GOETHE


[Illustration: GOETHE]

John Wolfgang von Goethe was born at Frankfort, August 28, 1749, and
died at Weimar, March 22, 1832, aged eighty-two years and seven months.
He was a sickly child, and consequently participated but little in
children's pastimes. Youth--melancholy, or early habits of reflection,
and an independence on others for amusement or formation of opinions
were thus generated, which, operating on his exquisite organization,
contributed to make him the master-spirit of his age. Thus, in his
autobiography and diary, it is highly instructive to mark the effect of
the various circumstances in which he was placed, on his train of
thought. Events, which on most children's minds "are only reflected as
on looking-glasses but make no impression," produced an effect on him of
which the influence was never effaced. The coronation of Joseph II. at
Frankfort, the annual mass, and the noble old city itself, with its
associations of feudalism and German art, are portrayed by him seventy
years after the feelings they had excited, with all the vividness of
yesterday's impressions. It is probable that no one ever possessed such
acute sensibility as Goethe. He could "hang a thought on every thorn."

Goethe's father was a man of easy circumstances, and of some literary
merit: he had a great love for the fine arts, and had made a small
collection of objects of virtù in his travels through Italy. All this
worked on the young poet, and at eight or nine years old he wrote a
short description of twelve pictures, portraying the history of Joseph.
At fifteen years of age he went to the university of Leipsic, where he
studied law; he took the degree of doctor at Strasbourg. In 1768 he left