translation than in the original. In the original, two volumes were first published, and the curiosity of the public excited by these led to the publication of a third. The order of time is thus broken in the original. The translator has remedied this-inserting whatever is introduced in the third volume according to its chronological order. In America the two first volumes had already b n translated, but what is now added from the third has not, we believe, appeared in English, except in these volumes, and the supplemental matter is, we think, for the most part, of greater interest than the rest. The first entries which we have in 1824 are well worth studying, though they scarcely admit of abridgement. They open with an amusing dialogue between Goethe and a young man, who said he was near falling in love with a charming girl," although her understanding would not exactly be called brilliant." "As if," said Goethe, "love had anything to do with the understanding. The things we love in a young lady are something very different from the understanding. We love in her beauty, playfulness, trustingness, character, faults, caprices; but we do not love her understanding. The understanding is not that which fires the heart or which awakens passion." This topic disposed of which it was during dinner-next came Shakspeare, and during the talk about him, Eckermann and Goethe were alone so that it was something more of an essay. Goethe thought himself lucky in not having been an Englishman, and in not knowing Shakspeare in his own earlier days. The existence to him of anything so great as Shakspeare, would have dwarfed his creative power, and the development of his own poetic faculty been checked and blighted. His genius would, in such circumstances, have been thwarted, and sought some other outlet of expression. Eckermann said, that if one thought of Shakspeare as transformed into a German, and compared him with anything in German literature, his gigantic greatness would appear miraculous; that thought of in connexion with the literature of his country, of his contemporaries, and immediate successors, the miracle ceases, and while he remains a being of the most exalted magnitude, that his works seem of human achievement, and, as such, to be referred not to the man, but to the productive

atmosphere of his age and time. "You are right," replied Goethe, "it is with Shakspeare, as with the mountains of Switzerland. Transplant Mont Blanc at once into the large plain of Luneburg Heath, and we should find no words to express our wonder at its magnitude. Seek it, however, in its gigantic home, go to it over its immense neighbours, the Jungfrau, the Finsterarhorn, the Eiger, the Wetterborn, St. Gothard, and Monte Rosa; Mont Blanc will, indeed, still remain a giant, but it will no longer produce in us such amazement."

·

"Besides, let him who will not believe,' continued Goethe, that much of Shakspeare's greatness appertains to his great vigorous time, only ask himself the question, whether a phenomenon so astounding would be possible in the present England of 1824, in these evil days of criticising and hair-splitting journals?

"That undisturbed, innocent, somnambulatory production, by which alone anything great can thrive, is no longer possible. Our talents at present lie before the public. The daily criticisms which appear in fifty different places, and the gossip that is caused by them amongst the public, prevent the appearance of any sound production. In the present day, he who does not keep aloof from all this, and isolate himself by main force, is lost. Through the bad, chiefly negative, æsthetical, and critical tone of the journals, a sort of half culture finds its way into the masses; but to productive talent it is a noxious mist, a dropping poison, which destroys the tree of creative power, from the ornamental green leaves, to the deepest pith and the most hidden fibres.

"And then how tame and weak has life itself become during the last two shabby centuries. Where do we now meet an original nature? and where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is? This, however, affects the poet, who must find all within himself, while he is left in the lurch by all without.'”—pp. 115, 116.

Parts of this book are of considerable interest to students of German literature, which, however, we should not be justified in producing. Indeed the passages of most value could not easily be rendered quite intelligible to the English reader, as they consist of minute criticism often of works which never made their way to this country, and often of those which, having had their day of popularity, are almost

forgotten in their own. Of our English poets, Goethe most admired, and was best acquainted with, the works of Byron, whose genius he seems to have regarded, in its power, in its violence, in its disregard of conventionalities, as a type or symbol of the revolutionary age in which Byron's lot was cast. There is some inconsistency in what he says of him, as at times he speaks as if he imagined all that Byron could do was already done; that to have produced a greater number of works would be but to continue to exercise an art, but that all which he could do to extend that art had been already accomplished. At times, he speaks of him as if he had been taken away before the full development of his power; but over Goethe's mind this great poet exercised an almost magic influence, and several of his latter works exhibit his careful study of Byron. Of Scott he often speaks, always of his novels; and we do not remember any passage from which it would appear that he was acquainted with his poetical works. Of his own writings, he often speaks, and always in a manly tone, not as if they were the works of others, or disturbing himself with inculpatory or exculpatory criticism, but as one perfectly remembering the feeling in which they were written, a feeling which, for the most part, when they were the expression of any strong passion, he had outgrown. He describes himself in Werther, and in the earlier parts of Faust, getting rid of his own unrest, by allowing the feeling to exhaust itself on expression. The heart thus terminated and forgot what had been preying on it when it was once thoroughly worked out. In his West-eastern Divan, one section is called Das Buch des Unmuths, "The Book of Ill-Humour," in which he pours out his splenetic feeling against his enemies :

If any one praised me, I was not allowed, in self-congratulation, to receive it as a well-merited tribute; but people expected from me some modest expression, humbly setting forth the total unworthiness of my person and my work. However, my nature opposed this; and I should have been a miserable hypocrite, if I had so tried to lie and dissemble. Since I was strong enough to show myself in my whole truth, just as I felt, I was deemed proud, and am considered so to the present day.

666

In religious, scientific, and political matters, I generally brought trouble upon myself, because I was no hypocrite, and had the courage to express what I

felt.

"I believed in God and in Nature, and in the triumph of good over evil; but this was not enough for pious souls: I was also required to believe other points, which were opposed to the feeling of my soul for truth; besides, I did not see that these would be of the slightest service to me. It was also prejudicial to me that I discovered Newton's theory of light and colour to be an error, and that I had the courage to contradict the universal creed. I discovered light in its purity and truth, and I considered it my duty to fight for it. The opposite party, however, did their utmost to darken the light; for they maintained that shade is a part of light. It sounds absurd when I express it; but so it is: for they said that colours, which are shadow and the result of shade, are light itself, or, which amounts to the same thing, are the beams of light, broken now in one way, now in another.'"-pp. 119, 120.

biography, which he was this year enSpeaking of the latter part of his gaged in preparing for publication, Goethe says:

"When I look back to the earlier and middle periods of my life, and now in my old age think how few are left of those who were young with me, I always think of a summer residence at a bathing-place. When you arrive, you make acquaintance and friends of those who have already been there some time, and who leave in a few weeks. The loss is painful. Then you turn to the second generation, with which you live a good while, and become most intimate. But this goes also, and leaves us alone with the third, which comes just as we are going away, and with which we have, properly, nothing to do.

"I have ever been esteemed one of Fortune's chiefest favourites; nor will I complain or find fault with the course

my life has taken. Yet, truly, there has been nothing but toil and care; and I may say that, in all my seventy-five years, I have never had a month of genuine comfort. It has been the perpetual rolling of a stone, which I have always had to raise anew. My annals will render clear what I now say. The

claims upon my activity, both from within and without, were too numerous. "My real happiness was my poetic meditation and production. But how was this disturbed, limited, and hindered by my external position! Had I been able to abstain more from public business, and to live more in solitude, I should

have been happier, and should have accomplished much more as a poet. But, soon after my "Goetz" and "Werther," that saying of a sage was verified for me-"If you do anything for the sake of the world, it will take good care that you shall not do it a second time." ". e." "-pp. 124, 125.

We have left ourselves no room for further extracts. To Mr. Oxenford,

the English public are greatly indebted for what seems a faithful translation, and what is certainly a very interesting book.

I HAD Scarcely finished my breakfast, when a group of officers rode up to our quarters to visit me. My arrival had already created an immense sensation in the city, and all kinds of rumours were afloat as to the tidings I had brought. The meagreness of the information would, indeed, have seemed in strong contrast to the enterprise and hazard of the escape, had I not the craft to eke it out by that process of suggestion and speculation in which I was rather an adept.

we

Little in substance as my information was, all the younger officers were in favour of acting upon it. The English are no bad judges of our position and chances, was the constant argument. They see exactly how stand; they know the relative forces of our army, and the enemy's; and if the "cautious islanders"-such was the phrase-advised a coup de main, it surely must have much in its favour. I lay stress upon the remark, trifling as it may seem; but it is curious to know, that with all the immense successes of England on sea, her reputation, at that time, among Frenchmen, was rather for prudent and well-matured undertaking, than for those daring enterprises which are as much the character of her courage.

My visiters continued to pour in during the morning, officers of every arm and rank, some from mere idle cu

riosity, some to question and interrogate, and not a few to solve doubts in their mind as to my being really French, and a soldier, and not an agent of that perfide Albion, whose treachery was become a proverb amongst us. Many were disappointed at my knowing so little. I neither could tell the date of Napoleon's passing St. Gothard, nor the amount of his force; neither knew I whether he meant to turn eastward towards the plains of Lombardy, or march direct to the relief of Genoa. Of Moreau's successes in Germany, too, I had only heard vaguely; and, of course, could recount nothing. I could overhear, occasionally, around and about me, the murmurs of dissatisfaction my ignorance called forth, and was not a little grateful to an old artillery captain for saying, "That's the very best thing about the lad; a spy would have had his whole lesson by heart."

"Well, there it is yonder," and he handed me his glass as he spoke; “you see that large beetling cliff, with the olives at the foot. There, on the summit, stands the Monte Faccio. The road-the pathway rather, and a steep one it is leads up where you see those goats feeding, and crosses in front of the crag, directly beneath the fire of the batteries. There's not a spot on the whole ascent where three men could march abreast, and wherever there is any shelter from fire, the guns of the Sprona,' that small fort to the right, take the whole position. What do you think of your counsel now ?”

6

"You forget, sir, it is not my counsel. I merely repeat what I overheard."

"And do you mean to say, that the men who gave that advice were serious, or capable of adopting it themselves?"

"Most assuredly; they would never recommend to others what they felt unequal to themselves. I know these English well, and so much will I of them."

say

"Bah!" cried he, with an insolent gesture of his hand, and turned away; and I could plainly see, that my praises of the enemy were very ill-taken. In fact, my unlucky burst of generosity had done more to damage my credit, than all the dangerous or impracticable features of my scheme. Every eye was turned to the bold precipice, and the stern fortress that crowned it, and all agreed that an attack must be hopeless.

I saw, too late, the great fault I had committed, and that nothing could be more wanting in tact than to suggest to Frenchmen an enterprise which Englishmen deemed practicable, and which yet, to the former, seemed beyond all reach of success. The insult was too palpable and too direct, but to retract was impossible, and I had now to sustain a proposition which gave offence on every side.

It was very mortifying to me to see how soon all my personal credit was

merged in this unhappy theory. No one thought more of my hazardous escape, the perils I encountered, or the sufferings I had undergone. All that was remembered of me was the affront I had offered to the national courage, and the preference I had implied to English bravery.

Never did I pass a more tormenting day; new arrivals continually refreshed the discussion, and always with the same results; and although some were satisfied to convey their opinions by a shake of the head or a dubious smile, others, more candid than civil, plainly intimated that if I had nothing of more consequence to tell, I might as well have stayed where I was, and not added one more to a garrison so closely pressed by hunger. Very little more of such reasoning would have persuaded myself of its truth, and I almost began to wish that I was once more back in "the sick bay" of the frigate.

Towards evening I was left alone ; my host went down to the town on duty; and after the visit of a tailor, who came to try on me a staff uniforma distinction, I afterwards learned, owing to the abundance of this class of costume, and not to any claims I could prefer to the rank-I was perfectly free to stroll about where I pleased unmolested, and, no small blessing, unquestioned.

On following along the walls for some distance, I came to a part where a succession of deep ravines opened at the foot of the bastions, conducting by many a tortuous and rocky glen to the Apennines. The sides of these gorges were dotted here and there with wild hollies and fig trees, stunted and illthriven, as the nature of the soil might imply. Still, for the sake of the few berries, or the sapless fruit they bore, the soldiers of the garrison were accustomed to creep out from the embrasures, and descend the steep cliffs, a peril great enough in itself, but terribly increased by the risk of exposure to the enemy's Tirailleurs," as well as the consequences such indiscipline would bring down on them.

So frequent, however, had been these infractions, that little footpaths were worn bare along the face of the cliff, traversing in many a zigzag a surface that seemed like a wall. It was almost incredible that men would brave such peril for so little; but famine had rendered them indifferent to death;

and although debility exhibited itself in every motion and gesture, the men would stand unshrinking and undismayed beneath the fire of a battery. At one spot, near the angle of a bastion, and where some shelter from the north winds protected the place, a little clump of orange trees stood, and towards these, though fully a mile off, many a foot-track led, showing how strong had been the temptation in that quarter. To reach it, the precipice should be traversed, the gorge beneath and a considerable ascent of the opposite mountain accomplished, and yet all these dangers had been successfully encountered, merely instigated by hunger!

High above this very spot, at a distance of perhaps eight hundred feet, stood the Monte Faccio-the large black and yellow banner of Austria floating from its walls, as if amid the clouds. I could see the muzzles of the great guns protruding from the embrasures; and I could even catch glances of a tall bearskin, as some soldier passed or repassed behind the parapet, and I thought how terrible would be the attempt to storm such a position. It was, indeed, true, that if I had the least conception of the strength of the fort, I never should have dared to talk of a coup de main. Still I was in a manner pledged to the suggestion. I had perilled my life for it, and few men do as much for an opinion; for this reason I resolved, come what would, to maintain my ground, and hold fast to my conviction. I never could be called upon to plan the expedition, nor could it by any possibility be confided to my guidance; responsibility could not, therefore, attach to me. All these were strong arguments, at least quite strong enough to decide a wavering judgment.

Meditating on these things, Istrolled back to my quarters. As I entered the garden, I found that several officers were assembled, among whom was Colonel de Barre, the brother of the general of that name, who afterwards fell at the Borodino. He was Chef d'Etat Major to Massena, and a most distinguished and brave soldier. Unlike the fashion of the day, which made the military man affect the rough coarseness of a savage, seasoning his talk with oaths, and curses, and low expressions, De Barre had something of the petit maitre in his address,

which nothing short of his well-proved courage would have saved from ridicule. His voice was low and soft, his smile perpetual; and although wellbred enough to have been dignified and easy, a certain fidgetty impulse to be pleasing made him always appear affected and unnatural. Never was there such a contrast to his chief; but indeed it was said, that to this very disparity of temperament he owed all the influence he possessed over Massena's mind.

I might have been a General of Division at the very least, to judge from the courteous deference of the salute with which he approached me—a politeness the more striking, as all the others immediately fell back, to leave us to converse together. I was actually overcome with the flattering terms in which he addressed me on the subject of my escape.

"I could scarcely at first credit the story," said he, "but when they told me that you were a Ninth man,' one of the old Tapageurs, I never doubted it more. You see what a bad character is, Monsieur de Tiernay !" It was the first time I had ever heard the prefix to my name, and I own the sound was pleasurable. "I served a

few months with your corps myself, but I soon saw there was no chance of promotion among fellows all more eager than myself for distinction. Well, sir, it is precisely to this reputation I have yielded my credit, and to which General Massena is kind enough to concede his own confidence. Your advice is about to be acted on, Mons. de Tiernay.”

"The coup de main

"A little lower, if you please, my dear sir. The expedition is to be conducted with every secrecy, even from the officers of every rank below a command. Have the goodness to walk along with me this way. If I understand General Massena aright, your information conveys no details, nor any particular suggestions as to the attack."

"None whatever, sir. It was the mere talk of a gun-room-the popular opinion among a set of young officers."

"I understand," said he, with a bow and a smile; "the suggestion of a number of high-minded and daring soldiers, as to what they deemed prac ticable."

"Precisely, sir."