emotions of beauty; and art, whose province is to set forth the happier combinations of nature, heightened by the delight we take in successful imitations, aims at the same point. A feeling of the beautiful, then, is the highest faculty of enjoyment. In some, this is limited to the appreciation of coarser gratifications; in others, its range is extended so as to see beauty everywhere, in the smallest flower, the humblest insect, the drop of dew, the beam of light. Göthe was one of these, and, with his intense feeling of the beautiful, came the power of painting it in words. Thus was his poetic faculty a vast mirror-glassing all the things that moved before him in the wheeling march of nature, with its planets and its stars, down to individual landscapes and separate flowers. With the same ease, and the same precision, he presents us the tempest with its battling elements, and the soft repose of the sequestered vale; the fearful convulsions of a fiend, and the little insect balanced on breezy wing before a flower. He touches to our ear, as well the pealing organ of the skies, as that of the softest string that trembles forth its melody in the summer wind.

Such appear to be the views of those who are best qualified to appreciate the poetry of Göthe; and even though we may not be able to see all the grounds of this exalted estimate, we cannot doubt that he has conferred a lasting obligation on the lovers of literature, especially in his own country. We, who have Shakspere, a man who penetrated farther into the mysterious union of the soul with the beautiful, than has any other human being,-cannot feel an equal debt

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of gratitude to the great German poet. It may be many years before we can read his works in English with the advantage of translations which fully transfuse his genius into our minds,-yet we may, doubtless, study him to advantage. He may aid us in cultivating spiritual pleasures; in exalting our tastes; in teaching us to find our gratifications in refined, and not in coarse pursuits. Some of his works are, indeed, exceptionable, as breathing a sceptical spirit, and there is a tendency in them all to overlook the religion of revelation in the worship of nature.

Indeed, while Göthe is, doubtless, a great poet of nature, it must be admitted that he goes no farther. Of man as bearing a relation to the Christian's God, he teaches us nothing but what we might learn from the pages of Grecian and Roman philosophy; of man in his highest aspect, as a being endued with a moral power to contend with fate, to spurn the accidents of life, and triumph over misfortune, in his hopes, his aspirations and his faith-he presents us no examples, no guides, no helps. He has studied man only as he has plants, stones, and flowers,—a work of nature,— a link in the chain of creation. He has found him a being of wonderful capacities, an instrument of a thousand strings, to set forth in many-toned music the harmonies of life; but as an immortal being, destined to a higher fulfilment, of which the whole natural world presents only types and symbols, he knows him not. As a poet, then, he must ever remain far below Shakspeare and Milton; and it is only as possessing, in common with these, and in an inferior degree, the power of setting forth the beauties of

nature, as reflected in the soul, that his poetry is to be cherished. Christianity furnishes not only the true philosophy of human life and human nature, but the deepest inspirations of poetry. All poetry, all philosophy, is comparatively bald, flat, earthy, that repudiates it. In missing this, Göthe missed the ladder to the skies, as well for the muse as the man.

Of his poetical works, his Faust and Wilhelm Meister are considered his masterpieces. He has left a great number of lesser poems, from which we extract a few specimens. If they do not seem fully to sustain the praises we have bestowed, we must refer the reader to the admirers of the poet, who affirm that in the original they are far more beautiful than they can be in a translation.

THE LOVED ONE EVER NEAR.

I think of thee, when the bright sunlight shimmers
Across the sea;

When the clear fountain in the moonlight glimmers—
I think of thee.

I see thee, if far off the pathway yonder,
The dust be stirred;

If faint steps o'er the little bridge to wander
At night be heard.

I hear thee when the tossing waves' low rumbling
Creeps up the hill;

I go to the lone wood and listen, trembling,
When all is still.

I am with thee, wherever thou art roaming,
And thou art near!

The sun goes down, and soon the stars are coming-
Would thou wert here!

AT DEAD OF NIGHT.

At dead of night, I went, not always willing,
A small, small boy, across the church-yard there,
To the good father's kindly, quiet dwelling,-

Star upon star shone o'er me all too fair,—

At dead of night.

When older grown, I nightly would be wending
To that dear one, whose pleasure was my will;
The stars and northern-lights were sweetly blending-
And going, coming, drank of bliss my fill

At dead of night.

Until at last the full moon smiled so brightly,-
Smiles meant for me amid the gloom around-
O then my thought, how willingly, how lightly,
It round the past, as well as future wound,
At dead of night.

VANITY OF VANITIES.

I've set my heart upon nothing you see;

Hurrah!

And so the world goes well with me,

Hurrah!

And who has a mind to be fellow of mine,
Why, let him take hold, and help him drain
These mouldy lees of wine.

I set my heart at first upon wealth

Hurrah!

And bartered away my peace and health;
But ah!

The slippery change went about like air,

And when I had clutched me a handful here,
Away it went there.

I set my heart upon woman next;

Hurrah!

For her sweet sake was oft perplexed.
But ah!

The false one looked for a daintier lot,

The constant one wearied me out and out,
The best was not easily got.

I set my heart upon travels grand,

Hurrah!

And spurned our plain old father-land;
But ah!

Nought seemed to be just the thing it should,
Most comfortless beds and indifferent food,
My tastes misunderstood.

I set my heart upon sounding fame;

Hurrah!

And lo! I'm eclipsed by some upstart's name;
And ah!

When in public life I loomed quite high,
The folks that passed me would look awry ;
Their very worst friend was I!

And then I set my heart upon war,
Hurrah!

We gained some battles with eclat,

Hurrah!

We troubled the foe with sword and flame, (And some of our friends fared quite the same,) I lost a leg for fame.

Now I've set my heart upon nothing, you see; Hurrah!

And the whole wide world belongs to me,

Hurrah!

The feast begins to run low, no doubt,

But at the old cask we'll have one good bout; Come drink the lees all out!

THE ERL-KING.

Who rideth so late through the night-wind wild? It is the father with his child;