* Κωμωδοδιδασκαλίαν εἶναι χαλεπώτατον ἔργον ἁπάντων, Πολλῶν γὰρ δὴ πειρασάντων αὐτὴν ὀλίγοις χαρίσασθαι.” 1

-you may guess

From the number who court her, the few she doth bless."

1 Aristophanes, "Equites," v. 516.

CHAPTER VII.

THE REAL PHILANTHROPIST.

A STRANGE phantasmagoria is the life he leads at this epoch. His employments are manifold, yet his studies, his drawing, etching, and rehearsing are carried on as if they alone were the occupation of the day. His immense activity, and power of varied employment, scatter the energies which might be consecrated to some great work; but in return, they give him the varied store of material of which he stood so much in need. At this time he is writing "Wilhelm Meister" and "Egmont;" "Iphigenia" is also taking shape in his mind. His office gives him much to do; and Gervinus, who must have known how great were the calls upon his time, should have paused ere he threw out the insinuation of "diplomatic rudeness" when Goethe answered one of his brother-in-law's letters through his secretary. Surely with a brother-in-law one may take such latitude ?1

This man, whose diplomatic coldness and aristocratic haughtiness have formed the theme of so many long tirades, was of all Germans the most sincerely democratic, until the Reign of Terror in France frightened him, as it frightened others, into more modified opin

1 Since the text was written, the correspondence with the Frau v. Stein has appeared; and from it we learn that in Switzerland he even dictated some letters to her. It could not have been "diplomatic rudeness," inasmuch as he usually wrote to the duke himself through his amanuensis.

ions. Not only was he always delighted to be with the people, and to share their homely ways, which were consonant with his own simple tastes; but we find him in the confidence of intimacy expressing his sympathy with the people in the heartiest terms. When among the miners he writes to his beloved, "How strong my love has returned upon me for these lower classes which one calls the lower, but which in God's eyes are assuredly the highest! Here you meet all the virtues combined: Contentedness, Moderation, Truth, Straightforwardness, Joy in the slightest good, Harmlessness, Patience Patience Constancy in in I will not lose myself in panegyric!" Again, he is writing "Iphigenia," but the news of the misery and famine among the stocking-weavers of Apolda paralyses him. "The drama will not advance a step: it is cursed; the King of Tauris must speak as if no stocking-weaver in Apolda felt the pangs of hunger!"

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In striking contrast stands the expression of his contempt for what was called the great world, as he watched it in his visits to the neighbouring courts. If affection bound him to Karl August, whom he was forming, and to Luise, for whom he had a chivalrous regard, his eyes were not blind to the nullity of other princes and their followers. "Good society have I seen," runs one of his epigrams; "they call it the 'good' whenever there is not in it the material for the smallest of poems."

"Gute Gesellschaft hab' ich gesehen; man nennt sie die gute Wenn sie zum kleinsten Gedicht keine Gelegenheit giebt."

Notably was this the case in his journey with the duke to Berlin, May, 1778. He only remained a few days there; saw much, and not without contempt. "I have got quite close to old Fritz, having seen his way of life, his gold, his silver, his statues, his apes,

his parrots, and heard his own curs twaddle about the great man." Potsdam and Berlin were noisy with preparations for war. The great king was absent; but Prince Henry received the poet in a friendly manner, and invited him and Karl August to dinner. At table there were several generals; but Goethe, who kept his eyes open, sternly kept his mouth closed. He seems to have felt no little contempt for the Prussian court and its great men, who appeared very small men in his eyes. "I have spoken no word in the Prussian dominions which might not be made public. Therefore I am called haughty and so forth." Varnhagen intimates that the ill-will he excited by not visiting the literati, and by his reserve, was so great as to make him averse from hearing of his visit in after years. What indeed, as Varnhagen asks, had Goethe in common with Nicolai, Ramler, Engel, Zellner, and the rest? He did visit the poetess Karschin and the artist Chodowiecki; but from the rest he kept aloof. Berlin was not a city in which he could feel himself at home; and he doubtless was fully aware of the small account in which he was held by Frederick, whose admiration lay in quite other directions. What culture the king had was French, and his opinion of German literature had been very explicitly pronounced in a work published this year, in which "Götz von Berlichingen" was cited as a sample of the reigning bad taste. The passage is too curious to be omitted. "Vous y verrez représenter les abominables pièces de Shakespeare traduites en notre langue, et tout l'auditoire se pâmer d'aise en entendant ces farces ridicules, et dignes des sauvages de Canada." That certainly was afflicting to "le bon goût;" but that was not the worst. Shakespeare might be pardoned for his faults, "car la naissance des arts n'est jamais le point de leur maturité. Mais voilà encore un Götz de Berlichingen Varnhagen von Ense: "Vermischte Schriften," iii. p. 62.

qui paraît sur la scène, imitation détestable de ces mauvaises pièces anglaises, et le parterre applaudit et demande avec enthousiasme la répétition de ces dégoûtantes platitudes!"1

Thus the two German emperors, Fritz and Wolfgang, held no spiritual congress; perhaps no good result could have been elicited by their meeting. Yet they were, each in his own sphere, the two most potent men then reigning. Fritz did not directly assist the literature of his country, but his indirect influence has been indicated by Griepenkerl.2 He awoke the Germans from their sleep by the rolling of drums; those who least liked the clang of arms or the "divisions of a battle-field," were nevertheless awakened to the fact that something important was going on in life, and they rubbed their sleepy eyes, and tried to see a little into that. The roll of drums had this merit, at all events, that it drew men from their library table to the window, and so made them look out upon the moving, living world of action, wherein the erudite might see a considerable sensation made even by men unable to conjugate a Greek verb in "." 3

μι.

On returning to Weimar, Goethe occupied himself with various architectural studies, à propos of the rebuilding of the palace; and commenced those alterations in the park, which resulted in the beautiful distribution formerly described. But I pass over many details of his activity, to narrate an episode which must win the heart of every reader. In these pages

1"De la Littérature Allemande," p. 46. His opinion of the newly discovered Niebelungen Lied was no less characteristically contemptuous: he declared he would not give such rubbish house

room.

2 Griepenkerl: "Der Kunstgenius der Deutschen Literatur des letzten Jahrhunderts," i. p. 52.

Doctor George has become famous (or did become so- for, alas! what is fame ?) by his shrewd suspicion that Frederick with all his victories could not accomplish that feat of intellectual vigour. Many men still measure greatness by verbs in .