| | | | | To have made Goethe a great man, as he undoubtedly was a great | poet, there was only wanting one circumstance: that he should | have been born a Briton, and not a German ~~ that he should have | lived in London, and not in Weimar. If it be true, as Schiller has it, | that ~~ | | | Then the converse of the maxim is also true that ~~ | | Thus, taking men as men are constituted, it might have been most | certainly predicated, a priori, that the young, robust Goethe of | Frankfort, transplanted into the delicate glass-house of a petty | German court, at the age of five-and-twenty, and there nursed and | nurtured by the smooth hands of princes and princesses, during the | quiet uniformity of an octogenarian life ~~ must have necessarily | degenerated into the dreaming philosophe, | and the curious artist, who shrinks | back with an instinctive dread from the rough conflicts and | collisions of life. We do not mean here to say anything against the | private or public character of the Duke Charles Augustus, or the | Duchess Louisa of Weimar. Their worth is universally | acknowledged, and none but a malicious person would dare to spit | a spot of black venom upon their pure vestments; but, with all their | excellences, they belonged to the order of princes; and it has | always been our opinion that a prince is not the highest style of | man, and that a court is not the most fitting atmosphere for a poet. | So long as we hold this opinion, we cannot but lament deeply that | Goethe ever went to Weimar; and, after long and patient study, we | are convinced that his residence there acted most unfavourably, not | only upon his poetical activity, but upon what is, in our eyes, of | more importance ~~ his character as a man. It is in vain, indeed, | that some critics, more subtle than sound, set themselves to make a | nice distinction between the character of the poet and the character | of the man. If poetry be, as it has been well designated, the | blossom of humanity, it is impossible that it can be independent of | that root and stem of human character from which it springs. A | reckless and vicious man may, indeed, shoot forth wild arabesques | of fancy, and make the black atmosphere of his moral deformity | resplendent with the meteors of his wit; but the health, the dignity, | the purity of feeling that pervades the soul of the true poet, as from | the presence of an indwelling god, will be sought for in vain. To | write a heroic poem, the first great essential, as Milton says, is, that | yourself be a hero; and the best preparation for writing truth, is to | act it ~~ as the evangelist | expresses it. | No person can read Goethe's later works without being convinced | that these remarks apply with very great force to him. We do not, | indeed, say, that, living in any part of Germany, | born, as he was, in the middle of the last century, it was to | have been expected that he should ever turn out a hero in the world | of action. But there was something sound and healthy, and | essentially human, in his "Gots von | Berlichingen," and others of his early works, which gave promise | of better things than the "West-Eastern Divan," and the second part | of "Faust." We say better things, with a | special reference to the common sympathies and feelings of | healthy humanity; for, so far as mere luxuriance of a rich and | playful fancy is concerned, nothing could be better than the second | part of "Faust," while the "West-Eastern Divan" is a perfect harem | of poetical voluptuousness, such as an Eastern sultan might rejoice | to have recourse to when satiated with his real one. But in these | works we seek in vain for anything strong ~~ anything energetic | ~~ anything by which the whole active man may be steeled against | the rude insults, | | and strengthened to work himself through the hard duties of life. | Compare the "Prometheus Vinctus" of Aeschylus with the second, | or, if you please, with the first part of "Faust," and you will | understand what we mean. Look at the Titan! With what | unbending force of moral energy he stands alone against the whole | host of despot gods, nursing a hate of tyranny too deep to be | spoken! See with what calm disdain he rejects the repeated | supplications of Ocean and Ocean's daughters! and with what an | air of conscious superiority he turns a deaf | ear to the overtures of Herald Mercury, subservient minion | of the usurped dynasty of Olympus! Look now at Faust! Here you | have neither clear intellect nor decided will. You see a creature of | groping speculation and dreaming mysticism, suddenly | metamorphosed into a base and degraded sensualist, as irresolute | in active life as he was confused and sceptical in theoretical. This | creature sells his soul to the Devil, as it would seem, for no other | purpose than that he may make use of the daring hand of a | supernatural power to attain the enjoyment of base, sensual | pleasures ~~ fruits which his own milky villany had no courage to | pluck. In the outset of his career, however, he does at times | indicate the existence of feelings in his bosom such as a noble and | generous mind can sympathise with. The prison scene with | Margaret is true to nature and satisfactory to our moral sense. This | forms a worthy conclusion to the first part of the poem. But follow | the sensualist in his ripened career, and see in what garb he | appears. He is now the mere football of whim and fancy ~~ a thing | not only destitute of all energy of character, but without any | character at all; a trifling plaything in the hand of a trifler; a soap | bubble, blown into existence by one who has the name of a devil | and the nature of a buffoon. The metaphysical dreamer is now | changed ~~ very naturally perhaps ~~ into a child, and, like a | child, amused with vulgar harlequinading shows and empty | juggleries of fire and water. The loves of the sensualist are now | become as unsubstantial as himself ~~ the phantom | recherche of all sensualists is serenaded into | Heaven by the liltings of a few boys, for not other reason that we | can see than because he has neither strength, not stuff, nor spirit | enough to be a proper inmate of Hell. | It is not our intention to follow out these remarks ~~ as might | easily be done ~~ by an examination of the whole series of | Goethe's works. Let this one instance suffice to shew, that whoever | wishes to train his mind to manly energy and independence of | character, must seek it in some Avatar of "the divine" very | different from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In a work, for | instance, of Goethian memorabilia which has lately appeared, | we find the following specimen of very flimsy critical | sophistry, to prove that the ideas of "fatherland" and "patriotism" | are no parts of a poet's universal heritage, and that the true | "artist" must necessarily freeze up his human | feelings against all sympathy with the great political regenerations | of his species: ~~ said Goethe, speaking | of the celebrated destiny tragedians | | | Now, this whole passage which we have extracted at length, is a | specimen of as glaring one-sidedness as | we, who are no believers in the many-sided | universality of the Weimarian bard could have happily | stumbled upon. It contains two propositions equally false and | equally emasculate. The first proposition here openly expressed is, | that a poet should not only seclude himself from all share in the | active business of life, but also keep his mind from any | fellow-feeling or warm brotherly sympathy with political changes. The | second proposition, which is covertly implied in this passage, is, | that a poet, if he allows his mind to think upon political subjects at | all, must necessarily espouse the weak and milky tenets of | Toryism. Perhaps these two propositions, though different in the | form of words, are not substantially distinct; for no man who has | looked with an eye of common discernment into the character of | the individuals of whom political parties are composed, can have | failed to observe, that, wherever a man is weak, timid, irresolute, | and, as it were a cipher in political sentiment, that man will be | found, in the hour of trial, skulking in the defeated rear of Toryism. | To say that a man has no politics, is, accordingly, practically | equivalent to saying that he is a Conservative. And, in perfect | accordance with this remark, we find that Goethe, though he | constantly gave himself out as a man of no political party, was, | nevertheless, at soul and bottom, a Conservative; and we find him | upon all occasions preaching Tory doctrines, and looking with a | jealous eye upon the noble band of patriot poets whom he saw | rising up in Swabia: ~~ said | he to Eckermann ~~ | This speech is worth remembering. | With Goethe the poet is nothing but an eye, | lined with a most exquisitely sensitive retina, upon which the | multifarious pictures of nature and art play their most whimsical | and planless dance. The "artist" may look, but he may not strike. | No matter what scenes of injustice and oppression may be enacted | before him ~~ he is not supposed to have human blood or human | feelings; and where a vulgar man would raise his sword and smite | a tyrant, he pulls out his pencil and sketches a few traits in the | character of an Oriental despot. But he is not even allowed this | privilege. His

"nature"

is too

"tender"

| to stand the rubs and | collisions of common life; he must creep into his study, and peruse | Greek cameos and Chinese romances. If Goethe himself is to be | held up as the beau-ideal of the political character, then in the true | poet we must always find | The learned Goethian memorialist from | whom we have quoted these last words, deduces this laudable | peculiarity of character from Goethe's mother; and Mrs. Austin | labours to shew, in a note, that the most distinguished men in this | country, as in Germany, have derived their most distinguished | qualities from their mothers. This may be in some cases; but the | instance of Goethe is peculiarly unfortunate ~~ for that quality of | mind which he is said to have derived from his mother, is a | weakness rather than an excellence, and precisely such a weakness | as, in nervous and sensitive woman, is most common. We are | inclined, indeed, to go a certain length with that stout | anti-Goethian Wolfgang Menzel, and to say that there is something | weak and effeminate about Goethe's whole genius. At all events, it | is somewhat remarkable, that he should have whipped up his | voluptuous Faust into a heaven principally composed of women, | and that he should have chosen to conclude his last and greatest | work with a hymn in praise of the

"eternally female."

| The arguments by which Goethe has chosen to defend his political | indifference, or, what is the same thing, his indolent Conservatism, | are not worth serious refutation. If a soldier, like a lawyer, is too | often a mere machine, this can be no reason why a poet should be | so. Poetry, indeed, is no separate profession, like law, theology, | medicine, or soldiership. Its voice is neither the voice of the bar, | nor the voice of the pulpit, nor the voice of the cannon; but it is | emphatically the voice of man. If, indeed, it were the sole province | of the artist to decorate the palaces of the great with the playful | sports of a trifling fancy ~~ if it were the sole province of the poet | to be the rhyming herald of courtly feasts and masquerades ~~ in | this case, poetry might be looked upon as a separate profession, | living apart from the serious interests, from the stirring hopes and | fears of human life. But, is it not plain that the bard divine is thus | sunk into something little more dignified than a court buffoon, and | the

"maker,"

the creator of shapes and thoughts Heaven-pointing, | becomes a mere carver and gilder to an earthly majesty? Such | unworthy thoughts of poets and poetry, we cannot entertain. The | true artist is a patriot, not merely by turning his verses and mixing | his colours, but by feeling, and acting, and writing, as a patriot | | ought to feel, and to write, and to act. He may not, on all | occasions, be a soldier, while he is a singer ~~ though Korner was | so, and so was Dante; but he will always cherish, in his heart, a | warm, glowing sympathy with the political and religious condition | of his fatherland. The only subject of his theme is humanity, pure | and noble humanity; and it is impossible that he can ever remain | indifferent to the advancement and amelioration of his race. He is | not allowed to be

"the impartial spectator,"

much less is he | allowed to be the indifferent sceptic. If man, and man's life, be nothing | else to him than the hubbub of a fair, and the juggling of a mountebank, | he deserves no longer the sacred name of a bard. The limbs and | outward flourishes may remain; but the soul, the vital principle, is | gone. The sermon is ingenious and eloquent, but it hath no unction | from above ~~ Israel is still Israel, but the glory is departed from | the midst of it. | We have said that Goethe was a Tory. It is not merely in literary | matters that he throws off the mask of pretended political | indifference, and shews the old German aristocrat in all his | narrowness and in all his coldness. We have also his recorded | opinions on the important subjects of the Slave-Trade, Catholic | Emancipation, etcetera; and on | these subjects his mind, which has been | so often compared to a mirror of universal nature, becomes, | without effort, the mirror of vulgarest English Toryism. In his | "Walpurgis Night's Dream," he could afford to laugh at Nicolai's | Jesuitical apprehensions, and he spared not his wit upon the |

"inquisitive traveller",

who walked with |

"stiff and measured paces"

| through the motley hubbub of the Brocken; but, in his latter years, | the cry of

"No Popery!"

seems to have been potent in working | even upon his sceptical ears; and, on the 3d April 1829, when the | Emancipation question was agitated in England, we find him | lecturing honest Eckermann as follows: ~~ | | On the 7th of April, of the same year, we find him returning to the | same theme: ~~ said he, | | More lamentable derangement of judgment than these extracts | exhibit ~~ and that too in a man who has been justly celebrated for | the clearness and comprehensiveness of his intellectual vision ~~ it | has seldom been our lot to encounter. So far as our observation has | hitherto gone, it is only in Britain that Catholic Emancipation has | ever been made a question; the

"impartial spectator"

abroad, | whether Whig or Tory, has generally seen, without any difficulty, | through the flimsy webs of political reasonings, whose substance is | sophistry, and whose mother is sheerest selfishness. But through | these webs, Goethe ~~ the universal, and many-sided, the | prophetic, Goethe ~~ could not see. The mist of Court-Toryism | was before his eyes, and there was no Minerva at hand to remove | it. Let other thinkers look and learn. Let them not make their abode | in palaces, neither put their trust in princes. | We have expressed, in language sufficiently strong, our own views | with regard to that state of contemplative quietism and passionless | scepticism, in which, according to Goethe's doctrine,

"the tender | nature of a poet"

ought to be nursed. But we cannot dismiss this | subject without adding to our humble opinion the weight and | authority of such a name as John Gottfried Herder. This man was | of a nature more tender and more sensitive than either Goethe | himself, or the beau-ideal of poetical sensibility that we have seen | him set up; but this extreme irritability of his constitution he did | not nourish, and fondle, and fold in a blanket, like a sick child; but | he sent forth its sympathetic feelers into every path and recess of | human existence. Let us hear how this truly great man estimated | Goethe's boasted

"equipoise of the soul,"

and what he thought of | the import and significance of that mystic syllable ART ~~ the | sacred OM of Germanic Brahmism, which Goethe was continually | repeating: ~~ | said Herder; | | | The manly sarcasm of this passage must have had some effect on | Goethe, if anything could; but Nature, as Horace says, cannot be | driven out by a pitchfork; and Goethe remained to the end of his | life the same trifling, indifferent artist, | that Herder had known him when a student at Strasburg, | says he, in a letter written | about that period, | How thoroughly Herder here saw through Goethe's | character, is manifest from almost every page of the poet's future | works. The want of that | offends us in many parts even of his more serious | works, (as in the first part of "Faust,") but is particularly felt in | such of his later works as have a more direct reference to the living | world and its living history. None of the mighty movements of | time that propel the vessel of humanity towards its destined haven, | can move him to send forth one horn from the shell of artistical | self-satisfaction in which he reposed; the roar of patriotic cannon | and the shout of a nation's triumph, are equally unheard; and to | every prophet of Church or State, whose voice proclaims the | advent of a new era in the great history of human advancement, he | says, with the rude soldier in his own puppet play: ~~ | | The sentiment conveyed in these lines is neither more nor less than | that hopeless scepticism in human nature, which is the essence of | philosophical, as distinguished from merely traditionary and | consuetudinary Toryism. It is that want of faith | in man, without which ~~ however our theologians may at | times overlook it ~~ any real, profitable edifying | faith in God is impossible. It is the

"live and | let live"

principle with which the grandsons of Luther had still bent | the knee before a Pope, and the free man of Gaul still worshipped | the gilded Dagon of the old noblesse. Goethe, indeed was a most | faithful worshipper of that Dagon, as his Campaign in 1792, and | other of his works, bear witness; and as to Martin Luther and the | glorious Reformation, notwithstanding the specimens of | anti-Catholicism which we have above given from Eckermann's | conversations, the poet of Faust had truly much less sympathy with | the energy of Protestantism than with the repose of Catholicism; | and we have no cause to be surprised when Falk informs us that | With all deference, we see nothing | mysterious in the matter. Energy, enthusiasm, and, above all, moral | earnestness, were elements in which Luther's character | wonderfully excelled, and Goethe's was as wonderfully defective. | Hence the aversion to Luther, and hence that offensive trifling and | playing with serious subjects, from which none, even of Goethe's | greatest admirers, have been able successfully to vindicate him. It | is of no use here to mystify our clear English senses with some | foreign prate about objectivity, subjectivity, | aesthetics, etcetera, | wherewith pedantic Teutonists have been | lately endeavouring to corrupt the simple phrase of English | criticism. Human feelings are human feelings; and so long as they | remain what they are, the colloquial levity of the celebrated | prologue to "Faust," and the inane buffoonery of the second part, | can never be made consistent either with the reverence that is | inspired by religion, or the dignity that is suitable to poetry. As | little can a healthy mind sympathise with the broad farce into | which the "Burger-general" | metamorphose the fearful realities of the French Revolution. Of | that great event, sound-minded men can have only two | | opinions; they must look upon it either as a deadly poison, tainting, | or as a fevered paroxysm, regenerating the body politic. But in | whichever light they view it, it can assuredly never become a | matter of jest; and it is one of the most appalling symptoms of the | moral disease that weakened Goethe's mind, that he had the | audacity to bring this most serious scene in the great epos of | modern history, upon the Weimar stage in the form of a farce. But | the words of Herder were prophetic, and that "ART" of which | Goethe made an idol, being without

"holy earnestness,"

at last | degenerated into

"mere jugglery and buffoonery."

| We have thrown off these remarks on the weak points of Goethe's | character, not from any perverse, critical desire to detract from his | real merits as a calm observer, a beautiful painter, and a profound | speculator on man and nature. Neither are we of the number of | those unreasonable critics who demand of Mother Nature, without | a blush, that she should unite, for their admiration, the souls of a | Plato and an O'Connell in one individual. Even the universal | Shakspeare was universal only in his own province of poetry. Had | he been tried by his contemporaries by the same unreasonable | standard that Borne, and those that echo his babble, have tried | Goethe, he might have been weighed in the balance and found | wanting. But our object, on the present occasion, has been to shake | ourselves free, in some measure, from the choking atmosphere of | Toryism that pervades the works of Germany's greatest poet, and | to warn our philo-Teutonic youth against that cold indifference to | the progress of human society, and that nerveless apathy to the | great stirring interests of the day, which too long a sojourn in the | region of Goetheism is apt to engender. It has, at the same time, | and most especially, been our object to enter our decided protest | against that spirit of blind, indiscriminating admiration with which | the prevalent party in Germany regard the genius of Goethe. The | manner in which German minds allow themselves to be blindly | lorded over by a succession of literary absolutists, appears to us, | unequivocally, as one of the most unfavourable traits in the | national character. The despotic sway which Lutheran polemics | long exercised over their Church, is well known; after the | exhaustion of the thirty year' war, they submitted to be tame | imitators of the French; and, so late as the middle of the last | century, we find them submitting to the dictation of such a critic of | straw as John Christopher Gotttsched. Then followed the | Pindarico-patriotic mania, excited by Klopstock. Lessing never | was a universal favourite ~~ for he is too severe; but after the | short, convulsive explosion of tears and gunpowder excited by | Werther. Wieland was, for a series of years, the pet of this | weak-minded public. Wieland, however, was too French, too frivolous, | for the serious spirit that the French Revolution was awakening in | the minds of men; and the dictators of the romantic school arose, | with the two Schlegels at their head, calling up the Barbarossas and | the Bonifaces of a lost age, to revive the sunken spirit of German | patriotism. These men reigned for a time. But they committed one | strange mistake: they crowned Goethe as the Charlemagne of this | holy Roman empire of poetry; and, in so doing, they acted like | Aesop's boor, who was stung to death by the frozen viper whom | his foolish benevolence had warmed to life within his bosom. | Goethe was neither a romanticist nor a patriot; and sympathized as | little with the Virgin Mary as with Hermann and Velleda. But he | sat down quietly upon the throne which the heads of the romantic | school placed before him; and there he sits quietly to the present | day, holding undisputed sway over the whole north of Germany, | and disturbed only by the distant missiles sent from the fettered | hands of a few honest Liberals in Swabis, and a few desperate | Republicans in Paris. Nor is Goethe a king only in the eyes of | many ~~ he is also a god. More highly favoured than the ancient | heroes, he received divine honours even during his life-time; he | was spared the cumbersome ceremony of canonization, and | mounted up to Heaven as instinctively as some cloud that merely | has reposed on without having ever been fettered to this vulgar | earth. The worship that was paid to him during life continues | uninterrupted after death; and the centre of that worship is and was | Berlin. Fit conjunction that political and poetical absolutism should | mingle in friendly mystification together! | But the reign of this poetical superstition cannot last for ever. | Already the dawn of a new day is seen; the voice of

"Young | Germany"

has issued from the honest breast of Swabis ~~ and that | voice must be heard. We do not mean by this designation,

"Young | Germany,"

to express an approval of all the mad pranks that | certain mad youths have lately been exhibiting before their modest | countrymen under that self-imposed title. But there is a "Young | Germany" altogether independent of the Haines and the Bornes, | the Gutzkows and the Wiengbargs, whose extravagances and | excesses have connected an unworthy association with a name in | which every true German should rejoice. There is an

"Old | Germany"

and there is a

"Young Germany,"

to one of which | great national divisions every German now alive necessarily belongs. |

"Old Germany"

is now very old. His senile weakness was first | shewn in the battle of Jena; and, in the rising of 1813, the shout of | a nation rang his death warning; but, like many old dotards, he did | not understand it. It is indeed quite natural and quite proper that he | should be unwilling to die, and that he should resort to every mean | shift and base subterfuge to prolong his waning life for a season. | Let him gag the mouth of nature, let him set up the image of | Goethe and call it God, let him change the free institutions of | youthful education into the mere manufactures of submissive | thought, and drill a whole people into the discipline of one vast | military school: ~~ it is all in vain. The day of his death is at | | hand. Time will not stop his march for him; and will trample upon | kings and aristocrats as recklessly as he did upon the slaves and | serfs of a former age. Time has declared for Young Germany, for | Liberal Germany; and old Germany, Aristocratic Germany, must | yield. May God grant him a speedy dissolution, and we shall not | refuse him the prayer ~~ |