certainty is no bliss, in his hope no love, in his faith no glow. How is this?

A friend, of a delicate penetration, observed, "His atmosphere was so calm, so full of light, that I hoped he would teach me his secret of cheerfulness. But I found, after long search, that he had no better way, if he wished to check emotion or clear thought, than to go to work. As his mother tells us, 'My son, if he had a grief, made it into a poem, and so got rid of it.' This mode is founded in truth, but does not involve the whole truth. I want the method which is indicated by the phrase, 'Perseverance of the saints.'"

This touched the very point. Gœthe attained only the perseverance of a man. He was true, for he knew that nothing can be false to him who is true, and that to genius nature has pledged her protection. Had he but seen a little farther, he would have given this covenant a higher expression, and been more deeply true to a diviner nature.

In another article on Gœthe, I shall give some account of that period, when a too determined action of the intellect limited and blinded him for the rest of his life; I mean only in comparison with what he should have been. Had it been otherwise, what would he not have attained, who, even thus self-enchained, rose to Ulyssean stature. Connected with this is the fact, of which he spoke with such sarcastic solemnity to Eckermann—"My works will never be popular."

I wish, also, to consider the Faust, Elective Affinities, Apprenticeship and Pilgrimages of Wilhelm Meister, and Iphigenia, as affording indications of the progress of his genius here, of its wants and prospects in future spheres of activity. For the present I bid him farewell, as his friends always have done, in hope and trust of a better meeting.

GŒTHE.

 "Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse." 

The first of these mottoes is that prefixed by Gœthe to the last books of "Dichtung und Wahrheit." These books record the hour of turning tide in his life, the time when he was called on for a choice at the "Parting of the Ways." From these months, which gave the sun of his youth, the crisis of his manhood, date the birth of Egmont, and of Faust too, though the latter was not published so early. They saw the rise and decline of his love for Lili, apparently the truest love he ever knew. That he was not himself dissatisfied with the results to which the decisions of this era led him, we may infer from his choice of a motto, and from the calm beauty with which he has invested the record.

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