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Occupations and aspirations, which we are minister to him, to communicate experidisposed to accept with a certain indul-ences, informations- to afford him, by its gence an indulgence which makes our different arts, and by various of its inhabireverence the greater. Instead of that tants, stepping-stones by which to elevate poetical conception of the poet, the spec- himself to such a position that gods and tator finds himself face to face with a man men may look upon him and wonder. He perfectly qualified to contend with the is irresponsible, un-moral, a being above world, and to master it; not only not law nay, he makes the impression upon deficient in practical force and adroitness, us of a being existent of his own power but singularly endowed with all the and will, not throwing off the bonds of strength and all the weapons necessary duty so much as born in a sphere above for everyday warfare; not shrinking, timid, them created for his own purposes, not and impassioned, but brave and cool be- for God's. To some minds this very idea yond the ordinary range of mortal strength may seem profane, as if implying that such and self-command; not impulsive and way- an incarnation of semi-deity was one of ward, but collected and steadfast-full of the possibilities of life; but it is an idea reflection, resolution a man of purpose which we think must, in one way or other, and perseverance and strenuous capacity. strike all who seriously contemplate the At sight of all these manifold endowments character of Goethe. So far as we can reour inclination to patronize what we ad- call, he stands alone in this superb but unmire is rendered impossible; and with swerving isolation. There is no one like something of the same feeling which steels him anywhere so self-concentrated, so a man's heart against the woman, however self-conscious, so calmly certain that for attractive, however fascinating, who has him the universe is and was created. Such no need of his superior strength, the heart an idea lightly and momentarily held is of the world is repelled by the poet who part of the splendid inheritance of faith stands in need of no indulgence, no tender with which most of us enter life; but in patronage, no kind shutting of the eyes to ustal circumstances this confidence is torn his weakness, in the very midst of its from us so soon that the belief is too airy adoration of his powers. and evanescent to afford more than one There are, however, reasons deeper than delusive moment of grandeur and delight. this superficial one for the repugnance Goethe never allowed this faith to be taken which many readers, even when unable to from him. It was no delusion of his youth, resist the magic of his genius, feel towards but the calm assurance of the demi-god's Goethe. There is something inhuman in nature: that earth and Germany and Saxehis greatness. We do not use the word as Weimar were especially forməd not he implying any want of geniality in his charac- for them, as is the generous ideal of anothter, or of general benevolence and kind- er kind of soul, but they for him; that the ness towards other men; but rather to men, and especially the women, who came express the strange separation and self-in his way, were in like manner created for concentration of his nature. He was in- his use, to afford him the means of cultihuman, as Jove and Apollo were inhuman. vating himself and all his faculties. We It is not as a man, but as a demi-god might put Shakespeare, and Italy, and the raised above man in a smooth and grand Greek mythology, and even science, into completeness, that we regard him. He is the same category, were it not that these not, as other men, created, for common du- sources of mental profit had to be shared ties and common relationships, whose life with other men, and primarily belonged, is a network of connection with others, who so to speak, to other men, so that he could exist for others, and for the ordinary use not lay the first and most absolute claim and service of the world. Goethe, on the to them. But this is the position in which contrary, is one of those rare beings for we find him from the earliest of his days whom the world is made. To his own to the last. Even when he makes himself consciousness it is a huge machine devised the exponent of his age, he is still sepafor his education, for his instruction to rate from that age, taking advantage of it,

raising himself upon its shoulders, indiffer-nels. They may receive comfort, pleasure, ent to it, thoughtful only for himself. instruction, from without, but never direc

This self-concentration, however, can tion, or even serious influence. They may scarcely be called selfishness; neither is be warm lovers and strenuous friends, but there any lack in it of a certain careless they are incapable of being turned from generosity, magnanimity, even fellow-feel- the natural tenor of their way, or swept

into the fulness of another. Goethe was moved by all, yet moved by none - tremulous like the compass, yet, like it, fixed, and incapable of divergence from the grand centre of gravitation. And in his case the centre was himself.

ing for the lesser creatures who surround him. No one more than he feels the pathos of the situation in which he leaves his Frederikas, his Frau von Steins. His sympathy, it is true, has not the slightest influence upon his actions, which are moulded by a higher rule — viz., that of the necessities of progress and self-culture; but still he has the power of throwing himself into their feelings, and of sorrowing with them. In other relationships less delicate he is perfectly kind, liberal, friendly. Suffering is as disagreeable to him as ugliness, and he never hesitates to exert himself to remove it. He is even susceptible most tremulously and delicately susceptible to all superficial influences. In his youth, his biographer Mr. Lewes tells us, he would take up the occupations and accomplishments of his friends along with them, studying art with the painter, and even learning his trade with the craftsman, in an exuberance of social sympathy such as few can emulate. All that the demi-god is capable of was strong in Goethe. He could throw himself into the being of others, working with them, feeling with them, finding the enjoyment of a larger nature in their sorrows as well as in their joys. What he could not do was to receive them into his being, as he threw himself into theirs. That was not possible to him. It is the limitation of greatness, but still it is a limitation. He could communicate al most to any extent of liberality, but he could not receive. All that came to him from the outer world was superficial, affected the surface of him, and was consciously used by him for his own mental advantage, but never possessed him, carried him away, drew him out of himself. Such natures are to be met with even on a lower intellectual altitude than that of Goethe. Men there are in the world, and even women, kind, generous, and sympathetic, who are yet incapable of those im- ory of self-culture which transgresses all pressions from others which turn the scale the modesties of human nature, and strikes of fortune and direct life into new chan- that hidden consciousness of insignificance

We are not so daring as to say a word against that mystery of self-culture which many philosophers hold out to us as the only thing worth living for, and in which many great minds have spent all their powers. It may have a generous as it certainly has a noble side. The idea of a man who consecrates this fleeting human existence to the improvement of the faculties God has given him, scorning all meaner kinds of advantage, is without doubt a fine one; and it is finer still when his aim in self-improvement is to serve and help his fellow-men. Yet there is something in human nature which cries out against this pursuit with the vehemence of instinct, and is, secretly or openly, revolted by it. We applaud the man who pursues Art to perfection, who pursues Science even in her least attractive forms, or who devotes himself with enthusiasm even to the lower branches of human knowledge. The spectator figures to himself something abstract, something apart from and loftier than the student, which he follows through all difficulties, and labours, and struggles, even though at the cost of his life. But at the name of self-culture our enthusiasm flags. We do not explain the change of sentiment, we merely state the fact. No doubt, of all the waste lands that are given us to cultivate, this one of the mind is the most valuable, and probably the most improvable; and we are bound to do our best with it, to produce the best that is practicable from it, and in the best way. yet our prejudice remains unaffected. And there is reason in it, as in all universal prejudices. There is something in the the

Most true;

which lies deep down in our hearts, as with disrespectful of their fellows; but some

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how the coarsest Lovelace has an excuse which the philosophical lover has not; and he who sacrifices old allies to his ambition is less of a criminal to nature than he who, after having exploité another human soul, puts it aside because he has got all he can out of it, and it is useful to him no more.

a jar of discord and ridicule. What! use all this great universe, so majestic, so steadfast, and so sublime, for the cultivation of one speck upon its surface; make vassals of all the powers of earth, and all the sights of nature, and all the emotions and passions of man- not for some big purpose, like the glory of God or the ad- It is thus that we sum up the indictment vancement of the race, but for the polish- of humanity against the great poet, whose ing and improvement of one intellect, for greatness we throw no doubt upon, whose the sharpening of one man's wits, and the works we will not attempt to depreciate, enlarging of his experience and the im- and whose place among men is, we admit, provement of his utterance! The intel- beyond the reach of assault. No contemlectualist may say, How splendid the or- porary nor any successor has had so much ganization which can thus show its su- influence upon literature. He has been premacy over all things created! but the the originator of schools of poetry with common man feels a certain sharp revul- which he himself was scarcely connected. sion, a mixture of scorn and indignation, He has given the divine stimulus of awakhumiliation and shame. There is even a ening life to more than one mind almost as bitter mockery to him in this devotion of great as his own, and all this independent himself as well, his anguish and his errors, of the mass of noble poetry which in his to the cultivation of the arrogant intellect, own person he has bestowed upon the which regards him as a bundle of natural world. But with all he stands among us phenomena. This gives the special sting in a beauty scarcely human, smiling that to that repugnance which we feel involun- smile of the superior which is alien to tarily towards the human creature whose genius,- a great being who watches us, life is professedly spent in the culture of pities us, tolerates us, pierces us through himself. Does not something fail in our and through, with half-divine perception, reverence for Wordsworth, for example, but is no more one of us than Jove is. when we are bidden to believe that the His fulness, completeness, good fortune, poet instead of living, as we are glad to long life, exemption from all natural griefs think, in an enthusiasm of communion and calamities, are scarcely required to which was almost worship, with his moun-eighten the effects of nature; but they tains and lakes-made them instruments do nevertheless raise the tone of colour for the cultivation of himself, putting himself simply to school there, and living that life of lofty seclusion for him and not for them? How different is the feeling with which we contemplate Burns, who was never apart from these influences of nature, whose head and heart were full of them, who was made a poet by the grey hills and moorlands, the homely beauty of the ploughed fields, the daisy under his plough, and the stars over his head, but never once thought, in his simplicity, of self-culture by their means! We must add, however, that all this is Goethe offends a thousand times more said from an English point of view, and deeply than Wordsworth ever did, since professes to represent no more than the man, not to say woman, is his primer and sentiments of a large portion of foreign spelling-book, and the years of his curricu- readers. Goethe has been the idol of his lum are marked by so many sucked oranges own country since ever he revealed himself in the shape of loves and friendships from to her, as Dante is the idol of Italy, and which he had taken all the sweetness that Shakespeare of England. And we do not was in them ere he passed upon his tri- doubt that, had we space to pursue the umphant way. This is his sin against hu- inquiry, he would be proved to be such an manity the sin which we can not pardon embodiment of the genius of his country, him; which neither genius nor success, nor in all its height and breadth, its remorseeven benevolence, graciousness, and char-lessness and kindness, its cold determinaity, can make up for. Other men have no tion and mystical hot enthusiasm, its steady doubt been equally inconstant, equally pursuance of an end through whatsoever

and intensify the high lights in this wonderful picture. Even his personal beauty adds to the strength of the hypothesis. He is no man like us, but a veiled Apollo, a visitor from among the gods. All sense of ordinary human morality, responsibility, is to be laid aside in our contemplation of him, and we yield to admiration, even to enthusiasm, for his genius, with a reluctance which contrasts strongly with the hearty readiness of the applause which we bestow on much inferior men.

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pathetic in word and feeling, as well as
kind in act. He was simply remorseless
in carrying out his projects, whatever they
might be pleasantly, good-humouredly,
affectionately remorseless — not
turned from that sublime work of self-
cultivation by anything in earth or heaven.

to be

means were necessary, shrinking from noth- | ting down in the gay cafés, amid merry ingas to afford reason sufficient for the talkers all unconscious of that grim comworship given him by his countrymen. ment upon the uncertainty of their peaceInto this consideration it is not necessary able lives those notes and reports which to enter; but it is well to remember that were at once the foundation and foreshadthe aspect of the man, which strikes us owing of reports made afterward, when with repugnance, is one which has raised the armies were no longer imaginary, and his own people to the highest expression when all this awful cold-blooded study of sentiment which a nation can make had ended in the victory which no doubt towards its favourite singer. That deep- it deserved. No doubt the victory was searching Teutonic mind which spares no deserved; being wrought for by such long trouble, no labour to itself, no cost to labour, such minute care, such perseverothers which has such a melting suscep-ing, patient, unwearied work. But the tibility indoors, and such a pitiless deter- work, and the way of deserving, are such mination without is the kind of mind to as chill the blood in one's veins. appreciate self-culture in all those heights We repeat, if it is necessary to repeat it, and depths which thrill our less thorough- that we are neither accusing Goethe nor going philosophy. The steady persever- his country of any want of the gentler afance of a scientific aim through everything, fections-kindness, charity, and benevothe subordination (when necessary) of lence. He was very good to a great inany other people's happiness and comfort to people, supported various poor petitioners, the acquisition of a fine piece of spiritual took thought and pains for his dependants, experience processes which strike us and was often most considerate and symwith a certain sense of calm and polished barbarity are to the Teuton so natural and praiseworthy as to claim no special comment. Neither the poet nor the nation would do this wantonly-only when necessary, when the culture of the one or the progress of the other made it indispensable. To our minds such ways of working one's will. are never indispensable: but feelings differ even in the heart of civilization. That Goethe, however, in his integrity, may very well be taken as a type of his nation, few Germans will hesi-ties which were to be visited upon the tate to allow with pride. All its patient, heads of his children. Germany was an long-enduring theories, its kindliness in unknown land to what were then called detail, its stern abstract disregard of all the Muses. To all the wits it was a councruelties that are necessary, its persevering try of barbarians, of everlasting mist and pursuit of knowledge at any cost, its darkness. Even its own sons despised its abundant sentimentalities and pitiless res- noble language, its wealthy traditions, olution, are all to be found in him magni- the poetry and music that lay incipient, fied and glorified. His serenity is the very undeveloped about the roots of the naapotheosis of its phlegmatic temper, his tional life. A few bald French couplets brilliant persistence the most beautiful were more precious in the eyes of Teuton type of its obstinate determination. And kings and nobles than all the chaotic trawhen we read of the poet's use of every-ditionary riches native to the soil. Other body and everything around him, men's stars were beginning to come out in the friendship and women's love, for his own sky, less known and less knowable, by stepping-stones and educational courses, dint of dealing with arts less universal we remember (with a shudder) the later than that of Song, when the great Sun of story of those Prussian officers who German literature rose unthought of out marched secretly at the head of imaginary of the homely Frankfort street. The poet armies through peaceable France before a was born in that condition of life which blow had been struck or menace uttered, the melancholy Jewish thinker prayed placing their pickets in imagination with a horrible matter-of-fact and business-like prevision of what was to come; and wri

See official reports of Prussian generals touching the late war.

Goethe was born in the year 1749, in the town of Frankfort, in the old world, before the French Revolution was dreamt of, when Frederick was fighting, and Louis Quinze heaping up the measure, of iniqui

for. His family was neither rich nor poor. They had no nobility to open to them the higher heavens of German society, but they had civic importance and consideration, which in its way is almost as good. If thus he had little claim upon the notice

"Götz was written when Geothe

of the great, young Goethe was still in a somehow the process chills the spectator, position which attracted the interest of gay as is the soul and brilliant the career many, a perfectly well-known individual, of this great learner, this Welt-kind, whose doings, if remarkable, could not apprenticing himself to life. fail to attract speedy notice. And from His first work of any importance was the the beginning these doings were remark-heroic drama "Götz von Berlichingen," able. Through all the course of his edu- which was also Walter Scott's first work, so cation he stands forth upon the duller to speak; the forerunner of all those Marbackground of the ordinary youths about mions and Ivanhoes which have long obhima figure always striking, though literated and superseded their German more from a certain air of jocund great-pioneer. ness and good-humoured superiority to was twenty-two, and is perhaps more reeverybody around than from more tangible markable as being his banner of revolt causes. At Leipsic, at Strasburg, at home against the poetical canons of his time, in Frankfort, wherever he goes, he is not the outburst of a new national literature as other lads; he is already the young and new generation of genius and also demi-god among ordinary flesh and blood as the origin of a school of poetry widely -kind to the lower creatures about him extended among ourselves, and scarcely with a jovial carelessness, beneficence, and yet exhausted in force and power-than sympathy, throwing himself into their for its own intrinsic merits. These merits smaller concerns, yet always looking over we cannot think to be great; though that their heads, finding no equal amid the it was wonderful in its daring there can youthful crowd, and requiring none, his be no doubt, and startled the whole Gernature being satisfied with the other re- man world by a marvellous revelation of lationship. At Leipsic there was a cer- something of their own, worth caring for, tain Käthchen upon whom he experiment- which would naturally have the profounded with rudiments of love-making, try-est effect upon a people living, as it were, ing his 'prentice hand in that art of out of their own language in the borrowed producing emotion which was always so delights of an alien literature, neither conpleasant to him. At Strasburg or near it genial nor natural to them. In circumhe found Frederika, one of the sweetest, stances so exceptional it may be right to simplest figures in the whole panorama characterize this drama as "a work of of his life, whom he loved after the Goethe daring power, of vigor, of originality fashion as long as was perfectly agreeable work to form an epoch in the annals of and useful to him, and left when her day letters; " or, with a newspaper of the day, was over, sorry for her with a magnan- to describe it as a "piece in which the imous sense that to lose him was indeed a three unities are shamefully outraged, and calamity worth lamenting. His friends which is neither a tragedy nor a comedy, of the other sex ministered equally to the but is, notwithstanding, the most beautiyoung demi-god's spiritual nourishment. ful, the most captivating monstrosity." One of them was Jung Stilling, whose In these days, however, few English readpoverty and homeliness the beautiful pop- ers will find "Götz" either captivating ular Goethe patronized and protected. or beautiful. It is bustling, rapid, and full Sympathizing with Stilling, listening to of activity in its plot and action; yet it him, and dexterously avoiding any inter- strikes us as looking much more like a ference with his religious faith, he was not fossil than an animated picture of life. only enabled to be his friend, but also to One reason of this probably is, that the learn quietly and surely the inner nature author, with a philosophic coolness most of such men." Another friend attracted characteristic of his nature, makes it his him by a different exposition of human aim, not to represent any group of individnature, as knowing how "to subordinate ual souls, their passions and motives, but himself with dignity." Thus the splendid to give "a picture of the age." His picstudent began his life's career. With or ture of the age, however, is abrupt and without dignity, all who came in his way fragmentary. It has neither the fulness had to subordinate themselves, to open and richness of Scott, nor the minute and their secret chambers and give up what patient detail of Manzoni; although, so enlightenment was in them to the eager far as this effort is concerned, Goethe was and insatiable curiosity with which he the parent of both these great writers. ranged about this little-known world. A The drama is a breathless sketch-rapid, noble sentiment and a noble power, it may stirring, and full of movement, but withbe said, and the pursuit of such knowl-out passion, almost without strong emoedge well worth any man's while. Yet 'tion. Götz himself is but thrown in in

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a