The
Wallenstein is the greatest of his works; it is not unlike Shakspeare's
historical plays--a species by itself. You may take up any scene, and it
will please you by itself; just as you may in Don Quixote, which you read
_through_ once or twice only, but which you read _in_ repeatedly. After
this point it was, that Goethe and other writers injured by their theories
the steadiness and originality of Schiller's mind; and in every one of his
works after the Wallenstein you may perceive the fluctuations of his taste
and principles of composition. He got a notion of re-introducing the
characterlessness of the Greek tragedy with a chorus, as in the Bride of
Messina, and he was for infusing more lyric verse into it. Schiller
sometimes affected to despise the Robbers and the other works of his first
youth; whereas he ought to have spoken of them as of works not in a right
line, but full of excellence in their way. In his ballads and lighter
lyrics Goethe is most excellent. It is impossible to praise him too highly
in this respect. I like the Wilhelm Meister the best of his prose works.
But neither Schiller's nor Goethe's prose style approaches to Lessing's,
whose writings, for _manner_, are absolutely perfect.
Although Wordsworth and Goethe are not much alike, to be sure, upon the
whole; yet they both have this peculiarity of utter non-sympathy with the
subjects of their poetry.
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