We have left ourselves no room to make any reflections; except, only, that the French fashion of living, and almost of dying, in public, is nowhere so strikingly exemplified, as in the letters of this victim of passion and of fancy. While her heart is torn with the most agonizing passions, and her thoughts turned hourly on suicide, she dines out, and makes visits every day; and, when she is visibly within a few weeks of her end, and is wasted with coughs and spasms, she still has her salon filled twice a day with company, and drags herself out to supper with all the countesses of her acquaintance. There is a great deal of French character, indeed, in both the works of which we now take our leave;—a great deal to admire, and to wonder at-but very little, we think, to envy. (August, 1825.) Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship: a Novel. From the German of GOETHE. 3 vols. 12mo. pp. 1030. Edinburgh: 1824. THERE are few things that at first sight ap- | before judgment, warmth of feeling before pear more capricious and unaccountable, than correct reasoning-and splendid declamation the diversities of national taste; and yet there and broad humour before delicate simplicity are not many, that, to a certain extent at least, or refined wit. In the arts again, the progress admit of a clearer explanation. They form is strictly analagous-from mere monstrosity evidently a section in the great chapter of to ostentatious displays of labour and design, National Character; and, proceeding on the first in massive formality, and next in fantas assumption, that human nature is everywhere tical minuteness, variety, and flutter of parts; fundamentally the same, it is not perhaps very difficult to indicate, in a general way, the circumstances which have distinguished it into so many local varieties. and then, through the gradations of startling contrasts and overwrought expression, to the repose and simplicity of graceful nature. These considerations alone explain much These may be divided into two great class- of that contrariety of taste by which different es, the one embracing all that relates to the nations are distinguished. They not only newness or antiquity of the society to which start in the great career of improvement at they belong, or, in other words, to the stage different times, but they advance in it with which any particular nation has attained in different velocities some lingering longer in that great progress from rudeness to refine- one stage than another-some obstructed and ment, in which all are engaged;-the other some helped forward, by circumstances opercomprehending what may be termed the ac-ating on them from within or from without. cidental causes by which the character and condition of communities may be affected; such as their government, their relative position as to power and civilization to neighbouring countries, their prevailing occupations, determined in some degree by the capabilities of their soil and climate, and more than all perhaps, as to the question of taste, the still more accidental circumstance of the character of their first models of excellence, or the kind of merit by which their admiration and national vanity had first been excited. It is needless to illustrate these obvious sources of peculiarity at any considerable length. It is not more certain, that all primitive communities proceed to civilization by nearly the same stages, than that the progress of taste is marked by corresponding gradations, and may, in most cases, be distinguished into periods, the order and succession of which is nearly as uniform and determined. If tribes of savage men always proceed, under ordinary circumstances, from the occupation of hunting to that of pasturage, from that to agriculture, and from that to commerce and manufactures, the sequence is scarcely less invariable in the history of letters and art. In the former, verse is uniformly antecedent to prose-marvellous legends to correct history-exaggerated sentiments to just representations of nature. Invention, in short, regularly comes It is the unavoidable consequence, however, of their being in any one particular position, that they will judge of their own productions and those of their neighbours, according to that standard of taste which belongs to the place they then hold in this great circle;and that a whole people will look on their neighbours with wonder and scorn, for admiring what their own grandfathers looked on with equal admiration,-while they themselves are scorned and vilified in return, for tastes which will infallibly be adopted by the grandchildren of those who despise them. What we have termed the accidental causes of great differences in beings of the same nature, do not of course admit of quite so simple an exposition. But it is not in reality more difficult to prove their existence and explain their operation. Where great and degrading despotisms have been early estab lished, either by the aid of superstition or of mere force, as in most of the states of Asia, or where small tribes of mixed descent have been engaged in perpetual contention for freedom and superiority, as in ancient Greecewhere the ambition and faculties of individ uals have been chained up by the institution of castes and indelible separations, as in India and Egypt, or where all men practise all occupations and aspire to all honours, as in Germany or Britain-where the sole occupation of the people has been war, as in infant Rome, or where a vast pacific population has been for ages inured to mechanical drudgery, as in China-it is needless to say, that very opposite notions of what conduces to delight and amusement must necessarily prevail; and that the Taste of the nation must be affected both by the sentiments which it has been taught to cultivate, and the capacities it has been led to unfold. The influence of early models, however, is perhaps the most considerable of any; and may be easily enough understood. When men have been accustomed to any particular kind of excellence, they naturally become good judges of it, and account certain considerable degrees of it indispensable,-while they are comparatively blind to the merit of other good qualities to which they had been less habituated, and are neither offended by their absence, nor at all skilful in their estimation. Thus those nations who, like the English and the Dutch, have been long accustomed to great cleanliness and order in their persons and dwellings, naturally look with admiration on the higher displays of those qualities, and are proportionally disgusted by their neglect; while they are apt to undervalue mere pomp and stateliness, when destitute of these recommendations: and thus also the Italians and Sicilians, bred in the midst of dirt and magnificence, are curiously alive to the beauties of architecture and sculpture, and make but litle account of the more homely comforts which are so highly prized by the others. In the same way, if a few of the first successful adventurers in art should have excelled in ay particular qualities, the taste of their nation will naturally be moulded on that standard-will regard those qualities almost exclusively as entitled to admiration, and will not only consider the want of them as fatal to all pretensions to excellence, but will unduly despise and undervalue other qualities, in themselves not less valuable, but with which their national models had not happened to make them timeously familiar. If, for example, the first great writers in any country should have distinguished themselves by a pompous and severe regularity, and a certain elaborate simplicity of design and execution, it will naturally follow, that the national taste will not only become critical and rigorous as to those particulars, but will be proportionally deadened to the merit of vivacity, nature, and invention, when combined with irregularity, homeliness, or confusion. While, if the great patriarchs of letters had excelled in variety and rapidity of invention, and boldness and truth of sentiment, though poured out with considerable disorder and incongruity of manner, those qualities would quickly come to be the national criterion of merit, and the correctness and decorum of the other school be despised, as mere recipes for monotony and tameness. These, we think, are the plain and certain effects of the peculiar character of the first great popular writers of all countries. But still we do not conceive that they depend al together on any thing so purely accidental as the temperament or early history of a few in dividuals. No doubt the national taste of France and of England would at this moment have been different, had Shakespeare been a Frenchman, and Boileau and Racine written in English. But then, we do not think that Shakespeare could have been a Frenchman; and we conceive that his character, and that of other original writers, though no doubt to be considered on the whole as casual, must yet have been modified to a great extent by the circumstances of the countries in which they were bred. It is plain that no original force of genius could have enabled Shakespeare to write as he had done, if he had been born and bred among the Chinese or the Peruvians. Neither do we think that he could have done so, in any other country but England-free, sociable, discursive, reformed, familiar England-whose motley and mingling population not only presented "every change of manycoloured life" to his eye, but taught and permitted every class, from the highest to the lowest, to know and to estimate the feelings and the habits of all the others and thus enabled the gifted observer not only to deduce the true character of human nature from this infinite variety of experiments and examples, but to speak to the sense and the hearts of each, with that truly universal tongue, which every one feels to be peculiar, and all enjoy as common. We have said enough, however, or rather too much, on these general views of the subject—which in truth is sufficiently clear in those extreme cases, where the contrariety is great and universal, and is only perplexing when there is a pretty general conformity both in the causes which influence taste and in the results. Thus, we are not at all sur prised to find the taste of the Japanese or the Iroquois very different from our own-and have no difficulty in both admitting that our human nature and human capacities are substantially the same, and in referring this discrepancy to the contrast that exists in the whole state of society, and the knowledge, and the opposite qualities of the objects to which we have been respectively accustomed to give our admiration. That nations living in times or places altogether remote, should disagree in taste, as in every thing else, seems to us quite natural. They are only the nearer cases that puzzle. And, that great European countries, peopled by the same mixed races, educated in the admiration of the same classical models-venerating the same remains of antiquity-engaged substantially in the same occupations-communicating every day, on business, letters, and society-bound up in short in one great commonwealth, as against the inferior and barbarous parts of the world, should yet differ so widely-not only as to the comparative excellence of their respective productions, but as to the constituents of excellence in all works of genius or skill, does indeed sound like a paradox, the solution of which every one may not be able to deduce from the preceding observations. The great practical equation on which we | according to our own principles of judgment and habits of feeling; and, meaning nothing less than to dictate to the readers or the critics of Ger many what they should think of their favourite authors, propose only to let them know, in all plainness and modesty, what we, and we really believe most of our countrymen, actually think of this chef-d'œuvre of Teutonic genius. in this country have been hitherto most frequently employed, has been between our own standard of taste and that which is recognized among our neighbours of France:-And certainly, though feelings of rivalry have somewhat aggravated its apparent, beyond its real amount, there is a great and substantial difference to be accounted for,—in the way we have We must say, then, at once, that we cannot suggested—or in some other way. Stating that enter into the spirit of this German idolatry; difference as generally as possible, we would nor at all comprehend upon what grounds the say, that the French, compared with ourselves, work before us could ever be considered as are more sensitive to faults, and less trans- an admirable, or even a commendable perported with beauties-more enamoured of art, formance. To us it certainly appears, after and less indulgent to nature-more charmed the most deliberate consideration, to be emiwith overcoming difficulties, than with that nently absurd, puerile, incongruous, vulgar, power which makes us unconscious of their and affected; and, though redeemed by conexistence-more averse to strong emotions, or siderable powers of invention, and some traits at least less covetous of them in their intensity of vivacity, to be so far from perfection, as to -more students of taste, in short, than adorers be, almost from beginning to end, one flagrant of genius-and far more disposed than any offence against every principle of taste, and other people, except perhaps the Chinese, to every just rule of composition. Though indicircumscribe the rules of taste to such as they cating, in many places, a mind capable both themselves have been able to practise, and to of acute and profound reflection, it is full of limit the legitimate empire of genius to the mere silliness and childish affectation;-and provinces they have explored. There has though evidently the work of one who had been a good deal of discussion of late years, seen and observed much, it is throughout alin the face of literary Europe, on these de- together unnatural, and not so properly im batable grounds; and we cannot but think probable, as affectedly fantastic and absurdthat the result has been favourable, on the kept, as it were, studiously aloof from general whole, to the English, and that the French or ordinary nature-never once bringing us have been compelled to recede considerably into contact with real life or genuine character from many of their exclusive pretensions-a-and, where not occupied with the profes result which we are inclined to ascribe, less to the arguments of our native champions, than to those circumstances in the recent history of Europe, which have compelled our ingenious neighbours to mingle more than they had ever done before with the surrounding nations—and thus to become better acquainted with the diversified forms which genius and talent may assume. But while we are thus fairly in the way of settling our differences with France, we are little more than beginning them, we fear, with Germany; and the perusal of the extraordinary volumes before us, which has suggested all the preceding reflections, has given us, at the same time, an impression of such radical, and apparently irreconcilable disagreement as to principles, as we can scarcely hope either to remove by our reasonings, or even very satisfactorily to account for by our suggestions. This is allowed, by the general consent of all Germany, to be the very greatest work of their very greatest writer. The most original, the most varied and inventive,-the most characteristic, in short, of the author, and of his country. We receive it as such accordingly, with implicit faith and suitable respect; and have perused it in consequence with very great attention and no common curiosity. We have perused it, indeed, only in the translation of which we have prefixed the title: But it is a translation by a professed admirer; and by one who is proved by his Preface to be a person of talents, and by every part of the work to be no ordinary master, at least of one of the languages with which he has to deal. We need scarcely say, that we profess to judge of the work only sional squabbles, paltry jargon, and scenical profligacy of strolling players, tumblers, and mummers (which may be said to form its staple), is conversant only with incomprehensible mystics and vulgar men of whim, with whom, if it were at all possible to understand them, it would be a baseness to be acquainted. Every thing, and every body we meet with, is a riddle and an oddity; and though the tis sue of the story is sufficiently coarse, and the manners and sentiments infected with a strong tinge of vulgarity, it is all kept in the air, like a piece of machinery at the minor theatres, and never allowed to touch the solid ground, or to give an impression of reality, by the disclosure of known or living features. In the midst of all this, however, there are, every now and then, outbreakings of a fine speculation, and gleams of a warm and sprightly imagination-an occasional wild and exotic glow of fancy and poetry-a vigorous heaping up of incidents, and touches of bright and powerful description. It is not very easy certainly to account for these incongruities, or to suggest an intelligi ble theory for so strange a practice. But in so far as we can guess, these peculiarities of German taste are to be referred, in part, to the comparative newness of original composition among that ingenious people, and to the state of European literature when they first ventured on the experiment-and in part to the state of society in that great country itself, and the comparatively humble condition of the greater part of those who write, or to whom writing is there addressed. The Germans, though undoubtedly an ima ginative and even enthus astic race, had ne- | by not being altogether intelligible-effectuglected their native literature for two hundred ally excluded monotony by the rapidity and years and were chiefly known for their violence of their transitions, and promised to learning and industry. They wrote huge rouse the most torpid sensibility, by the vioLatin treatises on Law and Theology-and lence and perseverance with which they thunput forth bulky editions and great tomes of dered at the heart. They were the very annotations on the classics. At last, however, things, in short, which the German originals they grew tired of being respected as the were in search of;-and they were not slow, learned drudges of Europe, and reproached therefore, in adopting and improving on them. with their consonants and commentators; and In order to make them thoroughly their own, determined, about fifty years ago, to show they had only to exaggerate their peculiarities what metal they were made of, and to give to mix up with them a certain allowance the world a taste of their quality, as men of of their old visionary philosophy, misty metagenius and invention. In this attempt the physics, and superstitious visions-and to infirst thing to be effected was at all events to troduce a few crazy sententious theorists, to avoid the imputation of being scholastic imi- sprinkle over the whole a seasoning of rash tators of the classics. That would have smelt speculation on morality and the fine arts. too much, they thought, of the old shop; and The style was also to be relieved by a vain order to prove their claims to originality, it riety of odd comparisons and unaccountable was necessary to go a little into the opposite similes-borrowed, for the most part, from extreme,-to venture on something decidedly low and revolting objects, and all the better modern, and to show at once their indepen- if they did not exactly fit the subject, or even dence on their old masters, and their supe-introduced new perplexity into that which riority to the pedantic rules of antiquity. they professed to illustrate. With this view some of them betook them- This goes far, we think, to explain the abselves to the French models-set seriously to surdity, incongruity, and affectation of the study how to be gay-appendre à être vif-and works of which we are speaking. But there composed a variety of petites pieces and is yet another distinguishing quality for which novels of polite gallantry, in a style of which we have not accounted-and that is a peculiar we shall at present say nothing. This manner, kind of vulgarity which pervades all their vahowever, ran too much counter to the general rieties, and constitutes, perhaps, their most character of the nation to be very much fol- repulsive characteristic. We do not know lowed--and undoubtedly the greater and bet- very well how to describe this unfortunate ter part of their writers turned rather to us, peculiarity, except by saying that it is the for hints and lessons to guide them in their vulgarity of pacific, comfortable burghers, ocambitious career. There was a greater original cupied with stuffing, cooking, and providing affinity in the temper and genius of the two for their coarse personal accommodations. nations—and, in addition to that consideration, There certainly never were any men of genius our great authors were indisputably at once who condescended to attend so minutely to more original and less classical than those of the non-naturals of their heroes and heroines France. England, however, we are sorry to as the novelists of modern Germany. Their say, could furnish abundance of bad as well works smell, as it were, of groceries-of as of good models-and even the best were brown papers filled with greasy cakes and perilous enough for rash imitators. As it slices of bacon, and fryings in frowsy back happened, however, the worst were most parlours. All the interesting recollections of generally selected-and the worst parts of the childhood turn on remembered tidbits and good. Shakespeare was admired-but more plunderings of savoury store-rooms. In the for his flights of fancy, his daring improprie- midst of their most passionate scenes there is ties, his trespasses on the borders of absurdity, always a serious and affectionate notice of the than for the infinite sagacity and rectifying substantial pleasures of eating and drinking. good sense by which he redeemed those ex- The raptures of a tête-a-tête are not complete travagancies, or even the profound tenderness without a bottle of nice wine and a "trim and simple pathos which alternated with the collation." Their very sages deliver their lofty soaring or dazzling imagery of his style. oracles over a glass of punch; and the enAltogether, however, Shakespeare was beyond chanted lover finds new apologies for his their rivalry; and although Schiller has dared, idolatry in taking a survey of his mistress' and not ingloriously, to emulate his miracles, "combs, soap, and towels, with the traces of i was plainly to other merits and other rival their use." These baser necessities of our ries that the body of his ingenious country- nature, in short, which all other writers who men aspired. The ostentatious absurdity have aimed at raising the imagination or the affected oddity-the pert familiarity-the touching the heart have sept studiously out broken style, and exaggerated sentiment of of view, are ostentatiously brought forward, Tristram Shandy-the mawkish morality, and fondly dwelt on by the pathetic authors dawdling details, and interminable agonies of of Germany. Richardson-the vulgar adventures, and home- We really cannot well account for this exly, though, at the same time, fantastical specu- traordinary taste. But we suspect it is owing lations of John Buncle and others of his for- to the importance that is really attached to gotten class, found far more favour in their those solid comforts and supplies of neces eyes. They were original, startling, unclas-saries, by the greater part of the readers and sical, and puzzling. They excited curiosity writers of that country. Though there is great deal of freedom in Germany, it operates less by raising the mass of the people to a potential equality with the nobles, than by securing to them their inferior and plebeian privileges; and consists rather in the immunities of their incorporated tradesmen, which may enable them to become rich as such, than in any general participation of national rights, by which they may aspire to dignity and elegance, as well as opulence and comfort. Now, the writers, as well as the readers in that country, belong almost entirely to the plebeian and vulgar class. Their learned men are almost all wofully poor and dependent; and the comfortable burghers, who buy entertaining books by the thousand at the Frankfort fair, probably agree with their authors in nothing so much as the value they set on those homely comforts to which their ambition is mutually limited by their condition; and enter into no part of them so heartily as those which set forth their paramount and continual importance. to give of it by a few extracts. Wilhelm 1 describing the dress of the prophet Samuel in his Punch's Opera of Goliah, and telling "how the taffeta of the cassock had been taken from a gown of his grandmother's," when a noise is heard in the street, and the old maid Barbara informs them that "The disturbance arose from a set of jolly com. panions, who were just then sallying out of the Italian Tavern, hard by, where they had been busy discussing fresh oysters, a cargo of which had just arrived, and by no means sparing their champagne. Pity,' Mariana said, that we did not think of it ourselves." It is not yet too late,' said Wilhelm, in time; we might have had some entertainment to giving Barbara a louis d'or: 'get us what we want; then come and take a share with us.' The old dame made speedy work; ere long a trimly-covered table, with a neat collation, stood before the lovers. They made Barbara sit with them; they ate and drank, and enjoyed themselves. On such occa sions, there is never want of enough to say, Mariana soon took up little Jonathan again, and the old dame turned the conversation upon Wilhelm's favourite topic. You were telling us,' she said, about the first exhibition of a puppet-show on Christmas-eve: I remember you were interrupted, just as the ballet was going to begin.' I assure you,' said Wilhelm, 'it went off quite well. And certainly the strange caperings of these Moors and Mooresses, these shepherds and shepherdesses, these dwarfs and dwarfesses, will never altogether leave my recollection while I live,' "' &c. &c. We spare our readers some dozen pages of doll-dressing and joinery, and come to the following choice passage. It is time, however, that we should proceed to give some more particular account of the work which has given occasion to all these observations. Nor indeed have we anything more of a general nature to premise, except that we really cannot join in the censure which we have found so generally bestowed on it for its alleged grossness and immorality. It is coarse, certainly, in its examples, and by no means very rigorous in its ethical precepts. But it is not worse in those respects than many "In well adjusted and regulated houses,' con. works on which we pride ourselves at home-tinued Wilhelm, children have a feeling not unlike Tom Jones, for example, or Roderick Random. what I conceive rats and mice to have; they keep There are passages, no doubt, that would a sharp eye on all crevices and holes, where they shock a delicate young lady; but to the bulk may come at any forbidden dainty; they enjoy it of male readers, for whom we suppose it was also with a fearful, stolen satisfaction, which forms no small part of the happiness of childhood. More chiefly intended, we do not apprehend that it than any other of the young ones, I was in the habit will either do any great harm, or give any of looking out attentively to see if I could notice great offence. any cupboard left open, or key standing in its lock. The more reverence I bore in my heart for those closed doors, on the outside of which I had to pass glance when our mother now and then opened the by for weeks and months, catching only a furtive consecrated place to take something from it,-the quicker was I to make use of any opportunities which the forgetfulness of our housekeepers at times afforded me. Among all the doors, that of the store room was, of course, the one I watched most nar Wilhelm Meister is the son of a plodding merchant, in one of the middling towns of Germany, who, before he is out of his apprenticeship, takes a passion for play-going; which he very naturally follows up by engaging in an intrigue with a little pert actress, who performed young officers and other male parts with great success. The book opens with a supper at her lodgings; where he tells rowly. Few of the joyful anticipations in life can equal the feeling which I used to have, when my her a long silly story of his passion for puppet-mother happened to call me, that I might help her to shows in his childhood-how he stole a set carry out any thing, after which I might pick up a of puppets out of a pantry of his mother's, into few dried plums, either with her kind permission, which he had slipped to filch sugar-plums or by help of my own dexterity. The accumulated how he fitted up a puppet-show of his own, in treasures of this chamber took hold of my imaginaa garret of his father's house, and enacted tion by their magnitude; the very fragrance exhaled by so multifarious a collection of sweet-smelling David and Goliah, to the wonder and delight spices produced such a craving effect on me, that of the whole family, and various complaisant never failed, when passing near, to linger for a little, neighbours, who condescended to enact audi- and regale myself at least on the unbolted atmos. ence-how a half-pay lieutenant assisted him phere. At length, one Sunday morning, my mo. in painting the figures and nailing up the ther, being hurried by the ringing of the church boards-and how out of all this arose his early shutting the door, and went away leaving all the bells, forgot to take this precious key with her on taste for playhouses and actresses. This house in a deep sabbath stillness. No sooner had goodly stuff extends through fifty mortal I marked this oversight, than gliding softly once or pages all serious, solemn, and silly, far be- twice to and from the place, I at last approached vond the pitch of the worst gilt thing ever very gingerly, opened the door, and felt myself, published by Mr Newberry. As this is one manifold and long-wished-for means of happiness. after a single step, in immediate contact with these of the most characteristic parts of the work, I glanced over glasses, chests, and bags, and drawers we must verify the account we have ventured and boxes, with a quick and doubtful eye, consider |