bsolete,
and is also in contradiction with our religious views. If a modern poet
introduces such antique ideas into a drama, it always has an air of
affectation. It is a costume which is long since out of fashion, and
which, like the Roman toga, no longer suits us.

"It is better for us moderns to say with Napoleon, 'Politics are
Destiny.' But let us beware of saying, with our latest literati, that
politics are poetry, or a suitable subject for the poet. The English
poet Thomson wrote a very good poem on the Seasons, but a very bad one
on Liberty, and that not from want of poetry in the poet, but from want
of poetry in the subject."

"If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party;
and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet; he must bid farewell
to his free spirit, his unbiased view, and draw over his ears the cap of
bigotry and blind hatred.

"The poet, as a man and citizen, will love his native land; but the
native land of his poetic powers and poetic action is the good, noble,
and beautiful, which is confined to no particular province or country,
and which he seizes upon and forms wherever he finds it. Therein is he
like the eagle, who hovers with free gaze over whole countries, and to
whom it is of no consequence whether the hare on which he pounces is
running in Prussia or in Saxony.

"And, then, what is meant by love of one's country? What is meant by
patriotic deeds? If the poet has employed a life in battling with
pernicious prejudices, in setting aside narrow views, in enlightening
the minds, purifying the tastes, ennobling the feelings and thoughts of
his countrymen, what better could he have done? How could he have acted
more patriotically?

"To make such ungrateful and unsuitable demands upon a poet is just as
if one required the captain of a regiment to show himself a patriot, by
taking part in political innovations and thus neglecting his proper
calling. The captain's country is his regiment, and he will show himself
an excellent patriot by troubling himself about political matters only
so far as they concern him, and bestowing all his mind and all his
care on the battalions under him, trying so to train and discipline them
that they may do their duty if ever their native land should be in
peril.

[Illustration: THE MOAT AT JENA Drawing by GOETHE]

"I hate all bungling like sin, but most of all bungling in
state-affairs, which produces nothing but mischief to thousands