contributions. Altogether eighty-nine German artists were represented. The well-known cartoons by Kaulbach, Otto Cornill's series from "Hermann and Dorothea," and Hermann Junker's scenes out of Goethe's life, were the largest and perhaps most striking. However, they did not at all surpass in beauty of execution and conception Franz Kirchbach's charming illustrations of Goethe's poems, or Ludwig Richter's masterly little pictures. In all twenty-two artists showed Faust illustrations, Kreling's and Simm's being regarded as among the most finished and complete. All this array of talent was a revelation to most people, for through it they gained some slight idea of the vastness of the world a poet holds dominion over, of the vastness of the world which Goethe knew. That one man can produce so much upon which all after ages may feast in mind and imagination is a marvellous fact, and shows as nothing else can the never-dying influence of literature.

Another place of great interest was the museum in the Goethe house in the Hirschgraben. Those who did not care for the books and pictures and sketches came to see the house itself, a typical structure of its day, only perhaps a little better than its neighbors. It is a good place to sit down and dream in, this old home of the poet. Was he really born here? one muses; and that stiff old gentleman in peruque and velvet coat, Goethe's father, was he really so fond of all those ponderous volumes in his library? And the old grandmother's room was there; and here the family dined; and this is the kitchen window, where the mischievous lad threw out china to amuse himself and embarrass the good folk coming home from church! Yes, the old home is a fine place to study Goethe's biography, only it costs a mark to get in, and the good guide hurries one so. But then he's working for money, not for literature.

The events of the celebration were judiciously scattered over two weeks, from Sunday, August 20., to Monday, September 4, and they formed an imposing list of attractions.

SUN. Aug. 20. Festfeier of the Frankfort Bookdealers' Union. Address: "Goethe in his Relation to the Frankfort Book-Trade," by Max Ziegert.

MON. Aug. 21. Presentation of "Prometheus" and "Clavigo" in the Schauspielhaus.

TUES. Aug. 22. Session of the Frankfort Writers' and Journalists' Union. Address: "Goethe," by Regisseur Quincke.

WED. Aug. 23. "Iphigenia auf Tauris," in the Schauspielhaus.

THURS. Aug. 24. ration. Address:

Session of Society for Garden Deco"Goethe as Botanist," by Dr. Möbius. FRI. Aug. 25. "Prometheus "and "Clavigo » repeated in the Schauspielhaus. Session of the Senckenberg Scientific Society. Address: "Goethe and Biology," by Prof. Reichenbach.

Popular lectures:-"Goethe and the German People," by Dr. Heuer. "Goethe as a Poet," by Dr. Hering. "Goethe's Influence on Modern Literature," by Wilhelm Holzamer.

SAT. Aug. 26. "Torquato Tasso" in the Schauspielhaus. Popular lecture for workingmen: "Goethe," by Wilhelm Bölsche.

SUN. Aug. 27. Festival procession past the Goethe monument. Music festival in the Hippodrome. Torchlight parade past the Goethe monument.

MON. Aug. 28. Academic celebration under the auspices of the Freie Deutsche Hochstift and GoetheGesellschaft. Addresses: "Goethe and Frankfort," by Prof. Erich Schmidt, of Berlin. "Goethe in his Relation to Nature and Art," by Prof. Veit Valentin, of Frankfort. Festival banquet. Concert in Palm Garden. Festival presentation of "Egmont in the Opera House. Commers in the great hall of the Palm Garden. FRI. Sept. 1. « Faust," in the Opera House. MON. Sept. 4. "Götz von Berlichingen " in the Opera

House.

From a study of the programme one may see that the celebration reached its high-water mark, so to speak, on Monday the 28th, the poet's birthday. Tickets to the various theatre entertainments, the concert of Sunday, and the literary and other exercises of Monday, had been put on sale early on the 20th with an enormous crowd besieging the committee's office, and this eagerness did not abate till all available places were gone. tors were supplied by mail, and, as it turned out, those who applied in season were much more successful than the townspeople.

Visi

One thing the celebration brought about for Frankfort which had never been accomplished before,—the union in one great festival concert of all the leading musical societies. For once peace reigned among them, and Sunday afternoon in the Hippodrome they worked together in the greatest musical event the city has ever known. The Hippodrome itself is a tremendous structure, but none too large for this occasion. The podium was filled with the four hundred singers of both sexes in full dress, and between them the hundred members of the orchestra. Directly in front and near the director's stand were the celebrated soloists,— Alois Burgstaller, tenor; Anton von Rooy, baritone; and Frau Schumann-Heinck, alto, - all drawn away from Bayreuth for this entertainment; and Frau Adler-Nathan, soprano, a strikingly handsome woman, and always a great favorite with the The Empress FrederFrankfort public.

THE PROCESSION PASSING THE GOETHE MONUMENT, SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 1899

ick was the patroness of the occasion, and around and in front of her were the four thousand people who made up the audience. The programme was entirely from Goethe, the leading numbers being Wagner's "Faust overture;" "Scenes from Faust," for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra, by Schumann; and Mendelssohn's "The First Walpurgis Night." Such music! and how the great company sat enchanted! It was truly Goethe's spell working through other masters, and it will last as long as art, science, or literature endure,- for ever.

The two great processions satisfied everybody's desire for the spectacular. The festival procession at noon, made up of some two hundred and fifty corporations, deputations, and unions, marched in stately array by the Goethehaus in the Hirschgraben, and then around through the Kaiserstrasse, and laid their wreaths of laurel, palms, and roses at the foot of the poet's statue. At night came the torchlight parade, with 12,000 men in line, twisting and turning in fiery, serpent-like line down the Bahnhofstrasse, the Kaiserstrasse, and across the Rossmarkt to the monument, while the crowds that lined the whole distance crowded and pushed, appreciated and applauded. The Goetheplatz was a blaze of glory with its dazzling electric lights, its thousands of gas jets in quaint designs, and the great columns holding aloft the blazing tripods. It made one think of the night aspect of a Roman triumph.

Monday, the anniversary day, dawned. clear and bright. It had rained in the night, and there was a delightful coolness in the air, which, however, did not last long. At 11:30 the great hall, known as the Saalbau, a handsome edifice in its internal decorations and appointments, was filled with an aristocratic audience in full dress. The stage was given up to the large chorus of male voices and the orchestra, which at the opening of the exercises rendered Goethe's "Gesang der Geister über den Wassern," and "Mahomet's Gesang" at the close.

Promptly as the music ceased the mayor mounted the speaker's rostrum and began his address of welcome. In polished, courtly phrases he greeted the royal guests, the Empress Frederick and her daughter, the Princess of Hesse, and the many delegates from cities and societies. He was followed by the President of the

Freie Deutsche Hochstift of the city, and the President of the Goethe society of Weimar, both of whom gave the audience greeting and expressed their good wishes for the success of the anniversary demonstration. But Professor Erich Schmidt was the attraction for which the literaryminded waited, and no one was disappointed. There are but few good public speakers in Germany, and Erich Schmidt is one of them. Many years of university lecturing and literary labor have given him an excellent delivery and diction, and his voice is as clear as a bell. When he spoke people listened, and what he said was worth listening to. The Goethe subject is somewhat old, - the anniversary attests that, and it takes such a man to add to it anything of popular interest. In short, pithy sentences he launched at once into Goethe's youth. He spoke of the burgher origin of the family, the happy surroundings of his boyhood, and of the development and unfolding of his genius. In it all Frankfort- the city, imperial, rich, conservative — was active; Leipsic but added to Frankfort tastes, and Strasburg only refined them. In the year 1797 he visited his native city after long absence and was surprised at its change. It fascinated him, dominated him, and in "Dichtung und Wahrheit," his autobiography, the most delightful one ever written, he paid it poetical but lasting honor. Toward the close of the address, in rich, round periods, the speaker eulogized Bettina, the Frankfort maid and goddess who worshipped at Goethe's shrine. She understood him, she of his own city long live her memory!

Of course, after the speeches were over, it was necessary to have a banquet for convivial appreciation of it all, and in the evening an old-time Commers. When it ended, only those who were abroad late at night may know. The tropical foliage of the Palm Garden rustled and swayed in the soft wind to the music of the hall, and the pale stars lent an Oriental splendor to the scene. The surroundings were fitting for a poet's memory. In the Opera House, too, an appreciative audience celebrated. "Egmont" was a proper play for this occasion, for it belongs to the career of Goethe the youthful, who in the memory of Germany and the world will be so for ever.

FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN.

R. CLYDE FORD.

Τ'

HE Anglo-Boer pot continues to sim

mer on the diplomatic fire, and any hour its steaming waters may be expected to boil over. The suspense cannot be for long, since England is rapidly pouring her troops into South Africa, while armed bodies of the Transvaal burghers are concentrating on the borders of Natal and on the Bechuanaland frontier, in the vicinity of Vryburg. At the same time the families of the Outlanders are fleeing from Johannesburg and the mines of the Witwatersrand in the direction of Mafeking, there, if no ob

structions are put in their path, to take the railway southward across the Vaal and Orange rivers to Cape Town. At Pretoria the feeling among the Boers is now hot for war, and especially so since the Orange Free State has decided, in the event of hostilities, to stand by their kinsmen in the Transvaal. Thus are the elements all stirred up for a collision which is certain to arouse bitter race feeling throughout the whole of South Africa, and may infect the natives with restlessness and perhaps excite some of them to uprising.

As we write, the tension increases and the situation becomes less conciliatory and more warlike. In England jingo impatience with the long and irritating negotiations is more outspoken, and now demands the sending of an ultimatum to Pretoria that will set forth unmistakably the political reforms which England insists upon on behalf of the Outlanders, with guarantees that they will not afterwards be either abridged or annulled. On the Boers' reply to this, if their hot-headedness does not lead them meanwhile to precipitate a conflict, the issues of war or peace will depend. If it is unfavorable or equivocal, then an end will be put to farther parley, and England will proceed to hostilities, and that with a clear conscience.

That the situation is most critical may be gathered from the combative attitude now assumed by President Kruger and the Boer Executive, which is not only exceedingly antagonistic, but threatening and defiant, even to the repudiating of British paramountcy. If the Transvaal is foolish enough to maintain that hostile position and refuses to concede the British demands, then the alternative must be strife, possibly precipitated by the more inflamed among the Boers.

Whatever hope there has hitherto been of averting hostilities, we regret to say, now passes, and the step must be a short one to a state of war. Even before these words meet the reader's eye the tocsin may have sounded and the era of strife be begun. There is, of course, still a chance that England's ultimatum, when it is forwarded, may have its deterrent effect on the phlegmatic Boer mind, aided by the moral pressure exerted by the sight of Britain's forces actually in the field. Yet we can hardly hope that at this late hour this may be the case; while we may be sure that the door is closed to further parley, at least of any controversial, shifty, and indecisive kind. Nor can there really be any ground left for practical pacific debate, since the Boer Republic appears to have withdrawn its offer of a five years' retrospective franchise, and with it the consent it was understood to have given to the suggestion of a joint inquiry. England, on the other hand, insists upon these franchise concessions, which she rightly deems vital to the interests of her subjects in the Transvaal, as well as legally and morally their due

under the provisions of the Convention which conditionally gave the Boers back the internal independence of their State. Nor is the imperial country now likely to abate her demands for relief and redress on behalf of the Outlanders when the Boer oligarchy has acted so shufflingly and contumaciously throughout the negotiations, and, moreover, now repudiates and defies the suzerainty. Still less likely are we to see her conciliatory after being put to the great expense involved in sending out her military forces to Natal and the Cape, not to speak of the loss which the Outlanders must suffer in having to abandon their homes and properties in the imminence of war in the Transvaal and in the Free State of her neighboring ally. The ultimatum she is about to forward will doubtless take note of these matters, and possibly will found upon them claims much more onerous than those she has hitherto preferred. Nor can this be said to be unduly harsh on the part of England when we consider the grievances of her subjects and her longsuffering in the efforts she has made to avert hostilities, in addition to the menace to imperial interests in South Africa by inciting the whole Dutch community to disaffection. This is the menace which England feels it incumbent upon her to guard against in the interests of the whole country; and she rightly addresses herself to the duty, whatever unfounded suspicions the course creates in President Kruger's breast as to England's hostile designs against the independence of the South African Republic. In pursuance of this duty, now urgently pressed upon her, she may naturally be expected to insist on the settlement once for all of the questions raised by the hard lot of the Outlanders in the Transvaal. These will doubtless include the demand for a shortened franchise; for representation in the Volksraad; for the independence of the judiciary; for municipal self-government at Johannesburg, with removal of the forts that menace the city; for the teaching of English in the Johannesburg schools; and the abolition of the infamous dynamite monopoly. That the Boers will make a wry face at these demands, and probably will refuse utterly to consider them, is more than likely, especially at this late stage when moderate counsels are discarded and war impends. In this case the bridge of retreat will be closed