proudest noble of Venice, and the impresario of its theatre. The first volume of Madame Sand's "Consuelo," is certainly the most charming and true picture of Venice that modern times has produced. It is quite a Canaletti, and the more charming since the remaining volumes of her novel are very second-rate indeed.

I am no admirer of Venice, even in the past. Not that I am going to indulge in any tirade against its tyranny, its spies, its assassinations, or its leaden prisons. If domestic tyranny was necessary for external greatness, that is the affair of the Venetians. But the external greatness was but littleness after all. What more beggarly and blustering than their whole conduct at Constantinople, except, perhaps, the storming of it by the blind old doge. The Venetians did more to destroy the Eastern empire, to favor the conquests of the Turks, and the extinction of letters and enlightenment, east of Italy, than any other power. Their conduct in the Crusades was vile. The folly and cruelty, which other countries fell into from Quixotism, they practised with a view to profit. Then their rule was odious, and what we know of their colonial régime shows, that it was the most oppressive on record. The Greeks suffered far less under the Turks than under the Venetians; and, after a time, welcomed their conquest by the Mussulmans as a deliverance. All these things are not to be forgotten in an estimate of the merchant princes, and reduces, by many degrees, that claim to be the Queen of Ideal, as well as of the Adriatic, which our poets especially have

claimed for Venice.

the most genuine Italian. In the hands of even Austria it would be a flourishing province. In its own hands it would soon become what Venice was, the Queen of the Adriatic, and the arbiter of Italy. As it is, it is worth contemplating and studying, being the most striking example extant of a sacerdotal régime. Never was the struggle of a bourgeoisie against a priestly caste so vehement, so fierce, and so inveterate, on either side. If the Romagna be ever free, it will declare itself Protestant or infidel, or Mussulman. The hatred to the Church of Rome is a passion so deep and universal, that one must have seen it working in the people to have an idea of it.

Whilst evoking my reminiscences to sketch the men and things of Italy thirty years ago, the pen is suspended by the sudden tidings that the Duke of Wellington is no more. No event could be more to be expected, for the Duke was not only in the fulness of years, but to the advice of physicians, who recommended, in addition to the seton in his neck, certain and minute precautions, his Grace was wont to reply," Life is not worth preserving on such conditions." So that though he took some, he refused to take all, the requisite precautions. Though no event could be more expected, it still takes away one's breath. The mind refuses to fix its attention on any other subject. So that instead of continuing my course to Rome and Florence, I must fain turn back to Verona, where the Duke of Wellington had so lately been, and where the part which he played of arbiter between constitutional tendencies and absolutist prejudices, shook his friendship The finest part of Italy is the Romagna, with the Russian autocrat, and quite destroynot exactly in picturesque beauty, but ined the good opinion which the French Court wealth, intelligence, and the possession of a sturdy and erect middle class, betwixt a noblesse and a people. There is a spirit of trade and industry there, which exists not in the rest of Italy. The race is endowed with a fine bold character, and has always remained alive to political hopes, even when they were dead in the rest of Italy. I had rather live in Ravenna or Ancona than in Venice, for the same reason that I prefer the shades of an active and lively hostelry to that of a cemetery, whatever the beauty of its monuments, and the fablery of its traditions. Englishmen, however, know nothing of the Romagna. They visit the Caraccis at Bologna, or perhaps pursue their way to our Lady of Loretto. But in general they vault over the Appenines to Florence, and ignore that the country at the back of the Appenines is

had of him. From this epoch the French ultras flung themselves almost altogether into the hands of Russia.

Talleyrand said that the Duke of Wellington's career was the finest and the fullest that statesman had ever seen. No country was ever more indebted to one of its sons, than England to his Grace; and, through England, all Europe might express equal gratitude. There is naught that its monarchs possess, which they do not owe to him. Every one knows that the Duke began his career in India, where he commanded a regiment, his brother being governor-general. There is always a jealousy and hatred in every army of the relatives of those in power; whether it is the case or not, they are always suspected of being unduly favored, and everything to their prejudice is, of course,

pire.

em

carefully remembered, and sedulously raked I attributes of genius, but it saved an
up. Lo, the report came, that Colonel Wel-
lesley was not the officer to lead a forlorn
hope, and that he was spared as the brother
of the governor-general. General Harris,
on a particular occasion, having called out
Colonel Wellesley to lead a storming party,
without waiting till officers volunteered, as
they were wont to do on such occasion,
Colonel Wellesley received the order with the
greatest coolness, and executed it with the
greatest courage. He did not inquire whe-
ther the order was well or ill-meant on the
part of General Harris. But Lord Welling-
ton carried a feeling of gratitude for it, and
he afterwards lived to show it, by procuring
for General Harris, what he, in the common
course of things, would never have obtained,
an English peerage. We have heard many
different opinions of the battle of Assaye,
Wellington's first achievement. It proved,
at least, one thing, that he was destined to
be a fortunate commander.

Soult, born about the same time with the Duke, and deceased within a short time of his old antagonist, alone of the French generals, understood the Duke's tactics. Soult adopted them against Wellington at Toulouse. He got beaten nevertheless. Why? Because the Wellington tactics were suited to British troops, and required their steadiness to succeed. To do Soult justice, he had but raw levies to fight with, and these especially French, were all ardor, and such ardor is not the kind of courage requisite for defensive war.

I have spoken of the Duke's rather liberal politics in Spain. He had aides-de-camp of the Whig as well as of the Tory party, and he rather liked to hear them dispute. His rule, however, was to allow of nothing but business during the day, no idle talk, no loss of hours. He kept no chair in his tent, lest himself or others might be tempted to sit and loiter. But of an evening, and after such a meal as could be procured, he liked the freest converse, and the fullest scope to argument. One of his aides-de-camp was very liberal, and very outspoken. This the Duke, far from repressing, rather encouraged, holding himself in reserve, and taking the part of listener, or of umpire, rather than of partisan. The genius of Napoleon and the genius of Wellington are the counterparts, one of the other. And Providence may be said to have restored the balance, and repaired the ill arising from the creation of one, by the rise and development of the other. Napoleon invented a new science of offensive war, before which all Europe trembled. Wellington invented the science of defensive war, by which Europe saved itself. The Duke of Wellington never fought an offensive battle; he was always on the defensive, even in advancing and besieging, the capture of towns by storm, and rout of armies by a gallant charge, being so many finales, for which everything had been prepared. Torres Vedras is the great monument of his military genius, great as Austerlitz, as "Paradise Lost," as "Faust," or "Tancredi." It was original as grand. Few comprehend it yet, which is one of the

Napoleon understood neither Wellington nor his troops. Had he done so, he would have followed up his victory over the Prussians at Ligny, and completed their rout. Had he done so, the Duke should have retreated to Antwerp, and the coast. Waterloo would never, in all probability, have been fought.

With 1815 may be said to commence the Duke of Wellington's political career. I see from the biographies, some of them able ones, that appear in the daily prints, that the Duke is set down as a High Tory. He wanted one quality as a Tory, fanaticism. He not only was averse to religious bigotry, but he had no bigotry to any idea. No man was more acquiescent, or more willing to bow to a fait accompli. Thus, however legitimist, when the Duc d'Angoulême applied to him in the south of France, he refused to his royal highness the entry of his camp, and declared that he was not authorized to hoist the standard of legitimacy against Napoleon. When he arrived in Paris, and the Duke of Orleans was proposed as a king, who would prove a mezzo termine between parties, the Duke replied, "that he would be but an usurper of a good family." Yet the Duke lived to recognize as King of the French this man, whom he had set aside as a well-born usurper.

I spoke before of the remonstrant attitude assumed by the Duke at Verona, an attitude of direct opposition to the French ultras, and one which became sufficiently known in Italy to awaken the hopes of that sanguine people. But the Duke's arguments, addressed to the great arbitrators, Alexander and Metternich, were, that England would not suffer France to resume its old supremacy, to treat Spain, as in the days of the Family Compact, and thus create a subservient rival to England for centuries, which England had rescued from them with oceans of blood and millions of treasure. The Duke and M. De Montmo

|

From the Westminster Review.

GOETHE AS A MAN OF SCIENCE.*

speak of him with respect; and Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire mentions, with no slight exultation, the conformity of Goethe's views with those of his illustrious father. Yet even the men who alone do him justice, because alone competent to appreciate the importance of his labors, would, we may safely assert, rank him still higher as a Naturalist, were they not also somewhat under the common prejudice as regards the Poet. It is difficult, in considering the Metamorphosis of Plants, the Unity of Composition, and the essays on Comparative Osteology, to forget that the cunning hand which holds the scalpel also wrote "Faust," "Goetz von Berlichingen," "Meister," and "Iphigenia." The same difficulty has been felt with regard to Buffon, in whom the majority still refuse to see the great thinker beneath the splendid writer. Buffon was a stylist, ergo, not a philosopher: that is the unconscious reasoning. Goethe was a poet, ergo, he could not have been a scientific thinker: that is said openly.

THE antithesis to Poetry, as Wordsworth | sible of Goethe's immense services, not to felicitously said, is not Prose, but Science. Therefore have Poets and Men of Science, in all times, formed two distinct classes, and never, save in one illustrious example, exhibited the twofold manifestation of Poetry and Science working in harmonious unity that single exception is Goethe. There have been philosophic poets, and men of science with poetical tastes, but the absolute fusion of high scientific capacity with the highest poetical power has, we believe, been limited to the single example just cited. One might, indeed, put in a claim for Leonardo da Vinci, that great artist having anticipated discoveries which made Galileo and Kepler, Moestlin and Maurolycus, Castelli, and even some modern geologists, famous; not to mention his clear insight into the Baconian Method of experiment and observation as the guides to just theory in the investigation of Nature. Yet, in answer to such a claim, as an exception, we might show how Science was necessary to a painter's education, and how his very materials, as it were, lead him into some superficial acquaintance with scientific processes; whereas, so far from Science forming the necessary preparation to a poet, it is radically opposed, both in method and detail, to all our ideas of his education. deed, the antithesis between Poetry and Science is so marked, that when Goethe claimed a hearing on abstruse and comprehensive questions of positive science, the world at large very naturally prejudged the matter, and somewhat superciliously regarded his efforts as those of a poet dabbling in science; while professional men, with professional contempt, shrugged their shoulders at the "amateur." They did so then, they do so now. It is true, that the great comparative Anatomists and Botanists of our day are too sen

In

1. Goethe's Werke. 40 vols. Stuttgart. 1840. 2. Euvres d'Histoire Naturelle de Goethe, comprenant Divers Mémoires d'Anatomie Comparée, de Botanique et de Géologie. Traduits et Annotés, par Ch. F. Martins. Avec Atlas. Paris.

+ Hallam, "Literature of Europe," vol. i. p. 304.

It is time to dissipate such errors, and to examine more strictly into Goethe's pretensions. Even those best informed on this point are not thoroughly informed, for the materials demand extensive and minute search.

Let us first quote three unexceptionable authorities, not German, to prove that the subject is worthy of serious investigation, and that Goethe is accepted as a man of science by competent persons. He takes his rank among the few great Naturalists whose biographies follow in the "Dictionnaire des Science Naturelles," the writer very justly remarking, that "pour Goethe en effet l'étude de l'histoire naturelle ne fut pas un simple caprice, ou une distraction à ses innombrables travaux; ce fût une œuvre sérieuse et dans laquelle il a marqué l'empreinte de son génie..... Il s'y appliqua non en amamais en savant qui n'arrive à la généralisateur qui se contente de notions générales, tion qu'à force de détails."

We must also give Isidore Geoffroy St.

Hilaire's emphatic verdict; its importance | will excuse the length of the extract, and we leave it untranslated, in order that the actual expressions may be weighed :

"En outre, et sans parler ici de ses mémoires non moins nombreux sur la physiologie végétale, de ses notices géologiques sur plusieurs contrées de l'Allemagne, et surtout de son ouvrage sur l'optique et les couleurs, qui restent tout à fait en dehors de mon examen, on doit à la jeunesse de Goethe plusieurs autres travaux zootomiques que l'auteur n'a point lui-même mis au jour, mais qui, communiqués par lui à divers anatomistes Allemands, et honorablement cités par eux, sont un peu plus tard entrés dans la science. Il en est ainsi, par exemple, des recherches de Goethe sur le crâne des mammifères, dont les résultats, publiés en partie par Loder et Sommering, ont surtout contribué à fixer l'attention des anatomistes sur une pièce tour-à-tour appelée os transversal, pariétal impair, épactal, os de Goethe, et interpariétal. En présence de faits qui attestent des études préliminaires, solides, pratiques et poursuivies avec persévérance pendant quinze années en présence de travaux aussi nombreux et continués par l'auteur presque jusque sur son lit de mort, les droits de Goethe au titre de natu

raliste ne sauraient être un instant douteux.

"Assurément, si l'homme qui a fait tout cela, n'eût pas été en même temps l'un des plus grands poètes-le plus grand peut-être de l'Allemagne -l'idée ne fût venue à personne de n'attribuer à Goethe que des vues poétiques sur la nature, ou bien, selon les expressions employées par luimême pour caractériser quelques pensées jetées dans ses premiers ouvrages littéraires, des désirs de connaître qui s'évaporaient en vagues et inutiles contemplations. Et surtout sie la vie de Goethe, cette vie dans toutes les phases de laquelle la science a eu une si belle part, eût été plus complètement connue, nul n'eût admis cette erreur, encore partagée par plusieurs, que les travaux scientifiques de Goethe se réduisent à quelques brillants essais de jeune homme et à quelques remi

niscences de vieillard.

special homology of that part of the human upper maxillary bone, which is separated by a more or less extensive suture from the rest of the bone in the foetus; and the philosophical principles propounded in the great poet's famous anatomical essays, called forth_the valuable labors of the kindred spirits, Oken, Bojanus, Neckel, Carus, and other eminent cultivators of anatomical philosophy in Germany."

The mere versatility of intellect implied by these scientific labors in a poet, ought not astonish us in one who, with Shakspeare, certainly deserved the epithet "myriad-minded," but should be accepted as a fact. He notes the disinclination of the public to accord praise to any man who aims at success in different spheres, and while finding it perfectly natural, wisely adds, that an energetic nature feels itself brought into the world for its own development, and not for the approbation of the public: "it declines fatiguing and exhausting itself by always doing the same thing, and seeks elsewhere relaxation." If, therefore, Goethe passed from the elaboration of great anatomical laws to the composition of a comic opera, the reason was that his versatile nature demanded varieties of activity.*

It should not be forgotten, however, that one very active cause of the disrespect with which men consider his scientific labors, is the bad taste of his polemics with Newton. He labored for years to replace the Newtonian theory of colors by a theory of his own, carefully elaborated from original experiments. It is quite beyond our competence to decide upon the truth of his theorynon nostrum est tantas componere lites-and in the servility of ignorance we naturally range ourselves on the side of authority. "Toutes ces opinions préconçues, que j'avoue But even as historians we cannot help the avoir conservées trés long-temps, et qui ne sont remark, that not only has Goethe's theory tombées que devant un examen approfondi des against it the immense authority of Newton, faits, sont nées du sentiment, exagéré peut-être, and all physical inquirers since Newton's day que nous avons tous, sans même y avoir réfléchi, sur l'immense différence des conditions psycholobody of compact, demonstrable doctrine, giques qui tendent à constituer le poète et le na- incessantly proving its truth by fresh discovturaliste, et des facultés par lesquelles ils se dis-eries deduced from its principles; but over tinguent."* and above this it has against it Goethe's own To this we will add the authority of the cious. The remark was originally made to conduct, which, to our minds, is very suspigreatest living comparative anatomistRichard Owen-who, in his celebrated work Goethe's well-known irritability on this subus by Charles Kingsley, who, commenting on "Archetype and Homologies of the Verte-ject, and this alone, alluded to the notorious brate Skeleton," (page 3,) says, "Goethe, indeed, had taken the lead in inquiries of this nature in his determination, in 1787, of the

-a

* A friend of the writer's confessed that, to escape from the absorbing interest of his physiologi* "Essais de Zoologie Générale," 139. Supp. à cal researches, he wrote a comedy, and returned to Buffon, tome 31. his studies refreshed.