MAX MULLER'S RECOLLECTIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OP TEE SPEOTATOIL."]
SIR,—I venture to call your attention to a misquotation and a mistranslation from Goethe in your interesting review of Professor Max Miiller's "Auld Lang Syne," in the Spectator of March 26th. Did the poet Heine misquote, or has the Professor's memory played him false ? The passage de- scriptive of the meeting of the two in Paris concludes, "Then he (Heine) moved on, mumbling a line from Goethe 'Das Maulthier sucht im Dustern semen Weg.'" The transla- tion appended is, "The mule seeks his way in the dust." Goethe, however, wrote, "Dan Maulthier sacht ins Nebel' semen Weg,"—a far more expressive picture, as the poem "Mignon," from which this line is taken, expresses his passionate yearning to cross the Alps wreathed in mist (Nebel) and enter Italy. "Mignon," though not published till some ten years later, was written in 1785 or 1786, and in the autumn of 1786 the poet's ardent wish was realised and, the "Italian Journey" began. As regards the mistransla- tion, "dust" may be a printer's error for "dusk."—I Sir, &c.,
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