and not from personal experience,
and is to be regarded only as another illustration of Goethe's
facility in identifying himself with emotions essentially alien to his
own nature. The other piece, entitled _Zwo wichtige bisher uneroerterte
biblische Fragen, zum erstenmal gruendlich beantwortet_, professing to
be written by a Swabian pastor, is still more singular. In the first
of the two questions he inquires whether it was the Ten Commandments
or the prescriptions of ritual that were inscribed on the tables of
stone, and concludes that it was the latter; and in the second he
discusses the nature of the speaking with tongues that followed St.
Paul's laying of hands on the newly-baptised Christians, and resolves
the question in a purely mystical sense.

The year 1773 marks an epoch in Goethe's career, and an epoch also in
the literary history of Germany. In that year he made his first appeal
as a writer to the great German public which was to follow his
successive productions with varying degrees of admiration during the
next half-century. Dissatisfied with the first draft of _Goetz von
Berlichingen_ as lacking in dramatic unity, in the beginning
(February--March) of 1773 he recast the whole play, which in its new
form was published in June.[135] As has already been said, the second
form of _Goetz_ is generally recognised as inferior to the first, but,
such as it was, it made the sensation we have seen. With as much truth
as Byron, Goethe might have said that "he woke one morning and found
himself famous." In 1772 he could be spoken of by an intelligent
person in Leipzig as "one named Gette," and even in the circles he
frequented he had hitherto been known simply as a youth of
extraordinary promise from whom great things were to be expected.
Henceforth his name was on the tongue of all who were interested in
German literature, and whatever he was likely to produce in the future
was certain to command universal interest.

[Footnote 135: In its new form _Goetz_ was no better adapted for the
stage. "Eine angeborne Unart ist schwierig zu meistern," is Goethe's
own remark on his attempt to make it a good acting play.]

According to Merck, Goethe's head was turned for a time by the success
of _Goetz_. During the months that followed its publication, at all
events, he was possessed with a wanton humour which spared neither
friends nor foes, nor the society of which he had apparently caught
the contagion as completely as any