and the reader not materially impoverished. Two points only require notice, and those shall be briefly touched.

First of the subject-matter. Taken from the sad experience of the hour, moving amid scenes made desolate by the French Revolution, it was natural that something of political significance should be sought in this story. Schiller would undoubtedly have made it the vehicle of splendid eloquence on Freedom, such as would have made the pulses beat. But that was nowise Goethe's tendency. He told Meyer that he had endeavored in an epic crucible to free from its dross the pure human existence of a small German town, and at the same time mirror in a small glass the great movements and changes of the world's stage.'* While leaving to others the political problem, he confined himself as usual to the purely human and individual interest. Instead of declamations on Freedom, he tried to teach men to be free; and by Freedom he meant the complete healthy development of their own natures, not a change of political institutions. In one of the Xenien he says:

Zur Nation euch zu bilden, ihr hoffet es, Deutsche, vergebens. Bildet, ihr könnt es, dafür freier zu Menschen euch aus.†

And in this sense Hermann und Dorothea may be accepted as a Hymn to the Family, a solemn vindication of the eternal claims which, as a first necessity, should occupy men.

With regard to the second point, that namely of style, Schiller's cordial praise, in a letter to Meyer, may here find place. Nor have we in the meantime been inactive,

6

* Briefe an und von Goethe.

† 'Germans, you hope in vain to develope yourselves into a Nation; strive, therefore, to develope yourselves all the more freely into Men.'

as you know, and least of all our friend, who in the last few years has really surpassed himself. His epic poem you have read; you will admit that it is the pinnacle of his and all our modern art. I have seen it grow up, and have wondered almost as much at the manner of its growth as at the completed work. Whilst the rest of us are obliged painfully to collect and to prune, in order slowly to bring forth anything passable, he has only gently to shake the tree, in order to have fall to him the most beautiful fruit, ripe and heavy. It is incredible with what ease he now reaps for himself the fruits of a well-bestowed life and a persistent culture; how significant and sure all his steps now are; how the clearness as to himself and as to objects, preserves him from every idle effort and beating about. But you have him now yourself, and can satisfy yourself of all this with your own eyes. But you will agree with me in this, that on the summit where he now stands, he ought to think more of bringing the beautiful form he has given himself to outward exhibition, than to go out in search of new material; in short, that he now ought to live entirely for poetic execution.'

The Homeric form is admirably adapted to this kind. of narrative; and Voss had already made it popular by his Luise. Respecting the style of this poem, I would further beg the reader to compare it with that of the last books of Wilhelm Meister, composed about the same period, and he will then see Goethe's immense superiority on quitting prose for poetry. None of the faults of his prose are traceable here. The language is as clear as crystal, and as simple; the details are all, without exception, significant; not a line could be lopped away without injury. One feels that the invigorating breezes of Ilmenau, where in a space of six months this poem was mainly composed,

have roused the poet out of the flaccid moods of prose, and given him all his quiet strength.

Before finally dismissing the poem, it may amuse the reader to have a specimen of that ingenious criticism which delights in interpreting the most obvious facts into profound meanings. Hegel, in his Esthetik, and after him Rosenkrantz, in his excellent book Goethe und seine Werke, call attention to the fact that Goethe is far truer in his German coloring than Voss, whose Luise gave the impulse to this poem. Not having read the Luise, I am unable to judge of this superiority; but the example cited by these critics is assuredly amusing. Voss, they tell us, makes his people drink copiously of coffee; but, however wide-spread the custom of coffee-drinking, we must remember that coffee, and the sugar which sweetens it, are not German, they come from Arabia and the West Indies ; the very cups in which the coffee is drunk are of Chinese origin, not German. We are miles away from Germany. How different in Goethe! His host of the Golden Lion refreshes guests with a glass of wine; and what wine? Rhine wine; the German wine, par excellence; the wine growing on the hill behind his own house! And this Rhine wine, is it not drunk out of green glasses, the genuine German glasses? And upon what do these glasses stand? Upon a tin tray: that is also genuine German!

It would be the merest British prosaism to suggest that in Voss the pastor drinks coffee, because coffee is habitually drunk in the parsonage; while in Goethe, the characters drink wine, because they are in the Golden Lion, and Rhine wine, because they are in the Rhine country; yet to such prosaism is the British. critic reduced in answering the subtleties of German æsthetics.

CHAPTER V.

THE THEATRICAL MANAGER.

It will be briefer, and help to convey a more accurate notion of Goethe's efforts in the direction of the Theatre, if, instead of scattering through this biography a number of isolated details, recording small events in chronological order, I endeavor to present some general view of Goethe's managerial efforts.

We have already seen how, on his first arrival at Weimar, the Court was passionately fond of theatrical entertainments, and how eagerly he entered into them. The theatre was a ruin, from the fire of the previous year. Theatres were improvised in the Ettersburg woods, and Tiefurt valley, whereon the gay courtiers 'strutted their brief hour' by torchlight, to the accompaniment of horns. Actors were improvised from the Court circle. Plays were improvised, and sometimes written with elaborate care. The public was the public of private theatricals. All this has been narrated in Book IV. What we have here to do with it is to call attention to the contrast thus presented by the Weimar stage with other German stages, and, above all, with the essential conditions of a stage which shall be anything more than the amusement of a dilettante circle. The drama is essentially a natural outgrowth. In Weimar, instead of growing out of a popular

tendency, and appealing to the people, it grew out of the idleness of a court, and appealed to dilettantism. The actors, instead of being recruited from runaway clerks, ambitious apprentices, romantic barbers and scapegrace students, were princes, noblemen, poets, musicians. Instead of playing to a Public,- that heterogeneous, but in dramatic matters indispensable, jury, whose verdicts are in the main always right they played to courtiers, whose judgment, even when unfettered, would not have had much value; and it never was unfettered. The consequence may be foreseen. As a court amusement, the theatre was a pleasant and not profitless recreation; as an influence, it was pernicious. The starting point was false. Not so can dramatic art flourish; not so are Molières and Shakespeares allowed to manifest their strength. The national co-operation is indispensable. Academies

may compile Dictionaries, they cannot create Literature ; priesthoods may produce Libraries, they cannot create Philosophy; and Courts may patronize. Theatres, they cannot create a Drama. The reason lies deep in the nature of things. Germany has never had a Drama, because she has never had a Stage which could be, or would be, national.. Lessing knew what was needed, but he had not the power to create it. Schiller early mistook the path, and all his noble strivings were frustrated.

Goethe and Schiller, profoundly in earnest, and profoundly convinced of the great influences to be exercised by the stage, endeavored to create a German Drama which should stand high above the miserable productions then vitiating public taste. They aspired to create an Ideal Drama, in which the loftiest forms of Art should be presented. But they made a false step at the outset. Disgusted with the rude productions of the day, and distrusting the instincts of the public, they appealed to