And if this subtlety, isolation, and distance be the dictate of nature, we submit, even as we are not vexed that the wild bee should hide its honey in some old moss-grown tree, rather than in the glass hives of our gardens. We believe it will repay the pains we take in seeking for it, by some peculiar flavor from unknown flowers. Was Goethe the wild bee? We see that even in his boyhood he showed himself a very Egyptian, in his love for disguises; forever expressing his thought in roundabout ways, which seem idle mummery to a mind of Spartan or Roman mould. Had he some simple thing to tell his friend, he read it from the newspaper, or wrote it into a parable. Did he make a visit, he put on the hat or wig of some other man, and made his bow as Schmidt or Schlosser, that they might stare, when he spoke as Goethe. He gives as the highest instance of passionate grief, that he gave up for one day watching the tedious ceremonies of the imperial coronation. In daily life many of these carefully recorded passages have an air of platitude, at which no wonder the Edinburgh Review laughed. Yet, on examination, they are full of meaning. And when we see the same propensity writing itself into Ganymede, Mahomet's song, the Bayadere, and Faust, telling all Goethe's religion in Mignon and Makana, all his wisdom in the Western-Eastern Divan, we respect it, accept, all but love it. This theme is for a volume, and I must quit it now. A brief summary of what Goethe was suffices to vindicate his existence, as an agent in history and a part of nature, but will not meet the objections of those who measure him, as they have a right to do, by the standard of ideal manhood. Most men, in judging another man, ask, Did he live up to our standard? But to me it seems desirable to ask rather, Did he live up to his own? So possible is it that our consciences may be more enlightened than that of the Gentile under consideration. And if we can find out how much was given him, we are told, in a pure evangelium, to judge thereby how much shall be required. Now, Goethe has given us both his own standard and the way to apply it. "To appreciate any man, learn first what object he proposed to himself; next, what degree of earnestness he showed with regard to attaining that object." And this is part of his hymn for man made in the divine image, "THE GODLIKE." "Hail to the Unknown, the Higher Being Felt within us! "Unfeeling As nature, Still shineth the sun Over good and evil; And on the sinner, Smile as on the best, Moon and stars. Fate too, &c. "There can none but man Perform the Impossible. He understandeth, Chooseth, and judgeth; He can impart to the Moment duration. "He alone may The good reward, The guilty punish, Mend and deliver; All the wayward, anomalous Bind in the useful.