To the professor of history and law of all people he chose to announce his intention of studying _belles lettres_ instead of jurisprudence.

The professor sensibly pointed out to him the folly and impropriety of his conduct in view of his father's wishes; and his counsels, seconded by the friendly advice of his wife, Frau Boehme, turned the youthful aspirant from his purpose for a time.

On his own testimony he now became a model student, and was "as happy as a bird in a wood." He heard lectures on German history from Boehme, though history was distasteful to him at every period of his life; lectures on literature from the popular Gellert, on style from Professor Clodius, and on physics, logic, and philosophy from other professors.
[Footnote 18: _Gespraeche mit Riemer_, Anfang 1807.] But alike by temperament and previous training, Goethe was indisposed to profit by professorial prelections, however admirable.

He had brought with him to the university a store of miscellaneous information which deprived them of the novelty they might have for the average listener.

"Application," he says, moreover, "was not my talent, since nothing gave me any pleasure except what came to me of itself." So it was that by the close of his first semester his attendance at lectures became a jest, and the professors the butt of his wit.