CHAPTER III.

ART STUDIES.

FRAU BÖHME died. In her he lost a monitress and friend, who had kept some check on his waywardness, and drawn him into society. The Professor had long since cooled towards him, after giving up all hopes of making him another Heineccius. A youth with such remarkable dispositions, who would not be assiduous in attendance at lecture, and whose amusement during lecture was to sketch caricatures of various law dignitaries in his note-book: another ornament to jurisprudence irrecoverably lost! Indeed, the collegiate aspect of this Leipsic residence is not one promising to professors; but we - instructed by the result- know how much better he was employed, than if he had filled a hundred volumes of note-books by diligent attendance at lecture. He studied much, in a desultory manner; he studied Molière and Corneille; he began to translate "Le Menteur." The theatre was a perpetual attraction; and even the uneasy, unsatisfied condition of his affections, was instructing him in directions whither no professor could lead him. But greater than all this was the influence of Shakespeare, whom he first learned a little of through Dodd's Beauties of Shakespeare," a work not much prized in England, where the plays form part of our traditional education, but which must have been a revelation to the Germans, something analogous to what Charles Lamb's "Specimens of the Old English Drama" was to

us. The strength and beauty of language, the bold and natural imagery of these "Beauties," startled the young poets of that day, like the discovery of huge fossil remains of some antediluvian fauna; "and to gratify the curiosity thus awakened," he says, "there came Wieland's prose translation of several plays, which we studied with enthusiasm."1

There are no materials to fill up the gaps of his narrative here, so that I am forced to leave much indistinct. For instance, he has told us that Käthchen and he were no longer lovers; but we find him writing to her in a lover-like tone from Frankfort, and we know that friendly intercourse still subsisted between them. Of this, however, not a word occurs in the Autobiography. Nor are we accurately informed how he made the acquaintance of the Breitkopf family. Breitkopf was a bookseller in Leipsic, in whose house Literature and Music were highly prized. Bernhard, the eldest son, was an excellent performer, and composed music to Goethe's songs, which were published in 1769, under this title: "Neue Lieder in Melodieen gesetzt von Bernhard Theodor Breitkopf." The poet is not named. This Liederbuch contains twenty songs, the majority of which were subsequently reprinted in the poet's works. They are love songs, and contain a love-philosophy more like what is to be found in Catullus, Horace, and Wieland, than what one would expect from a boy, did we not remember how the braggadocio of youth delights in expressing roué sentiments, as if to give itself airs of profound experience. This youth sings with gusto of inconstancy:

“Da fühl ich die Freuden der wechselden Lust."

It is possible that Wieland's translation only then fell into Goethe's hands, but the publication was commenced before his arrival in Leipsic, namely, in 1761.

He gaily declares that if one mistress leaves you, another will love you, and the second is sweeter to kiss than the first:

"Es küsst sich so süsse der Busen der Zweiten,

Als kaum sich der Busen der Ersten geküsst.'

Through Breitkopf he learned to know Hiller; and among Hiller's pupils was the Corona Schröter, whom we shall meet hereafter in the Weimar circle. She was a year older than Goethe, and surrounded with admirers, both of her beauty and her talents. He is said, I know not on what evidence, to have lent his poetical talent to some of these admirers.

Another acquaintance, and one more directly influential, was that of Oeser, the director of the Drawing Academy. He had been the friend and teacher of Winckelmann, and his name stood high among connoisseurs. Goethe, who at home had learned a little drawing, joined Oeser's class, where, among other fellow students, was the Hardenberg who afterward made such a noise in the Prussian political world. He joined the class, and did his best to acquire by labour the skill which only talent can acquire. That he made little progress in drawing, we learn from his subsequent confession, no less than from his failure; but tuition had this effect at least it taught him to use his eyes. In a future chapter I shall have occasion to enter more fully on this subject. Enough if for the present a sentence or two from his letters tell us the enthusiasm Oeser inspired. "What do I not owe to you," he writes to him, "for having pointed out to me the way of the True and the Beautiful!" and concludes by saying, "the undersigned is your work!" Writing to a friend of Oeser's, he says that Oeser stands beside Shakespeare and Wieland in the influence exercised over him. "His instruction will influence my whole 1 See Book V., ch. v.

life. He it was who taught me that the Ideal of Beauty is Simplicity and Repose, and thence it follows that no youth can be a master."

Instruction in the theory of Art he gained from Oeser, from Winckelmann, and from "Laokoon," the incomparable little book which Lessing at this period carelessly flung upon the world. Its effect upon Goethe can only be appreciated by those who early in life have met with this work, and risen from it with minds widened, strengthened, and inspired.1 It opened a pathway amid confusion, throwing light upon many of the obscurest problems which torment the artist. It awakened in Goethe an intense yearning to see the works of ancient masters; and these beckoned from Dresden. To Dresden he went. But here, in spite of Oeser, Winckelmann, and Lessing, in spite of grand phrases about Art, the invincible tendency of his nature asserted itself, and instead of falling into raptures with the great Italian pictures, he confesses that he took their merits upon trust, and was really charmed by none but the landscape and Dutch painters, whose subjects appealed directly to his experience. He did not feel the greatness of Italian Art; and what he did not feel he would not feign.

It is worth noticing that this trip to Dresden was taken in absolute secrecy. As, many years later, he stole away to Italy without letting his friends even suspect his project, so now he left Leipsic for Dresden without a word of intimation. Probably the same. motive actuated him in both instances. He went to see, to enjoy, to learn, and did not want to be disturbed by personal influence- by other people's opinions.

On his return he was active enough with drawing. He made the acquaintance of an engraver named

1 Lord Macaulay told me that the reading of this little book formed an epoch in his mental history; and that he learned more from it than he had ever learned elsewhere.

Stock, and with his usual propensity to try his hand at whatever his friends were doing, he forthwith began to learn engraving. In the Morgenblatt for 1828 there is a detailed account of two of his engravings, both representing landscapes with small cascades shut in by rocks and grottoes; at the foot of each are these words: "peint par A. Theile, gravé par Goethe." One plate is dedicated "à Monsieur Goethe, Conseiller actuel de S.M. Impériale par son fils très-obéissant." In the room which they show to strangers in his house in Frankfort, there is also a specimen of his engraving - very amateurish; but Madame von Goethe showed me one in her possession which really has merit.

Melancholy, wayward, and capricious, he allowed Lessing to pass through Leipsic without making any attempt to see the man he so much admired: a caprice he afterward repented, for the opportunity never recurred. Something of his hypochondria was due to mental, but more to physical causes. Dissipation, bad diet (especially the beer and coffee), and absurd endeavours to carry out Rousseau's preaching about returning to a state of nature, had seriously affected his health. The crisis came at last. One summer night (1768) he was seized with violent hemorrhage. He had only strength enough to call to his aid the fellow student who slept in the next the next room. Medical assistance promptly came. He was saved; but his convalescence was embittered by the discovery of a tumour on his neck, which lasted some time. His recovery was slow, but it seemed as if it relieved him from all the peccant humours which had made him hypochondriacal, leaving behind an inward lightness and joyousness to which he had long been a stranger. One thing greatly touched him the sympathy expressed for him by several

1This Stock had two amiable daughters, one of whom married (1785) Körner, the correspondent of Schiller, and father of the poet.