Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/17



the German poets, as members of a corporation, were no longer standing as one man, they did not enjoy the smallest advantages among their fellow citizens. They had neither support, standing, nor respectability, except in so far as their other position was favourable to them; and therefore it was a matter of mere chance whether talent was born to honour or to disgrace. A poor son of earth, with a consciousness of mind and faculties, was forced to crawl along painfully through life, and, from the pressure of momentary necessities, to squander the gifts which perchance he had received from the Muses. Occasional poems, the first and most genuine of all kinds of poetry, had become despicable to such a degree, that the nation even now cannot attain a conception of their high value: and a poet, if he did not strike altogether into Günther's path, appeared in the world in the most melancholy state of subserviency, as a jester and parasite; so that both on the theatre and on the stage of life he represented a character which any one and every one could abuse at pleasure.

If, on the contrary, the Muse associated herself with