What fiery wonder spreading o'er the sea Are we to suppose that Homunculus is Cupid or Atom?'† Are we to think, with many of Goethe's commentators, that Homunculus has, like the Marsh-light of the Walpurgis Night of the First Part, been created by the poet for a particular purpose that of leading Faustus to the scene of the Classical Walpurgis Night—that he ceases to be when that object is accomplished, and that he perishes when his glass is dashed to pieces? It ill becomes me to dogmatise, but this view seems inconsistent with all the intimations as to his growth-as to the transformations which he must pass through before assuming the shape and condition of man, and to the allusions as to the ultimate form, male or female, in which he may put on life when he attains to humanity. In Galatea some of his commentators see Helen, in Euphorion they discern Homunculus. In anything said or written by Goethe, there is no authority for either statement. That Homunculus Infra, p. 226. † See Bacon's 'Sapientia Veterum.' reappears I incline to believe. The glass, in which he is ensheathed, is, by the arrangement between him and his fellow-travellers, to ring when the time comes for their reunion, and it rings when he commences his * sea-change Into something rich and strange. We have Goethe's authority that the Helena and the Classical Walpurgis Night are to be read as one, and we find Mephistopheles reappear in the Helena as Phorcyas, and Faustus as a German prince. Does the monad, or germ of life-the impatient appetency-after passing through more metamorphoses than Darwin or his grandfather ever dreamed of, appear, not as Euphorion, which has been repeatedly suggested, but as Helen herself? The idea' which Faustus sought in the realm of the Mothers-the 'eidolon' which Faustus now seeks in the underworld-must be vitalised; and is the fiery particle, which we have till now known as Homunculus, the living principle by which the magic is effected? How Faustus has obtained Helena from Proser pine is, unfortunately, a secret. That the poet had intended representing Faustus as soliciting her from Proserpine, there can be no doubt, as he Correspondence with Zelter. mentioned to Eckermann his plan for such a scene. He perhaps abandoned the plan, and thought he had accomplished his purpose in a different way, as he sometimes spoke of the second part of 'Faust' as completed. However, a letter to W. von Humboldt, written a little before his death (Dec. 1, 1831), speaks of gaps yet to be filled up; and he, perhaps, thought he might supply what was deficient when he had the whole before him in print, as he would, had he lived a few months longer. I scarcely think, however, Faustus's visit to Proserpine, and his seeking Helena from her, consistent. with the supposition that Helena and Galatea are one. But of these mysteries let me speak doubtfully. Eleusis servat quod ostendat revisentibus.' We come to the third act of the drama, that on which the whole may be said to revolve ; that which is by Goethe described as having occupied him, in one way or other, for almost the whole of his life. In the year 1780, he was already engaged at Helena as a part of Faust,' and in his day-book we find an entry of his reading it to some of the Court circle at Weimar in March of that year. In 1797, and again in 1800, it is mentioned in his correspondence with Schiller. Towards the close of his life, he describes the phantom of Helena as having floated before his imagination for more than fifty d years. He speaks of it at times as though the phantom lady had always presented to him the same appearance-at times as if she had undergone many a change. This part of Faust' was often taken up, often laid aside. An almost superstitious feeling made him avoid speaking on the subject, as though in the fear that the phantom would, as is said of spirits, vanish utterly if he ventured to tell of her visitings. In 1827, he appears to have seriously devoted himself to this part of the poem, wishing to shape into a consistent whole the fragments which he had worked out from time to time. He speaks of the 'Helena' rather as a drama in itself than as an act in 'Faust,' though Faustus's union with Helen, effected through the instrumentality of Mephistopheles, being part of the old puppet play and of the legendary story of Faustus, made him regard it as an indispensable part of his subject. The 'Helena' was the first portion printed of the second part of Faust;' and it was given rather as an interlude, a something to be imagined as dream, as fantastic representation, than as a substantive part of Faustus's actual life. It was called, on its first publication, a 'Classico-Romantic Phantasmagoria.' It is often described as though it and the Classical Walpurgis Night were to be regarded as enacted in dream. Dreams they are not-for the activity of the Will is ever present in Faustus, in Mephistopheles, in Homunculus. In Goethe's correspondence with Schiller, the opening scenes of the Helena' are mentioned. He felt that he had succeeded in the production of something in the spirit of the Greek dramatists, and for a moment thought of continuing the poem in that spirit, and of giving up the plan of closing it as an opera. At that time he must have thought of disconnecting it from 'Faust' altogether. Schiller urged him to continue it as originally designed, and not to fear uniting in it the Classical' and 'Barbaric' elements. Schiller's death occurred in 1805, and Goethe, though the phantom of Helena never ceased to play before his imagination, does not seem to have resumed it as a subject of poetical composition for many a long year after. Men do not know what they are, and how dependent they are on the appreciation of others for the kind of exertion in which they shall be engaged. Many of Goethe's ballads grew out of Schiller's sympathy, and it is not improbable that of 'Faust' nothing but the first Titanic fragments would have existed but for the way in which they were received by Schiller. In a letter of June 1797, in reply to some suggestions of Schiller's, with reference to the continuation of 'Faust,' he says, 'It gives one spirits to work when he sees |