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Untitled Article
reverence the writings of Moses , merely as the most ancient monuments of the human mind , as the fragments of an Egyptian pyramid , he would not have deluged the images of oriental poetry in a Homiletic flood ; nor broken to pieces every limb of this Torso , in order to pick out from it all the popular notions of our German universities in the eighteenth century . '
Among the later reviews that of Voss ' s poems is particularly admirable as a specimen of indulgent criticism . Here also we find Prometheus / ( 1773 , ) the commencement of a mythologic drama , ending with a fine ode which we have printed , vol . vi . p . 460 ; and the Gods , Heroes , and Wieland . ' , See also ibid . p . 299 .
Vols . 34 and 35 contain a translation of that most delightful of autobiographical vyorks , the < Life of Benvenuto Cellini ; ' the publication of which by the too-eccentric Bishop of Derry was one of the most creditable acts of his life , though an inadequate atonement to society for the violation of so many of its social duties . Under his auspices it was also translated into English by
Dr . Nugent ; and Mr . Roscoe has recently republished the work : whether with any curtailments or modifications we do not know . Goethe , in a short encomiastic preface , declares the Florentine goldsmith to have been a complete man , endued with all the talents required to form the consummate artist . That he was at the same time a lying and impudent braggart , while it adds
infinitely to the pungency of his book , only renders it necessary , in order to derive both instruction as well as pleasure from it , that we should read it with closer attention , and apply to it those rules of cautious interpretation which are requisite for rendering harmless the deviations from truth , to which such a mind is peculiarly liable .
Vol . 36 consists of a literary curiosity , Rarneau ' s JVeffe , i . e . Rameau ' s Nephew , ' which Goethe translated [ from a manuscript by Diderot , so far back as 1805 : the original text was published only a few years since . It is a dialogue , of which the younger Rameau is the hero . He was a nephew of the famous composer , and himself a teacher of music ; one of those clever rascals who
in Paris , before the revolution , were so generall y tolerated . The possession of esprit being considered as a sufficient substitute for all morality , and even decorum . He is idealized in this little book by a congenial spirit of higher powers . It is denied by none even of the partisans of the modern French philosophy , that
Diderot was one of the worst men of the age , thoroughly profligate in life , and utterly unprincipled , unless a passionate , and consistent , and uniform hatred of certain institutions in society , and certain opinions , can be dignified with the name of principle . His associate in the ' Encyclopedia / D'Alembert , on the contrary , who had all his anti-religious feelings , was equally distinguished for his worth and moral excellence . The whole dialogue is a highly amusing and spirited defence , by himself , of hia own worth-
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194 Goetkfs Work * .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 194, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/50/
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