the action stands still that we may see childish delight, womanly love, and manly tenderness. The poetic reader, captivated by this scene, will be impatient at the criticism which espies a fault in it, and will declare such a picture infinitely superior to any dramatic effect. "What pedantry, to talk of technical demands in presence of a scene like this!" he will exclaim, and with a lofty wave of the hand dismiss the critic into contempt. Nevertheless, the critic is forced by his office to consider what are the technical demands. If the poet has attempted a drama, he must be tried by dramatic standards. However much we may delight in the picture Goethe has presented in this third act, we cannot but feel that Shakspeare, while giving the picture, would have made it subvervient to the progress and development of the piece; for Shakspeare was not only a poet, he was also a dramatic poet. Act the fourth again shows us citizens talking about the times, which grew more and more ominous. In the next scene Alva, the terrible Alva, appears, having laid all his plans : Alva. The moment the princes enter my cabinet, hasten to arrest Egmont's secretary. Have you made all needful preparations for securing the others? Silva. Rest assured. Their doom, like an eclipse, will overtake them with unerring certainty. Alva. Have you had them all narrowly watched? Silva. All. Egmont especially. He is the only one whose bearing remains unchanged since your arrival. He passes the day on horseback, invites guests as usual, is merry and amusing at table, throws the dice, shoots, and at night steals to his mistress. The others have all made a pause in their existence; they keep within doors, and from the aspect of their houses you would imagine sickness was within." Orange has fled, but Egmont comes. A long discussion, very argumentative but utterly undramatic, between Alva and Egmont, is concluded by the arrest of the latter. Act the fifth shows us Clärchen in the streets trying to rouse Brackenburg and the citizens to revolt and to the rescue of Egmont. There is great animation in this scene, wherein love raises the simple girl into the heroine. The citizens are alarmed, and dread to hear Egmont named: Clärchen. Stay! stay! Shrink not away at the sound of his name, to meet whom ye were wont to press forward so joyously! When rumour announced his approach, when the cry arose," Egmont comes! he comes from Ghent!" then happy were they who dwelt in the streets through which he was to pass. And when the neighing of his steed was heard, did not every one throw aside his work, while a ray of hope and joy, like a sunbeam from his countenance, stole over the toilworn faces which peered from every window. Then as ye stood in doorways ye would lift up your children and pointing to him exclaim, "See! that is Egmont ! he who towers above the rest! 'Tis from him ye must look for better times than those your poor fathers have known." Shakspeare has been so often mentioned in these pages in contrast with Goethe, that we may glance for a moment at a somewhat similar psssage in Coriolanus to note the characteristic differences of the two styles: "All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights Into a rapture lets her baby cry While she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck, Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows, Clärchen, unable to rouse the citizens, is led home by Brackenburg. The scene changes to Egmont's prison, where he soliloquizes on his fate; the scene again changes, and shows us Clärchen waiting with sickly impatience for Brackenburg to come and bring her the news. He comes; tells her Egmont is to die; she takes poison, and Brackenburg, in despair, resolves also to die. The final scene is very weak and very long. Egmont has an interview with Alva's son, whom he tries to persuade into aiding him to escape; failing in this, he goes to sleep on a couch, and Clärchen appears in a vision as the figure of Liberty. She extends to him a laurel crown. He wakesto find the prison filled with soldiers who lead him to execution. There are great inequalities in this work, and some disparities of style. It was written at three different periods of his life; and although, when once completed, a work may benefit by careful revision extending over many years, it will be sure to suffer from fragmentary composition; the delay which favours revision is fatal to composition. A work of Art should be completed before the paint has had time to dry; otherwise the changes brought by time in the development of the artist's mind will make themselves felt in the heterogeneous structure of the work. Egmont was conceived in the period when Goethe was under the influence of Shakspeare; it was mainly executed in the period when he had taken a classical direction. It wants the stormy life of Götz and the calm beauty of Iphigenia. Schiller thought the close was too much in the opera style; and Gervinus thinks that preoccupation with the opera which Goethe at this period was led into by his friendly efforts to assist Kayser, has given the whole work an operatic turn. I confess I do not detect this; but I see a decided deficiency in dramatic construction, which is also to be seen in all his later works; and that he really did not know what the drama properly required, to be a drama as well as a poem, we shall see clearly illustrated in a future chapter. Nevertheless, I end as I began with saying that find what fault you will with Egmont, it still remains one of those general favourites against which criticism is powerless. CHAPTER VII. RETURN HOME. GOETHE came back from Italy greatly enriched, but by no means satisfied. The very wealth he had accumulated embarrassed him, by the new problems it presented, and the new horizons it revealed: "For all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades He had in Rome become aware that a whole life of study you feel |