your correspondent Surrey appears to be right (for the most part) in his arguments but wrong in his position, -at least if he maintains any approximate ratio to exist between the imagination of women and that of men. He seems, either from a philosophic conviction, or a principle of literary knight-errantry which glints from under his chivalrous appellative, to attempt dividing the crown of imagination pretty equally between the two sexes. Triumphant as he came out of the lists where X. Y. Z. fought, like Troglodyte of old, with a bulrush, Success here completely turns her back upon him. I have perhaps a higher opinion of women's intellects than most of my sex ; but I hold their merits of mind to consist rather in delicacy of thought and warmth of feeling, than in power of imagination or depth of judgment. Will Surrey permit me to ask him what he means by quoting Sappho's Εις έταιραν to prove her power of imagination? It proves not this at all, but her intensity of feeling. There is not an idea which can properly be designated as the "TRUE SUBLIME" in the whole extract given by Longinus; but no one ever denied intense feeling to that sex, especially in love-matters. I may be asked,-Is not intense feeling the source of the sublime? Not always: there are many outlets by which intense feeling gushes from the heart, one of which is undoubtedly the sublime; but feeling never takes this direction unless when prompted by a totally different agent -towering genius. Milton's Lamentation for the loss of his sight is sublime, because it is not only full of feeling, but full of lofty inspiration accompanying that feeling; the Lament of Årviragus over Imogen in Cymbeline, is not sublime, because, though full of feeling, the genius which pervades it is less aspiring than pathetic. Besides, though we granted that Sappho was imaginative to the highest, to a Shaksperian degree, what would that prove? This, videlicet, and no more: that one Sappho of Lesbos was a supreme poet. But how does this concern the general question, the comparative powers of imagination in the two sexes? Let us even credit the fe

male account of genius since the world began with six Sapphos, one for every thousand years,-into which half-dozen items we may suppose all the female genius extant on paper to be compressed: what is this compared to the quantity of genius which our sex has to produce? For, cry out upon it as we will,-by quantity and quality conjointly, and by neither of them separately, must the question be determined. Those who reprobate such a criterion, by this only give honest testimony that they do not understand the question about which they are so fervently disputing. The question is, not whether any one or two women has or have exhibited as much as we can set off against it, but whether the female sex possesses imaginative power comparable to that of our own (i. e. comparably great in quantity, and comparably high in quality). Indeed, Surrey and his companions in arms are in this dilemma: if they make the question particular and quote Sappho, we annihilate them at once by producing Shakspeare (which in this case would be legitimate argument); if they make the question general, then it must be decided (allowing for difference of education, opportunity, &c.) by the number and quality of imaginative works proceeding respectively from the two sexes, and here I think there can be no second opinion. It is possible however that Surrey's chivalry or philosophy may not have carried him altogether so far as I have stated; strictly speaking he does not assert that women have more than, or as much imagination as men; but if I have given him credit for too much gallantry or too little philosophy, he has only himself to blame who did not speak out and categorically. What are we to think of his placing Mrs. Centlivre in opposition to Congreve? Is it premature to duh him Right Worshipful, and set him down as a Defender of "distressed damosels," where he speaks of blue Novelists in the same paragraph with Virgil? when, in order to make Fielding, Smollet, and Richardson quake on their pedestals, and to frighten a wrong-headed world, which bows down to these idols, into another worship, he proclaims the book of

I said the question of comparative sexile genius"must" be decided by the above method, if decided at all by actual productions. But it would, I think, be very difficult to make the requisite allowance for want of education, opportunity, &c. in the female sex; and it would be unfair to decide without it. The question I think must be determined on very different principles; the following I submit as much safer; and were I not conscious of a latent peccability in myself, had I not a lurking suspicion of my own fallibility, would boldly affirm them to be the only ones to which Truth herself, were she to plead her sex's cause, could appeal.

1st. From woman's form, I think we may argue to her destination, and from her destination to her faculties.† Now her form is delicate and weak, her destination is therefore domestic and peaceful; domesticity and peace require not vigour, spirit, energy, audacity, in one word, power of mind, and who will disjoin supreme imagination from this or these? Such qualities would incite and lead to action, which only becomes the strenuous form of man. Had woman a great imagination, she would be in the same unphilosophical predicament as a dove with the heart and ambition of a roc. 2d. Whoever examines either the writings or conversation of women will find that, except in some few outstanding instances, they shun those particular subjects where Imagination Kar' oxy might most powerfully be exerted; viz. scenes of terror, like that of the murder in De Monfort, or the Dream in Sardanapalus; representations of the play of the deadly passions, such as anger, hatred, revenge, jealousy, or despair, as exemplified by Zanga, Othello, Satan, and others; delineations of gloomy, fierce, indomitable characters, v. g. Moloch, Bethlem Gabor, Burley, Hatteraick, or Coriolanus. Women, from a natural deli

cacy and gentleness of mind, regard such themes with something beyond mere horror; they dislike, deprecate, and avoid all approach to them. But these are the very themes upon which Imagination most audaciously displays itself, and to which it will always resort for room to breathe itself out. I believe it will scarcely be contended that any person, who enjoys the faculty of Imagination, always prefers exerting it in a less degree when it might be exerted in a greater; the pleasure derived from the exertion of this faculty is always in proportion to the intensity of that exertion. Hence it follows that if women possessed the gift of supreme imagination, they would admire and cultivate those subjects of thought and discourse which afford scope for the exertion of the imagination in its supreme degree. But they do not admire or cultivate those subjects, ergo they do not possess this gift of supreme imagination.

To the minor power of imagination, usually denominated - Fancy, women I acknowledge have a somewhat better claim. But even in this respect, experience of the manner in which their minds show themselves will prove them inferior to men; and the experience of the world pronounces this inferiority, notwithstanding what X. Y. Z. has asserted. It may also, I think, be concluded, from their inferior ability to distinguish between what is, and what is not, purely and intellectually fanciful. Thus they like Ariel's wings as well as his songs; the description of the Sylphs and Gnomes in the Rape of the Lock is less attractive to them than that of Annot Lyle in the Legend of Montrose. A scene well painted affords them as much pleasure as one well acted. That Fancy which displays itself in clothing objects with eye-taking ornaments is more highly estimated by them, than that which endows its creations with attributes less palpable to feeling and to sight. Or if they choose to deny this statement, it is at least certain, as I before said, that

they receive gratification from many things which we regard with (to use the tenderest phrase) indifference. But what we love we like to practise; and hence it is that in matters of Fancy we find women lean quite as fondly to visual description as to spiritual creation. It is indeed somewhat curious, that amongst all the works cited by their champions as proofs of their genius, not one is what might be called par excellence a work of fancy,-such for instance as the Rape of the Lock, or the Queen's Wake.

Notwithstanding all that has been or may be said on both sides of this question, the world, I am afraid, will continue still to hold its ancient opinion, that in powers of imagination and judgment, women are inferior to men, in power of fancy scarcely their equal. To this venerable and wellconcocted opinion, I cannot help subscribing myself an unworthy assentient. Had I entered the literary list as a professed defender of the sex, I should have chosen very different ground from that which has been now so imprudently selected, and I hope with very different success. Conceding to the adverse sex the faculties of judgment and imagination, I would have boldly challenged them on the score of feeling and delicacy of thought. It is on this ground that I am convinced the palm of superiority may be claimed, disputed, and

won. Individuals of the lordly sex, such as Byron and the universal Shakspeare, might perhaps be found equal, nay superior, in these respects, to Sappho, or any other poetess; but, taking the sexes generally, there is as great a balance of intellectual feeling and delicacy in the one as of judgment and imagination in the other. Ay, a much greater. How few men are there to be met with who enjoy the faculties of judgment or imagination; how much fewer still who possess both! How few women do we meet with who are not endued with the utmost warmth of feeling, the most exquisite delicacy (if nothing else) of mind; how many in whom both are united! In their best works are not the same qualities perceptible? Is not every bare word full of sensibility and feeling? is not every thought, image, and expression, delicate and refined? Here is the intellectual "Distinction" between the sexes; whether it has ever before been observed or insisted on, I do not know: to me it is as plain as their physical difference. But when instead of these elegant and proportionate attributes, the sex, either in propriâ persona, or by its male mouthpieces (falsely called, defenders) put in a claim to supreme judgment and imagination, the substance is sacrificed for the shadow, and respect is inevitably replaced by ridicule or contemptuous silence.

JULIUS.

R. S. W.

GOOD English reader,-you that are proud

to speak the tongue Which Shakspeare spake, the faith and

morals hold

Which Milton held,

To you it is that we would here speak: true it is that a spurious admiration even of Milton is not impossible; a spurious admiration of Shakspeare common: that is, an admiration which creates for its own infirm sympathies fantastic objects which neither have any existence in the works of either poet, nor could have in consistency with their real titles to our veneration. But if depraved sensibilities have sometimes flourished even in that atmosphere, yet naturally it is favourable only to sanity of understanding and to elevation of taste. Never were these qualities more energetically demanded than in the case which we now bring before our readers: a case not merely of infatuation, but of infatuation degrading to literature, beyond anything which is on record in the history of human levity. Not the baseness of Egyptian superstition, not Titania under enchantment, not Caliban in drunkenness, ever shaped to themselves an idol more weak or hollow than modern Germany has set up for its worship in the person of Goethe. The gods of Germany are too generally false gods; but among false gods some are more false than others: here and there is one who tends upwards, and shows some aspirations at least towards the divine ideal: but others gravitate to earth and the pollutions of earth with the instincts and necessities of appetite that betray the brutal nature. These also are divine" and "celestial" to their admirers. Be it so: let A be the "divine" incubus, and B the "celestial" succubus, so long as it is not forgotten that A is an incubus, and B a succubus. In what chamber of the German pantheon, however, we are to look for the shrine of Goethe, and how long any shrine at all will survive the fleeting fashions of his age, and the personal intrigues

of his contemporaries, we are not very anxious to say; and the rather, because we hope that a few extracts from his works-under the guidance of a few plain comments pointing out their relations, connexion, and tendency-will enable any reader of good sense to say that for himself. Throughout this paper we wish it to be observed that we utter no dogmatisms -no machtsprüche (as the Germans emphatically style them) or autocratic judgments: these are the brutum fulmen of German reviewers (we hope of no other reviewers), and have now lost their power to impress fear upon the most trivial of authors or respect upon the shallowest of readers. Our purpose is not so much to pronounce judgment, as to put the reader in possession of such grounds of judgment as may enable him to pronounce it for himself. And the ultimate point we aim at-is not to quarrel with the particular book, which has been the accidental occasion of bringing Goethe before us; a bad book more or less is of no great importance; our mark is Goethe himself: and not even Goethe on his own account, and separate from his coterie of admirers,-but Goethe proposed as a model, as a fit subject for admiration, sympathy, and philosophic homage; in the language of the present translator, as "the first of European minds"-"the richest, most gifted of living minds." For the last seven years, or so, a feeble but persevering effort has been made by the proneurs of Goethe in this country to raise what the newspapers call a "sensation" in his behalf: as yet however without effect. On the one hand the reader was staggered by the enormity of the machtsprüche (the despotic or almighty puffs, as we might in this case translate the word) which were brought over from Germany; and, though some might be disgusted, more perhaps were awed by these attempts to bully them into admiration. On the other hand, the mere dulness of the works which were translated and analyzed as Goethe's triumphantly repelled the