“I have a great curiosity about every thing relating to Goëthe, and please myself with thinking there is some analogy between our characters and writings. So much interest do I take in him, that I offered to give 100l. to any person who would translate his ‘Memoirs,’ for my own reading.[1] Shelley has sometimes explained part of them to me. He seems to be very superstitious, and is a believer in astrology,—or rather was, for he was very young when he wrote the first part of his Life. I would give the world to read ‘Faust’ in the original. I have been urging Shelley to translate it; but he said that the translator of ‘Wallenstein’ was the only person living who could venture to attempt it;—that he had written to Coleridge, but in vain. For a man to translate it, he must think as he does.”
“How do you explain,” said I, “the first line,—
‘The sun thunders through the sky’?”
“He speaks of the music of the spheres in Heaven,” said he, “where, as in Job, the first scene is laid.”
- ↑ An English translation of this interesting work has lately appeared, in 2 vols. 8vo.