34 GOETHE and the duke of saxe weIMAR. ful woman, the Countess with whom my neighbourhood at a Court dinner, gave me an opportunity of some pleasant conversation. Her friend, Goëthe, the literary idol of Germany, on whom our northern critics expended so much gall, was naturally brought on the tapis. The poetical Baron, to the no small concern of the German connoisseurs, has just retired from the direction of the Court Theatre at Weimar, which his taste had raised to high distinction. Amongst various reports on the subject, some ascribed the event to the bard's pertinacious good taste, which opposed itself to the performance of a quadruped performer, who had inspired the Grand Duke with a strong curiosity to see him. This is not precisely the fact-though it is true that a clever canine Roscius, who could carry a lanthorn or knock at a door, was the cause of a misunderstanding between the poet and his master and friend. "Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ?" But Goethe's advanced years and declining health were the immediate causes of his quitting his theatrical duties; the affair of the dog GOETHE AND THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 35 perhaps hastened his resignation. His peace is now made with the Court, where he dined the day before the departure of the Grand Duchess. The caustic comments of the Edinburgh Reviewers have been translated into the German Journals, particularly into one at Weimar, the editor of which owed the great poet a grudge *; and it appears, he could not have hit upon a more efficacious mode of paying it with interest. The critic found the clue to many a deep recess of the poet's psychological structure; touching all his sores with his bitter applications; and the poor bard has smarted not a little under this adroit discipline. He is not, however, quite so generally pitied or defended as I expected; for Goëthe, idolized as he is in Germany, as the poet, is by no means personally the object of the universal love inspired by Schiller. People speak of the latter with a fondness and respect as much called forth by his character as his genius. * I since understand that Goëthe has taken a dignified revenge in publishing a translation of the critical enactments against him, with the simple comment, "This the English call criticism!". He was a good man,-a good Germansimple as a child—with a noble and highminded nature. Goëthe has too much vanity to be personally popular, for while men of genius and kindred feeling, treat this defect as a mere feather in the scale weighed against first rate powers, the world at large never forgive it. It is an offence against their self-love which is quite unpardonable. Not being able to measure the infinite difference between a superior genius and themselves, they cannot understand why he should be a privileged being who may dogmatize and dictate in a style quite unallowable to persons of the common calibre. The little wits and the no wits of Germany are therefore very fond of descanting on the arrogance, and the overweening conceit of this great poet-while the real lovers of genius laugh at any one who dwells a moment on this weak side of their literary demigod. After all it must be admitted that the true elevation of human nature is the character ascribed to Schiller-that of vast genius united with an almost childish simplicity and artlessness of character. SCHILLER'S CASSANDRA. 37 I here add a translation, which I have been bold enough to attempt, of one of Schiller's most pathetic and beautiful poems-Cassandra. Madame de Staël, you remember, cites it with great admiration. The original is replete with a melancholy grandeur and an irresistible pathos. The tyranny of overpowering fate, the appalling horrors of the future, coupled with present agony, and contrasted with surrounding joy, press on the exalted mind of the enlightened maid with an insupportable load, and wring from her, in the original, plaints alternately of a touching pathos and an energetic despair. I fear my translation can convey but a very feeble image of these beauties. I have made it as faithful and as close to the original as I could; many stanzas convey nearly the literal sense; but by adhering exactly to the metre and the double rhymes of the German (in which last, our language is comparatively very poor) I encountered much difficulty. Upon the whole, it is necessarily executed upon what Mr. Coleridge calls "principles of compensation,"-for though German blank verse may be turned almost 38 SCHILLER'S CASSANDRA. word for word into excellent English blank verse, it is impossible to translate a rhyming poem without considerable latitude. The nearest approach to the reconciling of beauty and literal exactness, is, perhaps, Mr. Coleridge's exquisite version of Thekla's little song in Wallenstein;-and in this, though only consisting of ten lines, he found it impossible to unite rhyme and poetic diction with perfect fidelity. CASSANDRA. (SCHILLER.) ILION'S Sons with joy are bounding, Hymns of jubilee are sounding From the lyre's entrancing strings: And with laurel garlands gleaming, Tow'rds the sacred Thymbrian fane— |