to feel and believe that such was still, and must always be, the high vocation of the poet; on this ground of universal humanity, of ancient and now almost forgotten nobleness, to take his stand, even in these trivial, jeering, withered, unbelieving days; and through all their complex, dispiriting, mean, yet tumultuous influences, to ’make his light shine before them,’ that it might beautify even our ’rag-gathering age’ with some beams of that mild, divine splendour, which had long left us, the very possibility of which was denied; heartily and in earnest to meditate all this, was no common proceeding; to bring it into practice, especially in such a life as his has been, was among the highest and hardest enterprises which any man whatever could engage in.  We reckon this a greater novelty, than all the novelties which as a mere writer he ever put forth, whether for praise or censure.  We have taken it upon us to say that if such is, in any sense, the state of the case with regard to Goethe, he deserves not mere approval as a pleasing poet and sweet singer; but deep, grateful study, observance, imitation, as a Moralist and Philosopher.  If there be any probability that such is the state of the case, we cannot but reckon it a matter well worthy of being inquired into.  And it is for this only that we are here pleading and arguing.  Meister is the mature product of the first genius of our times; and must, one would think, be different, in various respects, from the immature products of geniuses who are far from the first, and whose works spring from the brain in as many weeks as Goethe’s cost him years.

It may deserve to be mentioned here that Meister, at its first appearance in Germany, was received very much as it has been in England.  Goethe’s known character, indeed, precluded indifference there; but otherwise it was much the same.  The whole guild of criticism was thrown into perplexity, into sorrow; everywhere was dissatisfaction open or concealed.  Official duty impelling them to speak, some said one thing, some another; all felt in secret that they knew not what to say.  Till the appearance of Schlegel’s Character, no word, that we have seen, of the smallest chance to be decisive, or indeed to last beyond the day, had been uttered regarding it.  Some regretted that the fire of Werter was so wonderfully abated; whisperings there might be about ‘lowness,’ ‘heaviness;’ some spake forth boldly in behalf of suffering ‘virtue.’  Novalis was not among the speakers, but he censured the work in secret, and this for a reason which to us will seem the strangest; for its being, as we should say, a Benthamite work!  Many are the bitter aphorisms we find, among his Fragments, directed against Meister for its prosaic, mechanical, economical, coldhearted, altogether Utilitarian character.  We English again call Goethe a mystic; so difficult is it to please all parties!  But the good, deep, noble Novalis made the fairest amends; for notwithstanding all this, Tieck tells us, if we remember rightly, he continually returned to Meister, and could not but peruse and reperuse it.