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INTRODUCTION.
.
Seneca, Quæst. Nat. vii. 31.
I know how much prepossession I encounter, in claiming for the Second Part of Faust a higher intellectual character, if a lower dramatic and poetical value, than the First Part. In Mr. Hayward’s Appendix, and Mr. Lewes’ Life of Goethe, the Second Part is virtually declared to be a secondary, unimportant work, chaotic in detail and without any consistent design as a whole, in short, the mistake of Goethe’s old age, instead of being, as it really is, the conception of his prime, partly written, and entirely planned, before the publication of the First Part.
The five translations which have already appeared have, unfortunately, not succeeded in presenting the work clearly and attractively to the English reader. Those of Bernays, Macdonald, and Gurney are characterized by knowledge of the text, but give no satisfactory clew to the author’s
