z von
Berlichingen, a name then little known, to which this young student
has given its distinction.

We do not understand Goethe nor the enthusiasm with which Germany
welcomed his earliest printed work, if we do not see how it was
connected with the hatred of conventionalism and of mere authority,
which in the German language was called _Sturm und Drang_.[11] In
after life Goethe had none too much of enthusiasm for radical
reformers. But as a young man, he breathed the atmosphere of his time.
In the same way, in the year 1773, Schiller, a boy only fourteen years
old, was writing verses which in 1778 he wrought into "The Robbers,"
appealing to all the enthusiasm for liberty in young Germany.

[Footnote 11: No one has translated this phrase well into
English. Mrs. Humphry Ward suggests "storm and stress."
_Drang_ is the origin of our word _throng_, and implies the
pressure, rush, and common purpose of a crowd.]

[Illustration: Goethe and Frederike.]

In the years which we are following, the young men of America were
solving the political questions and preparing for the military
struggles of the American Revolution. France was in the glow of hope
which made even Louis XVI. himself suppose that a golden age was come
again for Frenchmen. In England the protest against form and authority
showed itself in signs as easily read as the letters of Junius and the
Wilkes riots in London. The autocracy attempted by poor George III.,
in an attempt which cost him America, was only the most absurd
imitation of the despotism of Louis XIV. In Germany, the revolt
against the traditions of the past showed itself in the new outburst
of national literature. Young men were sick of the sway of France and
the French language, to which Frederick even had been so subservient.
In all senses Frederick was now a very old lion--and there were those
who said he had lost his teeth. To be German, to write and read
German, to recall German memories, and to throw off conventional
restraints of whatever kind--such was the drift and determination of
the movement which received the excellent title of the "Sturm und
Drang."

Soon after Goethe left Strasburg he printed his play of "Goetz von
Berlichingen." The hero is a true character of history. He was born
about the year 1480 and died in 1562. His life had been published in
1731, and Goethe made the drama on the lines of the true history. The
play defies all the "un