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streets, the brilliant parades, the music, the 'pomp, pride, and circumstance' were not without their influence. Moreover, he now gained conversational familiarity with French,* and acquaintance with the theatre. The French nation always carries its civilization' with it i. e., a café and a theatre. In Frankfurt 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. tragedy the measured rhythm, slow utterance, and abstract language enabled him to understand the scenes, 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 to enjoy it. 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

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

† 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, then, I am sure was no obstacle to his enjoyment.

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his facility. This Derones was acquainted 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 green-room, and admitted into the dressing-room, where the actors and actresses dressed and undressed with philosophic disregard to appearances, which, 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 honor.' 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 bridegroom-waistcoat, his hair curled and powdered, his hat under his arm, and little sword with silk sabretash. 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' rapier lodges in the hilt of Wolfgang's: 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.*

"

Theatrical ambition, which stirs us all, soon prompted Wolfgang. As a child he had imitated Terence; he was

* 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.

now to make a more elaborate effort in the style of Piron. When the play was completed he submitted 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 streets! 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.

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CHAPTER IV.

VARIOUS STUDIES.

Ar length, June 1761, the French quitted Frankfurt ; and studies were seriously resumed. Mathematics, music, and drawing were commenced under paternal superintendence. For mathematics Wolfgang had no aptitude; for music little he learned to play on the harpsichord, and, subsequently, on the violoncello, but he never attained any proficiency. Drawing continued through life a pleasant exercise.

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Left now to the calm of uninterrupted studies he made gigantic strides. Even the hours of recreation were filled with some useful occupation. He added English to his polyglott store; and to keep up his several languages, determined, like the late Ducrow, to ride six horses at once.' Thus he invented a Romance, wherein six or seven brothers and sisters scattered over the world corresponded with each other. The eldest describes in good German all the incidents of his travels; his sister answers in womanly style with short sharp sentences, and nothing but full stops, much as Siegwart was afterwards written. Another brother studies theology, and therefore writes in Latin, with postscripts in Greek. A third and a fourth, clerks at Hamburgh and Marseilles, take English and French; Italian is given to a musician; while the youngest, who remains at home, writes in Jew-German.

This romance led him to a more accurate study of geography. Having placed his characters in various parts of the globe, he was not satisfied till he had a distinct idea of these localities, so that the objects and events should be consonant with probability. While trying to master the strange dialect -Jew-German - he was led to the study of Hebrew. As the original language of the Old Testament, this seemed to him an indispensable acquisition. His father consented to give him a Hebrew master; and although he attained no scholarship in that difficult language, yet the reading, translating, and committing to memory of various parts of the Bible, brought out the meaning more vividly before him; as every one will understand who compares the lasting effect produced by the laborious school reading of Sallust and Livy, with the facile reading of Robertson and Hume. The Bible made a profound impression upon him. To a boy of his constitutional reflectiveness, the severe study of this book could not fail to exercise a deep and permeating influence; nor, at the same time, in one so accustomed to think for himself, could it fail to awaken certain doubts. 'The contradiction,' he says, 'between the actual or possible, and tradition, forcibly arrested me. I often posed my tutors with the sun standing still on Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon; not to mention other incogruities and impossibilities. All my doubts were now awakened, as in order to master the Hebrew I studied the literal version by Schmidt, printed under the text."

One result of these Hebrew studies was a biblical poem on Joseph and his Brethren; which he dictated to a poor half idiot who lived in his father's house, and who had a mania for copying or writing under dictation. Goethe soon found the process of dictation of great service; and through life it continued to be his favorite mode of com