GÖTHE'S AUTHOR-REMUNERATION.
The Note in your valuable Journal (Vol. vii., p. 591.) requires, I think, so far as it relates to Göthe, several corrections which I am in the position of making. The amount which that great man is said to have received for his "works (aggregate)" is "30,000 crowns." The person who originally printed this statement must have been completely ignorant of Göthe's affairs, and even biography. Göthe had (unlike Byron) several publishers in his younger years. Subsequently he became closer connected with M. J. G. Cotta of Stuttgardt, who, in succession, published almost all Göthe's works. Amongst them were several editions of his complete works: for instance, that published conjointly at Vienna and Stuttgardt. Then came, in 1829, what was called the edition of the last hand (Ausgabe letzter Hand), as Göthe was then more than eighty years of age. During all the time these two editions were published, other detached new works of Göthe were also printed; as well as new editions of former books, &c. Who can now say that it was 20,000 crowns (thalers?) which the great poet received for each various performance?—No one. And this for many reasons. Göthe always remained with M. Cotta on terms of polite acquaintanceship, no more: there was no "My dear Murray" in their strictly business-like connexion. Göthe also never wrote on such things, even in his biography or diary. But some talk was going around in Germany, that for one of the editions of his complete works (there
appeared still many volumes of posthumous), he received the above sum. I can assert on good authority, that Göthe, foreseeing his increasing popularity even long after his death, stipulated with M. Cotta to pay his heirs a certain sum for every new edition of either his complete or single works. One of the recipients of these yet current accounts is Baron Wolfgang von Göthe, Attaché of the Prussian Legation at Rome.
A Foreign Surgeon.
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