ward by chance meets her at an inn, and conducts her home again. She then takes the singular determination of never speaking again, and of starving herself; which she effects. The funeral scene is well described. Edward dies of a broken heart, and we are left to hope, that the major and Charlotte do not also experience this dreadful catastrophe.

We have not noticed a character which is not very new, and performs we think, a useless part throughout the novel. He is introduced under the name of "Mittler," literally "mediator," whose only occupation is to make up the differences in the neighbouring families. Such a character could only be comic or unimportant. It is not meant as the former, because it would have interrupted the general harmony of a sentimental novel.

We have also omitted to speak of two other interlopers, or episodical personages; the one a teacher of young girls, who falls in love with Ottilia, at her boarding school; the other an architect, who is scarcely less favourably disposed towards her. The author appears to have introduced them, as machinery for the erudite part of his poetical novel. The tutor makes learned remarks on the character of the sex, and descants scientifically on education. The architect does still more; he builds; he paints; he decorates; he instructs us solemnly, that when an amateur shows us a collection of engravings or original drawings, we must hold each leaf carefully, with both hands, lest the paper should be rumpled or break.-The major on his side, proves himself no less skilled in the art of English gardening, and the embellishment of rural scenery.— He and Edward are acquainted with all the modern discoveries. in chemistry, and pronounce, in effect, a very fine dissertation upon chemistry, without which it would be impossible to comprehend the title of the novel. The author is so desirous of displaying his scientific acquirements, that he makes his heroine repeat, (with the most perfect success) the experiments of Ritter on the oscillations of the pendulum.

There exists throughout the work, a vein of superstition which we are, perhaps, authorized to trace, to the author's private creed on that subject. The superstitions to which we here allude, are not such striking instances as would appear to have been selected from the popular belief, in order to add to the interest of the story, by the mystery of supernatural agency, but such quiet incidental ones as could only have been created in the breast of a person of nice observation and poetic imagination; who has fancied a relation between some accidental occurrence, and the events of a life devoted to meditation.

We think we have observed this in the works of several persons of vivid imagination, and to consider it in this light, gives an interest to that which would otherwise appear frivolous. Of the same nature is the recurrence of the light cloud, that partially obscures the moon, in the novel of Corinna, and which she imagines to be the forerunner or concomitant of every misforture of her life;-it becomes at the close of the tale a fine accessory in the well executed picture, of the dying moments of the heroine.

The man who is more occupied with the common concerns of life, than a person as abstracted as a literary character can be, knows the fallacy of these signs, and laughs at them, without perhaps being aware, that the want of the prejudice, deprives him of pleasures of the sublimest nature.

That a man of a contemplative cast of mind, should believe in the return and presence of departed friends, or multiply in any way the chain of invisible agencies, (superstitions which if they do not make him a greater, will probably make him a better man) is very excusable; and that he should make them the ground work of a novel, or introduce them incidentally is equally so. That these superstitions are not able to stand the test of ridicule, is by no means a proof of their wanting interest. For example, the incantations of the witches in Macbeth, if read in the closet, or considered in detail, appear to be a series of such absurdities, as could only proceed from a disordered brain; and yet I think few persons of imagination have seen the tragedy performed, without being moved by the mystery, which prevails in the midnight meetings, of these wizards of the air.

With all our inclination however, to approve of the introduction of these accessories in fictions, we own we could not help smiling at several of those which are made use of in the volumes before us;-for instance at Edward's impression, (nay firm conviction) that his fate was eternally allied to that of Ottilia, merely because a glass, on which the initials of their names were inscribed, fell to the ground without being broken, after being thrown up in the air. This and several other puerilities are only to be tolerated on the ground we have taken; that is, a supposition of the influence of private feeling.

Not so however, the general belief in fatality which reigns throughout the work, and the general oblivion of every thing like a consolation derived from religious motives.-If the author has grown old in the persuasion of the one, and with the want of the other, we sincerely pity him. We do not recol

lect to have experienced in the perusal of any fiction, a deeper impression of sadness, than throughout the one before us. A reader is for the moment, whatever an eloquent author chooses to make him. It is only when he has laid down the volume, and his mind is released from the fine spun web of eloquence, that he returns to his original rectitude of thought, and scans the imperfections of his author's theory. Let the predestinarian read this novel, and see what becoms of four amiable persons, merely because they surrender themselves without an effort, to what they imagine to be the inevitable decrees of fate.

We believe that there are very many middle aged men, who after having passed like Edward through the bloom of youth with an amiable wife, would be afterwards tempted to neglect her somewhat faded charms, in order to fall in love with any pretty niece whom she might introduce into their house. We believe that there are many wives who would exchange what they suppose to be the monotonous society of middle aged husbands, for that of a young officer having the attraction of novelty. But we also believe, that all this, instead of proving the force of fate, would be merely the result of disordinate passions; while on the contrary, a due submission to the laws of society and of God, a proper sense of right and wrong, and a religious determination to pursue the one and avoid the other, will effectually combat what many please to call the irresistible decrees of destiny, and will lead the christian gently through the path of life, instead of inducing him to err, in following blindly the impulse of his passions;-by finding an excuse for weakness in fatality.

Before we bid adieu to Goëthe and his novel, we should say something of the general character of the work, and of his leading merits as a writer.-From the outline which we have already given of the "Elective Affinities," our readers will perceive that it is replete with incongruities, with extravagant conceptions, and the most improbable incidents. The episodes, digressions and dissertations, form the most considerable part of the volumes, and have no immediate connexion with the principal story. It is said to be the secret of the German compositions of this kind, that they should be in every sense poetical; that the author should gratify you with an epopee full of episodes and rich in the marvellous, under the modest title of a novel. They are at the same time made a vehicle to exhibit his learning on all topics of cotemporary science.

Such seems to have been the plan of Goethe in this instance. Some of his superstitions are even more gross than those we

have mentioned;-such, for example, as the restoration of the life of Ottilia's maid, after she had thrown herself out of a garret into the street, through sorrow for the death of her mistress, by the accidental contact of the two bodies; a miracle which makes Ottilia pass for a saint in the surrounding country, and is but the precursor of many more performed at her tomb.

We need not dwell on the immoral tendency of this novel. There is, in many parts, a total want of delicacy. Among the supernumerary actors, are a baron and a countess casual visitors at the castle, whose situation may accord with German refinement, but is not likely to conciliate universal favour.They are represented to have been, for a long time, enamoured of each other, although married to different persons, and console themselves for the obstinacy of one of the latter in opposing a divorce, by travelling amicably together. The complexion of their discourse, and the doctrines they preach, are perfectly in unison with their easy and unprejudiced character.

In spite of the glaring defects which we have noticed, the present work is powerfully attractive, and evidently from the pencil of a master. The style is of finished excellence; remarkably pure, and as perspicuous as the subject and the German idiom will permit; the dialogue is skilfully managed, and the portraiture of manners no less interesting than accurate. Many of the author's reflections are equally profound and just. His descriptions, in which he appears to take particular delight, would be perfect, if they were not somewhat too minute. The beauties of his style and manner arise, however, chiefly from a peculiar talent of seizing, in his descriptions, with elegance and simplicity, all the little characteristic features, springing out of, and essentially belonging to, the spirit of his scene, his situation and his subject. This circumstance gives to his narrative an irresistible dramatic effect. While the physical eye sees but words, the mental gazes on a canvas, slowly drawn along;not, indeed, on a canvas-for life itself and reality may be said to be present.

Goëthe does not exactly tell you what happened;-you see it occur.-Your imagination becomes at once engaged with the actors, or the persons implicated in the dénouement, and remains so rivetted, that the illusion never abates;—that you never perceive you are but reading. There are passages of Goethe, which you might peruse at sea, during a squall, almost without being sensible of your situation. They absorb you, like a game of chess, when the board becomes intricate, or like the sight of the Falls of Niagara, which, stunning and overcoming the beholder, have to our knowledge, in more than

one instance, excited a momentary desire of mingling with the roaring torrent.-And when you analyse this extraordinary effect, you find it always owing to this, that Goëthe never leaves unnoticed the smallest circumstance which depicts, and rarely suffers your attention to languish, by noticing any which are irrelevant.

Goëthe once, at the request of some friends, and to show the force of his talent in this respect, chose for his subject, the festivity of a carnival at Rome. His description makes a little book of itself, which, we believe, nobody ever laid down, after having taken it up, without finishing, and which leaves you in a state of Bacchanalian delirium;-in a condition of mind from which you do not, for some hours, recover. Yet there is not, in the whole picture, one word which could be left out; not a single finely-wrought sentence; not an expression betraying that the author thought of himself. He tells you simply what passes, but he tells it in such a manner, that you are all the time of the party. You feel the air in motion with the speed of the running horses:-You suffocate in the crowd pressing forward to see which wins; the "sia amazzato❞ assails your ear. You try to save your candle on one side, and meet a Cerberean mouth ready to blow it out on the other.

But it is time for us to have done with Goëthe, of whose genius we can never speak without enthusiasm, however much we may be disposed to reprobate his extravagancies, as well as those of the dangerous sect of metaphysic-sentimental poets and novelists in Germany, of whom he is the leader.

A very different kind of tribute from that which we deem suitable to the metaphysics of the Kantean school, and to the works of imagination published by the Germans, is due to their labours in classical erudition, in antiquities, in ancient geography, and in history both profane and ecclesiastical. The cause of knowledge is infinitely indebted to them, for what they have achieved in these pursuits, even within the few years past, notwithstanding the sanguinary and troublous wars, of which their country has been the theatre during the same interval. Their researches are no less remarkable for depth and extent, than for accuracy and method, and have been communicated to the world, in a variety of forms, admirably well calculated to facilitate the sudies of those, who may engage in the same career, and to perpetuate the fruit of their own toil, together with that of their predecessors.

Some idea may be formed of the activity of their minds, from the fact, that Germany could boast, in 1809, of no less than two hundred authors of merit in the branches of knowledge