more de humour and heartiness, apt to be intolerably | He became a mark for calumny; the defencelong-winded; and of a maladroitness, a blank less butt at which every callow witling made ineptitude, which exposed him to incessant his proof-shot; his character was ridicule and manifold mystifications from peo- formed and mangled than that of any other ple of the world. Nevertheless, under all this man. What had he to gain? Insult and perrubbish, contends the friendly Biographer, secution; and with these, as candour bids us there dwelt, for those who could look more believe, the approving voice of his own connarrowly, a spirit, marred indeed in its beauty, science. To judge from his writings, he was and languishing in painful conscious oppres- far from repenting of the change he had made; sion, yet never wholly forgetful of its original his Catholic faith evidently stands in his own nobleness. Werner's soul was made for affec-mind as the first blessing of his life; and he tion; and often as, under his too rude colli-clings to it as to the anchor of his soul. Scarcesions with external things, it was struck into ly more than once (in the Preface to his Mutteharshness and dissonance, there was a tone der Makkabüer) does he allude to the legions of which spoke of melody, even in its jarrings. falsehoods that were in circulation against A kind, a sad, and heartfelt remembrance of him; and it is in a spirit which, without enhis friends seems never to have quitted him: tirely concealing the querulousness of nature, to the last he ceased not from warm love to nowise fails in the meekness and endurance men at large; nay, to awaken in them, with which became him as a Christian. Here is a such knowledge as he had, a sense for what fragment of another Paper, published since was best and highest, may be said to have his death, as it was meant to be; which exformed the earnest, though weak and unstable hibits him in a still clearer light. The reader aim of his whole existence. The truth is, his may condemn, or what will be better, pity and defects as a writer were also his defects as a sympathize with him; but the structure of this man: he was feeble, and without volition; in strange piece surely bespeaks any thing but inlife, as in poetry, his endowments fell into con- sincerity. We translate it with all its breaks | fusion; his character relaxed itself on all sides and fantastic crotchets, as it stands before us: into incoherent expansion; his activity became gigantic endeavour, followed by most dwarfish performance. The grand incident of his life, his adoption of the Roman Catholic religion, is one on which we need not heap further censure; for already, as appears to us, it is rather liable to be too harshly than too leniently dealt with. There is a feeling in the popular mind, which, in well-meant hatred of inconsistency, perhaps in general too sweepingly condemns such changes. Werner, it should be recollected, had at all periods of his life a religion; nay, he hungered and thirsted after truth in this matter, as after the highest good of man; a fact which of itself must, in this respect, set him far above the most consistent of mere unbelievers,-in whose barren and callous soul consistency, perhaps, is no such brilliant virtue. We pardon genial weather for its changes; but the steadiest of all climates is that of Greenland. Further, we must say that, strange as it may seem, in Werner's whole conduct, both before and after his conversion, there is not visible the slightest trace of insincerity. On the whole, there are fewer genuine renegades than men are apt to imagine. Surely, indeed, that must be a nature of extreme baseness, who feels that, in worldly good, he can gain by such a step. Is the contempt, the execration of all that have known and loved us, and of millions that have never known us, to be weighed against a mess of pottage, or a piece of money? We hope there are not many, even in the rank of sharpers, that would think so. But for Werner there was no gain in any way; nay, rather certainty of loss. He enjoyed or sought no patronage; with his own resources he was already independent though poor, and on a footing of good esteem with all that was most estimable in his country. His little pension, conferred on him, at a prior date, by a Catholic Prince, was not continued after his conversion, except by the Duke of Weimar, a Protestant. "TESTAMENTARY INSCRIPTION, from Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner, a son," &c.— birth, with vacant spaces for the date of his (here follows a statement of his parentage and death,)" of the following lines, submitted to all such as have more or less felt any friendly interest in his unworthy person, with the request to take warning by his example, and writer before God, in prayer and good deeds. charitably to remember the poor soul of the who have left behind them in writing the defence, or even sometimes the accusation, of their earthly life. Without estimating such procedure, I am not minded to imitate it. With trembling I reflect that I myself shall first learn in its whole terrific compass what properly I was, when these lines shall be read by men; that is to say, in a point of Time which for me will be no Time; in a condition wherein all experience will for me be too late! Rex tremendæ majestatis, join myself to Judaism, or to the Bramins on the Ganges: but to that shallowest, driest, most contradictory, inanest Inanity of Protestantism, never, never, never !” Here, perhaps, there is a touch of priestly, of almost feminine vehemence; for it is to a Protestant and an old friend that he writes but the conclusion of his Preface shows him in a better light. Speaking of Second Parts, and regretting that so many of his works were unfinished, he adds: : "But what specially comforts me is the prospect of our general Second Part; where, even in the first Scene, this consolation, that there all our works will be known, may not indeed prove solacing for us all but where, through the strength of Him that alone completes all works, it will be granted to those whom He has saved, not only to know each other, but even to know Him, as by Him they are known! -With my trust in Christ, whom I have not yet won, I regard, with the Teacher of the Gentiles, all things but dross that I may win Him; and to him, cordially and lovingly do I, in life or at death, commit you all, my beloved Friends and my beloved Enemies!" But if I do, till that day when All shall be laid open draw a veil over my past life, it is not merely out of false shame that I so order it; for though not free from this vice also, I would willingly make known my guilt to all and every one whom my voice might reach, could I hope, by such confession, to atone for what I have done; or thereby to save a single soul from perdition. There are two motives, however, which forbid me to make such an open personal revelation after death: the one, because the unclosing of a pestilential grave may be dangerous to the health of the uninfected lookeron; the other, because in my writings, (which On the whole, we cannot think it doubtful may God forgive me!) amid a wilderness of that Werner's belief was real and heartfelt. poisonous weeds and garbage, there may also But how then, our wondering readers may in be here and there a medicinal herb lying scat-quire, if his belief was real and not pretended, tered, from which poor patients, to whom it might be useful, would start back with shuddering, did they know the pestiferous soil on which it grew. "So much, however, in regard to those good creatures as they call themselves, namely, to those feeble weaklings who brag of what they designate their good hearts,-so much must I say before God, that such a heart alone, when it is not checked and regulated by forethought and steadfastness, is not only incapable of saving its possessor from destruction, but it is rather certain to hurry him, full speed, into that abyss, where I have been, whence I-perhaps?!!!-by God's grace am snatched, and from which may God mercifully preserve every reader of these lines."-Werner's Letzte Lebenstagen, (quoted by Hitzig, p. 80.) how then did he believe? He, who scoffs in infidel style at the truths of Protestantism, by what alchemy did he succeed in tempering into credibility the harder and bulkier dogmas of Popery? Of Popery, too, the frauds and gross corruptions of which he has so fiercely exposed in his Martin Luther! and this, more over, without cancelling, or even softening his vituperations, long after his conversion, in the very last edition of that drama? To this question, we are far from pretending to have any answer that altogether satisfies ourselves. much less that shall altogether satisfy others. Meanwhile, there are two considerations which throw light on the difficulty for us: these, as some step, or at least, attempt towards a solu tion of it, we shall not withhold. The first lies in Werner's individual character and mode of life. Not only was he born a mystic, not only had he lived from of old amid freemasonry, and all manner of cabalistic and other traditionary chimeras; he was also, and had long been what is emphatically called dissolute; a word which has now lost somewhat of its origina force; but which, as applied here still mon just and significant in its etym.gical, thaɩ in its common acception. H was a man dis solute; that is, by a long earse of vicious indulgences, enervated Lod loosened asunder. Everywhere in Werr _r's life and actions, we discern a mind relaxed from its proper tension; no longer capable of effort and toilsome resolute vigilare; but floating almost passively with the current of its impulses, in languid, imagiz.ative, Asiatic reverie. That such a man should discriminate, with sharp, fear"I not only assure thee, but I beg of thee to less logic, between beloved errors and unwelassure all men, if God should ever so withdraw come truths, was not to be expected. His belief he light of his grace from me, that I ceased to is li .ely to have been persuasion rather than con◄ be a Catholic, I would a thousand times sooner | vition, both as it related to Religion, and to "All this is melancholy enough; but it is not like the writing of a hypocrite or repentant apostate. To Protestantism, above all things, Werner shows no thought of returning. In allusion to a rumour, which had spread, of his having given up Catholicism, he says (in the Preface already quoted): "A stupid falsehood I must reckon it; since, according to my deepest conviction, it is as impossible that a soul in Bliss should return back into the Grave, as that a man, who, like me, after a life of error and search has found the priceless jewel of Truth, should, I will not say, give up the same, but hesitate to sacrifice for it blood and life, nay, many things perhaps far dearer, with joyful heart, when the one good cause is concerned." And elsewhere in a private letter: other subjects. What, or how much a man in | this way may bring himself to believe, with such force and distinctness as he honestly and usually calls belief, there is no predicting. they are men of earnest hearts, and seem to have a deep feeling of devotion: but it should be remembered, that what forms the groundwork of their religion, is professedly not Demonstration but Faith; and so pliant a theory could not but help to soften the transition from the former to the latter. That some such principle, in one shape or another, lurked in Werner's mind, we think we can perceive from several indications; among others, from the Prologue to his last tragedy, where, mysteriously enough, under the emblem of a Phonix, he seems to be shadowing forth the history of his own Faith; and represents himself even then as merely "climbing the tree, where the pinions of his Phoenix last vanished;" but not hoping to regain that blissful vision, till his But another consideration, which we think should nowise be omitted, is the general state of religious opinion in Germany, especially among such minds as Werner was most apt to take for his examplars. To this complex and highly interesting subject, we can for the present do nothing more than allude. So much, however, we may say: It is a common theory among the Germans, that every Creed, every Form of worship, is a form merely; the mortal and everchanging body, in which the immortal and unchanging spirit of Religion is, with more or less completeness, expressed to the material eye, and made manifest and influen-eyes shall have been opened by death. tial among the doings of men. It is thus, for On the whole, we must not pretend to underinstance, that Johannes Müller, in his Univer- stand Werner, or expound him with scientific sal History, professes to consider the Mosaic rigour: acting many times with only half conLaw, the creed of Mahomet, nay, Luther's Re-sciousness, he was always, in some degree, an formation; and, in short, all other systems of enigma to himself, and may well be obscure to Faith; which he scruples not to designate, us. Above all, there are mysteries and unwithout special praise or censure, simply as sounded abysses in every human heart; and Vorstellungsarten, modes of Representation." that is but a questionable philosophy which We could report equally singular things of undertakes so readily to explain them. ReliSchelling and others, belonging to the philoso-gious belief especially, at least when it seems phic class; nay of Herder, a Protestant clergy-heartfelt and well-intentioned, is no subject man, and even bearing high authority in the Church. Now, it is clear, in a country where such opinions are openly and generally professed, a change of religious creed must be comparatively a slight matter. Conversions to Catholicism are accordingly by no means unknown among the Germans: Friedrich Schlegel, and the younger Count von Stolberg, men, as we should think, of vigorous intellect, and of character above suspicion, were colleagues, or rather precursors, of Werner in this adventure; and, indeed, formed part of his acquaintance at Vienna. It is but, they would pay perhaps, as if a melodist, inspired with harmony of inward music, should choose this instrument in preference to that, for giving voice to it: the inward inspiration is the grand concern; and to express it, the "deep majestic solemn organ" of the Unchangeable Church may be better fitted than the "scrannel pipe" of a withered, trivial, Arian Protestantism. That Werner, still more that Schlegel and Stolberg, could, on the strength of such hypotheses, put off or put on their religious creed, like a new suit of apparel, we are far from asserting; for harsh or even irreverent investigation. He is a wise man that, having such a belief, knows and sees clearly the grounds of it in himself: and those, we imagine, who have explored with strictest scrutiny the secret of their own bosoms, will be least apt to rush with intolerant violence into that of other men's. "The good Werner," says Jean Paul, "fell, like our more vigorous Hoffmann, into the poetical fermenting vat (Gährbottich) of our time, where all Literatures, Freedoms, Tastes, and Untastes are foaming through each other: and where all is to be found, excepting truth, diligence, and the polish of the file. Both would have come forth clearer had they studied in Lessing's day."* We cannot justify Werner: yet let him be condemned with pity! And well were it could each of us apply to himself those words, which Hitzig, in his friendly indignation, would "thunder in the ears many a German gainsayer: Take thou the beam out of thine own eye; then shalt thou see clearly lo take the mote out of thy brother's. " of * Letter to Hitzig, in Jean Paul's Leben, by Doering. GOETHE'S HELENA. [FOREIGN REVIEW, 1828.] NOVALIS has rather tauntingly asserted of Goethe, that the grand law of his being is to conclude whatsoever he undertakes; that, let, him engage in any task, no matter what its difficulties or how small its worth, he cannot quit it till he has mastered its whole secret, finished it, and made the result of it his own. This, surely, whatever Novalis might think, is a quality of which it is far safer to have too much than too little; and if, in a friendlier spirit, we admit that it does strikingly belong to Goethe, these his present occupations will not seem out of harmony with the rest of his life; but rather it may be regarded as a singular constancy of fortune, which now allows him, after completing so many single enterprizes, to adjust deliberately the details and combination of the whole; and thus, in perfecting his individual works, to put the last hand to the highest of all his works, his own literary character, and leave the impress of it to posterity in that form and accompaniment which he himself reckons fittest. For the last two years, as many of our readers may know, the venerable Poet has been employed in a patient and thorough revisal of all his Writings; an edition of which, designated as the "complete and final" one, was commenced in 1827, under external encouragements of the most flattering sort, and with arrangements for private co-operation, which, as we learn, have secured the constant progress of the work "against every accident." The first Lieferung, of five volumes, is now in our hands; a second of like extent, we understand to be already on its way hither; and thus by regular "Deliveries," from half-year to half-year, the whole Forty Volumes are to be completed in 1831. * seems moderate; so that, on every account, we doubt not but that these tasteful volumes will spread far and wide in their own country, and by and by, we may hope, be met with here in many a British library. Hitherto, in the First Portion, we have found little or no alteration of what was already known; but, in return, some changes of arrangement; and, what is more important, some additions of heretofore unpublished poems; in particular, a piece entitled "Helena, a classico-romantic Phantasmagoria," which occupies some eighty pages of Volume Fourth. It is to this piece that we now propose directing the attention of our readers. Such of these, as have studied Helena for themselves, must have felt how little calculated it is, either intrinsically or by its extrinsic relations and allusions, to be rendered very interesting or even very intelligible to the English public, and may incline to augur ill of our enterprise. Indeed, to our own eyes it already looks dubious enough. But the dainty little “Phantasmagoria," it would appear, has become a subject of diligent and truly wonderful speculation to our German neighbours; of which, also, some vague rumours seem now to have reached this country, and these likely enough to awaken on all hands a curiosity,* which, whether intelligent or idle, it were a kind of good deed to allay. In a Journal of this sort, what little light on such a matter is at our disposal may naturally be looked for. Helena, like many of Goethe's works, by no means carries its significance written on its forehead, so that he who runs may read; but, on the contrary, it is enveloped in a certain mystery, under coy disguises, which, to hasty To the lover of German literature, or of readers, may not be only offensively obscure, literature in general, this undertaking will not but altogether provoking and impenetrable. be indifferent: considering, as he must do, the Neither is this any new thing with Goethe. works of Goethe to be among the most import- Often has he produced compositions, both in ant which Germany for some centuries has prose and verse, which bring critic and comsent forth, he will value their correctness and mentator into straits, or even to a total noncompleteness for its own sake; and not the plus. Some we have, wholly parabolic; some less, as forming the conclusion of a long pro- half-literal, half-parabolic; these latter are occess to which the last step was still wanting; casionally studied, by dull heads, in the literal whereby he may not only enjoy the result, but sense alone; and not only studied, but coninstruct himself by following so great a mas- demned: for, in truth, the outward meaning ter through the changes which led to it. We seems unsatisfactory enough, were it not that can now add, that, to the mere book-collector ever and anon we are reminded of a cunning, also, the business promises to be satisfactory. manifold meaning which lies hidden under This Edition, avoiding any attempt at splen- it; and incited by capricious beckonings to dour or unnecessary decoration, ranks, never-evolve this, more and more completely, from theless, in regard to accuracy, convenience, its quaint concealment. and true, simple elegance, among the best specimens of German typography. The cost, too, * Goethe's Sämmtliche Werke. Vollstandige Ausgabe letzter Hand. (Goethe's Collective Works. Complete Edition, with his final Corrections.) First Portion, vols. iv. 16mo and 8vo. Cotta: Stuttgard & Tübingen. 1827. Did we believe that Goethe adopted this mode of writing as a vulgar lure, to confer on his poems the interest which might belong to *See, for instance, the "Athenæum," No. vii., where an article stands headed with these words: FAUST, HELEN OF TROY, AND LORD BYRON. so many charades, we should hold it a very | interpretation; or they remain, as in all prosaic poor proceeding. Of this most readers of minds the words of poetry ever do, a dead Goethe will know that he is incapable. Such letter: indications they are, barren in themjuggleries, and uncertain anglings for distinc-selves, but by following which, we also may tion, are a class of accomplishments to which reach, or approach, that Hill of Vision where he has never made any pretension. The truth the poet stood, beholding the glorious scene is, this style has, in many cases, its own ap- which it is the purport of his poem to show propriateness. Certainly, in all matters of others. A reposing state, in which the Hill were Business and Science, in all expositions of brought under us, not we obliged to mount it, fact or argument, clearness and ready compre- might, indeed, for the present be more convehensibility are a great, often an indispensable, nient; but, in the end, it could not be equally object. Nor is there any man better aware of satisfying. Continuance of passive pleasure, this principle than Goethe, or who more rigo- it should never be forgotten, is here, as under rously adheres to it, or more happily exempli- all conditions of mortal existence, an impossi fies it, wherever it seems applicable. But in bility. Everywhere in life, the true question is, this, as in many other respects, Science and not what we gain, but what we do: so also in Poetry, having separate purposes, may have intellectual matters, in conversation, in readeach its several law. If an artist has con- ing, which is more precise and careful conceived his subject in the secret shrine of his versation, it is not what we receive, but what we own mind, and knows, with a knowledge be- are made to give, that chiefly contents and profits yond all power of cavil, that it is true and pure, us. True, the mass of readers will object; behe may choose his own manner of exhibiting cause, like the mass of men, they are too indoit, and will generally be the fittest to choose it lent. But if any one affect, not the active and well. One degree of light, he may find, will watchful, but the passive and somnolent line beseem one delineation; quite a different de- of study, are there not writers, expressly gree of light another. The Face of Agamem-fashioned for him, enough and to spare? It is non was not painted but hidden in the old Picture: the Veiled Figure at Sais was the most expressive in the Temple. In fact, the grand point is to have a meaning, a genuine, deep, and noble one; the proper form for embodying this, the form best suited to the subject and to the author, will gather round it almost of its | own accord. We profess ourselves unfriendly to no mode of communicating Truth; which we rejoice to meet with in all shapes, from that of the child's Catechism to the deepest poctical Allegory. Nay, the Allegory itself may sometimes be the truest part of the matter. John Bunyan, we hope, is nowise our best theologian; neither, unhappily, is theology our most attractive science; yet, which of our compends and treatises, nay, which of our romances and poems, lives in such mild sunshine as the good old Pilgrim's Progress, in the memory of so many men? but the smaller number of books that become more instructive by a second perusal: the great majority are as perfectly plain as perfect triteness can make them. Yet, if time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all. And were there an artist of a right spirit; a man of wisdom, conscious of his high vocation, of whom we could know beforehand that he had not written without purpose and earnest meditation, that he knew what he had written, and had imbodied in it, more or less, the creations of a deep and noble soul,-should we not draw near to him reverently, as disciples to a master; and what task could there be more profitable than to read him as we have described, to study him even to his minutest meanings? For, were not this to think as he had thought, to see with his gifted eyes, to make the very mood and feeling of his great and rich mind the mood also of our poor and little one? It is under the consciousness of some such mutual relation that Goethe writes, and his countrymen now reckon themselves bound to read him; a relation singular, we might say solitary, in the present time; but which it is ever necessary to bear in mind in estimating his literary procedure. Under Goethe's management, this style of composition has often a singular charm. The reader is kept on the alert, ever conscious of his own active co-operation; light breaks on him, and clearer and clearer vision, by degrees; till at last the whole lovely Shape comes forth, definite, it may be, and bright with heavenly radiance, or fading, on this side and that, into vague expressive mystery; but true in both To justify it in this particular, much more cases, and beautiful with nameless enchant- might be said, were it our chief business at ments, as the poet's own eye may have beheld present. But what mainly concerns us here, it. We love it the more for the labour it has is, to know that such, justified or not, is the given us; we almost feel as if we ourselves poet's manner of writing; which also must had assisted in its creation. And herein lies prescribe for us a correspondent manner of the highest merit of a piece, and the proper art studying him, if we study him at all. For the of reading it. We have not read an author till rest, on this latter point he nowhere expresses we have seen his object, whatever it may be, any undue anxiety. His works have invaria as he saw it. It is a matter of reasoning, and bly been sent forth without preface, withou has he reasoned stupidly and falsely? We note or commen of any kind; but left, some should understand the circumstances which to times plain and direct, sometimes dim an his mind made it seem true, or persuaded him typical, in what degree of clearness or obscu to write it, knowing that it was not so. In any rity he himself may have judged b′st, to be other way we do him injustice if we judge him. scanned, and glossed, and censur, and dis Is it of poetry? His words are so many sym-torted, as might please the innumer .ole multi bols, to which we ourselves must furnish the tude of critics, to whose verdict ne has been |