eir conversation.
Travelling in a private carriage during the long summer day, they had
an opportunity for abundant talk such as did not occur again. One
theme on which Goethe spoke with enthusiasm, it is interesting to
note, was Spinoza and his writings, but, as his talk is reported by
Lavater, there was no hint in it of the profound change which the
study of Spinoza had effected in him. It was to the man and not the
thinker that he paid his reverential tribute--to the purity,
simplicity, and high wisdom of his life. But Goethe's own literary
preoccupations appear to have been the chief subject of their talk. He
spoke of a play on Julius Caesar on which he was engaged, and which
remained one of his many abortive ambitions; he read passages from
_Der Ewige Jude_, "a singular thing in doggerel verse," Lavater calls
it; recited a romance translated from the Scots dialect; and narrated
for Lavater's benefit the whole story of the Iliad, reading passages
of the poem from a Latin translation. The memorable day was not to be
repeated. At Ems, as at Frankfort, Lavater was taken possession of by
a throng of worshippers, and the state of his own affairs at home
afforded Goethe an excuse for leaving him.

By a curious coincidence, shortly after Goethe's return, there arrived
another prophet in Frankfort--also, like Lavater, out on a mission of
his own. This was Johann Bernhard Basedow, whose character and career
had made him one of the remarkable figures of his time in Germany.
Born in Hamburg in 1723, the son of a peruke-maker there, in conduct
and opinions he had been at odds with society from the beginning. In
middle age he had come under the influence of Rousseau, and
thenceforth he made it his mission by word and deed to realise
Rousseau's ideals in education. He had expounded his theories in
voluminous publications which had attracted wide attention, and the
object of his present travels was to collect funds to establish a
school at Dessau in which his educational views should be carried into
effect.[180] Goethe, as he himself tells us, had as little sympathy
with the gospel of Basedow as with that of Lavater, but, always
attracted to originals, Basedow's personality amused and interested
him. What gave point to his curiosity was the piquancy of the contrast
between the two prophets. Lavater was all grace, purity, and
refinement; "in his presence one shrank like a maiden from hurting his
feelings." In appearance, voice, ma