This seems a bold assertion: but it is not made without deliberation,
and such conviction as it has stood within my means to obtain. If it
invite discussion, and forward the discovery of the truth in this
matter, its best purpose will be answered. Goethe's genius is a study
for other minds than have yet seriously engaged with it among us. By
and by, apparently ere long, he will be tried and judged righteously;
he himself, and no cloud instead of him; for he comes to us in such
a questionable shape, that silence and neglect will not always serve
our purpose. England, the chosen home of justice in all its senses,
where the humblest merit has been acknowledged, and the highest fault
not unduly punished, will do no injustice to this extraordinary man.
And if, when her impartial sentence has been pronounced and sanctioned,
it shall appear that Goethe's earliest admirers have wandered too far
into the language of panegyric, I hope it may be reckoned no
unpardonable sin. It is spirit-stirring rather than spirit-sharpening,
to consider that there is one of the Prophets here with us in our own
day: that a man who is to be numbered with the Sages and _Sacri Vates_,
the Shakespeares, the Tassos, the Cervanteses of the world, is looking
on the things which we look on, has dealt with the very thoughts which
we have to deal with, is reigning in serene dominion over the
perplexities and contradictions in which we are still painfully
entangled.
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