nevertheless received with enthusiasm, was translated into Latin, and read in schools in company with Tacitus and Cæsar.

This Seven Years' War was a circumstance from which, as it is thought, Goethe ought to have received. some epic inspiration. He received from it precisely that which was food to his character. He caught the grand enthusiasm, but, as he says, it was the personality of the hero, rather than the greatness of his cause, which made him rejoice in every victory, copy the songs of triumph, and the lampoons directed against Austria. He learnt now the effects of party spirit. At the table of his grandfather he had to hear galling sarcasms, and vehement declamations showered on his hero. He heard Frederick "shamefully slandered." "And as in my sixth year, after the Lisbon earthquake, I doubted the beneficence of Providence, so now, on account of Frederick, I began to doubt the justice of the world."

Over the doorway of the house in which he was born was a lyre and a star, announcing, as every interpreter will certify, that a poet was to make that house illustrious. The poetic faculty early manifested itself. We have seen him inventing conclusions for his mother's stories; and as he grew older he began to invent stories for the amusement of his playfellows, after he had filled his mind with images

"Lone sitting on the shores of old Romance."

He had read the "Orbis Pictus," Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Homer's Iliad in prose, Virgil in the original, "Telemachus," "Robinson Crusoe," " Anson's Voyages,' with such books as "Fortunatus," "The Wandering Jew," "The Four Sons of Aymon," etc. He also read and learned by heart most of the poets of that day: Gellert, Haller, who had really some gleams of poetry;

-

and Canitz, Hagedorn, Drollinger, writers then much beloved, now slumbering upon dusty shelves, unvisited except by an occasional historian, and by spiders of an inquiring mind.

Not only did he tell stories, he wrote them also, as we gather from a touching little anecdote preserved by Bettina. The smallpox had carried off his little brother Jacob. To the surprise of his mother, Wolfgang shed no tears, believing Jacob to be with God in heaven. "Did you not love your little brother, then," asked his mother, "that you do not grieve for his loss?" He ran to his room, and from under the bed drew a quantity of papers on which he had written stories and lessons. I had written all these that I might teach them to him," said the child. He was then nine years old.

Shortly before the death of his brother he was startled by the sound of the warder's trumpet from the chief tower, announcing the approach of troops. This was in January, 1759. On came the troops in continuous masses, and the rolling tumult of their drums called all the women to the windows, and all the boys in admiring crowds into the streets. The troops were French. They seized the guard-house; and in a little while the city was a camp. To make matters

worse, these troops were at war with Frederick, whom Wolfgang and his father worshipped. They were soon billeted through the town; and things relapsed into their usual routine, varied by a military occupation. In the Goethe house an important person was quartered, -Count de Thorane, the king's lieutenant, a man of taste and munificence, who assembled around him artists and celebrities, and won the affectionate admiration of Wolfgang, though he failed to overcome the hatred of the old councillor.

This occupation of Frankfort brought with it many advantages to Goethe. It relaxed the severity of

"

paternal book education, and began another kind of tuition, that of life and manners. The perpetual marching through the streets, the brilliant parades, the music, the "pomp, pride, and circumstance were not without their influence. Moreover, he now gained conversational familiarity with French,1 and acquaintance with the theatre. The French nation always carries its "civilisation" with it, namely, a café and a theatre. In Frankfort both were immediately opened; and Goethe was presented with a "free admission " to the theatre, a privilege he used daily, not always understanding, but always enjoying what he saw. In tragedy the measured rhythm, slow utterance, and abstract language enabled him to understand the play better than he understood comedy, wherein the language, besides moving amid the details of private life, was also more rapidly spoken. But at the theatre, boys are not critical, and do not need to understand a play in order to enjoy it.2 A Racine, found upon his father's shelves, was eagerly studied, and the speeches were declaimed with more or less appreciation of their meaning.

The theatre, and acquaintance with a chattering little braggart, named Derones, gave him such familiarity with the language, that in a month he surprised his parents with his facility. This Derones was acquainted

1 He says that he had never learned French before; but this is erroneous, as his exercises prove.

2 Well do I remember, as a child of the same age, my intense delight at the French theatre, although certainly no three consecutive phrases could have been understood by me. Nay, so great was this delight, that although we regarded the French custom, of opening theatres on Sunday, with the profoundest sense of its "wickedness," the attraction became irresistible: and one Sunday night, at Nantes, my brother and I stole into the theatre with pricking consciences. To this day I see the actors gesticulating, and hear the audience cry bis! bis! redemanding a couplet (in which we joined with a stout British encore!); and to this day I remember how we laughed at what we certainly understood only in passing glimpses. Goethe's ignorance of the language was, I am sure, no obstacle to his enjoyment.

with the actors, and introduced him "behind the scenes." At ten years of age to go "behind the scenes" means a great deal. We shall see hereafter how early he was introduced behind the scenes of life. For the present let it be noted that he was a frequenter of the greenroom, and admitted into the dressing-room where the actors and actresses dressed and undressed with philosophic disregard to appearances; and this, from repeated visits, he also learned to regard as quite natural.

A grotesque scene took place between these two boys. Derones excelled, as he affirmed, in "affairs of honour." He had been engaged in several, and had always managed to disarm his antagonist, and then nobly forgive him. One day he pretended that Wolfgang had insulted him: satisfaction was peremptorily demanded, and a duel was the result. Imagine Wolfgang, aged twelve, arrayed in shoes and silver buckles, fine woollen stockings, dark serge breeches, green coat with gold facings, a waistcoat of gold cloth, cut out of his father's wedding waistcoat, his hair curled and powdered, his hat under his arm, and little sword with silk swordknot. This little mannikin stands opposite his antagonist with theatrical formality; swords clash, thrusts come quick upon each other, the combat grows hot when the point of Derones's rapier lodges in the bow of Wolfgang's sword-knot; hereupon the French boy, with great magnanimity, declares that he is satisfied! The two embrace, and retire to a café to refresh themselves with a glass of almond milk.1

Theatrical ambition, which stirs us all, soon prompted Wolfgang. As a child he had imitated Terence; he was now to make a more elaborate effort in the style of Piron. When the play was completed he submitted

1 To remove incredulity, it may be well to remind the reader that to this day German youths fight out their quarrels with swords not fists.

it to Derones, who, pointing out several grammatical blunders, promised to examine it more critically, and talked of giving it his support with the manager. Wolfgang saw, in his mind's eye, the name of his play already placarded at the corners of the street! Unhappily, Derones in his critical capacity was merciless. He picked the play to pieces, and stunned the poor author with the critical jargon of that day; proclaimed the absolute integrity of the Three Unities, abused the English, laughed at the Germans, and maintained the sovereignty of French taste in so confident a style, that his listener was without a reply. If silenced, however, he was not convinced. It set him thinking on those critical canons. He studied the treatise on the Unities by Corneille, and the prefaces of Racine. The result of these studies was profound contempt for that system; and it is, perhaps, to Derones that we owe something of the daring defiance of all "rule," which startled Germany in "Götz von Berlichingen."