Page:The Maclise Portrait-Gallery.djvu/163

 the contents of my Lesebuch, and the "Studenten Lieder," carolled nightly in a Parisian mansarde by a joyous group from the Fatherland,—myself the only "Engländer"—dispersed for ever this many a long day, like that "gallant company" whose fate awoke the regrets of him who sung, in Byron's line, how Corinth of the double sea was lost and won. Strong was the dissuasion from friendly voices, who told of the manifold difficulties of a work the interpretation of which had baffled the strongest minds of Germany; still, nothing daunted, I adventured, and soon found, to my own surprise, that, aided by my Wörterbuch and Mr. Hayward's admirable prose translation, I was making easy and satisfactory progress in my delightful task. The obstacles arising from grammatical construction I found to be neither numerous nor important; while the obscurities of meaning,—of which, doubtless, there are many and great,—hardly affected the continuity of progress, or diminished the pleasure which the mere poetry afforded. I therefore have said thus much in venturing to recommend a like experiment to those other students of High Dutch to whom the fancied difficulties of Faust have hitherto made it a sealed book.

Many a deep impression have the waves of time washed away since those early days, but I yet recall, in all their vivid glow, the feeling which the first reading of this sublime poem awakened in my soul. It was as a wind to awaken each slumbering emotion of the mind; a lightning flash to kindle every current of sympathy; a mirror reflecting to the spirit's gaze its own unfamiliar characters and lineaments. It possesses an infinite variety which is never staled by custom, and each new perusal will bring you under the dominion of words that ring in the brain and take possession of the thoughts as no other poem or work but this,—and Shakespeare,—alone can ever do. I read it wandering through Rhineland,—in native Frankfort,—in friendly Weimar,—and in beautiful Berlin, "light of the world;" —and longer study and wider apprehension have only increased the opinion I then formed of the beauty of its poetry, the profundity of its meaning, and the almost universality of its significance.

What manner of book, then, is this? What is its meaning and object? Primarily, Faust may be considered simply as a dramatic poem, having for its object, like the Doctor Faustus of our own "Marlowe of the mighty line," the exhibition and illustration of the old tradition of a scholar, who, made mad by hard study and much learning, has, or believes that he has, intercourse with the Evil One, in the guise of Mephistopheles. This is the superficial, and, as far as it goes, a correct view. But then, if we would gain a clue to its further interpretation, and a better hope of fairly plucking the heart out of its mystery, we must not forget that we have the author's own testimony as to the almost entirely subjective character of the work, and the passionate and perplexed condition of his mind at the time of its composition; and thus endeavour to regard it as an autopathography, shadowing forth the spiritual life of its author, and the pains and sorrows through whose purging fires his soul passed to its eventide grandeur and serenity.

But this is not all. Faust is a work of supreme genius, and consequently possesses in a superlative degree, quite apart from its mere