were killed or scattered. Liberty was trodden under foot. His name was a bye-word among the Royalists. An order was issued to seize some of his works, and burn them by the common hangman. He had indeed, as he says, "fallen on evil days and evil tongues, with darkness and with danger compassed round." Few would have had the heart to do anything at such a time. But at such a time it was that our great poet devoted himself to the maturing and completion of the great work which he had undertaken in youth. It seems to us as noble a spectacle as any in history, to see this grand old man, having done his work for his own age, and being now blind, and poor, and neglected, calmly and confidently sitting down to write for future ages. He could do no more for his beloved country. On all political questions his mouth was gagged. The oracles of the great man were prized no more by his degenerate countrymen. But he heeded it not. Silently and steadily he worked on at that book which he dedicated to posterity 66 The Paradise Lost" was published in 1667. Milton sold the copyright to Samuel Simmons "for an immediate payment of five pounds, with a stipulation to receive five pounds more, when thirteen hundred copies of the first edition should be sold; and, again, five pounds after the sale of the same number of the second edition; and another five pounds after the same sale of the third. None of the three editions were to be extended beyond fifteen hundred copies." In two years, thirteen hundred copies of the first edition were sold; and Milton became entitled to the second payment of five pounds, for which the receipt was signed, April 26, 1669. The second edition was not published till 1674. Several improvements were made in that edition. The work was originally in ten books. In that edition the seventh and tenth books were divided into two; and the work, as it now stands, appeared in twelve books. The third edition was published in 1678. 1670. Milton presented a copy to In closing this account of the poet's literary labours, we are sorely tempted to pause and criticise them. But we are reluctantly compelled to abandon the attempt. A superficial criticism would be worse than none; and, as this article has already reached an unreasonable length, and we have a good deal still to say of a biographical and historical character, any critical remarks which we might make cannot but be superficial. This seems to be an appropriate place for gathering up the scattered threads of the poet's domestic life. His first wife died in 1653, and left him three daughters. It was not long before he married again. His second wife was Catherine Woodcock, daughter of a Captain Woodcock of Hackney. She seems to have been worthy of Milton, and, had she lived, would doubtless have made his home happy. But she died within a year, of childbirth. Several years after, he married Elizabeth Minshul, of a gentleman's family in Cheshire; and, according to Phillips, she oppressed his children in his lifetime, and cheated them at his death. His last days seem to have been embittered by her. Happily we have several particulars handed down to us of the last years of his life. He took a small house in Bunhill Fields; and there he was seen sitting "at the old organ, beneath the faded green curtains." There his friend Elwood would go every afternoon, except on Sundays, to read Latin to him, and listen to his conversation. There he taught his daughters to read to him (by rote) in Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French. There he has been found by Richardson, sitting "before his door in a grey coat of coarse cloth, in warm, sultry weather, to enjoy the fresh air." There, according to another account, he was seen When Elwood, Milton's Quaker friend, 'neatly enough dressed in black clothes, had read the "Paradise Lost," he re- sitting in a room hung with rusty green marked to the author, "Thou hast said-pale, but not cadaverous-with chalka great deal upon paradise lost; what stones in his hands. He said, that, if hast thou to say upon paradise found?" it were not for the gout, his blindness Milton took the hint; and this seems to would be tolerable." Richardson tells have been the germ of the "Paradise us, that, in composing his poem, "he Regained," which was published in would sometimes lie awake whole nights, To the passing spectator he seemed fallen and forsaken. His blindness, as we have seen, was represented as a judgment from God. And, doubtless, there were moments when he felt his position keenly. He was poor. We have seen that he was paid just ten pounds (in all) for his "Paradise Lost," and proportionately for his other works. He had no private property. He would not stoop for money. It is said, that, shortly after So quick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs, Seasons return; but not to me returns Of nature's works, to me expung'd and rased, conclusion? his last marriage, he was offered the his two exquisite sonnets on his blindWe cannot refrain from quoting also continuance of his employment, as sec ness: retary, by Charles the Second's govern-When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He, returning, chide;'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?' I fondly ask: but patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not Either man's work or his own gifts: who best Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, They also serve who only stand and wait." The second sonnet is inscribed to Cyriac Skinner. 'Cyriac, this three years' day these eyes, though To outward view, of blemish or of spot, ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them over- In Liberty's defence-my noble task, world's vain mask, Content, though blind--had I no better guide." He had a "better guide." Though blind, he lived in light. His outward blindness did but strengthen his inward sight. As physical objects faded from his view, spiritual objects opened on him. As his material eye closed in everlasting night, his spiritual eye saw God and eternal realities all the more distinctly. His own noble prayer was fulfilled. The celestial light shone inward, and the mind, through all her powers, irradiated;" and he lived to "see and in tens of thousands into the coffers of other booksellers. And at length, wearied and worn-tost and buffetedhe sank into his grave on the 10th of November, 1674. tell of things invisible to mortal sight." Surely this was a sublime recompense for his loss. He had indeed learnt the way to power through weakness to wealth through poverty. Aye, lowly and poor as was that "small lodging" in Bunhill Fields, it was then the holiest shrine in England. Over it hovered guardian angels to protect it from insult and injury; and within it lived the grandest old man which our country, so rich in worthies, had seen for many a long day. We might have searched the whole country, from John O'Groat's to Land's End-from the throne to the dunghill- —a long, long time, without alighting on one specimen of a genuine MAN. We might have ransacked the royal palace; and, from the shallowhearted libertine who sat upon the throne, to the lowest courtier who fawned at his footstool, probably we should not have found one large intellect or one noble heart. That was indeed, as Macaulay says, an age "of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices-the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds." But, in one of the meaner suburbs of the great city, there stood a small poverty-stricken house; and in that house lived the greatest man in England-in grand contrast with his generation. The frivolous lords and false-hearted ladies rolled in splendour and in luxury about him, scarcely conscious of his existence; and, all that time, that great man lived alone almost out of the world-struggling with blindness and with poverty-receiving from his bookseller just ten pounds for that book which has brought Such is the world! What, then! Is there no justice in this world of ours? Ah, no! Believe it not! "Heaven is above all yet: there sits a Judge That no tyrant can corrupt." "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil;" but, as sure as there is a God in heaven, that sentence will be executed one day. Aye, though "a sinner do evil a hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God; but it shall not be well with the wicked." That poor, blind, old man, proscribed and neglected as he was, lived a happier as well as nobler life, surrounded with cherubim and seraphim and the spirits of the great departed, than that triumphant monarch, with all his pleasures and all his luxuries. That "small lodging" in Bunhill Fields, with its frugal fare and its temperate tone, was as the palace of the most high God, compared with that "palace" at Whitehall, with its hellish orgies and its heartless revellings; and, long after the Charles and the Rochesters-the Buckinghams and the Lauderdales forgotten, except to have the brand of infamy stamped upon them,—the name of Milton will be honoured and loved. Each succeeding age will add an additional wreath to that unfading crown which already encircles his brows recognising him not only as the POET, but as the PATRIOT and the MAN. - are JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE. NOTWITHSTANDING all that has been said and written about Goethe, our interest in the great German is as rife as ever; at least our curiosity scarcely flags. The English version of Eckermann's "Conversations" was received with almost as warm a welcome by many British readers a year or two ago, as may have hailed the first appearance of Boswell's "Johnson" sixty years since. On the other hand, Goethe's merits have been 66 as severely handled (in one of our most able political journals) within the last Wilhelm Meister" half-year, as when confounded the critics, or "Werther" led young men to commit suicide. The chief reason for this perpetuation of interest and curiosity is, we suspect, that to most of us Goethe continues an unsolved enigma. We find, or think we find-both in the man himself and in his writings - the most palpable con Voilà un homme qui a eu beaucoup de chagrins;" while we have his oft-quoted and certainly unaffected lines,— tradictions; “a great perturbation in fate;" whereas a French diplomatic nature," whether monstrous or super-personage, contemplating Goethe's phyhuman we are at a loss to decide. His siognomy, is said to have observed, admirers see in him an example of intellectual and moral manhood, nearly perfect. To them he is "totus teres atque rotundus." Gainsayers so far subscribe to the predicate of "many-sidedness," as to make it part of the indictment against him, that "he is every man-in no man;" that we have here an acknowledged poet, who can prose inter- "Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours, Weeping and watching for the morrow, He knows you not, ye heavenly powers," and the pregnant Greek motto in his Autobiography, "He that is not scourged is not schooled." Such an anomalous personal and literary existence is, indeed, an excellent basis for posthumous renown. Were we compelled to adopt Mr. De Quincy's general estimate of Goethe,† we should infer with him that there was malice aforethought in the case, "With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit." 66 Hác itur ad For when the age shall find its prophet to speak out boldly one other of its to win it," as it has already in that on strivings in a treatise on " Fame, how "Money, how to get it," this receipt of premeditated obscurity may fairly take precedence of all others. astra." Disguise, voluntary or involuntary, has gained for the masqueraders in the Dance of Life, a prominence to which, as unhooded revellers, they could never have aspired. Had but one creThe critics have treated him accord-dible witness lifted the "Iron Mask," ingly. Edinburgh Reviewers allow him that redoubtable domino might not have to be a man of some genius; a connois-been mentioned except in the Chroniseur of no mean order. Nor can they deny that he occasionally expresses dignified sentiments in a style which is not common-place. But they find his master-work, for the most part, a low affair, with an unctuous kitchen odour about Francis would hardly be a subject of cles of State Imprisonment. Sir Philip warm literary interest in this year 1853 at nearly a century's distance - had he been “Junius" confessed. Mystery - well devised and carried through the mystifier who cunningly conceals himself, and the mystified who cunningly pretends to defeat his purpose. it. Had it not come from such a be-attaches an infinite charm to the object lauded quarter, they would not have it encircles; chiefly for the simple reatouched it with the longest Ithuriel- son, that it confers a double boon: it flatters him that gives and him that spear ever invented to serve the dainty takes; purposes of fastidious criticism. Whether it is, that having been directed to a palace of art and beauty, they have (not without fault of their own) missed their way, stumbled upon the back offices instead of entering at the portal, and so turned back in disgust, we cannot now inquire. All we observe is the manifest paradox. As finale to this catalogue of contrarieties, we may add, that, in the opinion of no mean judge- Mr. De Quincysunny prosperity was essential to his nature, and happily that was his is better ground for perpetuated interest We hope, however, to show that there satisfied curiosity; that we have not yet in this case, than the cravings of undone with Goethe, because we have not fathomed his depth; because to many of answered question, how we may acquire us it is an all-important, but still unthat talisman by whose help he reached * Carlyle's Miscellanies, vol. i. so fair a balance of intellect and feeling after such disquiet of mind and soul; and which, to the end of a long life, sustained him in higher and ever higher aspirations after all mental excellence, and in vigorous and successful efforts to realise them: JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE was born (as his Autobiography tells us), exactly at midday, on the 28th of August, 1749. His birthplace was the imperial city of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, -situated nearly on the edge of that severed half of the Frankish sovereignty which survived as the representative of the imperial dynasties of the Cæsars and of Charlemagne. It was the border land of quaint, grave Germany and of France, always enthusiastic, and just beginning to be revolutionary. The critical aspect of the age, tallied well with the position and historical associations of the place. As yet Old Europe stood, tottering in decrepitude, but wearing the same fantastic garb which the use of a thousand years had consecrated. It was Goethe's privilege to see the end of this elder world, and to be able to carry over what was worth preserving - what alone could be preserved-its poetry, into the new. Other circumstances of his birth were no less contrasted. Goethe's father (like Sir Walter Scott's) was a formal, highspirited man; educated for the law, but hampered in the free exercise of his civic talents, and soured in temper by a self-induced political isolation from his fellow-burghers. His wife, -daughter of the first magistrate of Frankfort, and to whom he was married when she was only seventeenpresented, as nearly as might be, the exact reverse of her husband's disposition. She was a child with her children; amiable and yielding to a fault; romantic, even to the length of cherishing life-long souvenirs of the Emperor Charles VII., with whose melancholy graces she had been smitten when a girl. Her first-born, Wolfgang, would listen at her knee, with breathless and tearful attention, to long-spun improvisations of fays, giants, dwarfs, hardbested knights, and distressed fair ladies. While she fed his imagination, his father undertook-and with really laudable perseverance- to keep it within bounds. Yet he, too, could be enthusiastic on one subject-Italy; and by the ample store of natural curiosities and Roman views which a zealous and travelled dilettantism had gathered, contributed something to the rapid development of the poetical genius of his son. The official dignity of Goethe's maternal grandfather and namesake, Johann Wolfgang Textor, early facili tated his acquaintance with the historical mysteries of the German Rheims. Nor was it without awe as well as pride that the youth saw his august relative throned beneath the imperial canopy, and receiving symbolic homage as the viceroy of the Kaiser. Moreover, grandfather Textor enjoyed unique personal distinction as well as civic honours. He was gifted with a strange prophetic endowment, or power of "second-sight," which, the poet tells us, was not inherited; but of which we find some remarkable traces in Goethe himself, according to Eckermann's account. The ancient house in the Hirsch-Graben (Stag-Ditch) in which Goethe was born, was itself a charmed place. Sombre rooms, dark corridors and recesses occasioned not only interest but fear. The young Goethes were even afraid to sleep alone; a terror which the father vainly endeavoured to suppress-on the principle of “similia similibus curantur”by appearing to fugitives from their bed-rooms, in a night-dress made doubly frightful by being turned inside out. These trepidations yielded only to palatable bribes from their mother; and spectral shadows were reduced to native nothingness, when weighed against the substantial forms of fruit and sweetmeats. In quiet, but roomy seclusion in the same house, dwelt the paternal grandmother, a mild, though venerable figure, giving such protection to the young folks as an old lady in such a position only can. She too performed no unimportant part in developing the soul of the child; for, on a certain Christmaseve, she "crowned her other benefactions (chiefly of a less intellectual order), by the exhibition of a puppet-show." This appears to have been a seed sown for life. Our immortal “Faust," and "Götz," and |