in rich profusion. Cant, indeed! the talk a curious part of the work in which a loveof this antagonism of genius and domesti-passage between husband and wife is made a city. very improper proceeding, and is represented To go on to another of Goethe's relations as something of which they are and ought to women-his connection with Christiane to be thoroughly ashamed; while their two Vulpius, who afterwards became his wife, friends, whose love is not degraded by hulong after she had borne him a son. He was man ties, are proud of their happiness; and married to her, as has often been said, dur- this husband and wife, it may be added, are ing the cannonade of the battle of Jena; a persons who have made a marriage of affecstatement which Mr. Lewes, with laudable tion, after having been, each of them, united accuracy, contradicts, seeing that the mar to another in a marriage of convenience. riage took place five days after the battle. Probably those who recollect how many simAs to this connection, though Mr. Lewes al-ilar passages there are in Goethe's writings, lows that it gave great offence, and raised a will not wonder at the charge of immorality great scandal at Weimar, he still holds that being made by English readers. there was, even from the first, a bright side There is one other of the charges made of this dark episode, of which, indeed, we against Goethe which also excites Mr. Lewes' dare not mention all the dark shades. "It indignation: he is accused of being irregave him the joys of paternity, for which ligious. Here again we doubt whether the his heart yearned. It gave him a faithful usual defence will produce general convicand devoted affection. It gave him one to tion. For if irreverent phrases are used by look after his domestic existence, and it gave the poet, it is no sufficient reply to say that him a peace in that existence which hitherto they are put in the mouths of irreverent he had sought in vain." And in his title to characters. Profanity is not, any more than this chapter, he points out this account of pruriency, excused by its dramatic propriety. the matter as an inquiry, "How far a poet The very presentation of such thoughts to is justified in disregarding the conventional the mind is a moral injury; and a religious proprieties of his age?" and pure-minded writer will not use their Mr. Lewes is very indignant with those language, whatever be the excuse. We will who have spoken of Goethe as an immoral not dwell upon this subject any further than writer. But it is not likely that readers in to remark, that Mr. Lewes' own account of this country will cease to think that concubi- Goethe's belief in the closing period of his nage is an immoral practice; and even that life, will appear to many persons reason the familiar introduction of it into works of enough why he cannot be reckoned a Chrisfiction, without any note of repugnance or tian or a religious man, in any ordinary condemnation, is a mode of writing unfavor- sense of the term. Faust, in the Second able to morality. The admirers of "objec- Part of that drama, where he is drawing tive" poetry will tell us that it is not the near his end, says (Mr. Lewes is the transpoet's business to condemn. But to this we lator), II. 434: "Now I take things wisely reply, that however" objective" a poet may and soberly; I know enough of this life, and be, it is his business not to dwell upon vice of the world to come we have no clear and unregulated passion as a familiar mat-pect. A fool is he who directs his blinking ter-of-course thing. Shakespeare does not eyes that way, and imagines creatures like do so. The impetuous love of Romeo and himself above the clouds! Let him stand Juliet is accompanied by the moralizing voice, firm, and look around him here: the world in order that it may have our sympathy: is not dumb to the man of real sense. What need is there for him to sweep eternity? All "For by your leaves you shall not stay alone, he can know lies within his grasp. "" These Till holy church incoporate two in one. concluding words," Mr. Lewes adds, Goethe, on the contrary, appears to dwell tain Goethe's own philosophy." with complacent alacrity upon such connections, and even invents them in spite of history. He knew, as Mr. Lewes allows, that Egmont had a wife and children; yet even in describing the events which led to his execution, he omits all mention of them, and gives us numerous and elaborate scenes with a mistress. In Wilhelm Meister, the rich young merchant is represented as living with an actress; and the details given of their ménage are curiously minute. In the Electve Affinities not only are such arrangements introduced as matters of course, but there is pros 66 con But for our own parts, we confess we are not prepared to press these words so far as Mr. Lewes does, into evidence of Goethe's own opinions. The Philosophy of Life is so obscure a theme, that a poet may well be allowed the privilege of making dramatic experiments in his reflections on that subject. And in like manner, we may say that the Philosophy of Nature is so dark and ambiguous in its general aspect, that we must not readily condemn any view as irreligious, because it differs from those to which we have been accustomed. We would apply this re 66 for him, as I proceeded, a diagram, to represent that general form of a plant which shows itself in so many and so various transformations. Schiller attended and understood; and, accepting the explanation, he said, This is not Observation, but an Idea. I replied," adds Goethe, "with some degree of irritation, for the point which separated us was most luminously marked by this expression; but I smothered my vexation, and merely said, 'I was happy to find that I had got ideas without knowing it; nay, that I saw them before my eyes. Mr. Lewes appears hardly to have caught the point of this ironical retort of Goethe. He translates mark especially to Goethe's views on the phologie, has given an account how this great physiological question of his time-friendship was at first in danger of being the question agitated between Cuvier and marred by the intervention of this very subGeoffroy St. Hilaire; one of whom advocated ject, the metamorphosis of plants. Full of the principle of the condition of existence, the conviction of the unity of all vegetable vulgarly called the principle of final causes, nature, and yet believing that he dealt with and the other, the principle of the unity of facts alone, and detesting the very name of plan. No one, we conceive, who has attended Idea, Goethe tried to convince Schiller, who to the progress of physiological science, can dwelt in a region of ideas, and regarded doubt that both these principles are real, facts as worth nothing, except so far as they both true. No one can doubt that the old could be reduced to the dominion of Ideas. argument of final causes, which Socrates "I expounded to him," says Goethe, "the used, which moved Galen to enthusiasm, metamorphosis of plants, drawing on paper which led Harvey to the circulation of the blood, which enabled Cuvier to recall into visible form hundreds of extinct animals, - no one can doubt that this is a real principle. No one can doubt that we can reason, as in these cases discoverers have reasoned, from the intention of the Creater of the world, in spite of St. Hilaire's exclamation "I cannot ascribe to God any intention." But, on the other hand, if there be, in the structure of animals, much of which we see the use, and can explain the existence of by its use, there is also much of which we see no use; and which we are led, by a large survey of nature, to ascribe to the unity of plan, on which animals are constructed, and "answered that I had ideas without knownot to their special requirements. It was ing it, and to be able to contemplate them the indication of this unity of plan with with my own eyes." But the absurdity -which Goethe was especially delighted. Mr. which Goethe implied was, that ideas, purely Lewes relates the remarkable anecdote that, mental forms, had turned out to be certain in 1830, when some of Goethe's friends went visible marks on paper; - that he saw them to him, and began to exclaim about the with his eyes, and not with his mind, as explosion which had taken place in Paris, Plato would say; not that he saw them they found him quite ready with his interest with his own eyes rather than another's. The and his sympathy; till getting bewildered by conclusion of the narrative is delightful. the way in which he expressed this feeling, They went on with mutual explanations, and they at length discovered that the explosion became intimate and lasting friends. "And which he meant was not the overthrow of thus," adds the poet, "by means of that the Bourbon dynasty, but the decided out- mighty and interminable controversy bebreak of the antagonism between Cuvier and tween subject and object, we two concluded St. Hilaire. To Goethe's speculations in an alliance which remained unbroken, and pursuit of this unity of plan, belong his produced much benefit to ourselves and discovery of the intermaxillary sutures in others." man, it having been previously supposed that Mr. Lewes, as we have said, does not claim the absence of these sutures was a distinction for Goethe the character of a great dramatic between man and other animals. To the writer. Indeed it seems to us that, in this same speculations belong the resolution of respect, he has hardly done the poet justice. the skull into a certain number of vertebræ, For instance, he describes the Iphigenia as which Oken afterwards made the ground of not a drama, but a dramatic poem. He a charge of plagiarism against Goethe; and gives a very good analytical parallel of to the same line of speculation belong the Goethe's play and the Iphigenia of Euripipoet's striking ideas concerning the metamor-des; and shows very forcibly how the Gerphosis of plants, which he has urged elo-man writer has missed almost all the striking quently and effectively, and which are now situations and turns which the Greek dramagenerally adopted. tist had brought out. But he does not As connected with this subject, we may sufficiently notice that which is the great mention a charming trait in the beautiful feature of interest in Goethe's play, and friendship which existed between Goethe and which really is very dramatic, though perSchiller: the Dioscuri, the divine twin-stars haps not very Greek-namely, the ascenof German literature. Goethe, in his Mor-dency which the mental culture and refined manners, as well as the lofty spirit, of the captive Iphigenia obtains over the barbarian Sovereign Thoas, so that he looks up to her as a superior being. The development of this feeling in a most skilful and poetical manner gives an inexpressible charm to this play. In the same way, the Torquato Tasso, which Mr. Lewes describes as a series of faultless lines, but no drama," has really a wonderful power of depiction, exhibited in the manner in which Tasso's madness gains gradually upon him, producing, not incoherent images and thoughts, but a vehement, continuous yearning after the scenes of his youth, which gathers nutriment from all présent facts and fancies. We are, however, very ready to add that Mr. Lewes' criticism on these, as on other of Goethe's works, is very able and discriminating; though perhaps many readers, who will enjoy the biography, many think that these critical excursuses occupy too much space in the book. There is one such excursus introduced apropos of Faust, which certainly does appear to us somewhat too fine-drawn. The object is to prove the inadequacy of all translations of poetry; but what Mr. Lewes really does prove is, what no one will contest, that no translation can be identical with the original. To illustrate this, he takes several passages of English poetry, and altering them for the worse, says that, so altered, they are still as near to the genuine form as the best translations are to the original. Thus he takes a verse of an old ballad which “haunt ed" Scott: "The nightly dews commenced to fall, The moon, whose empire is the sky, And all the oaks that stood thereby." Here, he cries, is a verse which certainly would never have haunted any one: " and therefore he concludes that a translation, even when good, may not produce any of the effect of the original. But to this it may be replied, that we must suppose a translator with sufficient feeling for poetry to see the difference between the two forms of the passage. If such a translator-for example, Mr. Lewes himself-had translated an original into the second form, he would certainly try to improve his translation; and would, if he were happy in his attempts, approach to or hit upon the first, the genuine form. Certainly it must appear that a survey of modern German literature, like Mr. Lewes', is an odd place to maintain the inadequacy of translations of poetry. Schiller almost entirely, and Goethe in a great measure, derived their knowledge of the classical writers from translations. Schiller could barely stumble through the Iphigenia of Euripides with the aid of a translation. Were, then, Schiller and Goethe ignorant - we do not say of the meaning, but of the spirit and beauty of the masterpieces of Greek poetry? Their admirers say no- we say no- - what does Mr. Lewes say? Mr. Lewes speaks with just admiration of Goethe's beautiful hexameter poems-the Roman Elegies, the Alexis and Dora, above all, the Hermann and Dorothea; which he justly regards as the finest poem of modern times, and not unworthy to be compared with any poem of any time. With regard to these poems, Mr. Lewes appears to have labored under a very unnecessary embarrassment. He dares hardly translate them into the measure of the original; being awed, apparently, by the tone of depreciation in which several modern critics have spoken of English hexameters. This condemnation has often been founded in ignorance; for instance, when the critics have spoken of the folly of reviving the attempts of Sydney and others. For in truth, these old attempts were made on the false principle of attending to Latin rules of quantity: the recent attempts have been made quite differently, and exactly in conformity with the German practice, which has so completely taken root in the language. Nor do English hexameters need to be at all less rhythmical than German ones; nor in the best specimens, are they. Sir John Herschel's translation of Schiller's Walk, Archdeacon Hare's translation of the Alexis and Dora, if not equal in versification to Schiller and Goethe, are, at least, very much smoother and more melodious than much English verse in other measures which has been recently published. Mr. Lewes' translations in this way are not bad, though marred by his want of hope of making them good, and sometimes by obvious carelessness. For instance, in a translation of a passage in the Roman Elegies, which are of course in alternate hexameter and pentameter, this occurs as a couplet : "Amor has manifold shafts, with manifold workings: some scratch, And with insidious steel poison the bosom for years." The second is a good pentameter, but the hexameter is plainly short by a syllable: "scratch us" would make all right. Again, take another couplet: "Think'st thou the goddess of love demanded | we may quote the account of Goethe's retir time to consider,' When in Idalian groves she gazed on Anchises with joy?" ing from the management. "There was at that period (1817) a comedian named Karsten, whose poodle performed the The "she" in the second line is over and leading part' in the well-known melodrame of above what the verse admits. And again : The Dog of Montargis with such perfection that he carried the public everywhere with him, "Luna delaying one moment to kiss the beauti-in Paris as in Germany. It may be imagined ful sleeper, with what sorrowing scorn Goethe heard of this. Soon had seen him awake 'neath the kiss of The dramatic art to give place to a poodle! He, eager Aurora." The second of these two lines is no pentameter, but a tolerable hexameter. But, upon the whole, we have derived great satisfaction from Mr. Lewes' book. He has brought together a great store of materials of various kinds, and has used them well and judiciously. Among other evidences of good judgment, we will not omit to notice his rejection of Goethe's autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit, as authority. Written at a late period of life, when recollections had faded and views had changed, it is, in spite of the charm of writing which graces it, in a great degree a work of fiction; as, indeed, the title seems to acknowledge. He has also shown, not only the inaccuracy, but, we must say, the fraudulent character of the letters of Bettina Brentano, which excited so much attention under the title of Goethe's Correspondence with a Child. who detested dogs, to hear of a dog performing on all the stages of Germany with greater success than the best of actors! The occasion was not one to be lost. The Duke, whose fondness for dogs was as marked as Goethe's aversion to them, was craftily assailed, from various sides, to invite Karsten and his poodle to Weimar When Goethe heard of this, he haughtily answered, In our Theatre Regulations stands: "No dogs are admitted on the stage -and paid no more attention to it. As the Duke had already written to invite Karsten and his dog, Goethe's opposition was set down to systematic arbitrariness, and people artfully wondered' how a prince's wishes could be opposed for such sal, Goethe declared he would have nothing more trifles. The dog came. After the first rehearto do with a theatre on which a dog was allowed to perform; and at once he started for Jena. Princes ill brook opposition; and the Duke, after all, was a Duke. In an unworthy moment, he wrote the following, which was posted in the theatre, and forwarded to Goethe: "From the expressed opinions which have reached me, I have come to the conviction that the Herr Geheimrath von Goethe wishes to be released from his functions as Intendant, which I hereby accord. KARL AUGUST.' And we may also notice, as a special and novel contribution, a pleasant and genial letter of Mr. Thackeray's, describing his residence at Weimar as a youth, at a period when Goethe indeed had ceased to mix much with strangers; but when his family, and "A more offensive dismissal could scarcely the whole of the good company of Weimar, have been suggested by malice. In the Duke it were full of kindness and hospitality for the was only a spurt of the imperious temper and English. `Mr. Thackeray himself was hon- On Goethe the blow fell heavily. coarseness which roughened his fine qualities. Karl August ored by one interview with the aged bard, of never understood me,' he exclaimed with a deep whom he says, "In truth, I can fancy noth- sigh. Such an insult to the greatest man of his ing more serene, majestic, and healthy look-age, coming from his old friend and brother-ining than the grand old Goethe." arms, who had been more friend than monarch to him during two-and-forty years, and who had declared that one grave should hold their bodies We have no room to notice many of the remarkable points in the biography of Goethe, which, in Mr. Lewes' way of treating them, without ceasing to be interesting, become intelligible, and like the doings of "a man of this world; "' instead of being passages in the history of a mythical personage, as the Germans have made them, by shedding round them a vast and vaporous cloud of dissertation. Such are his tender friendship with Frau von Stein, for so many years the charm of his life, and finally converted into indifference and almost repugnance on her side after his connection with Christiane Vulpius. Such are, again, his life-long friendship with the Duke of Weimar, and his management of the theatre at that capital. As connected with both these matters, - and all about a dog, behind which was a miserable green-room cabal! The thought of leaving Weimar forever, and of accepting the magnificent offers made him from Vienna, pressed urgently on his mind.” It is pleasant to have to record that this estrangement was not lasting. Here is a trait at a later period: tered by the letter which Walter Scott sent to "In the way of honors, he was greatly flathim, in expression of an old admiration; and on the 28th of August, 1827, Karl August came into his study accompanied by the King of Bavaria, who brought with him the Order of the Grand Cross as a homage. In strict etiquette a subject was not allowed to accept such an Order without his own sovereign granting permission, "In December 1803, Weimar had a visitor whose rank is high among its illustrious guests Madame de Stael. Napoleon would not suffer her to remain in France, and she was brought by Benjamin Constant to the German Athens, that she might see and know something of the men her work De l'Allemagne was to reveal to her countrymen. It is easy to ridicule Madame de Stael; to call her, as Heine does, a whirlwind in petticoats,' and a 'Sultana of mind.' But Germans should be grateful to her for that book, which still remains one of the best books written about Germany; and the lover of letters will not forget that her genius has, in various departments of literature, rendered forever illustrious the power of the womanly intellect. Goethe and Schiller, whom she stormed with her cannonades of talk, spoke of her intellect with great admiration. Of all living creatures he had seen, Schiller said she was 'the most talkative, the most combative, the most gesticulative;' but she was also the most : ness; nothing Incommensurable; and where her But Goethe was by no means taken with her: "Madame de Stael had frankly told him she intended to print his conversation. This was enough to make him ill at ease in her society; and although she said he was'un homme d'un esprit prodigieux en conversation.. quand on le sait faire parler il est admirable,' she never saw the real, but a factitious Goethe. By dint of provocation- and champagne - she managed to make him talk brilliantly; she never got him to talk to her seriously. On the 29th of February she left Weimar, to the great relief both of Goethe and Schiller." Finally, we will not omit to mention a great charm which is given to Mr. Lewes account of his idol, by the attempt, in which he perseveringly employs himself, to show that he was a kind, affectionate, benevolent, and earnest man, instead of being a cold, diplomatic, artistic genius. We will not attempt to pronounce on the success of this contradiction of the common opinions, which Mr. Lewes avers it to be, but it is supported cultivated and the most gifted. The contrast by some pleasing stories; for instance, that between her French culture and his German of Goethe's persevering and judicious beculture, and the difficulty he had in expressing nevolence to a needy person who applied to himself in French, did not prevent his being him under the name of Kraft; and his wise much interested. In the sketch of her he sent and kind attempts to cure Plessing, whom to Goethe it is well said, 'She insists on explain- the reading of Werther had driven to misaning everything; understanding everything; thropy. Plessing afterwards became a remeasuring everything. She admits of no Dark-spectable Professor. AN AMERICAN MEDICAL LICENSE OF THE OLDEN | promised that he will require no more); and that TIME. Here is a sample, granted by the Gen- he shall be freed, for the time aforesaid, from eral Assembly of Connecticut in 1652: watching, warding, and training, but not from finding arms, according to law." Boston Post. "Thomas Lord, having engaged to this Court to continue his abode in Hartford for the next ensuing year, and to improve his best skill among the inhabitants of the towns upon the river within this jurisdiction, both for the setting of bones and otherwise, as at all times, occasions, and necessities may require, this Court doth grant, that he shall be paid by the country the sum of £15 for the ensuing year; and they also declare that for every visit or journey that he shall take or make, being sent for to any house in Hartford, 12d. is reasonable; to any house in Windsor, 5s.; to any house in Withersfield, 3s.; to any house in Farmington, 6s.; to any house in Mattasebeck or Middletown, 8s. (he having DUTCH BOERS.-These unfortunate Boers are, for the most part, men of considerable education and property, many of them having been found in the rich districts of the Cape Colony; and, so far from being "the savage barbarians" that the scandalous official despatches of the colonial governors have always represented them to be, they are simply rough, straightforward country gentlemen, differing but little from ourselves in religion, by no means disloyal, and very much attached to English laws and usages. Life with the Zulus of Natal. - Mason's |