[170] In his Autobiography Goethe expresses the opinion that Merck's advice was not sound, and that he might have done wisely in producing a succession of plays like Clavigo, some of which, like it, might have retained their place on the stage.
[171] Saying of Philine in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, bk. iv. ch. ix.
[172] An entry in his Ephemerides, the diary which he kept in his 21st year (see above, p. [102]), shows that Spinoza's philosophy, as he conceived it, was then repugnant to him. The passage is as follows: "Testimonio enim mihi est virorum tantorum sententia, rectae rationi quam convenientissimum fuisse systema emanativum (he is thinking specially of Giordano Bruno); licet nulli subscribere velim sectae, valdeque doleam Spinozismum, teterrimis erroribus ex eodem fonte manantibus, doctrinae huic purissimae, iniquissimum fratrem natum esse."—Max Morris, op. cit. ii. 33.
[173] By Felix Mendelssohn.
[175] It was first published in 1836, four years after his death.
[176] In one of his Xenien Goethe speaks thus of Lavater:—
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"Schade, dass die Natur nur einen Menschen aus dir schuf, Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff." |
[177] The letter is addressed to Heinrich Pfenninger, an engraver in Zurich, who engraved some of the plates in Lavater's book on Physiognomy.—Werke, Briefe, Band ii. pp. 155-6.
[178] Biedermann, op. cit. i. 33.