who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.”  All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily:  when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.  Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation:  he was naturally learned:  he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there.  I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind.  He is many times flat and insipid; his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast.  But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him:  No man can say, he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

  “Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.”

It is to be lamented, that such a writer should want a commentary; that his language should become obsolete, or his sentiments obscure.  But it is vain to carry wishes beyond the condition of human things; that which must happen to all, has happened to Shakespeare, by accident and time; and more than has been suffered by any other writer since the use of types, has been suffered by him through his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that superiority of mind, which despised its own performances, when it compared them with its powers, and judged those works unworthy to be preserved, which the criticks of following ages were to contend for the fame of restoring and explaining.

Among these candidates of inferiour fame, I am now to stand the judgment of the publick; and wish that I could confidently produce my commentary as equal to the encouragement which I have had the honour of receiving.  Every work of this kind is by its nature deficient, and I should feel little solicitude about the sentence, were it to be pronounced only by the skilful and the learned.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPYLAeEN [A]

BY J.W.  VON GOETHE. (1798)

The youth, when Nature and Art attract him, thinks that with a vigorous effort he can soon penetrate into the innermost sanctuary, the man, after long wanderings, finds himself still in the outer court.

Such an observation has suggested our title.  It is only on the step, in the gateway, the entrance, the vestibule, the space between the outside and the inner chamber, between the sacred and the common, that we may ordinarily tarry with our friends.

If the word Propylaea recalls particularly the structure through which was reached the citadel of Athens and the temple of Minerva, this is not inconsistent with our purpose; but the presumption of intending to produce here a similar work of art and splendor should not be laid to our charge.  The name of the place may be understood as symbolizing what might have happened there; one may expect conversations and discussions such as would perhaps not be unworthy of that place.