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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
Ire tikis * Ffdlogtie id Heaveai / Raphael Michael , sind Gabriel dog each ft song of praise before the Lord ( der JhLefr ) , and then Mephistopheles comes ,, as Satan did before him , into the awful presence . Like him he demands * and obtains , permission to try his seductive powers tm his intended victim ,- with a warnin g that he will fail . Whatever objection may be taken to this scene !
arises from this , that Mephistopheles even here speaks in character , undeterred by the Divine presence . There is no part of this scene that is particularly fit for quotation : at the sariie time there is one which deserves notice ^ as it may be considered not only as the key to the whole poem , but as one of the various attempts at a ttieodice , in which the profoundest of thinkers have
hitherto befen baffled . As a reason for this acquiescence in the request of the demon , the Lord answers- —* The active spirit of man too easily relaxes—he soon delights in absolute repose ; and , therefore , I have been willing to give him that companion who stimulates ; him , and works on him ' , and influences &s a devil must : ' and then addressing the heavenly host , commands them , as the * genuine sons of God / to rejoice in the eternal growth of beauty ; there being , in the Divine creation , a ceaseless flow of beautiful
phenomena , which the Divine intellect fixes , as it were , by contemplation and thought . This is our interpretation of a passage which Mr . 'Shelley has not rendered intelligible , nor have we been able to translate literally . . The tragedy itself opens with a soliloquy from Faustus , who is in his solitary study at night ; one of those poetical passages which ^ like the stanzas of Ugolino in Dante , Milton ' s Morning Hymn , Wordsworth's Ode on the Recollections of Childhood , belongs to
the most perfect productions of genius and poetical art . Faust developes his misery , and seeks his remedy in the magical volume of Nostradamus . A Spirit appears—a contention arises between them ; the Spirit asserts his higher nature , but Faust never forgets that he is rnkde in the image of God—it is the talisman that protects him . The dispute is interrupted by Wagner , Faustus' famulus . Now , Wagiier is the representative of the sheer college dunce ; an honest simpleton , who sees no wisdom but in book learnings and by his wearisome commonplaces makes the wretched philosopher more sensible of his misery . Faustus
drives him from hioij . and pursues his moody contemplation till his passion rises to madness . At length he seizes a phial of poison to terminate his sufferings . It is at his lips when the church bells are set iri motion , and he hears a choral hymn in the air— < Christ is arisen ; ' It is the morning of Ascension Day . The divine song softens him—it brings back to his mind the pure affections of his childhood ; the poison falls from his hand—his burning passion subsides , and he melts into tears . . The second scene is a cheerful exchange .- Before th& gattes of the town ( Leipzig , we suppose ) the people are following theii
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 746, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/26/
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