Chapter VIII: Part 8

Schiller writhed under this discipline, which, to those who yielded patiently and uncomplainingly, might have been a death-blow to personal independence. In one of his letters to a young friend he wrote, "Do not imagine that I shall bow to the yoke of this absurd and revolting routine. So long as my spirit can assert its freedom it will not submit to fetters. To the free man the sight of slavery is abhorrent; to calmly survey the chains by which he is bound is not possible. My soul often revolts at the anticipation of punishment in cases where I am satisfied that my actions are reasonable." The masters of the academy had a difficult task to subdue the spirit of such a youth, and it was fortunate for literature that they did not succeed. The poet's wings would not be clipped, and in spite of the restrictions by which he was surrounded, Schiller pursued his imaginative course, and found time to feed upon the poetry he adored. To Klopstock's works he was specially indebted; that poet's "Messiah" and Virgil's "Æneid" may be said to have been the first solid stones in the foundation upon which his fame was to rest. There were, it is true, but slight traces of originality in a poem he wrote at this period, the hero of which was the prophet Moses, and it was due to the religious sentiment by which he was powerfully affected through Klopstock's works, that he chose such a subject. It had been decided that the church was to be his career, but he soon abandoned the idea, and transferred his affections to medicine, which he studied assiduously, without neglecting the groove to which his genius was leading him by slow but sure steps. Gerstenberg's great tragedy, "Ugolino," fell by chance into his hands, and gave him a new impetus; "Goetz von Berlichingen" fascinated him; and then came a revelation from a greater poet than all. Shakespeare, whose works he loved and revered with passionate ardor, and to emulate whom was perhaps the greatest ambition of his life. He was seventeen when he first saw himself in print. He wrote a poem called "Evening," which he sent to Haug's "Swabian Magazine;" it possessed no particular merit, and was chiefly remarkable for its resemblance to the works he had read and admired; but the editor spoke of it in terms of praise, and predicted that its author would become an honor to Germany. He wrote in secret, and was already busy sketching "The Robbers," and writing scenes in that famous drama; he and his young friends used to meet clandestinely and declaim their compositions, concealing their manuscripts when their rooms were searched and inspected by the ushers and masters. He suffered intensely in his friendships, and his letters breathed rather the spirit of a man who had lived to see his fondest idols shattered, than that of a youth who had scarcely reached his spring-time. In his criticisms upon himself he was unsparingly harsh, and long after "The Robbers" had been declared to be a work of the highest genius, he penned the following remarkable condemnation of the play: "An extraordinary mistake of nature doomed me, in my birthplace, to be a poet. An inclination for poetry was an offence against the laws of the institution in which I was educated. For eight years my enthusiasm had to struggle with military discipline; but a passion for poetry is strong and ardent as first love. It only served to inflame what it was designed to extinguish. To escape from things that were a torment to me my soul expatiated in an ideal world; but, unacquainted with the real world, from which I was separated by iron bars--unacquainted with mankind, for the four hundred fellow-creatures around me were but one and the same individual, or rather faithful casts from the same model which plastic nature solemnly disowned--unacquainted with the passions and propensities of independent agents, for here only one arrived at maturity (one that I shall not now mention)--unacquainted with the fair sex, for it is well known that the doors of this institution are not open to females, except before they begin to be interesting and when they have ceased to be so--my pencil could not but miss that middle line between angels and devils, and produce a monster, which fortunately had no existence in the world, and to which I wish immortality merely that it may serve as a specimen of the issue engendered by the unnatural union of subordination and genius. I allude to 'The Robbers.' The whole moral world had accused the author of high treason. He has no other excuse to offer than the climate under which this piece was born. If any of the numberless censures launched against 'The Robbers' be just, it is this, that I had the presumption to delineate men two years before I knew anything about them." He was but twenty-one when The "Robbers" appeared in print and was produced upon the stage, and while he was hailed on all sides as the German Shakespeare, he lived in want and extreme privation.

Duke Carl was deeply incensed by the patriotic and independent sentiments of the poet, and he sent an official mandate to Schiller, ordering him to discontinue all further literary work and composition. To disobey the despotic command and to remain in the Duke's service, would have entailed imprisonment. He resolved upon flight from Solitude, and on the night following that on which "The Robbers" was being enacted for the first time in Hamburg to a crowded and enthusiastic audience, he fled, with a friend, from his fatherland to pursue his eventful and turbulent career. A description of his appearance at this period is extant: "He was cramped into a uniform of the old Prussian cut, that on army surgeons had an even uglier, stiffer look; his little military hat barely covered his crown, behind which hung a long queue, while round his neck was screwed a horse-hair stock several sizes too small. More wondrous, however, was the nether part of him. Owing to the padding of his long, white gaiters, his legs seemed thicker at the calf than at the thigh. Moving stiffly about in these blacking-stained gaiters, with knees rigid and unbent, he reminded one irresistibly of a stork." Freed now by his own bold act from military slavery, Schiller entered Mannheim with joyful hopes. With the manuscript of "Fiesco" under his arm, he called upon the régisseur, Meyer, in whose house he read two acts of the play before a company of actors. His hopes were speedily dashed to the ground; when he finished reading the second act every actor but one had left the room, and Meyer thrust a dagger into the poet's heart by declaring that "Fiesco" was nothing but high-flown rubbish. Having, however, heard but two acts of the play, and probably stirred to compassion by Schiller's mournful countenance, the régisseur requested that the manuscript should be left with him; and the following morning the poet was compensated for the intervening night of misery, by hearing Meyer proclaim that "Fiesco" was a masterpiece, and that the bad effect it had produced was due to the villainous manner in which Schiller had read his verse. Notwithstanding this favorable opinion, which was endorsed by others who read the play, it was with great difficulty that Schiller succeeded in obtaining a publisher for the drama, and then he was in an agony to see the public criticisms upon it. Meanwhile he was working at fever heat on "Marie Stuart" and "Don Carlos." Into this last work he threw all his heart and soul, spurred on, doubtless, by the passion of love, which now for the first time possessed him. The object of his affections was Charlotte von Wolzogen, whom he had met in Stuttgart, and into whose society he was now thrown. He experienced all an ardent lover's joys and tortures. "It is fearful," he wrote, "to live apart from humanity, without some sympathizing soul; yet no less fearful is it to cling to some kindred heart from which, sooner or later, in a world where nothing stands sure, one must wrench oneself, bleeding, away." On January 10, 1784, he was elected a member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft, and on the following day "Fiesco" was produced. Its first representation was but a partial success. It met with more favor on its second performance on the 18th. Its third representation was less favorable, and then it was quietly laid aside. His suit with Charlotte did not prosper, and he relinquished the hope of winning her. He was despondent and in debt. He owed money to Charlotte's mother and to his father; but he struggled on, and in the latter part of the year he issued a prospectus of a new journal, "Thalia," which was to make his fortune--an anticipation which was not realized. The journal was to be published six times a year; philosophy, biography, literary reviews, and dramatic criticisms were to be its leading features; and he threw himself into the task with enthusiasm. The difficulties he encountered were tremendous; these, with his love affairs (for Charlotte von Wolzogen was not the only woman upon whom he set his affections), the labor entailed by "Thalia," and the numberless ideas for fresh romance with which his brain was teeming, would have broken down most men; but though he repined at reverses, he rose continually superior to them. Long before "Don Carlos" was finished he commenced "The Ghostseer," in which he intended to develop an idea which had originally formed the scheme of "Friedrich Imhof." His life was a kind of fever; with his ardent friendships, his susceptible passions, his pecuniary anxieties, and his fertile brain forever at work, he knew no rest. He had removed to Jena, the capital of Saxe-Weimar, and at that time the literary centre of Germany. The Prince Charles Augustus and his famous mother, the Princess Amalia, made him welcome and encouraged him. A gleam of sunshine now shone upon him; and he saw a prospect of domestic happiness. He fell in love with Charlotte von Lengenfeld, and in 1789 they were engaged. On February 22, 1790, the fond couple were married at the little village church of Wenigen-Jena. It was a simple wedding. "We spent the evening in quiet talk over our tea," wrote Lotte, sixteen years after, when she was a widow. It was a happy union, and the honeymoon was short, for Schiller had no time for idleness. This year he wrote his "History of the Thirty Years' War," and had the satisfaction of hearing it highly praised in influential quarters. He had never enjoyed such happiness as now, his only sorrow in the early months of his marriage arising from a brief separation from his wife, who had to go to Rudolstadt for her mother's birthday.

In one of his letters to her he says, "Your dear picture is ever before me; all seems to speak to me of where the little wife walked, and My Lady Comfort" (Lotte's sister, Caroline) "sat enthroned. And to feel that my hand can always reach what my heart would have near it, to feel that we are inseparable, _that_ is a sense which I unceasingly foster in my bosom, finding it exhaustless and ever new." Recognition of his genius came from all sides, from Goethe, Wieland, Körner; and by the press he was hailed as the Shakespeare of Germany. He needed some such encouragement, for he was attacked by a dangerous illness, which was aggravated by pecuniary troubles; had it not been for his wife's tender care he could scarcely have recovered, and it was well for him and for his country that there came to him at this crisis an offer from the Hereditary Prince and Count von Schimmelmann, of a thousand thalers per annum for three years, in order that he might obtain the rest needed for his restoration to health. "I am freed for a long time," he wrote joyfully to his dear friend Körner, "perhaps forever, from all care." To the generous donor he said, "I have to pay my debt, not to you, but to mankind. That is the common altar where you lay down your gifts and I my gratitude." The method he adopted to recruit his health was to begin to work again. The French National Assembly conferred upon several celebrated foreigners the right of citizenship, and at this distance of time it is strange to read the name of the German Schiller among them. Though seldom free from suffering, which was frequently so acute that he spoke of it as torture, it was a proof of his indomitable spirit that during his last decade he achieved his most memorable triumphs; and yet, in the height of his powers, his youthful dread returned to him, and he expressed a doubt whether he had not mistaken his vocation. The encouragement of Goethe went far to sustain him; between these two great poets existed a warm friendship, and Goethe showed his confidence in Schiller by asking him to correct "Egmont" for the stage. But still he desponded, and it was not till he read Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister" that the full force of poetic fervor awoke within him. "Wallenstein" had been laid aside; he took it up again with glowing feelings; he wrote "The Glove" and "The Ring of Polycrates;" he revised "The Ghostseer" for a new edition, and later on he had the joy of witnessing a masterly performance of the part of Wallenstein by the fine actor, Graff. Following his great dramatic trilogy, "The Camp of Wallenstein," "The Piccolomini," and "The Death of Wallenstein" (the English rights in which he sold to Bell, the publisher, for £60). Schiller now devoted himself to "Mary Stuart" and "Macbeth," and still farther undermined his health by regularly burning the midnight oil. On May 14, 1790, "Macbeth" was performed, and received with tumultuous applause; three days before this performance he had read to the players the first four acts of "Mary Stuart," and when the last and fifth act was written he said to Körner, "I am only now beginning to understand my trade." Following "Mary Stuart," he wrote "The Maid of Orleans," and then he was absorbed in what is perhaps the greatest of his works, "William Tell," the first reading of which took place in Goethe's house on March 6, 1804. On the 9th it was rehearsed at the theatre, and on the very next day he commenced a new drama, "Demetrius, or, The Bloody Bridal of Moscow," thus following out, as indeed he had done throughout the whole of his career, his axiom that life without industry was valueless. "William Tell" was a triumphant success, and may be said to have been the last leaf in his laurel wreath, for he was destined not to live long after this great triumph. On May 9, 1805, he died, at the early age of forty-six, and all Germany mourned the loss. "Dear good one!" he said to his devoted wife, fondling her hand and kissing it the day before his death. It is recorded that in his last hours he spoke of hearing in his dreams the pealing of a bell. It may be that his own beautiful poem, "The Song of the Bell," was in his mind, and that, with the conviction that death was nigh, the fancy was inspired by the lines in his poem:

"And as the strains die on the ear
That it peals forth with tuneful might,
So let it teach that nought lasts here,
That all things earthly take their flight."

[Signature of the author.]

GOETHE[10]

[Footnote 10: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE

(1749-1832)

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born on August 28, 1749, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, one of the free cities of Germany. He died in Weimar, in Saxony, at the age of eighty-two, on March 22, 1832.

In any classification of the men of his time it is impossible to rank him, especially, among men of letters generally, or as a poet, or as a naturalist. He is especially what our time is fond of calling "an all-round man." But he differs from most men who are thus praised, because he is the acknowledged leader of the thought of the first half of the century. He does equally well all that he does. If in the year 1850 anyone had asked who was the first poet of the preceding half century, Goethe would have been named by almost all who answered. If you had asked who was the first man of letters, he would have been named by all. It was certain that his philosophy of human life affected the thought of the students and scholarly people of Europe and America more than that of any other author of his time. Indeed, to this hour, many an humble listener or reader receives suggestions, from the pulpit or the newspaper, of which he does not know the origin, but which are in truth born from some suggestion of Goethe.

It is natural to attempt to account for so remarkable a man, in a measure at least, by tracing back his genealogy. Goethe himself gave some attention to the study of his ancestry, and his biographers have worked at it faithfully. But their work gives no confirmation to the doctrines of heredity which are so well supported in other lives. His father, Johann Caspar Goethe, was a respectable member of the city government of Frankfort, with the title of imperial councillor. He had a craving for knowledge, a delight in communicating it, a love of order, and a certain stoicism, which appear in his son. But there is no ray of genius apparent in him. His father was a respectable tailor in the city of Frankfort, named Frederick. Frederick's father was a farrier or blacksmith in Thuringia, named Hans Christian Goethe. In neither of these ancestors is found any germ of the poet's genius.

On the other hand, the successful life of Wolfgang von Goethe is one more instance, in a large number afforded in the history of the last two centuries, which show that a good education under prosperous circumstances, with the appliances which tend to health of body, mind, and soul, is a very fortunate help to native genius, when native genius finds itself in such surroundings. In the imperial councillor's house his son had every comfort. He was surrounded by pictures books, medals, and other works of art. His reasonable wishes could all be gratified. And he knew none of the hardships which, if they are sometimes the stimulus of genius, more often make its penance.

To his mother he seems to have owed more of the qualities which have made him distinguished. He says himself that his love of story-telling came from her, and his happy disposition. She taught him how he could find the good which is in everyone, and her own habit was to leave people's vices to the God who made them. Much more than this, Goethe had at home the blessing, which cannot be overestimated, of the presence of a sister who shared in his tastes, who joined in his studies, and whom he loved with a passionate affection. He could pour out his enthusiasms to her; she poured out hers to him. So that both of them were blessed through their childhood in that greatest of blessings, a happy home.

He was a precocious boy, and his father and mother both observed his remarkable abilities. There was no lack of good teachers in Frankfort, and he was well trained in the classics in early life. He also studied Hebrew at the same time, having the advantage of the instruction of learned Jews who lived in Frankfort. There never was any question but that he should go to the university. His father's wish was that he should enter upon the career of what he would have called jurisprudence. With this view some of the younger Goethe's earlier studies were conducted. But, before he was old enough to take any very decided steps in the profession of law, his determination to follow a wider literary career became so evident that the plan of jurisprudence was eventually entirely abandoned.

When he was sixteen years old he went to Leipsic, and entered at the university there, in the month of October, 1765. The university was classed in the "Four Nations," as they were called--the Misnian, the Saxon, the Bavarian, and the Polish. Goethe was from Frankfort, and was classed as a Bavarian. His father left him wide freedom in the choice of subjects and teachers, and though he attended some lectures which bore on subjects of jurisprudence, he was more interested in the wider range of natural science and of general literature. It would seem that he learned more from the people around him in whose society he was intimately thrown than from his professors. He tried his hand in fine art, occupied himself in drawing, and even in engraving. Although the three years spent in Leipsic show but little which is remarkable in any scientific course of study, it is quite clear that he laid foundations here which were of use to him in all his future life. But at the end of three years his health was seriously affected. He was depressed in hypochondria, and was physically ill. He was "destitute of faith, yet terrified at scepticism," and he returned to his home in 1768, discouraged and physically broken down.

But a year and a half of the regularity of home life, quite different from his Bohemian courses at the university--a life inspired by his mother's and his sister's love--and a physical life sustained by a home diet which was so much better than a student's fare, wholly restored him, and in April, 1770, he went to the University of Strasburg, not far from Frankfort, now with the real purpose of studying jurisprudence. He was nearly twenty-one years old, in stature rather above the middle size, and because his presence was imposing he was generally spoken of as tall; but he was not really a tall man, but gave this impression by his erect carriage and because his bust was large. Long before he was celebrated, he was called an Apollo.

At Leipsic he had led the life of a boy. At Strasburg he knew men and entered on the interests of a man. Herder was there, whose reputation as a man of letters and a scholar, in after times, was to be in that great second class which would have been the first class but that there Goethe reigned alone. Herder was at Strasburg to undergo an operation for the benefit of his eyes. Goethe made his acquaintance, which ripened into friendship, and Herder's influence on the young Apollo was of the very best. Goethe remained in Strasburg from April, 1770, till August, 1771. He made the acquaintance of Frederike Brion, whose father was pastor of the little village of Sesenheim. Frederike was a fair, sweet girl of sixteen, and Goethe was for the time deeply interested in her; but she was to him little more than a child, and when he left Strasbourg she was soon forgotten. But she never forgot, and years after died unwedded. Goethe was now writing, with the versatility and the enthusiasm which marked all his literary work. Something or somebody acquainted him with the history of Goetz von Berlichingen, a name then little known, to which this young student has given its distinction.

We do not understand Goethe nor the enthusiasm with which Germany welcomed his earliest printed work, if we do not see how it was connected with the hatred of conventionalism and of mere authority, which in the German language was called _Sturm und Drang_.[11] In after life Goethe had none too much of enthusiasm for radical reformers. But as a young man, he breathed the atmosphere of his time. In the same way, in the year 1773, Schiller, a boy only fourteen years old, was writing verses which in 1778 he wrought into "The Robbers," appealing to all the enthusiasm for liberty in young Germany.

[Footnote 11: No one has translated this phrase well into
English. Mrs. Humphry Ward suggests "storm and stress."
_Drang_ is the origin of our word _throng_, and implies the
pressure, rush, and common purpose of a crowd.]

In the years which we are following, the young men of America were solving the political questions and preparing for the military struggles of the American Revolution. France was in the glow of hope which made even Louis XVI. himself suppose that a golden age was come again for Frenchmen. In England the protest against form and authority showed itself in signs as easily read as the letters of Junius and the Wilkes riots in London. The autocracy attempted by poor George III., in an attempt which cost him America, was only the most absurd imitation of the despotism of Louis XIV. In Germany, the revolt against the traditions of the past showed itself in the new outburst of national literature. Young men were sick of the sway of France and the French language, to which Frederick even had been so subservient. In all senses Frederick was now a very old lion--and there were those who said he had lost his teeth. To be German, to write and read German, to recall German memories, and to throw off conventional restraints of whatever kind--such was the drift and determination of the movement which received the excellent title of the "Sturm und Drang."

Soon after Goethe left Strasburg he printed his play of "Goetz von Berlichingen." The hero is a true character of history. He was born about the year 1480 and died in 1562. His life had been published in 1731, and Goethe made the drama on the lines of the true history. The play defies all the "unities" of the French drama, like the plays of Shakespeare, whom all the young Germans were reading with enthusiasm; and the action passes from place to place, and from year to year, just as the author chooses. The whole tendency of the drama is revolutionary, and as _Goetz_ dies, his last words are: "Freedom! Freedom!" His wife cries, "Only above, above with thee! The world is a prison-house." His sister says, "Gallant and gentle! Woe to this age that has lost thee!" And the last words of the play are: "And woe to the future that cannot know thee."

With such an appeal to all the fresh young life of Germany, the young author comes before the world. His play is received with enthusiasm and, at the first step, his genius is recognized by his countrymen.

Before it was published, he had returned to Frankfort, having in a way satisfied his father's wishes by his legal studies, and his career for his future calling is to begin in a residence at Weslar. This was the seat of the Court of Appeal of the old German Empire. How far justice was really promoted, may be seen from the single statement that, while the docket of cases was twenty thousand behindhand in 1772, only sixty decisions were made in a year. In what was called praxis or practice, the young Goethe was placed in a "circumlocution office" like Weslar. There is something ludicrous in the position, so absurd is it. To take Schiller's capital figure, it is indeed Pegasus in harness.

It happened that in this formal residence, he became intimately acquainted with Charlotte Buff and a young man named Kestner, to whom she was betrothed. They were fond of him, he of them, and he shared in the hospitalities of their new home after they were married. In the simple life of Kestner and Charlotte Buff and in the suicide of a young man named Jerusalem, whom they all knew, he found the details for the picture of life described in his celebrated novel called the "Sorrows of Young Werther," the novel most remarkable perhaps of modern times, if its influence on literature and society be regarded.

In the characters of the book, Werther, Lotte, and Albert show traits which were at once recognized as belonging to Goethe, Charlotte Buff, and Kestner. But it must not be understood that the intricate "elective affinities" of the novel really describe the personal relations of the three. To young readers it may be said that the transfer of the scientific term "elective affinity," from the new chemistry of that time, to the language of the affections, was first made in this book. It was afterward dwelt upon in the novel called "Elective affinities." The phrase has long since been used, now in ridicule and now seriously, quite as much in discussions of the working of the human heart as to express the relations of acids and alkalies.

It would be very hard to persuade the young people of to-day to read "The Sorrows of Werther." It would be hard to make them understand that for a generation of men, from 1774, when it was published, until this century was well advanced, people of sense and real feeling regarded it as a central and important book, which they valued because it had awakened them and given them strength. The English critics, when at last they found there was such a book, were content to laugh at its exaggerated sentiment. In truth, as Carlyle has well said, "'Werther' expressed the dim-rooted pain under which thoughtful men were languishing." Europe responded to "Werther," because, even in its sentimental languishing, it expressed this pain. America was finding another method of expressing her dissatisfaction in 1774. And it may be doubted whether from that day to the end of the century, a copy of the "Sorrows of Werther" was heard of in the United States, unless indeed the Baroness Riedesel soothed with it the more physical sorrows of the bivouacs of Saratoga, or the barracks of her captivity.

"Goetz von Berlichingen" and "Werther" made the young Goethe one of the foremost men in German literature. That theory of his boyhood, that he was to be a lawyer or jurisconsult, could be maintained no longer even by his father. The distinguished men of letters of Germany made his acquaintance, and it may be said that their company lifted him, very fortunately, from the petty society of persons inferior to him, among whom he was a dictator. As early as 1774 Goethe had conceived the idea of "Faust," and when Klopstock visited him at Frankfort, in that year, Goethe read to him some fragments of that poem.

The popularity of "Werther" was such that it was read by people of all ranks. Among the rest, the young Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, then only nineteen years old, conceived a great admiration for Goethe, and in 1774, on a visit to Frankfort, with his bride, he invited the young author to his little court at Weimar. Johann Goethe, the father, had the pride of a magistrate of a free city, and had no fancy for a part so poor as that which Voltaire had played, within his memory, at the court of King Frederick. But the office was tempting to the young author, and he accepted the invitation. This ended in his receiving from the duke a home at Weimar and recognized position. To those who study the inducements and encouragements of authorship, it is interesting to know that through all the success, before the public and with the booksellers, of "Goetz von Berlichingen" and "Werther," neither book had paid back to Goethe the money he had spent for their publication. Fame, and fame only, had been, thus far, his reward.

He went to Weimar as the friend of its young sovereign, who was just entering on a career which may fairly be called illustrious. Weimar was and is "more like a village bordering a park than a capital with a court, having all courtly environments." The representation it gave of the formalities, the "fuss and feathers" of a court, was on the most minute scale. But with a certain pride, well understood, a German historian has said, that after Berlin there is no one of the countless courts of Germany of which the nation is so proud. Such pride is born from the distinction which this grand duke, Karl August, gave to it, by calling into what was called his service, such men as Klopstock, Wieland, Goethe, and Schiller. This grand duke was himself a remarkable man for one "in his unfortunate position." He now owes all the place he has in history to the fortunate decision by which he offered to Goethe a home in the little city of Weimar, when he was himself a boy.

After a gay, not to say wild, introduction to the little social circle of this funny little court, Goethe settled down quite seriously to the work which belonged to a member of the administration. He had accepted the post of Counsellor of the Home Department, with a seat in the council. This carried with it a yearly salary of about nine hundred of our dollars. And in the modest habits of that little court this seems to have been regarded as a competency. With this income it is certain that Goethe kept house, fulfilled the demands which etiquette made on his position, and remitted a sixth part of his money to a poor, broken-winded, and apparently worthless author, whose very name is unknown, who maintained with him a begging correspondence.

Goethe proved himself a thorough man of business in the discharge of his official duties. His interest in science made him study the administration of the mines of the duchy with care and in detail, and when, afterward, he gave up other official cares, he retained the administration of the Department of the Mines. To persons studying his style it is worthy of remark, that the best habits of a man of affairs may be noted all through his work, whether scientific, speculative, poetical, or indeed, in whatever form it takes. There is never anything which a critic of our time would call "gush," or "padding," or "slip-slop." He advances on his purpose, whatever that purpose is, with the directness of an engineer pressing the attack of a fortress, or of an architect making the specifications for a building.

Meanwhile, for the relaxation or diversion of life, there was a passion, more or less real, which bound him to the Baroness von Stein, the wife of the Master of the Horse; there was the direction of the theatre and music of the court, and occasional journeys, generally incognito, with the Duke Karl August. A favorite entertainment was in private theatricals, which were indeed the rage in the little circle. The duchess acted, and everybody, even of the highest rank, was glad to be enrolled in the troupe, which was directed by Goethe. Eager for the applauses of other audiences than the favored circle at Weimar, the company went about, almost like a troupe of gypsies, from one to another of the country homes of the neighborhood. In all our modern ridicule of the Duchy of Pompernickel, and the like, it is hard to find anything more absurd than these accounts of the best way which the leaders of the state found for the occupation of their time, and for the edification of their people. The private theatricals of this court, however, will be long remembered, because the rollicking experiences of these parties, which were a sort of picnics in a courtly style, give the framework, or machinery for the story of "Wilhelm Meister."

This famous and remarkable book was begun soon after Goethe went to Weimar. But it was not published until 1795, after Goethe had spent more than a year in Italy, a period which marked a crisis in his life. In ten months' hard study of painting in Rome, he satisfied himself, at last, that he should never be a painter. It seems strange now to say, that until then, he had diligently nursed the hope that as a painter he should achieve great success. In Italy he looked at the petty court of Weimar from a point distant enough to see it in its true relations and perspective. He measured his own powers as a man does who is removed from the petty detail of small official duty. And he returned to Weimar in 1788, determining wisely to give the rest of his life to science and literature. The "determination" proved to be a determination. And from this time, his life as a master of the thought of his time may be said to begin.

He had received from the grand duke a title of nobility, and from that time he is "von Goethe," instead of "Goethe" simple, without that prefix of dignity. On his return from Italy he gave up all his official work, except the direction of the mines and of the theatre. It is interesting to remember that Goethe thus directed the work of the mines in which Luther's father had been a workman. His interest in natural science made him hold this position; and his charge of the theatre was almost a matter of course in such a court as that of Weimar. He was, however, relieved from the presidency of the council and from the direction of the War Department. The duke retained for him a place in the council "whenever his other affairs allowed him to attend." It must be remembered that all such appointments were made wholly at the wish of the duke, who was the absolute monarch of this little state, until he gave to his people a liberal constitution in 1816.

It will be convenient to American readers to remember that the size of the duchy is about the same as that of the State of Rhode Island--about fourteen hundred square miles. In Goethe's time, the population was less than a million. The city of Weimar had about ten thousand inhabitants. To Weimar Goethe returned, resolved to give his life, from that time forward, to science and literature. Before the Italian journey he had done so in large measure. But after his return, relieved from almost all duties of administration, he brings forward finished works, with untiring enthusiasm, on many different lines, many of which are among the masterpieces of the time. Schiller had come to Weimar in 1794. Goethe and he had met before. There were differences between these men so great that in some lines they had no sympathy. All the more is it to the credit of both, that each appreciated the other and that they lived and worked together as friends. When Schiller proposed the literary journal called _The Hours_, Goethe co-operated in the plan most cordially. And so long as Schiller lived, their friendship was to each a great blessing. Their statues, representing them hand in hand, commemorate this friendship to this day.

The closing books of "Wilhelm Meister" were written in Italy, and after Goethe's return, and the book was published in 1795. Goethe had long since outlived the extravagance of sentimentalism which overflowed in "Werther." He had himself ridiculed it in a little farce, much laughed at at the time. And if "Wilhelm Meister" were taken merely as a story, it would be found quite free from such extravagances. The story, however, is simply the framework for criticism on art, on literature, and especially for what may be called studies on education. The criticism on "Hamlet" has been called the best of the thousands upon thousands of which "Hamlet" has been the subject. No book of Goethe's has had, or has held, the interest of the great world of "general readers," as "Wilhelm Meister," "Faust" not excepted.

"Hermann and Dorothea" appeared in 1797, and was one of the most serious of the efforts by which Goethe and Schiller both gave themselves to create a German drama worthy of the German people. In 1790 a new theatre had been built at Weimar, and Goethe became in fact the manager. He was not satisfied with writing plays to be performed there; he actually supervised the performances, and gave to the detail of such management much of his time for many years. So long as Schiller lived the two were closely connected in all such enterprises, and Goethe's practical connection with the theatre led him, perhaps, to attempt the dramatic form of composition more often than he would otherwise have done.

In 1799 Walter Scott, then only twenty-five years of age, published in Edinburgh his translation of "Goetz von Berlichingen."

It must be remembered that all this time Goethe is pursuing his studies of Physical Science. His little book called "Morphologie," published in 1788, immediately after his return from Italy, is a simple, unaffected, practical, statement of the law of growth of plants, which, though suggested before, had quite escaped the attention of the botanists of repute. When it was published, it seems to have been pushed aside as the fanciful dream of a poet. In truth, it is a book which might be given to-day to a learner, as one of the most elegant and simple illustrations of what is now meant by evolution in nature. From the humble resources of a common garden Goethe finds material to show how whorls of leaves appear as blossoms; how calyx passes into corolla; how leaves of the corolla become stamens and pistils. After a generation the botanists were willing enough to accept the statement, and Goethe lived long enough to see it accepted as the foundation of the Botanical Science of his time.

The critics are apt to call "Faust" his greatest work. The first part was published in 1805, the second in 1831. Quite too much _finesse_ has been wasted on endeavors to discover his purpose in the poem. It will live, not from any discovery of his purpose, but because of the intensity with which it presents the different characters. It will command and control men all the more, because they do not find in it the skeleton of what is called an artistic or scientific literary plan. It is impossible, in the limited range of this article, even to name the several works, many of them of great importance, of the last half of his life. With his assiduous industry, so assiduous that he was never satisfied, perhaps, unless he was at work, he edited an art journal, _Kunst und Alterthum_, from 1816 to 1828. In a thousand methods of publication he sent out poems, dramas, novels, and pamphlets. He had the satisfaction of knowing that Europe and America regarded him as the first author of his time.

Goethe married, in 1806, Christiana Vulpius, who had been employed as a servant in his family. She died in the year 1816. He seems to have really lamented her death.

His old age was serene. The jubilee of his arrival in Weimar was celebrated with great enthusiasm, on November 7, 1825. All through the last years of his life he was receiving tokens of admiration from all parts of the world. They gratified his vanity, and satisfied his pride.

He died on March 22, 1832. His last words have been well remembered; "More light!"

[Signature of the author.]

SIR WALTER SCOTT

By W. C. TAYLOR, LL.D.

(1771-1832)

The life of an author who took no active part in public affairs, but sent forth from his own fireside those marvels of imagination which have afforded delight and instruction to millions, furnishes interest of a different kind from the biographies of those whose names are associated with great events. We look more to the man than to his age; we endeavor to trace the circumstances by which his mind was moulded and his tastes formed, and we feel anxious to discover the connection between his literary and his personal history and character. There have been few authors in whose career this connection was more strongly apparent than in Sir Walter Scott; his life is, to a great extent, identified with his writings, and this appears to be the source of that feeling of truth and reality which is forced upon us while perusing his fictions. He was born at Edinburgh, August 15, 1771. His father was one of that respectable class of attorneys called, in Scotland, writers to the signet, and was the original from whom his son subsequently drew the character of Mr. Saunders Fairford, in "Redgauntlet." His mother was a lady of taste and imagination. An accidental lameness and a delicate constitution procured for Walter a more than ordinary portion of maternal care, and the influence of his mother's instructions was strongly impressed on his character. In early childhood he was sent for change of air to the country seat of his maternal grandfather, where he first developed his extraordinary powers of memory by learning the traditionary legends of border heroism and chivalry, which used to be recited at the fireside on a winter's evening. His early taste for the romantic was a little checked when he returned to Edinburgh, in his eighth year, for his father was rather a strict adherent to forms, and looked upon poetry and fiction as very questionable indulgences. The discovery of a copy of Shakespeare, and an odd volume of Percy's "Relics," enabled him to resume his favorite pursuits, though the hours he devoted to them were stolen from sleep. He was sent at an early age to the high-school of Edinburgh, but was not particularly distinguished in the regular course of study. His companions, however, soon discovered his antiquarian tastes, and his passionate love for old tales of chivalry and old chronicles scarcely less romantic; he became noted, too, for reciting stories of his own invention, in which he introduced a superabundance of the marvels of ancient superstition, with a plentiful seasoning of knight-errantry. He even pursued his favorite subject into the continental languages, and by his own exertions enabled himself to peruse the works of Ariosto and Cervantes in their original form.

After a brief residence at the university he was indented as an apprentice to his father in 1786. Though the daily routine of drudgery in an attorney's office must have been painful to a young man of ardent imagination, he did not neglect any of the tasks which his father imposed, and he thus formed habits of method, punctuality, and laborious industry, which were important elements of his future success. But in the midst of these duties he did not lose sight of the favorite objects of his study and meditation. He made frequent excursions into the lowland and highland districts in search of traditionary lore; his investigations led him to the cottage of the peasant as frequently as to the houses of the better class, and his frank manners secured him a favorable reception from all.

In 1792 he changed his profession for that of an advocate, but did not obtain much practice at the Scottish bar. His first publication was a translation from the German; Bürger's wild romantic ballads captivated his youthful imagination, and his version of them proved that he entered deeply into the spirit of the original. Soon afterward he contributed some pieces to Lewis' "Tales of Wonder," which are almost the only fragments of that work which have escaped oblivion. At last, in 1802, he gave to the world the two first volumes of his "Border Minstrelsy," printed by his old schoolfellow, Ballantyne; its literary merits were enhanced by the beauty of its typographical execution, and its appearance made an epoch in Scottish literary history. The ballads of this collection had been very carefully edited, while the notes contained a mass of antiquarian information relative to border life, conveyed in a beautiful style, and enlivened with a higher interest than poetic fiction. This work at once obtained an extensive sale, and its popularity was increased by the appearance of the third volume, containing various imitations of the old ballad by Mr. Scott, in which the feelings and character of antiquity were faithfully preserved, while the language and expression were free from the roughness of obsolete forms. The copyright of the second edition was sold to the Messrs. Longman for £500, but the great extent of the sale made the bargain profitable.

Three years elapsed before he again took the field as an author; but the poem which he then produced, at once placed him among the great original writers of his country. "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" was a complete expansion of the old ballad into an epic form. "It seemed," says Prescott, "as if the author had transferred into his page the strong delineations of the Homeric pencil, the rude but generous gallantry of a primitive period, softened by the more airy and magical inventions of Italian romance, and conveyed in tones of melody such as had not been heard since the strains of Burns." Its popularity was unprecedented, and its success determined the course of his future life.

Scott's position enabled him to encounter the hazards of literary life with comparative safety. He held two offices, that of Sheriff of Selkirk, and Clerk of the Court of Sessions, which yielded him a competent income. He received some accession to his fortune on his marriage, and the tastes of his lady prevented her from indulging in any of the extravagance of fashionable life. Domestic happiness and rural retirement were favorable to literary exertion. He soon produced a second poem, "Marmion," which many critics prefer to all his other poems. It was, however, rather harshly attacked in the _Edinburgh Review_ on its first appearance, which the author felt keenly, as he had been himself a contributor to that journal. This was the origin of the _Quarterly Review_, which was established mainly in consequence of his exertions. About the same time he established a new _Annual Register_, and became a silent partner in the great printing establishment of the Ballantynes. This last step involved him in grievous embarrassments, but it stimulated him to exertions such as none but a man of his prodigious powers could attempt. His biographical, historical, and critical labors, united with his editorial toils, were of appalling magnitude, but in all his works he proved himself to be vigorous and effective. "Poetry," he says in one of his letters, "is a scourging crop, and ought not to be hastily repeated. Editing, therefore, may be considered as a green crop of turnips or peas, extremely useful to those whose circumstances do not admit of giving their farm a summer fallow."

The "Lady of the Lake" was his next poem; it appeared in 1811, and soon outstripped all his former productions in fame and popularity. More than fifty thousand copies of it were sold, and the profits of the author exceeded two thousand guineas. It may be noticed as a curious proof of the effect it produced on the public mind, that the post-horse duty rose to an extraordinary degree in Scotland, from the eagerness of travellers to visit the localities described in the poem. He was now at the zenith of his fame. The sale of his next poem, "Rokeby," showed that his popularity had declined, and when this was followed by the comparative failure of the "Lord of the Isles," he resolved to abandon the field of poetry, and seek for fame in another form of composition.

Ten years before this period he had commenced the novel of "Waverley," and thrown the manuscript aside; having accidentally discovered the unfinished romance amid the old lumber of a garret, he completed it for the press in 1814, and published it anonymously. Its appearance created a greater sensation and marks a more distinct epoch in literary history than that of his poetry. It was the great object of his ambition to become a land-owner and to hold a high rank, not among the literary characters, but the country gentlemen of Scotland, and this was one of the causes of his being anxious to keep the authorship of his novels a profound secret. The same ambition stimulated him to exertion. He produced in rapid succession "Guy Mannering," "The Antiquary," "Rob Roy," and the "Tales of my Landlord" in three series, and at the same time published several pieces in his own name to increase the mystification of the public. But his incognito was soon detected; long before he avowed his romances, the world generally had found out his secret; indeed, when he was created a baronet in 1820, it was universally understood that this honor was conferred on him as author of the Waverley Novels.

It is not necessary to enumerate all the fictions that emanated from the brilliant imagination of the Northern Enchanter; the list would be too long, but we must not omit to notice the energy with which he labored. Even illness, that would have broken the spirits of most men, as it prostrated the physical energies of Scott, opposed no impediment to the progress of his compositions. When he could not write he could dictate; and in this way, amid the agonies of a racking disease, he composed "The Bride of Lammermoor," "The Legend of Montrose," and a great part of the most fascinating of his works, "Ivanhoe." Never, certainly, did mind exhibit so decisive a triumph over physical suffering. "Be assured," he remarked to Mr. Gillies, "that if pain could have prevented my application to literary work, not a page of 'Ivanhoe' would have been written. Now, if I had given way to mere feelings and ceased to work, it is a question whether the disorder would not have taken deeper root and become incurable."