, or some other form of poetical
expression. He felt as if eased of a burden, after having thus given
his feelings body and shape. Thus his works became his history.
"Faust," in its two parts, is the production of his lifetime. Conceived
in early youth, worked out in manhood, completed in old age, it became
a vehicle for all the various commotions of his existence. There is no
other poem which contains such a diversity of thought and feeling, such
a variety of sentences, pictures, scenes, and situations. For enlarging
on the poetical value of this incomparable work this is not the place.
Closely as Goethe has followed up the popular legend, it is
emphatically and entirely his own production, because it contains his
complete self.

Nearly a quarter of a century passed before this extraordinary poem was
followed by its second part. It is not difficult to trace in this
continuation, published only after the death of the aged poet, the few
scenes which may have been composed contemporarily with or soon after
the first part; but that the whole is conceived and executed in a
totally different spirit not even the most unconditional admirers of
Goethe's genius will deny. There is no doubt that he regarded his
"Faust" only as a beginning, and always contemplated a continuation.
The _role_ of Dr. Faustus, the popular magician, was only half-played.
Its most brilliant part, his intercourse with the great of the earth
and the heroes of the past, had not yet commenced. But as, in the
course of advancing life, the poet's views and ideas changed, the
mirror of his soul reflected an altered world to him; and as the second
part of "Faust" is hardly less an image of himself than the first, it
is not unnatural that it is as different from the latter as the Goethe
the septuagenarian was from Goethe the youth.

Meanwhile the _literati_ of Germany 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 _naivete_, 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 hav