partly because he liked not the intercourse of plain citizens with princes, partly because the recent experience of Voltaire with Frederick the Great seemed to point to an inevitable termination in disgrace, if not evaded by servility. His consent was extorted at last, however, and Goethe quitted forever the paternal roof. BOOK THE FOURTH. THE GENIALISCH-PERIOD IN WEIMAR. 1775 to 1779. • Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes ? Quem sese ore ferens ! quam forti pectore et armis ! Credo equidem, nec vana fides, genus esse Deorum.' Virgil. Tolle Zeiten hab' ich erlebt und hab' nicht ermangelt, Selbst auch thöricht zu sein wie es die Zeit mir gebot.' 27* BOOK THE FOURTH. CHAPTER I. WEIMAR IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ON the 7th of November, 1775, Goethe, aged twentysix, arrived at the little city on the banks of the Ilm, where his long residence was to confer on an insignificant Duchy the immortal renown of a German Athens. Small indeed is the space occupied on the map by the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar; yet the historian of the German Courts declares, and truly, that after Berlin there is no Court of which the nation is so proud.* Frederick the Great and Wolfgang Goethe have raised these Courts into centres of undying interest. Of Weimar it is necessary we should form a distinct idea, if we would understand the outward life of the poet. Klein ist unter den Fürsten Germaniens freilich der meine, 'Small among German princes is mine, poor and narrow his kingdom, limited his power of doing good.' Thus * Vehse: Geschichte der Deutschen Höfe seit der Reformation, vol. xxviii. p. 3. |