264 REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

the senses: and he flung into literature, in his Me~ phistopheles, the first organic figure that has been added for some ages, and which will remain as long as the Prometheus.

I have no (lesign to enter into any analysis of his numerous works. They consist of translations, criticism, dramas, lyric and every other description of poems, literary journals and portraits of distin- guished men. Yet I cannot omit to specify the “ Wilhelm Meister.”

“Wilhelm Meister” is a novel in every sense, the first of its kind, called by its admirers the only delineation of modern society,——as if other nov- els, those of Scott for example, dealt with costume and condition, this with the spirit of life. It is a book over which some veil is still drawn. It is read by very intelligent persons with wonder and delight. It is preferred by some such to Hamlet, as a work of genius. I suppose no book of this century can compare with it in its delicious sweet- ness, so new, so provoking to the mind, gratifying it with so many and so solid thoughts, just in- sights into life and manners and characters; so many good hints for the conduct of life, so many unexpected glimpses into a higher sphere, and never a trace of rhetoric or dulness. A very provoking book to the curiosity of young men of genius, but a very imsatisfactory one. Lovers of