“Could intellect and high cultivation,” said he, “become the property of all, the poet would have fair play; he could be always thoroughly true, and would not be compelled to fear uttering his best thoughts.  But, as it is, he must always keep on a certain level; must remember that his works will fall into the hands of a mixed society; and must, therefore, take care lest by over-great openness he may give offense to the majority of good men.  Then Time is a strange thing.  It is a whimsical tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one says and does.  We cannot, with propriety, say things which were permitted to the ancient Greeks; and the Englishmen of 1820 cannot endure what suited the vigorous contemporaries of Shakespeare; so that, at the present day, it is found necessary to have a Family Shakespeare.”

“Then,” said I, “there is much in the form also.  The one of these two poems, which is composed in the style and metre of the ancients, would be far less offensive than the other.  Isolated parts would displease, but the treatment throws so much grandeur and dignity over the whole, that we seem to hear a strong ancient, and to be carried back to the age of the Greek heroes.  But the other, being in the style and metre of Messer Ariosto, is far more hazardous.  It relates an event of our day, in the language of our day, and as it thus comes quite unveiled into our presence, the particular features of boldness seem far more audacious.”

“You are right,” said he; “mysterious and great effects are produced by different poetical forms.  If the import of my Romish elegies were put into the measure and style of Byron’s Don Juan, the whole would be found infamous.”

The French newspapers were brought.  The campaign of the French in Spain under the Duke d’Angouleme, which was just ended, had great interest for Goethe.  “I must praise the Bourbons for this measure,” said he; “they had not really gained the throne till they had gained the army, and that is now accomplished.  The soldier returns with loyalty, to his king; for he has, from his own victories, and the discomfitures of the many-headed Spanish host, learned the difference between obeying one and many.  The army has sustained its ancient fame, and shown that it is brave in itself, and can conquer without Napoleon.”

Goethe then turned his thoughts backward into history, and talked much of the Prussian army in the Seven Years’ War, which, accustomed by Frederic the Great to constant victory, grew careless, so that, in after days, it lost many battles from over-confidence.  All the minutest details were present to his mind, and I had reason to admire his excellent memory.

“I had the great advantage,” said he, “of being born at a time when the greatest events which agitated the world occurred, and such have continued to occur during my long life; so that I am a living witness of the Seven Years’ War, of the separation of America from England, of the French Revolution, and of the whole Napoleon era, with the downfall of that hero, and the events which followed.  Thus I have attained results and insight impossible to those who are born now and must learn all these things from books which they will not understand.