§ 4. While Basedow was travelling about (in 1774) to get subscriptions, he spent some time in Frankfurt, and thence made an excursion to Ems with two distinguished companions, one of them Lavater, and the other a young man of five-and-twenty, already celebrated as the author of “Götz von Berlichingen,” and the “Sorrows of Werther.” Of Basedow’s personal peculiarities at this time Goethe has left us an amusing description in the “Wahrheit und Dichtung;” but we must accept the portrait with caution: the sketch was thrown in as an artistic contrast with that of Lavater, and no doubt exaggerates those features in which the antithesis could be brought out with best effect. “One could not see,” writes Goethe, “a more marked contrast than between Lavater and Basedow. As the lines of Lavater’s countenance were free and open to the beholder, so were Basedow’s contracted, and as it were drawn inwards, Lavater’s eye, clear and benign, under a very wide eye-lid; Basedow’s, on the other hand, deep in his head, small, black, sharp, gleaming out from under shaggy eyebrows, whilst Lavater’s frontal bone seemed bounded by two arches of the softest brown hair. Basedow’s impetuous rough voice, his rapid and sharp utterances, a certain derisive laugh, an abrupt changing of the topic of conversation, and whatever else distinguished him, all were opposed to the peculiarities and the behaviour by which Lavater had been making us over-fastidious.” § 5. Goethe approved of Basedow’s desire to make all instruction lively and natural, and thought that his system would promote mental activity and give the young a fresher view of the world: but he finds fault with the “Elementary,” and prefers the “Orbis Pictus” of Comenius, in which subjects are presented in their natural connection. Basedow himself, says Goethe, was not a man either to edify or to lead other people. Although the object of his journey was to interest the public in his philanthropic enterprise, and to open not only hearts but purses, and he was able to speak eloquently and convincingly on the subject of education, he spoilt everything by his tirades against prevalent religious belief, especially on the subject of the Trinity.