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    - $$$ & .. ; :: ;_ :., ; : ; :, ; :::: ; : ; ,,,..,.:. THE LEADER . [ No , 293 , Saturday ; JJ J J ^ _

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    _ _ __ relieibn was beauty , wbose-worship was ' . ofnature , -whose aim -was culture . His missioi was to paint life , and for that ' it was requisite he should see life , to know ' The haunt and the main region cf his song . " Sappier circumstances might indeed have surrounded him , and given him a greate sphere . It would have been very different , as heoften felt , if there had been a natioi to appeal to , instead of a heterogeneous mass of small peoples , willing enough to tall ¦ of Fatherland , bnt in no -wise prepared to become a nation . There are many other if ; in which much virtue could be found ; but inasmuch as he could not create circumstances we must fwllovr his example , and be content with what the gods provid ed , I do not . I confess , see -what other sphere was open to him in which his genius coulc havebeen more sacred ; but I do see that he built out of circumstances a noble temple -n which the altar-flame burut with a steady light , To hypothetical biographers he Jeft the task of settling what Goethe might have been ; enough for us to catch some sglimpse of what he wa 3 . Hitherto Goethe ' s works , though they had already given him a European fame , are in his biography subordinate to the history of his external life and the development of his intellect and character ; bnt from this point the most important and interesting part of his life lies in his activity as an . author . Before he ¦ went to Weimar , he had published or written , besides Gota and Werther , several dramatic pieces—the Lamie des Verliebten , Die Mitschuldiqen , Clavigo and Stella ; and many plans and fragments , never completed / lay in his portfolio . Each of these Mr . Lewes describes and < Hscusses as they occur in the narrative , so that the history of Goethe ' s productive faculty forms one web with the history of his life . The first of his mature and greatest productions was the Iphigenia , and -with the consideration of this work Mr . Lewes opens his second volume . We quote the introductory observations in which he contests the op inion that the Iphigema Is a great play : — It-was very characteristic in Schlegel to call Iphigenia " an echo of Greek song ;" ixe delighted in such rhetorical prettynesses ; but that . Germany , a land of scholars , . should have so unanimously repeated the phrase , and should have so often -without misgiving declared Iphigenia to be the finest modern specimen of Greek tragedy , is truly surprising , until -we reflect on the mass of flagrant traditional errors afloat about 4 ; he Greek drama . For a long while the Three Unities were held to be inseparable from that drama ; in spite of the fact that in several plays Unity of Time is obviously disregarded , and in two ox three the Unity of Place is equally so . Then there -was the notion that Comedy and Tragedy were not suffered to mingle in the same play ; in ¦ spite of the palpable fact of JEschylus and Euripides having mingled them . Then came the absurdity of Destiny as the tragic-pivot , in spite of the fact , as I have elsewhere shown , that in the majority of these plays Destiny has no place , beyond what the religious conceptions of the poets must of necessity have given to it , just as Christianity must of necessity underlie the tragic conceptions of Christian poets . The very phrase with which critics characterise Iphigenia is sufficient to condemn them . They tell us it has " all the repose of Greek tragedy . " Consider for a ¦ motaent—Repose in a tragedy ! that is to say , calmness in the terrific upheavings of volcanic passions . Tragedj ' , we are told by Aristotle , acts through Terror and Pity , awakening in our bosoms sympathy with suffering ; and to suppose this is to be accomplished by the " meditative repose which breathes from every verse , " is tanta-Tnount to supposing a battle- song will most vigorously stir the blood of combatants if it Iwrro-w the accents of a lullaby . Insensibly our notions of Greek Art are formed from Sculpture ; and hence , perhaps , this notion of repose . But acquaintance with the Drama ought to have prevented such an error , and taught men not to confound calmness of evolution with calmness of life . The unagitated simplicity of Greek scenic representation lay in the . nature of the scenic necessities ; but we do not call the volcano cold , because the Bnow rests on its top . Had the Greek Drama been represented on stages like those of Modern Europe , and performed by actors without cothurnus and mask , its deep agitations of passion would have welled up to the surface , communicating responsive agitations to the form . But there were reasons why this could not be . In the Grecian Drama , everything was on a scale of vastness commensurate with the needs of an audience of many thousands , and consequently everything was disposed in j masses rather than in details ; it thus necessarily assumed something of the sculpturesque form , threw ; itself into magnificent groupings , , with a view to its effect , adapted a peculiar eurhythmic construction . It thus assumed slowness of movement , because it could not bo rapid with effect . If the critic doubts this , let him mount on jatilts , and , bawling through a speaking-trumpet , try what ho can make of Shakspoare ; he will then hove an approximative idea of the restraints laid upon the Grecian actor , who , clothed so as to aggrandise his person , and speaking through a resonant mask , which had a . fixed expression , could not act , in our modern sense of the word , but only declaim ; he had no means of representing the fluctuations of . passion , and the poet thetefore was forced to make him represent passion in broad , fixed masses . Honco the movement of the Greek Drama was necessarily large , slow , . and simple . But if , we pierce beneath scenic necessities and attend solely to the dramatic life VhicU pulses through the Grecian tragedies , what sort of calmness meets us there ? CJalinness is a relative word . Polyphemus hurling rooks as school-boys throw cherrystones , would doubtless smile at our riots , as wo smile at buzzing flies ; and Moloch howling through the unfathomable , wilderness in pnssionato repentance of his fall , would onvy us the ?' wildest of our despair , and coll it calmnesj . But measured by "human standards I know not whoso sorrow " can boar such emphasses " us to proriduricfe thoBe pulses calra -which throb in the CEdipus , the Agamemnon , or the Ajax . The L&bdaeidan Tale is ono of . the sombrest threads woven by the Parcoo . The subjects selected by the Greek dramatists ore ' almost uniformly such as call into play the- deepest and darkest passions : madness , adultery , and murder in Agamemnon revenge , murder , and , lnctrioUlo in the Choephora , ; incest in CEdipus ; jealousy an ; infanticide in Medea ; incestuous adultery in JFIippolj / tus ; madness in Ajax ; and . on throughout the aeries . The currents of those passions are for over kept in agitation and the alternations of pity and terror close only with the closing of tho scone . In other words , in spito of tho slowness of its evolution , tho drama is distinguished by tho very absence of the , reposti which ia prononnced Its characteristic . Hero it ia wo moot -with ' the first profound difference separating Gootho from the Greek dramatist . Tho repose which was forced upon the Greek , which formed one of Ms restraints , as the hardness of tho marble restraint ) tho sculptor , Goethe has adopted under conditions which did . not force him ; while tho repose , which the Greek kept only at tho surface , Goctho has allowed , to sottlo down to the core . In what was accidental , temporal , Ooctho has imitated Greek Art ; ia tho essential characteristic lie has not imitated it . Itaclno , eo unjustly treated by Schlegel , has given us tho « O 98 Sanate life of tho Greek Drama , in spite of his Madame Hormiono and Monsieur > reste } in imitating the slow Bcenio movement ho has also imitated tho dramatic agitation of tho undor-curront . < 3 o 6 tho > Iphigania , then , we must coaso to regard according to tho Grecian Btfludard . It ia a Gorman plav . It substitutes profound moral and psychological I ' \ ; \

    n struggles , for the passionate struggles o old legend . It is not Greek in ideas nor in sentiments . It is German , and transports Germany , of the eighteenth century into Scythia during the mythic age , quite as absolutely as Racine places the Cou rt of r Versailles in the Camp of Aulis ; and with the same ample justification . The points a in which Goethe's work resembles the Greek , are , first , the slowness of its scenic movement and simplicity of its action , which produce a corresponding calmness hi the , dialogue ; and secondly , a saturation of mythic lore . AH the r « st is German . And _ this - Schiller , as a dramatist , clearly saw . * "I am astonished , " ho says , " to find this piece no longer makes the same favourable impression on roe that it did formerly ; j though I still recognise it as a work full of soul . It is , however , so astonishingl y , ' modern andun-Greek that I cannot understand how it was ever thought to resemble a * Greek play . It is purely moral , but the sensuous power , the life , the agitation , and everything which specifically belongs to a dramatic work is wanting . Goethe has himself spolcen slightingly of it , but I took that as a mere caprice or coquetry ; now I understand him . " This is ver } ' different from Herders assertion that the piece is as much above Euripides as Sophocles is above Euripides . We must pass over the journey to Italy , the criticism of Egrnont and ' Tasso , and the story of ChrisHane Vulpius ( though we would willingly have paused over this , because it , for the first time , gives us a distant idea of the woman who became Goethe ' s wife ) , to notice the chapter in which Mr . Lewes presents a survey of Goethe ' s labours in Science . The reader will there find a full account , intelligible even to unscientific persous , of what Goethe really achieved in Botany and Comparative Anatomy and of what he failed to acheive in Optics . The chapter -will be interesting to the psychological student as furnishing an example of the mode in which the poetic mind works in the region of positive science . The Sixth Book comprises the period of tlie Friendship with Schilliera friendship which Goethe said made a new * 'Spring" for him . It was during this period that he completed Wilhclm IMeister , and the first part of Faust , wrote his unrivalled Hallado , and that most perfect of idyls , Hermann and Dorothea , and united with Schiller in schemes for the elevation of the drama in Germany ; so that this sixth book is very various in its matter . We have a sketch of the Romantic School , against which Goethe and Schiller conducted a vigorous crusade , a criticism and analysis of the great works just mentioned , and an amusing chapter , telling the story of Goethe ' s career , as Intendant of the Theatre at Weimar . The last Book— " Sutiset " describes the circumstances of his marriage , his relation to Betlina , and his interviews -with Napoleon , criticizes the Wahlverwandtschaftcn and the Second part of l *" au * t , discusses Goethe ' s politics and religion , and depicts the occupations and incidents of his closing years . It contains also a , letter from Thackeray , very pleasantly describing the a ? pect of society in Wiemar when he resided there as a youth , and the interview he had with Goethe . But we shall best use our remaining space by giving another quotation . It shall be the following passage from the comparison between Goethe and Schiller . There are few nobler spectacles than the friendship of two great men ; and the History of Literature presents nothing comparable to the friendship of Goethe and Schiller . The friendship of Montaigne and Etienne de la Boetie was , perhaps , more passionate and entire ; but it was the union of two kindred natures , which from the first moment discovered their affinity , not the union of two livals incessantly contrasted by partizans , and originally disposed to hold aloof from each other . Rivals they were , and are ; natures in many respects directly antagonistic ; chiefs of opposing camps , and brought into brotherly union only by what was highest in their natures and their aims . To look on these great rivals wa 3 to see at once their profound dissimilarity . Goethe ' s beautiful head had the calm victorious grandeur of the Greek ideal ; Schiller ' s ( he earnest beauty of a Christian looking towards tho future . The massive brow , and large-pupil eyes , —like those given by Raphael to the infant Christ , in the matchless Madonna di San Sisto , —the strong and well-proportioned features , lined indeed by thought and suffering , yet showing that thought and suffering have troubled , but not vanquished , the strong man , — a certain healthy vigour in the brown skin , and an indescribable something which shines from out the face , make Goethe a striking contrast to Schiller , with his eager eyes , narrow brow , —tense and intense , —his irregular features lined by thought and suffering , and weakened by sickness . The one looks , the other looks out . Both are majestic ; but ono has the majesty of repose , the other of conflict . Goethe ' s framo is massive , imposing , he seems much taller than he is ; Schiller ' s frame is disproportioned , he seems less than he is . Goethe holds himself stiffly erect ; the long-necked Schiller " walks like a camel . " Goethe's chest is like the torso of the Theseus ; Schiller ' s is bent , and has lost a lung . A similar difference is traceable in details . " An air that was beneficial to Schiller acted on me like poison , " Goethe said to Eckermanu . " I called on him one day , and as I did not find him at home , I seated mj'self at his writing-table to note down various matters . I had not been seated long , before I felt a strange indisposition steal over me , which gradually increased , until at last I nearly fainted . At first I did not know to \ t \\ a . t cause I fchould ascribe this wretched and to me unusual state , until I discovered that a dreadful odour issued from a drawer near me . When I opened it , I found to my astonishment that it was full of rotten apples . I immediately went to tho window and inhaled the fresh uir , by which I was instantly restored . Meanwhile his wife came in , and told mo that tho drawer was always filled with rotten apples , because tho scent was beneficial to Schiller , and ho could not live or work without it . " As auothor and not unimportant detail , characterising tho healthy nnd unhealthy practice of literature , it may bo added that Goethe wrote in tho freshness of morning , entirely free from stimulus ; Schiller worked in the feverish hours of night , stimulating his languid bruin with coffee and champagne . In comparing one to a Greek ideal , the other to a Christian ideal , it has already been implied that ono was the representative of Realism , tho other of Idoulism . ^ Goethe , has himaelf indicated the capital distinction between them : Schiller was animated > vith tho idea of Freedom ; Goethe , on tho contrary , was animated v ith tho idea of Nature-. This distinction runs through their works . Schiller always pining for something greater than nature , wishing to make men Domi&ods . Gootho always striving to lot nature have free development , and produce tho highest forms of Humanity . Tho Fall of Man was to Schiller tho happic-st of all events , because thereby men fell away from pure instinct into conscious freedom , with thia sense of freedom camo tho possibility of Morality . To Gootho thia scorned paying a price for Morality which was higher than Morality was worth ; he had tho ideal of a condition whoroin Morality was unnecessary . Much as he might prize a good police , no prized still more a society in which a police would never be needed . But while the contrast between these two is the contrast of real and ideal , or objective and subjective tendencies , apparent when we consider tho men io their

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 3, 1855, page 1060, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2113/page/16/