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body, is dead is buried

is forgotten!' and, on the

other side, seemed to hear ascending, as with the solemnity of an anthem This man, that thought himself to be nobody, is dead is buried; his life

has been searched; and his memory is hallowed for ever!'

NOTES.

NOTE 1. Page 167.

Scriptural,' we call it, because this element of thought, so indispensable to a profound philosophy of morals, is not simply more used in Scripture than elsewhere, but is so exclusively significant or intelligible amidst the correlative ideas of Scripture, as to be absolutely insusceptible of translation into classical Greek or classical Latin. It is disgraceful that more reflection has not been directed to the vast causes and consequences of so pregnant a truth.

NOTE 2. Page 179.

'Poor S. T. C.'-The affecting expression by which Coleridge in ficates himself in the few lines written during his last illness for an inscription upon his grave; lines ill constructed in point of diction, and compression, but otherwise speaking from the depths of his heart.

NOTE 3. Page 198.

It is right to remind the reader of this, for a reason applying forcibly to the present moment. Michelet has taxed Englishmen with yielding to national animosities in the case of Joan, having no plea whatever for that insinuation but the single one drawn from Shakspeare's Henry VI. To this the answer is, first, that Shakspeare's share in that trilogy is not nicely ascertained. Secondly, that M. Michelet forgot (or, which is far worse, not rgetting it, he dissembled) the fact, that in undertaking a series of iramas upon the basis avowedly of national chronicles, and for the very purpose of profiting by old traditionary recollections connected with ancestral glories, it was mere lunacy to recast the

circumstances at the bidding of antiquarian research, so as entirely to disturb these glories. Besides that, to Shakspeare's age no such spirit of research had blossomed. Writing for the stage, a man would have risked lapidation by uttering a whisper in that direction. And, even if not, what sense could there have been in openly running counter to the very motive that had originally prompted that particular class of chronicle plays? Thirdly, if one Englishman had, in a memorable situation, adopted the popular view of Joan's conduct, (popular as much in France as in England;) on the other hand, fifty years before M. Michelet was writing this flagrant injustice, another Englishman (viz., Southey) had, in an epic poem, reversed this misjudgment, and invested the shepherd girl with a glory nowhere else accorded to her, unless indeed by Schiller. Fourthly, we are not entitled to view as an attack upon Joanna, what, in the worst construction, is but an unexamining adoption of the contemporary historical accounts. A poet or a dramatist is not responsible for the accuracy of chronicles. But what is an attack upon Joan, being briefly the foulest and obscenest attempt ever made to stifle the grandeur of a great human struggle, viz, the French burlesque poem of La Pucelle-what memorable man was it that wrote that? Was he a Frenchman, or was he not? That M. Michelet should pretend to have forgotten this vilest of pasquinades, is more shocking to the general sense of justice than any special untruth as to Shakspeare can be to the particular nationality of an Englishman.

NOTE 4. Page 214.

The story which furnishes a basis to the fine ballad in Percy's Reliques, and to the Canterbury Tale of Chaucer's Lady Abbess.

GOETHE.

JOHN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, a man of commanding influence in the literature of modern Germany throughout the latter half of his long life, and possessing two separate claims upon our notice; one in right of his own unquestionable talents; and another much stronger, though less direct, arising out of his position, and the extravagant partisanship put forward on his behalf for the last forty years. The literary body in all countries, and for reasons which rest upon a sounder basis than that of private jealousies, have always been disposed to a republican simplicity in all that regards the assumption of rank and personal pretensions. Valeat quantum valere potest, is the form of license to every man's ambition, coupled with its caution. Let his influence and authority be commensurate with his attested value; and because no man in the present infirmity of human speculation, and the present multiformity of human power can hope for more than a very limited superiority, there is an end at once to all absolute dictatorship. The dictatorship in any case could be only relative, and in relation to a single department of art or knowledge; and this for a reason stronger even than that already noticed, viz., the vast extent of the field on which the intellect is now summoned to employ itself. That objection, as it applies only to the degree of the difficulty, might be met by a corresponding de

gree of mental energy; such a thing may be supposed, at least. But another difficulty there is of a profounder character which cannot be so easily parried. Those who have reflected at all upon the fine arts, know that power of one kind is often inconsistent, positively incompatible with power of another kind. For example, the dramatic mind is incompatible with the epic. And though we should consent to suppose that some intellect might arise endowed upon a scale of such angelic comprehensiveness, as to vibrate equally and indifferently towards either pole, still it is next to impossible, in the exercise and culture of the two powers, but some bias must arise which would give that advantage to the one over the other which the right arm has over the left. But the supposition, the very case put, is baseless, and countenanced by no precedent. Yet, under this previous difficulty, and with regard to a literature convulsed, if any ever was, by an almost total anarchy, it is a fact notorious to all who take an interest in Germany and its concerns, that Goethe did in one way or other, through the length and breadth of that vast country, establish a supremacy of influence wholly unexampled; a supremacy indeed perilous in a less honorable man, to those whom he might chance to hate, and with regard to himself thus far unfortunate, that it conferred upon every work proceeding from his pen a sort of papal indulgence, an immunity from criticism, or even from the appeals of good sense, such as it is not wholesome that any man should enjoy. Yet we repeat that German literature was and is in a condition of total anarchy. With this solitary exception, no name, even in the most narrow section of knowledge or of power, has ever been able in that country to

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