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    hero—an historical hero certainly he is not , he is not a Wilhelm Tell , such as Schiller would have made hinr , and of that class probably better than any other modern poet . But is he not therefore the fitter person to be the protagonists of a tragedy ? Goethe , in his admirable critique upon Hamlet in Wilhelm Meisster , says that the spirit of his character lies in the

    couplet—• The time is out of joint—oh cursed spight That I was ever born to set it right / This is equally true of Egmont . It is precisely because he is not a hero , but a merely humane and generous man , kind-hearted and light-hearted , that he is the fit subject of a tragedy ; otherwise he would not have fallen into the snare . Schiller ' s objection to Egmont is merely this , that he is not William of Orange . Now

    Goethe gives us William of Orange also , but in due subordination . He escapes , being a prudent and wily politician ; he is well qualified to be the deliverer of his country , but not to excite that pity or occasion that terror which the fate of Egmont produces . Schiller is also offended with the amorous disposition of Egmont . The Egmont of history , he says , was a husband and the father of nine children , and it was his love for them and fear to involve them in his ruin , that made him delay his flight . And this , in the

    opinion of the author of Fiesco , renders Goethe more inexcusable in such a needless departure from historic truth . We will not deny that the historical might have more moral worth than the poetical Egmont . But had we had the real Countess Egmont on the stage ( though as admirable as Lady Russell ) with her nine orphan children , as they were soon to become , we confess that we would rather it should have been under the auspices of Kotzebue or Iffland than of Goethe .

    Volume 9 th consists of our author ' s three most elaborate works appertaining to the regular drama , and at the same time , they are among the most exquisite and polished of his metrical compositions ; the Iphigenie auf Tauris , Torquato Tasso , and Die naturliche ' Tochter , the first of which alone has acquired celebrity out of Germany . An excellent translation has rendered it accessible to the English reader * .

    * The writer of these remarks would deem it a neglect of duty were he to omit so fair an opportunity of expressing his gTatitude to Mr . William Taylor of Norwich , who first opened to him the treasures of German literature . It is now nearly forty years since Mr . Taylor ' s excellent articles in the Appendices to the MontAiy Review , and his admirable translations from Burger , Wieland , and Goethe gave a direction to his vague studies , and turned the whole course of his future life . These various writings were a few years since collected by Mr . Taylor , and pub * lished under the title of an * Historic Survey of German Poetry / on which an

    article appeared in the Edinburgh Review for March , 1831 , written in the bitterest spirit of that mordacious publication . The following comments are such as ought not to be made with the authority of a collective pronoun , and therefore speaking individually , I say that I entertain high respect for the tatauts of the reviewer , and concur in most , if not all of his views of German literature . I am willing to persuade myself that the spirit of the writer has been overpowered by the spirit of the book . Mr . T . states with honourable frankness and simplicity of what materials his work was composed , his age , the length of time that had elapsed since he had been separated from Germany , &c ., all which admissions the reviewer snake *

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    Goethe ' s Work * , 517

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 517, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/13/