e current affairs of government should go
on regularly. If any thing extraordinary occurs, let me be informed at
once. Is there any news, Herzberg?"

"Nothing worth recounting, sire, except that the young Duke of Weimar is
in town."

"I know it; he has announced himself. I cannot speak with him. I have
asked my brother Henry to arrange the conditions under which he will
allow us to enlist men for my army in his duchy. I hope he will be
reasonable, and not prevent it. That is no news that the Duke of Weimar
has arrived!"

"Not only the duke has arrived, but he has brought his dear friend with
him whom the people in Saxe-Weimar say makes the good and bad weather."

"Who is the weather-maker?"

"Your majesty, this weather-maker is the author of 'The Sorrows of Young
Werther,' Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who for four years has aroused
the hearts and excited the imaginations of all Germany. If I am not
deceived, a great future opens for this poet, and he will be a star of
the first magnitude in the sky of German literature. I believe it would
be well worth the trouble for your majesty to see him."

"Do not trouble me with your German literature, and your stars of
the first magnitude! We must acknowledge our poverty with humility;
belles-lettres have never achieved success upon our soil. Moreover, this
star of the first magnitude--this Herr Goethe--I remember him well; I
wish to know nothing of him. He has quite turned the heads of all the
love-sick fools with his 'Sorrows of Young Werther.' You cannot count
that a merit. The youth of Germany were sufficiently enamoured, without
the love-whining romances of Herr Goethe to pour oil on the fire."

"Pardon me, sire, that I should presume to differ from you; but this
book which your majesty condemns has not only produced a furor in
Germany, but throughout Europe--throughout the world even. That which
public opinion sustains in such a marked manner cannot be wholly
unworthy. 'Vox populi, vox dei,' is a true maxim in all ages."

"It is not true!" cried the king. "The old Roman maxim is not applicable
to our effeminate, degraded people. Nowadays, whoever flatters the
people and glorifies their weaknesses, is a good fellow, and he is
extolled to the skies. Public opinion calls him a genius and a Messiah.
Away with your nonsense! The 'Werther' of Herr Goethe has wrought no
good; it has made the healthy sick, and has not restored invalids to
health. Since its appearance a mad love