The Press. — 1853-09-10 (London, England)

THE PRESS.  was as Vt,rsatile as it was prolific. A fairy tale for children was as much in his line as the most abstruse metaphysics ; a mad drinking song flowed as naturally from his pea as the elegant criticisms of art, or the Most desperate passions and the darkest terrors of tragedy. He introduces you into the heart of the sui tide, and treats of the elementary constituents of light. with the Sallie busy anti officious but serene intelligence. The author of " Faust " is the author not only of comedies but of burlesque opens. And what is the sum of the result of so many labours ? If he be judged by what are esteemed his best produetions, he has left nothing whatever behind him which is not immeastintbly surpassed, in its kind, by hundreds of well-known works, in some one 1110dent language, or in several. There are novels infinitely better than his " Wilhelm Miester " orhis "Werther" odes, ballads, songs, compared with which the best he ever wrote, are valueless ; letters, essays, narratives, biographies, historical comments, with which it would make men of judgment and taste smile to put his in juxtaposition ; and, finally, tragedies with which, it is to be hoped, the world, if driven to a choice, would not part for the sake of "Faust." This is his opus magnum, the work with which he took more pains than with all his other innumerable worksvia together. The hero is a man of sublime learning and ineomparable genius, with aspirations after whatever is above or beyond humanity. His attainments and ability reduce at. length a part of the invisible universe beneath his email)) ; and he immediately uses this tenifie power, as we might anticipate from so exalted a character. He moves earth and hell to obtain some witches who dance undraped around him, and to enable him to seduce a happy village girl. For this end, for this grand consummation, the noblest mental toil, and the supposed acquirements of the profoundest science, are seen in il•eration. The incidents are worthy of the design. The innocent girl poisons her mother, occasions the slaughter of her lover, flings awayherown virtue, murders her infant, goes raving mad, is executed, soars to heaven by a supernal award, and leaves Faust to death and damnation, in the power of his accommodating but now importunate ally, Mephistopheles, the devil. It cannot he denied rt is an exceedingly deep tragedy. Black magic, seduction, duelling, matricide, infitnti side, suicide, church bells, the hymn of the last day, the familiar proceedings of demons, and eternal perdition, are robust materials. But such materials are in the reach of all persons. Any cursing drover who knew how to write might collect the elements of as dark a drama. How would he use them ? 11,. would use them as Shakspeare would not. There is a great instrument of popukrity in " Faust," an instrument which Goethe never forgot to employ in any of his imaginative productions : it is the exposure of the littleness of great characters ; it consists in exhibiting extntordinary persons to the mass in those lights in which they not only resemble the mass, but in which they flatter, by example, the vilest instincts of fallen humanity. The real poet's mission is different : he sees the bright and the noble parts of the meanest things, and shows the spirit that is in the clay. Goethe had an eye for the earthy encumbrances which clog the spirit. Here for the present we must close, reserving until next week sonic remarks on Goethe's other works.  The Story of Mont Wane. IV Albert Smith  - London : Bogue. HALE the world already knows " The S'ory of Mont Blanc " as told by Albert Smith at the panorama in the Egyptian-hall, and for the accommodation of the other half he has published this book ; and really we should say the bitter method of making public his exploits must be much more agreeable to him ; for to go on indefinitely—he has repeated it already five hundred times we believe—as he promises to do, telling the same story by word of mouth, must be rather tiresome. This little volume, however, does more than repeat the account of his own ascent : it gives a bistory of the Valley