To these pursuits, on his return to Germany, he applied as the chief business of his life; and the insignificance of the patron as a sovereign tended to render the poet more conspicuous, and to increase his power over the minds of the Germans. The Duke was a general in the Prussian service, and, as a minor power, followed the course of policy pursued by the head of his house, the Elector of Saxony. He could not indulge in ambition, and spent his small revenue more like a private nobleman than a sovereign prince. He was desirous to collect a library for the use of himself and the inhabitants of Weimar. He had mines on one portion of his small territory. With the other Dukes of Saxony he was jointly the possessor of a university, Jena. He wished to found a school of drawing; and the creation of a German theatre, and the collecting eminent men of all kinds at Weimar and Jena, were the especial objects of his ambition. In all these things Goethe was the right-hand to execute, if his, in fact, was not the mind to design. In the matters which most governments make their prime concern, such as finances, military affairs, and courts of justice, Goethe had certainly no inclination to take any part; he was what, in France, would be called a minister of public instruction. Scarcely was he settled in his new office when the French Revolution broke out. This led to one famous exception to the life he was pursuing. He has recorded it in the volume of his ‘Memoirs,’ relating his participation in the too famous campaign of 1792, when he, as a non-combatant, accompanied the Duke of Saxe Weimar, who served under the Duke of Brunswick in his famous march which did _not_ reach to Paris. The early retirement of Prussia from the league against France restored peace to the North of Germany, and Goethe was at liberty to return to his favourite pursuits. In the prosecution of these he had the happiness soon to connect himself with Schiller, a man ten years younger than himself, of a genius totally opposite to his own, and therefore perhaps best adapted to act in concert with him.