Frau Neuber even accepted for performance Lessing's first comedy, Der junge Gelehrte (1748), which he had begun at school.
Frau Gliick finally rid herself of the girl by marrying her to a Swedish dragoon called Johan.
This seems to be sufficiently attested by the fact that he was greatly liked and esteemed, not only in the pulpit but in private intercourse, by cultivated women like the countess of Biickeburg, the duchess of Weimar and Frau von Stein, and, what perhaps is more, was exceedingly popular among the gymnasium pupils, in whose education he took so lively an interest.
The best elements in Goethe's genius came from his mother's side; of a lively, impulsive disposition, and gifted with remarkable imaginative power, Frau Rat was the ideal mother of a poet; moreover, being hardly eighteen at the time of her son's birth, she was herself able to be the companion of his childhood.
The literary results of these years cannot be compared with those of the preceding period; they are virtually limited to a few wonderful lyrics, such as Wanderers Nachtlied, An den Mond, Gesang der Geister fiber den Wassern, or ballads, such as Der Erlkonig, a charming little drama, Die Geschwister (1776), in which the poet's relations to both Lili and Frau von Stein seem to be reflected, a dramatic satire, Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit (1778), and a number of Singspiele, Lila (1777), Die Fischerin, Scherz, List and Rache, and Jery and Beitely (1780).