ago, when living at the furthest extreme of South Germany, entirely excluded from our Parnassus, and without any literary connections,

'If thou pleasest not, if world and connoisseur agree

To disparage thy merit,

Let thy consolation be, in this calamity,

That with sweet pains thou hast conferred much joy on me. Thou art still, O Muse! the happiness of my life,

And if no one listens to thee, thou singest to me alone."

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE.

B. 1744. D. 1832.

THIS many-sided German author lived to a great age, and never seemed too old for good work. While fully conscious of his own leadership at Weimar, he had no jealousy of others whether at home or abroad. Of himself he says:

"If I were to say what I had really been to the Germans in general, and to the young German poets in particular, I should say I had been their liberator."

He has also repeatedly said: "As for what I have done as a poet, I take no pride in it whatever. But that in my century I am the only person who knows the truth in the difficult science of colors, of that, I say, I am not a little proud. There I have a consciousness of superiority to many."

How Goethe could have exalted his "Theory of Colors" above his "Wilhelm Meister" or above his “Faust,” may be a marvel; but unquestionably he had

some claims to distinction in scientific pursuits, and he is not the only example of those who have overrated their dullest offspring.

"Where yet was ever found a mother

Who'd give her booby for another?"

B. 1770.

BEETHOVEN.

D. 1827.

THERE is no question as to the musical gifts and great genius of Ludwig van Beethoven; and when he was dying, he did not hesitate to assert the fact to his friend, the eminent pianist Hummel, –

("For all that, Hummel, I have genius.")

B. 1773.

PRINCE METTERNICH.

D. 1859.

PRINCE METTERNICH of Austria, the great Chancellor of Francis I., wielded immense political power in Europe during great historical events, and for a great number of years. In questions of State he had to grapple with masters in diplomacy, — with Canning, Wellington, Nesselrode, and Napoleon; and there is no doubt that Austria under his lead reached its highest position among nations. Kings and emperors were battling for thrones, and Metternich was the prince of aristocrats, though the life-long slave of royalty, whose prerogatives he upheld with a vigor

and tenacity which secured the admiration of his masters and the hatred of all liberal-minded men.

The following is copied from a letter of Metternich to his wife, Aug. 26, 1818:

"I shall be at Frankfort on the 29th, and spend two days there. I shall have the entire Diet on my hands. I know already that most of the ministers there are trembling at my appearance; of my fortyeight hours, I shall take at least from twelve to fifteen to lecture the well-intentioned, and to do justice to those who are not. My two days at Frankfort will, however, be worth at least a hundred as far as business is concerned."

Having been foolishly lauded in the Paris "Moniteur," January, 1820, he wrote to one of his correspondents:

“To me undoubtedly, I openly allow, stupid blame is pleasanter than stupid praise: the first may amuse, but cannot anger me; the latter, on the contrary, might make me treat my awkward friend somewhat rudely.

"If any one wishes to write my history, let him have full freedom to the judgment of posterity, which alone can speak with authority of the men who have contributed to make the history of their time."

1820, April 19. "Posterity will judge me,—the only judgment which I covet; the only one to which I am not indifferent, and which I shall never know."

1820, May 15. "On this day, in the year 1773, precisely at twelve o'clock, I was presented to the world."

"Seven and forty years is a long time, quite too long. I have in this weary life, thank God! preserved that strong vitality of heart which is a preservative against the passing away of any feeling. At twenty I was the same man I am to-day. I was always what I am, good or bad, strong or weak."

1820, March 22. "My poor Clementine [his daughter] is still very ill. Nothing breaks me down like a sick child; never anxious about myself, I am always so for the children.

"Meanwhile, whether I like it or not, I must sit for many hours at my writing-table. In painful moments like the present, it is more than ever necessary to turn my second nature outside, that nature which makes many people believe that I have no heart. They would deny me head too, if I did not occasionally let them know that it remains firm when they knock at it."

From Metternich's letter to his son Victor, May 31, 1826:

"The Liberals have a peculiar talent for deceiving themselves; the reason is, that their cause rests on error, and knows not how to produce anything else! To defeat these men one has only to wait; to reach them, one has but to stand still. But herein lies the difficulty of the work and if God has given me one quality, it is that of being able to support the State, firm and upright, in the midst of tumult. This is what I have known how to do ever since I have been at the head of affairs; and certainly I shall not

discontinue what I have found so valuable a specific. When I look around me and find only myself standing on a field strewn with dead and wounded, I must say decidedly that I have chosen a good place! They shall never make more, and the Liberals, with their whole following of fools and doctrinaires, shall not win the day as long as God gives me strength." From a letter to Neumann, June 12, 1826: "Men like Canning fall twenty times and rise twenty times; men like myself have not the trouble of getting up, for they are not so subject to fall.” From letters to his son Victor, Jan. 24, 1818:"I have observed affairs too closely, and Heaven has given me too sure an instinct, that I should not have some foresight. This is what M. de Villèle lacked. He was a man of business, not a statesman."

"My attention and my efforts are directed towards England and Turkey. Canning wished to kill me; it is I who have killed him and his feeble acolytes. There are resources in England, for there is a public spirit; and it is this very spirit that is wanting in France. That country is rotten to the core."

On his fifty-fifth anniversary he wrote to his son: "I desire to live to guide your career, to put our domestic affairs on a footing that will give you the least possible difficulty. I wish to live, too, for public matters, since the world yet has need of me, were it only that I hold a place which no one else could fill. To be what I am, my antecedents are necessary, and one can as little replace an old minister as an old tree."