fairly infer, from the strictness of Goethe's expressed opinions on the subject; a strictness maintained in opposition to not a few of his friends. 66 clearly, that we cannot stifle the conviction that he must oversee all. Goethe's occasional and shorter poems would of themselves confer on him the mastership in his art. He has extracted its beauty from almost every situation and relation in life; and that under the most diverse conditions of humanity, geographical and social. A like objection to " Wilhelm Meister" has been already indicated. Taste seems to be sacrificed to truth. But the spirit of the whole work must impress every understanding reader, as dignified and earnest, incomparably beyond the Space compels us to hasten away from mass of didactic romances. Both its a notice of his shorter prose essays to parts-"Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice- his well-known autobiography, entitled ship," and his "Travels," are replete Wahrheit und Dichtung,-" Truth and with wisdom, - grave and deep, though Poetry,"-and which seems to us emphanot sad or needlessly severe. They tically a chef d'œuvre of genius. Of deal with the most serious of all sub- few other great men, even among those jects-the conduct of life. The form of who have attracted most attention as Wilhelm Meister" is partly allego- literary sovereigns, have we so many rical; at least, much of it can scarcely be personal details; and of none should we otherwise denominated. The topo- reasonably desire more. His career graphy of its scenes is as little defi- stretches over the most interesting nable by longitude and latitude, as period of modern history, and offers that of the "Pilgrim's Progress;" but singular analogies and differences, as it has the charm of minutely and vi- compared with other literary potentates. vidly depicting ordinary life. To attempt The establishment of an intellectual a particular analysis of its contents dominion is always a work of time. would be a vain task. As little real Apart from this condition, no brilliance idea of it would be conveyed thereby, of genius or talent, nor even force of as in the description of a great painting. character, can secure it. Of the triumSuffice it to say, that the lesson of the virate of literary sovereigns in modern whole appears to be, the necessity of Europe, Voltaire reached his 85th year, slow deliberation, in choosing an exter-Johnson his 76th, Goethe his 82nd. nal position in life, and the oft-repeated lesson conveyed in the stanza, as occurring at the end of the "Wanderjahre," thus translated by Mr. Carlyle : "Keep not standing fix'd and rooted, Briskly venture, briskly roam! Head and hand, where'er thou foot it, And stout hearts are still at home." Between the two latter there are other remarkable features of similarity. The recognition of their greatness arose in large measure from impressions derived through personal intercourse, and from the impulse they gave to the literature of the day. Their works, with one or two obvious exceptions, have been talked of en masse, far more than read and appreciated in detail. Hence, while the dominion of both was absolute over a large circle of worshippers during their lifetime, to the next generation it has become all but unintelligible. We should be still more removed from sympathy, but for a circumstance which is connected with the nature of their influence,- that of both we have an abundance of personal records. If Johnson had his Piozzi and Boswell; Goethe had his Bettina, Eckermann, and Falk. With this analogy, there is a characteristic difference. Of Dr. Johnson's early years our information is of the scan Its analyses of individual character and of systems of belief and action, are such as we have found nowhere else. We feel a strange thrill when the spring of our most secret purposes, which, as we thought, were concealed from all others, is suddenly touched by another, and the results of the movement objectively set before us with calm, clear, unerring delineation. Every possible experience, however alien apparently to the poet's own character, seems to be at his service. The "Bekennt nisse einer schöner Seele," in the "Wilhelm Meister," follows out minutely the steps of a religious conversion, and with indescrib-tiest. Goethe's childhood, on the conable warmth and truth; nor can such a record be the work of a mere spectator. And so of other states of mind and soul. In fact, the author sees everything so trary, stands before us as vividly as our own. This contrast is, we say, not trivial or accidental. None can understand the child but himself. The mother or the nurse may admire and even wor Other poets besides Goethe have ship; but the tenderest devotee cannot written of their early days. In all comprehend. "Childish things" require cases the child is father to the man." the spirit of the child to know them. In the life of the bard, "the natural His little world is formed chiefly from | piety" resulting from this connection is within; for the most determined idealist peculiarly binding. The vision of has no such power of subjective creation. There can, then, be no complete "Life" which does not begin with an Autobiography. Now the constant aim of the great German was self-development. He noted every stage of the process with scientific impartiality. His writings abound in personal reminiscences, meeting us in professed "Annals" and "Journals," and they re-appearing in philosophical novels and dramas. On the other hand, the great Englishman cannot write an autobiography, scarcely a part of one. We turn for a specimen of such an endeavour to his "Journey to the Western Islands." But so far from discoursing of himself, it is almost impossible for him to keep within any reasonable distance even of his path of travel. Amid disquisitions on man in general, and savage or half savage life in particular, it requires an effort to remember that our pilgrimage is among the mists and rocks of the Hebrides; the vast solitudes of Highland glens are peopled with classic forms; a Scotch mountain is used as vantage ground for glances at "the Alps and Apennines, the Pyrenæean, and the River Po;" and we are compelled to traverse "the plain of Marathon," in being introduced to "the ruins of Iona." It is Goethe's peculiar merit that the present, the actual, even the trivial, is presented in his writings as a symbol of high truth. He can make the outside of life perfectly transparent for the revelation of its profoundest depths. His parable seldom needs an interpretation, never a lengthened commentary; or, if it does, we must be content to leave it hopelessly obscure. Trebly important in his estimation and teaching is every event or circumstance that has an influence on the rest of life. Especially therefore, in the commencement, he can regard nothing as common-place. Higher up in the edifice, a brickbat, or a tile, may be a non-essential; it may fall out or remain in, without exciting notice or causing damage. But if it be part of the foundation it must be regarded as essential to the stability of the whole. earth's brightest colours, its choicest fragrance, and most jubilant music, is granted only to children. Once lost or misprized, it is caught up into heaven, not again to be vouchsafed. The poet is he who remembers most of it, and can describe it most clearly. From Horace, recalling the early inspiration breathed on the "Non sine Dis animosus infans," down to the sadly pleasing story of our own Hartley Coleridge, Wordsworth's dictum has received special confirmation in the biography of poetry. He himself has given us bright glimpses of his youth in the "Prelude," a poem far too lightly estimated. But here the splendour from within, like the dazzling haze in some of Turner's landscapes, obscures the outline, and blends the colours. We are in a land of lakes and mountains-"meet nurse for a poetic child"-but "clouds of glory," borne thither from the antenatal element, overshadow us and them. We "breathe empyreal air;" but we are only half conscious of the environment. Goethe's pictures are clear as the summer landscapes of the continent; bright and sunny as his own Frankfort in the finest days of June. Not only eye and ear, but every sense sympathises with the utterly child-like pleasures which he summons before us. We feel that in Goethe, reflection is perfectly counterbalanced by a clear, decided outlook on the world around him. His portrait says so. That of Wordsworth bespeaks exactly the contrary. Instead of the bright eagle-glance of the German, we have the introverted look of one who listens rather than sees, or who gazesnot upon the veritable picture of outward things-but upon a scene built up from within, conjured up by the har monies of Nature, and bearing little other relation to it,— rising like an exhalation with the sound Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet;" a world for spiritual habitation only, not shared in common, as the noblest "real scenery is, by the tax-gatherer, the land-owner, the tenants, and the poet, but the exclusive freehold of the last." All Wordsworth's descriptions of Nature relapse into this intuition. He even tells us that, on the actual sight of Mont Blanc, he 66 - grieved To have a soulless image on the eye The "Confessions of an English Opium-eater" now happily re-appearing in a supplemented form, more closely approach the "Dichtung und Wahrheit" in a vivid but deeply reflective sketch of childhood. With De Quincey's strangely hostile paper on Goethe, in a well known encyclopedia open before us, we fear this may be regarded by him as no compliment. The Confessions" are unapproachable in their order; but their object requires no such fulness or minuteness of description as Goethe's. 66 In fact, thus to have idealized his life is an achievement peculiar to the subject of this sketch; and it points to one of his excellencies on which the reader's patience must excuse one or two further remarks. Of all his intellectual works, that on which Goethe set most store was-Himself. Time had been when men's whole souls went forth in massive architecture which should be to their descendants "a possession for ever." But with all this striving, they had only reared "desolate places for themselves and for humanity; pyramids and palaces of Nimroud, built in the proportion of one or two grand thoughts, to an infinity of toil, and a vast monotony of surface. But in these late times, the building up and garnishing of a more cunningly built Living Temple, has come to be regarded as the true and worthy work of men. None in modern times has set this more directly before him than Goethe. He cast off his earlier productions as the slough or chrysalis that held in his growing expanding nature; and he thought no present sacrifice too great to promote the well-being of that. His various occupations his taking up science, art, and letters, simultaneously were thus justified in his own view; and the result justifies it to those who see what he achieved. He looked not to the rearing of any outward work; but to the building up of a Man; a soul complete in all its proportions. Doubtless he failed in many points; we might point out defects to be avoided; but his object was clearly before him; for this he worked, and in this work he is admirable and worthy of the imitation of all men. Additional personal characteristics we will only glance at. Schiller describes him as of the middle height, stiff, and by no means, at first, attractive in manner, but with a bright overpowering eye. His converse was fluent and easy, and the more he was known, the deeper was the interest felt in him; but though his features, especially in youth, were so noble and attractive, he laboured under those disadvantages in society which the deeply serious man can scarcely fail to encounter. In large assemblies, he tells us, "his heart was shut." Age mellowed and beautified his character. All his faculties stayed with him to the last; and his 83rd year, in which he died, found him in his "work-room" still. We have lively pictures of this generous old age in Eckermann's book of Conversations (6 Quo fit ut omnis Votivâ pateat veluti descripta tabellâ Vita senis. In conclusion we would observe that, with some important drawbacks, Goethe has done good service in rebuking that negative view of things which virtually excludes The Supreme Life from a por tion of His universe; that he has given ample and positive testimony to the fact that for art and for all other living products of human intellect, there is not, there cannot be, any true renaissance without the abiding belief of a Present and Living God. The men of old had this, in a form not pure indeed, but maintained with the calm, steady conviction of Men. Towards a resuscitation of this conviction, with all its fair and joyous accompaniments, a reunion of beauty and noble intellectual strivings, with the highest sanctions, and the regarding them anew as truly pertaining to the highest life, one man of modern times has laboured with some degree of faithfulness,- JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE. 220 DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO. THE death of M. Arago leaves in the ranks | unintelligible. Some folks, to this day, of the French Institute a vacuum which support the contemptuous expressions will not easily be filled. Astronomy, they employ when speaking about M. meteorology, the different branches of na- Arago, by the extraordinary statement tural philosophy were never elucidated that he was fourteen years old before by a savant better qualified for his task; he knew how to read! The fact, if it his name had become associated, more were true, seems to us by no means conespecially, with all the mysteries of cos- clusive; but it is not true, and the mography, and he was accordingly con- illustrious man whose loss France cansidered as the grand authority respecting not mourn over too much, had shown aerolites, shooting stars, and comets evidences of his brilliant gifts at an age either with or without tails. Arago when his detractors were still groping dixit served as a sanction for every po- for their way amidst the mazes of abpular theory on atmospheric influences; straction. nay, if he had determined to draw up a scheme of nativity, it is extremely probable that he would have dethroned both old Moore and Zadkiel himself. To speak seriously, M. Arago's reputation was principally grounded upon his talent as a lecturer for the masses; leaving others to discuss abstruse problems and to pore over books bristling with equations, he aimed chiefly at the glory of bringing down the results of those truths Laplace, Newton, or Ampère had discovered, to the level of an everyday audience; he sought and obtained the useful laurels which deck the brows of practical educators. Many will say that this position and course of studies should have secured to M. Arago general approbation and the thankful acknowledgment of all men really interested in the progress of science. But such has not been the case. The director of the Paris observatory, the secretary of the Institute, the friend of Humboldt and Brougham, has been the subject of controversies so violent that they cast into the shade the celebrated feuds of the romantiques and the classiques. "Tant de fiel entre-t-il dans l'âme des savans!" We have only altered the last word of the above line to apply it on the present occasion, and, certainly, those who hitherto may have supposed that a andy binomials and logarithms are incompatible with heated passions, need only read M. Arago's life to find themselves wofully mistaken. He has been called a quack, a dunce, a humbug, by people who think that Chambers's educational course is the profanation of learning, and that philosophy is all the better for being deep, i.e. DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO was born on the 26th of February, 1786, at Estagel, near Perpignan, in the south of France. His father, who held some situation under government, gave him an excellent education, and did all his limited means allowed, to push on an intelligent young man upon whom was to devolve in after-life, according to all probability, the care of providing for a numerous family. From the college of Perpignan, Dominique proceeded to that of Montpellier, where the course of instruction delivered was on a larger scale, and conducted by superior teachers. It may be proper to notice here that the analytic character of French metaphysics during the eighteenth century resulted at any rate in one good effort,-— it drove multitudes to the culture of the exact sciences, and formed a school of men pre-eminently distinguished in that respect. Condorcet, Laplace, Euler, D'Alembert, Lagrange, almost revolutionized the higher branches of mathematics; the wars of the revolution, calling forth to the frontiers a body of artillery-officers and engineers, added another stimulus; and the foundation of the Polytechnic School opened a wide field of activity both for pupils and masters. Young Arago was admitted into that celebrated establishment at the early age of eighteen. The accuracy of his knowledge and his general proficiency secured for him the first place amongst his competitors, and he reached from the very beginning the position he has kept ever since. It is said that when he presented himself as a candidate for pupilage, his answer to the first question so astonished the examiner that he declined putting a second, and sent him to the Institution with high compliments. might quietly proceed with such calculations as could be done in the retireThe pupils of the Ecole Polytechnique ment of the study; M. Arago joined M. are supposed to be fully qualified in the Rodriguez at Iviça. Here begins one of course of two years for efficient service in the most romantic incidents on record, either military or civil engineering. M. in the annals of scientific inquiry. The Arago's first appointment was that of sec- interesting travels of Humboldt himself retary to the Board of Longitudes, and contains nothing to match, in point of as such the Emperor ordered him to join adventure, the details of the next period the scientific expedition organized under in M. Arago's life. He was still busily the direction of M. Biot, for the purpose engaged upon his work, when war broke of measuring the arc of the meridian. out afresh. His position at Galatzo, As early as 1670, a Frenchman, named in Iviça, the instruments which he Picard, had begun a series of calculations constantly used, and to which the on the radius of the earth, so as to ob- people were not accustomed, everything tain its diameter; after him, journeys looked suspicious about him; he was had been accomplished with the same immediately set down as a spy. The object in view by Cassini, La Conda- fanaticism of the Spaniards easily mine, Maupertius, and Clairault. But caught flame, his residence was mobbed, the mathematical instruments used at he had the greatest difficulty in esthat time did not possess the necessary de- caping with his life, and all that the licacy; and savans had often either to give entreaties and intercessions of M. up the idea of prosecuting their investi- Rodriguez could obtain for the unforgations, or to remain satisfied with merely tunate Arago, was leave to embark on approximative results. Borda's corde re- a ship bound for Algiers. He had pétiteur, a most ingenious piece of mech-managed, though with no small trouble, anism, at last raised every obstacle, and to save his instruments and papers; MM. Mechain and Delambre were en- the Dey received him very courteously, abled to measure with the utmost exact- and allowed him to take his passage ness the arc of the meridian comprised | for France, in a vessel belonging to his between Dunkirk and Barcelona. The own government. The crew put off to object of the journey undertaken by M. sea under the most favourable auspices; Arago at Bonaparte's command, and in they were almost in sight of the French society with M. Biot, was to follow up coast, when a Spanish privateer atDelambre's calculations for the arc in-tacked them and Arago found himself cluded between Barcelona and the Ba- a prisoner. He was first conveyed to learic Islands. Although the whole of Europe was then in arms, the claims of science readily obtained the notice which civilized nations will award to them under all circumstances. The Spanish government appointed two eminent mathematicians, Chaise and Rodriguez, to join the French deputation, and England granted a safe conduct, which political events rendered absolutely indispensable. An imaginary triangle was constructed, destined to join Iviça to Spain. The base of that triangle was 142,000 metres in length, about 35 leagues; one of its sides measured nearly 160,000 metres, or 41 leagues. MM. Biot and Arago took their position at the apex of the triangle, on one of the highest mountains in Catalonia, the Spaniards established themselves at Campney in the island of Ivica. In 1807, after many months' arduous toil, the operations were happily finished. M. Biot returned to Paris that he the fort of Rosas, then to the pontoons of Talamos, where he had to undergo the most cruel treatment, and to expiate the mishap of belonging to la grande nation. In seizing, however, upon the Algerine frigate, the Spaniards had violated the treaty which still existed between the two countries, and the Dey remonstrated in so spirited a manner, that the crew, the passengers, and the cargo were released. Set free once more, Arago thought that this time he had done with perils both of sea and of robbers; the ship was actually in the Marseilles road, when a violent squall arose and drove the illfated expedition into the neighbourhood of Sardinia. It so happened that, at that time, considerations of a political nature rendered it impossible for the Algerines to think of seeking hospitality on the coast of the island: they therefore resolved to make for Africa as fast as they could, and when they discovered that the ship had sprung a leak, |