[Footnote 64: "Every one of my writings," says Goethe, "has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, by a thousand different things. The learned and the ignorant, the wise and the foolish, infancy and age, have come in turn, generally without having been the least suspicious of it, to bring me the offering of their thoughts, their faculties, their experience; often have they sown the harvest I have reaped. My work is that of an aggregation of human beings taken from the whole of nature; it bears the name of Goethe."] [Footnote 65: When only eighteen years of age, in 1777, he wrote "The Robbers," a tragedy of extraordinary power, though he characterized it at a later day as "a monster for which fortunately there was no original." During a few years after its first publication it was translated into various languages and read all over Europe.] [Footnote 66: Such facts as the following lead us to draw rather disparaging conclusions as to Dryden's character. He was short of money at a certain time, and sent to Jacob Tonson, his publisher, asking him to advance him some, which Tonson declined to do; whereupon Dryden sent him these lines, adding, "Tell the dog that he who wrote these can write more":-- "With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled skin, With two left legs, and Judas-colored hair, And frowzy pores, that taint the ambient air!" The bookseller felt the force of the description, and to avoid trouble immediately sent the insulting poet the money.] [Footnote 67: The real name of this lady is Louise de la Rame. Her father was a Frenchman and her mother of English birth. The name of "Ouida" is an infantine corruption of her baptismal name Louise. Her first episode in love occurred when she was a maiden of forty years, resulting finally in a most embittering disappointment.] [Footnote 68: Burns realized his own unfortunate lack of self-control, but he gives good advice to others, as follows:-- "Reader, attend! Whether thy soul Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, Or darkling grubs this earthly hole In low pursuit,-- Know, prudent, cautious self-control Is wisdom's root."] [Footnote 69: It is said to have been when Handel's great appetite was being spoken of as rather at antipodes with his glorious musical conceptions, that Sydney Smith remarked, "his own idea of heaven was eating _foie gras_ to the sound of trumpets!"] [Footnote 70: The overture to "Don Giovanni," generally considered to be the best portion of the opera, was written by Mozart in _two hours_, he having overslept himself. It was copied in great haste by the scribes, and actually played for the first time without rehearsal.]