The Sun. — 1856-08-05 (London, England)

LEWES' GOETHE.  The T ife and Works of Goethe ; With Sketches of his Age and Contemporaries. By G. H. Lewes. 2 vols. David Nutt. It is curious that, while the most appreciative of all the commentators on Shakspere was (A. W. Schlegel) a German—incomparably the most gifted and intelligent of all the biographers of Goethe is (G. H. Lewes) an Englishman. These two remarkable volumes, commemorative of the greatest literary genius of the Teutonic race—volumes only given to the world at last after two years of assiduous preparation—constitute henceforth, par excellence, we do conscientiously believe, THE " Life of Goethe," and, as such, assume at once a high and unassailable position among • our great classic masterpieces. Cordially—now that his labour of love is at length accomplished—now that we have the fruition of it in our hands thus substantially and satisfactorily—cordially do we offer to Mr. Lewes our unaffected and most earlnest congratulations. Thus far, at least, he has fulfilled his ambition. Again and more triumphantly than hitherto he has passed another of the golden goals towards which his steps have been reverently and ardently directed. In this last and worthiest of his various literary productions he has acquitted himself, we must protest at once, hardly less to our surprise than to our admiration. His brilliant imaginative sketch of the Young Author, " Ranthorpe," his charming historiette of " Rose, Blanche, and Violet," his fiery and daring apostrophe to the shade of "Robespierre," his luminous and comprehensive " Biographical History of Philosophy" shall we acknowledge it ?—had hardly prepared us for the mellowed and perfected excellence of this really masterly memorial of Goethe and his Contemporaries. A biography not unworthy, in its way, of taking rank among the more admirable examples produceable through any age, or in any tongue, in that, to us, we had nearly said, the most fascinating of all the numerous departments of literature. The work—it is interesting to remark at once—is thus gracefully inscribed to Thomas Carlyle, the translator of " Wilhelm Meister," and as such the one " who first taught England to appreciate Goethe"—" As a memorial," writes Mr. Lewes, " Of gratitude for Intellectual Guidance, and of esteem for rare and noble qualities." Conspicuous among the various honours conferred upon the author of " Sartor Resartus "—we take this dedication to be about the one the most eminently well calculated to afford him a genuine and lasting sense of gratification. The motto selected by Mr. Lewes for his title-page--resembling somewhat the motto we ourselves should have chosen for the title-page of a crowning biography of the Great Napoleon (namely, the opinion uttered in regard to that extraordinary man by the Right Hon. Charles James Fox, to wit : "'believe him to be one of the best, as I am sure he is the greatest of mankind")—is sententiously as follows :—" Goethe's heart, which few knew, was as great as his intellect, which all know." AOTOC ft7rEV Jung Stilling ! And truthfully— judging from these dispassionate records, the data of which, as the title-page again intimates, have been industriously collected by our author, from sources both " published and unpublished." The former, namely, the published sources of information in regard to the life of Goethe, may of course be readily enough enumerated. Foremost among them the brief biographical notices by Doring and by Schutz—succeeded, as those miniature mementoes were ultimately, by the ampler narratives of Viehoff and of Schafer—Viehoff 's Goethe's Leben extending to four, and Schafer's to two volumes :-Itolumes as substantial in appearance, but by no means as meritorious in character, as these two tomes from the hand of G. H. Lewes. Besides the " Lives" of Goethe, penned by Daring, and Schutz, and Viehoff, and Schafer, there were—affording materials and hints to our author—Herr Falk's "Reminiscences of Goethe," and Mrs. Austin's " Goethe and his Contemporaries," and Mr. Oxenfori's translation of " Enckerinann's Conversations," and Goethe's own Letters, letters addressed now to the Countess You Stolberg, now to Kestner, now to Charlotte—not forgetting various other Epistles, Memoirs, and Recollections, or (what Mr. Lewes quite comprehensibly designates " as much of a stumbling-block as of a stepping-stone"), the renowned Wahrheit and Dichtung, Goethe's own famous fragment of Autobiography ! All these published sources of information in regard to his subject Mr. Lewes has wisely brought under contribution, has fairly sifted and ransacked. But with these he has scrutinised no less searchingly various unpublished sources of intelligence—. sources imparting to his volumes very agreeably an air of undoubted novelty and originality. Speaking of this in his Preface he observes— " Besides the mass of printed testimony, I have endeavoured to get at the truth by consulting those who lived under the same roof with him, those who lived in friendly intercourse with him, and those who have made his life and works a special study." A Life, remember, extending over the ample " span" comprised between 1749 and 1832—a life consequently embracing eighty-two years altogether Johann Wolfgang Goethe having been born in 1749, about, noonday on the 28th of August, and having expired at length full of years and honours, iu 1832, at about the same hour of the day on the 22d of March. Works including among their number—his maiden phantasy " Gots von Berlichingen," his morbid tale of love and suicide " Werther," " Clavigo," " Egmont," " Stella," "Die Fischerin," "Triumph der Empfiudsamkeit," " Iphigenia," "Ilmenau," Tasso," his " Theory of Colour," his " Treatise on the Metamorphoses of Plants ;" above all, his wonderful " Wilhelm Meister," his astonishing " Faust," and his exquisite " Herman and Dorothea." What a genius ! What fecundity What depth ! What imagination ! Remembering these works, do we not surround our ideal of Goethe with the graceful and angelic forms of Charlotte, and Dorothea, and Mignon, and Marguerite ? Do we not marvel over the memory of this giant intellect under the glamour of the Walpurgis Night, to the eltridch strain of the "Ed King," to the wierd glimmer of the sardonic and evil eye of that mocking phantom yonder in the dark background, the wily and diabolic Mephistopheles Such is the memorable " Life," such are the marvellous " Works," recounted and analysed by Mr. G. H. Lewes' pen of sagacity and fascination. A masterpiece not unworthy of its theme—this noble biography will henceforth be regarded, we rest assured, hardly less in Germany than in England, as the classic authority commemorative of all most worthy of commemoration in regard to Goethe and his contemporaries.