he most charming autobiographies of
all times. Goethe's versatility as a writer and man was shown not only by
his free use of all literary forms, but also by his essays on such abstruse
subjects as astrology, optics, the theory of color, comparative anatomy and
botany. Shortly before his death, the poet finished the greatest of his
works, the tragedy "Faust." He died in the eighty-third year of his life,
uttering the words "More Light." Goethe was entombed in the ducal vault at
Weimar, by the side of his friends, Friedrich Schiller and Carl August of
Weimar.

[Sidenote: Goethe's genius]

Like Heine, Goethe offended his fellow Germans by his apparent lack of
purely national and patriotic sentiments. To the present day his outspoken
admiration of Napoleon and his cold abstention from the ardent enthusiasm
of the Prussian war of Liberation have not been forgiven by certain
Germans. As a man, Goethe has been denounced as an egotist, for the
apparently selfish character of his relations with women, ending with his
marriage to a woman far below him. On the other hand, Goethe must be
regarded as the most universal literary genius produced by Germany. He
stands in line with those master spirits of all ages, Homer, Virgil, Dante,
Cervantes, Shakespeare and Moliere.

[Sidenote: Death of Scott]

[Sidenote: Walter Scott's poems]

[Sidenote: "The Waverley Novels"]

[Sidenote: Scott a bankrupt]

[Sidenote: Literary drudgery]

A few months after the death of Goethe, in September, Sir Walter Scott died
in England. Goethe was accustomed to speak of Scott as "the greatest writer
of his time." Shortly before his death Goethe said: "All is great in
Scott's 'Waverley Novels'--material, effect, characters and execution."
Scott himself derived much of his inspiration from Goethe's writings. One
of his earliest works was a translation of "Goetz von Berlichingen." The
creation of Mignon, in "Wilhelm Meister," furnished Scott with the
character of Fenella in his "Peveril of the Peak." Scott began his career
as a writer with a translation of Buerger's "Ballads." His most successful
metrical pieces, "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," "The Lay of the
Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake," for the most part
appeared during the opening years of the Nineteenth Century. Then came the
great series of the "Waverley Novels," named after the romance of
"Waverley," published anonymously in 1814. The series comprised such
clas