The other minor writings of the years 1788 and 1789 may be passed over as of little significance. On the poetic side there were three or four occasional poems, and also the rimed epistle called 'The Celebrated Wife', in which the unfortunate husband of a literary lady pours out the tale of his domestic woes. In prose there were several perfunctory reviews contributed to the Litteratur-Zeitung, and also an anecdote—exhumed from an old chronicle and retold for the Merkur—relating to a breakfast given to the Duke of Alva by the Countess of Schwarzburg in the year 1547. To these may be added, finally, the short story entitled 'Play of Fate,' also published in the Merkur, which describes, under a thin disguise of fictitious names, the rise and fall and rehabilitation of Karl Eugen's former minister, P.H. Rieger.[79]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 73: Letter of July 28, 1787, to Körner.]
[Footnote 74: Letter of Nov. 19, 1787.]
[Footnote 75: In the original, lines 145-8, of the earlier version:
Schöne Welt, wo bist du?—Kehre wieder,
Holdes Blültenalter der Natur!
Ach! nur in dem Feenland der Lieder
Lebt noch deine goldne Spur.]
[Footnote 76: In the original:
Im Fleisz kann dich die Biene meistern,
In der Geschicklichkeit ein Wurm dein Lehrer sein,
Dein Wissen teilest du mit vorgezogenen Geistern,
Die Kunst, O Mensch, hast du allein.]
[Footnote 77: Letter of March 17, to Körner.]
[Footnote 78: Letter of Oct. 1, 1788, Goethe to Karl August.]