only drew the most notable men of the day to Weimar, but whose own intrinsically fine qualities kept them there. It is easy for a prince to assemble men of talent. It is not easy for a prince to make them remain beside him, in the full employment of their faculties, and in reasonable enjoyment of their position. Karl August was the prince who with the smallest means produced the greatest result in Germany. He was a man of restless activity. His eye was on every part of his dominions; his endeavors to improve the condition of the people were constant. In his tastes no man in Germany was so simple, except his dearest friend, Goethe, with whom, indeed, he had many cardinal points in common. I remember, on first seeing their busts together, being struck with a sort of faint family resemblance between them. Karl August might have been a younger brother, considerably animalized,' but still belonging to the family. They had both, on the paternal side, Thuringian blood in their veins; and in many respects Amalia and Frau Aja were akin. But while Karl August had the active, healthy, sensuous, pleasure-loving temperament of his friend, he wanted the tact, which never allowed Goethe, even in his wildest period, to overstep limits; he wanted the tenderness and chivalry which made the poet so uniformly acceptable to women. He was witty, but his bon-mots are mostly of that kind which, repeated after dinner, are not considered fit for drawing-room publication. Very characteristic is it of him, who had bestowed unusual pains in collecting a Bibliotheca Erotica, that when Schiller wrote the Maid of Orleans he fancied Schiller was going to give another version of La Pucelle, and abetted his mistress, the Frau von Heygendorf, in her refusal to play the part of the rehabilitated Maiden! He was rough, soldierly, brusque and imperious. He was at home when in garrison with

Prussian soldiers, but out of his element when at foreign Courts, and not always at ease in his own. Goethe describes him longing for his pipe at the Court of Brunswick in 1784: De son coté notre bon Duc s'ennuie terriblement, il cherche un interet, il n'y voudrait pas etre pour rien, la marche très bien mesurée de tout ce qu'on fait ici le gene, il faut qu'il renonce a sa chere pipe et une fee ne pourroit lui rendre un service plus agreable qu'en changant ce palais dans une cabane de charbonnier.'* In a letter (unprinted), he writes to Goethe, then at Jena, saying he longs to be with him to watch sunrise and sunset, for he can't see the sunset in Gotha, hidden as it is by the crowd of courtiers, who are so comme il faut, and know their fish duty' with such terrible accuracy, that every evening he feels inclined to give himself to the devil. His delight, when not with soldiers, was to be with dogs, or with his poet alone in their simple houses, discussing philosophy, and 'talking of lovely things that conquer death.' He mingled freely with the people. At Ilmenau he and Goethe put on the miners' dress, descended into the mines, and danced all night with peasant girls. Riding across country, over rock and stream, in manifest peril of his neck; teazing the maids of honor, sometimes carrying this so far as to offend his more princely wife ; wandering alone with his dogs, or with some joyous companion; seeking excitement in wine, and in making love to pretty women, without much respect of station; offending by his roughness and wilfulness, though never estranging his friends — Karl August, often grieving his admirers, was, with all his errors, a genuine and admirable character. His intellect was active, his judgment, both of men and things, sound and keen. Once, when there was a

* Briefe an Frau von Stein, iii. p. 85. The French is Goethe's, as also spelling and accent, or rather want of accent

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discussion about appointing Fichte as professor at Jena, one of the opponents placed a work of Fichte's in the Duke's hands, as sufficient proof that such a teacher could not hold a chair. Karl August read the book - and appointed Fichte. He had great aims; he also had the despotic will which bends circumstances to its determined issues. 'He was always in progress,' said Goethe to Eckermann; when anything failed, he dismissed it at once from his mind. I often bothered myself how to excuse this or that failure; but he ignored every shortcoming in the cheerfulest way, and always went forward to something new.'

Such was Karl August, as I conceive him from the letters of the period, and from the reports of those who knew him. Eight years younger than Goethe, he attached himself to him as to a brother. We shall see this attachment and its reciprocal influences in the following pages; clouds sometimes gather, quarrels and dissatisfaction are not absent (from what long friendship are they absent ?); but fifty years of mutual service and mutual love proved the genuineness of both their characters.

Among the Weimar notables, Frau von Stein must always have conspicuous eminence. In a future chapter we shall learn more of her. Enough for the present to say that she was Hofdame (Lady of Honor) to the Duchess Amalia, and for many years the passionately loved idol of Goethe. Beside her we may mention the Countess von Werther, who was to Karl August what the Baroness von Stein was to Goethe. She, as is well known, is the original of the charming Countess in Wilhelm Meister, and her husband was still more eccentric than the eccentric Count. It is related of him that once when the Duke and some other illustrious guests were in his chateau, he

collected several of his peasants, dressed them in his livery, and blacked their faces to make them pass as negroes!

6

To close this list we have Major von Knebel, the translator of Lucretius and Propertius, an honest, upright, satirical republican, the intimate friend of Karl August and Goethe, the philanthropic Timon,' as Herder called him, severe against all shams and insincerities, but loving the human nature he declaimed against. As one looks upon his rough, genial, Socratic head, one seems to hear the Jo! Jo! issuing from his mouth; as one reads his correspondence, the accents of an independent, thoroughly honest nature, give weight to what he says.

I have omitted Herder. He did not come to Weimar till after Goethe, and indeed was drawn there by Goethe, whose admiration for him, begun at Strasburg, continued unabated. The strange bitterness and love of sarcasm in Herder's nature, which could not repel the young student, did not alter the affection of the man. In one of Goethe's unpublished letters to the Duchess Amalia, there is an urgent appeal on behalf of Herder, whose large family had to be supported on very straitened means ; the Duke had promised to provide for one of the children, and Goethe writes to Amalia, begging her to do the same for another. No answer coming to this appeal, or at any rate no prompt notice being taken, he writes again more urgently, adding, that if she does not provide for the child, he (Goethe), out of his small income, will! And this was at a time when Herder was most bitter against Goethe. Well might Merck exclaim: No one can withstand the disinterestedness of this man!'

CHAPTER

III.

THE FIRST WILD WEEKS AT WEIMAR.

THIS was the circle into which Goethe entered in all the splendor of youth, beauty and fame: Youth, which, according to the fine conception of the Greeks, is the herald of Venus;' Beauty, which those Greeks adored as the splendor of Truth; and Fame, which has at all times been a halo dazzling to mortal eyes. Thus equipped for conquest, how can we wonder that he conquered? Even Amalia, angry with him for having ridiculed her darling Wieland, could not withstand the magic of his presence. Her love of genius left her no choice. She was fascinated by his wild ways, and by his splendid talents. One moment he startled her with a paradox, the next moment he sprang from his seat, waltzing and whirling round the room with antics which made her scream with laughter. And Wieland? - he was conquered at once. He shall speak for himself, in a letter written after their first interview: How perfectly I felt at the first glance, he was a man after my own heart! How I loved the magnificent youth as I sat beside him at table! All that I can say (after more than one crisis which I have endured) is this; since that morning my soul is as full of Goethe as a dew drop of the morning sun. I believe the Godlike creature will remain longer with us than he intended; and if Weimar can do anything, his presence will accomplish