GODWIN GOETHE. 



497 



commissioner. During the reign of Anne, he was 

 appointed lord high treasurer of England, and, in 

 1704, became a knight companion of the garter. In 

 1706 he was made earl of Godolphin, and, four years 

 afterwards, was obliged to retire from office. His 

 death took place in 1712. 



GODWIN, MARV, better known by her maiden 

 name of fVolstonecraft, a writer of considerable, but 

 eccentric genius, was born in or near London, in 1759. 

 Her parents, whose circumstances were humble, after- 

 wards removed to a farm near Beverley, in Yorkshire, 

 where she attended a day school. In her twenty- 

 fourth year, she set up a school, in conjunction with 

 her sisters, with whom she removed to Newington- 

 Green, and wrote a pamphlet, entitled Thoughts on 

 the Education of Daughters. She was subsequently 

 employed for some time, as governess in the family 

 of an Irish nobleman ; after which she produced 

 Mary, a Fiction ; Original Letters from Real Life, 

 and the Female Reader. She was one of the first to 

 answer Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, 

 which answer was followed by her celebrated Vindi- 

 cation of the Rights of Women. The eccentricity 

 of her theory was equalled by the singularity of her 

 practice, which led her first into the indulgence of a 

 romantic, but fruitless attachment to Mr Fuseli, the 

 painter, although a married man, and to one more 

 intimate with an American, of the name of Imlay, 

 whose desertion caused her to attempt suicide. This 

 ardent passion, like the former, was, however, over- 

 come by a succeeding one, the object of which was 

 Mr Godwin, author of Political Justice, &c. As the 

 bonds of wedlock were deemed a species of slavery 

 in her theory, it was only to legitimatize the forth- 

 coming fruits of the union, that a marriage between 

 the parties took place. She died in childbed, after 

 being delivered of a daughter, in August, 1797. Mr 

 Godwin published her life. The history of this wo- 

 man, of strong but undisciplined powers and passions, 

 does little to advance the credit of the theory on 

 which she acted. Besides the works above men- 

 tioned, Mrs Godwin published a Moral and Historical 

 View of the French Revolution, and Letters from 

 Norway. 



GOECKINGK, LEOPOLD FREDERIC GUNTHER, von, 

 was born at Gruningen, in the territory of IJalber- 

 stadt, in 1748. He studied law at the university in 

 Halle, and there, in conjunction with his friend and 

 countryman G. A. Burger, tried his powers in the 

 art of poetry. He afterwards filled several important 

 stations in the Prussian service. He wrote songs, 

 epigrams, and epistles, the last of which, especially, 

 were received with universal approbation. Besides 

 many other poems, which evince deep feeling, and a 

 great command of language, his Songs of Two Lovers, 

 (Lieder zweier Liebenden), first published in 1777, 

 and again in 1779, procured him the greatest reputa- 

 tion. His poems were published at Frankfort (1780 

 1782), in three volumes. A new edition, in four 

 volumes (enlarged with satirical essays), appeared in 

 1818. His prose writings were published at that 

 place, in one volume, in 1784. Goeckingk died 

 February 18, 1828. 



GOERTZ, GEORGE HENRY, baron, of an ancient 

 family, privy councillor to duke Christian Augustus 

 of Holstein, joined Charles XII. at Stralsund, on his 

 return from Turkey. His activity and intelligence 

 induced Charles to take him into his service, and he 

 was soon placed at the head of affairs. The desper- 

 ate state of Sweden seemed only to render his pro- 

 jects for its rescue more vast, and his activity more 

 nnabating. (See Charles XII.) His policy grasped 

 at all possible resources, and he endeavoured, by the 

 active prosecution of war, to obtain favourable con- 

 ditions of peace, The impoverished condition of the 



country left the government without resources, and 

 he endeavoured, to create a fictitious capital, by 

 giving to a copper currency the nominal value of 

 silver, and pledging the faith of the government for 

 its redemption. His negotiations with Russia had 

 almost reached a happy termination, when Charles, 

 encouraged by new hopes, invaded Norway. But 

 scarcely had Charles fallen before Frederickshall 

 (Dec. 11, 1718), when the foreign minister fell a sacri- 

 fice to the hatred of the nobility and of the successor 

 to the throne. He was arrested, and accused of 

 having prejudiced the king against the senate, and all 

 his colleagues ; and of having induced him to under- 

 take ruinous enterprises, especially the unfortunate 

 ex "edition into Norway ; of having put bad coin 

 into circulation, and of having mismanaged the sums 

 intrusted to him. He was condemned and beheaded, 

 without a hearing, February 28, 1719. Goertz com- 

 posed his own epitaph ; namely, Mors regis, fides in 

 regem, est mors mea (The king's death, and my fide- 

 lity towards the king, is the cause of my death.) He 

 died with firmness. He was a statesman of distin- 

 guished talent, but unscrupulous in the choice of 

 means for effecting his ends. See Voltaire's Life of 

 Charles XII. 



GOETHE, JOHN WOLFGANG VON ; born August 28, 

 1749, at Frankfort on the Maine, where his father, a 

 doctor of law and imperial counsellor, was highly 

 respected. Goethe, the greatest modern poet of Ger- 

 many, has described his own life, in which, with a 

 master hand, he unfolds the secret springs of the 

 human character, and gives us the key to the most 

 important periods of his life, and consequently to the 

 productions by which they were respectively distin- 

 guished. Goethe's father was an admirer of the fine 

 arts, and surrounded by pictures, which early deve- 

 loped, in the son, the nice discrimination and the 

 active observation for which he is so remarkable. 

 The seven years' war broke out whenGoethe was 

 eight years old, and count de Thorane, lieutenant du 

 roi of the French army in Germany, was quartered 

 in the house of his father. The count, who was a 

 man of taste, soon gave employment to the artists of 

 Frankfort. Young Goethe was often present at the 

 conversations of the count with the artists respecting 

 the plans of pictures, the way of executing them, 

 &c. These conversations had a great influence upon 

 the mind of the young poet. The count was fond of 

 him, and allowed him to take part freely in the con- 

 versations ; and some pictures, relating to the story 

 of Joseph, were actually painted from his suggestions. 

 At the same time, he learned the French language 

 practically; and a French company, then performing 

 at Frankfort, awakened his taste for dramatic perfor- 

 mances. Drawing, music, natural science, the ele- 

 ments of jurisprudence, and the languages, occupied 

 him alternately. To assist his progress in the lan- 

 guages, he formed the plan of a novel, in which 

 seven brothers and sisters correspond with each 

 other in different languages. The youngest ot 

 these fictitious persons used Jewish-German, which 

 ledGoethe to study a little Hebrew, in which he never, 

 indeed, became a great adept, but which, neverthe- 

 less, had an influence on him in his childhood, and 

 may have had a tendency to encourage his inclination 

 to Oriental poetry in his later years. By his study 

 of Hebrew.Goethe became more intimately acquaint- 

 ed with the Old Testament, and the History of Joseph 

 was his first poetical work. His love for spectacles 

 attracted his attention to a puppet show, and in the 

 beginning of his fVilhelm Meister he undoubtedly 

 took from his own life the motives of Meister's love 

 for puppet shows. Goethe very early fell in love, and, 

 as often happens in the case of boys of an ardent 

 temperament, with a girl much older than himself, 

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