emplifications. But, before I could accomplish this task satisfactorily, to my own profound sorrow Mrs. Coleridge was carried off by an organic malady for which medicine has no relief. I am suddenly reminded of it, however, and in an impressive way, by the statements of Mrs. Herder, especially at pp. 386-388. These revelations fall with crushing effect-not upon anything separately belonging to Mrs. Coleridge, but upon the whole conduct of the argument (as it stands in his Biographia Literaria) by her father. Mrs. Coleridge's own beautiful papers will be found towards the end of some volume in the series of her father's select works as republished by herself. GOETHE 1 JOHN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE was a man of commanding influence in the literature of modern Germany throughout the latter half of his long life, and possessing two separate claims upon our notice: one in right of his own unquestionable talents; and another much stronger, though less direct, arising out of his position, and the extravagant partisanship put forward on his behalf for the last forty years. The literary body in all countries, and for reasons which rest upon a sounder basis than that of private jealousies, have always been disposed to a republican simplicity in all that regards the assumption of rank and personal pretensions. Valeat quantum valere potest is the form of licence to every man's ambition, coupled with its caution. Let his influence and authority be commensurate with his attested value; and, because no man in the present infirmity of human speculation, and the present multiformity of human power, can hope for more than a very limited superiority, there is an end at once to all absolute dictatorship. The dictatorship in any case could be only relative, and in relation to a single department of art or knowledge; and this for a reason stronger even than that already noticed, viz. the vast extent of the field on which the intellect is now summoned to employ itself. That objection, as it applies only to the degree of the difficulty, might be met by a corresponding degree of mental energy; such a 1 Contributed by De Quincey to the seventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.-M. a thing may be supposed, at least. But another difficulty there is, of a profounder character, which cannot be so easily parried: those who have reflected at all upon the fine arts know that power of one kind is often inconsistent, positively incompatible, with power of another kind. For example, the dramatic mind is incompatible with the epic. And, though we should consent to suppose that some intellect might arise endowed upon a scale of such angelic comprehensiveness as to vibrate equally and indifferently towards either pole, still it is next to impossible, in the exercise and culture of the two powers, but some bias must arise which would give that advantage to the one over the other which the right arm has over the left. But the supposition, the very case put, is baseless, and countenanced by no precedent. Yet, under this previous difficulty, and with regard to a literature convulsed, if any ever was, by an almost total anarchy, it is a fact notorious to all who take an interest in Germany and its concerns, that Goethe did, in one way or other, through the length and breadth of that vast country, establish a supremacy of influence wholly unexampled, supremacy indeed perilous in a less honourable man to those whom he might chance to hate, and with regard to himself thus far unfortunate, that it conferred upon every work proceeding from his pen a sort of papal indulgence, an immunity from criticism, or even from the appeals of good sense, such as it is not wholesome that any man should enjoy. Yet we repeat that German literature was and is in a condition of total anarchy: with this solitary exception, no name, even in the most narrow section of knowledge or of power, has ever been able in that country to challenge unconditional reverence ; whereas, with us and in France, name the science, name the art, and we will name the dominant professor; a difference which partly arises out of the fact that England and France are governed in their opinions by two or three capital cities, whilst Germany looks for its leadership to as many cities as there are residenzen and universities: for instance, the little territory with which Goethe was connected presented no less than two such public lights,-Weimar, the residenz or privileged abode of the Grand Duke, and Jena, the university founded by that house. Partly, however, this difference may be due to the greater restlessness, and to the greater energy as respects mere speculation, of the German mind. But, no matter whence arising, or how interpreted, the fact is what we have described: absolute confusion, the "anarch old” of Milton, is the one deity whose sceptre is there paramount; and yet there it was, in that very realm of chaos, that Goethe built his throne. That he must have looked with trepidation and perplexity upon his wild empire and its "dark foundations" may be supposed. The tenure was uncertain to him as regarded its duration; to us it is equally uncertain, and in fact mysterious, as regards its origin. Meantime the mere fact, contrasted with the general tendencies of the German literary world, is sufficient to justify a notice, somewhat circumstantial, of the man in whose favour, whether naturally by force of genius, or by accident concurring with intrigue, so unexampled a result was effected. Goethe was born at noonday on the 28th of August 1749, in his father's house at Frankfort on the Maine. The circumstances of his birth were thus far remarkable, that, unless Goethe's vanity deceived him, they led to a happy revolution hitherto retarded by female delicacy falsely directed. From some error of the midwife who attended his mother, the infant Goethe appeared to be still-born. Sons there were as yet none from this marriage; everybody was therefore interested in the child's life; and the panic which arose in consequence, having survived its immediate occasion, was improved into a public resolution (for which no doubt society stood ready at that moment) to found some course of public instruction from this time forward for those who undertook professionally the critical duties of accoucheur. : We have noticed the house in which Goethe was born, as well as the city. Both were remarkable, and fitted to leave lasting impressions upon a young person of sensibility. As to the city, its antiquity is not merely venerable, but almost mysterious towers were at that time to be found in the mouldering lines of its earliest defences which belonged to the age of Charlemagne, or one still earlier; battlements adapted to a mode of warfare anterior even to that of feudalism or romance. The customs, usages, and local privileges of Frankfort, and the rural districts adjacent, were of a corre sponding character. Festivals were annually celebrated at a short distance from the walls, which had descended from a dateless antiquity. Everything which met the eye spoke the language of elder ages; whilst the river on which the place was seated, its great fair, which still held the rank of the greatest in Christendom, and its connexion with the throne of Cæsar and his inauguration, by giving to Frankfort an interest and a public character in the eyes of all Germany, had the effect of countersigning, as it were by state authority, the importance which she otherwise challenged to her ancestral distinctions. Fit house for such a city, and in due keeping with the general scenery, was that of Goethe's father. It had in fact been composed out of two contiguous houses; that accident had made it spacious and rambling in its plan; whilst a further irregularity had grown out of the original difference in point of level between the corresponding storeys of the two houses, making it necessary to connect the rooms of the same suite by short flights of steps. Some of these features were no doubt removed by the recast of the house under the name of "repairs" (to evade a city by-law) afterwards executed by his father; but such was the house of Goethe's infancy, and in all other circumstances of style and furnishing equally antique. The spirit of society in Frankfort, without a court, a university, or a learned body of any extent, or a resident nobility in its neighbourhood, could not be expected to display any very high standard of polish. Yet, on the other hand, as an independent city, governed by its own separate laws and tribunals (that privilege of autonomy so dearly valued by ancient Greece), and possessing besides a resident corps of jurisprudents and of agents in various ranks for managing the interests of the German Emperor and other princes, Frankfort had the means within herself of giving a liberal tone to the pursuits of her superior citizens, and of cooperating in no inconsiderable degree with the general movement of the times, political or intellectual. The Memoirs of Goethe himself, and in particular the picture there given of his own family, as well as other contemporary glimpses of German domestic society in those days, are sufficient to show that much knowledge, much true cultivation of mind, much |