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    himself through the resisting crowd to the foot of the throne ; by a single speech , in character , gains favour with his imperial majesty , and is allowed a seat at the emperor ' s left hand . Affairs of state are brought forward : the lord high chancellor , the commander-in-chief , the chancellor of the exchequer , the lord high marshal , successively deplore each the wants of his office . The

    main evil , however , is an empty treasury . Mephistopheles , to the satisfaction of his master , denies the fact . The emperor ' s omnipotence ; the splendour of the courtiers ; the unexplored wealth of the country 5 all render this an impossibility . * And do you ask me who will bring it to light ? I answer , he whom nature and mind have endowed with power . '

    This rouses the indignatit chancellor , whose short speech is the summa summarum of all courtly wisdom , and , therefore , we think it right to insert the original . It may serve to show our radical friends , that if Goethe did not join their party in actual life , and even became a conservative , it at least did not proceed from an incapacity to imagine all that their earnest and conscientious enthusiasts , as well as their least scrupulous and bitterest of scornful adversaries , have ever declaimed and suggested against the superstition of the ruling powers and privileged orders . It is all here in less than twenty lines : —

    * Natur und Geist ! so spricht man nicht zu Christen ; Desshalb verbrennt man Atheisten , Weil ^ olche Reden hochst gef&hrlich sind : Natur ist Sunde , Geist ist Teufel , Sie hegen zwischen sich den Zweifel , Ihr misgestallet Zwitterkind . Uns nicht so !—Kaiser ' s alten L * anden Sind zwei Geschlechter nur entstanden , Sie sttitzen wurdig seinen Thron : Die Heili ^ en sind es und die Ritter , Sie stehen jedem Ung-ewitter Und nehmen Kirch und Staat zum Lohn , ' &c .

    ' Nature and mind ! that is not language fit for a Christian . For such , Atheists have been burnt ere now . Nature is sin—mind is Satan . And between them they have bred doubt , their misshapen double brood . None such for us ! The emperor ' s throne is duly upheld by the two races in his ancient dominions—the saints and the cavaliers . They resist every storm , and they receive as their reward the church and the state . '

    The reply of Mephistopheles would please our last-mentioned friends from other lips . Suffice it to say «—and it is no mean proof of devilish skill—he beats the chancellor at his weapons , oratory and philosophy , and establishes himself in power by means of a lecture on political economy . And when the court leave him for the pleasures of the carnival , he , as usual , sends a sarcasm after them *

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    752 Goethe ' s Works .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 752, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/32/