blood, which enabled Cuvier to recall into ing the very name of Idea, Goethe tried visible form hundreds of extinct animals to convince Schiller, who dwelt in a region -no one can doubt that this is a real of ideas, and regarded facts as worth noprinciple. No one can doubt that we can thing, except so far as they could be rereason, as in these cases discoverers have duced to the dominion of Ideas. "I exreasoned, from the intention of the Crea- pounded to him," says Goethe, "the tor of the world, in spite of St. Hilaire's metamorphosis of plants, drawing on paexclamation, "I can not ascribe to God per for him, as I proceeded, a diagram, any intention." But, on the other hand, to represent that general form of a plant if there be, in the structure of animals, which shows itself in so many and so vamuch of which we see the use, and can rious transformations. Schiller attended explain the existence of by its use, there and understood; and accepting the exis also much of which we see no use; and planation, he said, 'this is not Observawhich we are led, by a large survey of tion, but an Idea.' I replied," adds nature, to ascribe to the unity of plan, Goethe, "with some degree of irritation, on which animals are constructed, and not for the point which separated us was most to their special requirements. It was the luminously marked by this expression; indication of this unity of plan with which but I smothered my vexation, and merely Goethe was especially delighted. Mr. said, 'I was happy to find that I had got Lewes relates the remarkable anecdote ideas without knowing it; nay, that I saw that, in 1830, when some of Goethe's them before my eyes.?" Mr. Lewes apfriends went to him, and began to exclaim pears hardly to have caught the point of about the explosion which had taken place this ironical retort of Goethe. He transin Paris, they found him quite ready with lates-" answered that I had ideas withhis interest and his sympathy; till getting out knowing it, and to be able to contembewildered by the way in which he ex-plate them with my own eyes." But the pressed this feeling, they at length discovered that the explosion which he meant was not the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty, but the decided outbreak of the antagonism between Cuvier and St. Hilaire. To Goethe's speculations in pursuit of this unity of plan, belong his discovery of the intermaxillary sutures in man, it having been previously supposed that the absence of these sutures was a distinction between man and other animals. To the same speculations belong the resolution of the skull into a certain number of vertebræ, which Oken afterwards made the ground of a charge of plagiarism against Goethe; and to the same line of speculation belong the poet's striking ideas concerning the metamorphosis of plants, which he has urged eloquently and effectively, and which are now generally adopted. As connected with this subject, we may mention a charming trait in the beautiful friendship which existed between Goethe and Schiller: the Dioscuri, the divine twin-stars of German literature. Goethe, in his Morphologie, has given an account how this friendship was at first in danger of being marred by the intervention of this very subject, the metamorphosis of plants. Full of the conviction of the unity of all vegetable nature, and yet believing that he dealt with facts alone, and detest absurdity which Goethe implied was, that Mr. Lewes, as we have said, does not claim for Goethe the character of a great dramatic writer. Indeed it seems to us that, in this respect, he has hardly done the poet justice. For instance, he describes the Iphigenia as not a drama, but a dramatic poem. He gives a very good analytical parallel of Goethe's play and the Iphigenia of Euripides; and shows very forcibly how the German writer has missed almost all the striking situations and turns which the Greek dramatist had brought out. But he does not sufficiently notice that which is the great feature of interest in Goethe's play, and which really is very dramatic, though perhaps not very Greek-namely, the ascendency 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 skillful 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 present facts and fancies. We are, however, very ready to add that Mr. Lewes's criticism on these, as on other of Goethe's works, is very able and discriminating; though perhaps many readers, who will enjoy the biography, may 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 translation 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 "haunted" Scott. "The dews of night began to fall, The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby." this it may be replied, that we must sup- Certainly it must appear that a survey of modern German literature, like Mr. Lewes's, 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 poemsthe Roman Elegies, the Alexis and Dora, above all the Herman 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 atre-recent attempts have been made quite tending to Latin rules of quantity: the "This verse," he says, "he will arrange as a translator would reärrange it:" "The nightly dews commenced to fall, The moon, whose empire is the sky, Shone on the sides of Cumnor Hall, 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 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. | ceased to mix much with strangers; but Lewes's translations in this way are not when his family, and the whole of the bad, though marred by his want of hope good company of Weimar, were full of of making them good, and sometimes by kindness and hospitality for the English. obvious carelessness. For instance, in a Mr. Thackeray himself was honored by translation of a passage in the Roman one interview with the aged bard, of Elegies, which are of course in alternate whom he says: "In truth, I can fancy hexameter and pentameter, this occurs as nothing more serene, majestic, and healthya couplet: looking than the grand old Goethe. "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 time to consider,' When in Idalian groves she gazed on Anchises with joy ?" The "she" in the second line is over and above what the verse admits. And again: "Luna delaying one moment to kiss the beautiful sleeper, Soon had seen him awake 'neath the kiss of 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's 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 and 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. 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 We have no room to notice many of the remarkable points in the biography of Goethe, which, in Mr. Lewes's 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, we may quote the account of Goethe's retiring from the management. "There was at that period (1817) a comedian named Karsten, whose poodle performed the leading part' in the well-known melodrama of The Dog of Montargis with such perfection that he carried the public everywhere with him, in Paris as in Germany. It may be imagined with what sorrowing scorn Goethe heard of this. The dramatic art to give place to a poodle! He, 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 tion to it. As the Duke had already written to admitted on the stage'-and paid no more atteninvite 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 trifles. The dog came. After the first rehearsal, Goethe declared he would having nothing more to do with a theatre on which a dog was allowed to perform; and at position; and the Duke, after all, was a Duke. once he started for Jena. Princes ill brook opIn 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.' "A more offensive dismissal could scarcely have been suggested by malice. In the Duke it was only a spurt of the imperious temper and coarseness which roughened his fine qualities. On Goethe the blow fell heavily. Karl August never understood me,' he exclaimed with a deep sigh. Such an insult to the greatest man of his age, coming from his old friend and brother-inarms, 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 and all about a dog, behind which was a miserable green-room cabal! The thought of leaving Weimar for ever, 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: "In the way of honors he was greatly flattered by the letter which Walter Scott sent to him, 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, and Goethe, ever punctilious, turned to the Grand Duke, saying: If my gracious sovereign permits.' Upon which the Duke called out: Du alter Kerl mache doch kein dummes Zeug! Come, old fellow, no nonsense.' Nor ought a reader who would see the true relation of the great celebrities of the last generation to each other, fail to note Mr. Lewes's account of Goethe's reception of a very remarkable female writer. It begins thus: "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 for ever 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 cultivated and the most gifted.' The contrast between her French culture and his German culture, and the difficulty he had in expressing himself in French, did not prevent his being much interested. In the sketch of her he sent to Goethe it is well said, 'She insists on explaining every thing; understanding every thing; measuring every thing. She admits of no Darkness; nothing Incommensurable; and where her torch throws no light, there nothing can exist. Hence her horror for the Ideal Philosophy which she thinks leads to mysticism and superstition. For what we call poetry she has no sense; she can only appreciate what is passionate, rhetorical, universal. She does not prize what is false, but does not always perceive what is true."" 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 an homme d'un esprit prodigieux on conversation. quand on le sait faire parler il est admirable,' she never saw the real, but a fictitious 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 Feb. ruary 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's 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 by some pleasing stories; for instance, that of Goethe's persevering and judicious benevolence to a needy person who applied to him under the name of Kraft and his wise and kind attempts to cure Plessing, whom the reading of Werther had driven to misanthropy. Plessing af terwards became a respectable Professor. From Tait's Magazine. LIFE OF JAMES MONTGOMERY.* THE propriety of employing two gentlemen to do the work of one is always doubtful, and in biographical authorship more than doubtful. This edition of James Montgomery's life will supply material for one or two pleasant and profitable volumes; and either of his biographers alone would have condensed it, probably, into three. The third volume begins with 1813, the fourth ends with 1830, leaving sufficient work, according to this mode of dividing time, for five and six. Montgomery's connection with the press renders this extensive notation of his days and years, in one way, interesting and useful; for as Messrs. Holland and Everett preserve his opinions upon public affairs, as they occurred, by extracts from the leaders of the Iris, they supply dates of events, and furnish a little history of the world before the Reform Bill. James Montgomery will live rather in his poetry than in his prose; and of the former, some hymns will exist, while all the rest may be forgotten; because it is just possible that certain even of his poetical works, may fall out of print; but the churches and the Sabbath-schools will take care of fragments which the world could ill afford to lose. Even Dr. Watts is now more remembered from his hymns for little children than any thing else that he ever wrote; and probably the children's march, "There is a land of pure delight," will live out the English language. Montgomery's verses Prayer," have a similar destiny, because they form its best description in our possession. 66 The newspaper leaders by Montgomery were essays by a gentleman, a poet, and a scholar; but they were not adapted to their place. His biographers seem to believe that religion is not very generally and personally acknowledged by writers for the press. Perhaps they are right; yet we doubt if the press would be found *By John Holland and James Everett. Vols. III. and IV. Longman and Co.: London. much worse in that respect than the law, or some other professions. Montgomery was by no means a solitary example of an individual who, harassed by the weekly duties of journalism, has been enabled to spare some time for meetings on religious subjects during the week, or to attend a Sabbath-school class. The pointed advocacy of religion in his articles was not, perhaps, conformable to the practice of many other journals in Yorkshire, during his years at the press; yet any person, living and writing in that great county, must feel assured of the benefits conferred on many objects connected with religion by the members of the press. The position of one journal enables us to name it without just cause of offense to any other in the Dissenting interest; for all Yorkshiremen know the influence wielded by the Leeds Mercury during the current century, not only over ecclesiastical politics, but upon those matters that are connected more intimately with the conversion of individuals, and their growth in grace. We are not aware of any great effort to spread Christian knowledge at home or abroad, made during the lifetime of the present generation, that has not been indebted to the advocacy in that paper of the father, or of the son, following his father's steps. We have no further knowledge of the Leeds Mercury than any other occasional reader of the paper, who is unconnected with the district; and no knowledge whatever of its conductors which is not quite open to the public. They do not always exhibit the rashness in politics with which we are charged; but it is impossible to speak of religion and the press in Yorkshire, without remembering the influence of the Mercury and of other papers on the subject; although we name it on account of its age and standing. The cause of religion in Britain has been often promoted by the press; and this assistance, although not often acknowledged, is always due, and frequently given. We admire the devotedness of the bio |
