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judgment and sentence be pronounced . " The duke laughed , and the window was opened no more /—vol . i . p . 108 . He must have an acute sense of the humorous who can find it here . It was ^ in fact , a law joke , in allusion to the old German Constitution , according to which no prince ( unless he
had the jus denon appellando ) could , in exercise of his sovereign p ower , order the execution of a criminal , but on the adjudication of a competent tribunal . As we have mislaid the original , we cannot quote it with confidence , but think it contained the significant words , nach gesez und gericht . ' We can imagine
an analogous and bolder retort at an assize court . Had a barrister encountered a like reproof from the judge , he might have answered , in the slang of his profession , ' It was I , my lord , who shut the window ; for I submit , with deference , that your lordship ' s opening it was an excess of jurisdiction ; for , assuming that we were all felons-convict ,, ( which we are not , ) my Lord Coke lays it down , in the 3 rd institute , p . — , that it is murder in a judge to order an execution by any other mode than hanging by the neck till the criminal be dead . ' The subsequent chapters abound in anecdotes of books and men of literature , which , to be enjoyed , need only , on the part of the reader , sufficient interest in the subjects of them . This remark is still more applicable to the oration of Chancellor v . Miiller , in which he expatiates on the character of Goethe , in seiner practischen wirksamheit ; that is , in his ' influence on real life .
A notion generally prevails , that no one can have cultivated certain talents with great success , without neglecting others . Non possumus omnes omnia , is the consolatory reflection , or indulgent excuse , we make for ourselves or friends . And as , in fact , the instances are very few of the successful exercise of powers in more than one direction , there is a prejudice against
multifarious labours ; and we have no doubt that "Goethe ' s undisputed greatness as a poet has disinclined the philosophical world to a study of his numerous scientific works , to which , nevertheless , he devoted many years of intense labour . But wide as is the sphere within which Goethe allowed himself all imaginable excursions , that is , the whole compass of nature and
art , even this leaves uncomprehended a field of exertion of intense importance . And it is to gratify a reasonable curiosity in this respect , that this discourse was delivered by one eminently enabled , by his station and personal character , to exhibit Goethe in all his practical relations of life , and before an audience qualified to appreciate the statements made . Accordingly , here we are informed what Goethe was as a sort of minister—the arbiter eleyantiarum of a court , the visitor of a university , of public libraries , and academical and scientific establishments , in the legal sense of the word . We are , however , too little inter-
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CAaracterhtics of Goethe . . 183
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1834, page 183, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2631/page/23/
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