they create, and of that futurity of wo which they unconsciously decree; such a strain of philosophy, while it enlarges and exalts the duties of rulers, confirms the independence, and watches over the happiness of the governed, cannot be the ally of despotism, nor the enemy of man.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CRITIQUE OF GOETHE'S LIFE IN THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.

GREAT and merited as is the fame of those mighty masters who have, in our days, revived the power and glory of the poetry of England, deep as is the possession which they have taken of the minds of their contemporaries, and eternal as their sway must be over all that shall ever speak their language,— it is evident that the same destiny which made them to come later, has made them to be less than their predecessors. They are the children of an illustrious race, but they are not the peers of those who founded its splendour. One of themselves has modestly and beautifully expressed the truth, that they are but the gleaners of fields,

"Where happier bards of yore had richer

harvests found."

There are services which can only once be rendered to the literature of any country, because only once can they be needed; and these are repaid with honours which are for ever by themselves, because the only men who might have any hope of equalling them would deem it no less than sacrilege to brook the suspicion of such rivalry. They are themselves the devoutest worshippers of those whose inspiration has descended to them; and they confess their own inferiority, not with willingness merely, but with pride. The excellencies which all admire are best comprehended by these kindred spirits, and excellencies which others see not are revealed to them. While vulgar eyes contemplate afar off and dimly, it is their privilege to approach the shrine, and see the glory in its brightness. In their intellects, and in their hearts, the Majesty of the departed finds its best interpreters, and its securest throne.

Without pretending to say that the

genius of Goethe is equal to that of Milton or Shakspeare, it is certain that his fame in Germany is, and always must be, of the same sort with theirs in England. Klopstock was a majestic spirit, and Wieland a happy one; but the affectations with which they were both, although in very different ways, chargeable, prevented either of them from taking such a hold of the minds of his countrymen as is requisite for him that would be a national poet,much more for him that would aspire to be the founder of the poetry of a nation. Arising in a country wherein education had long been universal, and thought profound, and fancy active, and in an age wherein many imperfect attempts had been made to wards establishing in that country such a literature as she was entitled to possess,-it was the fortune of Goethe to acquire, while yet a boy, an ascendancy over the intellect and imagination of his country, such as no other of its writers ever had obtained; and he has conferred upon her literature, in his maturer years, services which must perpetuate this possession, so long as the language which he has fixed and ennobled shall continue to be that of a cultivated and energetic nation. For many centuries Europe has witnessed no living reputation acquired by literature alone, which could sustain the slightest comparison with that enjoyed by Goethe. A period of fifty years has now elapsed since he first became an author; and during the whole of that long career, his fame has been perpetually and uniformly on the increase. With the skill which was requisite for creating and establishing the poetical language of a great but a divided nation, he has united such a richness of thought and fancy, that each of his great works has be come, as it were, the model of a new species,-that his spirit has been all along the fountain from which his contemporaries have derived not only their rules, but their materials. Seated above competition, and fearless of failure, he has directed and swayed the minds of two generations, as if by the charm of a magician. The reve rence of half a century has now gathered in all its fulness around the old age of Goethe. The whole of his mighty nation are at one in honouring their poet. His fame forms one of the few centre points around which all

upon this most eminent person, is, however, only one of the many rebukes wherewith the arrogant tone assumed, upon almost all occasions, by that journal, has been visited. The gentlemen who had the honour of establishing it fell, even in the first concoction of their plan, into many errors which have grievously impeded the contemporary influence of their work, and taken from it, we fear, almost every chance of receiving from future generations the respect to which the talents of its authors might have otherwise given it a claim. Of these errors, the first and greatest was the assumed principle of being always reviewers de haut en bas. A few clever and wellinformed young gentlemen might surely have set on foot a very excellent literary journal, without making it an axiom in their creed, that they themselves were, and should always continue to be, the very first geniuses and authors of their times. Upon what principle of sane judgment persons who had never produced any great and splendid work of any kind whatever, and who therefore could have no assurance of the measure of their own powers, should conceive themselves entitled to take it for granted that England and Europe had exerted themselves to the utmost in fashioning their spirits, and would thenceforth seek comparative repose in the shaping of spirits comparatively insignificant, we have no capacity to imagine. The blessed self-complacence of minds that could easily and undoubtingly embrace so comfortable a notion of their own importance, must, without all question, in the eyes of those who consider pleasure as the summum bonum of humanity, appear no despicable boon. But there are many sources of pleasure, whose efficacy may be acknowledged by those that do not envy their possessors. The straw crown of a bedlamite confers perhaps more intense delight upon its wearer, than the splendour of the "golden round" ever conveys to the mind of the true prince. The satisfaction with which a smart critic chuckles over the contemplation of his own importance, may in like manner be a far more unmixedly pleasurable feeling than the more lofty, and more serious, and more modest consciousness of a majestic poet. Disturbed with no solitary clouds of despondence, tormented

by no longings, maddened by no dreams of higher greatness, the Aristarch soon reaches the ultimatum of his ambition, and sits down contented in the possession of the little, because he hopes not, perhaps imagines not, the possibility of the much.-The ape that clambers to the summit of the tree beneath which the lion reposes, and the dwarf who,

"Perch'd on a pedestal, Overlooks a giant,"

derive a pride from their elevation, which is not attended by any feelings of proportionate reverence on the part of its beholders. The world may be deceived for a little space; but there is no chance of its recognising, with any permanent approbation, the airs of happy superiority assumed by our northern Zoili over the Wordsworths, the Southeys, and the Goethes, of their age.

SPEECH DELIVERED BY AN EMINENT BARRISTER.*

THIS is by far the best of all Orator Phillip's orations, and perhaps the chief cause of its excellence is, that the sole subject of it is himself. He keeps his eye steadily fixed on that great personage, and the language of selfadoration becomes sublime. He speaks as if he were looking all the while into a mirror,-each new gesticulation creates new energies, his address to others thus assumes the impassioned character of a soliloquy,-and he is perhaps the only orator who ever wholly forgot that he had an audience.

We wish to speak in the most flattering terms of Orator Phillips, but we are aware, that he is a gentleman gluttonous of praise, and of ostrich-like power of digestion. It is impossible to satisfy such an appetite. He must have heaped up measure, and running over, or he gets sulky, and will have none of it. He turned up his nose at the frugal and salubrious repast so promptly spread for him by the Edin

Calumny Confuted.--Speech, delivered merous Party of Friends, for the purpose at the Dinner, given by a Select and Nuof Refuting the Remarks of the Quarterly Review, on the Character and Conduct of an Eminent Barrister. Milliken, Dublin. 1817.

burgh Reviewer, nay, threw it somewhat unceremoniously into the face of his entertainer. Can we, therefore, expect, that he will accept graciously from our humble hands, a treat, which he contumeliously spurned at, when held out by the honourable and learned member for Winchelsea? Yet, we are not without hopes, that he may be prevailed upon to accept our eulogies, who do not pretend to be orators ourselves, but mere critics of oratory in others. He despised, as it was natural for him to do, the envious calumnies of Brougham and of Jeffrey, those little and disappointed men, of whose eloquence, as Mr Phillips well observes, no one ever heard-low and petty-fogging practitioners, who look up with bitter hatred on the " Young Pride of Erin," from the hopeless abasement of their obscurity. What have such small folk to do with Councellor and Orator Phillips? The world, who heard of them for the first time, when they gave a public opinion of that illustrious young man, has long since forgotten them-while, on the contrary, Mr Phillips, who has taken the well-known instrument out of the hands of fame, and boldly flown with it at his mouth across the Irish channel, makes a very great noise in the world indeed! and successfully acts the part of his own Trumpeter.

The Speech, from which we shall now give our readers a few extracts, was delivered under circumstances of peculiar solemnity. A dinner had been given to the Orator in a tavern in Dublin, by a hundred select friends, who were desirous of expressing their admiration of his talents and respect for his character, at the moderate expense of half-a-guinea a head, including a bottle of port-wine. On the cloth being withdrawn, the Orator rose, and entered into a vindication of himself against the aspersions of the Quarterly Review. The grandeur of the occasion-the magnitude of the cause the solemnity of the time-the magnificence of the place the nobility of the audience-the genius of the Örator-formed altogether such an assemblage of glory as has but rarely before been witnessed in this sublunary It is enough to say, that the Speech spoken during that high hour was worthy of Mr Phillips-of his audience and of the tavern in which they had previously dined.

scene.

Every thing is now swept away by the torrent. Hear how he revels and

riots in his strength.

"I like not that cold and cautious court

of Criticism, where Spleen sits in judgment upon Splendour, where Prudence pleads against Passion, and the Orator is lost in the Rhetorician; I love not that barren and bounded circus, where the captious adversary entangles in his pitiful net the warrior, whose weapon he is too weak to wield ;— Oh, it disgusts the heart to see the sons of little men assume the proud port of the giant! Oh, it deadens the soul, to behold an object enthroned in ideal elevation, presenting us obscurity, for extent; for sublimity, darkness!the waggon rumbling over a rugged and rutted road, might more successfully emulate the deafening peal of the thunderbolt-the meteor, whose birthplace is the swamp, whose home is the wilbeatitude with the standing star, who rederness, might better vie in beauty and joices for ever in the vaulted sky, and attunes in his rapid revolutions the song that first soothed the ear of infant Existence."

Having thus exposed the ignorance of the Quarterly Reviewer, he next seizes on a still more vulnerable point

his Envy; and the picture he draws of that demon, deprives Spenser of all claim to the character of a poet. How feeble his allegory to the living reality of the demon of Orator Phillips.

"But Envy-this whispering demonthis pale passion of the wan and wasted mind this sorceress, whose eye gazes with

vain desire on the efforts of opposing genius 'till its beam deadens in the overpowering blaze, and its circle of vision becomes contracted and confined;-this self-elected rival, whose heart throbs with eager and idle emulation, till its aspirations assume a fret. ful fervour a feverish rapidity;-this black crucible in which our vices and our virtues -our weaknesses and our worth-our rights and our reputation are amalgamated with all the dark and debasing ingredients, which the busy hand of Malice can collect, while, over the steaming and stupefying caldron, Hatred hovers with clouded brow, Ridicule sneers with writhing lip, and Scandal howls her hymn of idiot incantation. (Unprece dented applause for many minutes.)"

But perhaps the finest, and certainly the most triumphant passage in this noble oration, is that where he destroys, by his eloquence, that "consistency' which he had formerly deserted in his conduct."

But let us not be deceived by Declamation, that fatal faculty, who flings over every object a prismatic profusion of delusive dyes; let us examine what are the merits of this boasted blessing? this courtly consistency?-Oh! well may she vaunt her parentage! well may she be vain of her connexions: the daught of Obstinacy the sister and the spouse of Stubbornness unholy was the hour of their horrid and hateful nuptials! accursed were the rites of the eternal ceremony-when Bigotry held the torch, whose lustre was the light of Hell, over the altar blackened and blushing with blood; and accursed are the children of their incestuous commerce!-CONSIST

ENCY!!-how ignorant are these maniacs -they know not that motion is the purpose, and the principle, and the power of life-they know not that but for his motion the beds of Ocean would sink into a sad and silent and sullen stagnation—a desert of death -a pit of putrefaction!-walk abroad in the terrific time of tempest and tumult, and mark how the ministry and motion of the winged whirlwinds cleanses the vaulted amphitheatre of air! Look around on the objects of Nature-is not the cessation of motion the prelude of death? And shall Mind alone abandon the analogies of Nature? Shall Opinion alone remain chained, and unchangeable? Shall Age be imperiously governed by the principles, which Youth has impetuously adopted? the assertion is a solecism against society-a sin against the

soul !"

Having thus gotten the Quarterly Review fairly down below the table, the Counsellor thus tramples on his fallen foe. Never was shillelah brandished with more merciless vigour at Donnybrook fair.

"But this Alaric-this Attila-this Atrides of atrocity, questions my acquaintance with the long labyrinths of law, with the VOL. IV.

jargon of judgments, contradictory and conflicting-and why? Because I have not in the pride of pedantry poured forth cold cataracts of Norman-French, because I have not showered down on the heads of an unprepared jury heavy hailstorms of Sclavonian-Latin-because I have chosen rather a simple appeal addressed to the passions of men, than a detail dark and dull with complicated controversy-with concatenated confusion.-I detest the veil of mysterious mummery, that would fling its folds over the porch of justice-I despise the legal learning, that, like the black sun of the Indian Mythology, wells forth rays of darkness-beams of obscurity.-My appeal is to a moral court of conscience-to the chartered chamber of intellect to the throne of justice in the heart of man.—[Applause.]

It is the Bank of Ireland to a mealy potato on the head of the orator. The fight is taken out of the man without a name and Mr Phillips thus throws a somerset over the ropes.

"Need I now repeat what I have uttered in England and in Ireland-in London and in Liverpool-in Cork and in Kerry-REFORM!-radical, resistless REFORM!-In the new birth of your Parliament you will hail the regeneration of your Country !-I have said it often and often-again and again, but I was not attended to; I have said it in Prose-I was not attended to; I have said it in Verse-I was not attended to. -There is a peculiar and appropriate dialect-a language that is not Prose, that is not Verse, but which, while it possesses all the strength and sinew of Prose, charms with all the magic and melody of Verse, that combines the energy of Eloquence with the euphony of Song-in this dialect of Paradise I have said it, and will after-ages believe the disgraceful narrative?-I was not attended to!!-[A long pause of expressive silence.]"

We are aware that the oracular wisdom of the following splendid passage must have the inevitable effect of throwing into the shade all the other contents of our invaluable Magazine. Well-let them go. A page of Phillips is worth the sacrifice. Hear the

Seer!

"It is not without reason that the Pro

phet mourns over the dangerous gift by which he beholds, in gloomy anticipation, the shadow of coming evil; and he who is endowed with superior intellect has not less of France was crushed and crumbled beneath reason to regret when the imperial crown

the might of banded barbarians--when the diadem of the deposed dynasty was dashed to dust when the barbaric thrones of eastern tyranny trembled and tottered at the tread of England, there were those who said it was glory;-vain visions of ideal wealth floated before their eyes;-dreams of universal do2 E