Poi'trait of Goethe 



261 



opportunities for study. His genius was inborn and his apti- 

 tude for the acquisition of knowledge was natural to him. In 

 these respects his bringing-up presents some parallel with 

 that of Shakespeare. In each instance it becomes therefore 

 of the utmost interest to examine as to the possible sources 

 of the inheritance. 



Goethe's parents were both of them of good family, but 

 of neither has anything of importance been recorded. They 

 were natives of Frankfurt. His father was 39 at the time of 

 his birth, and his mother only 17. It is said that Goethe 

 himself, in youth, cherished a fancy that the family was of 

 more distinguished pedigree than was recognised, and was 

 continually searching the portraits of royal personages in the 

 hope of finding his own features. We may take this as 

 evidence that he did not consider his own face exactly like 

 that of those around him. He never, however, ascertained 

 anything, and in the entire absence of recorded facts we are 

 left to judge from his physiognomy and the revelations of 

 character and intellectual tendencies which his works afford. 



The many-sidedness of Goethe is the boast of his country- 

 men. He was not only a wide-famed poet and dramatist, he 

 made most important discoveries in natural science. To him, 

 probably, we owe the first assertion of "the law of unity 

 which presides in the structure of all living bodies." From 

 the recognition of that law results of the utmost importance 

 have ensued. 



We may venture, perhaps, in our next number to give a 

 few brief extracts from what has been recorded of Goethe's 

 conversation. For the present we must be content to offer a 

 schedule of his biography arranged on the space-for-time 

 method. 



