in spite of this one great deficiency and of his many historical inaccuracies, it was from Winckelmann that the mighty influence went forth which inspired Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe. Lessing's work is a continuation of Winckelmann's. Endowed with an unrivalled critical faculty, he sketched the first plan of a science of art and poetry with Winckelmann's theory of art as a foundation. All who are familiar with Goethe's life know how great an influence these twin spirits, Winckelmann and Lessing, had upon his artistic development. The new, grand, genial conception of the antique finds its first expression in Goethe's sparkling little masterpiece, _Götter, Helden und Wieland_. I give a few specimen speeches. Wieland's ghost stands, nightcap on head, and is being utterly crushed in an argument with Admetus and Alcestis when Hercules appears. H. Where is Wieland? A. There he stands. H. That he? He is small enough, certainly. Just what I had pictured him to myself. Are you the man that is always prating about Hercules? W. (_shrinking away_). I have nothing to do with you, Colossus I H. Eh! What? Don't go away. W. I imagined Hercules to be a fine man of middle height. H. Of middle height! I? W. If you are Hercules, it was not you I meant. H. That is my name and I am proud of it. I know very well that when a blockhead cannot find a suitable bear or griffin or boar to hold his scutcheon, he takes a Hercules. It is plain that my godhead has never revealed itself to you in a vision. W. I confess this is the first vision of the kind that I have ever had. H. Then take thought, and ask pardon of the gods for your notes to Homer, who makes us too tall for you. W. In truth you are enormous; I never imagined anything like it. H. Is it my fault, man, that you have such a narrow-chested imagination? What sort of a Hercules is the one you are for ever prating about, and what is it he fights for? For virtue? What's the motto again? Have you ever seen virtue, Wieland? I have been a good deal about in the world too, and I never yet met such a thing. W. What! You do not know that virtue for which my Hercules does everything, ventures all? H. Virtue! I heard the word for the first time down here from a couple of silly fellows who couldn't tell me what they meant by it. W. No more could I. But don't let us waste words upon that I wish you had read my poems; if you had, you would see that at bottom I don't care so very much about virtue myself--it is an ambiguous sort of thing.