BOOKS.

ANSTER'S TRANSLATION OF FAUSTUS—SECOND PART.*

De..A.NsrEa has published a good translation. Whatever be the deviations from the original, his constaut study has been to give the reader a lively impression of its spirit, and those who may care for translations of national and hence peculiarly foreign works like Faust will be repaid for their perusal of this. We doubt, however, whether anything so fanciful as the second part can ever be favourite reading with the English, devoted as they are to daily events, and, unless we mistake, it scarcely maintains its former popularity even in Germany. Yet a firm faith in the perfections of an original makes much in favour of the translator, • Faustru: the Second Part. From the Garman of Goethe. By John Ander, L.L.D. London: Longman& Mt.

though barely reconcileable with such an apparatus of comment and introduction as Dr. luster has added.

The scheme of Faust possessed Goethe during a great part of his life. He had read much in his youth of the sixteenth-century writers both German and foreign, and the curious legend, un- promising cnough to inferior genius, appealed so strongly to his immense capacity as to engender in him the conception of the master-piece of the age. The temptation and fall of man had been treated, as by Milton and Bunyan, from the moral side, but to him the temptation and fall of reason, its attitude in front of

nature, its achievements and failure, its flow and its ebb, were more interesting still.

Temptation of sense became time more attractive and dangerous when its controlling principle had lost sway, time more natural also because it ever re-asserts its power on the collapse of an overgoaded intellect. It was a theme which drew upon his care- fully stored learning, and has exhibited it for ever in lines of mar- vellous clearness mind brilliancy. The dialogue between the freshman and Mephistophiles gives terse judgments upon every faculty of academic learning,—judgments similar to those of Erasmus in the "Praise of Folly," and possibly suggested by them, but couched in short verse easily remembered, and enforoed as no one ever yet enforced them. The story of Faust's temptation and Margaret's ruin is too well known to require further remark.

It is always popular, never really dramatic. Though containing very fine dramatic scenes, such as Auerbach's cellar and the sere- nade, it was impossible that a piece based upon motive more than action could be dramatic as a whole. It was rendered still less so by the witch scenes and time Walpurgis Night, which have little hold upon the drift of the piece. No wonder that Goethe, who himself truly characterized his work as a "grand frag- ment," found the public more excited than contented with it, and always hankering after a conclusion.

He justly trusted much to his genius, yet here he trusted it too far. A tragedy, as second part of Faust, was the result of some years' labour and reflection, but notwithstanding his style, his poetry, and the vast experience of which he has to unburthen himself, we are very weary of the hero before he takes his de-

parture. Long before he joins the herd of middle-aged saints we are content enough to hear and see no more of him. Any com- position less dramatic than this tragedy has never been seen. The present third act, the "Helena," was originally written as an allegorical interlude, termed by the author a classically roman- tic phantasmagoria. Faust finds Helen,—their offspring is Euphorion. Reason blending with beauty evolves poetry. It is mere allegory._ But when Euphorion is identified, according to Goothe's own words, with a particular poet, Lord Byron, the allegory is gone. That reason and beauty uniting produce Byron is empty compliment. Next in order was written the fifth act, detailing time catastrophe after the opera " Don Giovanni" or the " Festin de Pierre" with some variations. The two first followed, and lastly the fourth, which has enough to do in connecting the fifth with the rest. Story there is none. Faust wanders, finds himself in the middle ages, in time ancient world, in many different places,—ambition has succeeded to the dominion of sense, he is tempted, and falls. The end would be as intelligible if the first three acts were omitted. We give Dr. Anster's introduction to the characters in his own words :—

" In the second (part) the figures brought upon the' stage cannot be so described [that is, as individuals]. What we meet here is not so much personalty as an artistic mask of personality (9), and the language of the dialogue is not always intelligible till you remember that the masked figure, in which the eye looks upon what would seem a single individual, embodies some aggregate of notions, perhaps for the first tune combined by the poet." (p. xv.) We do not understand what Dr. Anster means by this "mask of personality," which, looking to the origiu:of the word persona,

might almost be called the mask of a mask, but the above expla- nation is pure condemnation of the piece as a play. A well- known critic says of Shakespeare that be tried all styles but that

of simplicity (see " Arnold's Poems," preface), nevertheless his characters are distinct, his stories self-contained and complete. On the contrary, with all the grace and ease of Goethe's style he has herein exhibited scenic variety without motive, plot without construction, mixture without distinctness, character without reality. A cloudy medley alive with flashes of his wonderful imagination, exciting yet wearying the mind,—this, alas! is the end of Faust. It was not inapt to entitle it by the old name "Mystery," applied to the religious plays of the middle ages, yet it is perhaps no farther from the type of the ancient satiric drama. Faust's wanderings resemble William Meister's; both in- adequately sustain Goithe's infinite knowledge of men. They are

dissolving views, characters appearing and disappearing only to render palpable the background on which they are thrown, and the unfathomable darkness around and behind it.

Faust deviates from the drama as the "Divine Comedy" devi- ates from the epic, yet both are encycloptedias, the judgments of one age upon all preceding, and as such each embodies an era. Dante's is the more earnest, Goethe's the larger judgment. :— "Tell arts they have no soundnesse, But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they want profottndnesse, And stand too much on seeming."

To our thinking an incomparably finer conclusion to the first part of Faust already existed in " Macbeth." The witches' doubtful prophecy preparing its own fulfilment, the concurring impulse of Lady Macbeth, at once tempted and tempting, hurry- ing the action, supply most grandly an impersonal parallel in the world of action to the function of Mephistophiles. The tempta- tion offered to an ambitious nature by opportunity, and his plunge into destruction, afford a moral counterpart in action to the fall of Goethe's theorist. Macbeth is the practical Faust :— "The first crime past, compels us on to more,

And guilt grows fate, which was but choice before."

The light colloquial verse of the original, sometimes approaching even to doggerel, but always sustained by the author's perfect ease and dignity, offers great difficulty to the translator. How- ever exact the rendering, the whole is apt insensibly to slide down into a lower scale, which Dr. Anster has done his best to avoid. We subjoin in conclusion part of the second appearance of Mephistophiles and the former freshman, who now appears after his university career as bachelor. At first he knew nothing ; he has repaired the deficiency ; he now knows everything.

FAUSTUS' CHAMBER (unaltered).

PIEPHESTOPEILESJ

As I look up—down—round me—here, Nowhere does any change appear. •

The spiders' webs are spread more wide ; The paper's yellower, the ink's dried. All things in their old position—

All things in their old condition.

The very pen with which he signed away Himself to the devil, look at it there still! Aye, and the drop of blood I coaxed from him, A dry stain crusts the barrel of the quilL • • And the old sheepskin on its own old hook, Brings back that comic lecture which so took With the poor boy, who ever since, no doubt,

All its deep meaning still keeps puzzling out—

My old warm furry friend, I like thy look !

I long again to wrap me round in thee, And put on the Professor, in full blow Of lecture-room infallibility !

How is it that these sorry book-men know So well to get the feeling up ? Ah me ! In the devil it has died out ages ago. • • • • Up on my shoulders, furry friend, and then

I for the hour am Principal again. [He pulls the bell.] [Enter Fastums.]

Come hither, friend ; your name is Nicodemns.

[Ettelmus, crossing himself]—

High honoured master ! 'tie my name—Oremus.

[MEPHISTOPHILES.]—

Sink the Oremus !

[FeatuLus.]— I'm so glad to see,

Kind master, that you've not forgotten me.

[MEPHISTOPHELES,]— I know you well—in years, but still in love

With study—books you're always thinking of, Most learned ! most mossy! even a deep-learned man Still studies on because 'tis all he can : 'Tie like one building to a certain height A house of cards which none can finish quite. Your master, he is one, it may be said,

Who always hits the nail upon the head—

The well-known Dr. Wagner—anyhow The groat man of the world of letters now : His genius 'tie that all inspires, unites,

While Science mounts with him to prouder heights—

There gathers round his chair an eager ring

Of hearers—men who would learn everything—

He, like St. Peter, holds the keys—can show The secrets of above and of below.

• • • [IErmsToruuss here dismisses Famulus to warn Wagner of Ms approach. Sits down.] I scarce have sate down in my place, When hark ! a stirring from behind,

And I behold a well-known face :

My old friend, sure enough, again I find. • • • [Enter Beocetrunzus.]

[BecceLettaxtaq—Very odd to-day the changes Seem as back my memory ranges.

• • • When the gray-beard old deceivers

Classed me with their true believers—

One who all their figments hollow As the bread of life would swallow.

Lying rascals, dry and crusty, Primed from their old parchments musty, What they taught, and disbelieved it,

But as handed down received it—

What they taught with no misgiving, Robbed themselves and me of living.

If, old Sir, your bald head in Lathe's pool Hath not been soaked, you may with those slant eyes The scholar of an old day recognize ; But now remember I am out of school,

And rid of academic rods and rule—

You, Sir, are just the same as long ago ; I am not what I was, I'd have you know.

[MEPHISTOPHILES.]—I am so glad my bell hath hither brought you— Even when a boy no common boy I thought you ;

The grub and chrysalis denote The future butterfly's gay coat.

• • • S • • fBACCALLIIIMUS. j— Old gentleman, we are in the old place; But change of time has come and changed the case-

'Tis out of season to affect This motley two-edged dialect, You long ago might play at make-believe.

Small art need any man employ, To fool an unsuspecting boy,

Whom no one now will venture to deceive.

PIEPHIBTOPHILES1—

If speaking to the young, pure truth one speaks, It little suits the callow, yellow beaks; Years come, and what they heard from us, when brought Back by their own experience dearly bought,

They deem it all the fruit of their own skull—

Speak of their master as supremely dull.

[Becattetatzus.]— Or—as a knave, for who that deals with youth Speaks face to face direct the honest truth ? Your teacher still will strengthen or dilute, Palates of pious children as may suit.

[Mxratsrormus.]— Learning and teaching—there's a time for each ; Your time for learning's over ; you can teach.