North. Goethe's idolators-mind ye, I exclude Thomas Carlyle and Hayward, and all minds of that order and stamp —are of course not Christians, and use a heathenish lingo worse than the unknown tongue.

Shepherd. There's nae harm in ony unknown tongue-sic as Tam Stoddart's-but nae punishment's ower severe for them that swear they're respeckin their mither's, a' the while they're murderin't—and flout in your een a wab o' words, like gaudy patchwark shued for the botton o' an easy arm-chair by an auld wife.

North. It is declared by all great and true German scholars, that the poem of Faust in execution is as perfect as in conception magnificent, and that Goethe has brought to bear on that wonderful work not only all the creative energy of a rare genius, and all the soul-searching wisdom of a high philosophy, but likewise all the skill of a consummate artist, and all possible knowledge and power over his native speech. His was the unconfined inspiration from above, that involuntarily moves harmonious numbers; and his the regulated enthusiasm from below, that enables the poet to interfuse with the forms of earth the fire of heaven.

Shepherd. A noble panegyric.

North. Not pronounced by me, but by the voice of Europe. Shepherd. But ye haena borrowed the words?

North. Not that I know of-and they are too feeble for Faust. To show such a work an English Poem would require -whom? Not twenty boys-however clever, or better than clever but one man of mature mind, and that mind of the highest order—a mind that "with sweepy sway" could travel through the shadowy into the illimitable—and distinguish and command the phantoms of beauty and of grandeur rising up from the "unapparent deep."

Shepherd. Micht Byron ?

North. No.

Shepherd. Shelley?

North. No-imperfectly, and but in part.
Shepherd. Wordsworth?

North. No-no-no. Wordsworth's world is not Goethe's world: the Wordsworthian star, like that of Jove itself, "so beautiful and large," is not like the star Goethe. Both are the brightest of the bright; but the breath of peace envelopes the

106

one, with "

HAMLET.-SHAKESPEARE.-HAYWARD.

an ampler ether, a diviner air"—at its height, the other often looks troubled, and seems to reel in its sphere, with a lurid but still celestial light.

Shepherd. Puir, puir lassie!

North. Ay, James, had Ophelia been in her place, she would have been Margaret.

Shepherd. And Hamlet Fowst?

North. Nay; in comparison with that Prince of the Melancholious, Faust is little better than a fantastic quack-doctor. Shepherd. Are ye no unsaying a' you've said-for isna he Getty's hero?

North. I said “in comparison." That comparisons are often odious, I know-but then only when made in a spirit of detraction from what shining by itself is glorious; the idolators of Goethe set him above Shakespeare-not by declaration of faith-for they durst not-but virtually and insidiously-for they either name not the Swan of Avon, or let him sail away down the river of life, with some impatient flourish about the beauty of his plumage, and then falling on their foolish faces before Faust, break out into worship in the gabble of the unknown tongue. Shakespeare!

"Creation's heir! the world-the world is thine."

Shepherd. There's a talk in Mr Hayward's notes o' the hidden meanin o' muckle or the maist o' Fowst; but for my ain pairt I hae nae misgivin about either the general scope and tendency o' the wark, or the signification o' ony o' its details. It's a' as clear's mud.

-I use the epithet

North. Mr Hayward is too rational a man— ' in its best sense-to believe that a great Poet would purposely wrap up profound meanings in mysterious allusions, to be guessed at in vain by the present purblind race, but to be deciphered and solved by a wiser generation not yet in embryo. in the womb of time. What Goethe in his old age may have said or done, all who admired the great Poet in his perfect prime should forgive or forget; and vast though be the Edifice, the architect planned not "windows that exclude the light, and passages that lead to nothing." Deep the Gothic niches, and gloomy the long-withdrawing galleries, and dismally on their hinges grate some of the doors, and difficult may they be to open;-but self-fed lamps of "naphtha and asphaltic

yielding light" are pendent from roofs "by their own weight immovable and steadfast," and though he who wanders there will meet with ghosts, and witches, and misbegotten hell-cats, and imps, and fiends, and the devil himself, yet, without muttering Ave Maria or Paternoster, let him not fear but that, with no other guide or guardian but his own conscience, he will be able to find his way out into the open light of day, and more blessedly beautiful because of all those glimmering and shapeless terrors mingled with radiant tendernesses ruefully wading through a perplexing mist of tears, he will again behold high overhead the not unapproachable peace of heaven, which seems then descending half-way to meet the holy seeking to soar homewards on a spirit's wings.

Shepherd. Are you hearkenin till the sage, Mr Tickler?
Tickler. I hear a murmur as of a hive of bees.

Shepherd. Sound without sense-but pleasant withal, for sake o' the indefinite and vague hum o' happiness o' that countless nation a' convenin and careerin roun' their queen.

North. Articles have been sent to me on Goethe, chiefly on the Faust-some not without talent-but all, except one, leaving on my mind the unpleasant impression of their having been written by prigs.

Shepherd. What's a prig?

North. You might as well ask what's a sumph. There are nuisances in this sublunary world, almost as undefinable as unendurable, and to no class of them ought the eye of the literary police to be more rigorously directed than to that of prigs. They greatly infest our periodical literature, and are getting bolder and bolder every day. For their sakes should be revived the picturesque exposure of the pillory, and the grotesque imprisonment of the stocks.

Shepherd. Try the pump.

North. "Twould be a pity, after Pindar's panegyric, so to use the element of water-nor could I find it in my heart, James, looking at his head and handle, so to humiliate the pump.

Shepherd. Oh, sir, but I would like fine to see a füle tarred and feathered-for though my imagination's no that unveevid, and can shape to itsel maist absurd and amusin sichts, it has never been able to satisfy my mind wi' an adequate representation o' the first start frae the barrel o' an enormous human

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A FOOL TARRED AND FEATHERED.

blockhead, changed intil a bird-nae wings, nae tail, neither a cock nor a guse, but an undescribable leevin and loupin lump o' feathers frae Freezland, in fear, pain, and shamefacedness, uttering strange screechs and scraughs, as down alang lang lanes o' hootin spectators, the demented phenomenon, aye keepin to the gutter, and aften rinnin foul o' the lamp-posts, faster far than a cur wi' a kettle to his tail scours squares and streets o' cities, and then terrifyin the natives o' the kintra, bent on suicide, as if he were a drove o' swine possessed by a legion o' deevils, rushes intil the sea.

Tickler. The Atlantic Ocean.

I admire the Americans for

the ingenious and humane invention.

Shepherd. Yet they're no sae original in their poetry as micht hae been expected, and predicted, frae their adoption o' sic a punishment.

North. Prigs are of opinion that the present age has not eyes to see into the heart of Goethe's poetry, which will lie hidden in its mysteries for a thousand years. Nay, 'tis pitiable to hear such cant even from critics of considerable and not undeserved reputation, who, at the same time, would pucker up the lines at the corner of their mouths and eyes

Shepherd. Crawfeet.

North. were you to question their clear and full comprehension of the character and condition of Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet and Lear. The worthy, weak, well-meaning, commonplace, not ill-fed, and decently-dressed European and American publics and republics must wait for a few centuries before they can hope to gain sight of more than some glimmerings of the glory enshrined in the genius of a certain German charlatan, known by the name of Goethe, who used to strut about in his prime and in his decay all bedizened with gaudy gewgaws, given him by the prince of a petty principality, to mark his admiration of the manager of a provincial theatre, whom the Dog of Montargis drove from his box into private lifethough a real living flesh-and-blood dog-a Newfoundlander or St Bernardine, as humane as sagacious-while the jealous and jewelled bard's own canine fancy was in comparison a cross-bred-cur and a mangy mongrel, whom Charlie Westropp of the Westminster pit would have despised, and his famous Billy the rat-killer worried till he could not have been brought in time to the scratch, nathless he were the Dog of Hell!

THE ORACULAR SCHOOL OF POETRY.

Tickler. Court and theatre of Weimar !

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Shepherd. Ma heid's a' in confusion-and what is your real judgment o' Getty, as you ca' him, is a'thegither ayont ma comprehension.

North. Of all schools of poetry and criticism, James, the most contemptible is the Oracular.

Shepherd. That's just what I was gaun to say. Naebody can wi' truth say that I hae a bad temper, though it's sometimes rather het and short

Tickler. Like gingerbread not yet cool from the oven.

Shepherd.

but the instant I discover that the owthor o' ony poem that I may happen to be tryin to peruse, is either takin pains to conceal his meanin or his want o' meanin—and the first is the warst, for weakness is naething to wickedness

than I find ma face growin red, and a chokin in ma throat, as if I were threatened wi' a stroke o' the apoplex, and, risin in a passion, I dash the half-witted or deceptious cretur's abortive concern wi' sic a daud on the floor, that I've kent it stot up again on till the table, and upset the jug.

Tickler. Hoo! hoo! hoo! My dear James, you're first-rate this evening.

Shepherd. If I werena, I wad hae a queer look in sic company — for a' Lunnon couldna produce three sic first-rate fallows as noo, unknawn to the haill warld, are sittin in the Shepherd's Bower in the heart o' the Forest! What's that stirrin? Gurney ahint the honeysuckles! I wush he was deid. But he's no ane o' your folk that dee. He'll see us a’ out, sirs, and then he'll publish the owtobiography o' a' Us Three, first piecemeal in Maga, and then ilka ane by itsel, in three vols. crown octavo, gettin a ransom1 for the copyrichts.

North. The greatest sinner of the oracular school was Shelley-because the only true poet. True poets admire his genius, but, in spite of love and pity for the dead, they disdain the voluntary darkness in which he perversely dallied with things of light that should never have been so enshrouded, and according to the command and law of nature should have been wooed, won, wedded, and enjoyed in the face of heaven.

Shepherd. I consider mysel a man o' mair than ordinar genie, and of about an average understaunin; and ha'in paid sic attention to the principles o' poetry laid in the natur o' 1 Ransom-an extravagant price.