hat he found the appropriate form for
his inspiration--a form which ensured a popular appeal, impossible in
the case of the severer form of the drama. In the enchanter's sway
which Scott exercised over Europe during the greater part of the
nineteenth century, the memories of _Goetz_ were not the least potent
of his spells.

[Footnote 107: Two of the scenes in _Goetz_ were imitated by Scott in
his own work--the Vehmgericht scene in _Anne of Geierstein_ and the
description of the siege of Torquilstone by Rebecca to the wounded
Ivanhoe. Scott also borrowed from _Egmont_.]

CHAPTER VI

INFLUENCE OF MERCK AND THE DARMSTADT CIRCLE

1772

Specially associated with _Goetz von Berlichingen_, but associated also
with Goethe's general development at this time, was another of those
mentors whose counsel and stimulus were necessary to him at all
periods of his life. This was Johann Heinrich Merck, the son of an
apothecary in Darmstadt and now Paymaster of the Forces there. Of
Merck Goethe says that "he had the greatest influence on my life," and
he makes him the subject of one of his elaborate character sketches in
his Autobiography. To men of original nature, however discordant with
his own, Goethe was always attracted. We have seen him in more or less
close relations with Behrisch, Jung Stilling, and Herder, from all of
whom he was divided by dissonances which made a perfect mutual
understanding impossible. So it was in the case of Merck, as Goethe's
references to him in his Autobiography and elsewhere clearly imply. In
Merck there was apparently a mixture of conflicting elements which
made him a mystery to his friends, and his suicide at the age of fifty
points to something morbid in his nature. Of his real goodness of
heart and of his genuine admiration for what he considered worthy of
it, his own reported sayings and the testimony of others leave us in
no doubt. Recording his impression of Goethe after a few interviews,
he wrote: "I begin to have a real affection for Goethe. He is a man
after my own heart, as I have found few." On the other hand, there
were traits in him which Goethe did not scruple to call
Mephistophelian--an opinion shared even by Goethe's mother, whose
nature it was to see the best side of men and things. His variable
humour and caustic tongue made him at once a terror and an attraction
in whatever society he moved, and it is evident from the tone of
Goethe's reminiscences of him that his inte