those agreeable historical coincidences, perhaps
invariable, though not yet registered, the simultaneous appearance
of a teacher and of pupils, between whom exists a strict affinity.
Nowhere did Goethe find a braver, more intelligent, or more
sympathetic reader. About the time I knew her, she was meditating
a biography of Goethe, and did set herself to the task in 1837. She
spent much time on it, and has left heaps of manuscripts, which are
notes, transcripts, and studies in that direction. But she wanted
leisure and health to finish it, amid the multitude of projected works
with which her brain teemed. She used great discretion on this point,
and made no promises. In 1839, she published her translation of
Eckermann, a book which makes the basis of the translation of
Eckermann since published in London, by Mr. Oxenford. In the Dial,
in July, 1841, she wrote an 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 Moliere. 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 myriad mean faults o