1828.] Retzsch's Outlines of Shakspeare. ' 615 



out of place (not to say invidious) for us to dwell upon here. And the 

 other civilized nations of Europe admired him because the English and 

 the French did. Nor are we disposed to contend that all this admiration 

 was exaggerated or undeserved. In fact, the illustrations of Goethe's 

 extraordinary production are not only worthy of their subject, but they 

 are, for the most part, correspondent with it, and have evidently pro- 

 ceeded from a kindred mind a mind similarly endowed, both in regard 

 to its strengths and its weaknesses ; though possessing both (and espe- 

 cially the latter) in an infinitely less degree. Accordingly, in the out- 

 lines from the Faust, we meet with much of the poetical purity and 

 beauty that are to be found in the original ; little of its wild grandeur 

 and sublimity ; and scarcely any of its monstrous and gratuitous absur- 

 dities. But there is no reason, in all this, why we should find what we 

 are entitled to look for in illustrations of Shakspeare by the same hand : 

 for of all the truly great poets that ever lived, no two are more essentially 

 unlike, either in their natural or acquired endowments, or the results of 

 them, than Shakspeare and Goethe ; nor are any two of those results more 

 diametrically opposed to each other than the Faust and Hamlet. And 

 this fact is the more striking, when we remember, that, in general design , 

 there is a great (and, we believe, hitherto, an unobserved) similarity 

 between these two productions ; each of them having for its main end 

 and object to shew forth the operations and effects of the habit (upon a 

 certain temperament of mind) of looking at human life in what is called, 

 in the jargon of our day, " a philosophical point of view." The general 

 result upon the principal character, in either case, is an utter indifference 

 to all that is real and tangible, whether of good or of evil : and a vain and 

 restless yearning after that which he knows to be unattainable, and 

 knows to be worthless, even if he could attain it. But how differently 

 is this general idea worked out in the two cases we are alluding to ! 

 And, assuredly, not less different is the popular effects in each case 

 respectively. In the one, we rise from the perusal, with our belief in 

 goodness nay, even in truth itself shaken to its very foundations ; our 

 judgment in regard to moral beauty and deformity hoodwinked and put 

 into a state of temporary abeyance ; our positive knowledge, as to the 

 qualities and tendencies of our common nature, not only called in 

 question, but mocked at and turned into matter of scorning ; and even 

 our sensibilities themselves the sympathies of 



(f That human heart by which we live," 



either turned against each other, or trampled in the dirt of empty and 

 unmeaning subtillies. It is true that, in the midst of all this, we never 

 wholly lose sight of that sweet spirit which the author has put to preside 

 over it, but which performs its work in part only. The Margaret of the 

 Faust is the dove brooding over a chaos, which is destined to remain a 

 chaos still. 



But in Hamlet, how different is all managed ! or rather, let us say, 

 (for there is no management in the case) how different does all arrange 

 and set itself forth, in virtue of that natural wisdom no less sweet than 

 deep which pervades and presides over all the creations of Shakspeare ! 

 Like his own Ophelia, who, even in her madness, turned every thing 

 " passion hell itself " to " favour and to prettiness," he turns the 

 weaknesses of human nature into sources of strength, its follies into the 

 finest practical wisdom, and even its crimes themselves into themes of pity 



