own generation, yet most
assuredly in the time to come--whose natural hesitation or
fastidiousness has prompted him to weigh his words maturely, before
launching them forth into the great ocean of literature, in the midst
of which is a Maelstrom of tenfold absorbing power!

From the minor poems, therefore, of Goethe, we propose, in the
present series, to select such as are most esteemed by competent
judges, including, of course, ourselves. We shall not follow the
example of dear old Eckermann, nor preface our specimens by any
critical remarks upon the scope and tendency of the great German's
genius; neither shall we divide his works, as characteristic of his
intellectual progress, into eras or into epochs; still less shall we
attempt to institute a regular comparison between his merits and
those of Schiller, whose finest productions (most worthily
translated) have already enriched the pages of this Magazine. We are
doubtless ready at all times to back our favourite against the field,
and to maintain his intellectual superiority even against his
greatest and most formidable rival. We know that he is the showiest,
and we feel convinced that he is the better horse of the two; but
talking is worse than useless when the course is cleared, and the
start about to commence.

Come forward, then, before the British public, O many-sided,
ambidextrous Goethe, as thine own Thomas Carlyle might, or could, or
would, or should have termed thee, and let us hear how the
mellifluous Teutonic verse will sound when adapted to another tongue.
And, first of all--for we yearn to know it--tell us how thy
inspiration came? A plain answer, of course, we cannot expect--that
were impossible from a German; but such explanation as we can draw
from metaphor and oracular response, seems to be conveyed in that
favourite and elaborate preface to the poems, which accordingly we
may term the

INTRODUCTION.

The morning came. Its footsteps scared away
The gentle sleep that hover'd lightly o'er me;
I left my quiet cot to greet the day
And gaily climb'd the mountain-side before me.
The sweet young flowers! how fresh were they and tender,
Brimful with dew upon the sparkling lea;
The young day open'd in exulting splendour,
And all around seem'd glad to gladden me.

And, as I mounted, o'er the meadow ground
A white and filmy essence 'gan to hover;
It sail'd and shifted till it hemm'd me round,
Then rose above my