Goethe, whose strength was sensibly declining; but he survived the blow, and enjoyed the best consolation which could be afforded to him in the exemplary care of his amiable and gifted daughter-in-law, and in his two young grand-children, to whom he was tenderly attached. His last years were spent in cheerful retirement. He possessed an elegant and spacious house in Weimar, but he also had a cottage in the park, where he dwelt alone, receiving his friends _tête-à-tête_; and, on particular occasions, going into the town to entertain company. He retained his faculties to the last, and made a very precise disposition of his property. His extensive collections in natural history and art were directed to be preserved as a museum for twenty years. These were among the objects of his latest solicitude. He died March 24, 1832, in the eighty-third year of his age. Goethe’s figure was commanding, and his countenance severely handsome. He appears to have acquired a great ascendency over his fellow-students at the universities, and to have kept the professors in awe. In after life he was reproached by Bürger and others with haughtiness, and was accused of making his inferiors in station and in genius too sensible of their inferiority; but his powers of captivation were irresistible when he pleased to exert them. His social talents were of the highest order. Such was Goethe for his own generation and country. To posterity he will live chiefly as a poet. Of his most remarkable works we will now speak, not chronologically, but according to the classes which are recognised by systematic writers. In epic poetry, his pretensions will be derided by those who adhere to the theory of M. Bossu, adopted by Pope. According to this, the common opinion, the ‘Epos’ requires supernatural machinery, illustrious actors, and heroic incident. The German critics, on the contrary, maintain that the essential character of the Homeric poetry lies in the epic style, not in the subject of the narrative; a style analogous to that of Herodotus, whom they place at the head of the epic historians, and to be found in a very large proportion of our own ancient ballads, such as relate to Robin Hood, Chevy Chase, &c. Goethe on this idea began a continuation of the Iliad in his ‘Achilleis,’ and he threw the graces of his own style over the old epic fable of ‘Reynard the Fox.’ But it was in ‘Herman and Dorothea’ that he displayed all his powers: this is both a patriotic and domestic tale; the characters in humble life; the incident, a flight over the Rhine on the invasion of the French. It abounds in maxims of moral wisdom, and in pathos; but it is too national to bear translating.