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From Blackwood's Magazine.
JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE.

case the unanimous testimony is all the greater from the fact that he is, as a man, Ir must always be a great deal more hateful to a great proportion of the people difficult to estimate justly and understand who unwillingly accord to him so high a fully the power and gift of a poet whose place among his peers. His is one of the works are in a foreign language, than to figures about which men, looking back, appreciate the singers whose tongue is our lose all the calm of historical observation. own. A great deal of the absolute essence The thought of him still influences the and soul of poetry evaporates in the very mind as with a personal partisanship. To best translation; and all its most subtle the smaller number (and let us allow that graces are apt to elude the student who this smaller number includes those who reads by the help of dictionaries and gram- know Goethe best) he is more than a mars. In this particular, above all others, poet — he is an idol, one of the greatest, is made visible the influence of that little wisest, and best of beings. But to a large audience of cultivated readers who stand proportion of the world he is, as a man between the poet and the ordinary public, we do not think we use too strong a impressing often by but slow degrees their word-hateful. His votaries worship him judgment and opinion upon the less-in-with a blind faith and superstition such as formed intelligences that take from them are commonly enough found in conjunctheir cue. There is no poetic name within tion with the highest intelligence, so long the last hundred years which has won a as that faith is not called forth towards higher place than that of Goethe we sacred things; and a great many of the might indeed say, and with some truth, rest of us detest him with an instinctive has won so high a place; and yet how few and thorough repugnance which is indeis the number of ordinary English readers pendent of reason. But no one denies who know Goethe in anything but the his greatness, his exalted place, his rank most superficial and accidental way! A among the highest. To very few men translation of "Faust," taken up impar- since the world began has such a universal tially, without scrutiny into its rank the testimony been given; and it is not in the most indifferent being as likely as the best; nature of things that such a testimony a remembered glance, twenty years ago, could be other than true. for those of us who are old enough, into Carlyle's "Wilhelm Meister;" a vague traditionary recollection of Werter, with perhaps the Erl-king, as a very great refinement of knowledge, to crown the information, about so much of Goethe, but no more, may be supposed to be generally known to the English reader. And yet even the uninstructed reader, thus meagrely informed, recognizes the greatness of the name, and does a sort of homage, mingled with reverence or with scorn, with love or with hatred, as the case may be, to the great poet, fashioned so unlike most of our ideas of what a poet should be, yet shadowing over earth and sea in an abstract size and vastness which no one can deny. This kind of shadowy impression of greatness made upon the mind of the world in spite of itself, is almost a more convincing proof of the rank of the poet than that more just and clear conviction of excellence which intimate knowledge gives; and in Goethe's

But in face of this great and perplexing figure there are so many questions to ask and difficulties to settle, that the work of the critic is hard and doubly perplexing. A great many minds of high endowment have yielded themselves, with a devotion almost abject, to the influence of Goethe; while upon as many more he has exercised as distinct an influence of repulsion, driving them from him. The former class have expounded themselves and their worship so fully as to need no further exposition. 'lo the latter he appears in his greatness like a gigantic génie of the earth and aira being possessing attributes so different from ours that it requires an effort to recognize him as actually of our own species, bound by the same rules of being. This separation from human nature is not of the kind which in imagination we are willing to assign to poets. Ilis is not the fanciful, abstract, dreamy being, helpless among the cares of earth, born for higher

:

different arts, and by various of its inhabi-
tants, stepping-stones by which to elevate
himself to such a position that gods and
men may look upon him and wonder. He
is irresponsible, un-moral, a being above
law nay, he makes the impression upon

Occupations and aspirations, which we are | minister to him, to communicate experi-
disposed to accept with a certain indul-ences, informations to afford him, by its
gence an indulgence which makes our
reverence the greater. Instead of that
poetical conception of the poet, the spec-
tator finds himself face to face with a man
perfectly qualified to contend with the
world, and to master it; not only not
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 re-
our inclination to patronize what we ad- call, he stands alone in this superb but un-
mire 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 usual 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 Saxe-
his greatness. We do not use the word as Weimar were especially formed - - not he
implying any want of geniality in his charac- for them, as is the generous ideal of anoth-
ter, 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-bis use, to afford him the means of culti-
human, as Jove and Apollo were inhuman.
It is not as a man, but as a demi-god
raised above man in a smooth and grand
completeness, that we regard him. He is
not, as other men, created, for common du-
ties and common relationships, whose life
is a network of connection with others, who
exist for others, and for the ordinary use
and service of the world. Goethe, on the
contrary, is one of those rare beings for
whom the world is made. To his own
consciousness it is a huge machine devised
for his education, for his instruction to

We

vating himself and all his faculties.
might put Shakespeare, and Italy, and the
Greek mythology, and even science, into
the same category, were it not that these
sources of mental profit had to be shared
with other men, and primarily belonged,
so to speak, to other men, so that he could
not lay the first and most absolute claim
to them. But this is the position in which
we find him from the earliest of his days
to the last. Even when he makes himself
the exponent of his age, he is still sepa
rate from that age, taking advantage of it,

- trem

nels. They may receive comfort, pleasure, instruction, from without, but never direcThis 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 ing for the lesser creatures who surround into the fulness of another. Goethe was him. No one more than he feels the pa- moved by all, yet moved by none thos of the situation in which he leaves his ulous like the compass, yet, like it, fixed, Frederikas, his Frau von Steins. His sym- and incapable of divergence from the pathy, it is true, has not the slightest in- grand centre of gravitation. And in his fluence upon his actions, which are mould- case the centre was himself. ed 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 impressions from others which turn the scale of fortune and direct life into new chan

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. Most true; yet our prejudice remains unaffected. And there is reason in it, as in all universal prejudices. There is something in the theory of self-culture which transgresses all the modesties of human nature, and strikes that hidden consciousness of insignificanco