The following extract from the Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung, translated by Mr. Hayward, may be taken as a fair sample of the light in which Faust is considered in Germany.

"The various attempts to continue the infinite matter of Faust where Goethe drops it, although in themselves fruitless and unsuccessful, at least show in what manifold ways this great poem may be conceived, and how it presents a different side to every individuality. As the sun-beam breaks itself differently in every eye, and the starred heaven and nature are different for every soul-mirror, so is it with this immeasurable and exhaustless poem. We have seen illustrators and continuers of Faust, who, captivated by the practical wisdom which pervades it, considered the whole poem as one great collection of maxims of life; we have met with others who saw nothing else in it but a pantheistical solution of the enigma of existence; others again, more alive to the genius of poetry, admired only the poetical clothing of the ideas, which otherwise seemed to them to have little significance; and others again saw nothing peculiar but the felicitous exposition of a philosophical theory, and the specification of certain errors of practical life. All these are right; for from all these points of view Faust is great and significant; but whilst it appears to follow these several directions as radiations from a focus, at the same time it contains (but for the most part concealed) its peculiar, truly great, and principal direction; and this is the reconcilement of the great contradiction of the world, the establishment of peace between the Real and Ideal. No one who loses sight of this, the great foundation of Faust, will find himself in a condition-we do not say to explain or continue, but even to read and comprehend the poem. This principal basis underlies all its particular tendencies the religious, the philosophical, the scientific, the practical; and for this very reason is it, that the theologian, the scholar, the soldier, the man of the world, and the student of philosophy, to whatever school he may belong, are all sure of

finding something to interest them in this all-embracing production."

"The true and original key to the character of Doctor Faust is to be found in Goethe's own intellectual constitution, and in the history of its development. A French writer has said: "Faust contient Goethe tout entier;" and no person, who has gone beyond the surface of our great master's works, can doubt the truth of this assertion. Goethe too had a mind profound enough to hold in contempt the sound of words, which pedantic minds too often mistake for true knowledge; he too had, at an early age, run over the circle of the sciences, and held deep converse with the profoundest thinkers in the history of mind, had melted in tenderest feeling, hovered in airiest dreams, and been haunted by the demons of doubt and despair; he too had believed with the Bible, and speculated with Spinoza; he too had, in his own experience, gone through all the mysterious strivings and gropings of the wondrous unity within us, had felt its highest joy and its deepest woe; and to one in such a state of mind, it was as natural to paint such a character as Faust, as it is to a man to sing when he is merry, and to weep when he is sorrowful.-As a dramatic poet, it was Goethe's business, not only to indulge himself in pouring out the burdened feelings of his own bosom, but to exhibit the ideal character of Faust in connection with the actual world, and shew what course it is there likely to take, and what dangers there await it."—(Blackie, xlii.)

Goethe (as Faust) has been classed among unbelievers. He was a Christian, in the sense which this word has in Germany, that is to say, he loved God and men, and rejected every doctrine as an anti-Christian heresy, which might have the least tendency to diminish this love, were it only to the extent of a hair's breadth of church-pride, or of intolerance. cared little for the opinions of a set of priests claiming infallible authority for their decrees, either at Rome or any other place,

He

in whose systems all Christian ideas are absorbed by sacerdotal formalism. "Such people are necessarily the bitter enemies and detractors of German divinity, which makes inward religion, and not the form of church government, the principal object, and which establishes its history upon a rational basis, according to the general rules of evidence. The leading men of that school know full well why they revile German Protestantism and German philosophy and doctrine. They know instinctively that their efforts to restore exclusive sacerdotal authority upon a system of superstition, delusion and ignorance, will be vain, as long as there exists a nation bent, above all things, upon conscientious investigation of Christian truth, both by free thought and by unshackled research; a nation which of all tyrannies hates none more than that of priestcraft, and of all liberties loves none so well and so uncompromisingly as that of the intellect."(Bunsen's Hippolytus and his Age; Ancient and Modern Christianity and Divinity compared.)

The present edition of Faust has been prepared for students of German who read without a master. The Grammatical Notes, which are to serve instead of a Vocabulary, contain the whole of the Text, in German and English, classified according to Rules of Grammar, with reciprocal references to the pages. In the Exegetical Notes, I have endeavoured to render Goethe's own meaning strictly, and where my interpretation differs from those of previous translators and commentators (my obligations to whom I gladly acknowledge), Goethe himself is adduced as authority, the supporting passages from his other works being quoted in German. Copious extracts from other German authors and editors, illustrative of the text, have likewise been given in the original.

F. L.