The general and early popularity
of the second work is well known. Yet, except in so far as it might
spread his name abroad, it cannot be supposed to have had much
influence in attracting that potent patronage which now began to
determine the course of his future life. So much we collect from
the account which Goethe himself has left us of this affair in its
earliest stages.
"I was sitting alone in my room," says he, "at my father's house in
Frankfort, when a gentleman entered, whom at first I took for
Frederick Jacobi, but soon discovered by the dubious light to be a
stranger. He had a military air; and announcing himself by the name
of Von Knebel, gave me to understand in a short explanation, that
being in the Prussian service, he had connected himself, during a
long residence at Berlin and Potsdam, with the literati of those
places; but that at present he held the appointment from the court
of Weimar of travelling tutor to the Prince Constantine. This I
heard with pleasure; for many of our friends had brought us the
most interesting accounts from Weimar, in particular that the
Duchess Amelia, mother of the young grand duke and his brother,
summoned to her assistance in educating her sons the most
distinguished men in Germany; and that the university of Jena
cooperated powerfully in all her liberal plans.
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