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° ; ' ' . S ^ tlPi^ttltir^ ^MUrUiwvv* *— ¦
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CritfosartnofethelegMatorsybutfche judge...
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tfofraiMs is easierto twite than a story...
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LIFE OF GOETHE. Life and Works of Goethe...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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THE liM ^ D ^ EiR ^ : [ No . 293 ^ Sa ^ tjrda ^ :
° ; ' ' . S ^ Tlpi^Ttltir^ ^Muruiwvv* *— ¦
' fiterattim
Critfosartnofethelegmatorsybutfche Judge...
CritfosartnofethelegMatorsybutfche judges ond police of literature . They do not Sflawa ^^^ rprk and try to enforce them .-Edinburgh Bevunv .
Tfofraims Is Easierto Twite Than A Story...
tfofraiMs is easierto twite than a story the machinery of which is supernatural ; nothing , perhaps , more difficult than to achieve complete success -iHtfc stiCh Machinery . When all men believed in ghosts it-was easy to mate tlieni sup full of horrors ; now that few men believe in ghosts the task becomes difficult . The supernatural requires a strange union of iiflagittation with reason . Probabilities have to be kept up amid all i mprobabilities . Edgar Poe is a master in this . Wilkie Collins promises to rival Mm > in the story which opens this month ' s Frazer , called " The Monktons of Wincdt Abbey "—a story of our own life , of our own dayin which , however , the supernatural plays as conspicuous and as interesting a parfc as in " Les Freres Corses" ofDiimas . Let our readers not pass over that story , which we hope will continue for several numbers .
Another difficult task is that of writing popular science . Many men tmte what they mean to be popular ; but for the most part they are themselves superficially acquainted with their subjects , and when they have knowledge they want the power of reptodueing it in intelligible fbrmB . Tne writer of a paper in Frazer , on u The Science of ^ Esthetics of Colour , " may be read by any one with pleasure , and will be recognized as ; the production of one who has thorough grasp and mastery of the fiOieacfl * After a well-merited tribute to Owen Jones , the great decor & tife \ Srtfst of his age ,, the writer sketches Goethe ' s " Theory of Colours , " and reproduces the substance of a paper by Clausius ( which , by the way , the mathematical reader may find translated in the " Scientific Memoirs , " 18 & 3 ) , divesting it of formulae .
Pas $ iog from Science to the Drama , the reader who has the month ' s magazines lying strewed upon the table before him may open the Dublin Universiti / , and ., in the paper on the * ¦ ' Dramatic Writers of Ireland " he will learn some curious facts . What a surprise , for instance , to learn that Shiel deceived seven hundred pounds for the " Apostate , " a play which was only performed twelve times , although supported by Young , Macr € 3 dy , Charles Kemble , and Miss O'Neill . In our day it would be regarded as a failure if a play were performed only twelve times ; and as to the author ' s receiving seven hundred pounds as his share of the profits , he would indeed be a lucky wight who received that sum after one hundred jiefformances . But in those days there were " authors' nights "the third , ninth , and . we believe , the twentieth , yielded their receipts to him .
It may not have been forgotten by our readers that a great sensation was this Spring made in the world of science hy an attempt to disprove the great discovery made by Claude Bernard respecting the sugar-forming function of the liver . In noticing Bernard ' s " Lecons de Physiologie Expe " rioaente , " a few weeks since , we intimated our conviction that his discovery Would be found too firmly based to be overturned by his antagonists- The discussion reduced itself to two fundamental facts not difficult of verification , namely : Is there sugar in the vessels going to the liver after ft purely animal diet ? and is there sugar in the vessels going from the liver after such diet ? If no sugar be carried to the liver , and , nevertheless sugar be found carried from , it , the conclusion is irresistible : the sugar witlst be found in the liver .
K . Louis Figuior denied the fact . He said he always found sugar in the vessels going to tho liver ( the vence portce ) , but that its presence was mushed by the presence of albuninous substances . The Academic des Sciences appointed a Commission to inquire iuto and decide upon the question of fact . Their report , which is signed by no less a name than that of Dttr » a 8 , for himself , Pelhuge and llayor , gives the decision unequivocally against M . Figuxer , and in favour of M . Barnard . This result will be gladly learned by all lovers of scionce , for , ifM . Bernard has boon wrong , a serious doubt would have been thrown on any and every result of cxperixaeutnl physiology . It is this which has niado ua three times allude to tho dispute . The report of the Commission will bo found in the . last iiumbo , of the " Annales des Sciences Nftturollcs . "
Life Of Goethe. Life And Works Of Goethe...
LIFE OF GOETHE . Life and Works of Goethe : with sketches of his age and contemporaries . ( From published and unpublished sources . ' volfl . By G . II Lowes . London : David Nutt . ! B \> H reasons which will bo easily divined , wo have received nn injunction to deliver Ho judgment on this work , but simply to make tho reader acquainted with its general chnrnctor nnd purpose . Perhaps , if reviewers xn . oi'eJfVequently wrote under such nn injunction , tho public would not be a loser : readers would havo smaller exorcise for their faith ( in critics ) , but they would have a compensating incrcaso of knowledge . fiome acquaintance with Goctho is felt to be indispensable in these days .
^(((^^^¦^^¦¦¦^¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦•¦^¦¦¦¦¦¦¦^¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦• i ^ WM ^ WB ^^ BMBWBBi ^^ BB ^^ M ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ B ^^ Tftote *&& are tmable to study him directl y * find him mentioned by great authorities as the intellectual father , or grandfather of this age , which is said to be living chiefly on the ideas it has inherited from bntt . Accordingly , they are eager for some specific information as to what he has really done : they get translations of Gotz and Faust , and Egmonft , and Tasso , and lend a too reliant ear to " Lines from the German of Goethe . " The result is , that they are in some wonderment how Goethe can be called the greatest of modern poets . They read translations of Wahrheit und Dicktuna , Wilhelm Meister , and the WahlvervMndtschaften , and while they
find some wisdom and beauty which they understand and appreciate , they perhaps find much more - which seems to them not at all wisdom or beauty , and they have generally a sense that a clue is wanted . For readers thu 3 baffled , few books can be more interesting than one which will give them such a history of Goethe the Man as will throw light on Goethe the Writer—such a descriptive and analytical account of his -works as will enable them to conceive the artistic merits which have won him the supreme place among modern poets , such a natural history of his various productions as will show how they were the outgrowth of his mind at different stages of its culture .
Again , the real student of Goethe who has sought a commentary on his works in that huge mass of correspondence and criticism , and biographical material called Goethe Lileratur—who has groaned over Diintzer , and nodded over Viehoff—who has felt the difficulty of reconciling conflicting statements and opinions about Goethe ' s character , and of discerning through the cloud of criticism and comment the true relation of the works to the man , will welcome the aid . of any honest labourer in the same field , of any one who has diligently gone over this confused heap of documents , and not simply filed them chronologically , as the respectable " ViehofF has done , but . given a sort of balance-sheet , briefly exhibiting their relative importance . Such a student may be tmable to concur in the point of vieTf adopted , he may differ as to many conclusions , but the very extent of his knowledge will cause him to value a candid and intelligent opinion on a subject in which he has experienced the difficulty of forming such an opinion , and he will at least be interested to see presented in a panorama the way over which he has himself wearily travelled .
Readers of Goethe ' s autobiography have , we imagine , generally been disappointed when they have found it abruptly break off while he is in the bloom of youtb , and just before his entrance on his Weimar career . Many of them , too , have probably felt that it was for the most part something like an Italian landscape painted with a northern sky , and that it gave them little idea of what the writer was when the young blood was rushing through his veins , and the young enthusiasms impelled his lips and his pen . They have been tantalized by the abundance of wise dissertation on othex men , and the paucity of details about himself , and , on the whole , they have felt that the autobiography has rather stimulated their curiosity than satisfied it . The means of satisfying that curiosity have been increasing with the lapse of years , through the publication of interesting portions of correspondence and contributions of narrative by the personal friends of
Goeth e , so that it is now possible for the biographer to fill irk a lxsultituae of details unnoticed in the autobiography , and to correct its too frigid colouring by the warm tints of his own early letters , and the light thrown by the testimony of early friends . In this way we may get a picture of Goethe ' s youthful life , of which the autobiography forms , indeed , a principle source , but only one among many sources . Such a picture it is Mr . Lewes ' s object to give through the greater part of his first volume , in which his cour 3 e is side by side with the autobiography . His work , he tells us in bis preface , has been long on the anvil : it was commenced ten years ago , and during the interval we presume he has been on the watch for all information that might enrich his stock of materials or modify his conclusions . Having rewritten the first volume during a residence \ n Germany last winter , he has wrought into his narrative everything that he considers valuable in subsidiary documents , and fitted in fragmentary hints so as to render them significant . By ths means he gives vividness and reality to Goethe ' s and Strasb which and distant in
student-life at Liepzig urg , seem so vague Goethe ' s own gi'ave and allusive mode of telling the etory . But the part of the youthful life which gains most in fullness and distinctness is the Wetzlar , or , rather , the Wcrthar period—thanks to the timely publication lust year of the volume called Qocthe and Werther , containing letters ot Goethe , and illustrative documents , which bring into clear daylight his relation to Charlotte Buff , tho heroine of Wartlier , and to her husband , Kestner , and show us , as by a daguerrotype , what the young Goethe of those days actually was—how ardent , ingenious , loving , and loveable . This was the period of the famous Sturm und Drang tendency , by which Goethe was just so far intoxicated as to tie inspired with the greatest work that tendency produced — Gotz von JBerttchingen . Germany had not yet recovered from its astonishment at the bold innovation of this drama , when a new and yefc stronger sensation was excited by tho appearance of Werther . Mr . Lowes thus sketches tho characteristics of the period , of which Gutand JVerthcr are tho in tensest expression : ¦—
Golz is tho greatest product of tho Sturm und Drang movement . As wo heforo hinted , this period is not simply orjo of Titanic hopes and mediaeval retrospect ions , it ia nlso ono of unhealthy sentiinontnlism . Gootho , tho groat representative poet of his day—tho secretary of his ago—gives ua masterpieces which characterize both those tendencies . Ueaido tho insurgent Qotss stands tho dreamy Worthcr . And yet , accurately na theso two works represent two active tendencies of that time , they nro both far romorcd nbovo th , o perishing oxtmvaguncios of that time ; they nro both ideal expressions of tho ago , nnd us free from tho disease which corrupted it nn ( ioctlic himself was free from tho weakness of his contemporaries . Wilkos used to nay thut
ho hud novor been n " WilUito . Goutho was never a Wcrthor . To appreciate tno dirttunoo which sepurntod him nnd his work from his sentimental contemporaries « nd their works , wo must study tho character .- ! of hucIi mon as Jacobi , Klingor , Wagner , nod Lodz , or wo must road such works as Waldemar . It will tlien bo plain why Goethe turned with aversion from such works , his own included , when n few yo / ira had cleared his insight , and aottled liin aims , Then also will be seen tho difference between Genius which idealizes the spirit of tlio age , and Talent which panders to it . It Avna , indeed , a strange epoch ; tho umroit waa tho unrest of diseaae , and its oxtravngfl « aoa wero morbid symptoms . In tlio letters , memoirs , and novels , w hich
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 3, 1855, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03111855/page/14/
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