just critic is bound to condemn him, if nothing is gained by it.

The next time the count appears, we find him with Clara, carrying out that happy idea with which he was inspired, near the close of the last mentioned scene. We will look in upon them near the end of the interview.

not he.

most sadly-eloquent soliloquies-in visions of the night, the prison walls may have seemed to open, and legions of friendly spirits may have come in procession from the unknown deeps, and have crowned your sleeping prisoner with laurel and amaranth; all this is not tragedy. Let there be phantasmagoria symbolic by a thousand happy significances-such shows are pleasing, and may move us in various ways—but it is not tragedy.

The fifth act opens in the streets of Brussels; the time is twilight, and the personages Clara, Brackenburg, and certain citizens. At the end of the first scene, Brackenburg has persuaded the poor, half-crazed girl to go home with him to her mother's house. The second discloses the interior of Egmont's cell, lighted by a single lamp. A bed is on the ground, but the prisoner has sought in vain to sleep. He soliloquizes,

CLARA.-Tell me! Speak! I can not comprehend. Are you Egmont? the great Egmont? who makes such a figure in the world; of whom the Gazette says, "the provinces depend upon him." EGM.--No, Clara, I am CLARA.-HOW! EGM. See you, Clara! Let me sit. (He sits down; she kneels before him upon a cricket, with her arms in his lap, and gazes up at him.) That Egmont is a morose, stiff, cold Egmont, who keeps his thought to himself, and must put on, now this face, now that; plagued, misunderstood, and harassed, while the people think him gay, and happy; loved by a populace that knows not its own mind; honored and borne on high by a multitude, on whom no dependence can be placed; surrounded by friends to whom he dares not open himself; watched by men who are in every way eager to overreach him; laboring and toiling painfully, often to no purpose, mostly without reward. O let me cease telling how it goes with him; how his heart is within itself. But this one, Clara, who is cheerful, open, happy; loved and understood by the best of hearts, which he, too, knows, and presses to his own with full love and trust. (He embraces her.) This is your Egmont.

We must pass over the interview between Alva and Egmont, at the end of which the latter found himself lamenting the fulfilment of his friend's predictions, and proceed at once to the fifth act. One word, however, preliminary. It has been already remarked, that boldness and generosity, though praiseworthy qualities, hardly constitute the essence of tragedy. But again: though you add the tenderest poetic sensibility, sublime, solemn, and sorrowful notions respecting "this life," with the most eloquent

may even have the imaginary personage put to death, and that with awful pomp of ceremony and splendor of arms, on a scaffold prodigally hung with crape, still it is not tragedy. Nay, further, this sublime decease may have been preceded by the "rosiest-colored" dreams, and the

“Old Friend! Ever faithful sleep, dost thou desert me now, as my other friends? How willingly didst thou shed thyself down upon my head when free, and cooledst, as a fair myrtle-crown of love, my temples! In the midst of arms, upon the wave of life, I rested, gently breathing, on thy bosom, as a young blooming boy. When the storm through leaves and twigs sighed hoarsely, and summit and branches creaked and heaved, still remained the core of the heart undisturbed. What troubles thee now? What shakes thy firm true mind? I feel it. It is the clang of the death-axe that gnashes at my root. As yet I stand erect-but an inward shudder runs through me. Yes, it does prevail-the perfidious powerit undermines the strong high trunk, and, before the rind is dry, crackling and crashing, the crown plunges down.

"But why-thou who hast so often warded from thy head, like bubbles, the weightiest cares- -Why canst thou not repel the thousand-fold horror which is beating back and forth within thee? Since when has death became terrible to thee? with whose various forms, as with the other shapes of this habitable earth, thou

fierce enemy that every sound heart longs zealously to face; it is the Prison, this fore-figurement of the Grave, as horrible to heroes as to cowards. Yes, it was unendurable to me, even when sitting in my cushioned chair in the grand council of the Princes, and some

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simple matter was overlaid with vain repetitions, when between the dismal walls of a hall of state the beams weighed upon me. Then I hastened out as soon as possible, and dashed forth upon my steed with deep-drawn breaths, freshly forth into the field, where we feel at home, and from the moist ground every best beneficence of nature, and through the breathing heaven every blessing of the stars circled about us; where we, like earth-born giants, grown strong at our mother's touch, rush up the heights, and all our manhood and lusty nerve we feel in every vein, and a panting after the chase, the struggle, the capture, the attack, the mastery, the triumph, glows through the young huntsman's soul; where the soldier, with rushing foot, claims an inherited right to the whole earth, and with terrific liberty, like a hail storm, sweeps destroying over meadow, field, and wood, and knows no boundaries set up by human hand.

"Thou art only the picture, the memory-dream of the happiness I so long possessed. Whither has fate treacherously led thee? Does it deny thee the violent death you never shunned before the face of the sun, in order to furnish thee a foretaste of the grave in the foul dungeon? How loathsome he breathes out upon me from these stones. Already life is numbed, and from the couch as from the grave the foot withholds itself.

"Anxiety! Anxiety! thou who beginnest death before it's time-O leave me! Since when is Egmont thus alone in the world-so all alone? Doubt maketh thee insensible, not good fortune. Is the justice of the king, which thou hast lifelong trusted; is the friendship of the Regentess, which almost (thou darest aver it) almost was love-are these at once, like a glancing fire-phantom of the night, vanished? and do they leave thee behind in thy dark path alone? Will not Orange resolve to adventure at the head of thy friends? Will not the multitude gather, and, in a swelling flood, come to rescue their old friend?

"O, walls that lock me in, hold not off the throng of so many princely spirits. And the courage that once beamed from my countenance, and lifted them above themselves, it now flows back again from their hearts into mine. O, Yes! they stir themselves by thousands! they come! Stand by my side! Their pious wish flies earnestly up to Heaven, it demands a miracle. And though no angel comes

down to my rescue, I yet see them grasping their swords and spears. The gates open, the trellis flies up, the walls tumble in before their hand, and the freedom of newly-breaking day rises to meet Egmont rejoicing. How many a well-known face exults to receive me. Ah, Clara! wert thou a man! then should I see thee first here, and thank thee for what it is hard to thank a king-for Liberty."

The scene again shifts, and we see Clara in her mother's house, bearing in her hands a lamp and a glass of water, which she sets down upon the table, Her mind is a little shattered. She stops, talks to herself, listens, thinks she hears something, and goes to the window. Soon Brackenburg arrives. The interview which follows is melancholy and and touching. She poisons herselfBrackenburg soliloquizes:-he is without hope, but cannot resolve to die. A lamp flickers, flames, and goes out; soft music (from the orchestra) betokening Clara's death concludes the scene. Then Egmont's cell is disclosed once more. He lies sleeping on his bed. A rattling of keys is heard at the door, servants step in bearing torches; Alva's son Ferdinand and Silva, an officer of the Duke's household, also enter attended by armed men.

EGM.-Who are ye? Who SO rudely startle sleep from my eyes? What mean your fierce, dangerous looks? Wherefore this dire array? With what frightful dream do you come to bewilder the half-waked soul?

What a speech for a man just waked, or "half-waked." He rises immediately into the region of rhetoric and sentiment. Compare the passage with one from Shakspeare, (Richard III., Act I. Scene IV.)—

1ST MURD. Soft! He wakes.

2D MURD. Strike.

CLARENCE. Where art thou, keeper? Give me a cup of wine. 1ST MURD. You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.

CLAR. In God's name, what art thou? 1ST MURD. A man, as you are. CLAR. But not as I am, royal. 1ST MURD. Nor you as we are, loyal. CLAR. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.

There is somewhat of a contrast here. It is the difference between the native utterance of humanity and that sort of eloquence, which one is apt to put into his own mouth, when imagining himself the hero of some great occasion—a con

trast of the tragic with the theatrical. In short, most of the speeches of Egmont, appear to be what Goethe fancied himself, as making in the several situations he has allotted to him; the poet evidently luxuriating in the picture of his own imagination.

To return. It appears that Egmont's visitors are only the messengers of the court, come to announce his sentence. After this has been read to him, all retire with the exception of Ferdinand. He had quite early conceived an attachment toward the Count, and finds himself unable to leave. Egmont thinking himself alone, remains standing a moment lost in thought. But upon looking up, and beholding this intruder on his solitude, his old rhetorical fit returns, and he thus bursts out upon him,

"Thou remaining here! Dost thou think, by thy presence, to increase my astonishment and horror? Wouldst thou carry to thy father the welcome news, that I am ignobly despairing? Go, tell him! Tell him that he deludes neither the world nor me. To him, the hungerer after fame, people will first whisper it softly behind his back, then loud and louder speak it, till, when once from this summit he has tumbled down, a thousand voices will shout it out to meet him that not the good of the State, not the honor of the King, not the welfare of the Provinces, has brought him here. For his own self's sake has he counselled war, that the war-maker might profit by the war. He has stirred up this monstrous broil, that there might be need of his services; and I fall a victim of his base hatred, of his contemptible envy. Yes, I know it, and I dare declare it the dying, the mortally wounded one can utter it,-me, the proud man has envied-to work my overthrow has he long meditated and planned." So it goes on, through as much more.

After a little lamentation on the part of Ferdinand, and some harsh upbraiding on that of Egmont, the latter begins to discover that the young man stays out of pity for him, and so he straightway becomes eloquent, thus:-"What strange voice is this? What unexpected condolement meets me on my way to the grave. Thou, the son of my first, my almost only enemy-thou, lamenting for me-thou, not among my murderers. -Speak! tell! for what shall I take thee." FERD.-Cruel father! Yes, I recognize you in this command. You

more and more intensely, till, finally, the disappointed prisoner is assured that there is no rescue-none. The fit then returns as follows: EGM. (stamping with his feet.)-No rescue! Sweet life! Fair, loved usages of existence and action! From you must I part, so passively part! Not in the tumult of the fight, amid the rush of arms, in the havoc of the charge, givest thou me a flying farewell; thou takest no hasty departure, shortenest not the moment of trepidation. I must clasp thine hand, look thee yet once more in the eye, feel most sensitively thy beauty and worth, then let go, tear myself away and say, "Farewell."

The dialogue continues. FERD.-And shall I stand hard by, look on, and not be able to hold, to hinder your fate? O, what voice is sufficient for lamentation! What heart does not dissolve from its ties with such a sorrow? EGM.-Compose thyself. FERD.-Thou art able to compose thyself, to renounce, with heroic temper to give over the hard struggle to the hand of Destiny. What can I do? What ought I to do? Thou art victorious over thyself and us; thou overcomest. I outlive thee and myself. Amid the joys of the banquet 1 have lost my light, in the tumult of the fight is my banner gone. Stale, confused, sad, does the future look out upon me. EGM.-Young friend, whom I, by a strange fate, have at the same time won and lost, who for my sake sufferest the pains of death in grief for me, look upon me now. Thou art not losing me. Was my life a mirror in which thou wert gladly regarding thyself, let my death be one too. Men are not together when they are side by side, only; the far-off one, the lost one, lives for us. I live for thee, and for myself have already lived long enough. Every single day have I taken joy to my heart;

on every day have I done my duty as my conscience showed it to me. Now my life closes, as it might have closed, indeed, earlier earlier, on the sands of Gravelingen. I cease to live-but I have lived. So live thou, too, my friend, with goodwill, and with joy in life, and fear not death.

If Egmont had had six months to prepare in, and had written out his speeches in full, and conned them over till he had learned them by heart, he could scarcely have succeeded better. Is it not interesting? Are not these precisely the things which it would be most affecting to say in such circumstances? Every one feels that he is reading Goethe when he sees this; indeed, it is hard to convince oneself that Egmont could have expressed himself so touchingly, and so fully. This is Goethe, beyond all question. Egmont being a man engaged in active life, could hardly have had time. or a disposition for that musing, sweet, melancholy, that sad noble sentiment, which these passages discover. All this belongs to a man of leisure. Besides,

one generally finds that "men of action" do not make talk concerning their own feelings and retrospections. This is Goethe. And we cannot but regard it as a great oversight of this great man, that he did not prefix some such advertisement to his Drama as this:

"TO THE PUBLIC.-Having had some ideas respecting human life, and some touching, eloquent, and grand modes of stating them having occurred to me, I have concluded to lay them before you, and under a dramatic form, as this appeared the most felicitous. The principal character, Egmont, is the one which I have most used as a medium of expression, though occasionally-and, I may say, not seldom-I have made the others, nearly all of them, serve my purpose. The public will, of course, understand this, and not for a moment imagine, that I intend this production for a tragedy,' such as the English call by that name.

To return to the play. Egmont, after having commended his people to the care of Ferdinand, and charged him to take Clara under his protection, gently urges him to the door and parts from him.

EGM. (alone.)-Fiendish man! Thou didst not think to show me this kindness by thy son. Through his means, am I freed from care and grief, from fear and every feeling of pain. With gentle urgency, Nature now demands her last

tribute. It is past. It is determined. And what last night held me watching in suspense on my couch, now, by its invincible certainty, soothes me to sleep. (He seats himself upon the bed.-Music.) Sweet sleep! thou comest as a pure bliss, unprayed for, unwept for-most willingly. Thou loosest the knots of stern contemplation, minglest together all images of joy and sorrow. Unimpeded, sweet, the circle of inward harmonies flows on, and lapped in blissful delusions, we sink away and cease to be. (He falls asleep; the music accompanies his slumber. Behind his couch the wall seems to open, and a bright appearance reveals itself. Liberty," in celestial robes, with a half transparent splendor flowing about her, rests upon a cloud. She wears the likeness of Clara, and bends over the sleeping hero. Her looks express a mournful sympathy, she seems to grieve for him. Soon she collects herself, and with a gladdening look holds up to him the bundle of arrows, then the staff and hat. She bids him be of good cheer, and meanwhile shows him that his death will work out the freedom of the provinces, recognizes him as victorious, and reaches out to him a laurel crown. Egmont makes a motion-as one stirring in his sleep-so as to lie with his face turned up towards her. She holds the crown suspended over his head. There is heard far in the distance a warlike music of drums and fifes; at the first sound of this the appearance vanishes. The noise grows louder. Egmont wakes; the prison becomes moderately lighted by the morning. His first impulse is to put his hand upon his head; he stands up and looks about him -meanwhile, keeps his hand on his head.

The crown is gone! Thou fair image, the light of day has frightened thee away! Yes, 'twas they! they were blended in one, the two sweetest joys of my heart. Divine Liberty borrowed the form of my Beloved. My own charming maid robed herself in the garments of the friend. In one serious look they seemed unitedmore serious than loving. With bloodstreaked feet she stepped forth before me, the floating folds of her robe bespotted with blood. It was my blood, and that of many noble me. No, it was not shed in vain. March on! Brave People! the Goddess of Victory leads you! And as the sea breaks through your dikes, so break and tear asunder the wall of Ty

ranny, and float her off drowning from the land she has usurped.

(Trumpets, nearer.)

Hark! Hark! How often has this sound summoned me with free step to the field of strife and victory! how joyously my companions strode upon the perilous, glorious path! I, too, go from the prison to meet an honorable death. I die for the Liberty for which I lived and fought, and to which I now, sorrowing, offer myself a sacrifice. (The back ground becomes occupied with ranks of Spanish soldiers. armed with halberds.)

Yes, gather! Lock close your ranks; you do not terrify me. I am accustomed before spears, against spears, to stand, and, hemmed about with threatening death, to feel the fearless soul grow doubly bold!

(Trumpets.)

The foe shuts thee in on every side! Swords are glancing! Friends, good courage! Behind you are your parents, wives, and children.

(Pointing to the Guard.) And these, an empty word of their master spurs on-no zeal of their own. Defend your homes! And for the rescue of your loved ones, gladly fall, as I give you example.

(Trumpets. As he advances towards the guard and is about to go out at the door, the curtain falls. The music changes; and the piece concludes with a symphony of triumph!)

This fifth act demands a little more attention. It presents to us the hero of the drama at the mercy of his enemies; not in danger, but awaiting inevitable death. All are anxious to know how he looks, what he thinks. We are irresistibly compelled to imagine ourselves the prisoner, waiting in the damp cell, while the clock tolls off hour after hour of our life. From faces that never, the year round, wear a natural look, humanity will for once steal forth as they gaze upon the dying or the doomed. A spectacle like this changes the speed of the blood in its flow, makes men silent, and concentrates upon itself every function of intelligence and attention. Such is the occasion on which Goethe opens to our view Egmont's prison, and gives him that long soliloquy which has already been quoted. The Count remembers how sweetly he used to sleep. He images

himself as some vast tree. A shudder pierces his marrow. He fancies he hears the ringing of the axe. The sound makes him nervous. Then he lifts up his lamentation over the horror that convulses him at thought of death. Thus he continues to afflict himself with his imaginations, bemoaning pains which are nothing else than an oft-repeated sense of inferiority to the exigencies of his position. But it is needless to retravel this ground. The reader is already familiar with it. How much more dignified are the last acts and words of Egmont, as handed down in the received annals of the times. History takes note of them as follows:

"And Egmont,* though it much troubled him that he should come to an end so far below his merits, yet collecting himself, as became a valiant man, and only careful of his wife and children, wrote in French to the king; the copy of which letter, sent by I here give you: Christopher Assouville to the Governess,

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"Sir, since you are pleased that sentence of death must pass upon your humble and faithful subject and servant, who never aimed at any thing but your Majesty's service; for advancement whereof, as my past

actions testify, I neither spared my pains

nor fortunes; but to a thousand dangers have exposed my life, which never was so precious to me, but that, if it might anyway be offensive to your Majesty, I would, a hundred times before this, have exchanged it for death; therefore, I doubt not, but when you shall fully understand the carriage of business in these parts, you have been used, whilst they have persuaded will clearly perceive how injuriously I your Majesty against me, in things that never entered my imagination. I call God to witness, and I pray that he will revenge it upon my soul, that must this day appear before his judgment seat, if I have neglected any part of that which I believe to be my duty toward my king and country. I therefore beseech you, Sir,-I, that shall petition your Majesty no more, that for the reward of all my painful services, you will please a little to commiserate my wife and eleven children, with the rest of my family, which I have commended to some few friends yet left me. And presuming your Majesty, out of your native clemency, will not deny me this, I go to suffer death, which I willingly embrace, assuring myself my end will give many satisfaction. From Bruxells, the 5th of June, at two of the clock, after midnight, in the year 1568.