few eyes than to his, sadder to few hearts than to his. Listen to the Epigrammatist at Venice: "To this stithy I liken the land, the hammer its ruler, bruises Hit at random; and made, cometh no Kettle to view !" "No Apostle-of-Liberty much to my heart ever found I: License, each for himself, this was at bottom their want. what a business is that, wouldst thou know it, go try!” Let the following also be recommended to all inordinate worshippers of Septennials, Triennials, Elective Franchise, and the Shameful parts of the Constitution; and let each be a little tolerant of his neighbour's" festoon," and rejoice that he has himself found out Freedom,---a thing much wanted: Liberator of many! first dare to be Servant of many : "Walls I can see tumbled down, walls I see also a-build- Here sit prisoners, there likewise do prisoners sit : His chains knitting still up into some graceful festoon?” So that for the Poet what remains but to Such was the noble talent intrusted to this man; such the noble employment he made thereof. We can call him, once more, a clear and universal man ;" we can say that, in his universality, as thinker, as singer, as worker, he lived a life of antique nobleness under these new conditions; and, in so living, is alone in all Europe; the foremost, whom others are to learn from and follow. In which leave Conservative and Destructive pulling great act, or rather great sum total of many one another's locks and ears off, as they will acts, who shall compute what treasure of new and can, (the ulterior issue being long since strengthening, of faith become hope and vision, indubitable enough;) and, for his own part, lies secured for all! The question, Can man strive day and night to forward the small suf still live in devoutness, yet without blindness fering remnant of Productives, of those who, in or contraction; in unconquerable steadfast-true manful endeavour, were it under desness for the right, yet without tumultuous ex- potism or under sansculottism, create some asperation against the wrong; as an antique what, with whom, alone, in the end, does the worthy, yet with the expansion and increased endowment of a modern? is no longer a question, but has become a certainty, and ocularly visible fact. We have looked at Goethe, as we engaged to do, "on this side," and with the eyes of *this generation;" that is to say, chiefly as a world-changer, and benignant spiritual revolutionist: for in our present so astonishing condition of "progress of the species," such is the category under which we must try all things, wisdom itself. And, indeed, under this aspect too, Goethe's Life and Works are doubtless of incalculable value, and worthy our most earnest study; for his Spiritual Histy is, as it were, the ideal emblem of all true men's in these days; the goal of Manhood, which he * German Romance, iv. hope of the world lie. Go thou and do likewise! Art thou called to politics, work therein, as this man would have done, like a real and not an imaginary workman. Understand well, meanwhile, that to no man is his political constitution "a life, but only a house wherein his life is led:" and hast thou a nobler task than such house-pargeting and smoke-doctoring, and pulling down of ancient rotten rat-inhabited walls, leave such to the proper craftsman; honour the higher Artist, and good-humouredly say with him: All this is neither my coat nor my cake, And take no thought of the barges." Goethe's political practice, or rather no-prac tice, except that of self-defence, is a part of his conduct quite inseparably coherent with the rest; a thing we could recommend to univer- ! To us, meanwhile, to all that wander in sal study, that the spirit of it might be under- darkness and seek light, as the one thing needstood by all men, and by all men imitated. Nevertheless it is nowise alone on this revolutionary or "progress-of-the-species" side that Goethe has significance; his Life and Work is no painted show but a solid reality, and may be looked at with profit on all sides, from all imaginable points of view. Perennial, as a possession for ever, Goethe's History and Writings abide there; a thousand-voiced "Melody of Wisdom," which he that has ears may hear. What the experience of the most complexly-situated, deep-searching, every way far-experienced man has yielded him of insight, lies written for all men here. He who was of compass to know and feel more than any other man, this is the record of his knowledge and feeling. "The deepest heart, the highest head to scan" was not beyond his faculty; thus, then, did he scan and interpret: let many generations listen, according to their want; let the generation which has no need of listening, and nothing new to learn there, esteem itself a happy one. Colite ful, be this possession reckoned among our choicest blessings and distinctions. talem virum; learn of him, imitate, emulate him! So did he catch the Music of the Universe, and unfold it into clearness, and in authentic celestial tones bring it home to the hearts of men, from amid that soul-confusing Babylonish hubbub of this our new Tower-ofBabel era! For now, too, as in that old time, had men said to themselves: Come, let us build a tower which shall reach to heaven; and by our steam-engines, and logic-engines, and skilful mechanism and manipulation, vanquish not only Physical Nature, but the divine Spirit of Nature, and scale the empyrean itself. Wherefore they must needs again be stricken with confusion of tongues (or of printingpresses,) and dispersed,―to other work; wherein also let us hope, their hammers and trowels shall better avail them.— Of Goethe, with a feeling such as can be due to no other man, we now take farewell: vixit, vivit. CORN-LAW RHYMES.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1832.] Smelfungus ReDIVIVUS, throwing down his critical assaying-balance, some years ago, and taking leave of the Belles-Lettres function, expressed himself in this abrupt way: "The end having come, it is fit that we end. Poetry having ceased to be read, or published, or written, how can it continue to be reviewed? With your Lake Schools, and Border-Thief Schools, and Cockney and Satanic Schools, there has been enough to do; and now, all these Schools having burnt or smouldered themselves out, and left nothing but a widespread wreck of ashes, dust, and cinders, or perhaps dying embers, kicked to and fro under the feet of innumerable women and children in the Magazines, and at best blown here and there into transient sputters, with vapour enough, so as to form what you might name a boundless Green-sick, or New-Sentimental, or Sleep-Awake School,—what remains but to adjust ourselves to circumstances? Urge me not," continues the able Editor, suddenly changing his figure, "with considerations that Poetry, as the inward voice of Life, must be perennial, only dead in one form to become alive in another; that this still abundant deluge of Metre, seeing there must needs be fractions of Poetry floating scattered in it, ought still to be net-fished, at all events, surveyed and taken note of: the survey of English Metre, at this epoch, perhaps transcends the human faculties; to hire out the reading of it, by estimate, at a remunerative rate per page, would, in few Quarters, reduce the cash box of any extant Review to the verge of insolvency." What our distinguished contemporary has said remains said. Far be it from us to censure or counsel any able Editor; to draw aside the Editorial veil, and, officiously prying into his interior mysteries, impugn the laws he walks by! For Editors, as for others, there are times of perplexity, wherein the cunning of the wisest will scantily suffice his own wants, say nothing of his neighbour's. To us, on our side, meanwhile, it remains clear that Poetry, or were it but Metre, should nowise be altogether neglected. Surely it is the Reviewer's trade to sit watching, not only the tillage, crop-rotation, marketings, and good or evil husbandry of the Economic Earth, but also the weather-symptoms of the Literary Heaven, on which those former so much de pend: if any promising or threatening meteoric phenomenon make its appearance, and he proclaim not tidings thereof, it is at his peril. Farther, be it considered how, in this singular poetic epoch, a small matter constitutes a novelty. If the whole welkin hang overcast in drizzly dinginess, the feeblest lightgleam, or speck of blue, cannot pass un heeded. The Works of this Corn-Law Rhymer we might liken rather to some little fraction of a rainbow: hues of joy and harmony, painted out of troublous tears. No round full bow, I that this same aristocratic recognition, which indeed; gloriously spanning the heavens; looks down with an obliging smile from its shone on by the full sun; and, with seven- throne, of bound Volumes and gold Ingots, striped, gold-crimson border (as is in some and admits that it is wonderfully well for one sort the office of Poetry) dividing Black from of the uneducated classes, may be getting out Brilliant: not such; alas, still far from it! of place. There are unhappy times in the Yet, in very truth, a little prismatic blush, world's history, when he that is the least eduglowing genuine among the wet clouds; which cated will chiefly have to say that he is the proceeds, if you will, from a sun cloud-hidden, least perverted; and with the multitude of yet indicates that a sun does shine, and above false eye-glasses, convex, concave, green, even those vapours, a whole azure vault and celes- yellow, has not lost the natural use of his tial firmament stretch serene. eyes. For a generation that reads Cobbett's Prose, and Burns's Poetry, it need be no miracle that here also is a man who can handle both pen and hammer like a man. Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that here we have once more got sight of a Book calling itself Poetry, yet which actually is a kind of Book, and no empty paste-board Case, and simulacrum or "ghost-defunct" of a Book, such as is too often palmed on the world, and handed over Booksellers' counters, with a demand of real money for it, as if it too were a reality. The speaker here is of that singular class, who have something to say; whereby, though delivering himself in verse, and in these days, he does not deliver himself wholly in jargon, but articulately, and with a certain degree of meaning, that has been believed, and therefore is again believable. Nevertheless, this serene-highness attitude and temper is so frequent, perhaps it were good to turn the tables for a moment, and see what look it has under that reverse aspect. How were it if we surmised. that for a man gifted with natural vigour, with a man's character to be developed in him, more especially if in the way of Literature, as Thinker and Writer, it is actually, in these strange days, no special misfortune to be trained up among the Uneducated classes, and not among the Educated; but rather of two misfortunes the smaller? To some the wonder and interest will be heightened by another circumstance: that the For all men doubtless obstructions abound; speaker in question is not school-learned, or spiritual growth must be hampered and stunteven furnished with pecuniary capital; is, ed, and has to struggle through with diffiindeed, a quite unmoneyed, russet-coated culty, if it do not wholly stop. We may grant speaker; nothing or little other than a Shef- too that, for a mediocre character, the confield worker in brass and iron, who describes tinual training and tutoring, from language. himself as "one of the lower, little removed masters, dancing-inasters, posture-masters of above the lowest class." Be of what class he all sorts, hired and volunteer, which a high may, the man is provided, as we can perceive, rank in any time and country assures, there with a rational god-created soul; which too will be produced a certain superiority, or at has fashioned itself into some clearness, some worst, air of superiority, over the correspondself-subsistence, and can actually see and ing mediocre character of low rank: thus we know with its own organs; and in rugged sub-perceive the vulgar Do-nothing, as contrasted stantial English, nay, with tones of poetic melody, utter forth what it has seen. with the vulgar Drudge, is in general a much prettier man; with a wider, perhaps clearer, outlook into the distance; in innumerable su It used to be said that lions do not paint, that poor men do not write; but the case is alter-perficial matters, however it may be when we ing now. Here is a voice coming from the deep Cyclopean forges, where Labour, in real soot and sweat, beats with his thousand hammers "the red son of the furnace;" doing personal battle with Necessity, and her dark brute Powers, to make them reasonable and serviceable; an intelligible voice from the hitherto Mute and Irrational, to tell us at first hand how it is with him, what in very deed is the theorem of the world and of himself, which he, in those dim depths of his, in that wearied head of his, has put together. To which voice, in several respects significant enough, let good ear be given. Here too, be it premised, that nowise under the category of "Uneducated Poets," or in any fashion of dilettante patronage, can our Sheffield friend be produced. His position is unsuitable for that: so is ours. Genius, which the French lady declared to be of no sex, is much more certainly of no rank; neither when "the spark of Nature's fire" has been imparted, should Education take high airs in her artificial light,-which is too often but phosphorescence and putrescence. In fact, it now begins to be suspected here and there, we go deeper, he has a manifest advantage. But with the man of uncommon character, again, in whom a germ of irrepressible Force has been implanted, and will unfold itself into some sort of freedom,-altogether the reverse may hold. For such germs, too, there is undoubtedly enough, a proper soil where they will grow best, and an improper one where they will grow worst. True also, where there is a will, there is a way; where a genius has been given, a possibility, a certainty of its growing is also given. Yet often it seems as if the injudicious gardening and manuring were worse than none at all; and killed what the inclemencies of blind chance would have spared. We find accordingly that few Frederics or Napoleons, indeed none since the great Alexander, who unfortunately drank himself to death too soon for proving what lay in him, were nursed up with an eye to their vocation: mostly with an eye quite the other way, in the midst of isolation and pain, destitution and contradiction. Nay, in our own times, have we not seen two men of genius, a Byron and a Burns; they both, by mandate of Nature, struggle and must strug gle towards clear Manhood, stormfully enough, | ative Phoenix-ashes of the whole Past." All for the space of six-and-thirty years; yet only that men have devised, discovered, done, felt, the gifted Ploughman can partially prevail or imagined, lies recorded in Books; wherein therein the gifted Peer must toil and strive, whoso has learned the mystery of spelling and shoot out in wild efforts, yet die at last in printed letters, may find it, and appropriate it. Boyhood, with the promise of his Manhood Nay, what indeed is all this? As if it were still but announcing itself in the distance. by universities and libraries and lecture-rooms, Truly, as was once written, "it is only the ar- that man's Education, what we can call Edutichoke that will not grow except in gardens; cation, were accomplished: solely, or mainly, the acorn is cast carelessly abroad into the by instilling the dead letter and record of other wilderness, yet on the wild soil it nourishes it- men's Force, that the living Force of a new self, and rises to be an oak." All woodmen, man were to be awakened, enkindled, and pumoreover, will tell you that fat manure is the rified into victorious clearness! Foolish Peruin of your oak; likewise that the thinner dant, that sittest there compassionately desand wilder your soil, the tougher, more iron- canting on the Learning of Shakspeare! textured is your timber,—though, unhappily, Shakspeare had penetrated into innumerable also, the smaller. So too with the spirits of things; far into Nature with her divine Splenmen: they become pure from their errors, by dours and infernal Terrors, her Ariel Melodies, suffering for them; he who has battled, were and mystic mandragora Moans; far into man's it only with poverty and hard toil, will be workings with Nature, into man's Art and found stronger, more expert, than he who Artifice; Shakspeare knew (kenned, which in could stay at home from the battle, concealed those days still partially meant can-ned) innuamong the Provision-wagons, or even not un- merable things; what men are, and what the watchfully" abiding by the stuff." In which world is, and how and what men aim at there, sense, an observer, not without experience of from the Dame Quickly of modern Eastcheap our time, has said: "Had I a man of clearly to the Cæsar of ancient Rome, over many developed character, (clear, sincere within its countries, over many centuries: of all this limits,) of insight, courage, and real appli- he had the clearest understanding and concable force of head and of heart, to search structive comprehension; all this was his for; and not a man of luxuriously distorted Learning and Insight: what now is thine? character, with haughtiness for courage, and Insight into none of those things; perhaps, for insight and applicable force, speculation strictly considered, into no thing whatever: and plausible show of force,-it were rather solely into thy own sheepskin diplomas, fat among the lower than the higher classes that academic honours, into vocables and alphaI should look for him." betic letters, and but a little way into these!The grand result of schooling is a mind with just vision to discern, with free force to do: the grand schoolmaster is Practice. A hard saying, indeed, seems this same: that he whose other wants were all beforehand supplied; to whose capabilities no problem was presented except even this, How to culti- And now, when kenning and can-ning have vate them to best advantage, should attain less become two altogether different words; and real culture than he whose first grand prob- this, the first principle of human culture, the lem and obligation was nowise spiritual cul- foundation-stone of all but false imaginary culture, but hard labour for his daily bread!ture, that men must, before every other thing, Sad enough must the perversion be where pre- be trained to do somewhat, has been, for some parations of such magnitude issue in abor-generations, laid quietly on the shelf, with tion; and a so sumptuous Art with all its appliances can accomplish nothing, not so much as necessitous Nature would of herself have supplied! Nevertheless, so pregnant is Life with evil as with good; to such height in an age rich, plethorically overgrown with means, can means be accumulated in the wrong place, and immeasurably aggravate wrong tendencies, instead of righting them, this sad and strange result may actually turn out to have been realized. such result as we see,-consider what advantage those same uneducated Working classes have over the educated Unworking classes, in one particular; herein, namely, that they must work. To work! What incalculable sources of cultivation lie in that process, in that attempt; how it lays hold of the whole man, not of a small theoretical calculating fraction of him, but of the whole practical, doing and daring and enduring man; thereby to awaken dormant faculties, root out old errors, at every But what, after all, is meant by uneducated, step! He that has done nothing has known in a time when Books have come into the nothing. Vain is it to sit scheming and plau world; come to the household furniture in sibly discoursing: up and be doing! If thy every habitation of the civilized world? In knowledge be real, put it forth from thee: the poorest cottage are Books: is one Book, grapple with real Nature; try thy theories. wherein for several thousands of years the there, and see how they hold out. Do one thing, spirit of man has found light, and nourish- for the first time in thy life do a thing: a new ment, and an interpreting response to what-light will rise to thee on the doing of all things ever is Deepest in him; wherein still, to this whatsoever. Truly, a boundless significance day, for the eye that will look well, the Mystery of Existence reflects itself, if not resolved, yet revealed, and prophetically emblemed; if not to the satisfying of the outward sense, yet to the opening of the inward sense, which is the far grander result. "In Books lie the cre lies in work: whereby the humblest craftsman comes to attain much, which is of indispensable use, but which he who is of no craft, were he never so high, runs the risk of miss ing. Once turn to Practice, Error and Truth will no longer consort together: the result of |