NOTES. [If the reader does not require explanation, there seems no necessity for intruding it on him or breaking any interest he may happen to feel in the work. In the text, therefore, I have omitted all reference to the notes.-A. H.] NOTES. Prologue in Heaven. Page 1. Prologue in Heaven.]-The idea of this prologue is taken from the Book of Job, chapters 1st and 2nd. "It is worthy of remark," says Dr. Schubart, "that in the guise in which the poet introduces his Mephistopheles, a great difference is to be seen between his mode of treating the principle of evil and that followed by Klopstock, Milton, and Lord Byron in Cain. It has also been a matter of course, to hold to one side only of the biblical tradition, which represents Satan as an angel of light fallen through pride and haughtiness, endeavouring to disturb the glorious creation of the Supreme Being. Goethe, on the contrary, has adhered rather to the other side of tradition, of which the Book of Job is the groundwork, according to which Satan or the Devil forms one of the Lord's Host, not as a rebel against his will, but as a powerful tempter, authorised and appointed as such &c." (Vorlesungen). We are also called upon to admire the propriety of the parts assigned to the Archangels in the Introductory Song. Dr. Hinrichs shows some anxiety to establish that The Lord depicted by Goethe, is The Lord of Christianity. On this subject he has the following note, which, Retsch's Outlines being well known in this country, seems worth copying::-"That The Lord in this poem is the Christian God, and therefore the Divine Spirit, Cornelius also signifies in the title-page of his Illustrations of Faust, where the Lord, in the middle of an unequal square, begirt by a half circle of angels, bears the triple crown upon his head and the terrestrial globe in his left hand; whilst in Retsch's Illustrations of Faust, the Lord without the triple crown and the cross, does not express the Christian God, and for that reason the conception is not embraced by it."--(Vorl. p. 36.) p. 2. But thy angels, Lord, respect the mild going of thy day.]-Boten is literally, messengers; but angels, ayyɛlo, are the messengers of God. The use of the word going, in the above sense, is a plagiarism : "The day is placid in its going, So a lingering sweetness bound Like a river in its flowing"-Wordsworth. p. 4. A good man in his dark perplexity, &c.]-The same exalted confidence in human nature is expressed in another passage of Goethe's works:-- "Wenn einen Menschen die Natur erhoben Ist es kein Wunder, wenn ihm viel gelingt; Geheimnisse. p. 5. The Scoffer is the least offensive to me.]—Shelley translates Schalk, rogue, but this certainly does not convey the character of Mephistopheles, nor am I aware of any English word that would. The meaning must be: I prefer a roguish devil who sneers or scoffs at my works to one who openly defies. p. 5. The creative essence &c.]-It is quite impossible to translate this passage, and I have never seen a satisfactory explanation of it. Das Werdende is literally The Becoming, but werden is rather the Greek yopaι than the English to become. The following extract from Coleridge's Aids to Reflections, may help the reader to a better understanding of the word. After saying: "The scheme of grace and truth that became through Jesus Christ" &c. he adds by way of note to the word became: "the Greek word ɛyɛveto unites in itself the two senses of began to exist and was made to exist. It exemplifies the force of the middle voice, in distinction from the verb reflex. In answer to a note on John, i. 2., in the Unitarian version of the New Testament, I think it worth noticing that the same word is used in the very same sense by Aristophanes in that famous parody on the cosmogonies of of the mystic poets, or the creation of the finite, as delivered or supposed to be delivered in the Cabiric or Samothracian Mysteries, in the Comedy of the Birds: γένέτ ̓ Οκρανος, Ωκεανός τε Καὶ Γῆ. Aids &c. 2d Edit. p. 18. A friend, whom I consulted about this passage, sent me the following note: "Creation's energy- -ever P |