sembled in an upper room. As soon as all the invited had arrived, they were conducted, two by two, into the great room in which were placed the statue of the Grand Duke and Rauch's bust of Goethe, on a handsome pedestal, with a laurel crown beside it. Just as the procession reached the centre of the hall, music was heard from the galleries. The effect of this harmony in the lofty and beautiful hall, decorated with the busts and portraits, was indescribable. 66 “At two o'clock a banquet was prepared for more than two hundred persons in the hall of the Stadthaus. In the evening Iphigenia was performed at the theatre. At the end of the third act, Goethe, warned by his physician, retired; and now a beautiful conclusion to this extraordinary day awaited him.' A serenade was performed in front of his house by the orchestral band of the Grand Ducal Chapel. Hummel had with great feeling and taste combined the triumphal March in Titus, Gluck's overture to Iphigenia, and a masterly Adagio of his own, with an echo for horns. The opening expressed the triumphant glories of the day, while the melting tones of the Adagio seemed to invite to the tranquillity which follows the accomplishment of work. "All the houses in the Frauenplan, where Goethe lived, were illuminated. A numerous company repaired to his house, where an elegant entertainment awaited them, and Goethe remained one hour with his guests before retiring for the night. This day was likewise celebrated at Leipzig and Frankfurt. In Frankfurt the consul general Bethmann marked the day by placing in his museum a statue of Goethe, as large as life, which Rauch had executed for him."* Reading this, and such anecdotes as the one formerly narrated about the Landtag, how can we wonder if the man, who was treated so like a god, adopted something of the imperiousness and assumption of the part thus thrust upon him? * These details and many others are given in Goethe's Goldener Jubeltag. Weimar: 1826. I have abridged the abridgement given by Mrs. Austin, Goethe and his Contemporaries, vol. III. In the following year Germany showed her gratitude to him by a privilege which in itself is the severest sarcasm on German nationality-the privilege, namely, of a protection of his copyright. He announced a complete edition of his works, and the Bundestag undertook to secure him from piracy in German cities ! Until that time his works had enriched booksellers; but this tardy privilege secured an inheritance for his children In the way of honours, he was greatly flattered by the letter which Walter Scott sent to him, in expression of an old admiration; and on the 28th of August, 1827, Karl August came into his study accompanied by the King of Bavaria, who brought with him the Order of the Grand Cross as a homage. In strict etiquette a subject was not allowed to accept such an Order without his own sovereign granting permission, and Goethe, ever punctilious, turned to the Grand Duke, saying: "If my gracious sovereign permits." Upon which the Duke called out: "Du alter Kerl! mache doch kein dummes Zeug! Come, old fellow, no nonsense." On the 6th January, 1827, the Frau von Stein died, in her eighty-fifth year. Hum And now the good old Duke was to be taken from him whom he affectionately styled his Waffenbruder-his brother in arms. On the 14th of June, 1828, he was no more. boldt's letter to Goethe contains so interesting an account of the Duke's last hours, that some sentences may here be cited: "As if this great brightness, as with the lofty snow-capped Alps, were the forerunner of departing light, never have I seen the great humane prince more animated, more intelligent, more mild, more sympathizing with the further development of the people, than in the last days when we had him here. I frequently said to my friends, anxiously and full of misgivings, that this animation, this mysterious clearness of intellect, combined with so much bodily weakness, was to me a fearful phenomenon. He himself evidently vacillated between hope of recovery and expectation of the great catastrophe. In Potsdam I sat many hours with him. He drank and slept alternately, then drank again, then rose to write to his con sort, and then slept again. He was cheerful, but much exhausted. In the intervals he overpowered me with the most difficult questions upon physics, astronomy, meteorology, and geology; upon the atmosphere of the moon; upon the coloured double stars; upon the influence of the spots in the sun upon temperature; upon the appearance of organized forms in the primitive world; and upon the internal warmth of the earth. He slept at intervals during his discourse and mine, was often restless, and then said, kindly excusing his apparent inattention, 'You see, Humboldt, it is all over with me!' Suddenly he began to talk desultorily upon religious matters. He regretted the increase of pietism, and the connexion of this species of fanaticism with a tendency towards political absolutism, and the suppression of all free mental action. 'Then,' he exclaimed, 'there are false-hearted fellows, who think that by means of pietism they can make themselves agreeable to princes, and obtain places and ribbons. They have smuggled themselves in with a poetical predilection for the middle ages.' His anger soon abated, and he said that he found much consolation in the Christian religion. 'It is a humane doctrine,' said he, 'but has been distorted from the beginning. The first Christians were the free thinkers among the ultra."" Knowing Goethe's love for the Duke, his friends entertained great fears that the shock of this event would be terrible. He was seated at dinner when the news arrived. It was whispered from one to the other. At length it was gently broken to him. They were breathless with suspense. But his face remained quite calm—a calmness which betrayed him. “Ah ! this is very sad," he sighed; "let us change the subject." He might banish the subject from conversation, he could not banish it from his thoughts. It affected him deeply; all the more so, because he did not give expression to his grief. "Nun ist alles vorbei! Nothing now remains," he said. When Eckermann came in the evening, he found him utterly prostrate. * The calmness with which he received the terrible announcement recalls those grand scenes in Marston's Malcontent and Ford's Broken Heart, where Retiring to the pleasant scenes of Dornburg, the old man strove in work and in contemplation of nature to call away his thoughts from his painful loss. The next year-1829-he finished the Wanderjahre in the form it now assumes, worked at the Second Part of Faust, and in conjunction with a young Frenchman, Soret, who was occupied translating the Metamorphoses of Plants, revised his scientific papers. In February 1830, the death of the Grand Duchess once more overshadowed the evening of his life. These clouds gathering so fast are significant warnings of the Night which hurries on for him-"the Night in which no man can work!” Before narrating the last days of this long career, it will be necessary to say something of the Second Part of Faust, which was not indeed finally completed until the 20th July 1831, but which may be noticed. here to avoid interruption of the closing scene. the subordination of emotion to the continuance of offices of politeness rises into sublimity. Herodotus has touched the same chord in his narrative of the terrific story of Thyestes (Clio, 119). Harpagus, on discovering that he has feasted on his own children in the banquet set before him by Thyestes, remains quite calm. Shakspeare has expressed the true philosophy of the matter in his usual pregnant language: "Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak CHAPTER VI. THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. IN the presence of this poem, I feel more embarrassment than with any other of Goethe's works. Difficult as the task was in each instance to convey an adequate idea of the work before me, and to give expression to the critical opinions formed respecting it, that difficulty becomes complicated in the present instance by the consciousness of the opposition existing between a certain class of admirers and myself,-a class not of ignorant, prejudiced readers, but of enlightened and ingenious intellects. These admirers speak of the Second Part of Faust as a work of transcendent merit, surpassing all that Goethe has done, a storehouse of profound and mystic philosophy, a miracle of execution. Others again, and these among Goethe's most loving students, declare it to be of mediocre interest, very far inferior to the First Part, and both in conception and execution an elaborate mistake. And of these I am one. I have tried to understand the work; tried to place myself at the right point of view for perfect enjoyment; but repeated trials, instead of clearing up obscurities and deepening enjoyment, as with the other works, have more and more confirmed my first impressions. Now although it needs but little experience to suggest that the fault may be wholly mine, “the most legible hand," as Goethe says, "being illegible in the twilight",-although I might learn from what I have felt, and from what others have felt about the First Part, not to be |