became exceedingly impatient for the promised second part; and when the master lingered, and did not himself come forth with the solution of the mystery, the disciples attempted to supply him as well as they could. C. C. L. Schoene and J. D. Hoffmann had both the requisite courage for such an undertaking; and the first even sent his production, with perfect naïveté, to the great master, as the second part of his own work. C. Rosenkranz and Gustav Pfitzer—two very honorable names—also wrote after-plays.
We must confess that we have never felt any desire to see "Faust" continued. It ought to have remained a fragment. Its last scene, perhaps, surpasses, in sublimity and heart-rending power, anything ever written. No light of this world can ever entirely clear up the sacred mystery of the Beyond, but that scene gives us a surety for the salvation of Margaret, and hope for Faust, to every one who has not forgotten the words of the Lord in the second Prologue:—
"Draw down this spirit from its source,
And, canst thou catch him, to perdition
Carry him with thee in thy course;
But stand abashed, if thou must needs confess
That a good man, though passion blur his vision,
Has of the right way still a consciousness."[1]
By the appearance of the second part of "Faust" the magic spell was completely broken. No work of Art of a more chilling, disenchanting character was ever produced. For the striking individuality of the first part, we have here nothing but abstractions; for its deep poetry, symbolism; for its glow and thrilling pathos, a plastic finish, hard and cold as marble; for its psychological truth, a bewildering mysticism. All the fine thoughts and reflections, and all the abundance of poetical passages, scattered like jewels through the thick mist of the whole work, cannot compensate for its total want of interest; and we doubt whether many readers have ever worked their way through its innumerable obscure sayings and mystical allegories without feeling something of the truth of Voltaire's remark: "Tout genre est permis hors le genre ennuyeux."
The impression which the first part of "Faust," the poetical masterpiece of German literature, made among foreigners, was, though in some instances ultimately powerful, yet on the whole surprisingly slow. While the popular legend, in its coarsest shape, had, in its time, spread with the rapidity of a running fire through all countries, the great German poet's conception of it, two hundred years later, found no responding echo in either French or English bosoms. Here and there some eccentric genius may have taken it up, as, for instance, Monk Lewis, who, in 1816, communicated the fundamental idea to Lord Byron, reading and translating it to him vivâ voce, and suggesting to him, in this indirect way, the idea of his "Manfred." But even the more profound among the few German scholars then extant in England did not understand "Faust," and were inclined to condemn it,—as, for instance, Coleridge, who, as we see from his "Table-Talk," misconceived the whole idea of the poem, and found fault with the execution, because it was different from what he fancied he himself would have made of this legend, had he taken it in hand. The first English translation was published in the same year as the first French version, that is, in 1825; both were exceedingly imperfect. Since then several other translations in prose and verse have appeared in both languages, especially in English,—though the "twenty or thirty metrical ones" of which Mr. C. T. Brooks speaks in his preface are probably to be taken as a mere mode of speech,—and lately one by this gentleman himself, in our very midst. This latter comes, perhaps, as near to perfection as it is possible for the reproduction of all idiomatic poetical composition in another language to do. All this indicates that the time for the just appreciation of German literature in general
- ↑ Mr. Brooks's translation.
