driven down the Channel. The wind, soon after, coming round to the west, Sir Charles Hardy profited by the change to run up Channel, when he was chased by the enemy into Spithead. "Sir Charles found the inhabitants in as great alarm at Portsmouth as they had been at Plymouth. Boats were lying ready to cut away the buoys upon the different shoals, and the leading marks to direct ships between them were pulled. "If the French had actually effected a landing at either port, they would have encountered but few obstacles in their further progress. There was a most disgraceful deficiency of arms and ammunition. There were,' said the Duke of Richmond in the House of Lords (he was speaking of Plymouth), guns and shot, but neither the one nor the other answered; all pieces of what are called small stores were totally wanting; there were neither handspikes to work the guns or give them the necessary direction, nor wadding, rammers, sponges, spring bottoms-nor in short any one part of the apparatus fit to meet an enemy.' Even flints for muskets were wanting, and there were only thirty-five invalided artillerymen, both old and infirm, to man the batteries, and to work two hundred guns. "The ordnance at Portsmouth was in an equally lamentable state. General Lloyd, who first made known the sailing of the combined fleets, 'in conversing with the Governor on his means of defence, found that, by some strange blunder, the cannon balls were too large for the guns, so that, as he used afterwards to say in joke, it was necessary to send balls by post from Woolwich *.' "The following letter was written at the time these events were taking place : "ADMIRAL KEPPEL TO LORD ROCKINGHAM. "Bagshot Park, July 18, 1779. "MY DEAR MARQUIS,-My spirits I cannot bring to be merry, till I see some way out of the distressful condition the ministers have brought this country into. Our fleet is increased, and may be reckoned a fine one. Chance may occasion better from it than I am sure I expect. Want of capacity in the chief commander, want of honour and honesty in the first Lord of the Admiralty, and want of opinion and confidence in the captains to their chief, form a melancholy picture. I am told by judges, that an army well disposed, and under able generals, may do well; but is it so appointed? I understand the fleet is at sea, perhaps at this moment * General Lloyd, author of 'The History of the Seven Years' War,' being at Boulogne, and well informed of the proceedings of the French, embarked on board a neutral ship, and landed at Portsmouth. On landing he immediately proceeded to the house of the Governor. It was Sunday-the Governor was at church. He desired he might be immediately sent for, which was done. General Lloyd, who was known to him, accosted him rather abruptly: "What have you to do at church? Have you a mind to have the church knocked about your ears? Don't you know that a French and Spanish fleet, of nearly sixty sail of the line, is at sea, and that an invasion of England is contemplated?"-(Memoirs of the Count de Dumas.) -Note of the Translator, p. 14, vol. i. bungling into action. I hear our gracious master has no doubt of its being victorious. "Lady Rockingham has reason to complain of the heat-it is excessive; it is even too much for me, but I hope her ladyship does not over suffer by it. Every hour will bring news, as the wind blows from the quarter. S.W. "I hope you are quite well. "Believe me, most truly, &c., "A. KEPPEL.'" Such was the state of things on our own coasts in 1779, whilst we were engaged in the perils and disgraces of a colonial war, and exposed to the whole combined forces of the south of Europe. We regret that the Admiral's biographer should have dwelt at so much length on the political portion of his ancestor's career. As a naval book it would have been more valuable if it had contained less of Parliamentary brawls and cabinet intrigues; whilst in publishing a large mass of correspondence and papers, written for the most part under the influence of strong political feelings and personal animosity, Mr. Keppel seems to have thought more of the history of party than the character of his hero. He has entered fearlessly into the interminable controversy as to the merits and offences of the First Lords of the Admiralty in times gone by; and if we are not mistaken he has challenged Sir John Barrow to a discussion, which some of our contemporaries will not allow to pass unobserved. These matters, however, by no means diminish the interest with which we have perused these volumes. Mr. Keppel has illustrated his subject by copious and amusing details of contemporary history; the narrative never flags; the style is unaffected; the statements accurate, as far as we have been able to verify them; and we recommend the book to our readers as one of the best productions of its kind. ARTICLE V. Mittheilungen über Göthe. Aus mündlichen und schriftlichen, gedruckten und ungedruckten Quellen. Von Dr. F. W. RIEMER. Communications on Göthe. From oral and written sources, published and unpublished. By Dr. F. W. RIEMER. 2 vols. Berlin, 1841. "An! now do you really think Göthe was not a charlatan?” asked a smart dogmatical critic, with that complacent smile, which, while it indicates a tender pity for the weakness of another, reflects so serenely on one's own superiority. The speaker was ignorant of German-" but that's not much!" The speaker was also quite incapable of seeing into the significance of such a man as Göthe, whatever knowledge he might have of the language-n'importe! The one thing definitely settled in his conviction was this curious fact of Göthe's being a charlatan-a Cagliostro of literature, who dazzled the eyes of Europe by cunning legerdemain and stolid assurance; not quite cunning enough however to dazzle him, who, as we said, being ignorant of the language, was in an impartial position from which to judge; and being somewhat superficial in intellect, was in little danger of being drowned in Göthe's depth. With these advantages of insight, aided by a natural abhorrence of quackery, he arrived at the conclusion that Göthe was a charlatan! whose admirers, like the timid sheep in Dante, followed the bell-wether anywhither. "Come le pecorelle escon dal chiuso O ye poor sheep! ye Göthe-humbugged! whither have ye been straying? into what black bogs of murkiest folly have ye been floundering, led by this stolid bell-wether? Think upon your condition! Göthe a charlatan! Such is one view of the man. Another view is, that he was a sort of god-a Weimarian Jove, sitting high above this imperfect world, smiling serenely, contemplating its short-comings with pity-and a sneer; speaking to mankind (with a star on his breast) a gospel which it were insanity or guilt to question! With neither of these views can we coincide; with Mrs. Austin we envy, "but are unable to imitate the facility with "which many writers of the day, even in this country, have "made up their minds as to the character, opinions, and "writings of this extraordinary man;" the more stringently when, as too often happens, this facility is based on ignorance of the man and his writings! Göthe is the greatest literary monument of the century, and consequently the most incessantly talked about; but his dimensions not having yet been universally ascertained, we are not to be surprised at compasses of all sizes being set to work, and their measurement confidently reported. There is nothing new in this. As in the interiors of the Pyramids one may read the scribbled names and sentiments of many an ambitious glyphic Jones. or Smith, anxious to inform the universe of their special existence, so on this monument of Göthe may we read the confident and hasty scratchings of many a critical Smith and Jones. It is indeed worthy of remark, how very little people care to have an opinion on the inferior authors (on whom it were so easy to form one); with what honourable frankness "they will confess their ignorance" of such works, while on the great authors (on whom a real opinion is so difficult, requiring so much study, and such previous culture) no one, were he the smithiest of Smiths, will be without a positive judgement! If men would honestly say, what in effect their opinion comes to, "Dante or Göthe say nothing that is to me (Jones) intelligible or interesting," we might be thankful for that personal fact, and should not consider Dante and Göthe affected by it; but they give themselves out as final judges for the world, and declare that "Dante is this and Göthe is that," and so fugit irrevocabile verbum! The writing upon Göthe, on his character and his works, has been endless; the quantity of separate books and essays are rare. is appalling, not to mention the innumerable side-glances and disquisitions; and yet what has been the result of all this labour? Little enough that we can gather. The bloom of the fruit has been rubbed off by this multifarious handling, but the skin remains unbroken, and we have no hint yet of the kernel. Opinions on Göthe abound; portraits of him He has been talked about till editors, publishers, and readers are frightened at the offer of a new word on the subject; yet that he has been anywhere described we cannot learn. The critic has been mostly like Virgil's crow, "sicca secum spatiatur arena," occupied with himself and his views, not with Göthe; there is but one cry, ôtes-toi que je m'y pose! There have been honourable exceptions, and many detached points have been profoundly treated by some of our writers, but the current notices and reviews might as well have been left unwritten. Carlyle's fervent and eloquent Essays (though wide apart from the above-mentioned, as his own great earnest mind is apart from those of "gentlemen who write with ease,”) give no definite image of the man; they are exquisite exhortations to study, rather than information of what the student will find, or how to seek it. They did immense good in their time; they crushed the flippant tone of those Edinburgh reviewers, who thought Göthe "wanted taste," and was "not a gentleman ;" and they prepared the way for his reception amongst us. We yield to none in gratitude for these circumstances; but now that he is firmly settled here, we think a necessity exists for some other procedure, and towards this we will make an attempt by way of opening the inquiry. What we conceive to be now wanted by the public is, not what Göthe did not do, did not feel-not a programme of his faults or merits, nor of what is wanting in him, nor any particular person's judgement of him, but what he did, felt and was, and what was the distinctive tendency and constitution of his mind. Of these things the reader will not expect a complete solution-we do not pretend to have solved them to ourselves; but as a beginning towards such a solution we offer what lies in our power. And we take as our motto the words of Carlyle : "Innumerable meditations and disquisitions on this subject must yet |