"There's something in the bottom in the stern-sheets!" screamed Peter. "It's himself!-0 blessed Virgin, it's himself!" And, with a bound, he sprung from his own boat into the other. The next instant he had lifted the helpless body of the boy from the bottom of the boat, and, with a shout of joy, screamed out. "He's alive! he's well!—it's only fatigue!" Harcourt pressed his hands to his face, and sank upon his knees in prayer. THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE AND SYMPATHY poem, "The Marquis of Lansdowne being struck with a short So it come,' by Frances Browne, which appeared in the Athenæum, applied for information respecting the author; and on learning that she had been long beset by difficulties, placed £100 at her disposal, which was accepted in the spirit in which it was offered." The Guardian, Sept. 5. ence. Notes and Queries. Mohammedanism" (F. Q. R. No. 23, 1833) — a subject on which Dr. Taylor afterwards wrote a distinct work. The marquis continued Dr. Taylor's friend and patron to the last; having appointed him, as I was informed, but a short time before his early and lamented death, to a lucrative post on the Irish Statistical Commission -a post for which he had given many proofs of fitness, not the least of which was by ON reading the above paragraph, I was rean article in the Foreign Quarterly, on the minded of a circumstance not less deserving Objects and Advantages of Statistical Sciof honorable record, that occurred twenty-two years ago, on an occasion when the noble mar- munication to that Review was on Niebuhr's (Vol. xvI. p. 205.) Dr. T.'s first comquis applied to me, then in the foreign house of Treuttel and Würtz, the publishers of the For-new edition of the Byzantine Historians, & eign Quarterly Review, for the purpose of subject selected by himself as his coup d'essai, ascertaining the author of an article in the and, in his treatment of it, affording evidence of such scholarship and ability, as convinced number just then published of that Review, the editor that Dr. T. would prove a most valuan article with which his lordship informed me able contributor. he had been "so struck"- his own words JOHN MACRAY. that he was desirous of becoming acquainted with the writer of it. Being delighted by the occurrence of such an unexpected piece of good fortune to a young Irishman with whom I had recently become acquainted, and whom I had introduced to the editor of the Review (the late Mr. Cochrane, of the London Library)-I informed his lordship that the article in question was written by a Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Cooke Taylor, a literary man who had recently come to London from Trinity College, Dublin; and who was then chiefly occupied in writing for the booksellers. His lordship added that he had some works in his library, which he thought would interest Mr. Taylor, whom he would be glad to see any morning at Lansdowne House. I lost no time in acquainting Mr. Taylor with this striking tribute to the merits of his communication from a nobleman of such distinguished discernment of literary talent and of sympathy for its gifted possessors. The article which attracted Lord Lansdowne's attention in so remarkable a manner, was (if my memory does not deceive me), "On Mohammed and It is well known that the albumen with which any books have been sized, in the course of time (especially if they have been visited by damp) becomes altered in composition; I therefore suggest that the plan of marking books with a pencil be adopted, and for these reasons: After the writing is finished, it can be fixed with milk, and will remain perfect many years in a dry place. It does not disfigure the book, and both lead and milk being on the surface, they can be erased at any time with a sharp knife, but the lead can never be destroyed by fire. I have some writing in pencil by me, as distinct as when written more than ten years ago. The milk should be dabbed on with a sponge, otherwise the lead will be rubbed off, and this will make the writing less clear, and give the book a dirty appearance. The plan has also this advantage: notes written anywhere can be fixed anywhere where milk is to be had, a desideratum for travellers.-AVON LEA. - Notes and Queries. - to sway From The Spectator. LEWES' LIFE OF GOETHE.* tity. Shakspere was a greater dramatist certainly, and we think with equal certainty a a AMONG the literary men of the last hundred much greater poet. But Goethe wrote Weryears, there is no more interesting figure than ther, and Wilhelm Meister, and the WahlverJohann Wolfgang Goethe. With the excep-wandtschaften, as well as Goetz, Egmont, and tion of Napoleon Bonaparte, there is no one, Faust. Milton could roll on in majestic wordbe he writer or actor, who stands out from thunder, and unfold to his grand music picthe mass of his contemporaries so promi- tures as grand; but where are we to look in nently, and who is so sure of being more and Milton for the figures to put beside Mignon, more identified as time rolls on, ripening Philina, Clärchen, and greatest of all, the all things that are true, and destroying all Faust-Gretchen? Bacon was minister of a things that are false and partial-with the greater sovereign than Karl August, and of a history of this period. Whatever else perishes greater state than little Saxon Weimar, and is forgotten, these two- -the king of wise moralist, a noble prose-writer, the man thought and the king of deed-will be among to whom more than to any one Europe owes the everlasting heirlooms of European civiliza- her scientific method. The discovery of the tion; the ideas to which they gave articulate maxillary bone in man, the idea of the verteform with the pen and with the sword will brate character of the skull, the elaborated be among the conscious influences destined to theory of the metamorphosis of plants, though shape the ideas, the character, and the con- they indicate a marvellous advance on conduct of our latest posterity. Writers fond temporary notions of philosophic method, and of antithesis somewhat hastily pronounce, in are themselves important steps in the science comparing the influence of two such men, of development, must yield to the Novum that the empire of the king of speech is of a Organum and the De Augmentis. But the more permanent character than that of the wonder is, that these discoveries should have king of action; as if the first Napoleon ceased been made by the author of Werther and the world when he ceased to lead the Hermann and Dorothea, Walter Scott was armies of France-as if the changes he effected even more prolific, and in literature quite as in Europe had been really obliterated by the various; but, to say nothing of the important treaty of Vienna! Calmer observers may re-difference that Scott's variety is only specific, member that the earth bears traces to this even enthusiastic Edinburgh would hesitate day of primæval deluges, Noachian or Ethnic; in placing the quality of Scott's best works and, since Mr. Carlyle made the comparison on a level with that of Goethe's best; and between Goethe and Napoleon, a second em-posterity will probably agree with Carlyle pire has arisen, to prove that great action in classing the two men at very different eleSOWs a seed which may be as prolific and as enduring in its progeny as great speech. Goethe interests us on his own account, and on account of the persons by whom he was surrounded. He is not only the greatest figure in German literature, but he is the centre of the greatest group. He is not only the Shakspere of Germany, but the Shakspere of the Elizabethan age of Germany; not only Thus producing largely, in the most various the author of the greatest works, but the fields, and with consummate excellence, Goesource of the widest influence. Filling with the was as a matter of course a man of wide bis own activity the largest circle of thought, acquaintance and of vast influence. What a and cultivating to their highest power facul- group of names that is which spontaneously ties originally of extraordinary fertility, he rises to the recollection associated with his! has combined, more than any other writer what a vast change in the literature of his that we know, excellence, variety, and quan- country is blended inseparably in the mind, as it was in fact, with the different æras of his The Life and Works of Goethe: with Sketches of his Age and Contemporaries, from Published and Unpublife! The fact becomes most impressive when shed Sources. By G. H. Lewes, Author of "The Bio- we remember what German literature means graphical History of Philosophy," &c. In two volumes. to a German or a cultivated Englishman now, Published by Nutt. vations, and, while they regard Scott as the man who does best to amuse the leisure-hour, will assign to Goethe the nobler function of occupying the most serious studies of the highest intellects, of blending the ministry of Wisdom with the grace of Art, profound reflection and wide culture with the force of imagination and the play of humor. and what it meant before Goethe's time. The share. Form and substance in poetry are only names of importance that precede his inseparable without vital injury to the poem are Klopstock and Lessing; and how small which undergoes transformation into another now is the practical influence of the former! language. But we think Goethe labors under Round Goethe's image we now see Herder, prejudices which, quite apart from ignorance Schiller, Wieland, the two Humboldts, the of the German language and the inevitable two Schlegels, Jacobi, Novalis, Jean Paul loss of beauty and force which poetry underRichter, and a crowd of others whose works goes in translation, impede his claim to be are on the shelves of every reading man's studied with affectionate attention, prejulibrary. The Goethe literature has attained dices which affect the English reader of Gera bulk which would make its complete mas- man, as well as the reader of German literature tery a life study. Werther, Goetz, von Ber- translated into English. They are mainly lichingen, Faust, and Wilhelm Meister, were three, and may be summed up in the charge each in their turn the fruitful parents of a of want of heart, laxity of morals, indifferentpatriarchal family of imitations. The amount ism in politics. Like all lies that obtain any of activity excited by Goethe's works in the currency, there is a basis of facts, which, way of comment, criticism, and imitation, is, interpreted by a disposition to see everything it appears to us, quite without parallel, and from one particular point of view, and a must always be a prominent topic in any ade- resolution to believe a great man a little man quate literary history of the period. We be- if possible, lend color to these charges: and lieve that the catalogue of books illustrative the general public, which knows nothing else of Goethe already fills a moderate octavo vol- of Goethe, is sure when his name is mentioned He attained the questionable advantage to recognize him as the man who went about of being made a classic when he was yet alive; in his youth breaking women's hearts, and and while eager visitors took pilgrimages to in his old age made love to an innocent imWeimar as to a shrine of mysterious sanctity, pulsive girl, to put her fresh feelings into and not seldom found the god silent and some-poems for which his cold nature could not times terrible, ruthless commentators raised else find material; as the man who had illehideous discord of the critic orchestra round gitimate children by a low woman, whom his unresisting books, and tried to unflesh the clearest art in Europe into metaphysical dry bones, and to interpret, as they call it, magnificent music into formula of school or catechism of sect. ume. he was afterwards fool enough to marry, and was served right; as the man who, when Germany rose-a nation for the moment – against Napoleon, had no sympathy with the movement, and who all his life preferred to be the servile courtier of a petty prince rather than the poet of a free people. A phenomenon of such magnitude, so wide and complex in its relations when viewed even in its literary aspect alone, was not likely to Now, so far as these prejudices have really make itself clearly understood at first glance; stood in the way of England's recognition of and-while in Germany Goethe's rank as Goethe's true greatness, and have prevented facile princeps has not seriously been disputed, many from reading his works, and distorted though Schiller was, and may be for all we the judgments of many who have dipped into know still, the more popular poet-the Eng- them, the publication of this Life by Mr. lish public has scarcely yet begun to give him Lewes will be a signal service to truth and place among its household favorites of the justice. All these charges are candidly met, exotic species. His literary worth is accepted the facts on which they are founded stated rather on the testimony of acknowledged au- with honesty, and the inferences from them thorities than on experience. And this, fairly and thoroughly discussed. Mr. Lewes natural enough among people who read his is a great admirer of Goethe, as it is necesworks only in translations, is also very largely sary that a biographer should be; but his true of English people who read German. admiration has not made him shirk facts ap So far as the excellence of his poems is un-parently to the discredit of his hero. It is of translatable and this would include all his that deeper kind which has faith enough in lyrics and the finest qualities of his dra- its object to refuse to allow any shade of susmatic poetry-there is no remedy for an picion to rest upon his character; all shall be absence of appreciation which all foreign poets clear at any rate, whether it tells for him or 1 against him. And the result is, that, while limit appears to us wisely chosen - he has selected judiciously and arranged skilfully; and we owe to him a very complete and satisfactory account of the life and writings of the greatest literary man of modern Europe. Goethe is shown to be a man, and as a man with the temperament as well as the faculties of the poet to have done much he ought not to have done and left undone much which he ought to have done, he is also shown to have possessed one of the noblest and sweetest natures ever given to erring man, and to have lived as ever in the eyes of the Great Taskmaster who had given him his talents, and was by that gift calling him to discharge great duties. Whatever other causes may hereafter militate against Goethe's popularity in England among persons whose judgment is worth anything on such a question, the old misconceptions of his character and conduct must henceforth go into Time's waste-paperbasket. Most persons who know of Goethe anything more than his name, know of his Strasburg passion; and those who know and honor him best have had hard thoughts of him for his treatment of Frederika. Why he did not marry her, has been often asked; and never very satisfactorily answered. Mr. Lewes discusses the question with marked good sense and moderation, and this is his verdict: "I believe, then, that the egoism of genius, which dreaded marriage as the frustration of a career, had much to do with Goethe's renunciation of Frederika; not consciously, But Mr. Lewes has not written a polemical perhaps, but powerfully. Whether the alarm book, though our first thought of it has been was justifiable, is another question, and is connected with the vast amount of rubbish it It is mere assumption to say marriage would not to be disposed of with an easy phrase. is calculated to render finally obsolete among have crippled his genius.' Had he loved her us. It is, on the contrary, an animated nar- enough to share a life with her, his experirative, that never flags in interest, and leaves ence of women might have been less extenthe reader at the end of the second volume sive, but it would assuredly have gained an It would have been longing for more; the work of a man writing element it wanted. On a subject of which he knows much more deepened. He had experienced, and he could than he tells, and whose chief difficulty has of woman to man; but he had scarcely ever paint (no one better), the exquisite devotion been to compress his ample materials into the felt the peculiar tenderness of man for woman, prescribed space. We have been so accus- when that tenderness takes the form of vigitomed of late to lives of inferior men written lant protecting fondness. He knew little, many volumes by men inferior to them, that and that not until late in life, of the subtile at first it seems difficult to believe that an ade- interweaving of habit with affection, which quate life of Goethe, who lived eighty-three self become dignified through the serious makes life saturated with love, and love ityears, and whose actuating principle was aims of life. He knew little of the exquisite "ohne Hast, ohne Rast," can be compressed companionship of two souls striving in emuinto two volumes. But a thorough study of lous spirit of loving rivalry to become better, his subject, a careful preparation extended to become wiser, teaching each ether to soar. through many years, a conscientious devotion He knew little of this; and the kiss, Fredeto a task voluntarily undertaken, and trained rika! he feared to press upon thy loving lips skill in authorship, have enabled Mr. Lewes -the life of sympathy he refused to share with thee- are wanting to the greatness of to convey a lively representation of the man his works." Goethe as he lived, of the society of which he was the centre, of the general characteristics But on the charge that Goethe sacrificed of the time, and to blend with all this picture his genius to a Court life, Mr. Lewes can of the man and his environment ample ana- acquit his client with the consent of all men lytical criticism on his principal writings, and of sense. in intelligent discussion of the principles upon "As we familiarize ourselves with the dewhich poetry and prose fiction should be con- tails of this episode, there appears less and ducted. To say that more might be written less plausibility in the often iterated declaon all these subjects, is to say simply that Mr. mation against Goethe on the charge of his Lewes has written a work of art, and not having sacrificed his genius to the Court.' It becomes indeed a singularly foolish disthrown before the public a quarry of raw ma-play of rhetoric. Let us for a moment conterial or a bundle of separate treatises. With-sider the charge. He had to choose a career. in the space he has chosen to fill and the That of poet was then, even more than now, 92 and only are now Rou Sch twc Ric are libr a 1 ter lici eac pa of W& it m qu lie of un of an W an tir hi his cle bo nif ch an in ma and fac tho knc lish plac exot rath thor natu work true So fo trans lyrics matic abser tourt etiquette." BET, DE SECULOT ans he Court was a luulah to which articed a locks is profoundly to us reizs profoundly to ise. Had his ginius been of and formy dad which produces great re Orders and great martyrs—had it been his meion to agitate mankind by words which, Terrerating to their inmost recesses, called tem to lay down their lives in the service an idea-had it been his tendency to meditate upon the far-off destinies of man, and sway men by the coercion of grand representative abstractions, — then, indeed, we might say his place was aloof from the motley throng, and not in sailing down the festivities at the time É me pense to me.' music on the banks. But he was not a reformer, not a martyr. He was a poet, whose religion was Bestry, whose worship was of Nature, whose sim was outmure. His mission was to paint lie: and he that it was requisite he shouût en lift,, us know` “The haunt ami tine an egon of his song.” Happier circumstances might indeed have surrounded him and given him a greater In 1801, writing to his mother on the sphere. It would have been very different, complaints uttered against him by those as he often felt, if there had been & nation to who judged so falsely of his condition, he appeal to, instead of a heterogeneous mas says they only saw what he gave up, 204 of small peoples, willing enough to talk of what he gained-they could not comprehend Fatherland, but in nowise prepared to be how he grew daily richer, though he daily comes nation. There are many other ifs in gave up so much. He confesses that the which much virtue could be found: but inDarrow circle of a burgher life would have ssmuch as he could not create circumstances, ill accorded with his ardent and wide-sweep- we must follow his example, and be content ing spirit. Had he remained at Frankfort, with what the gods provided. I do not, I he would have been ignorant of the world. confess, see what other sphere was open to But here the panorama of life was unrolled him in which his genius could have been before him, and his experience was every way more sacred; but I do see that he built enlarged. Did not Leonardo da Vinci spend out of circumstance a noble temple, in which much of his time charming the Court of Mi- the altar-flame burnt with a steady light. lan with his poetry and lute-playing? did he To hypothetical biographers he left the task not also spend time in mechanical and hydro- of settling what Goethe might have been; stanical labors for the state? No reproach enough for us to catch some glimpse of what is lifted against his august name; no one he was." cries out against his being false to his genius; no one rebukes him for having painted so little at one period. The Last Supper' speaks for the book we subjoin the account of Goethe's him. Will not Tasso, Iphigenia, Hermann daily life at Weimar, about the beginning of and ruthen. Faust, Meister, and the long this century, when he was fifty years cid. lis: o' Gosthe's works, speak for him? As a specimen of the narrative portion of "He rose at seven, sometimes earlier, af**I have dwelt mainly on the dissipation of hiszem because the notion that a court life ter a sound and prolonged sleep: for, like affecte, is genius by corrupting his mind' Thorwaldsen, he had a talent för sleeping" -strenosterium. No reader of this biogra-only surpassed by his talent for continuous ve to be hoped, will fail to see the work. Till eleven he worked without interTenors in winch he stood to the ruption. A cup of chocolate was then ow fee they were from anything brought, and he resumed work mill me. At estent summer of genuine im- two he dined. This meal was the important 10ces, are a' the complaints against meal of the day. His appetite was immense. scending: to "he unreptionable au- Even on the days when he compiled of not rot Flamer: was that made by the sub-being hungry, he ate muth mire than miet « Sinana, 'ising sufficiently atten- men. Puddings, sweets, and cakes were al |