he was the idol of
a band of youthful poets.]

[Footnote 191: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 182.]

These communications took place in May, and in the beginning of
October Goethe received an invitation from Klopstock to meet him at
Friedberg. Owing to some delay on his journey, however, Klopstock did
not appear at the time appointed, but, gratified by Goethe's eagerness
to meet him, he shortly afterwards came to Frankfort and was for a few
days a guest in the Goethe household. From Goethe's account of their
intercourse we gather that their intercourse was not wholly
satisfactory to either. Klopstock was in his fiftieth year, and his
somewhat self-conscious and pedantic manner did not encourage
effusion.[192] Like certain other poets he affected the tone of a man
of the world and deliberately avoided topics relative to his own art.
The two themes on which he expanded were riding and skating--of which
latter pastime he had indeed made himself the laureate. Goethe himself
was passionately fond of both exercises, but from "the patriarch of
German poetry" he might have expected discourse on higher themes.
Apparently, however, their relations remained sufficiently cordial,
as, when Klopstock took his departure, Goethe accompanied him to
Mannheim. On his way home in the post-carriage Goethe gave utterance
to his feelings in some rhapsodical lines--_An Schwager Kronos_--(To
Time the Postillion)--which may be regarded as a commentary on his
impressions of the great man. Written in the unrhymed, irregular
measure which Klopstock had been the first to employ, and containing
phrases directly borrowed from Klopstock, they give passionate
expression to his desire for a life, brief it might be, but a life
alive to the end with the zest of living. It was the sentiment of the
youth of the _Sturm und Drang_, which the chilling impression he had
received from Klopstock doubtless evoked with rebounding force during
his solitary drive home in the post-carriage.[193]

[Footnote 192: Merck found in Klopstock "viel Weltkunde und
Weltkaelte."]

[Footnote 193: Writing to Sophie von la Roche on November 20th, Goethe
calls Klopstock "a noble, great man, on whom the peace of God rests,"
_Werke, Briefe_ ii. 206.]

In the same month of October Goethe had other visitors less
distinguished, youths of his own age, who came to pay homage to him as
their acknowledged leader in the literary revolution of which _Goetz_
had been the manifesto. We have seen the