to himself, and does
not intend to publish them.

"Could intellect and high cultivation," said he, "become the property of
all, the poet would have fair play; he could be always thoroughly true,
and would not be compelled to fear uttering his best thoughts. But, as
it is, he must always keep on a certain level; must remember that his
works will fall into the hands of a mixed society; and must, therefore,
take care lest by over-great openness he may give offense to the
majority of good men. Then Time is a strange thing. It is a whimsical
tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one
says and does. We cannot, with propriety, say things which were
permitted to the ancient Greeks; and the Englishmen of 1820 cannot
endure what suited the vigorous contemporaries of Shakespeare; so that,
at the present day, it is found necessary to have a Family Shakespeare."

"Then," said I, "there is much in the form also. The one of these two
poems, which is composed in the style and metre of the ancients, would
be far less offensive than the other. Isolated parts would displease,
but the treatment throws so much grandeur and dignity over the whole,
that we seem to hear a strong ancient, and to be carried back to the age
of the Greek heroes. But the other, being in the style and metre of
Messer Ariosto, is far more hazardous. It relates an event of our day,
in the language of our day, and as it thus comes quite unveiled into
our presence, the particular features of boldness seem far more
audacious."

"You are right," said he; "mysterious and great effects are produced by
different poetical forms. If the import of my Romish elegies were put
into the measure and style of Byron's _Don Juan_, the whole would be
found infamous."

The French newspapers were brought. The campaign of the French in Spain
under the Duke d'Angouleme, which was just ended, had great interest for
Goethe. "I must praise the Bourbons for this measure," said he; "they
had not really gained the throne till they had gained the army, and that
is now accomplished. The soldier returns with loyalty, to his king; for
he has, from his own victories, and the discomfitures of the many-headed
Spanish host, learned the difference between obeying one and many. The
army has sustained its ancient fame, and shown that it is brave in
itself, and can conquer without Napoleon."

Goethe then turned his thoughts backward into history, and talked much
of the Prussi