I gladly hear, when glory's princely lust,

And when acquirements, far extended, form

The speaker's theme; and when the dextrous art
Of master-spirits skilfully unravell❜d,

Instead of overreaching us, instructs.

Another great charm in Goethe's poetry, is the exquisite art with which he clothes all his thoughts in beautiful and symmetrical forms, and measures of the most captivating melody. His verses glide like pearls between the lips of the singer; they are born melodies, and do not require the help of music to make them harmonious. His latter and last lyrical performances all possess these excellences, but they want the freshness and simplicity of his former productions; for he became too conventional in his old age, and the fount of juvenile vigor being exhausted, he strove to supply its loss with artificial allegories and far-fetched verbal conceits. It is thus with nations as with men-when they have outlived their youth, when the spirit of action which animated them in the days of their vigor, and begot bold thoughts and high achievements, begins to flag, their efforts are regulated by reason rather than impulse; their poetry seeks to replace by subtle fancies, what it has lost of the fervor and passion of its earlier youth; and the cold glitter of imagination is found to replace the warm language of simplicity and truth.

But let us return to Goethe. This new and natural vitality, which had given his first productions so great and so sudden a fame-for in them was seen what German poetry had hitherto wanted-is also to be found in all his later and more regular compositions, and whatever he undertook was also completed by him with entire success. C Clavigo,' a tragedy, in which he was bold enough to introduce a contemporary Spanish author as the hero of the piece, and to bring his life to an end on the stage, when the real man was still living happily in his own country; ' Stella,' a drama, 'Claudine Von Villa Bella," Erwin and Elmire,' and sundry other extraordinary productions increased his fame, for they were written in a style altogether new, with great truth and vivacity, and presented striking pictures of real life. It was a new vein of sentiment, quite different from that which Klopstock had introduced into German literature, which made his works so wonderfully effective; it was passionate and stormy, soaring high above the formalities of common morality, and penetrating into every recess and corner of the human heart. In short, Goethe finished what Lessing had begun: his writings effected a total reform in German taste, for they abolished the old established opinion that

the occupation of poetry was only to teach morals, and to impart knowledge in an agreeable manner, and under pleasing forms.

The wild and irregular course adopted by the poet found, as might have been expected, numberless adversaries, who, even when compelled to admire his genius, censured the more severely what they called his contempt of the laws of style and taste. But Goethe soon proved that his genius had opened upon the true path, by writing a tragedy in the ancient Greek fashion, which, with all the excellences that were peculiar to him, and to him alone, included a strict observance of that solemn and rigid form prescribed by Aristotle. This was 'Iphigenia at Tauris,' which will be regarded as a masterpiece as long as German literature shall exist, or the German language shall be spoken. His celebrated tragedy, 'Egmont,' appeared at the same time, so remarkable for the striking individuality of its principal characters, and for the vivacity and truth of its dialogue. In short, Goethe never failed in his poetical endeavors; he always copied nature with a degree of accuracy that made his picture appear to be the original itself, and at the same time he understood how to treat his subject in the most noble and befitting manner. There is a perfection in them all which has not hitherto been rivalled, and it is sufficient to name his 'Die Natürliche Tochter,' 'Die Geschwister,' in proof of this assertion.

We should certainly be led too far were we to dwell at further length upon every single work of this great and extraordinary man; we therefore must forbear entering into an examination even of his greatest and most profound poem, the 'Faust,' for we could fill a volume with the subject, without having fulfilled our task. This master-work for a time remained a fragment, but the poet finished it shortly before his death; the second part, however, was by no means received with the same enthusiasm that had attended the publication of the first, and which still remains undiminished; it is full of beautiful and lofty scenes, but very obscure, and wants a commentary, which only the poet himself was able to have written. The sincerest admirers of ‘Faust,' wish that it had remained a fragment; for, to say the truth, this second part does not increase the glory of its author: the first was the child of his youth and vigor-the second is too like the puny and enfeebled offspring of his old age.

Every species of difficulty which can beset the translator is to be encountered in Goethe's 'Faust,' and bold indeed must be the man who dares to grapple therewith. The truth and the paradox -the highest and the commonest the gravest and the most humorous-the wildest mirth and the desolation of veriest an

guish-guilt and innocence-all that imagination, feeling, philosophy, and poetry could bind together by a strength almost superhuman-are here, glowing from the hand of their immortal author, with a life which shall endure until time shall be no more. Who shall say that he has fully conceived and understood this mighty whole, so that his eye hath revelled in all its beauty-his ear hath drunk all its deep harmony-his heart hath laughed with all its joy, and wept with all its sorrow-or his reason fully discoursed with that wisdom which seemeth ever deeper and fartherreaching the more nearly we approach it? Emphatically, here we find meat for strong men, and milk for the infant. Many reasoners, like the mathematician whose answer is known to every child-who deem poetry merely an idle gaud, have read 'Faust,' to find their souls' searching questions there answered. Many an imaginative artist, whose eye delighteth in bright manycolored pictures of life, has come here to riot in the wine-cellar, and dance on the Blocksberg, though his brain never teemed with a doubt he could not solve, nor his light heart ever sorrowed for himself or another.

Again there are, and of the purest and best, for whom the mirth is all too boisterous-the reasoning too cunningly refined. But where, in the whole infinite range of things, living or ideal, can they find aught speaking to their heart's affections like the charming portraiture of Margaret, that very fondest, simplest, loveliest woman's nature? What pointed weapons cannot the satirist draw from this poem? Leaving this enumeration unexhausted, we must hastily pass to the language which displays and clothes in the life which colors this vast and changeful magic world of thought and poetry. They who are at all conversant with almost any of Goethe's poems will readily imagine what exquisite harmony, what variety of expression, and power of description his numbers here display; how 'he runs through all modes of the lyre, and is master of all;' keeping everywhere tone, time, and metre so faithfully with his varied matter and spirit of his noble strain, that each seems woven into and blended with the other, so as not to be separated from its true being, without rending the very soul from the body of his song.

Before taking final leave of the subject, we will venture to make two passing remarks of general application to that class of translations which do not appear to be founded on a correct knowledge of the language in which the original 'Faust' was written. There is a point where the exact equivalency of words and idioms has no certain settlement, even by the most learned, if the nearest phrases and proximate verbal correspondence, not VOL. X., No. XLVIII.—75

the most identical in spirit of the two opposed languages, be sought as the acme of accuracy. Leaving the application of this to our readers, we say, that in no one thing is the opinion of countrymen of the author translated-ay, even of that author himself so fallacious, as in judging of the merits of translations, especially of those which attempt the most rigid accuracy. They look for the well-known words recalling their living parallels in their own work and language; and should they find these, can rarely see where the translation may have sunk in its own tongue, when measured with the original. Even when they may understand that tongue almost thoroughly, the masterpiece and their own language is so undividedly the object of their worship, that they can scarcely escape from the feeling, that what they see most like, they like best, though, perhaps, the well-loved features may be merely degraded by some mime's coarse conception of their spirit.

The first thing that astonishes the reader on opening any given volume of Goethe's works, is the amazing comprehensiveness of the author's mind. Every species of writing--verse and prose, German and foreign literature, philosophy, history, anecdotes, moral sentences, and aesthetic criticism, especially on poetry and the drama, even science and philology-that study which we generally regard as only fit for those who are fit for nothing else -all pass in turn before us; and on every one he has something to say that is original and beautiful. There is no kind of literature which Goethe has not cultivated. He has written songs, epic poems, elegies, dramas, besides novels, tales, epigrams, &c., and all his performances are master-pieces; and there is no science which did not, at least for some time, engage his attention. Germany is indebted to him, not only as a poet, but also as an eminent scholar and natural philosopher. This child of nature, for so he may be truly called, was almost as universal as nature herself. He not only led the ideal back to nature, but he raised nature to the ideal. His heroes are in the romantic point of view precisely what the gods of Grecian sculpture were in the classical-god-like men, man-like gods. He concentrated all his poetical powers in the representation of man, that is to say, the ideal of human greatness and beauty of mind, the highest and most mysterious of wonders. The outward world was to him throughout only the foil, the antithesis or simile for man. He opposes the moral force of mankind to the blind power of nature, in order to represent the former in its superior nobility, or struggling in its victorious vigor.

STABAT MATER.

[THE following grew out of an attempt to ascertain whether it was possible (to the author) to translate the original into a corresponding English measure, with any degree of closeness, combined with any preservation of the deeply impassioned spirit which burns through every line of the rude and barbarous old monkish Latin. It is well known by its title as one of the grandest of the magnificent hymns of the Catholic Ritual; and it will be remembered, that, so powerful was the impression which had been produced by it upon the mind of Sir Walter Scott, who had heard it in the midst of all its accessaries of kindred arts, in the visit which he made to Italy shortly before his death, that its opening words were the last distinct sounds heard from his lips, as he lay during the solemn process of the passing away of his own great spirit. The imperfection of the translation, which is for the most part very close, sometimes literal, will be readily pardoned by those who will essay the same attempt.]

I.

Broken-hearted, lo! and tearful,
Bowed beside that Cross so fearful,
Stands the Mother by the Son!
Through her bosom, sympathizing
In his mortal agonizing,

Deep and keen the steel has gone.

II.

How afflicted, how distresséd,

Stands she now, that Virgin Blesséd,
By that tree of wo and scorn;

Mark her tremble, droop, and languish,
Gazing on that awful anguish

Of her child, the Only-Born!

III.

Who may see, nor share her weeping,
Christ the Saviour's Mother keeping
Grief's wild watch, so sad and lone?

I.

Stabat Mater dolorosa
Juxta crucem lacrymosa,
Dum pendebat Filius;
Cujus animam gementem,
Contristantem et dolentem,
Pertransivit gladius.

II.

O quam tristis et afflicta
Fuit illa benedicta

Mater Unigeniti,

Quæ mærebat et dolebat
Et tremebat dum videbat
Nati pœnas inclyti!

III.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
Christi matrem si videret

In tanto supplicio