CHAPTER V

STERNE'S INFLUENCE IN GERMANY

Thus in manifold ways Sterne was introduced into German life and letters.[1] He stood as a figure of benignant humanity, of lavish sympathy with every earthly affliction, he became a guide and mentor,[2] an awakener and consoler, and probably more than all, a sanction for emotional expression. Not only in literature, but in the conduct of life was Yorick judged a preceptor. The most important attempt to turn Yorick's teachings to practical service in modifying conduct in human relationships was the introduction and use of the so-called "Lorenzodosen." The considerable popularity of this remarkable conceit is tangible evidence of Sterne's influence in Germany and stands in striking contrast to the wavering enthusiasm, vigorous denunciation and half-hearted acknowledgment which marked Sterne's career in England. A century of criticism has disallowed Sterne's claim as a prophet, but unquestionably he received in Germany the honors which a foreign land proverbially accords.

To Johann Georg Jacobi, the author of the "Winterreise" and "Sommerreise," two well-known imitations of Sterne, the sentimental world was indebted for this practical manner of expressing adherence to a sentimental creed.[3] In the _Hamburgischer Correspondent_ he published an open letter to Gleim, dated April 4, 1769, about the time of the inception of the "Winterreise," in which letter he relates at considerable length the origin of the idea.[4] A few days before this the author was reading to his brother, Fritz Jacobi, the philosopher, novelist and friend of Goethe, and a number of ladies, from Sterne's Sentimental Journey the story of the poor Franciscan who begged alms of Yorick. "We read," says Jacobi, "how Yorick used this snuff-box to invoke its former possessor's gentle, patient spirit, and to keep his own composed in the midst of life's conflicts. The good Monk had died: Yorick sat by his grave, took out the little snuff-box, plucked a few nettles from the head of the grave, and wept. We looked at one another in silence: each rejoiced to find tears in the others' eyes; we honored the death of the venerable old man Lorenzo and the good-hearted Englishman. In our opinion, too, the Franciscan deserved more to be canonized than all the saints of the calendar. Gentleness, contentedness with the world, patience invincible, pardon for the errors of mankind, these are the primary virtues he teaches his disciples." The moment was too precious not to be emphasized by something rememberable, perceptible to the senses, and they all purchased for themselves horn snuff-boxes, and had the words "Pater Lorenzo" written in golden letters on the outside of the cover and "Yorick" within. Oath was taken for the sake of Saint Lorenzo to give something to every Franciscan who might ask of them, and further: "If anyone in our company should allow himself to be carried away by anger, his friend holds out to him the snuff-box, and we have too much feeling to withstand this reminder even in the greatest violence of passion." It is suggested also that the ladies, who use no tobacco, should at least have such a snuff-box on their night-stands, because to them belong in such a high degree those gentle feelings which were to be associated with the article.

This letter printed in the Hamburg paper was to explain the snuff-box, which Jacobi had sent to Gleim a few days before, and the desire is also expressed to spread the order. Hence others were sent to other friends. Jacobi goes on to say: "Perhaps in the future, I may have the pleasure of meeting a stranger here and there who will hand me the horn snuff-box with its golden letters. I shall embrace him as intimately as one Free Mason does another after the sign has been given. Oh! what a joy it would be to me, if I could introduce so precious a custom among my fellow-townsmen." A reviewer in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_[5] sharply condemns Jacobi for his conceit in printing publicly a letter meant for his friend or friends, and, to judge from the words with which Jacobi accompanies the abridged form of the letter in the later editions it would seem that Jacobi himself was later ashamed of the whole affair. The idea, however, was warmly received, and among the teary, sentimental enthusiasts the horn snuff-box soon became the fad. A few days after the publication of this letter, Wittenberg,[6] the journalist in Hamburg, writes to Jacobi (April 21) that many in Hamburg desire to possess these snuff-boxes, and he adds: "A hundred or so are now being manufactured; besides the name Lorenzo, the following legend is to appear on the cover: Animae quales non candidiores terra tulit." Wittenberg explains that this Latin motto was a suggestion of his own, selfishly made, for thereby he might win the opportunity of explaining it to the fair ladies, and exacting kisses for the service. Wittenberg asserts that a lady (Longo guesses a certain Johanna Friederike Behrens) was the first to suggest the manufacture of the article at Hamburg. A second letter[7] from Wittenberg to Jacobi four months later (August 21, 1769) announces the sending of nine snuff-boxes to Jacobi, and the price is given as one-half a reichsthaler. Jacobi himself says in his note to the later edition that merchants made a speculation out of the fad, and that a multitude of such boxes were sent out through all Germany, even to Denmark and Livonia: "they were in every hand," he says. Graf Solms had such boxes made of tin with the name Jacobi inside. Both Martin and Werner instance the request[8] of a Protestant vicar, Johann David Goll in Trossingen, for a "Lorenzodose" with the promise to subscribe to the oath of the order, and, though Protestant, to name the Catholic Franciscan his brother. According to a spicy review[9] in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_[10] these snuff-boxes were sold in Hamburg wrapped in a printed copy of Jacobi's letter to Gleim, and the reviewer adds, "like Grenough's tooth-tincture in the directions for its use."[11] Nicolai in "Sebaldus Nothanker" refers to the Lorenzo cult with evident ridicule.[12]

There were other efforts to make Yorick's example an efficient power of beneficent brotherliness. Kaufmann attempted to found a Lorenzo order of the horn snuff-box. Düntzer, in his study of Kaufmann,[13] states that this was only an effort on Kaufmann's part to embrace a timely opportunity to make himself prominent. This endeavor was made according to Düntzer, during Kaufmann's residence in Strassburg, which the investigator assigns to the years 1774-75. Leuchsenring,[14] the eccentric sentimentalist, who for a time belonged to the Darmstadt circle and whom Goethe satirized in "Pater Brey," cherished also for a time the idea of founding an order of "Empfindsamkeit."

In the literary remains of Johann Christ Hofmann[15] in Coburg was found the "patent" of an order of "Sanftmuth und Versöhnung." A "Lorenzodose" was found with it marked XXVIII, and the seven rules of the order, dated Coburg "im Ordens-Comtoir, den 10 August, 1769," are merely a topical enlargement and ordering of Jacobi's original idea. Longo gives them in full. Appell states that Jacobi explained through a friend that he knew nothing of this order and had no share in its founding. Longo complains that Appell does not give the source of his information, but Jacobi in his note to the so-called "Stiftungs-Brief" in the edition of 1807 quotes the article in Schlichtegroll's "Nekrolog" as his only knowledge of this order, certainly implying his previous ignorance of its existence.

Somewhat akin to these attempts to incorporate Yorick's ideas is the fantastic laying out of the park at Marienwerder near Hanover, of which Matthison writes in his "Vaterländische Besuche,"[16] and in a letter to the Hofrath von Köpken in Magdeburg,[17] dated October 17, 1785. After a sympathetic description of the secluded park, he tells how labyrinthine paths lead to an eminence "where the unprepared stranger is surprised by the sight of a cemetery. On the crosses there one reads beloved names from Yorick's Journey and Tristram Shandy. Father Lorenzo, Eliza, Maria of Moulines, Corporal Trim, Uncle Toby and Yorick were gathered by a poetic fancy to this graveyard." The letter gives a similar description and adds the epitaph on Trim's monument, "Weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness, for he was your brother,"[18] a quotation, which in its fuller form, Matthison uses in a letter[19] to Bonstetten, Heidelberg, February 7, 1794, in speaking of Böck the actor. It is impossible to determine whose eccentric and tasteless enthusiasm is represented by this mortuary arrangement.

Louise von Ziegler, known in the Darmstadt circle as Lila, whom Merck admired and, according to Caroline Flaschsland, "almost compared with Yorick's Maria," was so sentimental that she had her grave made in her garden, evidently for purposes of contemplation, and she led a lamb about which ate and drank with her. Upon the death of this animal, "a faithful dog" took its place. Thus was Maria of Moulines remembered.[20]

It has already been noted that Yorick's sympathy for the brute creation found cordial response in Germany, such regard being accepted as a part of his message. That the spread of such sentimental notions was not confined to the printed word, but passed over into actual regulation of conduct is admirably illustrated by an anecdote related in Wieland's _Teutscher Merkur_ in the January number for 1776, by a correspondent who signs himself "S." A friend was visiting him; they went to walk, and the narrator having his gun with him shot with it two young doves. His friend is exercised. "What have the doves done to you?" he queries. "Nothing," is the reply, "but they will taste good to you." "But they were alive," interposed the friend, "and would have caressed (geschnäbelt) one another," and later he refuses to partake of the doves. Connection with Yorick is established by the narrator himself: "If my friend had not read Yorick's story about the sparrow, he would have had no rule of conduct here about shooting doves, and my doves would have tasted better to him." The influence of Yorick was, however, quite possibly indirect through Jacobi as intermediary; for the latter describes a sentimental family who refused to allow their doves to be killed. The author of this letter, however, refers directly to Yorick, to the very similar episode of the sparrows narrated in the continuation of the Sentimental Journey, but an adventure original with the German Bode. This is probably the source of Jacobi's narrative.

The other side of Yorick's character, less comprehensible, less capable of translation into tangibilities, was not disregarded. His humor and whimsicality, though much less potent, were yet influential. Ramler said in a letter to Gebler dated November 14, 1775, that everyone wished to jest like Sterne,[21] and the _Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen_ (October 31, 1775), at almost precisely the same time, discourses at some length on the then prevailing epidemic of whimsicality, showing that shallowness beheld in the then existing interest in humor a justification for all sorts of eccentric behavior and inconsistent wilfulness.

Naturally Sterne's influence in the world of letters may be traced most obviously in the slavish imitation of his style, his sentiment, his whims,--this phase represented in general by now forgotten triflers; but it also enters into the thought of the great minds in the fatherland and becomes interwoven with their culture. Their own expressions of indebtedness are here often available in assigning a measure of relationship. And finally along certain general lines the German Yorick exercised an influence over the way men thought and wanted to think.

The direct imitations of Sterne are very numerous, a crowd of followers, a motley procession of would-be Yoricks, set out on one expedition or another. Musäus[22] in a review of certain sentimental meanderings in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_,[23] remarked that the increase of such journeyings threatened to bring about a new epoch in the taste of the time. He adds that the good Yorick presumably never anticipated becoming the founder of a fashionable sect. This was in 1773. Other expressions of alarm or disapprobation might be cited.

Through Sterne's influence the account of travels became more personal, less purely topographical, more volatile and merry, more subjective.[24] Goethe in a passage in the "Campagne in Frankreich," to which reference is made later, acknowledges this impulse as derived from Yorick. Its presence was felt even when there was no outward effort at sentimental journeying. The suggestion that the record of a journey was personal and tinged with humor was essential to its popularity. It was probably purely an effort to make use of this appeal which led the author of "Bemerkungen eines Reisenden durch Deutschland, Frankreich, England und Holland,"[25] a work of purely practical observation, to place upon his title-page the alluring lines from Gay: "Life is a jest and all things shew it. I thought so once, but now I know it;" a promise of humorous attitude which does not find fulfilment in the heavy volumes of purely objective description which follow.

Probably the first German book to bear the name Yorick in its title was a short satirical sketch entitled, "Yorick und die Bibliothek der elenden Scribenten, an Hrn.--" 1768, 8vo (Anspach),[26] which is linked to the quite disgustingly scurrilous Antikriticus controversy.

Attempts at whimsicality, imitations also of the Shandean gallery of originals appear, and the more particularly Shandean style of narration is adopted in the novels of the period which deal with middle-class domestic life. Of books directly inspired by Sterne, or following more or less slavishly his guidance, a considerable proportion has undoubtedly been consigned to merited oblivion. In many cases it is possible to determine from contemporary reviews the nature of the individual product, and the probable extent of indebtedness to the British model. If it were possible to find and examine them all with a view to establishing extent of relationship, the identity of motifs, the borrowing of thought and sentiment, such a work would give us little more than we learn from consideration of representative examples. In the following chapter the attempt will be made to treat a number of typical products. Baker in his article on Sterne in Germany adopts the rather hazardous expedient of judging merely by title and taking from Goedeke's "Grundriss," works which suggests a dependence on Sterne.[27]

The early relation of several great men of letters to Sterne has been already treated in connection with the gradual awakening of Germany to the new force. Wieland was one of Sterne's most ardent admirers, one of his most intelligent interpreters; but since his relationship to Sterne has been made the theme of special study,[28] there will be needed here but a brief recapitulation with some additional comment. Especially in the productions of the years 1768-1774 are the direct allusions to Sterne and his works numerous, the adaptations of motifs frequent, and imitation of literary style unmistakable. Behmer finds no demonstrable evidence of Sterne's influence in Wieland's work prior to two poems of the year 1768, "Endymions Traum" and "Chloe;" but in the works of the years immediately following there is abundant evidence both in style and in subject matter, in the fund of allusion and illustration, to establish the author's indebtedness to Sterne. Behmer analyzes from this standpoint the following works: "Beiträge zur geheimen Geschichte des menschlichen Verstandes und Herzens;" "Sokrates Mainomenos oder die Dialogen des Diogenes von Sinope;" "Der neue Amadis;" "Der goldene Spiegel;" "Geschichte des Philosophen Danischmende;" "Gedanken über eine alte Aufschrift;" "Geschichte der Abderiten."[29]

In these works, but in different measure in each, Behmer finds Sterne copied stylistically, in the constant conversations about the worth of the book, the comparative value of the different chapters and the difficulty of managing the material, in the fashion of inconsequence in unexplained beginnings and abrupt endings, in the heaping up of words of similar meaning, or similar ending, and in the frequent digressions. Sterne also is held responsible for the manner of introducing the immorally suggestive, for the introduction of learned quotations and references to authorities, for the sport made of the learned professions and the satire upon all kinds of pedantry and overwrought enthusiasm. Though the direct, demonstrable influence of Sterne upon Wieland's literary activity dies out gradually[30] and naturally, with the growth of his own genius, his admiration for the English favorite abides with him, passing on into succeeding periods of his development, as his former enthusiasm for Richardson failed to do.[31] More than twenty years later, when more sober days had stilled the first unbridled outburst of sentimentalism, Wieland speaks yet of Sterne in terms of unaltered devotion: in an article published in the _Merkur_,[32] Sterne is called among all authors the one "from whom I would last part,"[33] and the subject of the article itself is an indication of his concern for the fate of Yorick among his fellow-countrymen. It is in the form of an epistle to Herr . . . . zu D., and is a vigorous protest against heedless imitation of Sterne, representing chiefly the perils of such endeavor and the bathos of the failure. Wieland includes in the letter some "specimen passages from a novel in the style of Tristram Shandy," which he asserts were sent him by the author. The quotations are almost flat burlesque in their impossible idiocy, and one can easily appreciate Wieland's despairing cry with which the article ends.

A few words of comment upon Behmer's work will be in place. He accepts as genuine the two added volumes of the Sentimental Journey and the Koran, though he admits that the former were published by a friend, not "without additions of his own," and he uses these volumes directly at least in one instance in establishing his parallels, the rescue of the naked woman from the fire in the third volume of the Journey, and the similar rescue from the waters in the "Nachlass des Diogenes."[34] That Sterne had any connection with these volumes is improbable, and the Koran is surely a pure fabrication. Behmer seeks in a few words to deny the reproach cast upon Sterne that he had no understanding of the beauties of nature, but Behmer is certainly claiming too much when he speaks of the "Farbenprächtige Schilderungen der ihm ungewohnten sonnenverklärten Landschaft," which Sterne gives us "repeatedly" in the Sentimental Journey, and he finds his most secure evidence for Yorick's "genuine and pure" feeling for nature in the oft-quoted passage beginning, "I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry ''Tis all barren.'" It would surely be difficult to find these repeated instances, for, in the whole work, Sterne gives absolutely no description of natural scenery beyond the most casual, incidental reference: the familiar passage is also misinterpreted, it betrays no appreciation of inanimate nature in itself, and is but a cry in condemnation of those who fail to find exercise for their sympathetic emotions. Sterne mentions the "sweet myrtle" and "melancholy cypress,"[35] not as indicative of his own affection for nature, but as exemplifying his own exceeding personal need of expenditure of human sympathy, as indeed the very limit to which sensibility can go, when the desert denies possibility of human intercourse. Sterne's attitude is much better illustrated at the beginning of the "Road to Versailles": "As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look for in traveling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short history of this self-same bird." In other words, he met no possibility for exercising the emotions. Behmer's statement with reference to Sterne, "that his authorship proceeds anyway from a parody of Richardson," is surely not demonstrable, nor that "this whole fashion of composition is indeed but ridicule of Richardson." Richardson's star had paled perceptibly before Sterne began to write, and the period of his immense popularity lies nearly twenty years before. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that his works have any connection whatsoever with Richardson's novels. One is tempted to think that Behmer confuses Sterne with Fielding, whose career as a novelist did begin as a parodist of the vain little printer. That the "Starling" in the Sentimental Journey, which is passed on from hand to hand, and the burden of government which wanders similarly in "Der Goldene Spiegel" constitute a parallelism, as Behmer suggests (p. 48), seems rather far-fetched. It could also be hardly demonstrated that what Behmer calls "die Sternische Einführungsweise"[36] (p. 54), as used in the "Geschichte der Abderiten," is peculiar to Sterne or even characteristic of him. Behmer (p. 19) seems to be ignorant of any reprints or translations of the Koran, the letters and the sermons, save those coming from Switzerland.

Bauer's study of the Sterne-Wieland relation is much briefer (thirty-five pages) and much less satisfactory because less thorough, yet it contains some few valuable individual points and cited parallelisms. Bauer errs in stating that Shandy appeared 1759-67 in York, implying that the whole work was issued there. He gives the dates of Sterne's first visit to Paris, also incorrectly, as 1760-62.

Finally, Wieland cannot be classed among the slavish imitators of Yorick; he is too independent a thinker, too insistent a pedagogue to allow himself to be led more than outwardly by the foreign model. He has something of his own to say and is genuinely serious in a large portion of his own philosophic speculations: hence, his connection with Sterne, being largely stylistic and illustrative, may be designated as a drapery of foreign humor about his own seriousness of theorizing. Wieland's Hellenic tendencies make the use of British humor all the more incongruous.[37]

Herder's early acquaintance with Sterne has been already treated. Subsequent writings offer also occasional indication of an abiding admiration. Soon after his arrival in Paris he wrote to Hartknoch praising Sterne's characterization of the French people.[38] The fifth "Wäldchen," which is concerned with the laughable, contains reference to Sterne.[39]

With Lessing the case is similar: a striking statement of personal regard has been recorded, but Lessing's literary work of the following years does not betray a significant influence from Yorick. To be sure, allusion is made to Sterne a few times in letters[40] and elsewhere, but no direct manifestation of devotion is discoverable. The compelling consciousness of his own message, his vigorous interest in deeper problems of religion and philosophy, the then increasing worth of native German literature, may well have overshadowed the influence of the volatile Briton.

Goethe's expressions of admiration for Sterne and indebtedness to him are familiar. Near the end of his life (December 16, 1828), when the poet was interested in observing the history and sources of his own culture, and was intent upon recording his own experience for the edification and clarification of the people, he says in conversation with Eckermann: "I am infinitely indebted to Shakespeare, Sterne and Goldsmith."[41] And a year later in a letter to Zelter,[42] (Weimar, December 25, 1829), "The influence Goldsmith and Sterne exercised upon me, just at the chief point of my development, cannot be estimated. This high, benevolent irony, this just and comprehensive way of viewing things, this gentleness to all opposition, this equanimity under every change, and whatever else all the kindred virtues may be termed--such things were a most admirable training for me, and surely, these are the sentiments which in the end lead us back from all the mistaken paths of life."

In the same conversation with Eckermann from which the first quotation is made, Goethe seems to defy the investigator who would endeavor to define his indebtedness to Sterne, its nature and its measure. The occasion was an attempt on the part of certain writers to determine the authorship of certain distichs printed in both Schiller's and Goethe's works. Upon a remark of Eckermann's that this effort to hunt down a man's originality and to trace sources is very common in the literary world, Goethe says: "Das ist sehr lächerlich, man könnte ebenso gut einen wohlgenährten Mann nach den Ochsen, Schafen und Schweinen fragen, die er gegessen und die ihm Kräfte gegeben." An investigation such as Goethe seems to warn us against here would be one of tremendous difficulty, a theme for a separate work. It is purposed here to gather only information with reference to Goethe's expressed or implied attitude toward Sterne, his opinion of the British master, and to note certain connections between Goethe's work and that of Sterne, connections which are obvious or have been already a matter of comment and discussion.

In Strassburg under Herder's[43] guidance, Goethe seems first to have read the works of Sterne. His life in Frankfurt during the interval between his two periods of university residence was not of a nature calculated to increase his acquaintance with current literature, and his studies did not lead to interest in literary novelty. This is his own statement in "Dichtung und Wahrheit."[44] That Herder's enthusiasm for Sterne was generous has already been shown by letters written in the few years previous to his sojourn in Strassburg. Letters written to Merck[45] (Strassburg, 1770-1771) would seem to show that then too Sterne still stood high in his esteem. Whatever the exact time of Goethe's first acquaintance with Sterne, we know that he recommended the British writer to Jung-Stilling for the latter's cultivation in letters.[46] Less than a year after Goethe's departure from Strassburg, we find him reading aloud to the Darmstadt circle the story of poor Le Fevre from Tristram Shandy. This is reported in a letter, dated May 8, 1772, by Caroline Flachsland, Herder's fiancée.[47] It is not evident whether they read Sterne in the original or in the translation of Zückert, the only one then available, unless possibly the reader gave a translation as he read. Later in the same letter, Caroline mentions the "Empfindsame Reisen," possibly meaning Bode's translation. She also records reading Shakespeare in Wieland's rendering, but as she speaks later still of peeping into the English books which Herder had sent Merck, it is a hazardous thing to reason from her mastery of English at that time to the use of original or translation on the occasion of Goethe's reading.

Contemporary criticism saw in the Martin of "Götz von Berlichingen" a likeness to Sterne's creations;[48] and in the other great work of the pre-Weimarian period, in "Werther," though no direct influence rewards one's search, one must acknowledge the presence of a mental and emotional state to which Sterne was a contributor. Indeed Goethe himself suggests this relationship. Speaking of "Werther" in the "Campagne in Frankreich,"[49] he observes in a well-known passage that Werther did not cause the disease, only exposed it, and that Yorick shared in preparing the ground-work of sentimentalism on which "Werther" is built.

According to the quarto edition of 1837, the first series of letters from Switzerland dates from 1775, although they were not published till 1808, in the eleventh volume of the edition begun in 1806. Scherer, in his "History of German Literature," asserts that these letters are written in imitation of Sterne, but it is difficult to see the occasion for such a statement. The letters are, in spite of all haziness concerning the time of their origin and Goethe's exact purpose regarding them,[50] a "fragment of Werther's travels" and are confessedly cast in a sentimental tone, which one might easily attribute to a Werther, in whom hyperesthesia has not yet developed to delirium, an earlier Werther. Yorick's whim and sentiment are quite wanting, and the sensuousness, especially as pertains to corporeal beauty, is distinctly Goethean.

Goethe's accounts of his own travels are quite free from the Sterne flavor; in fact he distinctly says that through the influence of the Sentimental Journey all records of journeys had been mostly given up to the feelings and opinions of the traveler, but that he, after his Italian journey, had endeavored to keep himself objective.[51]

Dr. Robert Riemann in his study of Goethe's novels,[52] calls Friedrich in "Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre" a representative of Sterne's humor, and he finds in Mittler in the "Wahlverwandtschaften" a union of seriousness and the comic of caricature, reminiscent of Sterne and Hippel. Friedrich is mercurial, petulant, utterly irresponsible, a creature of mirth and laughter, subject to unreasoning fits of passion. One might, in thinking of another character in fiction, designate Friedrich as faun-like. In all of this one can, however, find little if any demonstrable likeness to Sterne or Sterne's creations. It is rather difficult also to see wherein the character of Mittler is reminiscent of Sterne. Mittler is introduced with the obvious purpose of representing certain opinions and of aiding the development of the story by his insistence upon them. He represents a brusque, practical kind of benevolence, and his eccentricity lies only in the extraordinary occupation which he has chosen for himself. Riemann also traces to Sterne, Fielding and their German followers, Goethe's occasional use of the direct appeal to the reader. Doubtless Sterne's example here was a force in extending this rhetorical convention.

It is claimed by Goebel[53] that Goethe's "Homunculus," suggested to the master partly by reading of Paracelsus and partly by Sterne's mediation, is in some characteristics of his being dependent directly on Sterne's creation. In a meeting of the "Gesellschaft für deutsche Litteratur," November, 1896, Brandl expressed the opinion that Maria of Moulines was a prototype of Mignon in "Wilhelm Meister."[54]

The references to Sterne in Goethe's works, in his letters and conversations, are fairly numerous in the aggregate, but not especially striking relatively. In the conversations with Eckermann there are several other allusions besides those already mentioned. Goethe calls Eckermann a second Shandy for suffering illness without calling a physician, even as Walter Shandy failed to attend to the squeaking door-hinge.[55] Eckermann himself draws on Sterne for illustrations in Yorick's description of Paris,[56] and on January 24, 1830, at a time when we know that Goethe was re-reading Sterne, Eckermann refers to Yorick's (?) doctrine of the reasonable use of grief.[57] That Goethe near the end of his life turned again to Sterne's masterpiece is proved by a letter to Zelter, October 5, 1830;[58] he adds here too that his admiration has increased with the years, speaking particularly of Sterne's gay arraignment of pedantry and philistinism. But a few days before this, October 1, 1830, in a conversation reported by Riemer,[59] he expresses the same opinion and adds that Sterne was the first to raise himself and us from pedantry and philistinism. By these remarks Goethe commits himself in at least one respect to a favorable view of Sterne's influence on German letters. A few other minor allusions to Sterne may be of interest. In an article in the _Horen_ (1795, V. Stück,) entitled "Literarischer Sansculottismus," Goethe mentions Smelfungus as a type of growler.[60] In the "Wanderjahre"[61] there is a reference to Yorick's classification of travelers. Düntzer, in Schnorr's _Archiv_,[62] explains a passage in a letter of Goethe's to Johanna Fahlmer (August, 1775), "die Verworrenheiten des Diego und Juliens" as an allusion to the "Intricacies of Diego and Julia" in Slawkenbergius's tale,[63] and to the traveler's conversation with his beast. In a letter to Frau von Stein[64] five years later (September 18, 1780) Goethe used this same expression, and the editor of the letters avails himself of Düntzer's explanation. Düntzer further explains the word +theodokos+, used in Goethe's Tagebuch with reference to the Duke, in connection with the term +theodidaktos+ applied to Walter Shandy. The word is, however, somewhat illegible in the manuscript. It was printed thus in the edition of the Tagebuch published by Robert Keil, but when Düntzer himself, nine years after the article in the _Archiv_, published an edition of the Tagebücher he accepted a reading +theotatos+,[65] meaning, as he says, "ein voller Gott," thereby tacitly retracting his former theory of connection with Sterne.

The best known relationship between Goethe and Sterne is in connection with the so-called plagiarisms in the appendix to the third volume of the "Wanderjahre." Here, in the second edition, were printed under the title "Aus Makariens Archiv" various maxims and sentiments. Among these were a number of sayings, reflections, axioms, which were later discovered to have been taken bodily from the second part of the Koran, the best known Sterne-forgery. Alfred Hédouin, in "Le Monde Maçonnique" (1863), in an article "Goethe plagiaire de Sterne," first located the quotations.[66]

Mention has already been made of the account of Robert Springer, which is probably the last published essay on the subject. It is entitled "Ist Goethe ein Plagiarius Lorenz Sternes?" and is found in the volume "Essays zur Kritik und Philosophie und zur Goethe-Litteratur."[67] Springer cites at some length the liberal opinions of Molière, La Bruyère, Wieland, Heine and others concerning the literary appropriation of another's thought. He then proceeds to quote Goethe's equally generous views on the subject, and adds the uncritical fling that if Goethe robbed Sterne, it was an honor to Sterne, a gain to his literary fame. Near the end of his paper, Springer arrives at the question in hand and states positively that these maxims, with their miscellaneous companions, were never published by Goethe, but were found by the editors of his literary remains among his miscellaneous papers, and then issued in the ninth volume of the posthumous works. Hédouin had suggested this possible explanation. Springer adds that the editors were unaware of the source of this material and supposed it to be original with Goethe.

The facts of the case are, however, as follows: "Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre" was published first in 1821.[68] In 1829, a new and revised edition was issued in the "Ausgabe letzter Hand." Eckermann in his conversations with Goethe[69] relates the circumstances under which the appendices were added to the earlier work. When the book was in press, the publisher discovered that of the three volumes planned, the last two were going to be too thin, and begged for more material to fill out their scantiness. In this perplexity Goethe brought to Eckermann two packets of miscellaneous notes to be edited and added to those two slender volumes. In this way arose the collection of sayings, scraps and quotations "Im Sinne der Wanderer" and "Aus Makariens Archiv." It was later agreed that Eckermann, when Goethe's literary remains should be published, should place the matter elsewhere, ordered into logical divisions of thought. All of the sentences here under special consideration were published in the twenty-third volume of the "Ausgabe letzter Hand," which is dated 1830,[70] and are to be found there, on pages 271-275 and 278-281. They are reprinted in the identical order in the ninth volume of the "Nachgelassene Werke," which also bore the title, Vol. XLIX of "Ausgabe letzter Hand," there found on pages 121-125 and 127-131. Evidently Springer found them here in the posthumous works, and did not look for them in the previous volume, which was published two years or thereabouts before Goethe's death.

Of the sentiments, sentences and quotations dealing with Sterne, there are twenty which are translations from the Koran, in Loeper's edition of "Sprüche in Prosa,"[71] Nos. 491-507 and 543-544; seventeen others (Nos. 490, 508-509, 521-533, 535) contain direct appreciative criticism of Sterne; No. 538 is a comment upon a Latin quotation in the Koran and No. 545 is a translation of another quotation in the same work. No. 532 gives a quotation from Sterne, "Ich habe mein Elend nicht wie ein weiser Mann benutzt," which Loeper says he has been unable to find in any of Sterne's works. It is, however, in a letter[72] to John Hall Stevenson, written probably in August, 1761. The translation here is inexact. Loeper did not succeed in finding Nos. 534, 536, 537, although their position indicates that they were quotations from Sterne, but No. 534 is in a letter to Garrick from Paris, March 19, 1762. The German translation however conveys a different impression from the original English. The other two are not located; in spite of their position, the way in which the book was put together would certainly allow for the possibility of extraneous material creeping in. At their first appearance in the "Ausgabe letzter Hand," five Sprüche, Nos. 491, 543, 534, 536, 537, were supplied with quotation marks, though the source was not indicated. Thus it is seen that the most of the quotations were published as original during Goethe's lifetime, but he probably never considered it of sufficient consequence to disavow their authorship in public. It is quite possible that the way in which they were forced into "Wilhelm Meister" was distasteful to him afterwards, and he did not care to call attention to them.

Goethe's opinion of Sterne as expressed in the sentiments which accompany the quotations from the Koran is significant. "Yorick Sterne," he says, "war der schönste Geist, der je gewirkt hat; wer ihn liest, fühlet sich sogleich frei und schön; sein Humor ist unnachahmlich, und nicht jeder Humor befreit die Seele" (490). "Sagacität und Penetration sind bei ihm grenzenlos" (528). Goethe asserts here that every person of culture should at that very time read Sterne's works, so that the nineteenth century might learn "what we owed him and perceive what we might owe him." Goethe took Sterne's narrative of his journey as a representation of an actual trip, or else he is speaking of Sterne's letters in the following:

"Seine Heiterkeit, Genügsamkeit, Duldsamkeit auf der Reise, wo diese Eigenschaften am meisten geprüft werden, finden nicht leicht Ihresgleichen" (No. 529), and Goethe's opinion of Sterne's indecency is characteristic of Goethe's attitude. He says: "Das Element der Lüsternheit, in dem er sich so zierlich und sinnig benimmt, würde vielen Andern zum Verderben gereichen."

The juxtaposition of these quotations and this appreciation of Sterne is proof sufficient that Goethe considered Sterne the author of the Koran at the time when the notes were made. At precisely what time this occurred it is now impossible to determine, but the drift of the comment, combined with our knowledge from sources already mentioned, that Goethe turned again to Sterne in the latter years of his life, would indicate that the quotations were made in the latter part of the twenties, and that the re-reading of Sterne included the Koran. Since the translations which Goethe gives are not identical with those in the rendering ascribed to Bode (1778), Loeper suggests Goethe himself as the translator of the individual quotations. Loeper is ignorant of the earlier translation of Gellius, which Goethe may have used.[73]

There is yet another possibility of connection between Goethe and the Koran. This work contained the story of the Graf von Gleichen, which is acknowledged to have been a precursor of Goethe's "Stella." Düntzer in his "Erläuterungen zu den deutschen Klassikern" says it is impossible to determine whence Goethe took the story for "Stella." He mentions that it was contained in Bayle's Dictionary, which is known to have been in Goethe's father's library, and two other books, both dating from the sixteenth century, are noted as possible sources. It seems rather more probable that Goethe found the story in the Koran, which was published but a few years before "Stella" was written and translated but a year later, 1771, that is, but four years, or even less, before the appearance of "Stella" (1775).[74]

Precisely in the spirit of the opinions quoted above is the little essay[75] on Sterne which was published in the sixth volume of "Ueber Kunst und Alterthum," in which Goethe designates Sterne as a man "who first stimulated and propagated the great epoch of purer knowledge of humanity, noble toleration and tender love, in the second half of the last century." Goethe further calls attenion to Sterne's disclosure of human peculiarities (Eigenheiten), and the importance and interest of these native, governing idiosyncrasies.

These are, in general, superficial relationships. A thorough consideration of these problems, especially as concerns the cultural indebtedness of Goethe to the English master would be a task demanding a separate work. Goethe was an assimilator and summed up in himself the spirit of a century, the attitude of predecessors and contemporaries.

C. F. D. Schubart wrote a poem entitled "Yorick,"[76] beginning

"Als Yorik starb, da flog Sein Seelchen auf den Himmel So leicht wie ein Seufzerchen."

The angels ask him for news of earth, and the greater part of the poem is occupied with his account of human fate. The relation is quite characteristic of Schubart in its gruesomeness, its insistence upon all-surrounding death and dissolution; but it contains no suggestion of Sterne's manner, or point of view. The only explanation of association between the poem and its title is that Schubart shared the one-sided German estimate of Sterne's character and hence represented him as a sympathetic messenger bringing to heaven on his death some tidings of human weakness.

In certain other manifestations, relatively subordinate, the German literature of the latter part of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth and the life embodied therein are different from what they would have been had it not been for Sterne's example. Some of these secondary fruits of the Sterne cult have been mentioned incidentally and exemplified in the foregoing pages. It would perhaps be conducive to definiteness to gather them here.

Sterne's incontinuity of narration, the purposeful irrelation of parts, the use of anecdote and episode, which to the stumbling reader reduce his books to collections of disconnected essays and instances, gave to German mediocrity a sanction to publish a mass of multifarious, unrelated, and nondescript thought and incident. It is to be noted that the spurious books such as the Koran, which Germany never clearly sundered from the original, were direct examples in England of such disjointed, patchwork books. Such a volume with a significant title is "Mein Kontingent zur Modelectüre."[77] Further, eccentricity in typography, in outward form, may be largely attributed to Sterne's influence, although in individual cases no direct connection is traceable. Thus, to the vagaries of Shandy is due probably the license of the author of "Karl Blumenberg, eine tragisch-komische Geschichte,"[78] who fills half pages with dashes and whole lines with "Ha! Ha!"

As has been suggested already, Sterne's example was potent in fostering the use of such stylistic peculiarities, as the direct appeal to, and conversation with the reader about the work, and its progress, and the various features of the situation. It was in use by Sterne's predecessors in England and by their followers in Germany, before Sterne can be said to have exercised any influence; for example, Hermes uses the device constantly in "Miss Fanny Wilkes," but Sterne undoubtedly contributed largely to its popularity. One may perhaps trace to Sterne's blank pages and similar vagaries the eccentricity of the author of "Ueber die Moralische Schönheit und Philosophie des Lebens,"[79] whose eighth chapter is titled "Vom Stolz, eine Erzählung," this title occupying one page; the next page (210) is blank; the following page is adorned with an urnlike decoration beneath which we read, "Es war einmal ein Priester." These three pages complete the chapter. The author of "Dorset und Julie" (Leipzig, 1773-4) is also guilty of similar Yorickian follies.[80]

Sterne's ideas found approbation and currency apart from his general message of the sentimental and humorous attitude toward the world and its course. For example, the hobby-horse theory was warmly received, and it became a permanent figure in Germany, often, and especially at first, with playful reminder of Yorick's use of the term.[81] Yorick's mock-scientific division of travelers seems to have met with especial approval, and evidently became a part of conversational, and epistolary commonplace allusion. Goethe in a letter to Marianne Willemer, November 9, 1830,[82] with direct reference to Sterne proposes for his son, then traveling in Italy, the additional designation of the "bold" or "complete" traveler. Carl August in a letter to Knebel,[83] dated December 26, 1785, makes quite extended allusion to the classification. Lessing writes to Mendelssohn December 12, 1780: "The traveler whom you sent to me a while ago was an inquisitive traveler. The one with whom I now answer is an emigrating one." The passage which follows is an apology for thus adding to Yorick's list. The two travelers were respectively one Fliess and Alexander Daveson.[84] Nicolai makes similar allusion to the "curious" traveler of Sterne's classification near the beginning of his "Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz im Jahre 1781."[85]

Further search would increase the number of such allusions indefinitely. A few will be mentioned in the following chapter.

One of Walter Shandy's favorite contentions was the fortuitous dependence of great events upon insignificant details. In his philosophy, trifles were the determining factors of existence. The adoption of this theory in Germany, as a principle in developing events or character in fiction, is unquestionable in Wezel's "Tobias Knaut," and elsewhere. The narrative, "Die Grosse Begebenheit aus kleinen Ursachen" in the second volume of the _Erholungen_,[86] represents a wholesale appropriation of the idea,--to be sure not new in Shandy, but most strikingly exemplified there.

In "Sebaldus Nothanker" the Revelation of St. John is a Sterne-like hobby-horse and is so regarded by a reviewer in the _Magazin der deutschen Critik_.[87] Schottenius in Knigge's "Reise nach Braunschweig" rides his hobby in the shape of his fifty-seven sermons.[88] Lessing uses the Steckenpferd in a letter to Mendelssohn, November 5, 1768 (Lachmann edition, XII, p. 212), and numerous other examples of direct or indirect allusion might be cited. Sterne's worn-out coin was a simile adopted and felt to be pointed.[89]

Jacob Minor in a suggestive article in _Euphorion_,[90] entitled "Wahrheit und Lüge auf dem Theater und in der Literatur," expressed the opinion that Sterne was instrumental in sharpening powers of observation with reference to self-deception in little things, to all the deceiving impulses of the human soul. It is held that through Sterne's inspiration Wieland and Goethe were rendered zealous to combat false ideals and life-lies in greater things. It is maintained that Tieck also was schooled in Sterne, and, by means of powers of observation sharpened in this way, was enabled to portray the conscious or unconscious life-lie.

[Footnote 1: A writer in the _Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitungen_, 1775 (II, 787 ff.), asserts that Sterne's works are the favorite reading of the German nation.]

[Footnote 2: A further illustration may be found in the following discourse: "Von einigen Hindernissen des akademischen Fleisses. Eine Rede bey dem Anfange der öffentlichen Vorlesungen gehalten," von J. C. C. Ferber, Professor zu Helmstädt (1773, 8vo), reviewed in _Magazin der deutschen Critik_, III, St. I., pp. 261 ff. This academic guide of youth speaks of Sterne in the following words: "Wie tief dringt dieser Philosoph in die verborgensten Gänge des menschlichen Herzens, wie richtig entdeckt er die geheimsten Federn der Handlungen, wie entlarvt, wie verabscheuungsvoll steht vor ihm das Laster, wie liebenswürdig die Tugend! wie interessant sind seine Schilderungen, wie eindringend seine Lehren! und woher diese grosse Kenntniss des Menschen, woher diese getreue Bezeichnung der Natur, diese sanften Empfindungen, die seine geistvolle Sprache hervorbringt? Dieser Saame der Tugend, den er mit wohlthätiger Hand ausstreuet?" Yorick held up to college or university students as a champion of virtue is certainly an extraordinary spectacle. A critic in the _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._, August 18, 1772, in criticising the make-up of a so-called "Landbibliothek," recommends books "die geschickt sind, die guten einfältigen, ungekünstelten Empfindungen reiner Seelen zu unterhalten, einen Yorick vor allen . . . ." The long article on Sterne's character in the _Götting. Mag._, I, pp. 84-92, 1780, "Etwas über Sterne: Schreiben an Prof. Lichtenberg" undoubtedly helped to establish this opinion of Sterne authoritatively. In it Sterne's weaknesses are acknowledged, but the tendency is to emphasize the tender, sympathetic side of his character. The conception of Yorick there presented is quite different from the one held by Lichtenberg himself.]

[Footnote 3: The story of the "Lorenzodosen" is given quite fully in Longo's monograph, "Laurence Sterne und Johann Georg Jacobi" (Wien, 1898, pp. 39-44), and the sketch given here is based upon his investigation, with consultation of the sources there cited. Nothing new is likely to be added to his account, but because of its important illustrative bearing on the whole story of Sterne in Germany, a fairly complete account is given here. Longo refers to the following as literature on the subject:

Martin, in _Quellen und Forschungen_, II, p. 10, p. 27, Anmerk. 24.

Wittenberg's letter in _Quellen und Forschungen_, II, pp. 52-53.

K. M. Werner, in article on Ludw. Philipp Hahn in the same series, XXII, pp. 127 ff.

Appell: "Werther und seine Zeit," Leipzig, 1855, p. 168. (Oldenburg, 1896, p. 246-250).

Schlichtegroll: "Nekrolog von 1792," II, pp. 37 ff.

Klotz: _Bibliothek_, V, p. 285.

Jacobi's Werke, 1770, I, pp. 127 ff.

_Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XIX, 2, p. 174; XII, 2, p. 279.

Julian Schmidt: "Aus der Zeit der Lorenzodosen," _Westermann's Monatshefte_, XLIX, pp. 479 ff.

The last article is popular and only valuable in giving letters of Wieland and others which display the emotional currents of the time. It has very little to do with the Lorenzodosen.]

[Footnote 4: The letter is reprinted in Jacobi's Works, 1770, I, pp. 31 ff., and in an abridged form in the edition of 1807, I, pp. 103 ff.; and in the edition of Zürich, 1825, I, pp. 270-275.]

[Footnote 5: XI, 2, pp. 174-75.]

[Footnote 6: _Quellen und Forschungen_, XXII, p. 127.]

[Footnote 7: _Ibid._, II, pp. 52-53.]

[Footnote 8: This was in a letter to Jacobi October 25, 1770, though Appell gives the date 1775--evidently a misprint.]

[Footnote 9: Review of "Trois lettres françoises par quelques allemands," Amsterdam (Berlin), 1769, 8vo, letters concerned with Jacobi's "Winterreise" and the snuff-boxes themselves.]

[Footnote 10: XII, 2, p. 279.]

[Footnote 11: Longo was unable to find one of these once so popular snuff-boxes,--a rather remarkable fact. There is, however, a picture of one at the end of the chapter "Yorick," p. 15 in Göchhausen's M . . . . R . . . .,--a small oval box. Emil Kuh, in his life of Fredrich Hebbel (1877, I, pp. 117-118) speaks of the Lorenzodose as "dreieckig." A chronicler in Schlichtegroll's "Nekrolog," 1792, II, p. 51, also gives rumor of an order of "Sanftmuth und Toleranz, der eine dreyeckigte Lorenzodose zum Symbol führte." The author here is unable to determine whether this is a part of Jacobi's impulse or the initiative of another.]

[Footnote 12: Fourth Edition. Berlin and Stettin, 1779, III, p. 99.]

[Footnote 13: "Christopher Kaufmann, der Kraftapostel der Geniezeit" von Heinrich Düntzer, _Historisches Taschenbuch_, edited by Fr. v. Raumer, third series, tenth year, Leipzig, 1859, pp. 109-231. Düntzer's sources concerning Kaufmann's life in Strassburg are Schmohl's "Urne Johann Jacob Mochels," 1780, and "Johann Jacob Mochel's Reliquien verschiedener philosophischen pädogogischen poetischen und andern Aufsätze," 1780. These books have unfortunately not been available for the present use.]

[Footnote 14: For account of Leuchsenring see Varnhagen van Ense, "Vermischte Schriften", I. 492-532.]

[Footnote 15: Schlichtegroll's "Nekrolog," 1792, II, pp. 37 ff. There is also given here a quotation written after Sterne's death, which is of interest:

"Wir erben, Yorick, deine Dose, Auch deine Feder erben wir; Doch wer erhielt im Erbschaftsloose Dein Herz? O Yorick, nenn ihn mir!"]

[Footnote 16: Works of Friedrich von Matthison, Zürich, 1825, III, pp. 141 ff., in "Erinnerungen," zweites Buch. The "Vaterländische Besuche" were dated 1794.]

[Footnote 17: Briefe von Friedrich Matthison, Zürich, 1795, I, pp. 27-32.]

[Footnote 18: Shandy, III, 22.]

[Footnote 19: Briefe, II, p. 95.]

[Footnote 20: "Herders Briefwechsel mit seiner Braut", pp. 92, 181, 187, 253, 377.]

[Footnote 21: Quoted by Koberstein, IV, p. 168. Else, p. 31; Hettner, III, 1, p. 362, quoted from letters in Friedrich Schlegel's _Deutsches Museum_, IV, p. 145. These letters are not given by Goedeke.]

[Footnote 22: The review is credited to him by Koberstein, III, pp. 463-4.]

[Footnote 23: XIX, 2, p. 579.]

[Footnote 24: See "Bemerkungen oder Briefe über Wien, eines jungen Bayern auf einer Reise durch Deutschland," Leipzig (probably 1804 or 1805). It is, according to the _Jenaische Allg. Litt. Zeitung_ (1805, IV, p. 383), full of extravagant sentiment with frequent apostrophe to the author's "Evelina." Also, "Meine Reise vom Städtchen H . . . . zum Dörfchen H . . . ." Hannover, 1799. See _Allg. Litt. Zeitung_, 1799, IV, p. 87. "Reisen unter Sonne, Mond und Sternen," Erfurt, 1798, pp. 220, 8vo. This is evidently a similar work, but is classed by _Allg. Litt. Zeitung_ (1799, I, 477) as an imitation of Jean Paul, hence indirectly to be connected with Yorick. "Reisen des grünen Mannes durch Deutschland," Halle, 1787-91. See _Allg. Litt. Zeitung_, 1789, I, 217; 1791, IV, p. 576. "Der Teufel auf Reisen," two volumes, Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1789. See _Allg. Litt. Zeitung_, 1789, I, p. 826. Knigge's books of travels also share in this enlivening and subjectivizing of the traveler's narrative.]

[Footnote 25: Altenburg, Richter, 1775, six volumes.]

[Footnote 26: Reviewed in _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, X, 2, p. 127, and _Neue Critische Nachrichten_, Greifswald V, p. 222.]

[Footnote 27: Many of the anonymous books, even those popular in their day, are not given by Goedeke; and Baker, judging only by one external, naturally misses Sterne products which have no distinctively imitative title, and includes others which have no connection with Sterne. For example, he gives Gellius's "Yoricks Nachgelassene Werke," which is but a translation of the Koran, and hence in no way an example of German imitation; he gives also Schummel's "Fritzens Reise nach Dessau" (1776) and "Reise nach Schlesien" (1792), Nonne's "Amors Reisen nach Fockzana zum Friedenscongress" (1773), none of which has anything to do with Sterne. "Trim oder der Sieg der Liebe über die Philosophie" (Leipzig, 1776), by Ludw. Ferd. v. Hopffgarten, also cited by Baker, undoubtedly owes its name only to Sterne. See _Jenaische Zeitungen von gel. Sachen_, 1777, p. 67, and _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XXXIV, 2, p. 484; similarly "Lottchens Reise ins Zuchthaus" by Kirtsten, 1777, is given in Baker's list, but the work "Reise" is evidently used here only in a figurative sense, the story being but the relation of character deterioration, a downward journey toward the titular place of punishment. See _Jenaische Zeitungen von gel. Sachen_, 1777, pp. 739 ff.; 1778, p. 12. _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XXXV, 1, p. 182. Baker gives Bock's "Tagereise" and "Geschichte eines empfundenen Tages" as if they were two different books. He further states: "Sterne is the parent of a long list of German Sentimental Journeys which began with von Thümmel's 'Reise in die mittäglichen Provinzen Frankreichs.'" This work really belongs comparatively late in the story of imitations. Two of Knigge's books are also included. See p. 166-7.]

[Footnote 28: "Laurence Sterne und C. M. Wieland, von Karl August Behmer, Forschungen zur neueren Litteraturgeschichte IX. München, 1899. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung fremder Einflüsse auf Wieland's Dichtung." To this reference has been made. There is also another briefer study of this connection: a Programm by F. Bauer, "Ueber den Einfluss, Laurence Sternes auf Chr. M. Wieland," Karlsbad, 1898. A. Mager published, 1890, at Marburg, "Wieland's Nachlass des Diogenes von Sinope und das englische Vorbild," a school "Abhandlung," which dealt with a connection between this work of Wieland and Sterne. Wood ("Einfluss Fieldings auf die deutsche Litteratur," Yokohama, 1895) finds constant imitation of Sterne in "Don Silvio," which, from Behmer's proof concerning the dates of Wieland's acquaintance with Sterne, can hardly be possible.]

[Footnote 29: Some other works are mentioned as containing references and allusions.]

[Footnote 30: In "Oberon" alone of Wieland's later works does Behmer discover Sterne's influence and there no longer in the style, but in the adaptation of motif.]

[Footnote 31: See Erich Schmidt's "Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe," Jena, 1875, pp. 46-7.]

[Footnote 32: 1790, I, pp. 209-16.]

[Footnote 33: This may be well compared with Wieland's statements concerning Shandy in his review of the Bode translation (_Merkur_, VIII, pp. 247-51, 1774), which forms one of the most exaggerated expressions of adoration in the whole epoch of Sterne's popularity.]

[Footnote 34: Since Germany did not sharply separate the work of Sterne from his continuator, this is, of course, to be classed from the German point of view at that time as a borrowing from Sterne. Mager in his study depends upon the Eugenius continuation for this and several other parallels.]

[Footnote 35: Sentimental Journey, pp. 31-32.]

[Footnote 36: "Ich denke nicht, dass es Sie gereuen wird, den Mann näher kennen zu lernen" spoken of Demokritus in "Die Abderiten;" see _Merkur_, 1774, I, p. 56.]

[Footnote 37: Wieland's own genuine appreciation of Sterne and understanding of his characteristics is indicated incidentally in a review of a Swedish book in the _Teutscher Merkur_, 1782, II, p. 192, in which he designates the description of sentimental journeying in the seventh book of Shandy as the best of Sterne's accomplishment, as greater than the Journey itself, a judgment emanating from a keen and true knowledge of Sterne.]

[Footnote 38: Lebensbild, V, Erlangen, 1846, p. 89. Letter to Hartknoch, Paris, November, 1769. In connection with his journey and his "Reisejournal," he speaks of his "Tristramschen Meynungen." See Lebensbild, Vol. V, p. 61.]

[Footnote 39: Suphan, IV, p. 190. For further reference to Sterne in Herder's letters, see "Briefe Herders an Hamann," edited by Otto Hoffmann, Berlin, 1889, pp. 28, 51, 57, 71, 78, 194.]

[Footnote 40: Lachmann edition, Berlin, 1840, XII, pp. 212, 240.]

[Footnote 41: Eckermann: "Gespräche mit Goethe," Leipzig, 1885, II, p. 29; or Biedermann, "Goethe's Gespräche," Leipzig, 1890, VI, p. 359.]

[Footnote 42: "Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter, in den Jahren, 1796-1832." Ed. by Fr. W. Riemer, Berlin, 1833-4, Vol. V, p. 349. Both of these quotations are cited by Siegmund Levy, "Goethe und Oliver Goldsmith;" Goethe-Jahrbuch, VI, 1885, pp. 282 ff. The translation in this case is from that of A. D. Coleridge.]

[Footnote 43: Griesebach: "Das Goetheische Zeitalter der deutschen Dichtung," Leipzig, 1891, p. 29.]

[Footnote 44: II, 10th book, Hempel, XXI, pp. 195 ff.]

[Footnote 45: "Briefe an Joh. Heinrich Merck von Göthe, Herder, Wieland und andern bedeutenden Zeitgenossen," edited by Dr. Karl Wagner, Darmstadt, 1835, p. 5; and "Briefe an und von Joh. Heinrich Merck," issued by the same editor, Darmstadt, 1838, pp. 5, 21.]

[Footnote 46: In the "Wanderschaft," see J. H. Jung-Stilling, Sämmtliche Werke. Stuttgart, 1835, I, p. 277.]

[Footnote 47: "Herder's Briefwechsel mit seiner Braut, April, 1771, to April, 1773," edited by Düntzer and F. G. von Herder, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1858, pp. 247 ff.]

[Footnote 48: See _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._, 1774, February 22.]

[Footnote 49: Kürschner edition of Goethe, Vol. XXII, pp. 146-7.]

[Footnote 50: See introduction by Dünster in the Kürschner edition, XIII, pp. 137 ff., and that by Fr. Strehlke in the Hempel edition, XVI. pp. 217 ff.]

[Footnote 51: Kürschner edition, Vol. XXIV, p. 15; Tag- und Jahreshefte, 1789.]

[Footnote 52: "Goethe's Romantechnik," Leipzig, 1902. The author here incidentally expresses the opinion that Heinse is also an imitator of Sterne.]

[Footnote 53: Julius Goebel, in "Goethe-Jahrbuch," XXI, pp. 208 ff.]

[Footnote 54: See _Euphorion_, IV, p. 439.]

[Footnote 55: Eckermann, III, p. 155; Biedermann, VI, p. 272.]

[Footnote 56: Eckermann, III, p. 170; Biedermann, VI, p. 293.]

[Footnote 57: Eckermann, II, p. 19; Biedermann, VII, p. 184. This quotation is given in the Anhang to the "Wanderjahre." Loeper says (Hempel, XIX, p. 115) that he has been unable to find it anywhere in Sterne; see p. 105.]

[Footnote 58: See "Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter." Zelter's replies contain also reference to Sterne. VI, p. 33 he speaks of the Sentimental Journey as "ein balsamischer Frühlingsthau." See also II, p. 51; VI, p. 207. Goethe is reported as having spoken of the Sentimental Journey: "Man könne durchaus nicht besser ausdrücken, wie des Menschen Herz ein trotzig und verzagt Ding sei."]

[Footnote 59: "Mittheilungen über Goethe," von F. W. Riemer, Berlin, 1841, II, p. 658. Also, Biedermann, VII, p. 332.]

[Footnote 60: See Hempel, XXIX, p. 240.]

[Footnote 61: Kürschner, XVI, p. 372.]

[Footnote 62: IX, p. 438.]

[Footnote 63: See "Briefe von Goethe an Johanna Fahlmer," edited by L. Ulrichs, Leipzig, 1875, p. 91, and Shandy, II, pp. 70 and 48.]

[Footnote 64: "Goethe's Briefe an Frau von Stein," hrsg. von Adolf Schöll; 2te Aufl, bearbeitet von W. Fielitz, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1883, Vol. I, p. 276.]

[Footnote 65: References to the Tagebücher are as follows: Robert Keil's Leipzig, 1875, p. 107, and Düntzer's, Leipzig, 1889, p. 73.]

[Footnote 66: See also the same author's "Goethe, sa vie et ses oeuvres," Paris, 1866; Appendice pp. 291-298. Further literature is found: "Vergleichende Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung," 1863, No. 36, and 1869, Nos. 10 and 14. _Morgenblatt_, 1863, Nr. 39, article by Alex. Büchner, Sterne's "Coran und Makariens Archiv, Goethe ein Plagiator?" and _Deutsches Museum_, 1867, No. 690.]

[Footnote 67: Minden i. W., 1885, pp. 330-336.]

[Footnote 68: "Druck vollendet in Mai" according to Baumgartner, III, p. 292.]

[Footnote 69: II, pp. 230-233. May 15, 1831.]

[Footnote 70: Goedeke gives Vol. XXIII, A. l. H. as 1829.]

[Footnote 71: Hempel, XIX, "Sprüche in Prosa," edited by G. von Loeper, Maximen und Reflexionen; pp. 106-111 and 113-117.]

[Footnote 72: Letters, I, p. 54.]

[Footnote 73: This seems very odd in view of the fact that in Loeper's edition of "Dichtung und Wahrheit" (Hempel, XXII, p. 264) Gellius is referred to as "the translator of Lillo and Sterne." It must be that Loeper did not know that Gellius's "Yorick's Nachgelassene Werke" was a translation of the Koran.]

[Footnote 74: The problem involved in the story of Count Gleichen was especially sympathetic to the feeling of the eighteenth century. See a series of articles by Fr. Heibig in _Magazin für Litteratur des In- und Auslandes_, Vol. 60, pp. 102-5; 120-2; 136-9. "Zur Geschichte des Problems des Grafen von Gleichen."]

[Footnote 75: Weimar edition, Vol. XLI, 2, pp. 252-253.]

[Footnote 76: Gesammelte Schriften, Stuttgart, 1839, IV, pp. 272-3.]

[Footnote 77: Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1775. See _Gothaische Gel. Zeitungen_, 1776, I, pp. 208-9, and _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XXXII, 1, p. 139. _Jenaische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen_, September 27, 1776. This does not imply that Sterne was in this respect an innovator; such books were printed before Sterne's influence was felt, _e.g._, _Magazin von Einfällen_, Breslau, 1763 (?), reviewed in _Leipziger Neue Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen_, February 20, 1764. See also "Reisen im Vaterlande,--Kein Roman aber ziemlich theatralisch-politisch und satyrischen Inhalts," two volumes; Königsberg and Leipzig, 1793-4, reviewed in _Allg. Litt. Zeitung_, 1795, III, p. 30. "Der Tändler, oder Streifereyen in die Wildnisse der Einbildungskraft, in die Werke der Natur und menschlichen Sitten," Leipzig, 1778 (?), (_Almanach der deutschen Musen_, 1779, p. 48). "Meine Geschichte oder Begebenheiten des Herrn Thomas: ein narkotisches Werk des Doktor Pifpuf," Münster und Leipzig, 1772, pp. 231, 8vo. A strange episodical conglomerate; see _Magazin der deutschen Critik_, II, p. 135.]

[Footnote 78: Leipzig, 1785 or 1786. See _Allg. Litt. Zeitung_, 1786, III, p. 259.]

[Footnote 79: Altenburg, 1772, by von Schirach (?).]

[Footnote 80: See _Auserlesene Bibl. der neuesten deutschen Litteratur_, IV, pp. 320-325, and VII, pp. 227-234. _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XXIII, 1, p. 258; XXVI, 1, p. 209.]

[Footnote 81: Riedel uses it, for example, in his "Launen an meinen Satyr," speaking of "mein swiftisch Steckenthier" in "Vermischte Aufsätze," reviewed in _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._, 1772, pp. 358-9. _Magazin der deutschen Critik_, I, pp. 290-293.]

[Footnote 82: "Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Marianne Willemer (Suleika)." Edited by Th. Creizenach, 2d edition; Stuttgart, 1878, p. 290.]

[Footnote 83: "K. L. von Knebel's literarischer Nachlass und Briefwechsel;" edited by Varnhagen von Ense and Th. Mundt, Leipzig, 1835, p. 147.]

[Footnote 84: See Mendelssohn's Schriften; edited by G. B. Mendelssohn, Leipzig, 1844, V, p. 202. See also letter of Mendelssohn to Lessing, February 18, 1780.]

[Footnote 85: Third edition, Berlin and Stettin, 1788, p. 14.]

[Footnote 86: II, pp. 218 ff.]

[Footnote 87: II, 2, p. 127.]

[Footnote 88: These two cases are mentioned also by Riemann in "Goethe's Romantechnik."]

[Footnote 89: See _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._, May 8, 1772, p. 296.]

[Footnote 90: III, pp. 276 ff.]