GOD WIN- AUSTEN 



GOKTHr. 



273 



iir'.i'.ii, a 'ntorv <>f tin- miraculous,' and an Essay 

 pu/cAra (1809). \ Life of Chaucer (1808), an 



ii to Malthus (1820), l.in.-i <>/ t/ie Necro- 

 IS.H4), ami tin- novels Flettwood (1805), 

 /.-(/// (1SI7), ami ClnHili-sh-i/ (1830) may l>e 

 I. Godwin died in Palace Yard, 7th April 

 I'ei-k-nitr. with a da-h of Micawl>er,' will 

 i a harsh \erdict on one for whom Mr Kegan 

 I'aul ha- lit i ! >a\e praise in his valuable and 

 exhaustive biography, William <imhvin: kis Friends 

 un>l L'uiiti'iii/ini-nrii'x ('2 vols. Is7(). Sec, too, Haz- 



liti's Siiirit of the Age (1825); Leslie Stephen's 

 Ji I'll i > a 1 1 Id in t)ie 18th Century (1876); and 

 works cited at SUKU.KY. 



<.n<h\ in- liislrn. ili" second highest peak in 

 the win Id, is situated in tlie Himalayan system, in 

 tin- western range that is crossed in the east by the 

 Karakoram Pass. Its height is 28,250 feet. Dis- 

 tinguished in the records of the great trigonometri- 

 cal survey only by the sign K2, it was named in 

 1888 after Lieut. -colonel God win- Austen of the 

 Trigonometrical Survey of India. 



4odwit ( l.iinnxa), a genus of birds of the snipe 

 family (Soolopacidffi), with very long bill, slightly 

 curved upwards, and long slender legs, with a great 

 part of the tibia bare. All the species frequent 

 marshes and shallow waters, chiefly those of the 

 sea-coast, where they seek their food like snipes 

 by wading and by plunging the long bill into the 

 water or mud. They sometimes also ran after 

 small crustaceans or other animals, and catch them 

 on the sands from which the tide has retired. Two 

 species, the Black tailed Godwit (L. belgica) and 

 toe Bar-tailed Godwit (L. lapponica), are as birds 



Bar-tailed Godwit ( Limosa lapponica). 



of passage not (infrequent visitors of the marshy 

 parts of the east coast of Kngland, where the first 

 used to breed. Nowadays the bar-tailed species is 

 much the commoner, being especially abundant on 

 the coast of Northumberland. Both normally breed 

 in more northern countries, and are seen in Britain 

 chiefly in their migrations northward and south- 

 ward. Both have a wide range in Europe, Asia, 

 and Africa. The females are larger than the males, 

 and the whole length of the female block-tailed 

 godwit, which is rather the larger species, is about 

 17 inches, the bill alone being 4 inches long. They 

 are much esteemed for the table, and are sent from 

 Holland to the London market. 



or TKR GOES, a town of Holland, on the 

 i -land of South Beveland, 16 miles NE. of Flushing 

 by rail. It contains a fine Gothic church of the 

 15th century and a ruined castle. Pop. 6393. 



Goethe, .IOHANN WOLFGANG, was Ixirn in 



I iaiikfort-on-the-Main, August 28, 1749. His 



father was a Doctor of Laws and obtained the title 



of imperial councillor. He was a man ot 'ionour- 



226 



able life, vigorous character, steadfast, indii-tii-.u-, 

 and methodical; he possessed considerable culture, 

 and wan a special lover of Italian literature and 

 art. Goethe s mother (1731 1808), daughter of .1. 

 W. Textor, chief magistrate of Frankfort, was only 

 eighteen when her son was born ; she wan remark- 

 able for her bright temper and good sense. One 

 child l>esides Goethe lived to adult years his M-NT 

 Cornelia, the companion of his youth ( married 1773 

 to J. G. Schlosser, died 1777). The family occui.ied 

 a house in the Hirschgral>en, the rebuilding of which 

 was a notable event in Goethe's boyhood. There 

 was much in the life of the old free imperial city to 

 stimulate his curiosity and awaken his imagination. 

 He was quick to learn, and had the advantage of 

 careful instruction from his father and from tutors. 

 In 1759 French troop*, siding with Austria in the 

 Seven Years' War, entered Frankfort, and Count 

 Thorane, a French officer, a cultivated man and a 

 lover of art, was quartered in Goethe's house. The 

 French theatre opened in the city attracted the 

 boy, and thus he became familiar with Racine and 

 more recent dramatists. He even attempted to 

 compose in the manner of some of these, while also 

 he was receiving literary influences from the lyrical 

 poets of Germany. Latin, Greek, Italian, English, 

 even Hebrew, were studied, and he planned a kind 

 of prose fiction maintained by several correspondent* 

 in various languages. He had his moods of religious 

 feeling, which at an early age were somewhat dis- 

 turbed by doubts of GocVs goodness suggested by 

 the Lisbon earthquake. The primitive, pastoral 

 scenes of the Old Testament had a peculiar charm 

 for his imagination. But while an ardent student 

 in so many directions, he enjoyed the amusements 

 of a boy among boys, and sometimes indeed among 

 ill-chosen companions. When about fifteen years 

 old (1763-64) he undenvent a boy's joys and 

 sorrows of love ; Gretchen was of humbler rank 

 than his own, and was some years his senior. She 

 treated him as a child, and, circumstances having 

 brought to light Goethe's wanderings in doubtful 

 company, the pair were parted. For a time Goethe 

 gave himself up to bitter feelings. 



In the autumn of 1765 he was admitted a student 

 of the university of Leipzig. He cared not at all 

 for his law lectures, and not much for Gellert's 

 lectures on literature or Ernesti's on Cicero's De 

 Oratore ; the awakening of his critical powers 

 for a time damped his ardour for composition, and 

 he fell into a melancholy mood. Companionship 

 roused him to activity. The serious Schlosser, 

 afterwards his brother-in-law, widened his range 

 of literary sympathies ; Behrisch served him as a 

 severe yet kindly critic ; but it was from Oeser, 

 director of the academy of arts, and the friend of 

 Winckelmann, that he received the most important 

 intellectual gains of this period. ' Oeser,' he wrote, 

 ' taught me that the ideal of beauty is simplicity 

 and repose.' Goethe took lessons in drawing, tried 

 to etch, studied the paintings at Leipzig, and visited 

 the Dresden gallery. He read with enthusiasm 

 Lessing's Laocoon and his Miniui von littrnliclin, 

 heard concerts, and was frequent in his attendance 

 at the theatre. Nor in Goethe's life could much 

 time ever pass without the presence or the incursion 

 of love. His Frankfort fancy for Charitas Meixner 

 faded before the stronger attraction of Kat lichen 

 Schonkopf (the Aennchen of his autobiography), 

 daughter of a wine-seller at whose house he (lined, 

 a bright, frank girl, three years his senior. He 

 began for her (1767) the little pastoral drama in 

 Alexandrine verse, Die Laiun- ticsrerliebten (known 

 to us in a revised fonn), to atone for his jealous 

 humours. At Leipzig in 1768 he l>egan a second 

 play, painful in subject, Die Mitschuldigcn, after- 

 ward , finished in Frankfort. A group of songs set 

 to music- by Breitkopf belong also to the Leipzig 



