21 JANUARY 1837, Page 19

Goethe's Novel, translated from the German. According to the statement

of the author, expressed elsewhere, the moral of this piece is, " to show how intractable and ungovernable natures are often better subdued by love and piety than by force." The allegorical story, which is made the vehicle to impress it, is as follows. A prince goes out hunting with his followers; the prin- cess rides out to look at some improvements; a lion and a tiger escape from a showman, and make towards her; the tiger is killed by her attendant ; and the lion, by consent of the prince, who rides up at the moment, is tamed by the singing of a little child. By what poetical graces such puerile matter may be sus- tained in tile original, we know not ; but if the translation con- veys a faint reflection of GOETHE'S Novel, it must be both literal and mystical—minute incidents, expressed in commonplace prose, and deeply tinged with a lackadaisical spirit.