Meph. (appears without). Up! Up! away— Marg. What rises from the earth ? 'Tis he! 'tis he-oh, drive him forth What on the place of holiness would HE? Is it for me he cometh? Faust. Thou shalt live! Marg. All-judging God !—to thee Meph. Come! or I'll leave you with her in the mess! Marg. My father! I am thine; Oh! save and bless! Ye angels! guard me and ye Heavenly things Around me spread your all-protecting wings! Henri! I shudder as I gaze on thee! Meph. She's JUDGED! Voice from Above. Is SAVED! Meph. (to Faust). Come hither! here to me! [Vanishes with FAUST. Voice from Within (dying away). Henri! Henri! NOTES. THE DEDICATION. THE Dedication, in the original, is written in the measure once so generally used by the Italian Poets, and which Byron has rendered familiar to us by his Beppo and Don Juan. Many years elapsed between the commencement of Faust and its completion; as it approached its conclusion, the mind of the poet might naturally revert to the friends among whom its earlier scenes were conceived and executed, and as memory calls their forms around him, to them he dedicates the result of the task they had once cheered by their approbation and applause. The passage in which the poet expresses a yearning for "the still, pensive spirit-land" (jenem stillen, ernsten Geisterreich), has been quoted as one of the few in which Goethe expresses an aspiration towards the " world beyond," though he appears (from a conversation on the death of Wieland, recorded by Falk), to have been a firm believer in the immortality of the soul. It will be seen, however, that the passage is retrospective, inspired by the feelings of memory and love; and that the "Spirit-realm "he yearns to enter, is that of the past rather than the future. The vivid manner in which the past may be recalled in the present, either by dreams or in periods of abstraction, when the mind is the least affected by what is most actual in the circumstances external to it, is frequently alluded to by poets: "This bodiless creation, extasy Is very cunning in." Lucretius proposes as one of the subjects of his inquiry : "Quæ res, nobis vigilantibus obvia, menteis Sir Walter Scott expresses the same thought more fully in describing the dreams of the Knight of Snowdoun (Lady of the Lake, Canto I.) "Again return'd the scenes of youth, Of confident, undoubting truth; Again his soul he interchanged With friends whose hearts were long estranged. The cold, the faithless, and the dead, As warm each hand, each brow as gay, As if they parted yesterday." "The Dedication to Faust certainly proves that this poem, as well as Hermann and Dorothea, were his most cherished productions. It was first published in the Cotta edition of 1816.”—Dr. Koller. The concluding lines of Rogers's Italy are in a strain of feeling similar to the sentiment of this Dedication : ""Tis now long since; And now while yet 'tis day would he withdraw, Bright as the brightest now, is closed in night, To those who think that a translation should follow the original in form as well as subject, the following version, in the same measure as the German, may appear preferable to that given in the text: "Approach ye then once more, dim, shadowy train ? As once before my troubled gaze ye flew ? Shall I this once your fleeting forms retain ? Is my heart still to its delusion true? Still press ye forward? Well, resume your reign, With youthful feelings is my bosom bounding, Forms known in early, happy days, you bring And with you many much lov'd shades arise; Like worn traditions, half forgotten, spring First love, and friendship, once more to mine eyes; Those naming, who of happy hours bereft Have vanish'd from the scene where I am left. They do not hear, alas! the following lay, And far dispersed is all that friendly throng, To stranger-crowds my grief I now betray, Whose very praise seems to my heart a wrong ; And now a yearning long unfelt, I feel For the soft stillnes sof that spirit-land! In half-form'd tones my lisping lay doth steal Around like harp-notes which the winds command: I tremble-tears fast following tears, reveal That the stern heart is quell'd, is soft and bland- But all the past, appears reality." THE PRELUDE IN THE THEATRE. Manager, Theatre-Poet, Merryman. THE first of these three characters requires no comment, but the other two have not exactly their parallels among the members of a dramatic establishment in England. A poet is, or was, a more regular appendage to a German theatre than an English one. With us the writer of a play is not, as an author, connected with the theatre; he may sometimes, indeed, be a player also, but then he has a twofold capacity, each distinct from the other. The business of a German Theatre-Poet appears to be the furnishing dramatic material to the actors, on demand, and suitable to the moment, in a more certain manner than could be done by authors of equal, or perhaps superior powers, who write only by the inspiration of their genius, and whose productions may be very good in themselves, but badly timed, "like your old courtier's cap, richly suited but unsuitable." He is in fact kept in regular pay by a theatre for his dramatic contributions as a newspaper pays an editor for political ones; the condition of each situation being alike in this, that the right article must be furnished at the right time, which can only be done by those to whom practice has given readiness in directing their thoughts at once into the required channel, and the power of expressing those thoughts, such as they are, rapidly, forcibly, and clearly. In both cases a knowledge of the public at large, or that smaller section of it that constitutes a theatre audience, is necessary. It may easily be conceived that a delicate and poetic mind will find such task-work and drudgery inexpressibly revolting to it, especially if it is compelled to direct its own efforts according to the sordid views of another. This is the situation of the "Poet" in the present dialogue; he thinks of what is noble and exalting in his art-the Manager only of what will fill the house and his treasury; it is only after the most painful struggles that the Poet can stoop to let his Pegasus be harnessed. Shakspeare, when he first became connected with the stage, is supposed to have altered, amended, and retouched the plays of other authors, and that similar labour, when performed by other men, was occasionally paid for, there is conclusive proof; but it does not appear that the theatres of that period, retained a person quite identical with the " Theatre-Poet" of this prelude. Ben Jonson, as the "Court-Poet," writing the masques and allegories for the Court Revels, approaches the character more nearly. The term "Merryman," does not adequately render the Lustigeperson of the author. That word, however, is the only one we have that can be used for it, "Clown," or "Merry Andrew," not being admissible. The character understood by these three designations is merely the buffoon of our itinerant mountebanks and troops of equestrians, with more activity of body than brain, and whose jokes are principally of a practical kind. The Lustige-person of the German stage is the actor who in As You Like It, would be cast for Touchstone, or for Master Lancelot, in the Merchant of Venice, or for any other of the immortal clowns of Shakspeare, for these deal out satire and philosophy amid their rich and easy humour; they "make their folly their stalking-horse, and under cover of that do shoot their wit." They are of a very different order to the Merryman of the Circus, or the Clown of the Pantomime, and to possess the qualities necessary to play them well, may excuse a little vanity in the possessor. In this, the Lustige-person before us does not seem deficient; he is fully alive to his own importance, and, it will be seen, agrees better with the worldliness of the Manager, than the refinements of the Poet; he lives in and for the present, and has an especial contempt for the voice of posterity. There is a passage in the works of that admirable French political writer, Paul Louis Courier, which explains the character of the Lustige-person of a different grade of society. Courier's style is in some degree like that of our Fonblanque, and on that account he was once called the Lustig, or the Jester of the National party; this is his reply:"To abuse I am silent; but he calls me Lustig, and it is on this I take him. In speaking of me, he says, and thinks he says well,The Loustic of the National party,' while in so saying, the good man, he makes a mistake without suspecting it. The word is foreign, and when we borrow terms from foreigners they ought not to be altered. The Germans say Lustig, not Loustic, and I verily believe he does not know what the Lustig is. In a German regiment, he is the joker, the jolly fellow, who amuses every body and makes the regiment laugh; I ought to say only the privates and the subaltern officers, for all the others are nobles, and laugh, as is proper they should do, separately and apart. On a march, when the Lustig laughs, all the column laughs also, and cries out, What has he said?' Such a fellow must be no fool. It needs considerable talent to make men laugh who are beaten with the flat of the sabre, and are chastised with the stick; more than one journalist would find himself puzzled to do it. The Lustig diverts their attention, amuses them, sometimes prevents them |