We make bold to adopt neither one account nor the other. We neither believe that Timanthes concealed the expression of the father's face upon some principle of "leaving it to the imagination of the reader," nor that he acted in obedience to the rule of art which Lessing lays down with so much ingenuity. We are persuaded that Timanthes painted Agamemnon in the attitude he did, simply because it was the most natural—because it was, in fact, the only attitude in which it was possible to conceive a father present at the sacrifice of his own daughter. Other spectators might have looked on with different degrees of grief or horror, but we feel that the father could not look; he must veil his head. This natural attitude, bespeaking the grief it only seemed to hide, was no doubt highly expressive.
And in this point of view, it may afford no bad illustration of that suggestive language of poetry, which sometimes throws the veil, not to conceal the passion, or to leave it to another imagination to discover, but as the best means of betraying it.
We repeat that we do not profess to give any thing approaching to an analytical review of the lectures of M. Girardin; the illustrations, being taken from the poetry of another nation, would often require a length of explanatory detail quite inconsistent with our limits. We persist, therefore, in regarding them in the one point of view already indicated-namely, as a protest against certain vitiated tastes and deleterious sentiments which prevail at the present day.
We again revert, therefore, to the lecture upon suicide, for the sake of a remark that we find there upon Werther, and on its celebrated author. It is rarely that we hear any one speak out so plainly upon Goethe. After speaking of the "moral vitality" which supports the fatigues and inures us to the self-denials of life, he says:—
There are characters, on the contrary, who we perceive, at first sight, are predestined to die. Ardent and enthusiastic, wanting force and patience—life is evidently not made for them. Such is Werther. Goethe had not created him to live, and he knew this well; so that when some German author, I know not whom, undertook to correct the catastrophe of the romance, and make Werther live instead of committing suicide, Goethe said—'The poor man has no idea that the evil is without remedy, and that a mortal insect has stung our Werther in the flower of his youth.'
What is this mortal insect that has stung the youth of Werther? Mistake it not, it is the spirit of doubt, the spirit of the eighteenth century; and it is not Werther only that the insect has stung—it is Goethe himself. Goethe belongs to the eighteenth century; he is its disciple, its heir; he is, like it, the sceptic, but he is also the poet. It is this which conceals his universal doubt. Besides, as he perceived, with that admirable tact which accompanies his genius, that his scepticism would injure his poetry, he has laboured to correct its influence, and, for this purpose, has called to his aid all the resources of art and science. He has adored nature, he has been a pantheist, he has distributed God everywhere, to compensate for not having him in his own heart; he has adored Greece, and rendered a sort of worship to beauty such as the Greeks conceived it, and endeavoured to find an enthusiasm in the arts; he has adored the south, and sung the Land of the orange grove, because the south is the region of strong faiths, and is repugnant to scepticism; he has adored the middle ages, because they were ignorant of doubt, everywhere he has sought to cure the wound of that insect which had stung his youth. But no; his scepticism pierces through all his enthusiasm, and the very variety of his inspirations proves his indifference. He is neither philosopher, nor devotee, nor Christian, nor pagan, nor courtier, nor citizen, nor of times ancient or modern, nor of the north, nor of the south-or rather, he is all these at once. He is the echo of nature, he repeats to us all her harmonies; but he fails to add that utterance, which unites so well with the harmonies of the world the utterance of his own heart. Ask of Goethe to represent man and nature in all their variety and extent, and he will do it. There is one thing you must not ask of him—himself. This self fails in Goethe; not the self which knows it is a great poet, and will to be one; but that other self, which has a thought, a principle to contend for, which, in short, believes in something. It is there the insect stung; both in Goethe and in Werther.
After discussing the character of modern French literature, there remains the important question to determine, how far the state of literature represents the state of society—how far the one is a faithful picture of the other. Upon this subject M. Girardin concludes his volume with some excellent remarks; but here we must also conclude our notice of this interesting work.
LORD ELDON.
In a free country, if there ever was or will be a truly free country besides our own, the life of every public man ought to be written. All would supply a lesson of more or less value; and it is upon lessons of that order that the vigour of the rising generation can alone be trained. Undoubtedly, in the mixed qualities of human nature, there might now and then be formidable displays; the development of the heart might often startle the eye which looked to it for healthy action; the machinery of the mind would require to be examined with the hand of charity as well as the hand of science: but the general result must be knowledge—always interesting, and often of the highest value; for the tendency of manners is, to disappoint that research. The habits, the associations, almost the general peace of society, unite in covering the actual nature of man with a uniform aspect. The unquestionable effect of civilization is, not merely to smooth the inequalities of the surface, but to conceal the actual material—the rough, the hard, the cold, or the pernicious within. But there is no one operation of man, by which human nature is so deeply and so distinctly penetrated and tested, as a true narrative of the career of men acting a prominent part in the world. History is comparatively feeble to this powerful searcher. Its heroes and heroines are placed so palpably on a stage; its dramatis personae are so distant and so disciplined; its positions are so openly arranged for effect, that the nearest approach is only conjecture, as the nearest approach to reality is only illusion. Courts and campaigns are not human life. Kings and ministers, in their court pageantry, are scarcely more entitled to the name of human beings. They are factitious forms, showy spectacles, glittering effigies. But strip off the state costume; stand beside them while they are unconscious of a spectator; enter into their minds; seize their motives; measure their impulses: it is only then that we discover their affinity to the family of man, and by their vigour and virtue model our own.
The life of the Earl of Eldon is an important addition to public biography. Written by a lawyer, it has the advantage of professional knowledge—by a man of a certain experience in public, and even in official life, it exhibits that practical knowledge of affairs which nothing but practice can gain—and by a man of literary accomplishment, it adds, to its more solid merits, those graces of style which supply the last attraction to a work of manly utility. We feel even, in some degree, an uncritical, yet a not less authentic satisfaction in giving our tribute to the work of one connected with a family, whose name brings to the public mind such deep recollections of fine ability finely employed—of talents combined with the noblest triumphs of past genius and of forms and countenances eminently fitted to represent the grand and beautiful of the classic drama of England.