noble, dignified, though somewhat cold nature, the greatness of her heart, and delicacy of her mind, would all the more have touched him, because he knew and could sympathize with what was not perfectly happy in her life. He was often the pained witness of little domestic disagreements, and had to remonstrate with the Duke on his occasional roughness.

From the letters to the Frau von Stein we gather that Goethe was gradually becoming impatient with Karl August, whose excellent qualities he cherishes while deploring his extravagances. Enthusiastic as he is for what is good and right, he has, notwithstanding, less pleasure in it than in what is improper; it is wonderful how reasonable he can be, what insight he has, how much he knows and yet when he sets about anything good, he must needs begin with something foolish. Unhappily, one sees it lies deep in his nature, and that the frog is made for the water even when he has lived some time on land." In the following we see that the 'servile courtier' not only remonstrates with the Duke, but refuses to accompany him on his journey, having on a previous journey been irritated by his manners. Here is an epistle. If you think right, send it to the Duke, speak to him and do not spare him. I only want quiet for myself, and for him to know with whom he has to do. You can tell him also that I have declared to you I will never travel with him again. Do this in your own prudent, gentle way.' Accordingly, he lets the Duke go away alone; but they seem to have come to some understanding subsequently, and the threat was not fulfilled. Two months after, this sentence informs us of the reconciliation: I have had a long and serious conversation with the Duke. In this world, my best one, the dramatic writer has a rich harvest; and the wise say, Judge no man until you have stood in his place.' Later

on we find him complaining of the Duke going wrong in his endeavors to do right. • God knows if he will ever learn that fireworks at mid-day produce no effect. I don't like playing the pedagogue and bugbear, and from the others he asks no advice, nor does he ever tell them of his plans.' Here is another glimpse: The Duchess is as amiable as possible, the Duke is a good creature, and one could heartily love him if he did not trouble the intercourse of life by his manners, and did not make his friends indifferent as to what befals him by his breakneck recklessness. It is a curious feeling, that of daily contemplating the possibility of our nearest friends breaking their necks, arms, or legs, and yet have grown quite callous to the idea!' Again: The Duke goes to Dresden. He has begged me to go with him, or at least to follow him, but I shall stay here. . . . . The preparations for the Dresden journey are quite against my taste. The Duke arranges them in his way, i. e., not always the best, and disgusts one after the other. I am quite calm, for it is not alterable, and I only rejoice that there is no kingdom for which such cards could be played often.'

These are little discordant tones which must have arisen as Goethe grew more serious. The real regard he had for the Duke is not injured by these occasional outbreaks. 'The Duke is guilty of many follies which I willingly forgive, remembering my own,' says Goethe. He knows that he can at any moment put his horses to the carriage and drive away from Weimar, and this consciousness of freedom makes him contented; although he now makes up his mind that he is destined by nature to be an author and nothing else. I have a purer delight than ever, when I have written something which well expresses what I meant. I am truly born to be a private man, and

do not understand how fate has contrived to throw me into

a ministry and into a princely family.' As he grows clearer on the true mission of his life, he also grows happier. One can imagine the strange feelings with which he would now take up Werther, and for the first time since ten years read this product of his youth. He made some alterations in it, especially in the relation of Albert to Lotte; and introduced the episode of the peasant who commits suicide from jealousy. Schöll, in his admirable notes to the Stein Correspondence,* has called attention to a point worthy of notice, viz., that Herder, who helped Goethe in the revision of this work, had pointed out to him the very same fault in its composition which Napoleon two-and-twenty years later laid his finger on; the fault, namely, of making Werther's suicide partly the consequence of frustrated ambition and partly of unrequited love a fault which, in spite of Herder and Napoleon, in spite also of Goethe's acquiescence, I venture to think no fault at all, as will be shown when the interview with Napoleon is narrated.

* Vol. iii. p. 268.

CHAPTER IV.

PREPARATIONS FOR ITALY.

WITH the year 1783 we see him more and more seriously occupied. He has ceased to be the Grand Master of all the Apes,' and is deep in old books and archives. The birth of a crown prince came to fill Weimar with joy, and give the Duke a sudden seriousness. The baptism, which took place on the fifth of February, was a great event in Weimar. Herder preached like a God,' said Wieland, whose cantata was sung on the occasion. Processions by torchlight, festivities of all kinds, poems from every poet, except Goethe, testified the people's joy. There is something very generous in this silence on the part of Goethe. It could not be attributed to want of affection. But he who had been ever ready with ballet, opera, or poem, to honor the birthday of the two Duchesses, must have felt that now, when all the other Weimar writers were pouring in their offerings, he ought not to throw the weight of his position in the scale against them. Had his poem been the worst of the offerings it would have been prized the highest, because it was his.

The Duke, proud in his paternity, writes to Merck: 'You have reason to rejoice with me; for if there be any good dispositions in me they have hitherto wanted a fixed point, but now there is a firm hook upon which I can hang my pictures. With the help of Goethe and good luck I

will so paint that if possible the next generation shall say, he too was a painter!' And from this time forward there seems to have been a decisive change in him; though he does complain of the taciturnity of his Herr Kammerpräsident' (Goethe), who is only to be drawn out by the present of an engraving. In truth, this Kammerpräsident is very much oppressed with work. and lives in great seclusion, happy in love, active in study. The official duties which formerly he undertook so gaily, are obviously becoming burdens to him, the more so now his mission rises into greater distinctness. The old desire for Italy begins to torment him. The happiest thing is, that I can now say I am on the right path, and from this time forward nothing will be lost.'

In his poem Ilmenau, written in this year, Goethe vividly dipicts the character of the Duke, and the certainty of his metamorphosis. Having seen how he speaks of the Duke in his letters to the Frau von Stein, it will gratify the reader to observe that these criticisms were no 'behind the back' carpings, but were explicitly expressed even in poetry. The poem of Ilmenau,' Goethe said to Eckermann, 'contains in the form of an episode an epoch which in 1783, when I wrote it, had happened some years before; so that I could describe myself historically and hold a conversation with myself of former years. There occurs in it a nightly scene after one of the breakneck chases in the mountain. We had built ourselves at the foot of a rock some little huts, and covered them with fir branches, that we might pass the night on dry ground. Before the huts we burned several fires and cooked our game. Knebel, whose pipe was never cold, sat next to the fire, and enlivened the company with his jokes, while the wine passed freely. Seckendorf had stretched himself against a tree and was humming all sorts of poetics.