of "the novel of adultery," which takes for its theme the desire of voluptuousness after untried sensations ("die Wollüstelei, die das Fremde begehrt"). _Die Braut von Korinth_ is simply the expression of the voluptuousness whose desire is set on corpses, "die sogar noch in den Schauern des Grabes, in der Buhlerei mit schönen Gespenstern einen _haut goût_ des Genusses findet"--(which even amidst the horrors of the grave finds a _haut goût_ of sensual enjoyment in intercourse with beautiful spectres). Where it is impossible to bring an accusation of immorality, Menzel returns to his accusation of want of originality. It is not only its glorification of middle-class Philistinism that stamps _Hermann und Dorothea_ as an inferior work, but also the direct imitation of Voss's _Luise_. According to Menzel, Goethe showed real originality only in _Faust_ and _Wilhelm Meister_, because in these two works he copied himself. In his youth he borrowed from Moliere and Beaumarchais, from Shakespeare and Lessing, and his later iambic tragedies are "the fruits of his rivalry with Schiller." Added to all this, he was, God knows, no patriot. Let us compare Börne's attacks on Goethe with Menzel's, and we shall find, in spite of similar extravagance of expression, this great difference, that Börne does not attempt to judge, still less to condemn Goethe's great works, nor does he condescend to accusations of sexual immorality; he invariably confines himself to attacking Goethe in his political relations. Saint-René Taillandier correctly observes that Börne gave expression to everything that was rankling in his heart when he took as motto for his review of Bettina's _Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde_ ("Goethe's Correspondence with a Child"), these words from _Prometheus_: "Ich dich ehren? Wofür? Hast du die Schmerzen gelindert Je des Beladenen? Hast du die Thränen gestillet Je des Geängsteten?"[7] Though he could only appreciate those of Goethe's works in which the fire of youth was perceptible, his attacks are not based on contempt for the other works, but on the fact that Goethe, so highly favoured in the matter of ability and of social position, never thought of devoting that ability, that position, to the improvement of the existing conditions of life in Germany. It is easy to cull foolish passages conceived in Menzel's strain from Börne's works. In his Journal of 1830, for instance, he writes of Goethe's luck in having succeeded in imitating with his talent the handwriting of genius for sixty years without being detected; and in another place he calls Goethe the rhyming, Hegel the rhymeless, thrall.[8] But to understand these wild and regrettable outbursts, we must make ourselves acquainted with Börne's bill of accusation against both Goethe and Schiller.