"The English may think of Byron as they please; but this is certain,
that they can show no poet who is to be compared to him. He is
different from all the others, and for the most part, greater" (vol. i.
p. 290).

This passage is one which Mr. Arnold quotes, and he strives to diminish
its importance by translating der ihm zu vergleichen ware, by "who is
his parallel," and maintains that Goethe "was not so much thinking of
the strict rank, as poetry, of Byron's production; he was thinking of
that wonderful personality of Byron which so enters into his poetry."
It is just possible; but if Goethe did think this, he used words which
are misleading, and if the phrase der ihm zu vergleichen ware simply
indicates parallelism, it has no point, for in that sense it might have
been applied to Scott or to Southey.

"I have read once more Byron's 'Deformed Transformed,' and must say that
to me his talent appears greater than ever. His devil was suggested by
my Mephistopheles; but it is no imitation--it is thoroughly new and
original; close, genuine, and spirited. There are no weak passages--not
a place where you could put the head of a pin, where you do not find
INVENTION AND THOUGHT [italics mine]. Were it not for his
hypochondriacal negative turn, he would be as great as Shakespeare and
the ancients" (vol. i. p. 294).

Eckermann expressed his surprise. "Yes," said Goethe, "you may believe
me, I have studied him anew and am confirmed in this opinion." The
position which Byron occupies in the Second Part of "Faust" is well
known. Eckermann talked to Goethe about it, and Goethe said, "I could
not make use of any man as the representative of the modern poetical era
except him, who undoubtedly is to be regarded as the greatest genius of