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    felicitous translation of this admirable scene , xvMch will be ( bund among the posthumous poems of Skelley . It is a more successful work than the version of the prologue . W& have not compared it so closely with the original as to be justified in saying that it is perfectly correct . It has a greater merit than verbal accuracy : it has been conceived in a congenial spirit , and this has renwired occasionallv imitation rather than

    translation . The machinery of this witch scene is that of the popular superstition of the middle ages , and a northern climate - Its character is grotesque horrpr ; but we are not learned enough in necromancy to see the propriety of every fantastic incident . It ends with an intermezzo , the

    JWalpwrgisnacht Traurn , the May-day night dream , or Oberon and Titania ^ s golden marriage ( festival of fiftieth weddingday ) . It is personal , modern , and tame , compared with the preceding . We have the fairy family , and all sorts of fantastic personifications , with occasional strokes of local and personal satire . ~

    The drama returns to real life ; but the incidents are too unconnected to allow of strong sympathy . The brother of Margaret had b , een murdered before by the hand of Faustus , though involuntarily . And now Margaret is in prison , condemned to die , as it seems , for the murder of her child . Faustus has access to her—the scene is excessively painful—it goes beyond the licence given to poets in the accumulation of horror , or would do so , but for the finale . Margaret resists the enr

    treaties of her lover tQ unite herself with him again . And when Mephistopheles comes to bear away Faustus from the prison , and of her exclaims , ' She is condemned V a voice from above is heard—* She is saved ! ' Thus ends the first part . There was then a pause ; and it was some years afterwards that Goethe published the intermezzo which now appears in the fourth volume , entitled Helena . We have above extracted from

    the introduction to this intermezzo , Goethe ' s own explanation of Fausfs character—he proceeds to remark on what had followed the publication of the first fragments : — - * My plan was approved of , and men of superior qualities * studied and commented upon my text , which I thankfully acknowledged . But this surprised me , that those who undertook to continue and complete my fragment should not perceive ( what yet lies so near ) t ] bat a

    second part must nse altogether above ttje miserable sphere hitherto occupied , and that such a man must be led int 9 jjigber regions by the &u \ q { n , obler being / 5 . 1 ^ Jde ^ i * H P sec ret , in J-he , fiop . e that I might ^ yse ^ f finally bring my wpr ] k to jts conclusion . ' / ffce gre $% chasm b , efjyee . n the <\ yoe £ ul termination of the first parj an ^ Lthg a , j 3 peur aj ^ c $ ' of a Gj- £ ci » ii heroine stttl remains unfilled up , — - ' * Bohmk i Beriin , 1894 . JOin $ ematm t Tragedy . 1815 .

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 750, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/30/