The  Danish  Chamberlain  Friedrich  von  Hennings,  in  his
literary  journal,  the  "  Genius  of  the  Age,"  attacked  Goethe
and  Schiller  in  these  words  :  "  They  are  faithless  to  their
high  calling  ;  they  have  disgraced  the  Muse  by  their  viru-
lence, their  coarseness,  their  dulness,  their  personal  rancor,
their  poverty  of  ideas  and  their  malignant  delight  in  injury."
Probably  on  account  of  this  abuse  he  is  introduced  by  name,
first ;  then  in  the  following  verse  as  "  Leader  of  the  Muses  "
(from  the  Musaget,  another  journal  which  he  conducted);
and  a  third  time  as  the  "  Cidmant  Genius  of  the  Age,"  —
his  journal  having  died  a  natural  death  in   1803.
The  first  verse  parodies  his  abuse  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  ;
the  second  hints  that  he  would  be  more  at  home  among
Blockaberg  witches  than  as  a  leader  of  the  Muses  ;  and  the
third  satirizes  his  practice  of  giving  a  place  on  the  German
Parnassus  to  such  authors  as  flattered  him  by  an  obsequious
respect  for  his  critical  views.
14*  u


322  FAUST.
163.    Crane.
"  Lavater  was  a  thoroughly  good  man,  but  he  was  sub-
jected to  powerful  illusions,  and  the  severe  and  total  truth

was  not  his  concern  :  he  deceived  •himself  and  others

His  gait  was  like  that  of  a  crane,  for  which  reason  he  appears
as  the  Crane  on  the  Blocksberg."  —  Goethe  to  Eckermann,
1829.
164.     Worldling.
Weltiind,  literally  "  world-child,"  a  term  which  Goethe
applies  to  himself  in  his  epigrammatic  poem,  "  Dinner  at
Coblenz,''  where  he  sat  between  Lavater  and  Basedow  :  —

'*  Prophete  rechts,  Prophete  links
Das  Wehkind  in  der  Mitten."

[Prophets  right,  and  Prophets  left,
The  World-child  in  the  middle.]

He  here  speaks  in  his  own  person,  satirizing  Lavater  and
his  followers.
