Item 147 - Letter from Julius Charles Hare

6 pp.

Herstmonceux - The number of epigrams which JCH is transcribing 'have somewhat multiplied: but after all they will not occupy a very large space; and there has always seemed to me something particularly good in Schiller's epigrams. If they have not all the terseness of Goethe's, they make up for that want by a moral force and reach of meaning, in such respects the chief part of G's are inferior. Two or three of those translated here are also printed by Goethe as his; so that their authorship is questionable'. On examining his attempt of many years ago at the Iliad, JCH was pleasantly surprised: 'I find the 70 lines better than I had expected, & shall therefore feel inclined to send them to you'. WW is 'quite right in beginning with the translations from the German, as if hexameters are to be naturalized amongst us, it will be through Germany, not immediately either from Greece or Rome'. WW's query over the position of the Church in Protestant Germany, is very different to that in England: 'she has not thought of laying claim to the conduct of education. The duty of educating the people has been regarded, ever since Luther called on the governments to do so, as incumbent upon them: the universities have been mainly regulated by the state, which has recognised its religious office by the establishment of theological faculties. Thus the questions which have been agitating us & the French, as to who is to educate the people, cd hardly occur in Protestant Germany'. Much has been written lately in Germany on the idea of the Church, which has involved debates on the relations between the church and state.