Add MS 43377 F

F. Two quatrains by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, beg. 'Worte die der Dichterspricht'and signed'G'; dated'W[eimar] 28 Aug. 1831'.f.18 Autograph.

1n 12 the poet has altered 'Gefilden' to 'Bezircken' and in the last line has altered '1hr es besiegelt' to '1hr's denn besiegelt'. The title 'An die Neunzehn

[erroneously, for 'Fiinfzehn'] Freunde in England' is added in the hand of his secretary, Johann August Friedrich John. The poem was first printed in Chaos, 2nd year, no. 6, Weimar, 1831, p. 24, of which a copy is included in the present MS. as ff. 19-20b; in the Weimar edition of the Werke it is printed in Abt. 1, Bd. 4, 1891N, p. 303 and (as part of Goethe's letter to Carlyle dated 19 Aug. 1831, where the last line remains still unaltered) in Abt. 1V, Bd. 49, 1909, p. 42. The 'fifteen friends' had sent a seal of gold engraved with a star surrounded by a serpent and the motto 'Ohne Hast aber ohne Rast', accompanied by a letter, to mark the occasion of the poet's eighty-second birthday, see Fraser's Magazine, no. xxii, Nov. 1831, pp. 447-448, and K. W. Milller, Goethe's letzte literarische Thätigkeit, 1832, pp. 42-47. See also Brit. Mus. Quart., vii, 1932-1933, p. 23. f. 18. Presented by Leonard L. Mackall,

Esq., together with an impression ofthe seal in question, now Detached Seal no. CLXXIX. 2.