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which require a distinct consideration . The first , and by Far the most valuable part , and to which alone laudatory or reproachful criticism has been applied , entitled the Lehrjahre , or Wilhelm Meister ' s apprenticeship , occupies the volumes 18 , 19 , and 20 , and was published so early as 1794 . * The very problem or
purpose of this work is such , that when it is compared with that of the great novels we have alluded to , its want of like popularity is sufficiently accounted for . The apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister is to that art and mystery of which the professors form no guild , and which , therefore , no man puts himself out to learnself-knowledge ; an acquaintance with his own talents and qualifications , that he may do that which Dr . Johnson declared to be
beyond the powers of man ; that is , select deliberately one mode of life before another , on an adequate consideration of the respective reasons for preference . This strictly didactic purpose removes it at once from the possibility of obtaining that success by which other romances have been rendered illustrious , f and the work
would hardly be known by the mere readers of circulating library novels . It would , however , have therefore greater claims on the notice of those who read a book merely to talk about or to criticise it . This class have , in fact , very freely exercised their right upon it , and we purpose to add our contribution to the mass . Of the story we shall content ourselves with saying very little .
The first of its eight books exhibits Wilhelm suffering from the infliction of one of the most painful lessons men are taught at the entrance into life—he is the dupe of a pretty woman . The son of an affluent tradesman in a large town , he has attached himself with all the fierceness of youthful passion to an actress , and is on the point of offering to her his hand in order to leave his father ' s house and become an actor , that he may live in the con stant admiration of her charms , and in the enjoyment of her pure and disinterested love . A sudden discovery destroys the illusion ,
* And was noticed in our monthly review , vol . xxvii . p . 543 . by Mr . William Taylor , who extracted the very curious and original criticism on Hamlet , with which we have nothing to compare in our own literature except Morgan ' s admirable essay on the character of Falstaff . f We take leave to illustrate this remark by two well-known instances . When Fielding imposed on himself this problem , —to exhibit a warm-hearted and generous young man with no worse vice than the ready indulgence of natural and not
unamiable passions , without guile and without suspicion , incapable of fraud , and its easy victim , and showed him at last prosperous ; and in contrast with him , a cold and cunning knave ultimately thwarted in his plans ; he was sure of favourable readers . The apologist of popular weaknesses and vices is sure to have the people on his side . So when Fielding ' s great contemporary and rival , Richardson , proposed to himself to unfold in detail all the expedients of a high-spirited and talented voluptuary ,
directed to the perpetration of a nefarious crime of daily occurrence indeed , but with less waste of intellect and with fewer circumstances of horror ; and also to display a female of transcendent qualities , and of immaculate virtue , guttering for a mere imprudence more than vice could merit ; he , too , was sure to excite the sympathies of the great mass of mankind . And the consummate talent of these great roasters have consequently rendered Tom Jones and Clarissa classics in our language , aod familiarly known throughout cultivated J&uiope .
Untitled Article
Goethe ' s Works . IS 5
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 185, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/41/
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