GOETHE, Jonatiac W OLFGANG VON, the acknowjedged prince of German poets, and one of the most highly gifted and variously accomplished men of the 18th century. He was born in the year 1749, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, where his youthful years were spent. Ilis father, Johann "Caspar Goethe, was an imperial councilor, in good circum stances, and in a respectable position. In the year 1765 he went to the university of Leipsic, of which and Gellert were then the most notable ornaments. As a student, he pointed, by external profession, towards the law; but his real studies were in the wide domain of literature, philosophy, and above all, life and character. In the year 1770, he went to Strasburg to finish his juridical studies; but here also anatomy and chemistry, Shakespeare, Rousseau, and architecture—anything rather than the statute-book--occupied his time and exercised his soul. Here it was that one of the earliest, certainly the most famous of those youthful love-adventures took place, which, in his biography, as in that of Robert Burns, play such a prominent part—the well known affair of Frederica Brion of With regard to these matters in general, it may be said that he was more readily moved to love than intense in love; and that the objects of his admiration generally seem to have had more reason to boast of the delicacy of his susceptibility, than of the perseverance of his devotion. How far there was anything more than commonly culpable in these connections, will always be a question; certain it is that they will always tarnish to some extent the otherwise fair reputation of the poet. The female sex will never forgive the man who was so light to lend his heart, and so fearful to give his hand; and British morality will always be inclined to pass a severe judgment on the man who, professing the profoundest subjec tion to law and order in everything else, seems to have shrunk from the golden clasp of legitimate marriage as from some conventional shackle, which a free and great nature should avoid. In the year 1771 the young poet, now 22 years of age, took his degree as doctor of laws, and went for a short while to Wetzlar on the Lahn, the seat of the imperial chamber of the then German empire, and which afforded peculiar facilities for young men engaged in the study of public law. Here, however, as in other places, his knowledge of the human heart, and of human character, altogether overgrew his pro fessional studies; and Wetzlar became to him the scene of the famous Sorrows of Werther, a glowing leaf from the life of the human soul, full of interest and beauty at all times, but which, iu the then state of European thought and feeling, stirred the whole literary mind of Europe like a breeze sweeping over a forest. The book was not published till 1774. After returning from Frankfort Goethe spent some years in his native city, engaged chiefly in literary productions. His first great work was G'tz von Bertickingen, translated into English by sir Walter Scott, published at Frankfort, 1773, which at once set the Germans free from the painful constraint of French and classical models, and opened up to them that career of bold originality, which they have since prosecuted in so many departments of literature, learning, and speculation. In the year 1775 Goethe, who Lad had the good-fortune to gain the good opinion of Karl August, grand duke of Saxe-Weimar, accepted an invitation from that prince to settle in his little capital, since become so famous as the Athens of the great legislative age of German literature. Here the poet became a little statesman; and, occupying himself in various ways in the service of his benefactor, passed quickly through -stages of court prefer ment, till, in 1779, be became "actual privy-councilor," at the age of 30, holding the highest dignity that a German subject could then attain; a great, a rich, and an influential man. In 1782 he received a patent of nobility; and in the following years, till 1788, traveled much in Switzerland and Italy, of which last journey we have the beautiful fruits in 1phigenia, Egmont, Tasso, and the Venetian and Roman Elegies. Of this last work, thoroughly German both in form and feeling, the heroine was Christiana Vulpius, a highly attractive though not a highly gifted woman, who bore him a child— his eldest son—in 1789; hut whom, though lie always treated her as his wife, he did not formally marry till 1806. In 1792 he took part in the German campaign against France, of which lie has left a memoir. In the year 1815 he was made minister of
state. After the death of the grand duke in 1828 lie lived much in retirement; occu pied occasionally with poetry, but much more intensely and constantly with the study of nature and the fine arts, which from his earliest years had possessed the strongest attractions for him. He died, irk Mar., 1832, in his eighty-fourth•yearct e31 To give a detailed account of the literary and scientific productions of Goethe's pen, is altogether impossible within the limits of the present work; much less can we attempt any detailed criticism of these works. The best source of reference to the mere English reader is the biography of the poet, by G. II. Lewes; along with which may be taken Goethe's interesting conversations with F.ckermann, translated by Oxenford. On the general character and literary position of Goethe, however, a few words are necessary. It is as a poet, no doubt, that this remarkable man is generally-known and recognized in this country; but it is not as a poet only that a just measure can be taken of his intellectual caliber or of his European significance. It is as poet, thinker, critic, and original observer of nature, all gombined in one admirable harthony,. that his rare excel. fence consists. We do not find in literary history any intellect that can fitly be placed on the same platform with Goethe; that presents, in such grann and graceful complete ness, so much severe thought, combined with so much luxuriant imagination; so much accurate science with so playful fancy; so much simplicity with so much art; so much freshness and originality of productive power, with 'so much justness and com prehensiveness of critical judgment. As a dramatist Goethe will not compare for a moment with the great masters of that art among ourselves. His English biographer detects in the constitution of his mind, most justly, "a singular absence of historic feeling and dramatic power." Not less correct is the judgment of the same writer when he says: -"Goethe was attached to character and picture, incljfferent to action and event." Iu this respect, the poet was a true type of his nation. As contrasted with the French and English, the Germans are deficient in nothing so remarkably as in stirring passion and progressive energy; the relation of Goethe to Shakespeare and the English dramatists is exactly the same. Nevertheless, Faust is a great poem, even a great dramatic poem, for it is full of dramatic scenes, though they are not sufficiently moved by the living current of dramatic action. Faust is essentially a German poem, and yet a poem which all foreigners can read and enjoy. It is the great drama of that moral and metaphysical questioning which thoughtful minds must go through in all times and places, but which has received the fullest and most fruitful development in modern Germany. Of the other poetical works of Goethe, Iphigenia, Hermann and Dorothea, and Tam are those which most strongly bear the type of the ripe manhood of the author. The form and style of these classical works are characteristically Greek; by which we mean they are chiefly remarkable for profundity of thought and truth of feel ing, expressed in the most simple, graceful, and unpretending manner. In soul, how ever, they are essentially German; and the most deep-thinking of the Germans are always the first to claim Goethe as the most German of all German poets in spirit, though very few great German writers have so carefully avoided Cm most characteristic German defects of style. In the extraordinary value which be attaches to " the form" Goethe authenticates himself everywhere as at once a great modern Greek and a great artist.
Goethe is a poet who is thoroughly relished only by those who understand thoroughly the German language, and whose minds are not so typically English as to exclude a ready sympathy with German thoughts and feelings. With general English readers, for various reasons, Schiller will always be the favorite poet. Nevertheless, there has been a considerable amount of literary power in this country spent in the translation of Goethe's works, specially of his great work, the Faust; of this, at least a dozen translations exist, the most notable being by Bayard Taylor, Anster, Blackie, and Hayward. Some of the most beautiful of the lyric poems have been aptly rendered in a conjunct volume by prof. Aytoun and Theodore Martin.