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less and profligate habits . Yet with all that , it seems to us a very moral book . For the author has so contrived that though the reader enjoys the wit and gaiety of Rameau , he is never seduced to love or respect him . The author was distinguished for his colloquial talents at a time when , and in a country where , society had reached its acme in all the refinement of intellectual
intercourse . No wonder , therefore , as Goethe remarks , ( hat this should be a master-piece . Prefixed to the dialogue is si series of critical judgments on all the great French writers , by Goethe himself , in alphabetical arrangement . It is very curious indeed ; and would have opened the most secret recesses of the author ' s mind , if that had not been manifested by so many original productions . It is one of the most remarkable features in Goethe ' s
character , that his admiration has been almost uniformly bestowed on characters of great energy , with little or no reference to the application of their power . He seems to have contemplated mankind as the naturalist does animals in a museum . We all , indeed , admire a tiger more than a cat , and a rattle-snake more than an
eel , though we acknowledge the domestic use and culinary value of the latter , and take care to avoid the claws and poison of the former . So was it through life with Goethe . And we understand very well why he seems to have contemplated with peculiar complacency such characters as Benvenuto Cellini , Diderot , and Lord Byron .
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GoethJs tPorh ' . 195
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( From an unpublished Poem , so called . ) Here let vain priesthood , clad in gorgeous stole , Learn what Religion loses b y control ; The gothic arch and richly fretted aisle , By such a temple but provoke a smile ; There , let the organ ' s solemn music rise ,
And incense burn , in costly sacrifice , The stream which murmurs through the rocky vale , The clouds which circling round those mountains sail , Shall wake devotion when such arts shall fail . Ye 8 ! let man rear the gorgeous pile of stone , Not thus men worshipp ed in the ages gone , Not thus the brave and apostolic band ,
Taught that devotion ' s flame was to be fanned . ' Twas not in palace , temple , the pure lor © Was preached , which wildly flew from shore to shore , First of man ' s blessings , until monarchs bowed , And meek disciples became prelates proud In evil hour !—and oh , who could have deem'd That the pare perfect doctrines , mild , which seem'd
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DOVEDALE .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 195, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/51/
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