do theirs. But thus much conceded, it must be said that this manysided Goethe was grievously onesided in other respects. His aspirations ascended but a little way above the visible and actual. Of the material he was insatiable; for the spiritual he had little relish. He disarranged the functions of life. Art stood in the place of Virtue. Beauty sat above Principle. From this error, more than all the rest, lies a danger in his great example. Degenerate Greece grew weak of old, and fallen Italy has long been feeble, in proportion as the pleasures of taste have been allowed to displace the sterner duties of life. Goethe resembles in his ethnic culture, classic taste, and southern temperament, those graceful scholars and poets who adorned the courts of Lorenzo de Medici and Leo X. However superior his genius, his aim rose little above theirs. To expect that such serene optimists would step forward as patriots or reformers were unreasonable. But it is not unreasonable to expect of any thoughtful man that the demands of the spiritual nature should be paramount,—not all but utterly unheeded. It is not unreasonable to require that when any great effort is made by truth against falsehood, by freedom against slavery, that he should take some pains to understand the nature of the conflict, and testify some appreciation of the interests at stake. Those strong and foremost natures who bear for others the brunt of progress are entitled, at least, to the sympathy and the good word of those who sit at home at ease. Many who would be themselves unequal to such self-sacrifice, are inwardly elevated by the admiration they render to the martyrs and the heroes of the past. But even of such safe sympathy and praise Goethe is singularly sparing. The same defect which rendered him so indifferent to the struggle of the eighteenth century, would have prevented his espousing the cause of progress in any of the preceding. No party, in any time, has in its possession all the truth. Only the zealot is blind to the faults of the social section with which he acts. But thus much is certain, that in some quarter a preponderance of truth is to be found. The search should be made; and that cause espoused, whatever be

its name. Such search Goethe might have undertaken, such service he might have rendered, without neglecting his personal vocation as poet. Mr. Lewes's book will contribute to remove some prejudices which have been extensively entertained against Goethe. But it would be difficult to clear him from the charges to which we have adverted. With defects of a kind so grave, the character of Goethe can be upheld as a specimen of manhood, only by ignoring the highest spiritual relationship of man. He remains for ever an example of consummate culture in one chosen walk, but far indeed from that higher completeness of which Milton stands almost the sole example among poets.

THE GERMAN COURTS.*

THE writer who would adequately record the life and reign of Charles V. must be content to spend twenty years, at least, in the mere collection and arrangement of the enormous material extant. So said Von Hormayr, the learned Curator of the Imperial Archives, a man gifted with almost incredible powers of memory. The problems of ancient history are simple, and its materials are few, compared with those which time has multiplied to exhaust the patience and perplex the judgment of the modern historian. Every war and every revolution, every campaign and almost every battle, every treaty and almost every article in every treaty, materially affecting the story of more recent times, possesses a voluminous literature of its own. Conscientiously to narrate a single incident, is to have sifted heaps of preliminary data. Impartially to pronounce a single judgment, is to have passed sentence previously in a score of petty courts.

What then shall be done with that strange product of the imperial, the gothic, and the papal past-yclept Modern Europe? Where is the sage who will explain to us the movements and the growth of a creature whose limbs are nations—a being made up of ever new myriads of mankind, multiform as the living symbols of prophetic vision, in every period a Proteus for change of shape,

* 1. Memoirs of the Court of Prussia. From the German of DR. E. VEHSE, by FRANZ C. F. DEMMLER. Nelson and Sons. 1854.

2. Memoirs of the Court, Aristocracy, and Diplomacy of Austria. By DR. E. VEHSE. Translated from the German, by FRANZ DEMMLER. 2 vols. Longman. 1856.

under every shape a chameleon for change of colour? Every day makes it more evident that the history of modern times can only be attempted in detail. The needful division of labour may be effected in two ways. The historian must narrow his limits either as to time or as to subject. If a special subject be selected, the time embraced may be extensive. Thus the historian may trace the fortunes of a class, a constitution, a policy, a phase of opinion, an idea. If, on the other hand, a complete history be undertaken, the period included should be short, since life is so, both for writers and readers. History of the former kind is liable to error from arbitrary abstraction. To tell of causes and not of their effects, to describe effects and say nothing about causes, is only to mislead or tantalize the reader. It is not enough to relate the enactment of a succession of laws; we require also some account of the measure, the method, the effects, of their enforcement. It is well that the historian of a court should show us how some long-drawn state procession glittered through the streets of a capital. It is better that he should also bring home to our sympathies the hopes and fears of the multitudes who waved their kerchiefs from the balconies, who surged and shouted in the squares, who swarmed on every steeple, roof, and tree. For what is the spectacle without the spectators?

Dr. Vehse has selected for his province the courts of Germany. But he has not told the story of a court in the spirit of a courtier. He does not believe that the arch of heaven was so gloriously hung with lights, or the floor of earth so variously bespread with beauty, merely that the world might be a dancing-hall or a summer-house for people of quality. The pomp of the governors cannot blind his eyes to the penury of the governed. He has, accordingly, escaped the dangers to which the writer of a special history of this description was more peculiarly exposed. He has well accomplished a worthy undertaking, and has added to our historic stores a contribution of no mean value. His subject is well arranged in frequent and judicious divisions. For while the ordinary arrangement of general history according to dynasties and reigns has been fertile

in misconception, such a method was obviously the only one suitable for his purpose. To German diligence in the collection of his materials he has not added German dulness or German obscurity in their treatment. With good qualities so substantial, it would be indeed thankless to complain that Dr. Vehse is not also a literary artist. The want of such skill and finish is the less felt as his subject abounds naturally in anecdote, personal description, and detail. The narrative of the Thirty Years' War in Coxe is less distinct and animated by far than the account contained in the pages of Dr. Vehse. His translator bears a German name, and should receive the more praise on that account for his clear and idiomatic English.

The history of Germany has been determined by its geographical position. For several hundred years has Europe fought out her most memorable quarrels in that central arena occupied by the States of the Empire. From Prague to Coblentz, from Stralsund to Trieste, its cities have been taken and retaken, times without number, by the contending forces of the north and south, of the east and west. The cavalry of every nation has blackened its plains with fire. The fiercest frontier warfare has reddened its great rivers with blood. The power of Germany has never been proportionate to its size, whether for the purposes of commerce or of conquest. Its seaboard is too straitened for maritime supremacy; its capabilities of union too uncertain for sustained territorial aggression. It has seldom been difficult for diplomacy to arm one part of Germany against another. With the consistency of selfishness, the House of Hapsburg has always been alike ready to demand the services, and to sacrifice the interests, of the German States. It was only natural that a power so insatiably rapacious in the day of its strength, should be repeatedly abandoned in the day of its weakness.

The Germans are eminently receptive, at once from situation and from character. Hence the peculiar interest of their history to the foreigner. Every one of the great surrounding nations may find in Germany some reflection of its policy, its literature, or its fashions.