Autobiography: Truth and Fiction Relating to My Life

In the mean time, as compared with that to which I had hitherto been accustomed, this new state of affairs was by no means satisfactory. Leipzig calls up before the spectator no antique time: it is a new, recently elapsed epoch, testifying commercial activity, comfort and wealth, which announces itself to us in these monuments. Yet quite to my taste were the houses, which to me seemed immense, and which, fronting two streets, and embracing a citizen-world within their large court- yards, built round with lofty walls, are like large castles, nay, even half-cities. In one of these strange places I quartered myself; namely, in the Bombshell Tavern (/Feuerkugel/), between the Old and the New Newmarket (/Neumarkt/). A couple of pleasant rooms looking out upon a court-yard, which, on account of the thoroughfare, was not without animation, were occupied by the bookseller Fleischer during the fair, and by me taken for the rest of the time at a moderate price. As a fellow-lodger I found a theological student, who was deeply learned in his professional studies, a sound thinker, but poor, and suffering much from his eyes, which caused him great anxiety for the future. He had brought this affliction upon himself by his inordinate reading till the latest dusk of the evening, and even by moonlight, to save a little oil. Our old hostess showed herself benevolent to him, always friendly to me, and careful for us both.

I now hastened with my letters of introduction to Hofrath Böhme, who, once a pupil of Maskow, and now his successor, was professor of history and public law. A little, thick-set, lively man received me kindly enough, and introduced me to his wife. Both of them, as well as the other persons whom I waited on, gave me the pleasantest hopes as to my future residence; but at first I let no one know of the design I entertained, although I could scarcely wait for the favorable moment when I should declare myself free from jurisprudence, and devoted to the study of the classics. I cautiously waited till the Fleischers had returned, that my purpose might not be too prematurely betrayed to my family. But I then went, without delay, to Hofrath Böhme, to whom, before all, I thought I must confide the matter, and with much self- importance and boldness of speech disclosed my views to him. However, I found by no means a good reception of my proposition. As professor of history and public law, he had a declared hatred for every thing that savored of the /belles-lettres/. Unfortunately he did not stand on the best footing with those who cultivated them; and Gellert in particular, in whom I had, awkwardly enough, expressed much confidence, he could not even endure. To send a faithful student to those men, therefore, while he deprived himself of one, and especially under such circumstances, seemed to him altogether out of the question. He therefore gave me a severe lecture on the spot, in which he protested that he could not permit such a step without the permission of my parents, even if he approved of it himself, which was not the case in this instance. He then passionately inveighed against philology and the study of languages, but still more against poetical exercises, which I had indeed allowed to peep out in the background. He finally concluded, that, if I wished to enter more closely into the study of the ancients, it could be done much better by the way of jurisprudence. He brought to my recollection many elegant jurists, such as Eberhard, Otto, and Heineccius, promised me mountains of gold from Roman antiquities and the history of law, and showed me, clear as the sun, that I should here be taking no roundabout way, even if afterwards, on more mature deliberation, and with the consent of my parents, I should determine to follow out my own plan. He begged me, in a friendly manner, to think the matter over once more, and to open my mind to him soon; as it would be necessary to come to a determination at once, on account of the impending commencement of the lectures.

It was, however, very polite of him not to press me on the spot. His arguments, and the weight with which he advanced them, had already convinced my pliant youth; and I now first saw the difficulties and doubtfulness of a matter which I had privately pictured to myself as so feasible. Frau Hofrath Böhme invited me shortly afterwards. I found her alone. She was no longer young, and had very delicate health; was gentle and tender to an infinite degree; and formed a decided contrast to her husband, whose good nature was even blustering. She spoke of the conversation her husband had lately had with me, and once more placed the subject before me, in all its bearings, in so cordial a manner, so affectionately and sensibly, that I could not help yielding: the few reservations on which I insisted were also agreed upon by the other side.

Thereupon her husband regulated my hours; for I was to hear lectures on philosophy, the history of law, the Institutes, and some other matters. I was content with this; but I carried my point so as to attend Gellert's history of literature (with Stockhausen for a text-book), and his "Practicum" besides.

The reverence and love with which Gellert was regarded by all young people was extraordinary. I had already called on him, and had been kindly received by him. Not of tall stature; elegant without being lean; soft and rather pensive eyes; a very fine forehead; a nose aquiline, but not too much so; a delicate mouth; a face of an agreeable oval, – all made his presence pleasing and desirable. It cost some trouble to reach him. His two /Famuli/ appeared like priests who guard a sanctuary, the access to which is not permitted to everybody, nor at every time: and such a precaution was very necessary; for he would have sacrificed his whole time, had he been willing to receive and satisfy all those who wished to become intimate with him.

At first I attended my lectures assiduously and faithfully, but the philosophy would not enlighten me at all. In the logic it seemed strange to me that I had so to tear asunder, isolate, and, as it were, destroy, those operations of the mind which I had performed with the greatest ease from my youth upwards, and this in order to see into the right use of them. Of the thing itself, of the world, and of God, I thought I knew about as much as the professor himself; and, in more places than one, the affair seemed to me to come into a tremendous strait. Yet all went on in tolerable order till towards Shrovetide, when, in the neighborhood of Professor Winkler's house on the Thomas Place, the most delicious fritters came hot out of the pan just at the hour of lecture: and these delayed us so long, that our note-books became disordered; and the conclusion of them, towards spring, melted away, together with the snow, and was lost.

The law-lectures very soon fared not any better, for I already knew just as much as the professor thought good to communicate to us. My stubborn industry in writing down the lectures at first, was paralyzed by degrees; for I found it excessively tedious to pen down once more that which, partly by question, partly by answer, I had repeated with my father often enough to retain it forever in my memory. The harm which is done when young people at school are advanced too far in many things was afterwards manifested still more when time and attention were diverted from exercises in the languages, and a foundation in what are, properly speaking, preparatory studies, in order to be applied to what are called "Realities," which dissipate more than they cultivate, if they are not methodically and thoroughly taught.

I here mention, by the way, another evil by which students are much embarrassed. Professors, as well as other men in office, cannot all be of the same age: but when the younger ones teach, in fact, only that they may learn, and moreover, if they have talent, anticipate their age, they acquire their own cultivation altogether at the cost of their hearers; since these are not instructed in what they really need, but in that which the professor finds it necessary to elaborate for himself. Among the oldest professors, on the contrary, many are for a long time stationary: they deliver on the whole only fixed views, and, in the details, much that time has already condemned as useless and false. Between the two arises a sad conflict, in which young minds are dragged hither and thither, and which can scarcely be set right by the middle- aged professors, who, though possessed of sufficient learning and culture, always feel within themselves an active desire for knowledge and reflection.

Now, as in this way I learned to know much more than I could digest, whereby a constantly increasing uncomfortableness was forced upon me; so also from life I experienced many disagreeable trifles, – as, indeed, one must always pay one's footing when one changes one's place and comes into a new position. The first thing the ladies blamed me for was my dress, for I had come from home to the university rather oddly equipped.

My father, who detested nothing so much as when something happened in vain, when any one did not know how to make use of his time, or found no opportunity for turning it to account, carried his economy of time and abilities so far, that nothing gave him greater pleasure than to kill two birds with one stone.[21 - Literally, "to strike two flies with one flapper." – TRANS.] He had, therefore, never engaged a servant who could not be useful to the house in something else. Now, as he had always written every thing with his own hand, and had, latterly, the convenience of dictating to the young inmate of the house, he found it most advantageous to have tailors for his domestics, who were obliged to make good use of their time, as they not only had to make their own liveries, but the clothes for my father and the children, besides doing all the mending. My father himself took pains to have the best materials and the best kind of cloth, by getting fine wares of the foreign merchants at the fair, and laying them up in store. I still remember well that he always visited the Herr von Löwenicht, of Aix-la-Chapelle, and from my earliest youth made me acquainted with these and other eminent merchants.

Care was also taken for the fitness of the stuff: and there was a plentiful stock of different kinds of cloth, serge, and Götting stuff, besides the requisite lining; so that, as far as the materials were concerned, we might well venture to be seen. But the form spoiled almost every thing. For, if one of our home-tailors was any thing of a clever hand at sewing and making up a coat which had been cut out for him in masterly fashion, he was now obliged also to cut out the dress for himself, which did not always succeed to perfection. In addition to this, my father kept whatever belonged to his clothing in very good and neat order, and preserved more than used it for many years. Thus he had a predilection for certain old cuts and trimmings, by which our dress sometimes acquired a strange appearance.

In this same way had the wardrobe which I took with me to the university been furnished: it was very complete and handsome, and there was even a laced suit amongst the rest. Already accustomed to this kind of attire, I thought myself sufficiently well dressed; but it was not long before my female friends, first by gentle raillery, then by sensible remonstrances, convinced me that I looked as if I had dropped down out of another world. Much as I felt vexed at this, I did not see at first how I was to mend matters. But when Herr von Masuren, the favorite poetical country squire, once entered the theatre in a similar costume, and was heartily laughed at, more by reason of his external than his internal absurdity, I took courage, and ventured at once to exchange my whole wardrobe for a new-fashioned one, suited to the place, by which, however, it shrunk considerably.

When this trial was surmounted, a new one was to come up, which proved to be far more unpleasant, because it concerned a matter which one does not so easily put off and exchange.

I had been born and bred in the Upper-German dialect; and although my father always labored to preserve a certain purity of language, and, from our youth upwards, had made us children attentive to what may be really called the defects of that idiom, and so prepared us for a better manner of speaking, I retained nevertheless many deeper-seated peculiarities, which, because they pleased me by their /naïvete/, I was fond of making conspicuous, and thus every time I used them incurred a severe reproof from my new fellow-townsmen. The Upper-German, and perhaps chiefly he who lives by the Rhine and Main (for great rivers, like the seacoast, always have something animating about them), expresses himself much in similes and allusions, and makes use of proverbial sayings with a native common-sense aptness. In both cases he is often blunt: but, when one sees the drift of the expression, it is always appropriate; only something, to be sure, may often slip in, which proves offensive to a more delicate ear.

Every province loves its own dialect; for it is, properly speaking, the element in which the soul draws its breath. But every one knows with what obstinacy the Misnian dialect has contrived to domineer over the rest, and even, for a long time, to exclude them. We have suffered for many years under this pedantic tyranny, and only by reiterated struggles have all the provinces again established themselves in their ancient rights. What a lively young man had to endure from this continual tutoring, may be easily inferred by any one who reflects that modes of thought, imagination, feeling, native character, must be sacrificed with the pronunciation which one at last consents to alter. And this intolerable demand was made by men and women of education, whose convictions I could not adopt, whose injustice I thought I felt, though I was unable to make it plain to myself. Allusions to the pithy biblical texts were to be forbidden me, as well as the use of the honest-hearted expressions from the Chronicles. I had to forget that I had read the "Kaiser von Geisersberg," and eschew the use of proverbs, which nevertheless, instead of much fiddle-faddle, just hit the nail upon the head, – all this, which I had appropriated to myself with youthful ardor, I was now to do without: I felt paralyzed to the core, and scarcely knew any more how I had to express myself on the commonest things. I was, moreover, told that one should speak as one writes, and write as one speaks; while to me, speaking and writing seemed once for all two different things, each of which might well maintain its own rights. And even in the Misnian dialect had I to hear many things which would have made no great figure on paper.

Every one who perceives in this the influence which men and women of education, the learned, and other persons who take pleasure in refined society, so decidedly exercise over a young student, would be immediately convinced that we were in Leipzig, even if it had not been mentioned. Each one of the German universities has a particular character; for, as no universal cultivation can pervade our fatherland, every place adheres to its own fashion, and carries out, even to the last, its own characteristic peculiarities: exactly the same thing holds good of the universities. In Jena and Halle roughness had been carried to the highest pitch: bodily strength, skill in fighting, the wildest self-help, was there the order of the day; and such a state of affairs can only be maintained and propagated by the most universal riot. The relations of the students to the inhabitants of those cities, various as they might be, nevertheless agreed in this, that the wild stranger had no regard for the citizen, and looked upon himself as a peculiar being, privileged to all sorts of freedom and insolence. In Leipzig, on the contrary, a student could scarcely be any thing else than polite, as soon as he wished to stand on any footing at all with the rich, well- bred, and punctilious inhabitants.

All politeness, indeed, when it does not present itself as the flowering of a great and comprehensive mode of life, must appear restrained, stationary, and, from some points of view, perhaps, absurd; and so those wild huntsmen from the Saale[22 - The river on which Halle is built. – TRANS.] thought they had a great superiority over the tame shepherds on the Pleisse.[23 - The river near Leipzig. – TRANS.] Zachariä's "Renommist" will always be a valuable document, from which the manner of life and thought at that time rises visibly forth; as in general his poems must be welcome to every one who wishes to form for himself a conception of the then prevailing state of social life and manners, which was indeed feeble, but amiable on account of its innocence and child-like simplicity.

All manners which result from the given relations of a common existence are indestructible; and, in my time, many things still reminded us of Zachariä's epic poem. Only one of our fellow-academicians thought himself rich and independent enough to snap his fingers at public opinion. He drank acquaintance with all the hackney-coachmen, whom he allowed to sit inside the coach as if they were gentlemen, while he drove them on the box; thought it a great joke to upset them now and then, and contrived to satisfy them for their smashed vehicles as well as for their occasional bruises; but otherwise he did no harm to any one, seeming only to make a mock of the public /en masse/. Once, on a most beautiful promenade-day, he and a comrade of his seized upon the donkeys of the miller in St. Thomas's square: well-dressed, and in their shoes and stockings, they rode around the city with the greatest solemnity, stared at by all the promenaders, with whom the glacis was swarming. When some sensible persons remonstrated with him on the subject, he assured them, quite unembarrassed, that he only wanted to see how the Lord Christ might have looked in a like case. Yet he found no imitators and few companions.

For the student of any wealth and standing had every reason to show himself attentive to the mercantile class, and to be the more solicitous about the proper external forms, as the colony[24 - Leipzig was so called, because a large and influential portion of its citizens were sprung from a colony of Huguenots, who settled there after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. – /American Note/.] exhibited a model of French manners. The professors, opulent both from their private property and from their liberal salaries, were not dependent upon their scholars; and many subjects of the state, educated at the government schools or other gymnasia, and hoping for preferment, did not venture to throw off the traditional customs. The neighborhood of Dresden, the attention thence paid to us, and the true piety of the superintendent of the course of study, could not be without a moral, nay, a religious, influence.

At first this kind of life was not repugnant to me: my letters of introduction had given me the /entrée/ into good families, whose circle of relatives also received me well. But as I was soon forced to feel that the company had much to find fault with in me, and that, after dressing myself in their fashion, I must now talk according to their tongue also; and as, moreover, I could plainly see that I was, on the other hand, but little benefited by the instruction and mental improvement I had promised myself from my academical residence, – I began to be lazy, and to neglect the social duties of visiting, and other attentions; and indeed I should have sooner withdrawn from all such connections, had not fear and esteem attached me firmly to Hofrath Böhme, and confidence and affection to his wife. The husband, unfortunately, had not the happy gift of dealing with young people, of winning their confidence, and of guiding them, for the moment, as occasion might require. When I visited him I never got any good by it: his wife, on the contrary, showed a genuine interest in me. Her ill health kept her constantly at home. She often invited me to spend the evening with her, and knew how to direct and improve me in many little external particulars: for my manners were good, indeed; but I was not yet master of what is properly termed /étiquette/. Only one friend spent the evenings with her; but she was much more dictatorial and pedantic, for which reason she displeased me excessively: and, out of spite to her, I often resumed those unmannerly habits from which the other had already weaned me. Nevertheless she always had patience enough with me, taught me piquet, ombre, and similar games, the knowledge and practice of which is held indispensable in society.

But it was in the matter of taste that Madame Böhme had the greatest influence upon me, – in a negative way truly, yet one in which she agreed perfectly with the critics. The Gottsched waters[25 - That is to say, the influence of Gottsched on German literature, of which more is said in the next book. – TRANS.] had inundated the German world with a true deluge, which threatened to rise up, even over the highest mountains. It takes a long time for such a flood to subside again, for the mire to dry away; and as in any epoch there are numberless aping poets, so the imitation of the flat and watery produced a chaos, of which now scarcely a notion remains. To find out that trash was trash was hence the greatest sport, yea, the triumph, of the critics of those days. Whoever had only a little common sense, was superficially acquainted with the ancients, and was somewhat more familiar with the moderns, thought himself provided with a standard scale which he could everywhere apply. Madame Böhme was an educated woman, who opposed the trivial, weak, and commonplace: she was, besides, the wife of a man who lived on bad terms with poetry in general, and would not even allow that of which she perhaps might have somewhat approved. She listened, indeed, for some time with patience, when I ventured to recite to her the verse or prose of famous poets who already stood in good repute, – for then, as always, I knew by heart every thing that chanced in any degree to please me; but her complaisance was not of long duration. The first whom she outrageously abused were the poets of the Weisse school, who were just then often quoted with great applause, and had delighted me very particularly. If I looked more closely into the matter, I could not say she was wrong. I had sometimes even ventured to recite to her, though anonymously, some of my own poems; but these fared no better than the rest of the set. And thus, in a short time, the beautiful variegated meadows at the foot of the German Parnassus, where I was fond of luxuriating, were mercilessly mowed down; and I was even compelled to toss about the drying hay myself, and to ridicule that as lifeless which, a short time before, had given me such lively joy.

Without knowing it, Professor Morus came to strengthen her instructions. He was an uncommonly gentle and friendly man, with whom I became acquainted at the table of Hofrath Ludwig, and who received me very pleasantly when I begged the privilege of visiting him. Now, while making inquiries of him concerning antiquity, I did not conceal from him what delighted me among the moderns; when he spoke about such things with more calmness, but, what was still worse, with more profundity than Madame Böhme; and he thus opened my eyes, at first to my greatest chagrin, but afterwards to my surprise, and at last to my edification.

Besides this, there came the Jeremiads, with which Gellert, in his course, was wont to warn us against poetry. He wished only for prose essays, and always criticised these first. Verses he treated as a sorry addition: and, what was the worst of all, even my prose found little favor in his eyes; for, after my old fashion, I used always to lay, as the foundation, a little romance, which I loved to work out in the epistolary form. The subjects were impassioned, the style went beyond ordinary prose, and the contents probably did not display any very deep knowledge of mankind in the author; and so I stood in very little favor with our professor, although he carefully looked over my labors as well as those of the others, corrected them with red ink, and here and there added a moral remark. Many leaves of this kind, which I kept for a long time with satisfaction, have unfortunately, in the course of years, at last disappeared from among my papers.

If elderly persons wish to play the pedagogue properly, they should neither prohibit nor render disagreeable to a young man any thing which gives him pleasure, of whatever kind it may be, unless, at the same time, they have something else to put in its place, or can contrive a substitute. Everybody protested against my tastes and inclinations; and, on the other hand, what they commended to me lay either so far from me that I could not perceive its excellencies, or stood so near me that I thought it not a whit better than what they inveighed against. I thus became thoroughly perplexed on the subject, and promised myself the best results from a lecture of Ernesti's on "Cicero de Oratore." I learned something, indeed, from this lecture, but was not enlightened on the subject which particularly concerned me. What I demanded was a standard of opinion, and thought I perceived that nobody possessed it; for no one agreed with another, even when they brought forward examples: and where were we to get a settled judgment, when they managed to reckon up against a man like Wieland so many faults in his amiable writings, which so completely captivated us younger folks?

Amid this manifold distraction, this dismemberment of my existence and my studies, it happened that I took my dinners at Hofrath Ludwig's. He was a medical man, a botanist; and his company, with the exception of Morus, consisted of physicians just commencing or near the completion of their studies. Now, during these hours, I heard no other conversation than about medicine or natural history, and my imagination was drawn over into quite a new field. I heard the names of Haller, Linnaeus, Buffon, mentioned with great respect; and, even if disputes often arose about mistakes into which it was said they had fallen, all agreed in the end to honor the acknowledged abundance of their merits. The subjects were entertaining and important, and enchained my attention. By degrees I became familiar with many names and a copious terminology, which I grasped more willingly as I was afraid to write down a rhyme, however spontaneously it presented itself, or to read a poem, for I was fearful that it might please me at the time, and that perhaps immediately afterwards, like so much else, I should be forced to pronounce it bad.

This uncertainty of taste and judgment disquieted me more and more every day, so that at last I fell into despair. I had brought with me those of my youthful labors which I thought the best, partly because I hoped to get some credit by them, partly that I might be able to test my progress with greater certainty; but I found myself in the miserable situation in which one is placed when a complete change of mind is required, – a renunciation of all that one has hitherto loved and found good. However, after some time and many struggles, I conceived so great a contempt for my labors, begun and ended, that one day I burnt up poetry and prose, plans, sketches, and projects, all together on the kitchen hearth, and threw our good old landlady into no small fright and anxiety by the smoke which filled the whole house.

SEVENTH BOOK

About the condition of German literature of those times so much has been written, and so exhaustively, that every one who takes any interest in it can be completely informed; in regard to it critics agree now pretty well; and what at present I intend to say piecemeal and disconnectedly concerning it, relates not so much to the way in which it was constituted in itself, as to its relation to me. I will therefore first speak of those things by which the public is particularly excited; of those two hereditary foes of all comfortable life, and of all cheerful, self-sufficient, living poetry, – I mean, satire and criticism.

In quiet times every one wants to live after his own fashion: the citizen will carry on his trade or his business, and enjoy the fruits of it afterwards; thus will the author, too, willingly compose something, publish his labors, and, since he thinks he has done something good and useful, hope for praise, if not reward. In this tranquillity the citizen is disturbed by the satirist, the author by the critic; and peaceful society is thus put into a disagreeable agitation.

The literary epoch in which I was born was developed out of the preceding one by opposition. Germany, so long inundated by foreigners, interpenetrated by other nations, directed to foreign languages in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate her own. Together with so many new ideas, innumerable foreign words were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her; and, even for objects already known, people were induced to make use of foreign expressions and turns of speech. The German, having run wild for nearly two hundred years in an unhappy tumultuary state, went to school with the French to learn manners, and with the Romans in order to express his thoughts with propriety. But this was to be done in the mother-tongue, when the literal application of those idioms, and their half-Germanization, made both the social and business style ridiculous. Besides this, they adopted without moderation the similes of the southern languages, and employed them most extravagantly. In the same way they transferred the stately deportment of the prince-like citizens of Rome to the learned German small-town officers, and were at home nowhere, least of all with themselves.

But as in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, the German sense of freedom and joy also began to stir itself. This, accompanied by a genuine earnestness, insisted that men should write purely and naturally, without the intermixture of foreign words, and as common intelligible sense dictated. By these praiseworthy endeavors, however, the doors and gates were thrown open to an extended national insipidity, nay, – the dike was dug through by which the great deluge was shortly to rush in. Meanwhile, a stiff pedantry long stood its ground in all the four faculties, until at last, much later, it fled for refuge from one of them to another.

Men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had therefore two objects on which they could exercise themselves, against which they could labor, and, as the matter was of no great importance, give a vent to their petulance: these were, – a language disfigured by foreign words, forms, and turns of speech on the one hand, and the worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to keep themselves free from those faults on the other; though it occurred to nobody, that, while they were battling against one evil, the other was called on for assistance.

Liskow, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow, silly writer, whose awkward demeanor soon gave him an opportunity to proceed still more severely. He then went farther, and constantly aimed his scorn at particular persons and objects, whom he despised and sought to render despicable, – nay, even persecuted them with passionate hatred. But his career was short; for he soon died, and was gradually forgotten as a restless, irregular youth. The talent and character shown in what he did, although he had accomplished little, may have seemed valuable to his countrymen; for the Germans have always shown a peculiar pious kindliness to talents of good promise, when prematurely cut off. Suffice it to say, that Liskow was very soon praised and recommended to us as an excellent satirist, who could have attained a rank even above the universally beloved Rabener. Here, indeed, we saw ourselves no better off than before; for we could discover nothing in his writings, except that he had found the silly, silly, which seemed to us quite a matter of course.

Rabener, well educated, grown up under good scholastic instruction, of a cheerful, and by no means passionate or malicious, disposition, took up general satire. His censure of the so-called vices and follies springs from the clear views of a quiet common sense, and from a fixed moral conception of what the world ought to be. His denunciation of faults and failings is harmless and cheerful; and, in order to excuse even the slight boldness of his writings, it is supposed that the improving of fools by ridicule is no fruitless undertaking.

Rabener's personal character will not easily appear again. As an able, punctual man of business, he does his duty, and thus gains the good opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors; along with which, he gives himself up to the enjoyment of a pleasant contempt for all that immediately surrounds him. Pedantic /literati/, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he banters rather than satirizes; and even his banter expresses no contempt. Just in the same way does he jest about his own condition, his misfortune, his life, and his death.

There is little of the aesthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external forms he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony; namely, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this figure of speech should be used but extremely seldom; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to clear-sighted men, perplexes the weak, while indeed it pleases the great middle class, who, without any special expense of mind, can fancy themselves more knowing than others. But whatever he brings before us, and however he does it, alike bears witness to his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity; so that we always feel prepossessed in his favor. The unbounded applause of his own times was a consequence of such moral excellencies.

That people looked for originals to his general descriptions and found them, was natural; that individuals complained of him, followed from the above; his lengthy apologies that his satire is not personal, prove the spite it provoked. Some of his letters crown him at once as a man and an author. The confidential epistle in which he describes the siege of Dresden, and how he loses his house, his effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is highly valuable; although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him his happy turn of mind. The letter where he speaks of the decay of his strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy of respect; and Rabener deserves to be honored as a saint by all cheerful, intelligent men, who cheerfully resign themselves to earthly events.

I tear myself away from him reluctantly, yet I would make this remark: his satire refers throughout to the middle class; he lets us see here and there that he is also well acquainted with the higher ranks, but does not hold it advisable to come in contact with them. It may be said, that he has had no successor, that no one has been found who could consider himself equal or even similar to him.

Now for criticism! and first of all for the theoretic attempts. It is not going too far when we say that the ideal had, at that time, escaped out of the world into religion; it scarcely even made its appearance in moral philosophy; of a highest principle of art no one had a notion. They put Gottsched's "Critical Art of Poetry" into our hands; it was useful and instructive enough, for it gave us a historical information of all the kinds of poetry, as well as of rhythm and its different movements: the poetic genius was presupposed! But, besides that, the poet was to have acquirements and even learning: he should possess taste, and every thing else of that kind. They directed us at last to Horace's "Art of Poetry: " we gazed at single golden maxims of this invaluable work, but did not know in the least what to do with it as a whole, or how we should use it.

The Swiss stepped forth as Gottsched's antagonists: they must take it into their heads to do something different, to accomplish something better; accordingly we heard that they were, in fact, superior. Breitinger's "Critical Art of Poetry" was taken in hand. Here we reached a wider field, but, properly speaking, only a greater labyrinth, which was so much the more tiresome, as an able man, in whom we had confidence, was driving us about in it. Let a brief review justify these words.

For poetry in itself they had been able to find no fundamental axiom: it was too spiritual and too volatile. Painting, an art which one could hold fast with one's eyes, and follow step by step with the external senses, seemed more favorable for such an end: the English and French had already theorized about plastic art; and, by a comparison drawn from this, it was thought that poetry might be grounded. The former presented images to the eye, the latter to the imagination: poetical images, therefore, were the first thing which was taken into consideration. People began with comparisons, descriptions followed, and only that was expressed which had always been apparent to the external senses.

Images, then! But where should these images be got except from nature? The painter professedly imitated nature: why not the poet also? But nature, as she lies before us, cannot be imitated: she contains so much that is insignificant and worthless, that one must make a selection; but what determines the choice? one must select that which is important: but what is important?

To answer this question, the Swiss may have taken a long time to consider; for they came to a notion, which is indeed singular, but clever, and even comical, inasmuch as they say, the new is always the most important: and after they have considered this for a while, they discover that the marvellous is always newer than every thing else.

They had now pretty well collected their poetical requisitions; but they had still to consider that the marvellous might also be empty, and without relation to man. But this relation, demanded as necessary, must be a moral one, from which the improvement of mankind should manifestly follow; and thus a poem had reached its utmost aim when, with every thing else accomplished, it was useful besides. They now wished to test the different kinds of poetry according to all these requisites: those which imitated nature, besides being marvellous, and at the same time of a moral aim and use, were to rank as the first and highest. And, after much deliberation, this great pre-eminence was at last ascribed, with the highest degree of conviction, to Aesop's fables!

Strange as such a deduction may now appear, it had the most decided influence on the best minds. That Gellert and subsequently Lichtwer devoted themselves to this department, that even Lessing attempted to labor in it, that so many others turned their talents towards it, speaks for the confidence which this species of poetry had gained. Theory and practice always act upon each other: one can see from their works what is the men's opinion, and, from their opinions, predict what they will do.

Yet we must not dismiss our Swiss theory without doing it justice. Bodmer, with all the pains he took, remained theoretically and practically a child all his life. Breitinger was an able, learned, sagacious man, whom, when he looked rightly about him, the essentials of a poem did not all escape, – nay, it can be shown that he may have dimly felt the deficiencies of his system. Remarkable, for instance, is his query, "Whether a certain descriptive poem by König, on the 'Review-camp of Augustus the Second,' is properly a poem?" and the answer to it displays good sense. But it may serve for his complete justification that he, starting from a false point, on a circle almost run out already, still struck upon the main principle, and at the end of his book finds himself compelled to recommend as additions, so to speak, the representation of manners, character, passions, – in short, the whole inner man; to which, indeed, poetry pre-eminently belongs.

It may well be imagined into what perplexity young minds felt themselves thrown by such dislocated maxims, half-understood laws, and shivered-up dogmas. We adhere to examples, and there, too, were no better off; foreigners as well as the ancients stood too far from us; and from the best native poets always peeped out a decided individuality, to the good points of which we could not lay claim, and into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. For him who felt any thing productive in himself it was a desperate condition.

When one considers closely what was wanting in the German poetry, it was a material, and that, too, a national one: there was never a lack of talent. Here we make mention only of Günther, who may be called a poet in the full sense of the word. A decided talent, endowed with sensuousness, imagination, memory, the gifts of conception and representation, productive in the highest degree, ready at rhythm, ingenious, witty, and of varied information besides, – he possessed, in short, all the requisites for creating, by means of poetry, a second life within life, even within common real life. We admire the great facility with which, in his occasional poems, he elevates all circumstances by the feelings, and embellishes them with suitable sentiments, images, and historical and fabulous traditions. Their roughness and wildness belong to his time, his mode of life, and especially to his character, or, if one would have it so, his want of fixed character. He did not know how to curb himself; and so his life, like his poetry, melted away from him.

By his vacillating conduct, Günther had trifled away the good fortune of being appointed at the court of Augustus the Second, where, in addition to every other species of ostentation, they were also looking about for a court-poet, who could give elevation and grace to their festivities, and immortalize a transitory pomp. Von König was more mannerly and more fortunate: he filled this post with dignity and applause.

In all sovereign states the material for poetry comes downwards from above; and "The Review-camp at Mühlberg" ("Das Lustlager bei Mühlberg") was, perhaps, the first worthy object, provincial, if not national, which presented itself to a poet. Two kings saluting one another in the presence of a great host, their whole courts and military state around them, well-appointed troops, a mock-fight, /fêtes/ of all kinds, – this is business enough for the outward sense, and overflowing material for delineating and descriptive poetry.