article on Goethe, which is, on many accounts, her best paper.
CRITICISM.
Margaret was in the habit of sending to her correspondents, in lieu of letters, sheets of criticism on her recent readings. From such quite private folios, never intended for the press, and, indeed, containing here and there names and allusions, which it is now necessary to veil or suppress, I select the following notices, chiefly of French books. Most of these were addressed to me, but the three first to an earlier friend.
‘Reading Schiller’s introduction to the Wars of the
League, I have been led back to my old friend, the
Duke of Sully, and his charming king. He was a man,
that Henri! How gay and graceful seems his unflinching
frankness! He wore life as lightly as the feather
in his cap, I have become much interested, too, in the
two Guises, who had seemed to me mere intriguers, and
not of so splendid abilities, when I was less able to
appreciate the difficulties they daily and hourly
combated. I want to read some more books about them.
Do you know whether I could get Matthieu, or de
Thou, or the Memoirs of the House of Nevers?
‘I do not think this is a respectable way of passing my summer, but I cannot help it.
‘I never read any life of Molière. Are the facts very interesting? You see clearly in his writing what he was a man not high, not poetic; but firm, wide, genuine, whose clearsightedness only made him more noble. I love him well that he could see without showing these
