“Lord Byron, too,” said I, “is no wiser, when he takes Faust to pieces, and thinks you found one thing here, the other there.”

“The greater part of those fine things cited by Lord Byron,” said Goethe, “I have never even read, much less did I think of them, when I was writing Faust.  But Lord Byron is great only as a poet; as soon as he reflects, he is a child.  He knows not how to help himself against the stupid attacks of the same kind made upon him by his own countrymen.  He ought to have expressed himself more strongly against them.  ‘What is there is mine,’ he should have said, ’and whether I got it from a book or from life, is of no consequence; the only point is, whether I have made a right use of it.’  Walter Scott used a scene from my Egmont, and he had a right to do so; and because he did it well, he deserves praise.  He has also copied the character of my Mignon in one of his romances; but whether with equal judgment, is another question.  Lord Byron’s transformed Devil[14] is a continuation of Mephistopheles, and quite right too.  If, from the whim of originality, he had departed from the model, he would certainly have fared worse.  Thus, my Mephistopheles sings a song from Shakespeare, and why should he not?  Why should I give myself the trouble of inventing one of my own, when this said just what was wanted.  If, too, the prologue to my Faust is something like the beginning of Job, that is again quite right, and I am rather to be praised than censured.”

Goethe was in the best humor.  He sent for a bottle of wine, and filled for Riemer and me; he himself drank Marienbad water.  He seemed to have appointed this evening for looking over, with Riemer, the manuscript of the continuation of his autobiography, perhaps in order to improve it here and there, in point of expression.  “Let Eckermann stay and hear it too,” said Goethe; which words I was very glad to hear, and he then laid the manuscript before Riemer, who began to read, commencing with the year 1795.

I had already, in the course of the summer, had the pleasure of repeatedly reading and reflecting on the still unpublished record of those years, down to the latest time.  But now to hear them read aloud in Goethe’s presence, afforded quite a new enjoyment.  Riemer paid especial attention to the mode of expression; and I had occasion to admire his great dexterity, and his affluence of words and phrases.  But in Goethe’s mind the epoch of life described was revived; he revelled in recollections, and on the mention of single persons and events, filled out the written narrative by the details he orally gave us.  That was a precious evening!  The most distinguished of his contemporaries were talked over; but the conversation always came back to Schiller, who was so interwoven with this period, from 1795 to 1800.  The theatre had been the object of their united efforts, and Goethe’s best works belong to this time. Wilhelm Meister was completed; Hermann and Dorothea planned and written; Cellini translated for the “Horen;” the “Xenien” written by both for Schiller’s Musenalmanach; every day brought with it points of contact.  Of all this we talked this evening, and Goethe had full opportunity for the most interesting communications.