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, Conseillier actuel de S. M. Impériale, par son fils très obéissant. In the room which they show to strangers in his house at Frankfurt, 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 as he was at this time, he allowed Lessing to pass through Leipsic without making any attempt to see the man he so much admired: a caprice he afterwards 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 endeavors 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 hæmorrhage. He had only strength enough to call to his aid the fellow-student who slept in the next room. Medical assistance promptly came. He was saved; but his convalescence was embittered by the discovery of a tumor on his neck, which lasted some time. His recovery was slow, but it seemed as if it relieved him from all the peccant humors 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 eminent men; a sympathy he felt to be quite undeserved, for there was not one among them whom he had not vexed or affronted by his caprices, extravagances, morbid opposition, and stubborn persistence.

One of these friends, Langer, not only made an ex

change of books with him, giving a set of Classic authors for a set of German, but also, in devout yet not dogmatic conversation, led his young friend to regard the Bible in another light than that of a merely human composition. I loved the Bible and valued it, for it was the only book to which I owed my moral culture. Its events, dogmas and symbols were deeply impressed on my mind.' He therefore felt little sympathy with the Deists who were at this time agitating Europe; and although his tendency was strongly in favor of the Rationalists against the Mystics, he was afraid lest the poetical spirit should be swept away along with the prophetical. In one word, he was in a state of religious doubt-' destitute of faith, yet terrified at scepticism.'

This unrest and this bodily weakness he carried with him, September 1768, from Leipsic to Frankfurt, whither we will follow him.

CHAPTER IV.

RETURN HOME.

He returned home a boy in years, in experience a man. Broken in health, unhappy in mind, with no strong impulses in any one direction, uncertain of himself and of his aims, he felt, as he approached his native city, much like a repentant prodigal, who has no vision of the fatted calf awaiting him. His father, unable to perceive the real progress he had made, was very much alive to the slender prospect of his becoming a distinguished jurist. The fathers of poets are seldom gratified with the progress visible in their sons. Only your perfectly stupid young gentlemen uniformly delight their parents: they tread the beaten path, whereon are placed milestones marking every distance; and the parents, seeing how far their sons have trudged, are freed from all misgivings. Of that silent progress which consists less in travelling on the broad highway, than in development of the limbs which will make a sturdy traveller, parents cannot judge.

Mother and sister, however, touched by the worn face, and, woman-like, more interested in the man than in what he has achieved, received him with an affection which compensated for the father's coldness. There is quite a pathetic glimpse given of this domestic interior in the Autobiography, where he alludes to his father's impatience

at his illness, and anxiety for his speedy recovery.* And we gladly escape from this picture to the Letters written from Frankfurt to his old love Käthchen Schönkoptf. † It appears that he left Leipsic without saying adieu. He thus refers to it:

6

Apropos, you will forgive me that I did not take leave of you. I was in the neighborhood, I was even below at the door; I saw the lamp burning and went to the steps, but I had not the courage to mount. For the last time how should I have come down again?

'Thus I now do what I ought to have done then: I thank you for all the love and friendship which you have constantly shown me, and which I shall never forget. I need not beg you to remember me, a thousand occasions will arise which must remind you of a man who for two years and a half was part of your family, who indeed often gave you cause for displeasure, but still was always a good lad, and whom it is to be hoped you will often miss; at least I often miss you.'

The tumor on his neck became alarming: the more so as the surgeons, uncertain about its nature, were wavering in their treatment. Frequent cauterization, and constant confinement to his room, were the worst parts of the cure. He read, drew and etched to wile away the time; and by the end of the year was pronounced recovered. This letter to Käthchen announces the recovery.

'You will doubtless have heard from Horn, on the new

* Dickens has, in a masterly manner, given us the same sort of feeling in Dombey, who cannot conceal his impatience at little Paul's illness, not because the child is ill, but because the illness interferes with his plans.

† Printed in Goethe's Briefe an seine Leipsiger Freunde. Herausgegeben von Otto Jahn.

year, the news of my recovery; and I hasten to confirm it. Yes, dear friend, it is over, and in future you must take it quietly, even if you hear- he is laid up again! You know that my constitution often makes a slip, and in eight days gets on its legs again; this time it was bad, and seemed yet worse than it was, and was attended with terrible pains. Misfortune is also a good. I have learned much in illness which I could have learned nowhere else in life. It is over, and I am quite brisk again, though for three whole weeks I have not left my room, and scarcely any one has visited me but my doctor, who, thank God! is an amiable man! An odd thing it is in us men when I was in lively society I was out of spirits, now I am forsaken by all the world; I am cheerful; for even throughout my illness my cheerfulness has comforted my family, who were not in a condition to comfort themselves, to say nothing of me. The new year's song which you have also received, I composed during an attack of great foolery, and had it printed for the sake of Besides this I draw a great deal, write tales, and am contented with myself. God give me, this new year, what is good for me; may He do the same for all of us, and if we pray for nothing more than this, we may certainly hope that He will give it us. If I can only get along till April, I shall easily reconcile myself to my condition. Then I hope things will be better; in particular my health may make progress daily, because it is now known precisely what is the matter with me. My lungs are as sound as possible, but there is something wrong at the stomach. And, in confidence, I have had hopes given me of a pleasant, enjoyable mode of life, so that my mind is quite cheerful and at rest. As soon as I am better again I shall go away into foreign countries, and it must depend only on you and another person how soon I shall see

amusement.