our century" (vol. i. p. 425). Mr. Arnold translates this word "genius"
by "talent." The word in the original is TALENT, and I will not dispute
with so accomplished a German scholar as Mr. Arnold as to what is the
precise meaning of TALENT. In both the English translations of
Eckermann the word is rendered "genius," and after the comparison
between Byron, Shakespeare, and the ancients just quoted, we can hardly
admit that Goethe meant to distinguish scientifically between the two
orders of intellect and to assign the lower to Byron.

But, last of all, I will translate Goethe's criticism upon "Cain." So
far as I know, it has not yet appeared in English. It is to be found in
the Stuttgart and Tubingen edition of Goethe, 1840, vol. xxxiii. p. 157.
Some portions which are immaterial I have omitted:-

"After I had listened to the strangest things about this work for almost
a year, I at last took it myself in hand, and it excited in me
astonishment and admiration; an effect which will produce in the mind
which is simply susceptible, everything good, beautiful, and great. . .
. The poet who, surpassing the limit of all our conceptions, has
penetrated with burning spiritual vision the past and present, and
consequently the future, has now subdued new regions under his limitless
talent, but what he will accomplish therein can be predicted by no human
being. His procedure, however, we can nevertheless in a measure more
closely determine. He adheres to the letter of the Biblical tradition,
for he allows the first pair of human beings to exchange their original
purity and innocence for a guilt mysterious in its origin; the
punishment which is its consequence descending upon all posterity. The
monstrous burden of such an event he lays upon the shoulders of Cain as
the representative of a wretched humanity, plunged for no fault of its
own into the depths of misery.