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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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177
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CHARACTERISTICS OF GOETHE . "
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It may be deemed superfluous in us to declare the deep interest we take in the subject of this publication ; but it is a duty we owe to our fellow-labourer , the talented editor and translator , to express thankfully our sense of its merits . We regret the accidents which have so long impeded the execution of our intention to make known the contents of these volumes , which connect themselves remarkabl y with the series we have alread y submitted to the consideration of our readers . We shall practise the self-denial of leaving unnoticed the coincidences in opinion which we have had the pleasure of remarking , where there could have been no possibility of an interchange of thought ; and the few discrepancies of statement are not important enough to occupy space that may be more agreeably filled by extracts .
Mrs . Austin commences tier volumes witn a justihcation ot her practice as a translator—her fabrication of words and structure of sentences more Germanico : in which she will be more generally praised than imitated . It requires courage and virtue to write that which it is known will not and cannot please the general reader , for the sake of conferring a service on the few who read rather to gain knowledge than be amused . There is perfect propriety in her practice on the present occasion ; for who can want to know any thing of Goethe , who does not at the same time wish to familiarize himself with the German style of thought and expression ? Goethe was neither a warrior nor an adventurer , but the first of German poets and thinkers . The interest he excites is indissolubly connected with national peculiarities of speech and thought . The basis of this publication is formed of two little writings , which made their appearance on the decease of the great man . His works had already afforded matter for controversy ; his personal character was especially the object of interest on his decease ; and in the developement of that character , all that is of
the hi ghest importance is treated as known ami undisputed , and therefore passed over by the authors . But as the English reader is , on the contrary , very imperfectly acquainted with the w orks of Goethe , Mrs . Austin has added , in the shape of notes , a considerable mass of matter , to supply what was no defect in the ori ginal works intended for a German public , but which , without such supplement , would have been little understood , and
tas relished , by the English reader . The first , and b y far the most valuable , of these opusculi , is the a ccount given by Falk of his personal intercourse with Goethe ; tl intercourse the more deserving of bein ^ recorded , on account Characteristics of Goethe , from t ! u > Gorman of Fulk vou Mviiicr , &c . ; with notes , *«_ l > y SaraU Austiu . 9 vo . o vols . Wilson , flu . & 7 ,
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1834, page 177, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2631/page/17/
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