e 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."[7]

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 _viva 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 t