mind; he speaks in all of them, and we perceive their relationship.

"And how shall our age form a judgment as to what is natural? Whence can we be supposed to know nature, we who, from youth upward, feel everything within us, and see everything in others, laced up and decorated? I am often ashamed before Shakespeare, for it often happens that at the first glance I think to myself I should have done that differently; but soon I perceive that I am a poor sinner, that nature prophesies through Shakespeare, and that my men are soapbubbles blown from romantic fancies.

"And now to conclude, though I have not yet begun. What noble philosophers have said of the world, applies also to Shakespeare; namely, that what we call evil is only the other side, and belongs as necessarily to its existence and to the Whole, as the torrid zone must burn and Lapland freeze, in order that there may be a temperate region. He leads us through the whole world, but we, enervated, inexperienced men, cry at every strange grasshopper that meets us: He will devour us.

"Up, gentlemen! sound the alarm to all noble souls who are in the elysium of so-called good taste, where drowsy in tedious twilight they are half alive, half not alive, with passions in their hearts and no marrow in their bones; and because they are not tired enough to sleep, and yet are too idle to be active, loiter and yawn away their shadowy life between myrtle and laurel bushes."

In these accents we hear the voice of the youth who wrote "Götz with the Iron Hand." If the reader turn to the Autobiography and see there what is said of Shakespeare, he will be able to appreciate what I meant in saying that the tone of the Autobiography is unlike the reality. The tone of this speech is that of

the famous Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) period, which in after life became so very objectionable to him. How differently Schiller was affected by Shakespeare may be read in the following confession: "When at an early age I first grew acquainted with this poet, I was indignant at his coldness-indignant with the insensibility which allowed him to jest and sport amidst the highest pathos. Led by my knowledge of more modern poets to seek the poet in his works; to meet and sympathise with his heart; to reflect with him over his object; it was insufferable to me that this poet gave me nothing of himself. Many years had he my reverence certainly my earnest study, before I could comprehend his individuality. I was not yet fit to comprehend nature at first hand."

The enthusiasm for Shakespeare naturally excited Goethe to dramatic composition, and, besides "Götz" and "Faust," before mentioned, we find in his Notebook the commencement of a drama on "Julius Cæsar."

Three forms rise up from out the many influences of Strasburg into distinct and memorable importance: Frederika; Herder; the Cathedral. An exquisite woman, a noble thinker, and a splendid monument, led him into the regions of Passion, Poetry, and Art. The influence of the Cathedral was great enough to make him write the little tractate on German architecture, "D. M. Erwini à Steinbach," with an enthusiasm so incomprehensible to him in after years, that he was with difficulty persuaded to reprint the tractate among his works. Do we not see here as in so many other traits-how different the youth is from the child or man?

How thoroughly he had entered into the spirit of Gothic architecture is indicated by the following anecdote. In company with some friends he was admiring the Strasburg Cathedral, when one remarked, "What a

pity it was not finished, and that there should be only one steeple!" Upon this he answered, "It is a matter of equal regret to me to see this solitary steeple unfinished; the four spiral staircases leave off too abruptly at the top; they ought to have been surmounted by four light pinnacles, with a higher one rising in the centre instead of the clumsy mass." Some one, turning round to him, asked him who told him that? "The tower itself," he answered; "I have studied it so long, so attentively, and with so much love, that it has at last confessed to me its open secret." Whereupon his questioner informed him that the tower had spoken truly, and offered to show him the original sketches, which still existed among the archives.

Inasmuch as in England many professed admirers of architecture appear imperfectly acquainted with the history of the revival of the taste for Gothic art, it may not be superfluous to call attention to the fact that Goethe was among the very first to recognise the peculiar beauty of that style, at a period when classical, or pseudo-classical, taste was everywhere dominant. It appears that he was in friendly correspondence with Sulpiz Boisserée, the artist who made the restored design of the Cologne Cathedral; from whom he doubtless learned much. And we see by the " Wahlverwandtschaften" that he had a portfolio of designs illustrative of the principle of the pointed style. This was in 1809, when scarcely any one thought of the Gothic; long before Victor Hugo had written his "Notre Dame de Paris;" long before Pugin and Ruskin had thrown their impassioned energy into this revival; at a time when the Church in Langham Place was thought beautiful, and the Temple Church an eyesore.

And now he was to leave Strasburg, - to leave Frederika. Much as her presence had troubled him. of late, in her absence he only thought of her fascinations. He had not ceased to love her, though he

already felt she never would be his. He went to say adieu. "Those were painful days, of which I remember nothing. When I held out my hand to her from my horse, the tears were in her eyes, and I felt sad at heart. As I rode along the footpath to Drusenheim a strange phantasy took hold of me. I saw in my mind's eye my own figure riding toward me, attired in a dress I had never worn - pike gray with gold lace. I shook off this phantasy, but eight years afterward I found myself on the very road, going to visit Frederika, and that too in the very dress which I had seen myself in, in this phantasm, although my wearing it was quite accidental." The reader will probably be somewhat skeptical respecting the dress, and will suppose that this prophetic detail was afterward transferred to the vision by the imagination of later years.1

And so farewell, Frederika, bright and exquisite vision of a poet's youth! We love you, pity you, and think how differently we should have treated you! We make pilgrimages to Sesenheim as to Vaucluse, and write legibly our names in the Visitors' Album, to testify so much. And we read, not without emotion, narratives such as that of the worthy philologist Näke, who in 1822 made the first pilgrimage,2 thinking, as he went, of this enchanting Frederika (and somewhat also of a private Frederika of his own), examined every rood of the ground, dined meditatively at the inn (with a passing reflection that the bill was larger than he anticipated), took coffee with the pastor's successor; and, with a sentiment touching in a philologist, bore away a sprig of the jessamine which in days gone by had been tended by the white hands. of Frederika, and placed it in his pocketbook as an imperishable souvenir.

1 The correspondence with the Frau von Stein contains a letter written by him a day or two after this visit, but, singularly enough, no mention of this coincidence.

2 Die Wallfahrt nach Sesenheim."

Book the Third

1771 to 1775

"Es bildet ein Talent, sich in der Stille,

Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt."

"Trunken müssen wir alle seyn:

Jugend ist Trunkenheit ohne Wein."

"They say best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad."

Shakespeare.