winter of 1770, Goethe often rode over to Sesenheim. Neither storm, nor
cold, nor darkness kept him back. As his time for leaving Strasburg came
nearer he felt that his love was merely a dream and could have no
serious termination. Frederike felt the same on her side. On August 6th
Goethe took his degree as a doctor of law. Shortly afterwards he bade
adieu to Sesenheim. Frederike lived till 1813 and died single.

Goethe's return to Frankfort is marked by a number of songs, of which
the "Wanderer's Sturmlied" is the most remarkable. He had outgrown many
of the friends of his youth. Those with whom he felt most sympathy were
the two Schlossers and his sister Cornelia. He found in her one who
sympathized with all his aspirations. The work into which he threw all
his genius was the dramatization of the history of the imperial knight
of the Middle Ages, Gottfried or Goetz von Berlichingen. The immediate
cause of this enterprise was his enthusiasm for Shakespeare. After
reading him he felt, he said, like a blind man who suddenly receives his
sight. The study of a dry and dull biography of Goetz, published in 1731,
supplied the subject for his awakened powers. From this miserable sketch
he conceived within his mind a complete picture of Germany in the
sixteenth century. The chief characters of his play are creatures of his
imagination, representing the principal types which made up the history
of the time. Every personage is made to live; they speak in short, sharp
sentences like the powerful lines of a great master's drawing. The first
sketch of Goetz was finished in six weeks, in the autumn of 1771. It ran
like wild-fire through the whole of Germany.

Goethe left Frankfort in the spring of 1772 for Wetzlar, a quiet country
town on the Lahn, one of the seats of government of the Holy Roman
Empire. The emperors lived at Vienna; they were crowned at Frankfort;
they held their parliaments at Ratisbon, and at Wetzlar their courts of