Page:Essays and criticisms by Wainewright (1880).djvu/100

12 are not entirely in unison with the style of the author they profess to illustrate. They are composed, nearly throughout, with equal judgment, fire, and taste; whereas the wild, and, in the teeth of all its incongruities, pathetic tragedy of Goëthe flutters doubtingly between the topmost height of sublimity and the bottomless pit of self-satisfied absurdity.

The accompanying descriptions to this volume of engravings being in German, it may be as well, in giving a list of the plates, to connect them together by a slight narrative, sufficient to show the relation they bear to one another.

Some of our readers may not be aware, that the Germans have not yet resigned that freedom of manner which may be considered as a proof of innocence or of impudence, according as it is traced to simplicity of heart, or contempt for things which most people consider sacred. In short, they take liberties with attributes, names, and characters, in which it would not be pardonable in us to follow them, because we have in our country got far beyond the patriarchal stage. They do not hesitate still to introduce the person of the Deity in compositions of a mixed nature: and No. 1 of this

are, in point of execution, but sketches) gentle women (witness the lovely females in his designs for the 4to Telemachus), tranquil old men, portraits of his own mind, and all the softer emotions of private life. His drawings for Stockdale's Robinson Crusoe, 2 vols, 8vo, 1790, engraved by Medland, would do honour to Raffaele both for composition and subtle penetration into the secret springs of the mind as they act on the outward man.