CURRENT LITERATURE.
Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, from 1791 to 1805. By L. Dora Schmitz. Vol. I., 1794 to 1797. (Bell and Sons.)—This is a volume of mach interest, though it needs a considerable acquaint- ance with the literary history of Germany at the time to appreciate its contents. The first letter is a quite formal request from Schiller to Goethe that ho would join the contributors to a periodical publication to be called " The Heron." Though this was not the first communica- tion that had passed between the two great authors, it was the first be- ginning of their friendship. Before this there had been, on Schiller's part at least, a decided feeling of antipathy. The letters soon warm into friendship, a friendship which became so close and intimate that when it was terminated by Schiller's premature death, the stoical calm to which Goethe had trained himself broke down in an abandonment of grief. The subject of the periodical, of the contributions which the two friends made to it or received from others, and the criticisms, friendly and unfriendly, which it excited, fills a great part of the letters. But there are also notices of other and more important literary work on the part of the two correspondents, and occasionally some general literary criticism of much interest and value. Such is the fourth letter in the series, with its subtle analysis by Schiller of Goethe's intellectual growth. Such, again, are those numbered 382 and 394. In the former Schiller makes some acute observations on the difference between poetry and prose, part of which we may quote, for the benefit of the admirers of Walt Whitman :—" In poetry, substance and form are, even in an outward respect, directly connected. Since I have been changing into a poetic-rhythmical form, I feel that I must be judged quite differently to what I have been previously. A number of motives which appeared appropriate in the prosaic form I can no longer make use of ; they were good only for ordinary common-sense, the organ of which appears to be prose." In 399 Goethe remarks that " in poetry every. thing is hurrying towards the drams, to the representation of that which is perfectly present," and afterwards applies the remark to art.
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