celebration, the tragedy presented to the people great isolated actions of their fathers with the pure simplicity of perfection; it stirred thorough and great emotions in souls because it was itself thorough and great. And in what souls? Greek souls! I cannot explain to myself what that expresses, but I feel it, and appeal for the sake of brevity to Homer and Sophocles, and Theocritus; they have taught me to feel it. "Now hereupon I immediately ask: Frenchman, what wilt thou do with the Greek armour? it is too strong and too heavy for thee. "Hence, also, French tragedies are parodies of themselves. How regularly everything goes forward, and how they are as like each other as shoes, and tiresome withal, especially in the fourth act,— all this, gentlemen, you know from experience, and I say nothing about it. "Who it was that first thought of bringing great political actions on the stage I know not; this is a subject which affords an opportunity to the amateur for a critical treatise. I doubt whether the honour of the invention belongs to Shakspeare; it is enough that he brought this species of drama to the pitch which still remains the highest, for few eyes can reach it, and thus it is scarcely to be hoped that any one will see beyond it or ascend above it. Shakspeare, my friend! if thou wert yet amongst us, I could live nowhere but with thee; how gladly would I play the subordinate character of a Pylades, if thou wert Orestes; yes, rather than be a venerated highpriest in the temple of Delphos. "I will break off, gentlemen, and write more to-morrow, for I am in a strain which, perhaps, is not so edifying to you as it is heartfelt by me. "Shakspeare's dramas are a beautiful casket of rarities, in which the history of the world passes before our eyes on the invisible thread of time. His plots, to speak according to the ordinary style, are no plots, for his plays all turn upon the hidden point (which no philosopher has yet seen and defined), in which the peculiarity of our ego, the pretended freedom of our will, clashes with the necessary course of the whole. But our corrupt taste so beclouds our eyes, that we almost need a new creation to extricate us from this dark ness. "All French writers, and Germans infected with French taste, even Wieland, have in this matter, as in several others, done themselves little credit. Voltaire, who from the first made a profession of vilifying everything majestic, has here also shewn himself a genuine Thersites. If I were Ulysses, his back should writhe under my sceptre. Most of these critics object especially to Shakspeare's characters. And I cry, nature, nature! nothing so natural as Shakspeare's men. "There I have them all by the neck. Give me air that I may speak! He rivalled Prometheus, and formed his men feature by feature, only of colossal size; therein lies the reason that we do not recognise our brethren; and then he animated them with the breath of his mind; he speaks in all of them, and we perceive their relationship. "And how shall our age form a judgment as to what is natural? Whence can we be supposed to know nature, we who, from youth upwards, feel everything within us, and see everything in others, laced up and decorated? I am often ashamed before Shakspeare, for it often happens that at the first glance I think to myself I should have done that differently; but soon I perceive that I am a poor sinner, that nature prophecies through Shakspeare, and that my men are soap-bubbles blown from romantic fancies. "And now to conclude,-though I have not yet begun. What noble philosophers have said of the world, applies also to Shakspeare; —namely, that what we call evil is only the other side, and belongs as necessarily to its existence and to the Whole, as the torrid zone must burn and Lapland freeze, in order that there may be a temperate region. He leads us through the whole world, but we, enervated, inexperienced men, cry at every strange grasshopper that meets us: He will devour us. "Up, gentlemen! sound the alarm to all noble souls who are in the elysium of so-called good taste, where drowsy in tedious twilight they are half alive, half not alive, with passions in their hearts and no marrow in their bones; and because they are not tired enough to sleep, and yet are too idle to be active, loiter and shadowy life between myrtle and laurel bushes." yawn away their In these accents we hear the voice of the youth who wrote Götz with the Iron Hand. If the reader turn to the Autobiography and see there what is said of Shakspeare, he will be able to appreciate what I meant in saying that the tone of the Autobiography is unlike the reality. The tone of this speech is that of the famous Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) period, which in after life became so very objectionable to him. How differently Schiller was affected by Shakspeare may be read in the following confession:-" When at an early age I first grew acquainted with this poet, I was indignant at his coldness-indignant with the insensibility which allowed him to jest and sport amidst the highest pathos. Led by my knowledge of more modern poets to seek the poet in his works; to meet and sympathize with his heart; to reflect with him over his object; it was insufferable to me that this poet gave me nothing of himself. Many years had he my reverence-certainly my earnest study, before I could comprehend his individuality. I was not yet fit to comprehend nature at first hand." The enthusiasm for Shakspeare naturally incited Goethe to dramatic composition, and, besides Götz and Faust before mentioned, we find in his Note-book the commencement of a drama on Julius Cæsar. Three forms rise up from out the many influences of Strasburg into distinct and memorable importance: Frederika; Herder; the Cathedral. An exquisite woman, a noble thinker, and a splendid monument, were his guides into the regions of Passion, Poetry, and Art. The influence of the Cathedral was great enough to make him write the little tractate on German architecture D. M. Erwini à Steinbach; the enthusiasm of which was so incomprehensible to him in after years, that he was with difficulty persuaded to reprint the tractate among his works. Do we not see here-as in so many other traits-how different the youth is from the child and man? How thoroughly he had entered into the spirit of Gothic architecture is indicated by the following anecdote. In company with some friends he was admiring the Strasburg Cathedral, when one remarked, "What a pity it was not finished, and that there should be only one steeple." Upon this he answered, "It is a matter of equal regret to me to see this solitary steeple unfinished; the four spiral staircases leave off too abruptly at the top; they ought to have been surmounted by four light pinnacles, with a higher one rising in the centre instead of the clumsy mass." Some one, turning round to him, asked him who told him that? "The tower itself," he answered; "I have studied it so long, so attentively, and with so much love, that it has at last confessed to me its open secret." Whereupon his questioner informed him that the tower had spoken truly, and offered to show him the original sketches, which still existed among the archives. Inasmuch as in England many professed admirers of architecture appear imperfectly acquainted with the revival of the taste for Gothic art, it may not be superfluous to call attention to the fact that Goethe was among the very first to recognise the peculiar beauty of that style, at a period when classical, or pseudo-classical, taste was everywhere dominant. It appears that he was in friendly correspondence with Sulpiz Boisserée, the artist who made the restored design of the Cologne Cathedral; from whom he doubtless learned much. And we see by the Wahlverwandtschaften that he had a portfolio of designs illustrative of the principle of the pointed style. This was in 1809, when scarcely any one thought of the Gothic; long before Victor Hugo had written his Notre Dame de Paris; long before Pugin and Ruskin had thrown their impassioned energy into this revival; at a time when the church in Langham Place was thought beautiful, and the Temple Church was considered an eyesore. And now he was to leave Strasburg,-to leave Frederika. Much as her presence had troubled him of late, in her absence he only thought of her fascinations. He had not ceased to love her, though he already felt she never would be his. He went to say adieu. "Those were painful days, of which I remember nothing. When I held out my hand to her from my horse, the tears were in her eyes, and I felt sad at heart. As I rode along the footpath to Drusenheim a strange phantasy took hold of me. I saw in my mind's eye my own figure riding towards me, attired in a dress I had never worn— pike grey with gold lace. I shook off this phantasy, but eight years afterwards I found myself on the very road, going to visit Frederika, and that too in the very dress which I had seen myself in, in this phantasm, although my wearing it was quite accidental." The reader will probably be somewhat sceptical respecting the dress, and will suppose that this prophetic detail was afterwards transferred to the vision by the imagination of later years.*. And so farewell Frederika, bright and exquisite vision of a poet's youth! We love you, pity you, and think how differently we should have treated you! We make pilgrimages to Sesenheim as to Vaucluse, and write legibly our names in the Visitors' Album, to testify so much. And we read, not without emotion, narratives such as that of the worthy philologist Näke, who in 1822 made the first pilgrimage,† thinking, as he went, of this enchanting Frederika (and somewhat also of a private Frederika of his own), examined every rood of the ground, dined meditatively at the inn (with a passing reflection that the bill was larger than he anticipated), took coffee with the pastor's successor; and, with a sentiment touching in a philologist, bore away a sprig of the jessamine which in days gone by had been tended by the white hands of Frederika, and placed it in his pocket-book as an imperishable souvenir. The correspondence with the Frau von Stein contains a letter written by him a day or two after this visit, but, singularly enough, no mention of this coincidence. + Die Wahlfahrt nach Sesenheim. BOOK THE THIRD. 1771 to 1775. "Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, "Trunken müssen wir alle seyn: Jugend ist Trunkenheit ohne Wein." "They say best men are moulded out of faults, CHAPTER I. DR. GOETHE'S RETURN. On the 25th or 28th of August 1771, he quitted Strasburg. His way led through Mannheim; and there he was first thrilled by the beauty of ancient masterpieces, some of which he saw in plaster cast. Whatever might be his predilection for Gothic Art, he could not view these casts without feeling himself in presence of an Art in its way also divine; and his previous study of Lessing lent a peculiar interest to the Laokoon group, now before his eyes. Passing on to Mainz he fell in with a young wandering harpist, and invited the ragged minstrel to Frankfurt, promising him a public in the Fair, and a lodging in his father's house. It was lucky that he thought of acquainting his mother with this invitation. Alarmed at its imprudence, she secured a lodging in the town, and so the boy wanted neither shelter nor patronage. Rath Goethe was not a little proud of the young Doctor. He was also not a little disturbed by the young Doctor's manners; and often shook his ancient respectable head at the opinions which exploded like bombshells in the midst of conventions. Doctoral gravity was but slightly attended to by this young hero of the Sturm und Drang. The revolutionary movement known by the title of the Storm and |