[Footnote 37: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 67.] [Footnote 38: _Ib._ p. 88.] [Footnote 39: Notably in his paper, entitled _Literarischer Sansculottismus_. See above, p. 4. Regarding Lessing he made this remark to Eckermann (February 7th, 1827): "Bedauert doch den ausserordentlichen Menschen, dass er in einer so erbaermlichen Zeit leben musste, die ihm keine bessern Stoffe gab, als in seinen Stuecken verarbeitet sind!"] [Footnote 40: "Lessing war der hoechste Verstand, und nur ein ebenso grosser konnte von ihm wahrhaft lernen. Dem Halbvermoegen war er gefaehrlich." (To Eckermann, January 18th, 1825.)] Considering his other manifold preoccupations, the amount of Goethe's literary output during his three years in Leipzig is sufficient evidence that his poetic instincts remained the dominant impulses of his nature. He sprinkled his letters to his friends with poems in German, French, and English, and he composed twenty lyrics which were subsequently published in the autumn of 1769 under the title of _Neue Lieder_[41]; and two plays, entitled _Die Laune des Verliebten_ and _Die Mitschuldigen_. The biographic interest of all these productions is the light which they throw on the transformation which Goethe had undergone during his residence in Leipzig. In the poems he had written in Frankfort religion had been the predominant theme; in his Leipzig effusions it was love, and love in a sufficiently Anacreontic sense. Regarding the poetic merit of the _Neue Lieder_ German critics are for the most part at one. With hardly an exception the love lyrics are mere imitations of French models; their style is as artificial as their feeling; and they give little promise of the work that was to come from the same hand a few years later. As the expression of one of his lover's moods, one of them, reckoned the best in the collection, may here be given. It is entitled _Die schoene Nacht_. [Footnote 41: Nine of these _Lieder_ Goethe thought worthy of a permanent place in his collected works.] DIE SCHOeNE NACHT. Nun verlass' ich diese Huette, Meiner Liebsten Aufenthalt; Wandle mit verhuelltem Schritte Durch den oeden, finstern Wald. Luna bricht durch Busch und Eichen, Zephyr meldet ihren Lauf; Und die Birken streun mit Neigen Ihr den suessten Weihrauch auf. Wie ergoetz' ich mich im Kuehlen Dieser schoenen Sommernacht! O wie still ist hier zu fuehlen Was die Seele gluecklich macht! Laesst sich kaum die Wonne fassen, Und doch wollt' ich, Himmel! dir Tausend solcher Naechte lassen, Gaeb' mein Maedchen Eine mir. THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT. Now I leave the cot behind me Where my love hath her abode; And I wander with veiled footsteps Through the drear and darksome wood. Luna's rays pierce oak and thicket Zephyr heraldeth her way; And for her its sweetest incense Sheddeth every birchen spray.