forth the cheering morning-star as the herald of joyous tidings, the other wraps the whole of nature in the sable cloak of mystery and gloom. In the Edda, Night appears as the first originating power, and Light, or Day, is the offspring of Night. First, the mystery, then the truth. But truth, once engendered, is the constant enemy of mystery.

Again, Summer and Winter are often the opposing powers. Summer, as the fructifying productive agent, Winter, as its blighting and destructive adversary.

This feature in German poetry was not obliterated by the introduction of Christianity, though a considerable change is to be observed in it at that period-for then, Light became by far the superior power of the two; being regarded as the emblem of reason, goodness, perfection, it gradually assumes the upperhand; while Night, as the symbol of ignorance and evil, becomes simultaneously more and more degraded. Similarly, Summer, with its genial warmth, gradually thaws the icy coldness of her foe, typifying of course the victory of good over evil, of reason over passion, of spirit over flesh-in one word, of God over Satan.

In process of time this dualism ceased to be represented by the outward phenomena of Nature-civilization and progress began to be expressed in superstitious personifications, then in allegories, though of the roughest and most palpable application; these were gradually improved till they gave rise to the sublime impersonation of our spiritual and earthly natures which we meet with in the poem before us.

In the German drama as well as in the poem, though the figures and emblems may be varied, the same feature is

always to be found-war waged and carried on between evil and good Similar to the ancient drama, which was but the offspring of the symbolical rites performed annually in honour of Bacchus and Demeter, the origin of our modern drama is to be found in the "Mysteries" of our early church; these, as the reader is probably aware, were religious pieces, representing various scenes from Scripture, such as the birth, baptism, or sufferings of our Saviour; they probably were originally an invention of the priesthood for influencing the senses of the masses. Thus in the oldest of these representations, the Archfiend is introduced opposing God and destroying the happiness of mankind by his temptation of Eve, thus acquainting the people not only with the two opposing, conflicting forces in actual life, but also with the great spiritual powers which are in perpetual opposition to save or to destroy mankind. Under these circumstances Faust may be considered as the outgrowth of the past, and the solution, so to speak, of those riddles which have occupied the metaphysical nature of the Germans from the days of Wolf von Eschenbach to the present century.

We must point out too, that even in the midst of the greatest coarseness and vulgarity (for these "mysteries are little better than the grossest blasphemy) traces of the symbolical abound. Beings, which must remain invisible to earthly eyes, are there impersonated and embodied, frequently in the roughest manner, yet still in forms which correspond to the character in which they exhibit themselves to mankind. This love of the symbolical insinuated itself deeper and deeper into the German mind, till at last their paintings and their architecture, as well

as their poetry, were impregnated with it; thus Gothic architecture abounds in crosses and roses, the former the emblem of salvation, the latter of love. The whole building is to represent the idea of eternity, or, as others maintain, the idea of death. The altar placed at the east, and the three entrances on the north, south, and west, are to show that Christ will receive worshippers from every land. The three lofty towers pointing towards heaven are to remind us of the holiest mystery of our Faiththe Triune God!

Cabbalists, Necromancers, Magicians, Philosophers, Metaphysicians, had all been working in the same direction, all had been seeking to unveil the positive and negative, that is the creative and destructive powers of nature, and all had hidden their mysterious researches under the still more mysterous cloak of symbolism. Numbers, signs, letters, were turned into so many emblems; an incoherent formula was considered powerful enough to open the gate of Hell, and summon forth its king to the aid of man. The very Heavens, with its fair sun, its planets and countless stars, were regarded as so many symbols in which it was supposed the human eye could read the secrets of fate, and unveil the mysteries of the dualism which each felt to exist throughout nature, which creates on one side, destroys on the other, and though subjected to a continual change is continually fixed-fixed precisely in this flux and reflux of growing and withering, of producing and annihilating change. The tendency to give to everything a symbolical form certainly reached its height in the Middle Ages, and hence it was that Goethe in coupling the leading ideas of that age with

the scepticism of his own times, has been enabled to give us the only possible means of harmonizing the contradictory mysteries of human nature.

That the Roman Catholic creed did much to promote these tendencies is beyond all doubt; its church seemed to glory in throwing the veil of symbolism over philosophy and art. By these strong means she continually reminds her members of those blessed times when revelation came to the aid of the limited faculties of the human intellect; and the marvellous was found to work most efficiently on an ignorant people: but in mingling with Christianity too much of the heathen mythology which loved to personify every power of nature, and ascribed everything that was beyond their comprehension to the agency of some particular god or goddess; in introducing the mystic ceremonies of an idolatrous Polytheism, the poetical Mythology of the ancient Greeks and Romans was turned into a dark mysterious Demonology, and the whole tissue of superstitious credulity with its witchcraft, sorcery, incantations, ghosts, spectres, roots, draughts, and the rest was step by step developed. The higher regions of our earth were peopled with phantoms, the lower with good and bad spirits, and the earth itself was considered totally under the influence of the devil as the impersonation of matter.

As a counterpoise to this sad tendency, light was beginning to be shed upon the world by a succession of literary celebrities. Dante (1265-1321) had given to the world his inspired "Divina comedia." Wickliffe (1324-1384) had attempted by a translation of the Bible to refute some of the dangerous misrepresentations of the

Romish Church, and to cast a ray of truth into the dark vault of superstition. Huss (1373-1415) had in another part of Europe expounded the gospel in its true simplicity and restored Faith to her original purity. Luther (1483 -1546) "who stood based on the Spiritual world of man, and only by the footing and miraculous power he had obtained there, could work such changes in the Material World; Luther, who showed himself as a participant and disperser of divine influences, a true connecting medium and visible messenger between Heaven and Earth "* had given to the German nation in the language of the people the word of God in all its holiness and simplicity, in spite of Popes, Imperial Diets, Conclaves, hosts and nations. Calvin (1509-1564) with all the fervour of an inspired believer, hurled his thunderbolts against Romanism; Bacon (1561-1626) in publishing his Novum Organum led many to a contemplation of nature which did much to check, if it did not eradicate their dim prejudices. Kepler (1571-1631) raising his eyes to the heavens, assigned, as it were, a path to the sun, moon, and planets by his three celebrated laws (known as Regulæ Kepleri), the study of which in after years led Newton (1642-1727) to his miraculous discoveries. Descartes (1596-1650) had drawn a distinct line of demarcation between matter and spirit, with his indisputable Cogito, ergo sum." But the discovery which perhaps effected more than all the labour of these celebrated men was the art of printing, which had been invented by

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* See T. Carlyle's "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays," pages 178 and 179, on "Luther's Psalm."