Then follows the sublime song of the Parcæ, well known through translations.
But Iphigenia is not a victim of fate, for she listens steadfastly to the god in her breast. Her lips are incapable of subterfuge. She obeys her own heart, tells all to the king, calls up his better nature, wins, hallows, and purifies all around her, till the heaven-prepared way is cleared by the obedient child of heaven, and the great trespass of Tantalus cancelled by a woman's reliance on the voice of her innocent soul.
If it be not possible to enhance the beauty with which such ideal figures as the Iphigenia and the Antigone appeared to the Greek mind, yet Gœthe has unfolded a part of the life of this being, unknown elsewhere in the records of literature. The character of the priestess, the full beauty of virgin womanhood, solitary, but tender, wise and innocent, sensitive and self-collected, sweet as spring, dignified as becomes the chosen servant of God, each gesture and word of deep and delicate significance,—where else is such a picture to be found?
It was not the courtier, nor the man of the world, nor the connoisseur, nor the friend of Mephistopheles, nor Wilhelm the Master, nor Egmont the generous, free liver, that saw Iphigenia in the world of spirits, but Gœthe, in his first-born glory; G[o]ethe, the poet; Gœthe, designed to be the brightest star in a new constellation. Let us not, in surveying his works and life, abide with him too much in the suburbs and outskirts of himself. Let us enter into his higher tendency, thank him for such angels as Iphigenia, whose simple truth mocks at all his wise "Beschrankungen," and hope the hour when, girt about with many such, he will confess, contrary to his opinion, given in his latest days, that it is well worth while to live seventy years, if only to find that they are nothing in the sight of God.
THOMAS HOOD.
NOW almost the last light has gone out of the galaxy that made the first thirty years of this age so bright. And the dynasty that now reigns over the world of wit and poetry is poor and pale, indeed, in comparison.
We are anxious to pour due libations to the departed; we need not economize our wine; it will not be so often needed now.
Hood has closed the most fatiguing career in the world—that of a professed wit; and we may say with deeper feeling than of others who shuffle off the load of care, May he rest in peace! The fatigues of a conqueror, a missionary preacher, even of an active philanthropist, like Howard, are nothing to those of a professed wit. Bad enough is it when he is only a man of society, by whom every one expects to be enlivened and relieved; who can never talk gravely in a corner, without those around observing that he must have heard some bad news to be so out of spirits; who can never make a simple remark, while eating a peaceful dinner, without the table being set in a roar of laughter, as when Sheridan, on such an occasion, opened his lips for the first time to say that "he liked currant jelly." For these unhappy men there are no intervals of social repose, no long silences fed by the mere feeling of sympathy or gently entertained by observation, no warm quietude in the mild liveries of green or brown, for the world has made up its mind that motley is their only wear, and teases them to jingle their bells forever.
But far worse is it when the professed wit is also by profession a writer, and finds himself obliged to coin for bread those jokes which, in the frolic exuberance of youth, he so easily coined for fun. We can conceive of no existence more cruel, so tormenting, and at the same time so dull. We hear that Hood was forever behindhand with his promises to publishers; no wonder! But when we hear that he, in consequence, lost a great part of the gains of his hard life, and was, as a result, harassed by other cares, we cannot mourn to lose him, if,
"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;"