troduced him to some damsels who were better than their reputation,' and took him into scenes more useful to the future poet than advantageous to the repute of the young student. He also laughed him out of all respect for gods, goddesses, and other mythological inanities which still pressed their heavy dulness on his verse; would not let him commit the imprudence of rushing into print, but calmed the author's longing by beautifully copying his verses into a volume, adorning them with vignettes. Behrisch was, so to speak, the precursor of Merck; his influence not so great, but somewhat of the same kind. The friends were displeased to see young Goethe falling thus away from good society' into such a disreputable course; but just as Lessing before him had neglected the elegant' Leipsic world for actors and authors of more wit than money, and preferred Mylius, with his shoes down at heel, to all that the best drest society could offer; so did young Goethe neglect salon and lecture-hall for the many-colored scene of life in less elegant circles. Be comforted, O reader! The poet will receive no injury from these sources; he is gaining experience, and experience even of the worst sides of human nature will be sublimated into noble uses, as carrion by the wise farmer is turned into excellent manure. In this great Drama of Life every Theatre has its Green-room; and unless the poet know how it is behind the scenes ' he will never understand how actors speak and move.

Goethe had often been 'behind the scenes,' looking at the skeleton which stands in almost every house. His adventure with Gretchen, and its consequences, early opened his eyes to the strange gulfs which lie under the crust of society. Religion, morals, law, rank, habits,' he says, 'rule over the surface of social life. Streets of magnificent houses are kept clean; every one outwardly

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conducts himself with propriety; but the disorder within is often only the more desolate; and a polished exterior covers many a wall which totters, and falls with a crash during the night, all the more terrible because it falls during a calm. How many families had I not more or less distinctly known in which bankruptcy, divorce, seduction, murder, and robbery had wrought destruction! Young as I was, I had often, in such cases, lent my succor; for as my frankness awakened confidence and my discretion was known, and as my activity did not shun any sacrifice indeed rather preferred the most perilous occasions I had frequently to mediate, console, and try to avert the storm; in the course of which I could not help learning many sad and humiliating facts.'

It was natural that such sad experience should at first lead him to view the whole social fabric with contempt. To relieve himself of this perilous stuff' he being then greatly captivated with Molière's works,

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sketched the

plans of several dramas, but their plots were so uniformly unpleasant, and the catastrophes so tragic, that he did not work out these plans. The Fellow Sinners' (Die Mitschuldigen), is the sole piece which was completed, and it now occupies a place among his writings. Few, in England at least, ever read it; yet it is worth a rapid glance, and is especially remarkable as the work of a youth not yet eighteen. It is lively, and strong with effective situations and two happily sketched characters,Söller, the scampish husband, and his father-in-law, the inquisitive landlord. The plot is briefly this: Söller's wife before she became his wife. - loved a certain Alcest; and her husband's conduct is not such as to make her forget her former lover, who, at the opening of the play, is residing in her father's hotel. Alcest prevails upon her to grant him an interview in his own room, while

her husband, Söller, is at the masquerade. Unluckily Söller has determined to rob Alcest that very night. He enters the room by stealth - opens the escritoire - takes the money is alarmed by a noise - hides himself in an alcove, and then sees his father-in-law, the landlord, enter the room! The old man, unable to resist a burning curiosity to know the contents of a letter which Alcest has received that day, has come to read it in secret. But he in turn is alarmed by the appearance of his daugher, and letting the candle fall he escapes. Söller is now the exasperated witness of an interview between Alcest and his wife a situation which, like the whole of the play, is a mixture of the ludicrous and the painful. and very unpleasant.

very dramatic

On the following day the robbery is discovered. Sophie thinks the robber is her father; he returns her the compliment― nay, more, stimulated by his eager curiosity, he consents to inform Alcest of his suspicion in return for the permission to read the contents of the mysterious letter. A father sacrificing his daughter to gratify a paltry curiosity is too gross; it is the only trait of juvenility in the piece a piece otherwise prematurely old. Enraged at such an accusation, Sophie retorts the charge upon her father, and some unamiable altercations result. The piece winds up by the self-betrayal of Söller, who, intimating to Alcest that he was present during a certain nocturnal interview, shields himself from punishment. The moral is Forget and forgive among fellow sinners.'

CHAPTER II.

MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS.

THE two dramatic works noticed towards the close of the last chapter, may be said to begin the real poetic career of their author, because in them he drew from his actual experience. They will furnish us with a text for some remarks on his peculiar characteristics, the distinct recognition of which will facilitate the comprehension of his life and writings. We make a digression, but the reader will find that in thus swerving from the direct path of narrative, we are only tacking to fill our sails with wind.

Frederick Schlegel (and after him Coleridge) aptly indicated a distinction, when he said that every man was born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. This distinction is often expressed in the terms subjective and objective intellects. The tendency of the objective intellect is to view things directly, positively as what they are; the tendency of the subjective intellect is to view things ideallyas what they signify to the mind. It need scarcely be added that no mind is exclusively objective or exclusively subjective, but every mind has a dominant tendency in one or the other of these directions. One man argues from Nature upwards, starting from reality, and never long losing sight of it, even in the adventurous flights of hypothesis and speculation; another argues from the Idea

downwards, starting from some ideal conception, some à priori standing-point, whence reality may be reached as a sort of visible illustration, a symbol of the deeper and higher ideal existence. Plato is an avowed and explicit preacher of this latter mode of philosophizing; Aristotle is less explicitly, but decisively, of the former mode.

The Real and Ideal are thus contrasted as the termini of two opposite lines of thought. In Philosophy, in Morals and in Art, we see a constant antagonism between these two principles. Thus in Morals the Platonists are those who seek the highest morality out of human nature, instead of in the healthy development of all our tendencies, and their due co-ordination; they hope, in the suppression of integral faculties, to attain some superhuman standard. They call that Ideal which no Reality can reach, but for which we should strive. They superpose ab extra, instead of trying to develope ab intra. They draw from their own minds, or from the dogmas handed to them by tradition, an arbitrary mould, into which they attempt to fuse the organic activity of Nature.

If this school had not in its favor the imperious instinct of Progress, and aspiration after a Better, it would not hold its ground. But it satisfies that craving, and thus deludes many minds into acquiescence. The poetical and enthusiastic disposition most readily acquiesces: preferring to overlook what man is, in its delight of contemplating what the poet makes him. To such a mind all conceptions of Man must have a halo round them,- half mist, half sunshine; the hero must be a Demigod, in whom no valet de chambre can find a failing; the villain must be a Demon, for whom no charity can find an excuse.

Not to extend this to a dissertation, let me at once say that Goethe belonged to the objective class. Everywhere in Goethe,' said Franz Horn, 'you are on firm land or