has shown her so much favour and kindness, she, and classic beauty to Iphigenia. The poet preconfesses all to Thoas, and entreats him to sanction sents his newly finished poem, "Jerusalem Detheir departure, and, won by her eloquence, the livered," to his patron, Alphonso of Ferrari, in noble, though uncivilized monarch consents. the presence of Leonora D'Este, the sister of that Iphigenia is by far the most perfect of all Goethe's prince, and her friend Leonora of Scandiano. The heroines: the exquisite beauty, pathos, and sim- princess compliments him, and places a laurel plicity of her character, her gentle earnest piety, wreath upon his brow. Antonio, the ambassador her high moral attributes, the fondness with which of Ferrari at Rome, returns at this moment; he is she cherishes every memory of her ancient home, filled with envy at the honours conferred on Tasso; and the ardour with which she longs to return meets his proffered friendship with coldness,-his thither, all conspire to charm and delight us. This subsequent surprise with ridicule and sarcasm, play was performed at Weimar as a compliment until the irritated poet forgets that he is within the to Goethe on his 80th birthday. We quote two precints of the palace, and draws his sword on short extracts :-the first is a portion of Iphigenia's him. He is imprisoned, but liberated at the insoliloquy on her own isolated state. tercession of the princess, to whom he flies to express his gratitude, and there gives utterance to his long cherished passion for her. Alphonso discovers this daring, and Tasso is banished. The passionate, enthusiastic, sensitive nature of the poet, is most graphically delineated. The character of the princess comprehends all that is feminine, lovely, and dignified in woman-her calm, gentle earnestness, and highly cultivated reflective mind, are beautifully portrayed. She is second only to Iphigenia. The Countess Leonora too is a finely drawn character, but there is a slight shade of worldliness and self mingling with all her wit, graces, and accomplishments. We cannot forbear extracting portions of two scenes. The first is a conversation between the two friends, and tends to

"Alas, the sea

Doth sever me from all I love!
Day by day on this lone shore I stand,
My soul still pining for the land of Greece.
But to my sighs, the foaming beating waves
With their hoarse murmurs do alone reply:
Alas! for one who desolate and friendless,
Remote from parents and all fond relations dwells!
Grief from him doth snatch each fleeting joy
Before it reach his lip. To his father's halls
His restless thoughts do wander ever,
Where first to him the radiant sun unclosed
The gates of heaven; where day by day, closer
And closer still, brothers and sisters round
Each other did the bonds of love entwine."--Act I.
Scene 1.

The following passage forms the conclusion of

the last act.

Iphigenia. Think on thy promise; let thy
heart be moved

By what a true and honest tongue hath spoken:
O king! look on us. An opportunity

For a deed so noble occurs not oft.

unfold their characters.

--

Princess. Yes, if all have feelings quick a thine;

"Tis a happiness I ofttimes envy thee.

Leonora.-And yet 'tis one which thou, my
friend,

As few besides most fully dost enjoy.
My heart impels me ever to express

Thou canst not refuse! give then thy quick Promptly and freely whatsoe'er I feel,

consent.

Thoas.-Then go.

Iphigenia.-Not so, my king; I cannot part
From thee in anger, or without thy blessing.
Banish us not for ever, but let us
The sacred right of guests still claim:
Honoured and loved as my own father was,
Art thou by me, and ever on my soul
Will gratitude's impression still remain.
Should e'en the meanest peasant in thy land
Bring to mine ear the tones I heard from thee,
Or should I on the humblest see thy garb,
I will with joy receive him, treat him as a prince;
With mine own hands prepare his couch,
Place him in the warmest spot, and ask only
Of thee and of thy fate. O, may the Gods
Thy kindness, thy benignity reward!
Farewell!-Oh! turn thee not away, but give
One kindly word of parting in return;
So shall the wind more gently swell our sails,
And from our eyes, the tears of separation
With softened anguish flow.

Fare thee well once more! And wilt thou not
Graciously extend thy hand to me
In pledge of ancient friendship?
Thoas.-(Extending his hand.) Fare thee well.
"Torquato Tasso," ranks next in point of poetic

While thou, with feelings more intense, art silent.
Delusive splendour doth not dazzle thee,
Nor wit beguile; vainly.doth flattery strive
With fawning artifice to win thine ear.
Firm is thy temper, most correct thy taste,
Thy judgment just, thyself most truly great,
And with greatness dost thou ever sympathize.
Princess. This highly coloured flattery thou
should'st not

In the sacred garb of lovely friendship dress.
Leonora--Friendship is just; she alone can
estimate

The full extent and measure of thy worth.
Even if to fortune and to chance belong
Thy culture, it still is thine-and

All the world do speak thy sister and thyself
The noblest women of the present age.

Princess.-That can but little move me when I
think,

How poor at best we are, and for what we are;
How much to others more indebted than ourselves.
My acquaintance with the ancient tongues
And with the treasures by the past bequeathed,
I to my mother owe, who in varied lore,
And mental power, her daughters far excelied.
If either of us with her can be compared,
It is Lucretia, certainly not I.

possessed such an one of Shakspeare, Milton, and some few more of the great spirits of our country. We cannot forbear making one short extract, as it shows Goethe's opinion on a somewhat disputed point:

"First love, it has been justly said, is the only real one. If that feeling does return a second time, its brightest gem, its sublimest attribute, namely its infinity, its eternity is gone for ever; by the very act of loving again do we learn that the feeling is perishable and evanescent, appearing and disappearing like all other earthly things." "Herman and Dorothea" is a poem in hexameters, modelled after Homer; the subject is a "Jerry and Betsy" has appeared on our stage as a musical opera, entitled "Batley."

obtain uninterrupted activity, change, and bustle;
that bodily motion may deaden the mind's fierce
longing. His fate is that of all who quit the path
of truth for that of error, who prefer the welfare
of the body to that of the soul. As soon as the
intellect of man succumbs to his passions he is
rapidly whirled into the vortex of sensuality and
material existence. The character of Faust is true
to itself in all its bearings, and the glimpses of his
better and gentler nature, which occasionally break
like sunbeams through the dark clouds which en-
velope him, are touches by a master hand. Me-
phistophiles, the tempter, the evil spirit by whose
agency he is led onwards in his downward career,
is no vulgar devil, with hoofs, horns, and tail-love-tale in simple life.
but a subtle, shrewd, sarcastic, artful being. Virtue
is to him a mere farce; honour, an empty sound;
honesty, a mark assumed to enable its wearer the
better to cheat; good, a mere illusion; and evil,
the sole reality. It is no individual dislike to the
man which leads him to tempt Faust, but simply
a wish to experimentalize on human nature. He
is the devil of the present day, polished and re-
fined, stripped of all his tell-tale characteristics,
with which he is painted to terrify ignorance; but
not one whit less malevolent, less to be shunned
and hated. The character of Margaret is very
touchingly and naturally sketched; her youthful
simplicity, her love, her child-like devotion and
trust, nay, even her fall, are pictures full of
nature; and at the moment when, amid the
ravings of madness, she prefers a death of igno-
miny to a life of sin, she wins our perfect sym-
pathy.

We forbear to make any extracts, as so many translations of this drama exist, among which those by Dr. Anster, and Lord Leveson Gower, rank highest.

|

"Wilhelm Meister's Peregrination," although retaining marks of the master's hand, and not wanting in beauties, betrays occasional tokens of the prosiness and garrulity of age.

"Die Wahlverwandschaften" (Elective attractions) is a novel containing many beauties, and some scenes of great delicacy and interest; but its moral bearing is peculiar, and unsuited to English opinions.

The sequel to Faust, Pandora, and some few other of his later dramatic and poetical writings, betray a deficiency of power; but even to the last Goethe was the master-spirit of the age.

The universality of his genius was one of the most striking features in this great poet's literary character. No writer ever attempted such a variety of styles, and succeeded so well in all; and none ever possessed, in so high a degree, the power of carrying his reader along with him, and exciting his most perfect sympathy. None was ever so persuasive, so fascinating, and gifted with such unlimited command of language. It is almost impossible to escape the spell which his enthusiasm throws over our senses.

"Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjähr" (apprenticeship) is a prose work, imbued with great enthusiasm of imagination and feeling, united with glowing and faithful descriptions of the beauties of nature. It Fully to understand his greatness, we must also contains one of Goethe's most admired lyrical pro- observe that he may in some measure be regarded ductions, of which Byron has given us a beautiful as the creator of German literature; for before his version in his ballad, "Know'st thou the land of time little had been written in the language that the cypress and myrtle." The main purpose of could be said to possess any decided superiority this work is to exhibit the progress of a youth who, of thought or style. He trod no beaten path, but though at first ignorant of the world, and filled created a bright world of his own, peopled it with with the most romantic ideas, becomes in process the beings of his own imagination, and then deof time an accomplished gentleman. It contains lighted his countrymen with the vivid and graphic many valuable criticisms, not the least of which is pictures which his eloquent pen sketched of its that on Shakspeare's Hamlet. The gentle, roman-scenery, its inhabitants, and their feelings, passions, tic, confiding Wilhelm; the sceptical Jarno; the and actions. business-like Werner; the calm, polished Lothario; the unearthly and enthusiastic Harper; the gay, lively Philena; and the mysterious and almost spiritual Mignon, who sat for the model of Scott's Fenella and Victor Hugo's Esmeralda; all are sketched with a truthful and masterly hand; all blend together to form one harmonious whole, wherein man's passions, life, and business, feelings, hopes, and purposes are imaged out in types of poetic and beautiful significance.

"Dichtung and Wahrheit" is an exquisite work, wherein perfect knowledge of the world is united with tolerance and candour of judgment; as an autobiography it is unrivalled; would that we

He was an enthusiastic admirer of the beautiful wherever it is found, shone in polished society, and was in life and opinions a decided aristocrat.

Among his own countrymen there are two distinct parties, one claiming supremacy of poetic skill for Goethe, the other for Schiller; and many and various are the opinions put forth by each. We quote two. Jean Paul Richter says, "There is in Goethe a plastic rounding, a dictatorial determinateness, which betrays the manual artist, and makes all his works resemble a gallery of bronze and marble statues."

Novalis says of him, "He is in his works what the English are in their manufactures-simple,

convenient, and useful; and has done in German | And nuns entomb'd at dead of night, literature what Wedgwood did among English

artists."

And Menzel, even while he does due homage to the "mighty mind," to the graphic powers, and artistic skill of this great poet, adds, "But Goethe has infected our youth with a baneful disease, not of body, but of mind; leading them to desire to be more than their nature admits of, to strive after impossibilities, or coldly and superciliously to look down on the world, and complain that it is far too common-place for them. Many really talented individuals have been led astray by this fallacious reasoning; the idea that they are shining lights, and as such ought to be worshipped, has turned the brain of many clever youths, and prevented them from afterwards becoming what, in a more healthful frame of mind, they were fully capable of being."

But our remarks have already far exceeded their due limit, and were we to make them doubly as long, our faint praise could add nothing to the honour of him of whom we speak. Goethe is the pride of his own country, the admired of every nation to which his fame and works have reached.

EDITORIAL TRIALS.
(Addressed to the Editress.)

BY MRS. ABDY.

Lady, amid the crowd who gaze
On these, thy graceful-varied pages,
Fertile in stories and in lays,

Adapted to all tastes and ages,
How few regard in pitying thought

The anxious toils of thy employment— How many deem its duties fraught

With constant pastime and enjoyment!

But I, who may presume to guess
The cares of letter'd occupation,
Know that thy work derives success
From due and skilful preparation.
In fancy I behold thee sit,

At midnight, by the gleaming taper,
Searching for genius and for wit,

Amid vast piles of scribbled paper.

"Tributes to Friendship"-"Woodbine Bowers"

Musings by Moonlight on the Waters". Songs of a Sad One"-Faded Flowers""Stanzas to Infant Sons and Daughters""Sonnets to Freedom"-" Last Farewells"Odes to pet lap-dogs and canariesLays from desponding "Isabels "

And lyrics from deserted "Marys !"

And tales in prose of flames and darts,
And trellis'd cots and empty purses,

And ruthless sires and broken hearts,

And children chang'd by treacherous nurses!

And seamen toss'd upon the billow,
And spectral forms array'd in white,
Flitting around the murderer's pillow!
These thy continual labour ask,
Yet, lady, dread not the inspection:
Well art thou fitted for the task
Of vigilant and wise selection;
Giving to some inspiring hope,
To others kind advice extending;
And striving, in the words of Pope,
Oft to "reject" without "offending."

Co on; nor in thy efforts tire,

Experience thou shalt thus acquire,
Whatever troubles may impede thee;

Habits of prompt and cheerful zeal,
Suited through life's rough paths to lead thee;

And power to think, to act, and feel,
Clearness and strength of mental vision,

With rational and firm decision.

Would that thy sex were all endow'd,
To seek the wise, admire the good,
Like thee, with ready comprehension,
Scan and unveil each false pretensi
Administer reproof with grace,

Give meek timidity a trial,
And ever, in the proper place,
Accord acceptance and denial.

IMPROMPTU ON RECEIVING THE
ABOVE.

Dear Lady, would I more deserved
The praise your verses send,
Where wit and fancy sparkling bright,
With kindly wishes blend.

If worthier than-white paper stain'd,
If BELLE be sometimes blue,
The honour be to minds like thine,
Who give the proper hue!

SONG.

BY DAVID LESTER RICHARDSON.

As quickly as the light leaf shivers,
When zephyr haunts the bower,
As quickly as the needle quivers

Beneath the magnet's power;
My true heart vibrates at the sound
Of thy sweet voice divine,
And yearns, with tenderness profound,
To blend itself with thine.

Not long the storm-vexed stream could dally
On yon rough mountain's breast;
It swiftly wound into the valley,
Its own sweet place of rest;
And thus o'er wild ambition's height
I quickly ceased to roam,

And sought with thee the calm delight,
The blest repose of home.

Of all English rustic employments with which we are acquainted, haymaking is assuredly the most delightful. Talk, as much as you please, about the "merry harvest field," and "the reaper's joyful band;" write songs and sonnets on them, and revel in descriptions of sturdy youths, and dark-eyed gleaners, they belong not, after all, to our island under southern skies, they are beautiful enough; but, in England, say what you will, the most picturesque aud delightful rural scene is presented by the hay-field. We never yet encountered any one who did not like haymaking, and if it should ever be our lot to meet such an individual, we shall immediately pronounce him altogether destitute of sympathy with the pleasures of the country, and cold and callous to nature's fairest prospects.

however great, will be destroyed for ever; for we shall then all have entered into a state where neither crowns, nor principalities, nor powers, will anything avail, but the upright heart and pure will receive its exceeding reward. Surely, then, it is well for us, during our pilgrimage here, to mingle freely at times with those fellow mortals who, though their names are unrecorded by the herald's pen, perhaps possess souls capable of thoughts as lofty as our own; in whose bosoms may beat hearts less polluted by pride and sin. They lose much both of pleasure and knowledge who, haughtily environing themselves with state, refrain from inquiring into the feelings by which the humbler classes are actuated.

What noble sentiments, though couched in rude language, we occasionally hear fall from peasant lips! what beautiful ideas are sometimes given utterance to by those whose talk might reasonably be expected to be of nought but oxen. They themselves are wholly unconscious of it; their mental faculites have never been cultivated, and, devoid of education, they labour on, holding, it may be, in secret, a sweet, but unutterable, communion with the choice things of nature that surround them; breathing to the wild flowers, and the sighing zephyrs, and the stars of night, those thoughts which, under more favourable circumstances, would have conferred immortality; and having finished their course noiselessly, they are borne to the burial-place of their fathers, and there laid down to mingle ashes with ashes, and dust with dust, unnoticed and unremembered. Unremembered, said we? Nay, verily, even for them Memory has a shrine in the fond hearts of surviving kindred and friends, and the fair maidens whom they loved when living will visit their graves with tears as precious, and, it may be, far truer than those shed on the tombs of coronetted rank. So passes away many a young rustic genius, ignorant of his own powers, but happy in that very ignorance. He enjoys the pleasant things which God has made for all as much as does the most renowned. He breathes the fresh air of heaven, and listens to the lark's sweet song, and inhales the dewy fragrance of the meadow blossoms, and so goes on, contented and rejoicing, until the dread messenger calls him, and, like one of those blossoms, he quietly lies down to moulder in the lap of our mother earth, thus putting off the mortal for the immortal. If the world has not known him, he, on his part, has not known the cares of ambition; therefore we may, without error, in this

Can anything be more charming than a stroll through a newly-strewn field, when the sweet scent of the fresh-cut hay is perfuming the evening breeze, and rendering the whole atmosphere odoriferous? Can anything be more delightful than to mingle with the merry groups of haymakers whilst they are busily engaged in turning the fragrant crop, or raking it into winrows previous to getting? No other employment seems half so healthy or exhilirating. All are brimful of mirth, that vents itself in innocent jests and hearty laughter. The old actually recover their energy for a while, and the indolent are roused to activity; the flush of health is recalled to pallid cheeks, and so equalising is the influence of the situation (as indeed is always the case when persons of different ranks are brought together in natural scenes), that Pride unbends his haughty brow, and Humility loses at least one half her timidity. We like this; for, although no one is readier, in proper place and season, to yield or claim honour for those to whom it is due, we abhor that frigid stateliness, that unapproachable pomp, which arrogates to itself a superiority in body and spirit above its human brethren, and sitting enthroned in a sort of mysterious and self-pronounce him happy. created semi-divinity, bears written on its front, "Touch me not, for I am better than ye."

We all entered into the world alike, and alike we must all depart; bringing nothing with us, and taking nothing away. Even during our stay here, despite the different ranks and callings which necessarily exist, we participate in the self-same feelings. The noble and the peasant, the rich and the poor, have the same thoughts, cherish the same hopes, weep the same tears, and suffer the same emotions of sorrow or joy, although modified by fortuitous accidents: and when a few transcient years shall have passed away, all distinctions,

But we are wandering from the haymakers and their pleasant task. Let us return, and, entering yonder field, walk down the line of joyous and laughing maidens who are moving so briskly across it, turning, as they go, the hay which was strewn yesterday. It is a well known fact, that the climate of England, notwithstanding its variable character, is peculiarly favourable to beauty; and, consequently, we find the females of our lower orders not only possessed of charms we vainly look for in the same class in continental countries, Spain perhaps excepted, but also retaining them at a period of life when foreigners have lost all pre