There the most eminent representatives of literature had made their residence, and thence had gone forth the dominant influences which had given the rule to all forms of literary production--poetry and criticism alike.

At the time when Goethe took up his residence in the town the two most prominent German men of letters, Gellert and Gottsched (the latter dubbed the "Saxon Swan" by Frederick the Great) were its most distinguished ornaments, though the rising generation was beginning to question both the intrinsic merit of their productions and the principles of taste which they had proclaimed.

What these principles were and how Goethe stood related to them we shall presently see.
[Footnote 17: On the occasion of a visit he paid to Leipzig in 1783, Goethe says: "Die Leipziger sind als eine kleine, moralische Republik anzusehn.

Jeder steht fuer sich, hat einige Freunde und geht in seinem Wesen fort."] Into this world Goethe was launched when he had just turned his sixteenth year--"a little, odd, coddled boy," and, as he elsewhere describes himself, with a tendency to morbid fancies.

If he had come to Leipzig with the resolve to fulfil his father's intentions, his course was clearly marked out for him.