mer of 1782. The charming text, beginning with the famous Erl-König, is preserved in Goethe's works. The piece was represented in the Tiefurt park, partly on the bank of the Ilm near the bridge, partly on the Ilm itself, which was illuminated with numerous torches and lamps. Under lofty alders against the river were placed scattered huts of fishermen; nets, boats and fishing implements stood around. On Dortchen's (Corona Schröter) hearth fire was burning. At the moment in which the fishermen, who had been called together, lighted their strips of wood and torches, and spread themselves with their brilliant lights in boats and on the banks of the river, to search for the lost maiden, the light flashed suddenly up from the necks of land which stretched forward into the Ilm, illumigating the nearest objects, and showing their reflection in the water, while the more distant groups of trees and hills lay in deep night. The spectators had assembled in great numbers, and as they crowded on the wooden bridge, the better to catch the magical effect of the illumination on the water, their weight crushed the bridge in, and the eager gazers fell into the river. No one, however, was injured. The involuntary bathers were heartily laughed at, and the accident was regarded as an amusing interlude.

I find further that when the Birds' of Aristophanes was performed at Ettersburg, the actors were all dressed in real feathers, their heads completely covered, though free to move. Their wings flapped, their eyes rolled, and ornithology was absurdly parodied. It is right to add, that besides these extravagances and ombres chinoises, there were very serious dramatic efforts: among them we find Goethe's second dramatic attempt, Die Mitschuldigen, which was thus cast:

Little did the Leipsic student, when writing that comedy, imagine he would one day perform it at the court of Weimar! Another play was the Geschwister, written in three evenings, it is said out of love for the sweet eyes of Amalia Kotzebue, sister of the dramatist, then a youth. Kotzebue thus touches the point in his Memoirs : ' Goethe had at that time just written his charming piece, Die Geschwister. It was performed at a private theatre at Weimar, he himself playing William and my sister Mariane while to me, yes to me was allotted the important part of postillion! My readers may imagine with what exultation I trod the stage for the first time before the mighty public itself.' Another piece was Cumberland's West Indian, in which the Duke played Major O'Flaherty, Eckhoff (the great actor) the Father, and Goethe Belcour, dressed in a white coat with silver lace, blue silk vest, and blue silk knee breeches, in which they say he looked superb.

While mentioning these, I must not pass over the Iphigenia (then in prose), which was thus cast:

Never shall. I forget,' exclaims Dr. Hufeland, the impression Goethe made as Orestes, in his Grecian costume; one might have fancied him Apollo. Never before had there been seen such union of physical and intellectual beauty in one man!' His acting, as far as I can learn,

had the ordinary defects of amateur acting; it was impetuous and yet stiff, exaggerated and yet cold; and his fine sonorous voice displayed itself without nice reference to shades of meaning. In comic parts, on the other hand, he seems to have been excellent; the broader the fun, the more at home he felt; and one can imagine the rollicking animal spirits with which he animated the Marktschreier in the Plundersweiler; one can picture him in that extravagance of the Gepflichtes Braut,* giving vent to his sarcasm on the sentimental' tone of the age, ridiculing his own Werther, and merciless to Woldemar.t

6

I have thus brought together, irrespective of dates, the scattered indications of these theatrical amusements. How much enjoyment was produced by them! what social pleasure! and what endless episodes to which memory recurred in after times, when seated round the dinner table! Nor were these amusements profitless. Wilhelm Meister was designed and partly written about this period, and the reader who knows Goethe's tendency to make all his works biographical, will not be surprised at the amount of theatrical experience which is mir rored in that work; nor at the earnestness which is there made to lurk beneath amusement, so that what to the crowd seems no more than a flattery of their tastes, is to the man himself a process of the highest culture.

Boar-hunting in the light of early dawn, sitting in the middle of the day in grave diplomacy and active council rehearsing during the afternoon, and enlivening the even

* Published under a very mitigated form, as the Triumph der Empfindsamkeit. See the next chapter for further notice of this piece.

† Jacobi and Wieland were both seriously offended with his parodies of their writings; but both soon became reconciled to him.

The

ing with grotesque serenades or torchlight sledgings — thus passed many of his days; not to mention flirtations, balls, masquerades, concerts and verse-writing. muse was, however, somewhat silent, though Hans Sachs' poetische Sendung, Lila, some charming lyrics, and the dramas and operas written for the occasion, forbid the accusation of idleness. He was storing up materials. Faust, Egmont, Tasso, Iphigenia and Meister were germinating.

As

The muse was silent, but was the soul inactive? these strange and variegated scenes passed before his eyes, was he a mere actor, and not also a spectator? Let his works answer. To some indeed it has seemed as if in thus lowering great faculties to the composition of slight operas and festive pieces, Goethe was faithless to his mission, false to his own genius. This is but a repetition of Merck's exclamation against Clavigo, and may be answered from the same point of view. Herder thought that the Chosen One should devote himself to great works. This is the pedantry of a man of letters who can conceive no other aim than the production of great works. But Goethe needed to live as well as to write. Life is multiplied and rendered infinite by Feeling and Knowledge. He sought both to feel and to know. The great works he has written works vast in conception, austerely grand in execution, the fruits of earnest toil and lonely self-seclusion ought to shield him now from any charge of wasting his time on frivolities, though to Herder and Merck such a point of view was denied.

It was his real artistic nature and genuine poetic mobility which made him scatter with so prodigal a hand the trifles which distressed his friends. Poetry was the melodious voice breathing from his entire manhood, not a profession, not an act of duty. It was an impulse; the sounding

ous.

chords of his poetic nature vibrated to every touch, grave and stately, sweet and impassioned, delicate and humorHe wrote not for Fame. He wrote not for Pence. He wrote poetry because he had lived it; and sang as the bird sings on its bough. Open to every impression, touched to ravishment by beauty, he sang whatever at the moment filled him with delight now trilling a careless snatch of melody, now a simple ballad, now a majestic hymn ascending from the depths of his soul on incensebearing rhythms, and now a grave quiet chaunt, slow with its rich burden of meanings. Men in whom the productive activity is great cannot be restrained from throwing off trifles, as the plant throws off buds beside the expanded flowers. Michael Angelo carved the Moses and painted the Last Judgment, but did he not also lend his masterhand to the cutting of graceful cameos?