being a necessary means of improvement among political societies. His efforts in this cause accordingly not only satisfied the restless activity, the desire of creating and working upon others, which form the great want of an educated mind, but yielded a sort of balance to his conscience. He viewed himself as an apostle of the sublime. Pity that he had no better way of satisfying it. One is tired to death with his and Goethe's palabra about the nature of the fine arts. They pretend that Nature gives people true intimations of true, hearty, and just principles in art; that the bildende Künstler and the richtende (the creative and the critical artist) ought to investigate the true foundation of these obscure intimations, and set them fast on the basis of Stuff and nonsense, I fear it is! . . . . Poor silly sons of Adam! you have been prating on these things for two or three thousand years, and you have not advanced a hair's breadth towards the conclusion. Poor fellows, and poorer me, that take the trouble to repeat such insipidities and truisms.”

reason.

Here we sce a Saul, not likely yet to be turned into a Paul. Miss Welsh, too, whom Carlyle at that time was worshipping as a distant star far beyond his reach, could not bear Goethe and poor little Mignon. Carlyle tries to reprove her. "O, the hardness of man's and still more of woman's heart!" he exclaimed. And yet he gives in. "Do what you like," he adds; "seriously, you are right about the book. It is worth next to nothing as a novel."

Still, the book told slowly and surely on the rugged, hard-hearted critic; but perhaps more even than the book the personal kindness of Goethe. Goethe was in a good mood when he received Carlyle's translation of " Wilhelm Meister." He was thinking of his world-literature, and here, quite unexpectedly, came the first fruits of it. We must remember that at that time a translation of a German book was an event. At present an English translation is generally a mere bookseller's speculation. People do not ask whether the book is good, original, classical, but whether it is possible to sell a thousand copies of it with the help of a few telling reviews. With Carlyle the translation of " Wilhelm Meister" was a labour of love, and he was probably surprised when an English publisher offered him £180 for the first edition, and afterwards £200 for every new edition of a thousand copies. "Any way," he says, "I am paid sufficiently for my labours."

This was in 1824. Goethe was then seventy-five, Carlyle twentynine. The correspondence was carried on till the year 1831, Goethe's last letter being dated the 2nd of June of that year, while he died on the 22nd of March, 1832. It may be imagined how Carlyle valued Goethe's letters, how he treasured them as the most precious jewels of his household. I was told that he gave them to Mrs. Carlyle to keep in a safe place. But, alas! after her death they could nowhere be found. It was a painful subject with the old man, and a grievous loss to his biographer. Mr. Froude tells us in his “Life of Carlyle" that copies of one or two of Goethe's letters, which Carlyle had sent to his brother, were recovered, and these have been translated and published by Mr. Froude.

As soon as I heard that the archives of the Goethe family had become accessible, having been bequeathed by the last of his grandsons, Walther Wolfgang, to Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, I made inquiries whether possibly Goethe, as he was wont to do in his later years, had preserved copies of his letters to Carlyle. I was informed by Professor Erich Schmidt that copies of most of Goethe's letters to Carlyle existed; and on making application for them in the name of my old friend, Mr. Froude, Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess gave permission that copies should be made of them, which Mr. Froude might publish in his new edition of the "Life of Carlyle," and which I might use for my opening address as President of the English Goethe Society.

It was really the unexpected possession of this literary treasure* which emboldened me to accept your kind invitation to become the first President of the English Goethe Society, and which induced me to select as the subject of my inaugural address Goethe's ideal of a World Literature, a subject which I might thus venture to treat with the hope of bringing something new even to such experienced students of Goethe as I see to-day assembled around me. For it is in his letters to Carlyle that this idea finds its fullest expression. Carlyle was the very man that Goethe wanted, for, however different their characters might be, they had one object in common, Carlyle to preach German literature in England, Goethe to spread a taste for English literature in Germany. And how powerful personal influence can be, we see in the very relation which soon sprang up between the mature and stately German and the impetuous Scot. Carlyle, as we saw, was as yet but a half-hearted admirer of Schiller and Goethe, but the nearer he was brought to Goethe and the more he came to know the man and his ideals in life, the stronger grew his admiration and his love of the old prophet, whose name, he says, had floated through his fancy like a sort of spell over his boyhood, and whose thoughts had come to him in his maturer years almost with the impressiveness of revelations. Goethe seems from the first to have trusted Carlyle's honesty, and to have formed a right opinion of his literary powers. Of course, Carlyle was hardly known in England at that time, much less in Germany, and there is a curious entry in Goethe's Diary, or, as he calls them, Concept-hefte, from which it appears that he made private inquiries about him and his character. In a note addressed to Mr. Skinner who spent some time at Weimar, and died there in 1829,† Goethe writes on the 20th May, 1827 :—

* There is a rumour that the originals have lately been found in an old box and forwarded to America, to be published by Mr. Charles Norton. See Dr. Eugen Oswald's article in the Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes, April 24, 1886. + In Goethe's letter dated 25th June 1829 (8).

"Thomas Carlyle, domiciled at Edinburgh, translator of Wilhelm Meister,' author of a 'Life of Schiller,' has published lately in four volumes octavo & work entitled German Romance,' containing all tales in prose of any name. I should like much to learn what is known of his circumstances and his studies, and what English and German journals may have said of him. He is in every respect a highly interesting man. If you like sometimes to spend an hour with me in the evening, you are always welcome. There are always many things to discuss and to communicate. Written in my garden, the 20th May, 1827."

At that time, however, the correspondence between Goethe and Carlyle was already progressing. Carlyle tells us himself, in a letter to his brother, with what delight he received Goethe's first letter which was written the 26th of October, 1824.* He was then lodging in Southampton Street, in very bad humour with the world at large, and particularly with the literary world of London, which he calls the poorest part of its population at present. On the 18th of December, he writes to his brother, John Carlyle :

"The other afternoon, as I was lying dozing in a brown study after dinner, a lord's lackey knocked at the door and presented me with a little blue parcel, requiring for it a note of delivery. I opened it, and found two pretty stitched little books and a letter from Goethe. I copy it and send it for your edification. The patriarchal style of it pleases me much.†

666

"Weimar, October 26, 1824. "MY DEAREST SIR,-If I did not acknowledge on the spot the safe arrival of your welcome present, it was because I was unwilling to send you an empty acknowledgment merely, but I purposed to add some careful remarks on a work so honourable to you.

"My advanced years, however, burdened as they are with many unavoidable duties, have prevented me from comparing your translation at my leisure with the original text-a more difficult undertaking, perhaps, for me than for some third person thoroughly familiar with German and English literature. Since, however, I have at the present moment an opportunity, through Lord Bentinck, of forwarding this note safely to London, and at the same time of bringing about an acquaintance between yourself and Lord Bentinck which may be agreeable to both of you, I delay no longer to thank you sincerely for the interest which you have taken in my literary works as well as in the incidents of my life, and to entreat you earnestly to continue the same interest for the future also. It may be that hereafter I shall yet hear much of you. I send herewith a number of poems which you will scarcely have seen, but with which I venture to hope that you will feel a certain sympathy. With the most sincere good wishes, your most obedient

"J. W. GOETHE.'"

After this there seems to have been a long pause, for the next letter from Goethe is dated Weimar, May 15, 1827. This is only a short acknowledgment of a pleasant parcel received from Carlyle,

Froude, "Thomas Carlyle," i. 265.

+ Froude, "Life of Carlyle,” i. p. 265. The translation has been but slightly altered in one or two places in accordance with the original of Goethe's letter sent to me from Weimar.

evidently containing his "Life of Schiller," and a promise of a fuller letter which is to follow.

"To Mr. Thomas Carlyle, Edinburgh.

"I announce hurriedly that the pleasant parcel accompanied by a kind. letter, dispatched from Edinburgh on the 15th of April, via Hamburg, reached me on the 15th May, and found me in good health and busy for my friends. To my sincerest thanks to the esteemed couple (Carlyle was married by this time), I will add the information that a packet will shortly be dispatched from here, likewise via Hamburg, to attest my sympathy and to recall me to your minds. I take my leave with best and sincerest wishes."

In the meantime Goethe, after reading Carlyle's "Life of Schiller," had evidently taken his young friend's true measure. He thought he had found in him the very man he had been looking for, the interpreter of German thought in England, and in July of the same year he wrote him a very full letter, which may almost be called an essay of World-literature.* In his conversations with Eckermann he speaks of Carlyle "as a moral power of great importance. There is much future in him," he adds, "and it is quite impossible to see all that he may do and produce."+ Before I read you some of the more important passages of this and the following letters, I wish to call your attention to a curious fact which I discovered while examining the copies sent me from Weimar. Several passages seemed to me so familiar that I began to look through Goethe's works, and here, particularly in the volumes published after his death, I found long passages of his letters to Carlyle worked up into short reviews. Here and there Goethe has made slight alterations, evidently intended as improvements, and these, too, are curious as allowing us an insight into Goethe's mind. I also came across several letters of Carlyle's to Goethe, probably translated into German by Goethe himself. These are interesting too, but as the originals have been found in the Goethe Archives, and will soon be published by Mr. Charles Norton, I need not quote them at present.

In his third letter to Carlyle, after the usual preliminaries, Goethe writes:

"Let me, in the first place, tell you, my dear sir, how very highly I esteem your 'Biography of Schiller.' It is remarkable for the careful study which it displays of the incidents of Schiller's life, and one clearly perceives in it a study of his works and a hearty sympathy with him. The complete insight which you have thus obtained into the character and high merits of this man is really admirable, so clear it is and so appropriate, so far beyond what might have been looked for in a writer in a distant country.

"Here the old saying is verified, 'A good will helps to a full understanding.' It is just because the Scot can look with affection on a German, and can honour and love him, that he acquires a sure eye for that German's

* Froude, i. 399.

+ Gespräche mit Eckermann, July 25, 1828.

From here to "his task accomplished," the text is found in Goethe's Works (1833) vol. xxxvi., p. 230.

finest qualities. He raises himself into a clearness of vision which Schiller's own countrymen could not arrive at in earlier days. For those who live with superior men are easily mistaken in their judgments. Personal peculiarities irritate them. The swift-changing current of life displaces their points of view, and hinders them from perceiving and recognizing the true worth of such men. Schiller, however, was of so exceptional a nature that the biographer had only to keep the idea of an excellent man before his eyes, and carry that idea through all his individual destinies and achievements, and he would see his task accomplished."*

After some remarks on Carlyle's "German Romance," Goethe is evidently anxious to unburden himself on the subject of Worldliterature, which was nearest to his heart. Probably he had jotted down his own thoughts on several occasions before, and so he abruptly says to Carlyle

"Let me add a few observations, which I have long harboured in silence, and which have been stirred up by these present works."

It is curious that in the published review of " German Romance,” too, Goethe uses the same artifice. After he has compared the mind of the foreign historian to the calm and brightness of a moonlight night, he writes:

"In this place, some observations, written down some time ago, may stand interpolated, even if people should find that I repeat myself, so long as it is allowed at the same time that repetition may serve some useful purpose."

Then follow his observations on the advantage of international literary relations, which I shall read to you:

"It is obvious that for a long time the efforts of the best poets and æsthetic writers throughout the world have been directed towards what is universal, and common to all mankind. In every single work, be it historical, mythological, fabulous, more or less arbitrarily conceived, we shall see the universal more and more showing and shining through what is merely national and individual."+

"In practical life we perceive the same tendency, which pervades all that is of the earth earthy, crude, wild, cruel, false, selfish, treacherous, and tries everywhere to spread a certain serenity. We may not indeed hope

*The next paragraphs are found, with slight alterations, evidently of later date, in Goethe's Works (1833), xlvi. p. 254. Whereas in his draft Goethe wrote Kenntniss, he altered it to Vorkenntniss in the letter he sent to Carlyle, and retained that word in his notice of "German Romance." There is one paragraph added by Goethe, when speaking of the impartiality with which a foreigner treats the history of German literature which deserves to be translated. In his letter he breaks off after "he gives individuals their credit each in his place." In his review of "German Romance," he continues: "And thus to a certain extent settles the conflict which within the literature of every nation is inevitable; for to live and to act is much the same as to form or to join a party. No one can be blamed if he fights for place and rank, which secures his existence, and gives him influence which promises future happy success.

"If thus the horizon is often darkened during many years for those who live within a literature, the foreigner lets dust, mist, and darkness settle down, disperse and vanish, and sees those distant regions revealed in bright and dark spots with the same calmness which we are wont to observe the moon in a clear night."

+ Goethe, in his letter to Carlye, wrote: Durch Nationalität und Persönlichkeit hindurch. durch leuchten und durch schimmern sehn."-In the printed paper he changed hindurch into hin.