"Mdiiti i*'t*t,^ii^lii*^iH-ii-X Lessing first saw himself in print : " Anacreontic " verses which showed a good measure of the dreary cleverness natural to such compositions, and a little drama, "Damon; or, True Friendship," which is not without vivacity of style. His contributions were much admired, and doubtless he was pressed to join the literary enter- prise known as the Bremer Beitrdge, a journal managed in concert by a number of the most vigorous minds in Leipzig — Adolf Schlegel, the poet' Zacharia, Ebert, Mylius (for a short time), and Gellert. But from this circle Lessing held aloof. Since the arrival of Klop- stock in Leipzig, the Bremer Beitrdge had come greatly under his influence, and Lessing, though he fully recognized Klopstock's genius, entertained from the outset a certain repugnance for his "seraphic school" of literature, with its somewhat too emotional and ostentatious earnestness of purpose. He had not been long in Leipzig before it became clear that the station in life for which he was supposed to be preparing himself was an impossible one for him. He neglected his theological studies, and took up philo- logy instead. After a time even this was abandoned, as far as seeking any regular instruction went. He declared his intention of studying medicine, and began to attend lectures on botany and chemistry. But the theatre occupied him more seriously than anything else : it was thought, and not without reason, that he had even some idea of going on the stage. More than one of the Neuber company had been university students like himself. He soon, indeed, did something which shocked the' Kamenz LESSING. 33 people nearly as much as this would have done. One evening, as the merits of a play of Gottsched's school, which had just been performed, were being discussed, Lessing opposed the general view, and declared it to be bald and dull. " Can you make a better, then ? " "I can, and will," said Lessing, and he forthwith set himself to redeem his promise. It has been already mentioned "that, while at St Afra, he had occupied himself with a comedy in which pedantry should be held up to ridicule. An event had lately occurred at Leipzig, which suggested a dknouement in which the ridiculous pedant might figure with effect. The Academy of Berlin had offered a prize for a treatise on the Monad Theory of Leibnitz, and one of the candidates — a conceited young Leipzig student, who did not know how much he was ignorant of — had declared publicly that his composition could not fail to win it. His essay had been adjudged to be wholly worthless, and Leipzig had been hugely amused. In Lessing's play, the essay of the young scholar is represented as having been entrusted to a friend to be forwarded to the Academy. In the first scene we see him awaiting with longing the arrival of the post which shall bring the news of his victory. Then he is entangled by his father in an engagement with a wealthy ward of the latter. She loves another, and the play progresses through a variety of comical episodes until the arrival of the Berlin post. He finds his own essay returned to him — the friend announces that, out of regard for his reputation, he did not even send in so unsuitable a composition. The Academy, he writes, did not want to know "What is 3 34 LIFE OF the grammatical meaning of ' Monas ' ? Who used it first ? What it indicates in Xenocrates ? Whether the Monads of Pythagoras are the atoms of Moschus ? What do they care for these trivialities, even if there had been anything besides to the real purpose of the theme ? " The young pedant is furious, determines to abandon Germany and seek for recognition of his merits elsewhere ; and his fiande is left to her lover. This was Lessing's first important work, and after he had improved it in accordance with suggestions of Pro- fessor Kastner (in all Lessing's works he eagerly sought help from any one who had it to give), he brought it to Frau Neuber. She recognized its talent instantly and fully, hailed Lessing as the rising sun of the German stage, and had the play at once put in rehearsal. Her enthusiasm is not very easy to understand at the present day. Certainly the dialogue is vivacious, and the language excellent, in the terse laconic style then admired, but there is only a very superficial attempt at characteriza- tion, the incidents show little invention, and oddities of behaviour are insisted upon to monotony. But in Lessing's portrayal of false learning and, by implication, of true, and in his hits at the literary theories of the day, there was a critical intelligence which Leipzig audi- ences would appreciate ; and Frau Neuber knew that they were always particularly delighted with the repre- sentation on the stage of any event which could be identified with one that had actually ■ transacted itself in their midst. Reports of Lessing's doings could not long fail to reach Kamenz, and the inevitable mischief-makers were LESSING. 35 soon found to supply them. The facts which reached the parsonage doubtless did so in a very exaggerated form ; but two of them needed no exaggeration to convey to the Pastor the blackest view of his son's courses : he was constantly in the company of that type of audacious impiety, Mylius, one who feared not God neither regarded man ; and he was a frequenter of the theatre, nay, even a daily associate of actors, a class which even in much more enlightened parts of Germany than the Lausitz was regarded as hardly within the pale of salvation. The Pastor's sorrow and indignation found vent at last in a letter in which, without having heard Gotthold's side of the question, he thundered to him that he was going straight to perdition, and summoned him to immediate repentance and amendment. Lessing was moved to passionate anger at this hasty and unjust con- demnation. He was no profligate — if he had written verses (some of which had doubtless reached Kamenz) which represented their author as living for nothing but kisses and wine, he could, and did, say with Ovid, " My life is sober, though my Muse be gay." And on the question of the morality of the stage he was entitled to form his own opinions. His first impulse on receiving his father's letter was one of reckless defiance ; he would, he declared to Weisse, have his name and birthplace affixed to the playbills of the "Young Scholar," and send a copy to every dignitary in Kamenz. This reckless and altogether too Mylius-like proceeding was happily not carried out ; but he left the letter unanswered, and matters soon came to a dangerous crisis. His mother had -sent him by a friend's hand a Christmas 36 LIFE OF cake, or "Stollen," such as relatives and friends were and are in the habit of sending to each other at that season. Could she but have foreseen the fate of that cake! Made by devout, hands, in the parsonage of Kamenz, it was eaten — so she was correctly informed — in Lessing's rooms in the company of a troop of actors, and a bottle of wine figured at the impious feast. Rumours of the "Young Scholar" also reached Kamenz, and it was felt that now indeed no time must be lost if Gotthold were to be plucked as a brand from the burning. But what paternal command or entreaty could be expected to weigh with one already so abandoned ? The Lessings saw only one means of gaining their end, and — let us hope with some painful twinges of con- science — the Pastor sent a speedy message to his son: " Set out instantly on receipt of this and come to us. Thy mother is sick to death, and wishes to speak with thee before her end." They little knew the heart on which they played so dangerous a trick. Lessing flung himself at once into a stage coach and started for his long journey in the depth of winter, without having even delayed to provide himself with an overcoat. On the way a period of bitter cold set in, and with it a revulsion of feeling at the parsonage as they thought of the journey they had forced upon him at such a time. Even their previous sorrows, acute as these had been, were now a kind of comfort to them — "He has learned disobedience," thought Frau Lessing ; " perhaps he will not come after all" But when the Leipzig mail arrived, there stood the prodigal indeed, a piteous figure, shivering on the threshold. " How could you come in such weather? " LESSING. 37 cried his mother, half-reproachfuUy. " Dearest mother, did you not wish it ? " replied Lessing. " But how glad I am to find that my suspicions were right, and you are well." A smaller and less genial nature might have been deeply injured by the deceit they had practised on him for pious ends, but he let it pass with a large, un- conscious generosity. Generous and exalted his mood may well indeed have been just then, and little, perhaps, had he felt the hardship of that winter journey ; for he travelled with the applause still echoing in his ears with which a great capital of culture had welcomed his first play. CHAPTER IV. IT was more than a year since Lessing's parents had seen him. He had left them a shy, uncouth, and probably self-important lad, for we are much mistaken if Lessing had not some eye to foibles of his own in the "Young Scholar." They now saw a wellrgrown, com- pactly-built youth, showing in his bearing and behaviour the security of the practised athlete and the social culture which he had gained in " Paris-on-the-Pleiss." The head, with its waving light brown hair, was set a little proudly on the strong shoulders; the broad brow and open countenance expressed candour, courage, and genial power. But the look of the large dark-blue eyes, "true tiger eyes," as a later observer described them, must have told that there was " something in him dangerous.'' His dress in later years was always notably neat and even elegant, and although he was now in need of a new suit, the condition of the attire he wore must have at least made it clear that he was no disciple of the horrible Mylius. In no point, indeed, they soon observed, was he or would he be the blind dis- ciple of any man. His parents might not understand or LIFE OF LESSING. 39 approve his ways, but it was evident that he was com- pletely master of himself, knew his mind thoroughly, and would neither wilfully nor weakly sin against any truth which he could recognize for such. Their tone of de- nunciation was at once abandoned, and day after day the father and son argued out their differences, if sometimes with heat, a transient heat, yet at bottom with a cheerful toleration. Even the discovery that he had debts was not found insupportable. They were paid, with the help of a benevolent bachelor uncle, but, alas ! Lessing's path in life was never again wholly clear of that dismal swamp. He stayed till April at Kamenz, and then went back to Leipzig, to reappear there, with the goodwill of the family, as Studiosus Medicinae. But his true studies were exactly what they had been before — the theatre soon occupied him as deeply as ever. He planned a , tragedy, " Giangir,'' and partly executed it in rhymeless alexandrines ; indeed, he and Weisse wrote at this time, in friendly competition, a number of dramatic fragments, in some of which their acquaintance with the Restoration drama of England is clearly visible. But nothing more of his came as yet to representation, or even to comple- tion. Frau Neuber's theatre was not a commercial success, and her conipany was broken up not long after his return. What was worse, he had been bon camarade enough to stand security for two or three of the players in respect of certain loans, and these children of nature now levanted to Vienna, leaving him to face their creditors as best he could. Nor did this trouble his peace of mind so much as the departure of the beautiful Lorenz, daughter of an actress of the company. His relations 40 LIFE OF with her were never very intimate/ but she had fascinated him for the time, and a letter exists from which it is clear that he soon afterwards paid a brief visit to Vienna for the purpose of seeing her again. Out of the difficulties which now encompassed him there seemed but one way. In Leipzig he could not continue to live — he was again deeply in debt there, he had contracted expensive acquaintanceships, and he had no means of earning money. He decided to try what could be done in' Berlin. Mylius, who had recently come into notice through a prize essay for the Academy of Berlin, had been summoned thither to take part in the observation of the sola'^ eclipse of July 25,1 748. Mylius meant to settle there, and saw a prospect of steady occu- pation, to which desideratum he might, and certainly would if he were able, help his friend. Lessing deter- mined to follow him to Berlin, seek employment, earn money, and pay his debts. \ This admirable programme was ultimately carried out in every particular, but for a time it could not even be begun. Lessing packed up his. belongings, including a good many books which he had\gathered about him in Leipzig, and executed a silent flitting, with no leave- takings, early in July. On the way he stopped at Wittenberg, whither he had accompanied a cousin of his who was travelling to that town through Leipzig. Here he was destined to remain much longer than he had expected. He fell ill shortly after he arrived, and his illness detained him until after the solar eclipse had taken place. On his recovery hfe found that ' Hempel's "Lessing's Werke," xx. i, p. 513. LESSING. 41 Mylius, disappointed in Berlin, had wandered back to Leipzig again. Lessing made the best of the business, was matriculated at Wittenberg, still as student of medicine, and settled down to spend the winter there, chiefly in studying classical literature and modern history. But the drama still occupied him deeply, and he began or continued several plays — "The Woman- hater," "Women are Women," and "Justin," among them. The collection of poems, published some two years afterwards under the title of " Kleinigkeiten " (Trifles), now begari to be put together for the press. Lessing disliked his residence in Wittenberg intensely. His Leipzig creditors persecuted him, and to satisfy them he would seem to have contracted new obligations in Wittenberg. At the same time he was earning nothing, and had no prospect of earning anything. N|ow again, however, Berlin seemed to offer him such a prospect. Mylius had returned thither, and was editing an im- portant journal belonging to the publisher Riidiger. To him, some' time in November, 1748, Lessing suddenly fled, leaving behind him, probably as security for his ■debts, all his clothing and books. This bold step meant the abandonment of his university career, and of the preferments which he might have hoped to attain at its successful close. It meant that at twenty years of age, with no definite expectations of any kind, he would try to make his living by authorship. It was a perilous enterprise, and Berlin was a perilous place in which to try it. It is true that the Prussian capital was becoming, under the auspices of Frederick the Great and Voltaire, a centre 42 LIFE OF of science and literature ; but a native-born German had to contend with the neglect of all who were influenced by the court — the Berlin Academy even conducted its transactions in French — and all over Germany literature withered under a system of piratical reprints which there was no law to check. From the theatre there seemed little hope, although he had made proposals to various managers. Life rose like a precipice before him, " black, wintry, dead, unmeasured," and his only hope of getting some foothold on it lay in the horrible Mylius. MyUus, however, was staunch. He introduced his friend to Riidiger, and in a commission to put in order the publisher's large and excellent library Lessing found at least a ledge to cling to until he saw his way further. He soon began to write occasional reviews in Mylius's paper, translated works from foreign languages for Rudiger, and worked with the great advantage of having books and learned periodicals at his command. The parents were naturally much vexed at Gotthold's erratic conduct. They had pardoned much already, not without misgivings, and now they found him abandon- ing his studies and his stipend, and following his evil genius, Mylius, to a place where he had nothing to depend on save the paltry and uncertain earnings of a literary day-labourer. They required him to return at once to Kamenz, there to render an account of himself, and be despatched, when reduced to a sufficiently sub- missive frame of mind, to finish his university course at Leipzig — or perhaps the Pastor can get him a modest post through a friend at Gottingen, where he will be at least at a distance from Mylius, and under some kind of supervision. LESSING. 43 Lessing's letters of this period will best explain the situation as it appeared to him. "I could," he writes to his mother on January, 20, 1749, "have long ago got some post here, if I could only have made a better appearance in respect of clothing. . . . Now nearly a year ago you had the kindness to promise me a new suit. You may judge from this if my last request was altogether too unreasonable. But you refuse it me, under the pretext that I am here in Berlin for the satisfaction of some other person. I will not doubt that my Stipen- dien [exhibition, pirtly defrayed by Kamenz, to permit him to study at the university] will go on at least till Easter. I think, therefore, that my debts will be fairly covered with them. But I see well that your injurious opinion of a person [Mylius] who, if he never did me services before, certainly does so now, just as I need them most — that, I say, this injurious opinion is the chief reason why you are so opposed to my undertakings. It seems as if you held him for an abomination of all the world. Does not this hatred go too far ? It is my comfort that I find a number of upright and distinguished folk in Berlin who make as much of him as I do. But you shall see that I am not tied to him. " He will leave Berlin if they positively require it, but he will not go home, nor, for the present, to any university. He will try his fortune in Vienna, Ham- burg, or Hanover, and learn at least to fit himself to the facts of life. Whatever happens, he will write to his parents and " never forget the benefits I have received from you." Again on April 10, 1749, he writes : " I have been some days in Frankfurt [on a theatrical enterprise ?] and that is the reason why I received your letter with enclosure of nine thalers somewhat late and am only now able to answer it. "You insist upon my returning home; You fear that I might go to Vienna with the intention of becoming a writer of comedies there. You are sure that here I am doing hackwork for Herr 44 LIFE OF M [ylius] and enduring hunger and care thereby. You even write to me quite plainly that what I wrote to you of various opportunities I had of settling here was all pure falsehood. I beg of you most earnestly to put yourself an instant in my place, and consider how one must be pained at such ungrounded reproaches, whose falseness, if you only knew me a little, must be palpably clear to you. Yet, more than at anything else, I must wonder that you have served up again this old reproach about my comedies. I never told you I would give up writing for the theatre. ... I only wish that I had written comedies incessantly . . . those of mine which have reached Vienna and Hanover have been very well paid for [adaptations from the French, probably, with a play, " The Old Maid," evidently inspired by the pinch of hunger and little else. There is now a dawn of hope in this quarter, but he paints in brighter colours than it had]. . . ." As concerns the post at Gottingen, I pray you to do your very utmost about it, but until it is sure, I will not come home, and have spent your nine thalers on a new suit. ... I want nothing now but my linen and my books, which you may be able to redeem for me from Wittenberg, and send here."' , And on the 28th of April : " I have just this moment received your letter of 25 April, which I answer at once, the more gladly as it was the more pleasing to me; ... I am longing for the arrival of my box, and again entreat you to put in all the books I have named to you in one of my letters. I would ask also for the chief of my MSS., including the sheets entitled 'Wine and Love.' They are free imitations of Anacreon [rather, of Anacreon's imitators] of which I made some in Meissen. I do not think the strictest moralist can lay them heavily on my soul : — ■ ' Vita verecUnda est, Musa jocosa mihi.' So did Martial \recte Ovid] excuse himself in a similar case. And one must know me little who thinks that my feelings are in the least harmony with them. ... In truth the cause of their existence is merely my desire to try my strength in all varieties of poetry. . . . ' The correspondence is in parts epitomized. LESSING. ' 45 If I could rightly claim the title of a German Moliere as you scornfully dub me, I should be assured of an immortal name. Truth to say, I would indeed most gladly deserve it. . . . I cannot understand why a writer of comedies cannot be a good Christian. A writer of comedies is a man who paints vices from their ridiculous side. Must a Christian, then, not laugh at vice? Doesvice deserve so much respect as that ? And how if I even now promised to make a comedy which theologians should not only read but praise ? Do you think that impossible ? How if I wrote one on the freethinkers, and those who despise your cloth ? " On May 30, 1749, he writes to his father : " I have duly received the boxes with the specified contents. I thank you for this great proof of your kindness, and would be more profuse in my thanks if, in short, you did not still so utterly mistrust me, and get me into very ill repute by the kind of inquiries you make from all sorts of people who have no concern with my affairs. Shall I call my conscience — shall I call God to witness ? I should be less accustomed than I am to regulate my actions according to my moral sense if I could err so far. But time shall judge. Time shall teach you whether I have reverence for my parents, conviction, in my religion, and morality in my daily life. Time shall teach whether he is the best Christian who has the principles of Christianity in his memory and, often without under^ standing them, in his mouth, goes to church and observes all the customs as everybody else does, because they are usual ; or he who has once rationally doubted, and has reached conviction by the way of investigation, or at least is still endeavouring to reach it. The Christian religion is not a thing that a, man should accept on the mere word of his parents. Most people, indeed, inherit it from them as they do their property, but they show by their behaviour what kind of Christians they are. So long as I do not see one of the chiefest commands of Christianity, to love our enemies, better observed, so long shall I doubt whether those are really Christians who give themselves out for such." In this letter Leasing veils in Latin from the maternal 46 LIFE OF eye an injunction to his father not to let his view of MyHus be coloured by feminine prejudices. Little by little he made his way. Small employments of various kinds in the literary line came in ; he made important acquaintances, personally and by correspon- dence; his publications attracted attention. Among these were "The Old Maid," and a really interesting letter in rhyiped alexandrines to Herr Maspurg, editor of a musical journal, on the rules of the " gay sciences " (Wissenschaften zum Vergnugen), particularly referring to music and poetry. In 1750 he started, in concert with Mylius, a journal entitled " Contributions to the History and Improvement of the Theatre,'' whose title may best explain its contents. The second issue contained a tratislation' by Lessing of the "Captivi" of Plautus, and the third an admirable criticism of the same play. The enterprise came to a sudden end with the appearance of the fourth number. Mylius had asserted in it that the Italian stage had never produced a good play, and Lessing refused to give ^ny • further support to a theatrical journal which could betray such gross ignorance in its own special province. From Berlin he again wrote to his father on November 2, 1750: "... You do me wrong if you think that I have already again changed my mind about Gottingen. I assure you again that I would go there to-morrow were it possible. Not because things are going particularly badly with me in Berlin just now, but because I have given you my promise. . . . The continuance of the journal you know of [Theatrical Contributions, not continued after all] and the translation [for Riidiger] of Rollin's ' Roman History' are taking up more of my time than I like. Since LESSING. 47 I purpose, moreover, bringing out aj Easter a volume of my theatrical works, already long promised in the literary journals of Jena,' likewise a translation from the Spanish of the 'Novellas Exemplares ' of Cervantes, I shall not have to complain of ennui. ... I have for some time spent much diligence on the Spanish lauguage, and think I shall not have my labour in vain. As it is a language not over well known in Germany, I think it should in time be useful to me. ... i " The younger Mylius has fallen out with the elder Riidiger, and writes no more for his newspaper. They have more ' than once tried to get me to take his place, if I cared to lose my time with these political trivialities [political journalism then not daring to be anything else than trivial]. . . . "Whoever wrote to you that I am very badly off, because I no longer have my board and other remuneration from Herr Rudiger, has told you a great lie [Lessinghas little reason to feel kindly towards those who ply his father with information about his doings]; I have never wished to have anything further to do with this old man as soon as I had made myself thoroughly acquainted with his large library. This is done, and therewith we have parted. My board in Berlin is the least of my cares. I can get an excellent meal for," say, ijd. " De la Mettrie, of whom I have sometimes written to you, is physician to the king here. His book, ' L'homme Machine,' has inade a great stir. Edelmann is a saint compared to him. I have read a work by him, called 'Auti Sen^que ou le souverain bien, ' which has gone through twelve editioiis. You may judge of its abominable character by the fact that the king himself [even he !] threw ten copies of it into the fire." There was some reason in the Pastor's disHke of Berlin as a place of residence for a talented lad of ' One Naumann, a friend of Lessing and editor in Jena, an- nounced, on October i8, 1749, that the "ingenious Herr Lessing " would shortly publish the following plays : — " The Young Scholar,'' "The Old Maid," "Strength of Imagination " ["The Woman- hater " ?], " Women are Women," " The Jew," " The Freethinker." 48 LIFE OF LESSING. twenty. Lessing himself published, in 1749, a tale in verse called " The Hermit," which was a fairly ■ good imitation of a thing better left unimitated, the " Contes " of Lafontaine. Among the eniineht men whom he at this period came into contact with, Voltaire stands conspicuous. He had employed Lessing to translate into German certain pleadings of his in that lawsuit with the Jew Hirsch out of which he came with such discredit, and Lessing often dined at his table while these proceedings were in pro- gress. That a writer so fastidious as Voltaire should have engaged Lessing to translate him speaks strongly for the reputation which the latter had even then gained as a master of German prose. CHAPTER V. THE volume of theatrical works spoken of in the Jena journal was to contain six plays. Of these, however, only one, " The Old Maid," reached publica- tion at present, and "Women are Women," an adaptation from Plautus, was never finished. The " Freethinker " reminds us of Lessing's defence of comedy, on the ground that it might be used to ridicule those who despise religion. But Adrast, the freethinker, is not a ridiculous figure — he is highly virtuous in character, his faults are those of the head, and he is ultimately brought to see his errors by the spirit of self-sacrifice and benevo- ' lence exhibited by his Christian friends. " The Jews " is perhaps the most interesting of all these plays, considered as a revelation of Lessing's mind ; and indeed none of them has much other interest for readers of to-day. The lot of the Jews in Germany was then, and for long after- wards, a very grievous one. In Prussia their condition was better than elsewhere, but even there, and under a monarch who had begun his reign with a proclamation of universal toleration, they had much injustice to endure. They had to pay toll on their own bodies like merchandize at the gates of Berlin, and a heavy 4 1- 50 LIFE OF fine had to be paid on the marriage of every Jew, which Frederick, cynically business-like as usual, exacted in the form of a compulsory purchase from his new china factory. And, of course, the indirect results of these insulting penalties and restrictions were far more grievous than the direct ones. Jewish children could not walk in the streets of Berlin without being stoned and hooted — for which reason even Mendelssohn, a man whose genius has helped to make the city where he lived illustrious, was obliged, as he himself tells us, to imprison his little ones all day long in a silk factory. Lessing's drama champions the oppressed race in its representation of a noble Jew who renders a perilous service to a Christian. It was the first stroke in that combat with tyrannical prejudices which so deeply marks the character of his influence in every sphere in which it operated. In the comedies produced at this time the influence of the French stage, and especially of Molifere, is decidedly predominant. But in the tragic fragment named " Henzi," which was written in 1749, we perceive the effects of a German translation of Shakspere's "Julius Caesar," which was published by Count von Borgk in 1741, and which is reckoned one of the landmarks of German literature. Three "republican tragedies" were planned by Lessing under its inspira- tion — " Virginia " (afterwards developed into " Emilia Galotti "), " Brutus " (of the Tarquinian days), and "Henzi." The subject of the last-named play was offered him by contemporary history in Switzerland. The Republic of Berne had long been a prey to gross LESSING. 51 misgovernment on the part of a small number of families who had possessed themselves of the resoiirces and offices of the State, misusing their unlawful power as shamefully as any dynastic sovereign had ever done. Remonstrance having been tried in vain, a conspiracy was formed among the citizens in 1749 for the purpose of restoring, if necessary by force, the equal laws of the Republic. In this conspiracy a leading part was taken by Samuel Henzi, a man who appears to have been a very Brutus in nobility and purity of character, and whose extraordinary intellectual gifts had gained him a European reputation in the world of letters. The con- spiracy was discovered in time to allow of the arrest of the ringleaders on the day appointed for the outbreak of the revolt, and Henzi, with two others, were put to death, after torture had been vainly used in the hope of extorting further revelations. Lessing's fragment, amounting to some six hundred lines, was first published in 1753, when its importance was warmly recognized by the great Gottingen scholar and critic Michaelis. By the enthusiasm for high human qualities which pervades it, and the absence of any love- story from the plot, it shows the share which "Julius Csesar " had in its production. Lessing had declared, in the first number of the Theatrical Contributions, that " if in dramatic poetry the German will follow his natural impulses, our stage will rather resemble the English than the French.'' But the French unities were intended to be observed, as indeed they are more or less strictly in all Lessing's plays, and he still finds the rhymed alexandrine the proper vehicle for the tragic drama : — 52 LIFE OF " The love I bear thee, friend. Were it not strangely shown Did I augment thy griefs By telling of my own ? " This is the practical effect of the metre in German, and one cannot regret that he never completed his attempt to force a great tragic theme into such a vesture. Lessing, as we have seen, declined the editorship of Riidiger's journal when that office was vacated by Mylius. But on the death of Riidiger, in 1751, he accepted from the new proprietor, Riidiger's son-in-law, Voss,' the management of a Uterary supplement, appearing every month under the title of " The Latest from the Realm of Wit.'' Here, and in reviews con- tributed to the journal for the next five years, Lessing began to show clearly what a powerful and original critical force had entered Germany in him. From the beginning he took his stand outside all the petty literary cliques which among them absorbed almost all the literary activity of the day, and were the bane of healthy criticism. He scoffed at Gottsched and his pettifogging " Art of Poetry." He says of a work of Bodmer's that if, as had been proposed, books intended to be read beyond Germany should be printed in Roman letters, " Jacob and Joseph " might safely be left in Gothic. He added his voice to the acclamations which greeted Klopstock's " Messiah," and pointed with bitterness to the fact that it was reserved for a foreign prince (the King of Denmark) to enable the ' From whom the paper took, and still bears, the title of the Vossische Zeitun^. LESSING. 53 great German national poet to devote himself wholly to his mission. But Klopstock's strained and too emotional diction, and still more that of his shallow imitators, was ridiculed unsparingly. He utterly refused to bend to the dictatorship which Paris then exercised over Berlin in literary matters, and denounced the licentiousness of tone which, he declared, had stained the reputation of every French writer from the great Corneille down to Piron. Lessing's criticisms in the Vossische Zeitung won him, as they deserved to do, much attention. Young as he was, he spoke with learning, consistency, and good sense. His vivid style, which was beginning to show his later mastery of metaphor and satire, and, -still more, his unmistakable passion for truth, for seeing things simply as they are, carried his ideas home to their mark, and he began, with these criticisms, to be a serious power in German literature. Towards the end of 1751, however, he felt that he had been producing too rapidly and absorbing too little — that he needed a season of retirement, especially from journalistic work ; and he determined to withdraw to Wittenberg, where his brother Theophilus was then a student at the university, and there take out his long- postponed degree of Magister. Before his departure, however, he was destined to be involved in an un- fortunate quarrel with Voltaire, which had serious consequences for him in later life. Voltaire's secretary, Richier de Louvain, had lent Lessing a set of proofs of his master's forthcoming " Sifecle de Louis XIV." It was a work eagerly looked for by all Europe, and Voltaire 54 LIFE OF LESSING. intended to gratify Frederick by letting him have the earliest possible copy of it. Lessing was to have returned the proofs in three days, but carelessly lent them to a German friend, in whose house they were seen by a lady intimately acquainted with their author. She, who had begged in vain for a sight of the precious sheets, instantly taxed Voltaire with perfidy in the excuses he had made for his refusal. Voltaire turned furiously on his secretary, the latter flew to Lessing; but Lessing, meantime, utterly ignorant of the tumult he had caused, had repossessed himself of the proofs and taken them with him to Wittenberg. The work had deeply fascinated him, and he had still a few sheets to read. Voltaire's state of cold rage on making this discovery may be reaUzed with the help of the letters which he now wrote to the " Candidat en M^decine " at Wittenberg, entreating the return of his proof-sheets, and adding various ex- cellent reasons why a young man, at the beginning of his career, should not carry out Lessing's presumable inten- tion of issuing a stolen edition or translation of the work — a course to which even M. Lessing's distinguished capacities could not reconcile either its author or its publisher. Lessing of course returned the proofs with- out delay, but he accompanied them with an epistle in Latin which, he observed, M. Voltaire was not likely to publish if he ever gave an account of the matter; and he judged rightly, for it has vanished. This affair made a great stir in BerUn at the time, and must have been reported, with what colouring we may imagine, to Frederick himself ; who will remember it the next time he hears the name of Lessing. CHAPTER VI. LESSING'S second residence in Wittenberg, where he lodged with his brother Theophilus, began at the end of December, 1751. For one year he lived a quiet and studious life here. Among classical -authors we find that Martial and other epigrammatists were now closely studied. And as the study of the laws of any form of literary art invariably impelled Lessing to test his theories by experiment, he wrote a number of epigrams, and attained such facility in their composition that an unpremeditated " Sinngedicht " would fall from his lips whenever he heard of anything that suggested one — a circumstance also recorded of his Leipzig friend Kastner. The Wittenberg Library was very rich in works connected with the history of the Reformation, and Lessing now studied this subject with great zeal, and made various projects in connection with it. On April 29th he took his degree of Magister Artium, after the usual public disputation, on what subject we know not. He had, in March, made an important acquaintance. Gottlob Samuel Nicolai, brother of the more famous 56 LIFE OF Nicolai, the " Proctophilosoph " of "Faust," at whom Goethe and his circle aimed so many bitter shafts, passed through Wittenberg and sought out Lessing. The two young scholars — for Nicolai, though a pro- fessor of philosophy at Halle, was only twenty-four — became warm friends, and Lessing wrote him a rather sentimental farewell ode on his departure. In May Lessing and Theophilus were deep in the study of a new poetical translation of Horace, which had just been published by Herr Pastor Lange, of Laub- lingen, a member, of the Berlin Academy. Pastor Lange had already acquired sortie fame as a lyrist — his transla- tion of Horace was paraded as the result of nine years of diligent toil, it was lauded to the skies by his literary friends, it was dedicated to Frederick the Great, and the author had received a congratulatory letter from the king's own hand. In short, Pastor Lange had grown to be a windbag of most imposing dimensions, and the times were then getting dangerous for windbags. Lessing and his brother went through the translation, comparing it carefully with the original, and found no less than two hundred " childish blunders." A " Don Quixote of learn- ing," as Lessing once, with great aptness, named himself, could not keep his sword in its sheath on such an occasion of quarrel as this, and, after throwing off a brief and trenchant criticism of Lange, he wrote to Nicolai, telling him what a shrewd thrust this windbag was likely to receive. But Nicolai, an intimate friend of Lange's, was quite opposed to any Quixotic procedures — a very powerful giant this, he answers in effect — has great influence at court (Frederick's court), and will never LESSING. 57 forgive a public exposure ; there are better ways of dealing with him than the Quixotic — put up your sword, and see if, instead of running him through, you cannot merely bleed him a little — send him your annotations, and make him pay you handsomely for a private lesson in Latin. With Lessing's consent, Nicolai would approach Lange with this proposal. As Lessing's answer has been variously explained by his biographers, it may be well to give its text : — " . . .1 am satisfied also with your proposal concerning the criticism on Herr Lange's translation of Horace. I will, if you think well of it, write to him as soon as possible, and send him, with all politeness, just a hundred grammatical blunders to begin with. I shall see how he takes it, and act accordingly. ..." Writing eighteen months afterwards, Lessing positively asserted that no thought of accepting Nicolai's proposal, so far as it involved any demand for payment, had ever entered his head. Probably he did not wish to offend his new friend bjy letting him see that he thought the proposal one of very dubious propriety. And it is certainly clear that he gave no authority to Nicolai to act as in- termediary between himself and Lange, declaring, on the contrary, that he would communicate with Lange direct. He never did so, and for the present, as far as Lessing was concerned, the matter rested there ; where it would have been much better if the officious Nicolai had let it rest. Another work which now went near to receiving serious damage at Lessing's hands was the " Dictionary of Universal Literature," edited by Professor Jocher, of Leipzig, and concluded this year. Jocher, who was no pretender like Lange, but only an unmethodical, in- 58 LIFE OF accurate, sleepy kind of professor, received the attack of his young critic (private, in the first instance) with- a simple humility and dignity which at once appeased Lessing's altogether too tigerish fury; and his strictures and corrections were ultimately printed as a supplement to the " Dictionary." As we have mentioned, the Library of Wittenberg was very rich in Reformation literature. Lessing loved the atmosphere of a library, and spent many hours of pleasant exploration there. Among the fruit which these hours bore was a study of an episode in the life of Luther, which the idolaters of the Reformer, nowhere so narrow and prejudiced as at Wittenberg, had grossly misrepresented to the discredit of a certain enemy of Luther's named Simon Lemnius. Lemnius had admittedly opposed and scurrilously slandered Luther. Lessing shows that he did so only after Luther had set on foot a vindictive persecution against him which ultimately drove him out of Wittenberg ; and that the only motive for this persecu- tion was that Lemnius had written in praise of the learning and ability of the Prince- Archbishop, Albrecht of Mainz. Nothing was more hateful to Lessing than such intolerance, and he spoke his mind about it fully and fearlessly. He wrote with deep admiration of Luther's general character, but, as he has more than once re- marked, it is against those whom he most warmly admires that an honest ctitic must stand most vigilantly on his guard. The "Rettung," or Vindication of Lemnius, was published in a series of letters to an imaginary friend, which appeared in the following year. It was the first LESSING. 59 of those "Vindications" which form so fine and cha- racteristic a feature of Lessing's literary work. Towards the end of the year 1752 he decided that he had had enough of Wittenberg, and prepared to return to Berlin. We may fix this date as the first great turning-point in his literary life. Much of what he had done hitherto was slight and hurried — all of it had the nature rather of training and exercise than of serious performance. The year at Wittenberg was one of leisurely study and leisurely production, unaffected by the stress of journalistic necessities. In it his powers ripened with quick and kindly growth ; he began to discover, as every great writer must spend some time in doing, the style in which he could express himself with strength and freedom ; and from henceforth he may take the rank, really as well as formally, of Master of the liberal Arts, CHAPTER VII. LESSING now took up his quarters in the neigh- bourhood of the office of his employer, Voss, and dwelt there with much content and profit to himself for about three years. He resumed his work on the Voss- ische Zeitung, and Voss, like Riidiger, gave him much to do in the way of translations of foreign works, some of which he enriched by introductions from his own hand. The horrible Mylius is now about to depart from the scene' which,, unless we judge him purely from the Kamenz standpoint, he has not altogether disgraced. He received, in February, 1753, a commission, from a body of persons interested in science (among them the King of Denmark) to go on a voyage to Surinam and the Danish Antilles, there make observations in natural history, and, generally, collect all the information he could bearing on science, industry, and art. He was promised, on his return, a professorship at Gottingen. It is clear that the Kamenz view of Mylius did not prevail every- where, but it is clear also that there was too much justi- fication for it. Mylius left Berlin in February, with a LIFE OF LESSING. 61 hearty God-speed from Lessing in the Vossische Zeitung ; but six months afterwards had only got as far as Holland on the way to Surinam, having spent the intervening time in wandering about Germany on a desultory sort of Epicurean journey. Next he proceeded to London, where, as Lessing tried to urge in his favour, he studied various collections and institutions, with which it would serve him to be acquainted. But the money ■which should have taken him to the Antilles was now run out, his health had run out with it, and in March, 1754, there was an end of his wasted life. Lessing mourned deeply for his first and faithful friend, and did what he could for his memory ; but by this time he had formed many new and worthier friendships in Berlin. He had made the acquaintance of Premontval, the eminent mathematician and philosopher, whom the Jesuits had driven from Paris, and with whom he could carry on that vehement argumentative satirical talk in which he loved to develop and test his ideas. Gumperz, f a Jew of high scientific attainments, who was zealous fori the diffusion of culture among his countrymen, must also be mentioned, were it only for the fact that through him Lessing became acquainted with Moses Mendelssohn, then a clerk in the silk factory of one Bernard. The little Jew, with his deformed person, stammering tongue, and clear blue eyes, through which looked one of the gentlest, bravest, wisest souls in Germany, was first introduced to Lessing as a worthy antagonist in chess. They soon found a deeper bond of union, and became inseparable. In the following year, 1755, Lessing met Nicolai, the "Proctophilosoph," whose acquaintance with 62 LIFE OF himself and Mendelssohn had very important literary results. In the summer of 1753 he published two duodecimo volumes, entitled, "Writings of G. E. Lessing," intro- duced by a preface which was written in a tone of sincere modesty. In the first volume, which contained poetry alone, we have some three hundred pages of odes, epigrams, and songs, with twenty-three Fables — decidedly the biggest and most varied sheaf that Lessing had yet bound together. One cannot but examine with deep interest the characteristics of such a volume, pro- duced by such a mind as Lessing's, at a time when Herder had lived nine years and Goethe four ; when Thomson, Gray, and Collins were preparing English taste for Scott, Coleridge, and Wordsworth ; when Rousseau's yearnings to recall old Saturn's blameless reign were urging men to seek for lost Nature in the wreck of civilization ; when the misty grandeurs and vast oceanic passions of Celtic Ossian were about to touch some of the deepest sympathies of the age. In what relation does this volume of Lessing's poetry stand to that great awakening and expansion of the human spirit which manifested itself in England and Germany in the form of a literary renascence, and in France as a tre- mendous political convulsion ? Of the literary movement Lessing has been called one of the chief precursors. Let us consider briefly what were the chief characteristics of that movement, and ask our- selves how far his lyrical poetry can be said to have shared them. In the first place we note that its ideas are often LESSING: 63 obscute, and this is a great part of the secret of its power. Men were tired of living in the narrow, well-explored world of logically verifiable truth. The new literature was one of experiment and adventure — it opened out vast horizons on every side — its meanings were often impalpable as perfume — it made men feel without always troubling itself to make them understand. Nowhere, perhaps, has this characteristic of the modern spirit been ' better expressed than by Walt Whitman, himself a great representative of that spirit, in his poem on the patient spider : — " A noiseless, patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how, to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself. Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you, O my soul, where you stand. Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them, Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul ! " With its love of the undefinable is connected the wonderful rhythmical beauty of the new poetry. In the rich, luxurious, delicate music of Goethe, in the passionate quiver of Heine's lines, in the virile march of Schiller, the golden strength and fulness of Keats, the piercing sweetness of Coleridge, the spiritual melodies, full of surprise and enchantment, of Shelley, was sought to be expressed that which eluded words. 64 LIFE OF But most striking of all the features of the modern renascence of literature is its passion for external nature. In nothing was it so original as in this — by nothing else has it so profoundly affected the spiritual lives of men. Now as regards these three traits of modern poetry, Lessing's poems do not give the least hint of what time was so soon to bring forth. He is never in- definite — one never feels in reading him that he is trying to indicate, to suggest, an idea too vast or subtle for utterance. Nor has he a note of music in him ; his metre is correct and solid, but in spite of his felicity of expression (always greater, however, in prose than in verse) it is as unlike music as walking is unlike flying. And as for Nature, in the sense of woods, moun- tains, seas, and the like, its beauty and significance simply did not exist for him. His friend Kleist, the " Poet of the Spring,'' was fond of communing with Nature. "When you go to the fields," said Lessing, " I go to the coffee-house." The titles of the " Songs " in this volume tell their own tale — "The Drunken Poet's Praise of Wine," " Phyllis to Damon," " Phyllis Praises Wine," "The Philosophic Drinker," "The Kisses," " Laziness." Here is the dismally vivacious V Anacreontic " vein in full force. But is this all? Let us see what Lessing has to say about "The Rain." Here it is : — " It rains and rains, and will not stop, So plains the peasant for his crop. But what care I for wet or fine, So be it rain not in my wine? " LESSING. 65 Besides these "songs" we find here a few odes on various subjects, which are chiefly interesting for the reverence they display for the character of Frederick the Great, who is constantly alluded to. The most interesting part of the volume is that which contains the Fables and Epigrams — two forms of com- position which Lessing had not previously attempted. The Fable he had long studied — Phsedrus had been one of his most cherished authors, and he was occupied with the subject up to his last days. Here, indeed, as in his taste for "Anacreontic" poetry, he was only following a fashion of the time — a fashion of which Goethe, who held that the decline of poetry among the Persians was due to the introduction, from Hindostan, of the Fables of Pilpay and the game of chess, has traced the origin in a passage full of mingled pity and satire. It was decided, Goethe observes, by the critical authorities of the time, that poetry must be didactic — it should convey a definite moral lesson. It was also decided that it should present the reader with incidents or descriptions which would excite his sense of wonder. The kind of composition, then, which contained most of the didactic and most of the wonderful must plainly be the highest; and nothing could be at once more wonderful and more didactic than the Fable. Lessing's essays in this line spring, as production with him so very often did, from a critical investigation into the theory of the subject. His discussions on the nature and history of the Fable, which were published as a preface to a large collection of his fables in 1759, contain the most interesting criticisms of contemporary 5 66 LIFE OF opinion on the subject. He defines the Fable as a tale which shall describe an action that illustrates a moral truth, and, in contradistinction to the drama or epos, shall cease the instant the didactic end is gained. As for the sense of wonder, to excite which some had absurdly supposed the talking animals to be introduced, Lessing shows that it is no part of the fabulist's aim to excite this feeling, the talking animals being fully accounted for by the fact that the characters of the various species are so firmly defined in the popular imagination. Lessing's own fables are as clear, pithy, and laconic, and as distinct from the more ornate and literary fables of Gellert, as his theory demanded. But about the best work, even of his own school, as, for example, in Esop, there is often a certain suggestion of humour and of picturesqueness, which is rarely to be observed in Lessing's. One of his best is that of the carven bow : — ' ' A man had an excellent bow of ebony, with which he shot very far and very true, and which he prized exceedingly. Once, however, as he looked at it attentively, he said : ' After all, you are not quite fine enough. Your smoothness is your only ornament. It is a pity ! But we can settle that,' he thought, ' I will go and get the best artist I can to carve figures on the bow.' He went, and the artist carved a whole hunting scene on the bow ; and what could have better suited the bow than a hunting scene ? "The man was delighted. 'Dear bow, you deserve your decorations ! ' Then he goes to try the bow ; he bends it, and — it breaks.'' This fable, as Mr. James Sime observes, is an excel- lent illustration of the great principle that governed all Lessing's criticism — that each form of art attains its LESSING. 67 true perfection only in developing its own special capacities. As with the Fable, so Lessing's study of the Epigram produced first a number of epigrams, and afterwards a critical essay on the subject. The latter, which was not published till 1771, is certainly one of the most brilliant and thoughtful of his prose works. The true nature of the Epigram he deduced from its original intention. He considered that it sprang from the monumental inscrip- tion ; and when severed from the stone and taken into literature, he held that it must produce the same total effect as that which had been produced by the monu- ment and the inscription together. The monument, visible at a distance, awakens curiosity : we approach, and the inscription gives the desired explanation. An epigram should effect the same alternation of feeling — first, expectation or curiosity, then the satisfaction of disclosure. From the connection with the monument, Lessing is also able to deduce a number of valuable conclusions as to the kind of subject with which an epigram should deal, the nature of its style, and so forth. The monumental theory of the origin of the literary Epigram, however probable it may be, has no historical evidence of any kind to support it. At the same time it ■ is an admirable "working hypothesis," and introduced light and order into a subject which sadly wanted them — excellent authorities having even defined an epigram to be "any short poem." Lessing's own epigrams, how- ever, are often commonplace and often coarse. Those on Voltaire's death, on Bodmer's poem "The Deluge," the monostich on a hanged criminal, " He rests in peace. «8 LIFE OF -when winds are still," and a few others, have excellent point and wit. But of the majority of these poems — lyrics, epigrams, odes, and what not — one can hardly think that many would care to look into them now, were Lessing not the king of modern critics and the author of the three noble dramas which endowed German literature with a classical st^le. ■ The first volume of the " Writings " was speedily followed by a second, containing* twenty-five Letters on various literary subjects — a form of composition which, like the dialogue, like every form to which he could impart dramatic movement, suited Lessing's genius admirably. These Letters contain the fragment of " Henzi," already mentioned ; also the Vindication of Lemnius ; a discussion on Klopstock's Messias, with a translation of part of it into Latin hexameters; and some criticism of Jocher's Dictionary. One of them involved Lessing in that public con- troversy with Lange which Nicolai had been so anxious to prevent. Lessing, in his twenty-fourth Letter, points out fourteen gross blunders as examples of the multitude which, to his amazement, he had found on examining the much-lauded translation of Horace. Lange instantly attacked his critic with great violence in a letter to the Hamburg Correspondent, a paper which had reviewed Lessing's Letters. Out of the fourteen blunders adduced by Lessing, Lange set aside four as mis-prints, admitted only two as genuine mistakes, and sneered at the character of Lessing's scholarship, which, he said, would fit him better for a proof-reader in a printing-office than for a critic of philology. All this amounted to very little. LESS2NG. &9 for Lange was evidently no match for Lessing, either in taste or scholarship ; but he attacked Lessing's honour too, and, to the astonishment of the latter, roundly- accused, him of demanding, as the price of the sup- pression of this very criticism, a sum equal to that which a publisher would have paid him for its publica- tion — a proposal which Lange indignantly rejected. Unhappy windbag, which could not decently subside at the first prick ! Lessing's criticism had been — not exactly polite, for he was never polite to preten- tious incapacity, but at any rate not unpardonably un- civil. Now, however, he flew at Lange like a wolf. His " Vade Mecum for Herr Lange" ("Vade Mecum,'' because Lange had used the term as a sneer at Lessing's duodecimo volume of " Schriften ''), reasserted with unanswerable force the original criticisms, and left Lange's reputation as a scholar irreparably damaged, by convicting him of at least one serious mistake in every ode of the first book. As to the accusation of blackmailing, he showed that the proposal came to him from Nicolai, Lange's intimate friend and ally, and absolutely denied that he had ever dreamt of accepting it. This of course brought Nicolai into the field, who made a comically ineffective attempt to restore peace by flattering both combatants,, and suggesting that they should combine their gifts to produce an ideal translation of Horace. He, and he alone, had made the questionable proposal to Lange, and he could show no authority from Lessing to do so. The affair made a great stir in the literary world, and the " Vade Mecum " was widely read. It was a powerful and passionate 70 LIFE OF work, testifying to great learning, fine taste and judg- ment, and a temper capable of being stirred to a pitch very dangerous to the " decencies of controversy." The year 1754 was a very productive one with Lessing. Besides some eighty reviews for the Vossische Zeitung, and the "Vade Mecum," it saw the publication of the third and fourth volumes of his "Writings," and the first two numbers of a new periodical, G. E. Lessing s Theatrical Library, in which the great undertaking he had begun with Mylius, in the Theatrical Contributions, was re- sumed. The third volume of the " Writings " contained four new Vindications — of Horace, of Cardanus, of a misunderstood satire of the seventeenth tentury named Ineptus Religiosus, and of Cochlausj a malignant enemy of Luther's, whom Lessing defends, "but only in a trifle." These Vindications, acute and learned as they are, had an indirect value which much outweighed the importance of anything actually established by them. They showed how much new light could be thrown by original research on questions supposed to be long ago set at rest, they stimulated that healthy dislike to taking opinions on trust which Lessing's old schoolmaster had taught him was the beginning of true knowledge, and they had a charm of style which showed learned writers the way to bring the results of their culture before a much larger public than they had ever thought of writing for before. The fourth volume of the " Writings " contained two dramas, "The Young Scholar," and "The Jews." His work as a translator still went on. He published in 1754, with an introduction, an enlarged edition of a LE'^SING. 71 translation by Myliua of Hogarth's "Analysis of Beauty," a work rather ridiculed in England, but of which Lessing saw the philosophic value. The Theatrical Library contained long extracts from the Spanish and French drama. Lessing knew that no man of letters can turn his gifts to better use than by winning for the worthy productions of foreign literatures the right of citizenship in his own. In his day Germany was so poor iii acqui- sitions of this kind, that he bitterly complained of the mean idea posterity would have to form of the power of the human spirit in literature if every language save German were to be suddenly destroyed. To-day there is certainly no language which, from this point of view at least, the world could so ill afford to lose ; and it is not the least of Lessing's titles to honour that he evoked the spirit which led to this momentous change. The year 1755 was greeted by Lessing with an ode on Frederick the Great, whose professed and practical recognition of kingship as a "glorious servitude" excited his deep enthusiasm. He now seemed to have fairly taken root in Berlin. He had a pubhsher who knew his worth; his work, and the tools for it, lay ready to his hand; and he had attracted to himself a large circle of friends. Mendelssohn has already been men- tioned ; he had also made the acquaintance of Gleim, the wealthy and influential secretary to the Chapter at Halberstadt, known also as an excellent lyrist, and shortly about to be better known as the author of the " Songs of a Prussian Grenadier." In Gleim's company he also met for thfe first time the only other friend whom he seems to have regarded with the same tenderness 72 LIFE pF of affection which he felt for Mendelssohn — Christian Ewald von Kleist. Kleist was the " Poet of the Spring," so called from his famous descriptive, poem, "Der Fruhling " (after Thomson), a work of high merit, which was one of the first symptoms of the new renascence. But a deep restlessness characterized Lessing all his life, and he now began to grow tired of Berlin. There seems to be really no other reason for his departure, which took place in October, 1755, than this ; unless, indeed, his interest in the theatre had been re-awakened by the passing visit of a company of players to Berlin, and he was anxious to renew his acquaintance with the Leipzig stage. Before leaving Berlin, however, he pro- duced something which restored the balance between his creative and his critical activity — the latter having of late decidedly outweighed the former both in quality and quantity. The first number of the Theatrical Library had contained a discussion of a novel form of the drama which had appeared on the French stage, the " pathetic comedy," or, as it was satirically called, comedie lar- ■moyante ; and had promised one on the analogous inno- vation on the English stage, the tragedy of middle-class life. The French, says Lessing, " thought that the world had laughed and hooted at vulgar vices long enough in its comedies : it occurred to them, therefore, that the world might now be made to weep in them, and find an elevated pleasure in the representation of quiet virtues." The English, on the other hand, "thought it unjust that our terror and sympathy should be awakened only by rulers and persons of high rank ; they accordingly began to seek for heroes out of the ranks of the bourgeoisie^ and LESSING. 73 bound on their feet the tragic buskins in which they had never been seen before, except for purposes of ridicule." ' The promised treatise on the tragedie bourgeoise was never written, but • instead of it came an example of the style in question. Lessing's theoretical investigations had as usual led him to verify his conclusions by experi- ment. He lived from January to the middle of March in great seclusion in a villa at Potsdam, putting the finishing touches to his " Miss Sara Sampson," the first example of its kind in the German language. The title indicates his now clear and fixed intention to make his countrymen aware that the English stage offered them models more congenial than the French. And the plot of the play is clearly traceable to two English works — " Clarissa Harlowe," a novel whose significance and excellence were fully appreciated by Lessing, and Lillo's drama, "The London Merchant." Lessing's heroine, the daughter of an English clergyman, leaves her home with her lover Mellefont, who is sincerely attached to her, but dislikes the idea of marriage, and puts her off with the plea that his marriage at that moment will deprive him of an expected inheritance. A former mistress, Marwood, seeks him out, and finding her- self wholly unable to regain his affections, contrives to poison her rival just as Sara's father arrives to bring her forgiveness and hope ; and Mellefont kills himself on her corpse. The play is deeply pathetic, and Sara's sweetness and unselfishness are very sympathetically ■ Cf. Epictetus, Diss. I. xxiv., "remember that tragedies have their place among the wealthy and kings and tyrants, but no poor man fills a part in a tragedy except as one of the chorus.'' 74 LIFE OF drawn — still more sympathetically, perhaps, the fierce and ruthless energy of Marwood. But there is a want of adequate motive for some of the cardinal decisions of the hero and heroine, and the action is needlessly encumbered with reflexions and digressions. But with' all its faults "Sara" shows that Lessing was capable of grappling suc- cessfully with the greater problems of dramatic art; and as a piece of pioneering work in a new region, its effects, both ethical and aesthetic, were very great. Goethe names it as one of the powerful influences of its time in increas- ing the self-respect of the middle classes, and nourishing that feeling which found its central utterance in the doctrine of the Rights of Man. It was acted for the first time at Frankfurt on the Oder in 1755, and Lessing attended the performance. The audience, wrote the poet Ramler, who was present, to Gleim, " sat like statues and wept ! " Another important work which falls within the period of Lessing's second residence in Berlin, is an essay entitled' "Pope a Metaphysician," written in colla- boration by himself and Mendelssohn. It was sug- gested by the theme for a prize offered by the Berlin Academy for the best essay on Pope's sentence, " What- ever is is right," regarded in connexion with the Leib- nitzian theory that this is the best of all possible worlds. The authors point out that " Whatever is is right" is not the same thing as "Whatever is is good" as the reference to Leibnitz would seem to suggest ; and maintain that it is wholly improper to regard a poet as a metapKysician at all. He may embody in artistic form the conclusions which philosophers have reached, as Pope did those of LESSING. 75 Shaftesbury, but if we treat him as an original thinker, and look for philosophic systems in his works, we shall be placing ourselves at a point of view which will dis • tort everything we see. Here, as everywhere in Lessing, we find him searching for the true function of the thing he is considering, for the work its nature fits it to do, and forbidding its confusion with things that are essen- tially alien to it. Towards the middle of October, 1755, after rejecting, though with hesitation, an offer that reached him from the new University of Moscow, Lessing started for Leipzig, the scene of his first triumphs and trials. " Miss Sara Sampson " was now on the boards of nearly every theatre in Germany, and his fame both as poet .and critic was solidly established. All over Germany he was loved, admired, feared, anything but disregarded. He had fitted himself for half a dozen different careers, and no man, not even himself, could tell which he would •choose to abide in. As a matter of fact he chose none •of them; for, pioneer as he was in many regions, he settled nowhere ; his restless energy drove him ever to new explorations, and it was left for other men to build and sow and reap in the clearings hewn by his giant .arm. CHAPTER VIII. LESSING found his friend Koch, an excellent actor,, presiding over the Leipzig stage; and was soon as deep in the society of the players, and in theatrical affairs of all kinds, as in his -old Leipzig days. He found his old friend Weisse there; still, like himself writing plays,- but writing them with a fatal facility — a. man, Lessing thought, who might do something worthy if his work could only be made harder for him. Lessing loved the social life of the tavern, and was not fastidious, about his company, caring little for his dignity because, as Goethe observes, he felt himself strong enough to re- assume it at any moment he chose. Mendelssohn heard so much of his constant association with the actors that he even wrote to remonstrate on the subject ^bethought. Lessing should have been developing his talent in re- tirement instead of in a life so full of distraction, and in company so frivolous. He was wrong; plays written in the closet alone mostly remain theire, and Lessing meant his for the stage. He 'soon began to adapt certain of the comedies of Goldoni for Koch, and some part of the first was even printed ; but a new path soon opened before him for which even the theatre was deserted. , LIFE OF LESSING. 11 He had long cherished the hope of some day seeing foreign countries, especially Italy. And now in Leipzig he made the acquaintance of a young gentleman, son of a wealthy Leipzig tradesman named Winkler, who desired to start on an extensive tour, and invited Lessing to accompany him. Lessing gladly accepted Winkler's proposal; which secured him a salary of three hundred thalersa year, with all expenses of the journey, including board and lodging^ and their departure was fixed for Easter, 1756. The journey was intended to last for about three years, and Holland, England, France, and Italy, were to be visited. To prepare himself to turn his journey to ,the greatest possible profit was now Lessing's main object, and as he found himself greatly de- ficient in knowledge of art, he began, with the invaluable assistance of Professor Christ (now Rector of the Uni- versity), those studies in the plastic arts of antiquity with which his fame is so signally associated. A student of art in Leipzig will find his way to Dresden. Lessing did so, and, to his great delight, found his parents there, whom he had not seen for so many years. He returned ■with them to Kamenz, afid promised to pay them another visit, before his departure with Winkler. A token of the visit, in the shape of a pane of glass from the house of his cousin, Theophilus Lessing, of Hoyers- werda, with a Latin sentence scratched on it by Lessing's hand,' is still preserved at Kamenz. The Pastor had at last been fairly reconciled to his son's unse'ttled way of ' Nunquam ego neque pecunias neque tecta magnifica neque opes Deque imperia in bonis. (Never have I counted wealth or splendid mansiops or power or dominion among things that are good.) 78 LIFE OF life. Lessing had kept him fully supplied with his publications ; he knew how to appreciate them — he saw them praised by men whom he respected not for learning alone, and was content. To show that he could do something to please even his puritanical sister Dorothea, Lessing now translated the " Serious Call " of William Law, and had it published, with a preface, in Leipzig. The journey sufifered various postponements and changes of plan, Winkler turning out to be a person of very vacillating character; but at last, on May lo, 1756, the travellers got fairly started. They 'proceeded in a leisurely fashion to Holland, visiting Gleim at Halber- stadt, exploring the treasures of art in the museum at Brunswick, and of literature in the library of Wolfenbiittel, with which latter Lessing was destined to be better acquainted. In Hamburg Lessing found the greatest German actor of the day, Konrad Eckhoff, to whom he bore an introduction from Weisse, and whose acting, to EckhofFs gratification, he much admired. By the end of July they had reached Amsterdam, whence they meant to make expeditions to various Dutch towns, start- ing for England in October. But England Lessing was never to see, and the journey he had looked forward to so eagerly was suddenly cut short. On August 29th Frederick the Great, to the consternation of Europe, anticipated the onslaught of Saxony and Austria, which he knew to be in preparation, and suddenly invaded the former country in order to make it his centre of opera- tions against Bohemia. Leipzig and Dresden were speedily occupied, and the Saxon army shut up in the Elbe valley near Pima. Winkler came to the creditable LESSING. 79 determination that these were no times for a Saxon gentleman to amuse himself with foreign travel, and, although peace -was expected very shortly, at once hurried back to Leipzig ; Lessing of course, with what vexation we may imagine, following in his train. Lessing- was Prussian at heart, the cause of Prussia being fundamentally that of reason and liberty, and Leipzig soon became very disagreeable to him. Koch and his company had departed ; and what between the distractions entailed by the military occupation of the city, the uncertainty of Winkler's plans, and the pro- longed ill-health into which he now fell, Lessing found himself unable to turn to any steady work. He longed to return to Berlin, but as no one expected that the war so suddenly begun would last for seven years, the journey with Winkler was uriderstood to be only postponed for a short time. So he endeavoured to make the best of his position till the war should end, corresponding with Nicolai and Mendelssohn on Aristotle and the laws of the drama, translating Richardson's ^sop, continuing his studies on the Fable, and by personal intercourse endeavouring to influence for good whatever rising dramatic talent he found about him.' For the discomforts which the war entailed on him and the rest of Leipzig, he soon found compensa- tion. Kleist, the " Poet of the Spring," who had been present at the surrender of the Saxon army at Pima, was thence sent to winter quarters at Zittau, and afterwards, to his intense disgust, instead of being sent on active service to Bohemia, was transferred, with the rank of major, to one of the regiments of occupation in Leipzig. 80 LIFE OF Here he at once fell sick of influenza, and in Lessing's constant visits their previous acquaintance grew into the warmest friendship. On Kleist's recovery they made many expeditipns into the country on horse and foot, " auf die Bilderjagd," on the hunt for poetic images, as they would say ; and the phrase, probably invented by Lessing in genial mockery of his friend's love for Nature, soon became the badge of a school. Certainly a pair of noble souls more different than these two could scarcely be imagined — Kleist romantic and often melancholy, loving the poetry of woods and skies and fields, hoping for a hero's death under the flag of Frederick — Lessing cheerful, disputatious, philosophic, most at home among books or in the stimulating social life of the tavern or theatre. In Kleist's company, Lessing came into contact with many Prussian officers (among others with that General von Tauentzien, whose secretary he afterwards became), and naturally his intimacy with this class, together with his unconcealed admiration for Frederick the Great, did not improve his position in Leipzig society. Frederick had laid the city under a crushing contribution of 90,000 thalers, and the animosity to Prussia was intensely bitter. Winkler shared it to the full, and as Lessing was at this time living in Winkler's house, the relations between them naturally grew very strained. At last Winkler announced that Lessing's engagement must be considered as definitely at an end. Lessing's inter- course with his Prussian friends had certainly been carried on in a needlessly indiscreet way — once, for ex- ample, he had brought a number of them as his guests to LESSING. 81 the restaurant where he, Winkler, and other Saxons used to dine — but, in fact, his relations with Winkler were such as one like Lessing, who was so little inclined to obey restraints imposed either by conventionality or self- interest, should never have entered into. At any rate, he now found hiniself suddenly cut adrift, Winkler refusing to make any compensation for his clear breach of contract, at a time when, on the credit of the engagement, Lessing had contracted serious pecuniary obligations. Added to this, his family at Kamenz had begun to feel the terrible drain which Frederick's necessities inflicted on Saxony, and made urgent appeals to him for help. His position was a very painful one. Kleist did his best, and endeavoured, but in vain, to secure some post in Prussian service for one whom he thought it a calamity for Prussia to lose this opportunity of acquiring. Mendelssohn, to whom alone he revealed the depth of his embarrassment, helped him out of his immediate needs with a loan of sixty thalers. Fortunately (at the urgent instance of a friend), he had had his contract with Winkler drawn up in legal form, and he now commenced an action for damages against him ; but this, though in the end successful, proved a very lengthy and vexatious proceeding. Well might he say, as he did in a letter to Nicolai, "I am fit for nothing that needs peace and collectedness of mind." His interest in his friends' work was, however, as keen as ever, and he soon became acquainted with some that deserved his interest in a very unusual degree. Nicolai had begun to bring out through a Leipzig firm a peri- odical, named a Library of the Arts and Letters, with 6 82 LIFE OF the editing of which Lessing was engaged. Its second number contained the first of a series of war-songs, " by a Prussian Grenadier," with a warm recommenda- tion from Lessing. The Prussian Grenadier was Gleim. In that age of inflated odes, watery epics, and imitative lyrics, the rude, familiar, powerful style of the Grenadier's war-songs was felt by Lessing, Kleist, and their friends to be a most wholesome literary influence. Nor was their influence only literary. In their vivid picturing of the great contemporary events in which German valour played so memorable a part, they afforded just the nourishment that was needed to the growing national feeling of Germany. In October, 1757, Frederick passed through Leipzig, and we may imagine with what thoughts Lessing saw him single out Gottsched for honour as the most illustrious representative pf German literature. Gottsched suffered for it, for Lessing henceforth redoubled his efforts to show him for the pompous futility he was. Frederick did not much need to be shown it ; he probably despised Gottsched even as much as Lessing did, but he was not and would not be made aware that Germany had ever produced anything worthier than Gottsched. Yet so mighty was the pers6nality of the great king that his very contempt served German literature perhaps as well as his favour would have done : it stimulated men to show that they did not deserve it. Since his breach with Winkler, Lessing had been in a very despondent mood ; but his spirits at last began to rise again. He resumed both study and production. It was doubtless a good sign of reviving energy that he LESSING. 83 emitted, early in 1758, a flash of the indignation which the maltreatment of classical writers was wont to arouse in him. One Herr Lieberkiihn, a Prussian army chaplain, had complained to Nicolai that his war-songs " by a Prussian Officer" had, in the Library, been pronounced inferior to those of a mere grenadier ! " If he ever takes in hand to write a war-song again,'' said Lessing, on hearing of this remonstrance, " he shall run the gauntlet for it, though he set it down to a field-marshal." He did indeed have to run the gauntlet for the translation of Theocritus which he now published. Nicolai found Lessing's attack " too malicious." It was certainly very painful reading for Lieberkiihn; but, if a man will undertake to translate Theocritus who "knows less Greek than Gottsched ! " Dramatic aims also occupied him again, and he now wrote a good part of the tragedy of " Emilia Galotti," intending to submit it for a prize offered by Nicolai in the Library. He spoke of his project to Nicolai, as though the play were the work of a young friend in w^hom he was interested : — ..." Meantime my young tragedian is getting forward, and my vanity leads me to hope much good from him, for he works much as I do. He writes seven lines in seven days, constantly enlarges his plan, and constantly strikes out something of what has been already finished. . . . He has laid out the play for only three acts, and he uses without hesitation all the liberties of the English stage. " Kleist was stimulated by Lessing to write his drama " Seneca " ; and perhaps to some extent forgot, in this new literary activity, the consuming bitterness of soul with which he found himself chained to Leipzig, in charge of 84 LIFE OF LESSING. a military hospital, while his countrymen were conquering at Rossbach and Leuthen. It was Lessing's wont to make anything that interested him the starting-point of a critical investigation that often led him very far afield. The Prussian Grenadier had set him, in one direction, upon the study of Tyrtaeus and the war poetry of antiquity ; in another, upon the ancient heroic poetry of Germany, the " Heldenbuch,'' and the " Nibelungenlied," of which latter the first modern edition had just been published by Bodmer. He was deeply impressed with the power of this forgotten national literature, and it never ceased to occupy him ; though, unhappily, his plans for making it better known did not get beyond the stage of notes and collectanea. Early in April Kleist's regiment received the long- expected order to march on active service. " I feel as if I were in heaven," he wrote to Gleim, to whom he committed a sura of money to keep for him. " I do not thinlc that I shall fall ; however, it is possible. In that case, please give the 200 reichsthalers, which are over and above the 1,000, to Herm Ramler and Lessing, half to each. Or, rather, give it to them at once ; if I live they can pay me as soon as they have plenty of money.'' Leipzig in Kleist's absence would have been scarcely endurable for Lessing. The state of his action against Winkler now permitted him to leave it, and on the 4th of May he started for Berlin. A week later Kleist marched with his regiment to Zwickau, and the friends^ who had found each other so lately, never met again. CHAPTER IX. LESSING'S third residence in Berlin, which lasted about three years and a half, was a period of strenuous literary activity. His researches in Old German literature were eagerly carried on, with the assistance of the poet Ramler, who now joined the circle of his intimate friends. Nor was the drama neglected ; — " Herr Ramler and I make project after project. Only wait a quarter of a century, my dear Gleim, and you will be amazed at all we shall have written. Particularly I. I write day and night, and my smallest resolve at present is to make at least three times as many dramas as Lope de Vega. I shall very soon have my ' Doctor Faust' played here. Come soon again to Berlin, so that you may see it." - Lessing had seen the " Volkscomodie " of " Doctor Faust " represented by Schuch's company in Berhn, in 1755, and had discussed with Mendelssohn a plan for turning it into a tragidie bourgeoise. . The Devil was to be got. rid of, and his place taken by a human " arch- villain." In another scheme, of which an interesting fragment remains, it was intended, say the Herrn von Blankenbyrg and Engel, to whom Lessing had talked of his plan, to cheat Mephistopheles of his prey by showing 86 LIFE OF him that he had had to do with a mere phantom-Faust, created to afford a warning to the real Faust, in whose mind the whole drama is supposed to have been trans- acted in a dream. It was a time in which, as Herr von Blankenburg observes, all the poets in Germany were writing " Fausts,'' and Lessing had felt deeply the im- pressiveness of the wild legend. Faust was a type of adventure, of dauntless exploration into the secrets of the universe ; and the age eagerly accepted him as the incar- nation of its spirit. But having done so, it clearly could not deliver him over to perdition ; he might be warned, tried, punished, but in the end he must be saved ; and we see that Lessing, as well as Goethe, though in a much less subtle and artistic fashion, observes this new ethical necessity in the treatment of the theme. One of the many projects entertained by Ramler and Lessing was an edition of the epigrams, or " Sinngedichte," of Logau, a then almost unknown poet of the seven- teenth century, who has since become a German classic. Lessing, after driving Ramler to the verge of frenzy by his desultory ways of working (he had just then "ten irons in the fire at once "), did at last furnish an intro- duction and glossary, and Logau was published in Leipzig, 1759. The Prussian Grenadier's lyrics were also now col- lected and edited by Lessing. Some of the later of them had exhibited a tone of vindictiveness and hatred which he found unworthy of his friend, and he made his com- plaint to Gleim very frankly. Prussian in sympathy as he was, the notion of national enmities invading literature was intensely repugnant to him. LESSING. 87 " I have," he even wrent so far as to say, " no conception at all of the love of country, and it seems to me at best a heroic failing which I am well content to be without." A hard saying certainly for many of Lessing's admirers, but it is not difficult to reconcile oneself to such a saying from a man who was German of the Germans in every trait of mind and character, and who did more than any contemporary towards forming and fortifying the national sentiment. He might well refuse to triumph with Prussia over Saxony, but it was with no cosmopolitan indifference that he read Gleim's psean on the epoch- making victory at Rossbach : "What would I not give if one could translate the whole song into French ! It would make the wittiest Frenchman as much ashamed of himself as if they had lost the battle of Rossbach a second time." The objectionable passages in Gleim were altered in Lessing's sense. The autumn of 1758 saw the beginning of a most important literary undertaking. Nicolai, Lessing, and Mendelssohn had for some time been meditating the establishment of a new periodical which should discuss literary questions in that tone of conversational ease which suited Lessing's dramatic genius so excellently. According to Nicolai the immediate impulse to the enterprise was given by the appearance of a publication in which they found much that called for 'condemnation — perhaps the " Critical and Satirical Writings " of one Dusch, which contained, in the form of a corre- spondence, a hostile criticism on " Miss Sara Sampson '' 88 LIFE OF and the Theatrical Library. " Let us suppose," suggested Lessing, "that Kleist has been slightly wounded, and that we are addressing a weekly batch of letters to him." This was the origin of the feared and famous Litteraturbriefe^^—ltittrs on contemporary literature which appeared weekly for the next seven years, and to which Lessing contributed much excellent ■ and influential criticism. Lessing, Mendelssohn, and Nicolai, were the only contributors, though each used various signatures, and the identity of the authors was intended to be kept profoundly secret. In the first year of' the periodical Lessing contributed more than two-thirds of the Letters, and his influence is felt in the manner and substance of all of them. Goethe and Schiller, however, thought that there were certain signs by which the hand of. the " Proctophilosoph " could be discerned : — " Nicolai also wrote in the excellent work ? Very likely. Many a commonplace, too, stands in the excellent work." ' The Litteraturbriefe naturally invite comparison with the earlier letters which form the second volume of Lessing's "Writings." They show a very striking adyance. The fire, the wit, the wonderful mastery of style, the unerring recognition of all that is pre- tentious or commonplace in the works reviewed, and the scathing satire that punished it — these qualities, all indicated in the earlier letters, are fully ripened in the later ones. Their influence on German literature, over the whole field of which they freely ranged, was very ' " Zahme Xenien." Goethe and Schiller. LESSING. 89 powerful. Complacent mediocrity, arrogant pedantry, were scourged from the field, true genius was summoned to fill it, and the nation's mind and taste were educated to recognize it when it came. Everywhere they aroused, inspired, showed the path of advance. One of the earlier letters, in criticizing certain translations of Pope, Bolingbroke, and Gay, points to the great deficiency of German literature in this field, then occupied only by drudges who could occupy no other. Another sum- mons a new race of historians to take the place of the clever writers who will not study, and the learned ones who cannot write. Others deal with popular poetry in Germany and elsewhere — others continue Lessing's lifelong war upon Gottsched and his school, who occasionally fire off a shot in return with much smoke and noise, and very little metal. Shakspere is upheld as the true and congenial model for the German ■drama. Wieland comes in for some sharp criticism on the subject of his drama, " Lady Jane Grey," imitated, without acknowledgment, from Rowe. Religious and philosophic literature was also taken thought of, and a. religious periodical, the Northern Guardian, in whose management Klopstock had a large part, is handled at «iuch length and with great severity for endeavouring to make up by a copious religious phraseology for its lack of solid and sincere thought. The seventeenth Letter ■criticizes the old popular drama, of "Faust," in which Lessing finds scenes conceived with a " Shaksperean power," and, apropos of this, communicates the powerful fragment of Lessing's own " Faust," which is all we now possess of his play. It represents Faust in his Study, 90 LIFE OF questioning as to their swiftness a number of spirits , whom he has evoked. At last one declares that he is as swift " as the change from good to evil." " Ha ! thou art my devil ! As the change from good to evil ? I have felt how swift that is ! — I have felt it ! " On August 12, 1759, Lessing then deep in his cam- paign against the Northern Guardian, the " Poet of the Spring " was fighting other Northerns of a much sterner quality. It was the disastrous day of Kunnersdorf, the worst defeat the Prussian arms had ever suffered under Frederick's flag. All looked hopeful at first — Kleist and his men had taken three batteries, he was hurt, but never thought of retiring. At last he was badly hit in both arms ; at the same moment his colonel fell ; Kleist sprang into his place and led the regiment forward up the deadly slopes of sand. But the turning- point of the battle was reached — the Russian fire grew heavier and closer, and Kleist fell, his leg broken by a cannon shot. "My children," he cries, "don't forsake your king ! " But neither he nor they can do anything more ; the Russian tide rolls irresistibly back, the Prussian ranks melt away in ruinous flight, — and for the hapless Poet of the Spring even the hero's death is not yet come. A surgeon tried to bind his wounds, but was blown to pieces at his side, and in the evening a party of savage Cossacks plundered him lying helpless there, stripped him naked, and flung him into a swamp. A second time this happened, after some Russian hussars had given him clothing and bread. At last, on the 13th, he was found by a party of Russian cavalry, among whom was a kindly LESSING. 91 German named Falkelberg, conveyed to Frankfurt, and lodged in the house of Professor Nicolai,"^ where all was done for him that man could do. But all was useless, and after lingering some ten days, he died. It was his country's blackest hour, yet even then the loss of so noble and gifted a nature was sorely felt. But few had such cause to mourn him as Lessing, who had been on the point of starting to take charge of him when the news of his death arrived. " Ah, dearest friend," he wrote to Gleim, " it is too true. He is dead. We have lost him. He died in the house and in the arm s of Professor Nicolai. Even when in the greatest pain he' was always tranquil and cheerful. He longed much to see his friends again. Had it only been possible ! My grief for this event is a very wild grief. I do not ask, indeed, that the bullets should turn aside because a good man stands there ; but I do ask that the good man See, my pain often leads me into anger with the man himself for whom I suffer. He had already three , four wounds ; why did he not retire ? For fewer and slighter wounds Generals have left the front without disgrace. He would die. Forgive me if I am too hard on him ; for it may well be that I am too hard on him. He would not have , died even of the last wound, they say, but he was neglected. Neglected ! I know not against whom I must rage. Wretches, that neglected him ! — Ha, I must stop. The Professor has doubtless written to you. He has delivered an oration on him. Somebody else, I do not know who, has written a threnody on him. They cannot have lost much in Kleist who are now able to do such things. The Professor will have his oration printed — and it is so wretched ! I know well that Kleist would rather have carried another wound to his grave than have such stuff chattered after him. Has a Professor a heart ? ■ A brother of Lessing's friend. The other brother, the Nicolai who was concerned in the Lange controversy, had died in September, I7S8. 92 LIFE OF Now he wants verses from me and Ramler, to have printed with his oration. If he should ask this from you too, and you fulfil his desire ! Dearest Gleim, you must not do it. You feel too much at present to say what you feel. And it is not the same thing to you as it is to a Professor, what you say and how you say it. Farewell. I shall write more to you when I am quieter." Lessing would not contribute to the Professor's elegiac volume, but when in later days a monument was erected to Kleist he wrote an epigram on the subject, which is perhaps the best he ever produced : — " This stone in memory, Kleist, of thee ? Thou wilt the stone's memorial be ! " Lessing had pursued his studies in the Fable very zealously, and in October, 1759, he brought out a volume of fables, in three books, with the treatise on the subject which we have already mentioned appended to it. He was also studying Greek literature, and even collect- ing materials for a Life of Sophocles, whose value as a dramatic model he thought very highly of. This plan came to nothing, but in its stead came a drama in the austere Qreek manner named " Philotas " ; the hero of which is a young Greek prince, who, kills himself in captivity to secure his country's triumph against the enemy. This drama contrasts strongly with "Miss Sara Sampson" in ^e simplicity and firmness of its outline, everything being pruned away that does not tend to the develop- ment of the action. Besides the Greek drama we find him now also powerfully attracted by the plays and dramatic criticisms of Diderot — "the most philosophic mind," he wrote, in an introduction to a translation of LESSING. 93 them published by him in 1760, "which has concerned itself with the drama since Aristotle.'' Lessing certainly gained much from Diderot, and acknowledged it fully. The language of his dramas grew from henceforth more natural and simple ; their action developed itself less obviously in accordance with a preconceived idea, and more in obedience to character and circumstance ; his best play, " Minna von Bamhelm," is an admirable example of that genre sirieux — the genre serieux treated with a tender and sympathetic humour — which Diderot summoned rising dramatists to cultivate. From Diderot too Lessing learned to realize the great importance of the part which moral character must play in the pro- duction of a good drama. " Study ethics," he wrote afterwards to his brother Karl, who was also begiiming to write comedies — " study ethics, learn to express yourself well and accurately, and cultivate your own character." ' Frederick's afiairs went steadily to ruin in the year 1760, since Kunnersdorf; and, on October 9th, the Russians and Austrians, after ten hours' bombardment, entered and to some extent plundered Berlin. Lessing had now lived in that city almost as long as he ever cared to live in one place ; he may have suffered losses at the hands of the invaders, and for other reasons he was anxious for a change. In his usual silent fashion, taking leave of no human being, he departed from Berlin in November, 1760. After a visit to Kleist's grave at ' " Voulez-vous etre auteur? Voulez-vous etre critique? Com- mencez par etre homme de bien," etc. Diderot : De la Pahie aramatique, xxii. 94 LIFE OF LESSING. Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, we next find him, not without surprise, established in Breslau as secretary to General von Tauentzien, now Commandant of that town, which he had lately defended with great skill and valour against the Austrians. Tauentzien had also been made Director of the Mint, a most lucrative post, if one chose to make it so, by the opportunities it gave of profiting by the continual debasement of the coinage which Frederick was obliged to have recourse to. Lessing had made his acquaintance in Kleist's company at Leipzig, and re- spected and liked him for his soldierlike frankness and faith. " If Frederick were brought so low," he said once, " that his army could be assembled under a single tree, General Tauentzien would be under that tree." CHAPTER X LESSING, in a garrison town, with little in the way of literary society, with new acquaintances and new employments, found himself after a. time much dis- posed to regret his change. Regret, indeed, is hardly the word for his feelings ; he writes of his position to Ramler and Mendelssohn in a tone of bitterness and dejection which can hardly be attributed solely to his sorrowful recollection of that " Klubb " in Berlin, " where every night I could eat my fill, drink my fill, and quarrel my fill — especially quarrel about things I did not understand." He longed to return, " but can one retrieve one inconsiderate step by another ? " He sought relief in whatever distraction the place afforded, and he found it, such as it was, in the theatre of Breslau, where the old harlequinades attacked by Gottsched, but not at all disliked by Lessing, were much in vogue. He went much also into the company of Prussian officers, a class whose society was always plea- sant to him. Here, however, the great feature of the social gatherings in which he was wont to spend long hours of the night, was faro, and Lessing became a passionate and confirmed gambler. No catastrophe ever came of it ; he often won, and he declared that the 96 LIFE OF excitement of play, which he felt intensely, was a necessity for his health — it set the blood in motion and relieved a certain sense of lethargy even then sometimes perceived by him, which was a very marked feature in the illness that ended his life. At all times, it appears, he had the enviable gift of being able to sink into a profound and dreamless sleep whenever hfe chose to close his eyes. The relations at Kamenz were delighted with, the new move. Their son had at last a post, s.n.Amt\ how much preferable was this to the hand-to-mouth life of a mere author ! And a profitable Amt, too, thoygh not so profitable as it might have been had Lessing taken advantage of his position as secretary to the Director of the Mint, and indulged in the speculations of dubious honesty by which even Tauentzien amassed a large fortune. There were 7ews, too, not of the Mendelssohn stamp, who would have made it worth his while to give them an occasional hint of Frederick's intentions respect- ing the coinage. But he had a fine sense of honour, and a fine indifference ' to " riches and mansions, power and dominion," which brought him Unstained through this rather dangerous ordeal. His salary, indeed, was ample, and his relatives rejoiced at it. Already he had now and again pinched himself to help them, for their distress had been for some time very great, partly owing to the impoverishment caused by the war, partly to the growing unpopularity of the pastor, whose puritanical severity was bearing fruit in a rather malignant reaction against his influence. LesSing responded to their new appeals as well as he could — not so well as he might have done had he not been Lessing. It was his habit to LESSING. 97 spend money as he got it ; he had generally a floating debt, which had to be kept afloat, and he never refused a request for alms. He would plunge his hand into his pocket, and bestow whatever came out, gold or silver, on the petitioner. " You help the undeserving," was said to him. " Ach Gott I " replied Lessing, " what should we have if we all got only what we deserve?" This was generous ; but could he not have controlled his generosity sometimes in order to be more generous to those entirely deserving people at Kamenz, who had considerable claims on him too — a father who had lately submitted to a great loss rather than drag a fraudulent fellow-clergyman before the Courts ? Surely, one must answer ; but if one has no sense of thrift for oneself it is not so easy to have it for others. Lessing's money did not, however, go altogether in alms and faro. He made use of it to collect an excellent library, and by the time he left Breslau had about 6,000 volumes, including some early and rare editions of the Classics, and much patristic literature. The Fathers engaged his attention much in this Breslau period, and he laid the foundation here of that knowledge of ecclesiastical history of which he showed such astonishing mastery in the controversies of his later days. Spinoza also he now began to study profoundly, and this period is one of great importance in the progress of his religious opinions. In his " Thoughts on the Hermhuter" (ifSo) he had praised that sect for its exaltation of religious practice over theological specu- lation. In his fragment, " On the Origin of Revealed Religion" (arc. 1755), he had argued that positive religions 7 98 , LIFE OF air sprang simply from the desire to draw up for universal acceptance a body of truths such as every man if left to himself would discover, but discover in degrees of com- pleteness varying according to his own natural capacities. Every man would formulate his own natural religion differently; and the effort to find a common formula inevitably led to the introduction of much that was erroneous. Even thus, for example, natural justice has been codified into laws which contain much that is fallible and conventional. Apparently under the influence^ of Spinaza. a,nd the Fg.tb€r-Sj this attitude of philosophic toleration towards revealed religion now changed to deep hostility^nd contemgt. Such at least is the impression left on the reader's mind by Lessing's essay " On the Manner of the Propagation and Extension of the Christian Religion," composed during his residence at Breslau, in which the early Christian Churches are coldly compared in various points with the licentious Bacchana- lian associations in Rome, whose abolition is described by Livy.' However, as he wrote to Mendelssohn about ten years later, he soon found that in "getting rid of certain prejudices " he had also thrown away some- thing which he would have to recover. " That I have not in part done so already, is only due to my fear lest, by degree's, I should drag the whole rubbish into the house again." A fragment, which shall be communicated in the place to which it seems to belong, shows, if we date it rightly, that this process of recovery had made considerable way before the end of Lessing's life. ' None of these works was published in Lessingis lifetime. LESSING. 99 In February, 1763, it became the duty of the Governor's secretary — a duty which Lessing performed with extreme good-will — to publicly proclaim to Breslau the Peace of Hubertsburg. Tauentzien now became Governor of all Silesia, and Lessing had hopes, which, however, were not fulfilled, of receiving some higher and more lucrative post. Meantime his official work became lighter, and he had more leisure for thought and production. Soon, indeed, there came a period of enforced leisure which seems to have had a marked effect on his intellectual de- velopment. He was struck down by a dangerous fever in the summer of 1764, and his convalescence was slow. But this period of stillness and contemplation, in which death had to be contemplated too, laid on his vehement spirit a touch which brought it the delicacy and serenity it had lacked. "All changes of temperament," he wrote to Ramler on the 5th of August, " are, I think, connected with operations that take place in our animal organizaiion. The serious epoch of my life is ap- proaching ; I am beginning to be a man, and flatter myself that in the heat of this fever I have raved out the last remnant of my youthful folhes." A fortnight later, he wrote to the same friend that he still finds some difficulty in settling to his work again. " A sorry life ! when one is up, and yet vegetates ; it is looked upon as healthy without being so. Before my illness I was working with such a spirit and energy as I have rarely known. I cannot recall it again, try how I will." The work on which he had been so pleasantly engaged before his illness, and which he wrote mostly in the little 100 LIFE OF summer-house of his garden, was " Minna von Barn- helm." This noble play was the direct outcome of his life in Breslau ; the story it contains had been, in substance, enacted under his own eyes in the inn " Zum Goldenen Gans.'' A Prussian officer, Major von Tellheim, for whose character Kleist furnished several traits, has been dismissed at the close of the Seven Years' War, under the imputation of having attempted a fraud on the Prussian War Treasury. The charge was based on an act of generosity towards some Saxon townspeople from whom he had been required to levy, in cash, a cruel war-contribution. He had advanced, from his own means; the sum which he could not bring himself to wring from their necessities, taking their bills in ex- change ;. and those bills, which the Prussian War Office should have seen honoured, were looked on there as merely a bribe to Tellheim for having exacted less than he could have done. Tellheim, a man of an almost morbid sense of honour, resolves, while the investigation he has challenged is pending, to have no communication with a wealthy Saxon lady, Minna von Barnhelm, to whom he had become betrothed during the war, and whose interest in ■hirn was first awakened by the very act of generosity towards her countrymen for which he is now suffering. Suspecting how the case stands, she seeks him out in Berhn, finds him sunk in want and dejection, and endeavours to remove the scruples which forbid him to Mnk his stained career with hers. But he is unmoved until she tells him that her flight to him has. caused her to be disinherited and disowned, and that she is alone and helpless unless he will protect her. LESSING. 101 Tellheim's instant revulsion of feeling is now exhibited with exquisite skill, and his endeavours to meet the problems thus forced upon him awaken both our love and our laughter. At this point arrives a letter from the king, who has been investigating Tellheim's case. It admits the justice of his claims, which the Treasury has orders to honour, and with a flattering acknowledgment of his past services, reinstates him m his rank in the Prussian army. It is now Minna's turn to punish him, to his astonishment and dismay, by imitating the petty punctilio which had made him reject her when the worldly advantages of the union had seemed to be all on his side. At last the arrival of the uncle, by whom Minna had fictitiously represented herself to be dis- owned, puts an end to his distress. This graceful story is worked out through a number of episodes ingeniously and naturally contrived to keep the interest in action and character alive. The construction of the play is almost faultless, and the minor characters — ^Tellheim's stubbornly faithful soldier-servant, the mean and inquisitive land- lord, Minna's vivacious maid, and the rest, are most happily drawn ; the tj^es indeed conventional, but the presentation of them full of originality and humour. The manner, too, in which Frederick is introduced — a majestic impersonation of justice, never appearing in the play, but felt in it throughout as a supreme and beneficent influence — forms a noble expression of Lessing's reve- rence for his great king. " Minna von Bamhelm " was a literary phenomenon of great significance in its day. It was the Rossbach of German literature — the death-blow of French prestige 102 LIFE OF and influence in that sphere. Lessing himself had rarely ventured hitherto to give German names to the persons in his comedies — so fundamentally unfit for artistic pur- poses did Germans consider the realities that lay nearest to them. Now for Orontes, Lisettes, Theophans, Damons, we have Tellheim, Werner, Franziska, Minna— we can hardly conceive the state of things in which this was a portent, but such it was. The army had never appeared on the stage before, except as represented by some cowardly braggart : on it, too, Lessing laid his en- nobling hand. The Franco-German drama of the " Gottschedianer " was a purely artificial and foreign product. It had refinement, elevation, wit ; but it had absolutely no connection with the life of the German people. But " Minna " was German through and through — events, characters, manners, sentiments ; and on all these was shed that ideal light which the popular and native literature of Germany had theretofore so deeply lacked. Nor is the interest of the play purely literary. The enormous service which the wars of Frederick had rendered towards the solidifying of German national sentimerii had been largely annulled by the intense animosity between Saxony arjd Prussia which had unavoidably arisen in their progress. In Lessing's reconciling drama — the work of one who was Saxon by birth and Prussian by conviction — the grace and spirit of Saxony vanquish the perverse, if honourable, obstinacy of Prussia, and national enmities are lost in individual affections. Never surely did a citizen of one country desert it for another, and a hostile one, with such advantage to both. LESSING. 103 All that was effected in "Minna" niight, of course, have been conceived by any one, and the times were full of such ideas. But to present them with a power that com- pelled attention, and dissolved prejudice, was work for a Lessing. Frederick the Great, one laments to find, never could be persuaded to read the greatest German drama of his day ; but it was soon read and acted throughout all his dominions and beyond them, and the day when it will cease to be so is not at hand yet. It is true that it contains no profound study of human nature — that even on their own plane of interest the characters injpress us rather as manufactures than as creations — that the touches which suggest that they have a life outside'of the action of the drama are Wanting. But if manufacture, they are the manufacture of a most skilful craftsman, and the play remains a striking proof of how very nearly the results of poetic genius may be attained by a high critical intelligence backed by a moral character of true nobility and refinement. The atmosphere of the play is as wholesome as we can find in literature, and it is written with a genial, sunny power, which tells that it was the fruit of cheerful and hopeful days. Not only Lessing's best creative, but also (in the sphere of belles lettres) his best critical work was mainly produced in Breslau. He had been greatly occupied with anti- quarian studies, and especially with the theories advanced , by Spence, Count Caylus, and others, as to the relation between the plastic arts and poetry, as illustrated in antiquity. The prevailing opinion was that the excel- lence of a poem was in direct proportion to the number of subjects it afforded for pictorial representation, and 104 LIFE OF that each art found its highest expression in imitating the effects of the other. Nothing could be more contrary to Lessing's general principles of art, and he began to set down his ideas on the subject in his usual way — defining, examining, and confuting the views of various authors in succession, and so advancing towards truth by a method which has all the charm of a dramatic action. While thus engaged, an epoch-making book was published, Winckelmann's " History of Ancient Art " — a work reckoned the primary cause of the movement which soon doubled and trebled the hours given to Greek in all the classical schools of Germany, and made that language what it is now — the basis of her higher culture. ' Lessing read it with profound dehght ; but found that Winckelmann had advanced what he considered a false ; theory as to the period of the execution of the famous Laocoon group. Moreover, in a previous work of ; Winckelmann's, the same group had been criticized, in connection with the account of the incident given by (' Virgil, on the assumption that the two arts are funda- j mentally one in their limits and capacities. ' Taking, then, Winckelmann on the Laocoon as his point of departure — a wise choice, for anything he could write on Winckelmann just then was sure of an attentive hearing — ^he proceeded to develop his views on the general relation of the plastic and literary arts. Lessing shows that the material of the poet is Time, of the artist, Space^the latter represents objects, the former opera- tions, or objects through operations, even as Homer describes the shield of Achilles by telling us how it was made. Then, from the special nature of the material in LESSING. 105 which it works, Lessing proceeds to deduce in much detail the true conditions and aims of each art. Music, too, and even dancing, were to have been treated in subsequent parts, whereof only some notes and fragments exist ; so that the whole work would have offered a com- plete science of aesthetics. The first part, that which alone was fully carried out by Lessing, is chiefly concerned with the vital distinctions which exist between poetry and the pictorial arts in their treatment of visible objects or actions. Virgil represents Laocoon as screaming with anguish in the coils of the serpents. But does the sculptured Laocoon scream? Not at all ; the only sound which his lips can utter is a deep, suppressed groan. Winckelmann appears to reckon this difference to the credit of the sculptor — the latter conceiving his subject in a more heroic and dignified light than the poet. Lessing, of course, has no difficulty in showing that the loudest and most unrestrained ex- pressions of grief or pain were not thought, in antiquity , to be inconsistent with the loftiest heroism. But yet the difference is there — and is it to be set down to mere chance? By no means. The plastic artist can treat only a single instant in all the life of Laocoon — shall he select and eternalize one in which the features must be so distorted by the wide opening of the mouth as to make every spectator turn away his eyes in disgust? The end of every art is pleasure ; the plastic arts can gain this end" through the representation of beautiful form, and o'f that. alone; for every ugly thing becomes unendurable '^hen rendered permanent in paipting or sculpture. But the poet, on the other hand, is not 106 LIFE OF confined to the representation of the beautiful. Nothing compels him to concentrate his picture in a single instant. He can relate from beginning to end the details of every action of which he treats. He can bring it before us in all its successive changes ; and each change, which would cost the artist a separate work, costs him but a single touch. Even though one of these touches, regarded in itself alone, should displease the imagination of the hearer, yet we have been prepared for it by what went before, or the effect is softened by what follows; we cannot isolate it, and in its proper place and connection it may be of the utmost artistic value. Virgil's Laocoon screams, but this screaming Laocoon is the very man whom we have known and loved as the wise patriot, the affectionate father. We refer his clamores horrendi, not to his character, but to his unendurable suffering. This suffering is all we hear in his screams, and by these alone could the poet make us realize it. Again, Poetry and the visual arts each aim at the production of an illusion in the mind of the hearer or spectator. Poetry does this by means of arbitrary signs to which a certain meaning is conventionally attached — viz., letters and words. But Art effects the same end by natural signs — signs which really imitate the thing in- tended to be signified. Let Art, then, recognize its own sphere and abide in it ! Its business is to represent the visible by the visible; not, after the fashion of the allegoristic painters, to use line and colour as a sort of handwriting for the conveyance of other things than those which they can directly represent. Arid Poetry, too — let it remember that if its arbitrary signs are to create illusion, LESSING. 107 (as they can do by means of rhythm, metaphor, and the skilful handling of language,) they must not be used to give the impression of any object by describing in suc- cession all its parts, by endeavouring to give the effect of Space through the medium of Time. We can see a statue at a glance, but we cannot read at a glance a detailed description of a beautiful face and form ; we have for- gotten the beginning before we have reached the end, and no total impression, remains on the mind. The business of Poetry is action ; if it would show us what a thing is like, let it tell us what it does. Homer brings the idea of a beautiful woman more vividly before us by telling us how the old men swore, >as Helen passed them, that she was worth all the wars that had been waged for her sake, than Ariosto does in his forty lines of minute description of all Alcina's charms. Not all of Lessing's conclusions have been es- tablished. His knowledge of literature, ancient and modern, was vast, and he wielded it with the ease of perfect mastery. But his knowledge of art was far from being equally complete. The museum at Dresden, which contains much that is interesting but little that is great, was the most important collection of antique "sculpture that he had seen. The Laocoon he knew only through engravings, and a plaster cast of the head of the principal figure. Painting had never inte- rested him much ; he doubted whether the discovery of oil-painting was an advantage to art-rhe doubted, indeed, whether colour of any kind could compensate for the loss of the greater freedom and spirit which he found in uncoloured drawings. It is not surprising, then, that he 108 LIFE OF should define the object of art too narrowly as the representation of beautiful form. Beauty consists, he asserted, in the harmony of parts — ideal beauty i& form deprived of all that mars this harmony. This ideal is^ most nearly realized in the human body; this, then, is. the true subject for the artist. Portraiture has a certain place in art — for a good portrait is not a mere imitation of an individual face, it is the ideal of that individual face. But " the painter of landscapes and flowers " is told that genius has no part in his work — Lessing could not see how one could make an ideal landscape, and where there- is no ideal there is no art. Lessing's efforts, therefore, to point out its true pro- vince to art are much less successful than those in which he does the same office for literature. The artist's object is really not other or narrower than the poet's. It is to- represent life — life in its widest sense, moral or physical, human, animal, or elemental — so far as it can be directly represented by form or colour. Directly represented — this is a sound limitation of Lessing's ; and, of course, the fact that the artist has to deal with visual appearances, not scientific realities, and the necessity he is under of choosing but a single instant to portray, will suggest other limitations which only bad taste will violate. But why should the representation of what is ugly or detest- able be more strictly forbidden to the artist than to the poet ? Both are forbidden to isolate and dwell upon any manifestation of the forces, organic or moral,, which make for corruption and death. But both may represent these forces in due contrast and subordination to those which oppose them ; and, as a matter of fact, the great schools. LESSING. 109 of art in all lands and ages have taken this liberty with- out hesitation. Beauty has never been their aim ; it has followed them unsought. It will always follow every faithful effort to represent the life of Nature, and can no more be exhaustively defined as proportion in form than as harmony of colour. But whatever may be said against the soundness of this or that conclusion of Lessing's, the effect of the " Laocoon " was stimulating and illuminating in the highest degree, and it ha,d the immediate and salutary effect of putting an end to the vapid descriptive poetry with which the Swiss school was flooding Germany. Lessing did not seem likely to rise in the service of General Tauentzien, though we hear of no complaint as to the manner in which he did his duty there. But it was, indeed, something of an anomaly that he should be in it at all. He determined to resign his appointment and leave Breslau ; and the question was what next to turn to ? He had been offered, while at Breslau, the post of Professor of Oratory at the University "of Konigsberg — a tempting offer, but it was connected with a condition for him prohibitive. He would have to pronounce every year a laudatory oration on the reigning sovereign. Frederick, indeed, one would gladly laud ; but, reflected Lessing, who can tell who may come next ? " Who ' can tell that you will survive him ? " might have been answered ; but the appointment was declined, and one is not sorry to find that, Lessing's praise, remained a wholly unpurchasable commodity. Then his cherished dream of visiting Rome and 110 LIFE OF LESSING. Greece revived. He had saved a little money from his salary; the Winkler action had lately been decided in his favour, and he was awarded six hundred thalers (three hundred of which, however, went in legal expenses). But he had debts, too, and on investigation he found that his means would not stretch enough to permit him to trave so far to any good purpose. In his undecided state of mind Berlin naturally attracted him again, and in May, 1765, after a flying visit to Leipzig and Kamenz, he revisited that capital,' there to sit for awhile, as he expressed it, " like a bird on the roof," waiting -till something should happen to direct his further flight. ' Here he found Nicolai engaged in a new literary undertaking. The Litteratuririefe, to which Lessing had of late years contributed very little, had been discontinued ; and Nicolai had founded in its place a new periodical, the Allgemeine Bibliothek, an organ which soon exercised much influence on public opinion. Nicolai, although he had imbibed sound views on one or two topics at a time when such views were far from common, was a man as duUand stiff in intellect as any Philistine ; and the application of " common sense " to literature which distinguished his new journal ultimately caused Goethe, Schiller, and the Romantic school to make war upon him as a sort of second Gottsched. Lessing ' would have been out of place as a contributor to the Allgemeine Bibliothek, and he held himself entirely aloof from the enterprise. CHAPTER XL AT Berlin a new and delightful prospect opened itself for a moment before Lessing. The Librarian of the Royal " Schlossbibliothek " had lately died, his place was to fill, and, after negotiations with Winckelmann had been broken off on a question of salary ("A thousand thalers is enough for a German," said Frederick, and Winckelmann would have refused an offer of thrice the sum conveyed in such terms). Col. Guichard, better known as Quintus Icilius, a favourite officer of Frederick's, and a patron of German literature, endeavoured to get the vacancy for Lessing. It is sad to think that Lessing and the great King, each supreme in his own sphere, each working in that sphere for the same common end, the creation of the German nation, should have never come into that friendly contact with each other which would have been so helpful to both. The author thoroughly understood and reverenced the king and his work — the king knew and would know nothing of the author, except what had been told him by a tongue of proved malignity and falsehood. He refused the application of Lessing's friend, and on being agaiij approached on the subject angrily forbade his name to be mentioned, and declared 112 LIFE OF that he would get a librarian for himself from France ; which he accordingly did, in the shape of a M. Pernety, who had certainly the qualification of nationality, but absolutely no other. It was thought, «vhile Lessing's success was still possible, that it would serve him to bring himself into notice' by some learned essay which would prove his fitness for the post. He accordingly took up the " Laocoon," which he had brought with him in a frag- mentary and chaotic condition from Breslau, and began, with the help of Mendelssohn, some of whose penetra- ting criticisms were of great service to Lessing, to prepare it for publication. It appeared in the spring of 1766, and the influence, salutary, if partly misleading, which it at once began to exercise on the ripening intellects of the day may be estimated by the striking passage in which Goethe, in his Autobiography, describes its effect : — " One must be young to realize what an influence Lessing's 'Laocoon' exercised on us. . . . The so long misunderstood ' Ut pictura, poesis ' was at once got rid of, the distinction between the plastic and literary arts was made clear ; the summits of both now appeared separate, however closely their bases might join each other. The plastic artist must keep within the limits of the beautiful, although the writer, by whom nothing that has significance can be spared, may be permitted to travel outside of them. One works for the external sense, which can only be satisfied with the beautifiil j the other for the imagination, which we know will find a way to recon- cile itself with what is ugly. Like lightning all the consequences of this splendid thought flashed upon us ; all former criticism was flung away like a worn-out garment. " Winckelmann, who had never heard of Lessing before, read his frank and most respectful criticisms with an LESSING. 113 admiration which afterwards, unhappily, as the "Lao- coon" grew famous, changed to a feeHng of rather unworthy resentment; and he spoke of Lessing in a letter to a friend as a mere " university wit," who wished to distinguish himself by paradoxes — one who had so little knowledge that " no answer would have a meaning for him.'' Strangely enough, the task was laid on Lessing to edit, after Winckelmann's death, a selection of his letters ; he found this one among those from which he had to choose the most important, and he quietly included it in the collection. On hearing of Winckelmann's tragic death, he wrote to Nicolai that this was the second author who had lately died for whom he would gladly have given some years of his own life. The first was Laurence Sterne. " Minna von Barnhelm " was finished in the autumn of 1766. Ramler had read it with the closest attention, and made numerous suggestions, almost all of which Lessing adopted. It was acted for the first time in Hamburg, in the ^utumn of 1767, and early in the follow- ing year in Berlin, where it was received with an enthusiasm that soon spread its fame into every part of Germany. Never had aiiy play achieved such a success on the German stage ; never, as Anna Karsch, the poetess, who saw it in Berlin, wrote to Gleim, had any German poet so succeeded in awakening the enthusiasm and delight of "both gentle and simple, learned and unlearned." To actors and managers it brought golden harvests. Lessing himself its many representations never enriched by a single penny.' " So says Ramler in a letter to a friend written in 1771. 8 114 LIFE OF From his arrival in Berlin till the spring of 1767 — except for a summer's tour to Pyrmont in 1766 in com- pany of a young nobleman, Leopold von Breitenhoff — Lessing, as he expresses it, stood idle in the market- place in Berlin waiting for some one to hire him; no one, apparently, knowing exacdy what use to put him to. At last a hirer came, and a bright day for Lessing and for Germany seemed at last to have dawned. Herr Lowen, a dramatic poet and critic in Hamburg, had published a volume of "Theatrical Writings," in which the way of reform for the German stage was marked out with much penetration and force. No more wandering troupes, under the direction of an actor with axes of his own to grind, but fixed theatres in the great towns, sup- ported by the State, and directed by an official possessed of adequate culture and information, but who should not be an actor himself — this was, in Lowen's judgment, the great need of the times ; and he demanded also the esta- blishment of theatrical academies in which rising talent might be wisely trained, and the encouragement of ori- ginal German authorship. Lowen's ideas have since been largely carried out in Germany, and with noble results, but the times were not ripe for them then. However, there seemed some chance that, to some limited extent, they could be introduced with success in his own day and in his own city. Not, indeed, that a State Theatre could be thought of there — but an opportunity arose for acquiring, on easy terms, the lease of an excellent theatre lately built in Hamburg by the actor and manager Ackermann, whose enterprise had fallen to pieces owing to dissensions among his company. Twelve Hamburg LESSING. 115 merchants accordingly formed themselves, under Lowen's influence, into a company for this purpose; appointed Lowen as general director, engaged all they could of the best acting talent in Germany (including Eckhof, "the German Garrick "), and finally offered Lessing the post of theatrical critic and general adviser, at a yearly salary of eight hundred thalers {heavy thalers — £t-(io — which was not bad in times when a man could dine for i^d.). If he would write plays too, so much the better, but no stipu- lation of this kind was insisted upon. His most defined duties were to write a review of each performance, criticizing both the play and the acting, in a theatrical journal to be published twice a week by the proprietors of the theatre. This journal, it was hoped, would have the threefold effect of helping the actors to an intelligent and cultivated understanding of their parts, of raising the general level' of dramatic authorship in Germany, and of educating the theatre-going public to appreciate these improvements. Lessing could have found no more congenial situation, and he accepted it with little delay, refusing for it the Professorship of Archaeology at Cassel, of which his '' Laocoon " had procured him the offer. Another enterprise connected itself with the theatrical one. There was in Hamburg a man of letters named Bode, who had edited the well-known journal, 27ie Hamburg Correspondent, — a capable, cultured, and honourable man, whom Lessing had met in the winter of 1766, during a visit to Hamburg, which he had made in order to look into the circumstances of the theatre there. Bode had determined to found a publishing and printing 116 LIFE OF business in Hamburg, and, when Lessing accepted the offer of the National Theatre Company, invited him to take part in it. Lessing was much struck with the idea, and, after some consideration, accepted it. He had a number of friends among the most eminent writers of the day, who would give him their support; his own works, he hoped, could be published to more profit in his own office than elsewhere ; and the theatre would give him and his partner all its printing, including the theatrical review which Lessing was to write. It now remained but to shake oiT his load of debt, collect the sum which he had to put into the publishing enterprise, and take up his new duties. The debts amounted to over five hundred thalers, and in answer to his father's piteous appeal, he had had to send him two hundred thalers at Christmas — the goods of the poor Pastor being laid under arrest by his creditors. Gleim — " Father Gleim," — the good genius of many a struggling young author, knew his friend's need and sent him a timely present : — " Why, dearest friend," he wrote, " why did you send me back the fifty thalers ? [lent to Lessing on his return from his Pyrmont journey, when he paid Gleim a visit.] You should not have been in such a hurry, for I had to pay you the lo louis d'or, which you receive herewith ; and so we could have deducted them. Only do not ask why you receive these 10 louis d'or from me; for you will not leam it till I see you again. Meantime do not trouble yourself about it — they are absolutely your own property. '' But this did not go far, and Lessing found himself compelled to sell the splendid library which he had col- lected while at Breslau. A sad thing indeed that such a LESSING. 117 workman should have to sell his tools ; but there was no help for it. Unhappily some of his rarest acquisitions were missing, a rascally servant whom he had sent in charge of them from Breslau to Berlin having purloined them ; and in Berlin, where, as he remarked, people did not know the value of such things, the remainder fetched far less than he had paid for them. Doubtless his book- buying had not been carried out on very sound com- mercial principles. Once, it is recorded, he had told Nicolai to attend a certain auction, and purchase a certain lot of books whatever it might cost. He had forgotten, however, that he had given exactly the same directions to another friend ; and the books had risen to an astonishing price before the bewildered bidders sought an explanation from each other. One way or another his affairs were set in such order as was possible, and in April, 1767, we find him estab- lished in Hamburg. On the 22nd the National Theatre was opened, and on the ist day of May appeared the first number of the famous periodical known as the Hamhurgische Dramaturgie. It was at first intended that the players as well as the authors should be criticized, but this soon proved to be out of the question. One lady, an admirable actress too, had only taken service under the strict stipulation that she was never to be mentioned by Herr Lessing ; and his first few gentle remarks on the performers whom he was permitted to criticize occasioned commotions which would speedily have wrecked the enterprise. Lessing's criticism, when he wrote in anger or contempt, was like a whip of wires. The players were safe, if they 118 LIFE OF had known it, for they were weak and could not retaliate. But they did not know it, and were rejoiced to find that, after the fourth week, their education was in future to form no part of Lessing's plan. For two years the ffamburgische Dramaturgie con- tinued to appear, and in its hundred numbers Lessing's whole theory of the drama was unfolded in the very manner which suited him best — through the criticism of concrete examples of the art with which he dealt. There was no sort of orderly sequence in the work, taken as a whole ; it simply kept pace with the performances of the theatre. But it tried each drama :Tn accordance with fixed and coherent principles, well thought out in Lessing's mind before he began to write. His central objects were to exhibit the. true theory of the drama as fixed by Aristotle — to show how the French school, in its supposed rigid adherence to Greek canons, had utterly misapprehended and misapplied them — to hold up Shakspere, who knew nothing of these canons, as the true heir of the greatness of the Greeks, and to inspire the German drama with a bold and native spirit, which should give it a place in its own right beside those of Greece and England. The Greek drama had been sup- posed to obey those unities of time and place, the slavish adherence to which had led to so many absurdities on the French stage. Lessing shows that it is simply the existence of the chorus in the Greek drama which pre- scribes these unities : if the action has to be witnessed throughout by a body of persons who cannot be sup- posed to go to any great distance from their own homes, or to assemble on more than one occasion, LESSING. 119 it is dear that it must transact itself in one day and on one spot. Abolish the chorus, and where is the necessity for those unities which the French, proud of wearing as fetters the laws which with the Greeks arose from an inward necessity, endeavoured to force upon Europe as fundamental laws of the drama ? Even the Greeks, Lessing might have remarked, did not observe these laws where the inward necessity ceased to exist. In the " Eumenides " of jEschylus, the chorus of Furies is represented as chasing Orestes about from place to place, the action lasting over several days, and the scene shift- ing from Delphi to Athens.' The constraint of the unities of time and place was however, he observes, so turned to account by the genius of the Greeks that they won by it far oftener than they lost. It led them of necessity to intensify passion, to banish all digression and accident, and thus to guard the one true and essen- tial unity which the drama is everywhere bound to observe — the unity of action. The drama, Lessing considered, can go no step outside the laws laid down by Aristotle without going wrong. What then are these laws ? That of the unity of action is the chief — the fable must be coherent, its parts duly subordinated, and each making for an end common to all. Again, characters in the drama must be types, not indi- viduals — the spectator loses sympathy if he feels that the action is influenced by idiosyncrasies. Neither a perfectly innocent nor a perfectly evil character must be made ' It is singular that this striking corroboration of his view was not noticed by Lessing. But ^schylus was then little read, and less appreciated. 120 LIFE OF the victim of a tragic fate — in the one case the moral sense is wounded, in the other the sympathetic emotions, which it is the motive of tragedy to excite, are not awakened. Lessing considers at great length, in dealing with Weisse's play of Richard III., the famous passage in which Aristotle has laid it down as the aim of Tragedy to " effect, by pity and fear, the purifying of such passions." ' He brought to bear > on this obscure passage a most fruitful principle of interpretation. Aristotle, he argued, must everywhere be interpreted by himself — let us not suppose that we can be sure of his meaning in the Poetics until we have searched for light upon it from the Rhetoric and the Ethics. In the first place Corneille, and other writers, had erred in translating the word ^6/3oe, Fear, as if it meant Terror (Schrecken).^ The latter is a passion, rather of the nerves than of the spirit, into which we may be surprised by the spectacle of some atrocious savagery or wickedness. But Fear, (So/Sos, is elsewhere stated by Aristotle to be felt only in witnessing the calamities of men of the same order as ourselves (Poetics, xiii). And, again, Aristotle declares that a true tragic fable should inspire ^o^oq by the mere narration, without any spectacle at all. It is clear, then, that by ^o/3oe Aristotle meant to denote a feeling which has more of the nature of sympathy with the sufferer than of terror at the tragic deed. And it is easy to see to what extravagances of revolting conception Corneille's false ' ^V tXfiov Kox ^djSou irepaivovffa ti}v twv TotovT(ov 'n'a6t]fidTtt)v KaBapaiv, — Poetics, vi. ' Lessing himself had translated it " Schrecken " in the first number of his Jheatrical Library. LESSING. 121 rendering of the words of Aristotle must give rise. It did, in fact, give rise to them in the works of Corneille iiiraself, and for this reason Lessing denies him the title •of the Great, and proposes to substitute that of the Monstrous or the Gigantesque. Again, pity and fear are to effect the purifying — of what ? Of all the passions of man, of his whole emo- tional nature, says Corneille. We are to be taught by tragic examples to shun excessive or evil passions. But this is not what Aristotle says. Pity and fear are to purify passions akin to themselves. And what is the meaning of this purification? It is something which must be effected, not by a didactic example, but by a moral influence. According to Aristotle, virtue lies in a mean between two extremes. The KaSapo-ie he speaks of means the transformation of the untrained passions of pity and fear into virtuous dispositions. And this is plainly effected when he who feels too little of these No question left his hands without having been visibly- advanced; and wherever he laboured he laboured with the noble strenuousness and piety of one to whom every place is sacred that Truth inhabits. We may well say of him as he said of Leibnitz, that his great manner of thinking, apart from 'the positive conclusions he sup- ported, would alone have been an influence of the deepest value for his day and land. His outward life has often been regarded as one of the many examples of the misery and ill success which attend genius. And certainly it had great sorrows, priva- tions, and disappointments, which he felt to the full. But if he had much to bear, he had a very stout heart where- with to bear it. A manlier character there is not in the whole history of literature. And he knew how to turn his sorrow into labour, to dull the sense of earthly losses by the pursuit of ideal aims. Nor was his life by any means made up of losses and disappointments. He loved battle, and he had many battles, and was vic- torious in every one of them. He loved friendship, and no man had ever warmer and worthier friends. He had fame, if he cared for that ; and before his death he had what he certainly did care for — the sight of a new generation, full of buoyancy, genius, and hope, addressing itself to the tasks to which he had summoned it. He was no self-pitier ; and not with pity, but rather with proud congratulation, let us leave the stalwart fighter in the arms of Honour, Love, and Death. THE END. 14 INDEX. A. Academy of Berlin, 33, 40, 42, 74 Academy, proposed, of Vienna, 128 Ackermann, Konrad E., 114, 124 jEschylus, 119, 122 Alexandrine verse, 12, 39, 51, 52 Allgemeine Deutsche Billiotheb, no Amsterdam, 78 ; Jews of, 193 Anacreontics, 22, 32, 35, 44, 64, 65 "Ancestral Portraits of the Ro- mans," 125 Anthology, the Greek, 142 ■* ' Anti-Goeze, '' 170-173 "Antiquarian Letters,'' 126 Anti Sdntque, &c. {see L,a Mettrie) ' ' Apology for the Rational Wor- shippers of God," 162-166, 169 Aristotle, 12, 93, 11S-123 Arts, the plastic, their object, loS Aulic Council, the, 190 B. Bacchanalia, the, 98, 177 Berengarius of Tours, 133, 134 Berlin, 40, 41, 48, 50, 85, 93, no, 128, 130, 144, 165 Berlin, Academy of, 33, 40, 42, 74 Bernard (silk merchant), 61 Bibliolatrie, 174, 190 Birckholtz, Christian Ernst, 25 Blankenburg, Herr von, 85 Boccaccio, 186 Bode, Joh.J. Christhof, 115 116, 154. 178 Bodmer, Joh. Jak., 13, 52, 67, 84 Borgk, Count von, 50 Brenkenhoff (not Breitenhoff), Leop. von, 114 Breitinger, Joh. Jak., 13 ; held that talking animals were intro- duced in fables to e.tcite the sense of wonder, 65 Bremer Beitrdge, 32 Breslau, 94, 95, 109 Briihl, Heinrich, Minister of Saxony, 23 Brunswick, 78, 130, 147, 194, 204, 205, 207 Brunswick, Augustus, Duke of, 132 212 INDEX. Brunswick, Duchess of, 138, 207 Brunswick, Ferdinand, Duke of, iSS Brunswick, Karl, Duke of, 16, 141, 148, 171-173, 192 Brunswick, Karl Wilh. Ferd., Hereditary Prince, and after- wards Duke of, 130-133, 141, 143. 147. 148, 171. 192, 193. 204 " Brutus,'' 50 C. Calvin, 134 Cardanus, Hieron-, Vindication of, from charge of disparaging Christianity, 70 Carlowitz, Lieut.-Col. von, 22 Cassel, IIS Caylus, Count (his Tabkaux iirds de Vlliade), 103 Censorship, in Berlin, 165 Censorship, Lessing's freedom of, 132 ; revoked, 171 Cervantes, 47 Chess, 61, 65, 162 Christ, Prof. Johann F., 28, 77 Christianity, Lessing's attitude towards, 45, 97-99, 134, 149, 156-160, 166-178, 200 note, 201 " Christianity of Reason, The,'' 200 note " Clarissa Harlowe," 73 Claudius, Matth., 178 Club, in Berlin, 95 ; in Brunswick, 204, 207 Cochlaus, "Vindication of, from charge of originating a certain imputation against Luther, 70 Collegium CaroKnura, 130, 194 Consistorium of Brunswick, 171- 174 "Contributions to History and. Improvement of the Theatre," 46, 51. 70 ' ' Contributions to History and Literature, from the Treasures. of the "Wolfenbiittel Library," 142, 149, 165, 203 Corneille, Pierre, 53, 120-122 Criticism, guiding principle of Lessing's, 66-68, 75, 135 (sec- " Laocoon ") D. " Damon," 32 Daveson, 192, 193, 207, 208 Denmark, 129 Denmark, the King of, 52, 60 Descartes, 195 Diderot, 92, 93 Discourse der Maler, 13 DobbeUn (actor), 137, 138 Dresden, 77, 107, 144, 147 Duntzer, Heinr., biographer of Lessing, 180, 201 DtipHk, 168, 200 Dusch, Joh. Jak., 87 E. Ebert, Joh. A., 32, 129 f., 193 Eckhoff, Konr. (actor), 78, 115 Edelmann, Joh. Christian (?) 47 ' ' Edusation of the Human Race, '" 156-160, 166 Elector Palatine, 150 " Emilia Galotti," 50, S3, 137-142 Engel, Herr, 85 'iv Kai lyav, 199, 202 Epictetus, 18, 73 note INDEX. 213 Epigram, Lessing's studies on the, S5, 67, 137 JEpigrams, of Lessing, 55, 65, t'j, 68, 92 ; of Logau, 86 Ernestl, Joh. Aug., 29, 134 ■" Ernst und Falk," 152, 154-156 Erste Folge (to NSthige Antwort, &o.), 173 Eschenburg, Joh. J., 133, 161, 172, 194 Esop, 66 ; Richardson's, 79 Euclid, 22 jSuripides, motto from " Ion" of. 174 F. Pable, Lessing's studies on the, 65-67) 79. 92, 203 Fables of Lessing, 66 ; of Pilpay, 65 Fathers, the, 97, 158 twte, 173, 175 -' Faust," 85, 86, 89, go " Fragments, the Wolfenbiittel," {see Reimarus, Prof. Hermann, S.) .France, freedom of speech in, 129 Frederick the Great, 24, 41, 47, 54, 56, 65, 71, 78, 80, 81, 82, 94, 103, 109, III, 133, 170, 207 Freemasonry, 150-156 {"see Ernst und Falk ") Freethinker, The (journal), 31 •* ' Freethinker, The " (play), 47 7iote, 49, 50 Friikling, der, 72 -Gebler, Herr von, 144, 147 ■Gellert, Christian F., 32, 66 "George Barnewell, or the Lon- don Merchant, " 73 " Giangir,'' 39 Gleim, Joh. W. Ludw., 22, 71, 74, 78, 82, 84-87, 113, 116, 193, 202 Goethe, 62, 63, 65, 74, 76, 86, 112, 122, 123, 124, 133 note, 194, 208 Goethe and Schiller {Zahme Xenien), 88 Goeze, Pastor Joh. Melchior, 130, 169-174, 176, 177 Goldoni, 76 Gospel of the Hebrews, 175, 176 Gospels, the Christian {see ' ' New Hypothesis," &c.) Gotha, 142 Gottingen, 42, 44, 46, 163 Gottsched, Joh. Christhof, 12, 27, 29. 33, 52. 82, 89, 95, no Grabner, Theoph. 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 Guhrauer (biographer and critic of Lessing), 134 note, 166 note Guichard, Col. in. Gumperz, Aaron, 61 H. Halle, 27 Hamburg, 78, 115-118, 130, 131, 136, 150, 152, 178, 203 Hamburg Correspondent ^ 68, 115 Hamburgische Drama turgie, 117- 124, 137, 189 Heinitz, Johann, 18, 31, 70 Heldenb-uch, the, 84 " Henzi,'' 50, 51, 68 Hermit, the, 48 Herder, Joh. Gottfr., 62, 180 ' ' Hermhuter, Thoughts on the, '' 97 214 INDEX. Hirsch, Abraham, 48 Hogarth, 71 Holland, 78 Horace, Lessing's Vindication of, from charges of profligacy and cowardice, 70 ; Lange's trans- lation of, 56, S7, 68-70 Hore, 21, 23 " How the Ancients represented Death," 126, 127 Hubertsburg, Peace of, 99 Huygens, the Kosmotheoros of, 21 I. Ineptus Religiosus, ironical in- tention of demonstrated by Lessing, 70 " Incitements (firmunterungen) to Pleasantry," 31, 32 Inspiration of the Scriptures, Lessing's theory of, i65 " Investigator of Nature, The,'' 31 Italy, 77, 109, no, 129, 130, 145- 147 Jacobi, Friedr., 194-200, 202, 205 Jena, 27, 47 Jerusalem, Abbot, 133, 207, 208 Jerusalem, Karl Wilhelm, 133 note, 149, 150 "Jews, The," 47 note, 49, 50, 70 Jbcher, Prof., 57, £8, 68 Joseph II., Emperor, 127 Jiilich-Berg, Duchy of, 205 Julius von Tarent, 194 "Justin" (after Plautus), 41 K. Kamenz, 15, 17, 27, 34, 35, 77, no, 147 Karsch, Anna, 113 Kastner, Prof., 29, 31, 34, 55 Kesselsdorf, battle of, 24 Kleinigkeiten, 41 Kleist, Christian Ewald von, 64,. 72, 79, 80, 81-84, 90-92, 93 Khmm, Joh. Albr., 21, 22 Klopstock, Friedr. Gottlied, 14, 25. 32. 52, S3. 68, 89, 127, 128 Klotz, Prof. Christian Adolf, 18,. 124-126 Koch (actor), 76, 79 Kbnemann, 191, 192 Konig, Amalia (Malchen), 150,. 178, 193, 194, 203, 207, 208 Konig, Eva {see Lessing) Kbnig, Samuel, 131, 136 Konig, Theodor, 150 ; 193 (tract. on the 1000 Ducats appeared under his name in Regensburg). Kbnigsberg, University of, 109 Korte, 166 note Kunnersdorf, battle of, 90 Kun^ch, Chamberlain von, 147 L. Lafontaine, 48 La.Mettrie, Julien O. de, 47 Lanfranc, Archbishop, 133 Lange, Pastor Sam. Gotth., 22,. 56, 57, 68-70 " Laocoon," the, 103-109, 112, I2S. 135 ' ' Latest from the Realm of Wit,. The," 52 Law, Wm., 78 Leibnitz, Gottfr. W. , 33, 74, 142, 158, 196-201, 209 Leipzig, 24, 27, 28-36, 39-41, 7S. 76-84, 94, no, 124 INDEX. 215 Leisewitz, Joh. Ant., 194, 204, 207, 208 Lemnius, Sim., 58, 68 Lessing, Dorothea (sister), 17, 78, 142. 143 Lessing, Eva (wife), 131, 136, 137, 143, 144, 14s, 146, 147, 150- 152, 160, i6i Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, birtli, IS ; school life, 19-26 ; goes to Leipzig as theological student, 27 ; is interested in the stage, 29 ; returns to Kamenz, 38 ; goes to Leipzig to study medi- cine, 39 ; matriculation at Wittenberg, 41 ; in Berlin, 41- 48 ; publishes vol. of plays, 49 ; hterary critic of VossUhe Zciiung, 52-53 ; again at Wit- tenberg, 55 ; goes back to Berlin, 59 ; his friendships there, 60-62 ; publishes " Writ- ings," 62 ; their character, 64- 68 ; at Leipzig again, 75, 76 ; starts for grand tour, 78 ; journey cut short, 79 ; back to Berlin, and literary, activity vifhile there, 84-90 ; brings out vol. of fables, 92, 93 ; ap- pointed secretary to General Tauentzien at Breslau, 94 ; at Breslau, and writes "Lao- coon,", 93-110 ; goes to Ham- burg as theatrical critic, 114- 124; appointed librarian of the Wolfenbiittel Library, near Brunswick, 130 ; his work there, 132-14S : betrothed to Eva Konig, 136 ; journey to Italy, 145-147 ; marriage, 150 ; home life, 151, 152 ; composes his " Education of the Human Race," 156 ; birth of a son and death of wife, 160, 161 ; theo- logical work in connection with Reimarus' fragments, 162-178 ; religious opinions, 177-178 ; ■writes " Nathan the Wise," 179 ; failing health, 190, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207 : death,, 208 Lessing, Joh. Gottfried (father), 15, 16, 25, 31, 35, 36, 42, 77, 8i. 96, 97, 116, 129, 130, 136 Lessing, Johann Traugott (uncle), 39 Lessing, Justine Salome (mother), 15. 16, 35, 36, 42, 77, 147 Lessing, Karl (brother, and Les- sing's first biographer), 93, 123, 129, 135, 137, 161, 169, 175, 179 Lessing, Theophilus (brother), 17, S3. 55. 56. 147 Lessing, Theophilus (cousin), 77 " Letters to various Theologians," 190, 203 Library, Lessing's, 97, 116, 117 ' ' Library of the Arts and Letters, " 81 Lichtenstein, Hofrath, 143 Lieberkiihn, Chr. GottUeb, 83 Lillo, 73 Lindner, Pastor, 18 Litteraturbriefe, 87-go, no Logau, Friedr., 86 " London Merchant, The," 73 " London Prodigal, The," 204 Lorenz, Christiane F. (actress), 39, 40, 136 218 INDEX. Louvain, Richier de, 53, 54 Lowen, Joh. Friedr., 114, 115, 123 Luther, 58, 70, 134, 174 Lyrical Poetry of Lessing, 62, 65, 136, 137 M. Magister Artium, Lessing re- ceives degree of, ^t, Mainz, Albrecht, Elector of, 58 Malebranche, 201 note ' ' Manner of Propagation and Extension of the Christian Religion, the," 98, 177 Mannheim, 150 Maria Theresa, 145 Martial, 44, 55 Mathematics of Barbarian Na- tions, Lessing's address on, 25 Maspurg, Lessing's letter to, 46 Mecour, Susane (actress), 117 Meissen, 17, 23, 24, 44 Mendelssohn, Moses, 50, 61, 74, 76, 81, 85, 87, 88, 95, 98, 112, 128, 133, 151, 153, 19s, 196, 206 " Messiah," Klopstock*s, 52 Michaelis, Joh. D., 51 ''' Minna von Barnhelm," 93, 99- 103, 113 ' ' Miss Sara Sampson," 73, 74, 75, 87, 92, 138 Moliere, 44, 50 Moscow, University of, 75 Miiller, Joh., 158 note Munich, 147 Mylius, Christlob, 31, 32, 33, 38, 40, 41, 44, 46, 47, 60, 61, 70, 71 X. "Nathan the Wise," 150, 178, 179-189, 190, 203 National Theatre of Hamburg, 115-117, 124 Nature, Lessing's indifference to, 64, 80, 202 Naumann, Chr. N., 47 note " Necessary Answer," &c., 173 Neuber, Friederike Kar. (actress), 29. 30. 31, 34. 39 "New Hypothesis respecting the Evangelists," &c., 174-176 New Testament, its position among the Early Christians, 173, 174, 190 Nibelungenlied, the, 13, 84 Nicolai, Christhof, Friedr., 56, 61, 81, 83, 87, 88, no, 117, 128, 129 Nicolai, Gottlob Sam., 55-57, 68, 69, 91 ' Nicholson, Mr. E. B., 175 note Northern Guardian, The, 89, 90 "Objections" (Gegensatze) to Reimarus, 149, 160, 163, 164 Oil painting, 142 "Old Maid, The," 44, 46, 47 note, 49 "On the Kealityof Things Out- side God," 200 note " Origin of Revealed Religions," Pathetic Comedy, the, 72 Patriotism, Lessing on, 87 * The note on p. 91 founded on Diintzer's Leben {see Index, Gottlob. S. Nicolai and reference, p. 240) is incorrect. The Frankfurt Pro- fessor was identical with Lange's friend. INDEX. 217 Pernety, M., 112 " PliEedon," 128 Phaedras, 65 ■" Philotas." 92 " Pious Samaritan, Tlie," igi Pius VI., 145 Pforta, scliool of, 25 Plautus, 20, 24, 46, 49 Poetry and Painting, limits and capacities of each art {see " Laocoon ") Poetry, Old German, 84, 85, 142 Pope, 89 ■" Pope a Metaphysician," 74, 198, 199 Pr^montval, Aiidr^ Pierre le Quay de, 61 Protestant Estates of the Empire, 190, 205 Pyrmont, 114, ii6 R. Ramler, Karl Wilh. , 22, 74, 84-86, 9S. 99. "3. 137 Rationalistic school, 130, 134, 135, 142, 156, 157, 169 Reformation, the, 11, 15, 18, 55 Reimaras, Elise, 149, 163, 176, 178, 179, 180, 193, 203, 206 Reimarus, Prof. Hermann Sam., and Fragments of his " Apology for the Rational Worshippers of God," 130, 149, 162-172, 190, 204 Jieimarus, Dr.Joh. A. H., 163, 206 " Rejoinder, A," 168, 200, 201 Ress, Archdeacon, 168 Richardson, Samuel, 73, 79 Rollin's " Roman History,'' 46 Rosenberg, Baron von, 152, 153 Rossbach, battle of, 87 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 62 Rowe, 89 Riidiger (publisher), 4t, 42, 46, 47. 52 S. St. Afra, 17, 19-26 Saxony, Friedr. Christian, Elector of, 18, 22 note Saxony, Maurice, Elector of, 17 Saxony, 23, 24, 78 ; and Prussia, 102 Schiller, Friedr., 63, no. Schlegel, Adolf, 32 Schmidt, Konrad A., 133 Schmidt, Joh. Friedr., 164 Schubaclc, 150 Schuch, Franz, (actor), 85 Schumann, Director, 167 Schroder, (actor), 203 Semler, Prof. Joh. Salomo, 134, 13s, 149. 157. 169. 20s Seneca, 127 ' Seneca, ' by Kleist, 83 " Serious Call," by Law, 78 Seven Years' War, 78, 99, 102, 129, 170 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 75 Shakspere, 50, 31. "8, 122, 13S Silesian War, second, 23 Sime, Mr. James (biographer of Lessing), 66 Sings^iel, the, 12 Socrates (see Zinnendorf) Sonnenfels, Joseph von, 129 Sophocles, 93 Spence, Joseph, author of ' ' Poly- metis," 103 Spinoza, Baruch, 97, 157, 195-20 Sterne, Laurence, 113 "Strength of Imaginition," 47 note 218 INDEX. Swieten, Freiherr van, (Imperial Ambasfador at Berlin), 144 Swiss school, 13, 14, log (see Bodmer and Breitinger) T. Tauentzien, Gen. von, 80, 94, 96, 99, 109 Thaer, Albrecht, 166 note Theatre, the English, 12, 39, 50, 51, 72, 83, 141 Theatre, the French, 12, 29, 30, 50, 51, 71, 72, 102, 118 Theatre, the German, 11, 12, 18, 29, 46, 114, 128, 129, 179 Theatre, the Greek, 92, 1 18-123, 141 Theatre, the Italian, 46 Theatre, the Spanish, 71 " Theatrical Library, G. E. Les- sing's," 70, 71, 72, 88, 120 note Theocritus, 83 "Thousand Ducats, correction of the fable about the,'' 193 Tragidie bourgeoise, the, 72, 138 Translation, Lessing on, 71 "Trifles," 41 U. Ueher den Beweis des Geistes zmd der Kraft, \(yj V. " Vade Mecum for Herr Lange,'' 69, 70 Vega, Lope de, 85 Venice, 131, 145 Vienna, 40, 44, 128, 144, 145 Vindications (Rettungen) Less- ing's, 58, 70 Virgil, 104, 105 "Virginia," 50, 138 •Voltaire, 41, 48, 53, 54, 67, 157 Voss, Christian Friedr., 52, 60, 137. 138 Voss, Joh. Heinr, 178 Vossische Zeitung, 52, 53, 60, 70 W. Wace, Dr., 157 note Walch, Dr., 190 Weimar, Karl August, Duke of, 132. 133 Weisse, Christian F., 30, 35, 39, 76, 78, 120 Weissenburg, Abbey of, 133 " Werther," 133 note, 150 Wessely, Moses, 190, 193 Whiston, his "Theory of the Earth," 21 Whitman, Walt, 63 Wieland, Christhof M., 14, 89 Winckelmann, Joh. Joachim, 14,. 104, III, 112, 113, 207 Winkler, Christian Gottfr., 77- 80, 84, 110 Wittenberg, 15, 40, 41, 44, 53-55^ S8, 59 Wolfenbiittel, 132, 150, 191, 203 ', Library of, 78, 130, 132-134 "Woman-hater, The,'' 41, 47 note "Women are Women'' (after Plautus), 41, 47 note, 49 Wordsworth, 62 "Writings of G. E. Lessing," 62-68, 70 Wren, Sir Christopher, 155 Y. "■Young Scholar, The," 22, 33. 34. 3S. 36. 37. 38. 47 note, 70 Z. Zacharia, Fr. Wilh., 32, 133 Zinnendorf, Herr von, 153 BIBLIOGRAPHY. BY JOHN P. ANDERSON (British Museum). I. Works. II. Letters. III. Selections. IV. Appendix— Biography, Criticism, etc. Magazine Articles. V. Chronological List op Works. I. WORKS. G. E. Lessing's Schriften. 6 Thle. Berlin, 1753-55, 12mo. G. E. Lessing's sammtliche Schriften. 30 Thle. 1771-94, 8vo. 6. E. Lessing's sammtliche Werke. 30 Thle. Carlsruhe, 1824-25, 12mo. G. E. Lessing's sammtliche Schriften. [Edited, with a Life of Lessing, by J. F. Schink, and additions by J. J. Eschen- burg.] 32 Bde. Berlin, 1825- 26, 8vo. G. E. Lessing's sammtliche Schriften, herausgegeben von K. Lachmann. 13 Bde. Ber- lin, 1838-40, 8vo. Werke. Ansgabe in 8 Banden. Berlin, 1840, 12mo. Lessing's sammtliche Werke irt einem Bande. Mit dem Bildniss des Verfassers. Leip- zig, 1841, 8vo. Gesammelte Werke. Neue recht- massige Ausgabe. 10 Bde. Leipzig, 1841, 16mo. G. E. Lessing's sammtliche Schriften. Herausgegeben Ton K. Lachmann. Aufs Neue durchgesehen und vermehrt von W. von Maltzahn. 12 Bde. Leipzig, 1853-57, 8vo. G, E. Lessing's gesammelte Werke. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1859,. 8to. Lessing's Werke in 6 Bdn. Stutt- gart, 1869, 16mo. BIBLIOGRAPHY. I-psping's "Werke. Herausgegeben v'lii Richard Gosche. Erste illustrirte Ausgabe. 54 Lfgn. B-Tlin, 1875-6, 8vo. Ltssing's Werke. Nebst Bio- graphie des Dichters. (Thl. 7, Haniburgische Dramatargie. I'.iiileitung des Herausgebers G. Zimmennann. Till. 8, heraus- (/egelieii mit Anmerkinigen von R. Pilger. Thl. 9, 10, 12, 19, 20, von C. C. Rudlich. Thl. la, von E. Grossc. Thl. U-18, von C. Gross. ) 20 Thle. Ber- lin [1879], 8vo. Lessing's Biiefe. Nachtrage und Berichtigungen [to Abtli. 1 and 2, Th. XX. of " Lessing's Werke," edited in part by 0. C. Redlioh]. Herausgegeben und mit Anmerkungeu ■ be- gleitet von C. C. Redlich. Ber- lin, 1886, 8vo. Lessing's Werke. [Edited by H. Lanbe.] 5 Bde. Leipzig [1881-3], 8vo. JLessing's siimmtlicbe Werke. Herausgegeben von R. Gosche. (1, 3, 5-8 Bde. bearbeitet von R. Boxberger ; Bd. 2, 4, von R. Gosche, etc.) 8 Bde. , Berlin, 1882, 8vo. Lessing's Werke. Neu heraus- gegeben von F. Bornmiiller. 5 Bde. Leipzig, 1884, 8vo. Cr. E. Lessing's Gesammelte Werke. Mit einer literarhis- torisch biographischen Ein- leitung von M. Koch. 3 Bde. Stuttgart, 1886, 8vo. Lessing's Dramen und drama- tische Pragmente. Zum Eisten- male vollstandig erlautert von A. Nodnagel. Supplement- band zu sammtlichen Ausga- ben von Lessing's Werken. Darmstadt, 1842, 8vo. Poetische und dramatische Werke. Leipzig, 1867, 16mo. Sammtliche lyrische, cpische unj dramatische Werke, und seine vorziigliohen Prosaschril'ten. Teschen, 1868, Svo. Poetische und dramatische Werke, etc. Stuttgart [1869], 16mo. Forming part of " Gopel's Illus- trirte Classiker Ausgaben." G. E. Lessing's schonwissen- ?chaftliche Schriften. 7 Baude. Berlin, 1827, 12mo. Auswahl von L,essing's Werken. 5 Thle. Gotha, 1827, 16mo. Vol. xi. of the *' Miniatur- Eibliothek der deutschen Classiker." The Dramatic Works of G. E. Leasing. Translated from the German. Edited by Ernest Bell. With a short memoir by Helen Zimmern. 2 vols. Loudon, 1878, 8vo. Part of Bohn's " Standard Library." Selected Prose Works of G. E. Lessing, translated from the German by E. 0. Beasley and Helen Zimmern. Edited by Edward Bell. London, 1879, 8vo. Part of " Bohn's Standard biary." Three Comedies (Der Freigeist — Der Schatz — Minna von Barn- helm). Translated from the German by J.' J. Holroyd. Colchester, 1838, 8vo. Die Alte Jungfer. Eiu Lustspiel in drey Anfziigen. Berlin, 1749, 8vo. Anti-Goeze. 11 Stiicke. Braun- schweig, 1778, 8vo. Nothige Antwort auf eine unndthige Frage des Herrn Pastor Gbtze in Hamburg. Leipzig, 1778, 8vo. BIBLIOGRAPHY. -Axiomata, wenn es deren in Jergleiehen Dingen giebt. Brauuschweig, 1778, 8vo. Beitrage zur Historie und Auf- nahiiie des Theaters. 4 Stiicfc. Stargard, 1750, 8vo. Berengarius Turonensis : oder, Ankiindigung eines wichtigun Werkes desselbeu, etc. Brauii- sohwRis;, 1770, 4to. Et'oclireibiiDg des Portugiesischen Araerika Tom Cudena. Ein Spanisches Manuscript in der Wolfeabiittelsolien Bibliothek, herausgegeben vom Herrn Hofrath Lessing. Braunsch- weig, 1780, 8vo.' Uber den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft, etc. Brauuschweif.', 1777, 8vo. Briefe antiquarischen Inhalts. 2 Thle. Berlin, 1768, 8vo. Emilia Galotti. Ein Trauerspiel in fiinf Aufziigen. Berlin, 1772, 8vo. Emilia Galotti : a tragedy in five acts. Translated by Fanny Holcrof t. ( The. Theatrical Itcoorder, vol. i. , 1805, pp. 363- 409.) Eine ernsthafte Ermunterung an alle Christen zu eiuem frommen imd heiligen Leben. Von Wil- liam Law. Aus dem Englischen iibersetzt. Leipzig, 1756, 8vo. Ernst und Falk. Gesprach liir Freimaurer, AVoli'enbiittel, 1778, Svo. Die Erziehung des Menschen- gescblechts. Herausgegeben von G. E. Lessing. Berlin, 1780, Svo. The Eilucation of the Human Race. From the German of G. E. Lessing [by F. W. Robert- son]. London, 1858, ^vo. Third edition, Loudon, 1872, 16mo. G. E. Lessing's Fabeln nebst Abhandluiigen mit dieser Dicht- ungsart verwandten Inhalts. Berlin, 1759, Svo. Lessing's Fables. In three books. Ger. and Eng. Lon don, 1S29, 12mo. Fables from the German- TTiiuslated by J. Richardson. York, 1773, Svo. Fables and Epigrams ; with Essays on Fable and Epigram. From the GBrman of iLessing. London, 1825, Svo. Fables and Parables from tlie German of Lessing, Hcrdci- (Krummacher and otliers). London [l'-'45], 12tno. Part of "Burns' Fireside Library. Lessing's German Fables in prose and verse. With a close English translation and brief notes. London, 1860, Svo. Lessing's Fables. Edited, with notes, by F. Storr. Lon- don, 1878, Svo. Fragmente des Wolfenbuttel'schen Ungenannteu. Anhang zu dem Fragmente vom Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jiinger [by Samuel Reimarus], bekannt gemacht von Lessing. Berlin, 1784, Svo. Fragments from Reimarus, con- sisting of brief critical remarks on the object of Jesus and his disciples, as seen by the New Testament. Translated from tile German of G. E. Lessing. Loudon, 1879, Svo. Eine Duplik. [A. reply to the ' ' Fragmente und Antifrag- mente" of J. C. Doederlein.J Braunschweig, 1778, Svo. Franz Hutchesons der Rechte Doctors uud der Weltweislieit Professors zu Glasgow Sitten- lehre der Vernunft, aus dem BIBLIOGRAPHY. Englischen iibersetzt. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1756, 8vo. Die Gefangnen. Ein LustspieL Aus dem Lateinischen des M. Aecius Plautus iibersetzt. Stuttgard, 1750, 8vo. Haniburgische Dramaturgie. 2 Bde. Hamburg [1768], 8vo. Joliann Huart's Priifuns der Kbpfe zu den Wissenschaften. Aus dem Spanischen iibersetzt von 6. E. Leasing. Zerbst, 1762, 8vo. Der Junge Gelehrte in der Ein- bildung, ein Lustspiel in drey Aufziigen. Wein [1764], 8to. Eleinigkeiten. Frankfurt, 1761, 8vo. Laokoon ; oder iiber die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie ; mit beylaufigen Erlauterungen ver- schiedener Punkte der alten Kunstgescbiohte. Thl. L Ber- lin, 1766, 8vo. No more published. Neue vermehrte Auflage herausgegeben von E. G. Lessing. Berlin, 1788, 8vo. Laocoon ; or, the Limits of Poetry and Painting. Trans- lated from tbe German of G. E. Lessing by W. Ross. London, 1836, 8vo. Laocoon : an Essay on tbe Limits of Painting and Poetry. Translated from tbe German by E. C. Beasley. With an In- troduction by T. Burbridge. London, 1853, 8vo. Laocoon ; an Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry. Translated by E. Frothingham. Boston, 1874, 8vo. Laocoon. Translated from the text of Lessing, with preface and notes, by Sir K. Phillimore. With illustrations. London, 1874, 8vo. Lessing'a Laokoon. Trans- lated from the German by E. C. Beasley. London, 1888, Svo. Part of " Bohn's Shilling Library." Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Kol lektaneenzurLiteratur. Heraus- gegebeu von J. J. Eschenburg. 2 Bde. Berlin, 1790, Svo. G. E. Lessing's Leben des Sopho- cles. Herausgegeben von J. J, Eschenburg. Berlin, 1790, Svo. Lustspiele. 2 Thle. Berlin, 1767, Svo. F. von Logau. Sinngedichte. Herausgegeben von C. W. Ram- ler und G. E. Lessing. Leipzig, 1759, Svo. Minna von Barnhelm, oder das Soldatengliick. Ein Lustspiel in 5 Aufziigen. Berlin, 1767, Svo. The School for Honour ; or. The Chance of War : a comedy in five acts. Translated from the German of Lessing. Lon- don, 1799, Svo. The Disbanded Officer ; or. The Baroness of Bruchsal : a comedy (altered from " Minna von Barnhelm," by J. J. John- atone]. London, 1786, Svo. Minna von Barnhelm ; a comedy in five acts. Trans- lated by Fanny Holcroft. {The Thecdrical Secorder, vol. ii., 1806, pp. 213-260.) Minna von Barnhelm ; or, a Soldier's Fortune. A comedy in five acts, from the German. Translated into English, to- gether with notes in German, by W. E. Wrankmore. Leip- zig, 1S58, Svo. Der Misogyne, oder der Feind des weiblichen Geschlechts. Ein Lustspiel in zwey Aufziigen. Wien, 1762, Svo. BIBLIOGRAPHY. G. E. LeSsiug's Nachlass zur (leutschen Sprache, alten Liter- atur, Gelehrten-und Knnst- geschishte. Geordnet von G. G. FuUeborn. Berlin, 1795, 8vo. Kathan der Weise. Ein drama- tisches Gedieht, in fiinf Auf- ziigen. [Berlin] 1779, Svo. Nathan the Wise ; a philo- sophical drama [in five act's and iu prose]. Translated by E. E. Kaspe. London, 1781, 8vo. Nathan the Wise. A dra- matic poem, written originallj in German, etc. [Translated into English verse by William Taylor, of Norwich.] Norwich, 1791, 8vo. Nathan the Wise. A dra- matic poem, in five acts. Translated irora the German, with a biography of Lessiiig, and a critical survey of his position, by A. Eeich. London, 1860, 12mo. Nathan the Wise. Trans- lated by W. Taylor.— Emilia Galotti. Translated by C. L. Lewes. Leipzig, 1868, 8to. Vol.ix. of the " Tauchnite Collec- tion of German Authors." Natlian the Wise ; a dra- matic jioem. [Translated] from With an intro- Lessing and the its antecedents, and influence W., M.D., i.e., London, 1868. the German, duction on "Nathan ;" character, [signed R. Robert Willis]. 8vo. — Nathan the Wise. Trans- lated by E. Frothingham. Pre- ceded by a brief account of the poet and his works [signed H. H.], and followed by K. Fischer's essay on the Poem. Second edition, revised. New York, 1868, 12mo, Nathan the Wise. A drama in five acts. Abridged and translated from the German [into English prose], by E. S. H. London, 1874, 4to. Nathan the Wise. A dra- matic poem ; translated into English verse by Andrew Wood. London, 1877, 8vo. Lessing's Nathan the Wise ; translated into English verse by E. K. Corbett, with an intro- duction and notes. London, 1883, 8vo. Nathan the Wise. Trans- lated by William Taylor, of Norwich. London, 1886, 8vo. VoL 38 of "Cassell'a National Library." Eine Parabel. Nebst einer kleinen Bitte, und einem eventualen Absagungsschreiben an den Herrn Pastor Goeze, in Hamburg. [A reply, by G. E. Leasing, to Goetze's criticisms, entitled "Freiwillige Beitrage," etc. ] Braunschweig, 1778, 8vo. Philosophische Aufsatze von Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, heraus- gegeben von G. L. Lessing. Braunschweig, 1776, 8vo. Philotas. Ein Trauerspiel. Berlin, 1759, 8vo. Preussische Eriegslieder in den Feldziigen 1766 nnd 1757 von einem Grenadier. [With a preface by G. E. Lessing.] Berlin [1758], 16mo. Miss Sara Sampson. Berlin, 1772, 8vo. Schreiben an das Publienm. Aus dem Franzosischen, i-iii. Ber- lin, 1753, 8to. Der Schatz, Lustspiel iu einem Aufzage. Paderborn, 1877, 8vo. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Hrn. Samuel Eichardsons, Ver- lassers der Pamela, der Clarissa und des Grandisons Sittenlehre fiir die Jugend in den auserles- enaten Aesopisclien Fabeln, etc. Leipzig, 1757, 8vo. Romisohe Historie von Erbauung der Stadt Rom bis auf die Sohlacht bey Actium, oder das Ende der Eepublik ; aus dem Franzbsicben des Herrn Rollins. Thl. 4-6. Leipzig, 1749-1752, 8vo. Das Testament Jobannis, ein Gespraoh. Brauuschtreig, 1777, 8to. Das Tbeater des Herrn Diderot. Aus dem Franzbsiscben [by G. E. Lessing]. 2 Thie. Berlin, 1760, 12mo. G. E. Lessing's Theatralische Bibliotbek. 4 St. Berlin, 1754-58, 8vo. G. E. Lessing's Tbeatralisober Nachlass. [Edited by C. G. Leasing.] 2 Thle. Berlin, 1784-86, 8vo. 6. E. Lessing's tbeologiscber Nachlass. [Edited by C. G. Lessing.] Berlin, 1784, 8vo. Des Herrn Jacob Thomson sammt- liche Trauerapiele. Aus dem Englischen iibersetzt. Leipzig, 1756, 8vo. Trauerspiele. Berlin, 1772, 8vo. Ein Vade Mecum fiir den Herrn S. G. Lange, Pastor in Lam- blingen. Berlin, i754, 12mo. Vermisclite Schrifteu des Hrn. Christlob Mylius, gesamtnelt von G. E. Lessing. Berlin, 1754, 8vo. Vom Alter der Oelmalerey, aus dem Tbeophilus Presbyter. Braunschweig, 1774, 8vo. Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jiinger. Herausgegeben von G. E. Lessing. Berlin, 177?, 8vo. Wio die Alten den Tod gebildet r eine Untersuchung. Berlin, 1769, 4to. Zur Geschichte und Litteratur. Aus den Schiitzen dor Herzog- libhen Bibliotbek zu Wolfen- biittel. [Beytrag 5, by G. E. Lessing and J. J. Eschenbnrg. Beytrag 6, edited by C. Leiste.} 3 vols. Braunschweig, 1773-81, 8vo. IL LETTERS. Briefwechsel mit seinem Bruder K. G. Lessing, herausgegeben von K. G. Lessing. Berlin, 1795, 8vo. Briefwechsel mit Fr. W. Gleim 1757-1779. Berlin, 1795, 8vo. Brietwechsel zwischen Lo.isiug und seiner Frau, neu heraus- gegeben von Dr. A. Schone, nebst einem Anhang bisher ungedruckter Briefe. Mit dem Portrait von Frau Lessing. Leipzig, 1870, 8vo. Freundschaftlicher Briefwechsel zwischen G. . E. Lessing und seiner Frau, herausgegeben von K. G. Lessing. 2 Thle. Berlin, 1789, 8vo. Gelehrter Briefwechsel zwischen ihm, J. J. Reiske und Moses Mendelssohn. Herausgegeben von K. G. Lessing. 2 Thle. Berlin, 1789, 8vo. Gelehrter Briefwecbselzwisc!i- en J. J. Reiske, Moses Men- delssohn, und G. E. Lessing. Ofen, 1820, 12mo. Bd. 9 of "Moses Mendelssohn's sammtliche Werke." in. SELECTIONS. Aphorismen aus Lessing's ham- burgischer Dramaturgie, zusam- BIBLIOGRAPHY. mengestellt von H. Ziegler. Erfurt, 1882, 8vo. Lessing's Geist aus seinen Sohriften, oder dessen Gedanken und Meinungen zusammen- gestellt und erlautert von F, Schlegel. 3 Thle. Leipzig, 1810, 8vo. G. E. Leasing. Lichtstrahlen aus seinen Sohriften und Briefen. Mit einer Einleitung von F. Bloemer. Leipzig, 1869, 8vo. IV. APPENDIX. BioGBAPHY, Criticism, etc. Albreoht, Friedrioh. — Moses Men- delssohn ala Urbild von Lessing's Nathan dem Weisen. Ulm [1866], Svo. Auerbach, Berthold. — Epilog zur Lessing-Feier nach der Auffiihr- ung von Emilie Galotti im Hoftheater zu Dresden, gespro- chen von Emil Devrient am 16 Marz 1860. Dresden, 1850, Svo. Die Genesis des Nathan. Berlin, 1881, Svo. Back, Samuel. — Das Synhedrion unter Napoleon I., etc. Vortrag zum hundertjahrigen Jubilaum des Lessing'schen "Nathan." Prag, 1879, Svo. Barthold, Albert. — Lessing und die objective Wahrheit, aus Sbren Kierkegaards Sohriften zusammengestellt. Halle, 1877, Svo. Bauer, Edgard — GottholdEphraim Lessing als Ordensbruder. (Zwei OrdensMzzen, No. ii.) Leipzig, 1881, Svo. Baumgart, Hermann — Aristoteles, Lessing, und Goethe. Ueber des ethisohe und das aesthetische Princip der Tragodie. Leipzig, 1877, Svo. Beck, Ernst. — Das Lessingfest zu Kamenz am 1 Juni 1863. Kamenz [1863], Svo. Becker, Pastor. — Johann Melchior Goeze und Lessing, etc. — Flens- burg, 1887, Svo. Belmont, pseud [i. e. , H. A, Schuem- berg]. — Den Manen G. E. Lessings. Beschreibung der am Secular- Geburtsfeste der Gefeierten in seiner Yaterstadt Camenz veranstalteten Feier- lichkeiten. Camenz [1829], Svo. Benfey, R. — Lessing die Grund- saule deutacher Literatur. (Aits der LUurgescMcTite fur's Volk, Hft. i.) Berlin, 1868, Svo. Bergmann, E. A. — Hermaea, Studien zu G. E. Lessings theologischen und philosophi. schen Sohriften. Leipzig, 18S3, Svo. Beyschlag, W. — Lessing's Nathan der Weise und das positive Christenthum. Berlin [1863], Svo. Blooh, J. S. — Quellen und Paral- lelen zu Lessing's "Nathan," etc. Wien, 1880, Svo. Bloemer, Friedrich. — Lessing, Schiller, und Goethe, etc. Ber- lin, 1863, Svo. Boden, August. — Lessing und Goeze, Ein Beitrag zur Liter- atur-und Kirchengeschichte des aohtzehnten Jahrhunderts, etc. Leipzig, 1862, Svo. Ueber die Echtheit und den Werth der " Zu Lessings Andenken," durch W. Watten- bach herausgegebenen Briefe, etc. Leipzig, 1863, Svo. Bodmer, J. J. — Polytimet, ein Tranerspiel, Parodie des Philo- tas. Zurich, 1S70, Svo. 15 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Bohtz, A. W.— G. E. Leaaing's Protestantiamus nnd Nathan der Weise. Gottingen, 1854, 8vo. Borgiua, E. — Lessing's Kathan und der Monch vom Libanon (von J. G. Pfranger). Barmen [1881], 8vo. Boaaert, A. — Goethe, sea pr&ur- aeurs et sea coutemporains, Klopstock, Leasing, etc. Paris, 1872, 8vo. Deuxifeme Edition. Paris, 1882, 8vo, Bottiger, C. A.— Ilithyia. Ein archaologisches Fragment nach Leasing. Weimar, 1799, 8vo. Brenning, Emil. — Lessing ala Dramatiker und Lessing'a Nathan der Weise. Bremen, 1878, Svo. Caro, J. — Lesaing und Swift. Eiue Studie iiber " Nathan der Weise." Jena, 1869, Svo. Carriere,Moriz. — ^Leaaing,Schiller, Goethe, Jean Paul. Giessen, 1862, 8vo. Cassan, C. — Lesaing, Goethe, und Schubart. Studien von 0. Casaan. {P&dagogische Samtnel- mappe, Heft. 37.) Leipzig, 1880, Svo. Cauer, Edward. — Zum Andenken an G. E. Lessing. Berlin, 1881, Svo. Claaasen, Johannes. — G. E. Lessinga Leben und auagewahlte Werke im Liohte der chriat- lichen Wahrheit. 2 Bde. Giiteraloh, 1881, Svo. Coaack, Wilhelm. — Materialien zu G. E. Leaaing's Hamburg- iaoher Dramaturgie, etc. Pader- born, 1876, Svo. Cropp, Johannes.— Lessing's Streit mit Hauptpaator Goeze. Berlin, 1S81, Svo. Hft. IBS of the "Deutsche Zeit- und-Streit Fragen." CronsM, L. — Leasing et le Gout Franfais en Allemagne. Paris, 1863, Svo. Danzel, T. W.— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, sein Leben und seine Werke. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1850-64, Svo. Zweite beriohtigte und vermehrte Auflage. 2 Bde. Berlin, 1880-81, Svo. Davesi^a de Pontes, L. — Poeta and Poetry of Germany, bio- graphical and critical notices. 2 voJs. London, 1858, Svo. Lessing, vol. ii., pp. 51-104. Dederich, Hermann. — Gotthold Ephraim Lessing der Apostel der Denkfreiheit, etc. Leipzig [1881], Svo. De Quincey, Thomaa. — Works. 16 vols. London, 1853-60, Svo. Lessing, vol. xii., pp. 230-303. Diekmann, E. — Lesaing als Theologe. Ziirich, 1880, Svo. Diller, E. A. — Erinnerungen an G. E. Leasing, etc. Meissen, 1841, Svo. Dittmar, Louise. — Leasing und Feuerbach, oder Auswahl aus G. E. Lessing's theologisohen Schriften, etc. Offenbach, 1847, Svo. Doederlein, J. C. — ^Fragmente und Antifragmente. Zwey Frag- mente eines TJngenannten aus Herrn Leaaing's Beytragen zur Litteratur abgedruckt mit Be- tracbtungen [by J. C. Doeder- lein] daruber. 2 Thle. Niirn- berg, 1778, 1779, Svo. Doering, H. — G. E. Leasing'a Biographic. Jena, 1853, Svo. Diihring, Eugen. — Die Ueber- aobatzung Lessing's und desaen Anwaltachaft fiir die Jnden. Karlaruhe, 1881, Svo. Die Hinrichtung das "Juden- BIBLIOGRAPHY. heiligen," G. E. Leasing durch Dr. E. DUhring. [An answer to the preceding.] Bregenz a. Bodensee, 1881, 8vo. Diintzer, Heinrioh. — Gothe's Faust. Nebst Anhiingen Tiber Byron's Manfred und Lessing's Doktor Faust. Koln, 1836, 12mo. Lessing's Nathan der Weise. Erlautert von H. Dii zer. Wenigen-Jena, 1863, 8ro. Lessing's Leben. Leipzig, 1882, 8vo. Eckardt, L. — Lessing und das erste deutsohe Nationaltheater in Hamburg. Hamburg, 1864, 8vo. Findel, J. G. — Lessing's Ansichten iiber Frei-Maurerei, etc. Leip- zig, 1881, 8vo. Fisch, Richard. — Generalmajor v. Stille und Friedrich der Grosse contraLesaing. Berlin, 1885, 8vo. Fischer, Kuno. — Lessing's Nathan der Weise. Die Idee und die Charaktere der Dichtung darges- tellt Ton K. Fischer. Stuttgart, 1864, 8to. G. E. Lessing als Reformator der deutschen Literatur dar- gestellt. 2 Thle. Stuttgart, 1881, 8vo. Fleischer, A. S. — Betrachtungen iiber Lessing's Bruckstiicke, den Horus und die Briefe iiber die Bibel im Volkston, alien gelehr- ten Schriftstellern und Buoh- errecensenten zu einem Probir- stein, etc. Wien, 1787, 8vo. Fontanfes, Ernest. — Le Christian- isme Moderne; etude sur Les- sing. Paris, 1867, 8to. Fuerst, Julius. — Lessing's Nathan der Weise. Historisch und philosophisoh erlautert. Leip- zig, 1881, 8vo. Galotti, Emilia. — Ueber einige Sohonheiten der Emilia Galotti, etc. Leipzig, 1773, 8vo. Rudolph. — Klassische Frauenbilder. Aus dramatischen Dichtungen von Shakespeare, Lessing, etc. Berlin, 1884, 8vo. Gerhard, C. J. P. — Lessing und Christus. Eia Jiiedenswort an Israel. Breslan, 1881, 8vo. Giesse, W. — G. E. Lessing's Nathan der Weise. Darmstadt, 1866, 12mo. Gostwick, Joseph. — German Cul- ture and Christianity. London, 1882, 8vo, Lessing, pp. 64-87. Gotschlich, EmiL — Lessing's Aria- totelische Studien und der Einfluss derselben auf seine Werke. Berlin, 1876, 8vo. Gbtz, F. — Geliebte Sohatten. Bildnisse und Autographen von Klopstock, Wieland, Herder, Lessing, etc. Mannheim, 18S8, 4to. Grave, H. G.— G. E. Lessing's Lebensgeschichte. Leipzig, 1829, 8vo. Gravemann, J. F. F. — Ueber die Griinde, mit denen Lessing in seinem Laokoon zu beweisen suoht, dass bei den Griechen das Princip der Kunst die Schbnheit gewesen, etc. Rostock, 1867, 8vo. Grnssmann, G. L. — Lessing's Denkmal, etc. Hannover, 1791, 8vo. Grousilliers, H. de. — Nathan der Weise und die Antisemiten- Liga. Berlin, 1880, 8vo. Guhrauer, G. E. — Lessing's Erzie- hung des Menschengeschlechts kritisch und philosophisch erortert, etc. Berlin, 1841, 8vo. Gyurkovios, G. von. — Eine Studie iiber Lessing's "Laokoon." Wien, 1876, 8vo. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Haffner, P. — Eine Studie iiber G. E. Lessing. (Gorres Gesell- schaft, 1878.) Koln, 1878, 8vo. Hammann, 0. — Zur Eettung Les- sings. Berlin, 1881, 8vo. Hedge, Frederic H. — Prose Writers of Germany. Phila- delphia [1871], 8vo. Lessing, pp. 81-98. Hours with German Classics- Boston, 1886, 8vo. Lessing, pp. 143-170. Heinemann, H. — Shylock und Nathan. [Studies of the char- acters in the "Merchant of Venice" and "Nathan der Weise." Frankfurt a. M., 1886, 870. Heinrichs, Ernst. — Ein Meister- stiick Lessings oder Fragen und Anmerkungen zu Minna von Barnhelm. Hannover, 1870, 8vo. Helveg, F. — Lessing og Grundt- vig. Kj^benhavn, 1863, 8yo. Horn, Ferdinand. — Lessing, Jesus, und Kant, etc. Wien, 1880, 8vo. Humbert, C. — Schiller, Lessing, Goethe, Moliire, und Herr Dr. Paul Lindau. [Bielefeld] 1885, 8vo. Jacobi, F. H. — Etwas das Lessing gesagt hat. Ein Gommentar zu den Reisen der Papste nebst Betrachtungen von'einem Dritt- en. [By F. H. Jacobi.] Ber- lin, 1787, 8vo. Jacoby, Johann. — G. E. Lessing der Philosoph. Berlin, 1863, 8to. Japp, Alexander Hay. — German Life and Literature in a series of biographical studies. Lon- don [1880], 8vo. Lessing, pp. 19-92. Koepke, Ernst. — Studien zu Les- sing's Nathan. Brandenburg, a. H., 1865, 4to. Kayserling, M. — Moses Mendels- sohn's philosophisohe und re- ligiose Grundsatze mit Hinblick auf Lessing. Leipzig, 1856, 8vo. Klein, A. von, — ijber Lessing's Meinungen vom heroischen Trauerspiel, und iiber Emilie Galotti. Frankfurt, 1781, 8vo. Lang, H. — Keligiose Gharaktere. "Winterthur, 1862, 8vo. G. B. Lessing, pp. 216-304. G. E. Lessing. (Prqfeten van den Nieuweren Tijd, pp. 97-223.) 'S-Hertogenbosch, 1871, 8vo. Lange, S. G. — M.S. G. Langen's Schreiben welches die Streitig- keit mit dem Harm Lessing wegen der Uebersetzung des Horaz betrift. Halle, 1754, 8vo. Latendorf, F. — Lessing's Name und der offentliche Missbrauch desselben im neuen deutschen Eeich, etc. Miinchen, 1886, 8vo. Lehmaun, A. — Forschungen iiber Lessing's Spraohe. Braun- schweig, 1875_, 8vo. Lehmann, Etail. — Lessing in seiner Bedeutung fiir die Juden, etc. Dresden, 1879, 8vo. Lessing, 0. G. — G. E. Lessing's Leben, nebst seinem noch iibrigen litterarischen Nach- lasse. 3 Thle. Berlin, 1793, 8vo. Lessing, G. E. — Lessing, Bernar- din de St. Pierre und ein Drit- ter. Eine Trilogie von Bekennt- nissen, etc. Berlin, 1846, 8vo. — — Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. [Biographical and critical notice, with selections from the BIBLIOGRAPHY. works of G. E. Lesaing.] Cas- sel, 1854, 16mo. Ed. 47 of the "Modeme Klassi- ter." Die Feier von Lessing's hun- dertjahrigem Todestage zu Braunschweig, etc. Braun- schweig, 1881, 8vo. Lessings Vermachtniss. Keioheuhach, 1881, Svo. Kandzeiohnungen zu Jans- sen's Gesohiehte des deutschen Volkes. Ein Nachtrag zu G. E. Lessing's Bettungen. Frankfurt a. M., 1882, Svo. Heft, i., Bd. iv. of Haflner's " Frankfurter Zeitgemasse Brb- schuren." Lichtenberger, Frederic. — La Th&logie de 6. E. Lessing. Strasbourg, 1854, Svo. Lowell, James Russell. — Among my Books. London, 1870, Svo. Leasing, pp. 276-329. The English Poets : Lessing, Rousseau : Essays by J. R. Lowell. {Camelot Series.) London, 1888, Svo. lessing, pp. 261-310. Maass, M. — G. E. Lessing's Erziehung des Menschenge- schlechtes. Berlin, 1862, Svo. Marr, W. — Lessing contra Sem, etc. Berlin, 1885, Svo. Martineau, Harriet: — Miscellanies. 2 vols. Boston, 1S36, Svo. Lessing's Hundred Thoughts, vol. ii., pp. 296-343. Mayr, Richard. — Beitrage zur Beurtheilung G. E, Lessings. Wien, 1880, Svo. Melzer, Ernst. — Lessings philo- sophische Grundanachauung, etc. Neisse, 1882, Svo. Mendelssohn, Moses. — Moses Mendelssohn an die Freunde Lessings. Ein Anhang zu Herrn Jacobi Briefwechsel liber die Lehre des Spinoza. Berlin, 1786, Svo. Miohaelis, C. Th. — Lessings Minna von Barnhelm und Cervantes' Don Quijote. Berlin, 1883, Svo. / Michel, Karl. — Lessing und die heutigen Schauspieler. Ham- burg, 1888, Svo. Hft. 34, 3 Jahr. of the "Deutsche Zeit-und-Streit-Fragen." Modlinger, Samuel. — Lessing's Verdienste um das Judenthum. Eine Studie. Frankfurt am Main, 1869, Svo. Mohnike, G. C. F. — Lessingiana, etc. Leipzig, 1843, Svo. Muncker, Franz. — Lessing's per- sbnliches und literarisches Terhaltnis zu Elopstock. Frankfurt a. M., 1880, Svo. Mnrr, C. G. — Anmerkungen iiber Herrn Lessing's Laokoon, etc. Erlangen, 1769, Svo. Niemeyer, Eduard. — Lessing's Nathan der Weise durcb eine historische - kritische Einleit- ung, etc. Leipzig, 1856, Svo. Jugendleben Klopstocks, Lessings, etc. Dresden [1868], Svo. Lessing's Minna von Barn- helm. Historische - Kritische Einleitung nebst fortlanfendem Commentar. Dresden, 1870, Svo. Noetel, R. — Ueber Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm. Gottbus, 1880, Svo. Opzoomer, C. W. — Lessing, de vriend der Waarheid. Amster- dam, 1S58, Svo. Pabst, C. K. — Torlesungen iiber G. E. Lessing's Nathan. Bern, 1881, Svo. Pecht,Friedrich. — Lessing- Galerie. Charaktere aus Lessing's Werk- en. Leipzig, 1868, 4to. Petri, V. F. L.— Worte derWeihe bei der Enthiillung der Lessing BIBLIOGRAPHY. Statue am xxix September MDOCOLiii. Braunschweig, 1853, 8vo. Prohle, Heinrioh. — Leasing, Wie- land, Heinse, etc. Berlin, 1877, 8vo. Battig, H. — G. E. Lessing's Bedeutung fUr unsere Zeit, etc. Torgau [1881], 8vo. Eedlioh, Carl C. — G. E. Lessing. Festblatt zum 8 September, 1881. [Illustrations represent- ing incidents in Lessing's life.] Hamburg, 1881, fol. Behorn, Karl. — G. E. Lessing's Stellung zur Philosophie des Spinoza. Frankfurt am Main, 1877, 8vo. Eeinkens, Joseph H. — Lessing liber 'Toleranz, etc. Leipzig, 1883, 8to. Kiehl, A. — G. E. Lessing, etc. Graz, 1881, 8to. Eiesser, Gabriel. — Einige Worte Tiber Lessing's Denkmal. Frank- furt a. M., 1881, 8vo. Bitter, Heinrich. — Ueber Less- ing's Philosophische und reli- giose Grundsatze. (Gotiinger StvMen, 1847.) Gbttingen [1847], 8vo. Boennefahrt, J. G. — Lessing's dramatisches Gedicht Nathan der Weise. Stendal, 1863, 8vo. Eotscher,HeinrichT. — Entwickel- ung dramatischer Charaktere aus Lessing's, Schiller's, und Goethe's Werken, etc. Han- over, 1869, 8vo. Biilf, J. — Lessing als Held der Aufklarnng, etc. Memel, 1881, 8vo. Sachs, L. W. — Einiges zur Erin- nerung an Lessing. Berlin, 1839, 8vo. Saner, August. — J. W. von Brawe, der Schiller Lessings. Strass- burg, 1878, 8vo. Scherer, Wilhelm. — Geschichte der Deutsohen Literatur. Ber- lin, 1883, 8vo. Lessing, pp. 438-470, etc. A History of German Litera- ture. Translated by Mrs. F. 0. Conybeare. 2 vols. Oxford, 1886, 8vo. Lessing, vol. il, pp. 47-82. Schiffmann, 6. A. — Lessing's Na- than der Weise in seiner reli. gioaen Bedeutung. Ein Vortrag Stettin, 1855, 8vo. Schiller, C. G. W. — Lessing im Fragmentenstreite, etc. Leip- zig, 1865, 8vo. Schink, Johann F. — Charakteris- tik G. E. Lessings. Chemnitz, 1795, 8vo. Th. 2 of the "Pantheon derDeut- sclien. Charakteristik Gotthold Ephraim Lessings, etc. Leip- zig [1817], 8vo. G. E. Lessing's Leben, etc. Berlin, 1825, 8vo. There is a second title-page, which reads " G. E. Lessing's sammtliche Schriften : ein und dreissigster TheU." Schmidt, Erich. — Lessing. Ge- schichte seines Lebens und seiner Schriften. Berlin, 1884, etc., 8vo. Schmidt, H. — ^fitudes sur la Lit- terature AUemande. I. Herder. II. La Dramaturgic de Lessing. Paris, 1869, 8vo. Schumann, J. — G. E. Lessings Schuljahre, etc. Trier, 1884, 8vo. SchUtz, C. G.— Ueber G. E. Less- ing's Genie und Schriften, etc. Halle, 1782, 8vo. Schiitz, F. W. von. — Apologie, Lessing's dramatisches Gedicht Nathan den Weisen betreffend, etc. Leipzig, 1781, Svo. BIBLIOGRAPHY. xiu Sohwarz, Carl. — Gt. E. Leasing als Theologe, etc. Halle, 1854, 8vo. Seventornen, A. von. — Lessing in Wolfenbiittel, etc. Leipzig, 1883, 8vo. Sierke, Eugen. — G. E. Lessing aU angeheuder Dramatiker, etc. Konigsberg, 1869, 8vo. Sime, James. — Lessing. 2 vols. London, 1877, 8vo. Part of " The English and Foreign Philosophical Library." Spicker, Gideon^ — Lessing's Welt- anschauung, etc. Leipzig, 1883, 8vo. Spielhagen, Friedrich. — Fanst und Nathan. Ein Tortrag, etc. Berlin, 1867, 8vo. Spbrri, Hermann. — Eede bei der Enthlillung des Lessing- Denkmals in Hamburg den 8 Sept. 1881. Hamburg; 1881, 8vo. Stahr, Adolf.— G. E. Lessing. Sein Leben und seine Werke. 2 Thle. Berlin, 1859, 8vo. The Life and Works of G. E. Lessing. From the German of Adolf Stahr. By E. P. Evans. 2 vols. Boston, 1866, 8vo. Strauss, David F. — Lessing's Nathan der Weise. Ein Vortrag. Berlin, 1866, 8vo. Taylor, Bayard. — Studies in Ger- man Literature. New York, 1879, 8vo. ' Lessing, pp. 200-233. Thimm, Franz. — The Literature of Germany, etc. London, 1866, 8vo. Lessing, pp. 29-37. Tolhausen, Alexander. — Klop- stoek, Lessing, and Wieland. A treatise on German Literature. London, 1848, 8vo. Trosien, E. — Lessing's Nathan der Weise. Berlin, 1876, 8vo. Heft. 263, Ser. xi. of VirchoVs " Sammlung gemeinverstandlicher wissenschaitlicner Vortrage." Toss, J. von. — Der travestirte Nathan der Weise. Posse in zwei Akten, etc. Berlin, 1804, 8vo. Wagner, B. A. — Lessing-For- schungen, nebst Nachtragen zu Lessings Werken. Berlin 1881, 8vo. Waldberg, Max K. von. — Studien zu Lessing's Stil in der Ham- burgischen Dramaturgic. Ber- lin, 1882, 8vo. Walesrode, Ludwig. — Demokra- tlsche Stttdien, 1861. Hamburg, 1861, 8vo. G. E. Lessing, von F. LassaUe, pp. 475-606. Walser, Jakob. — Lessing's und Gbthe's charakteristische Ans- chauungen iiber die Aristote. lische Katharsis. [Darmstadt, 1880] 8vo. Weber, Theodor. — Lessing und die Kirche seiner Zeit. Barmen, 1871, 8vo. Xantippus, pseud. — Berlin und Lessing. Friedrich der Grosse und die deutsche Litteratur. Miiuchen, 1886, 8vo. Zarncke, Friedrich. — Ueber den fiinffiissigen Iambus, mit beson- derer Riicksioht auf seine Be- handlung durch Lessing, Schil- ler, und Goethe. Leipzig [1865], 4to. Zimmern, Helen. — Gotthold Eph- raim Lessing, his life and his works. London, 1878, 8vo. Magazine Aetiolbs. kto. Lessing, G. E. — Edinburgh Review, by G. H. Lewes, vol. 82, 1845, pp. 451- BIBLIOGRAPHY. Lessing, G. E. 470. — New Monthly Magazine, vol. 100, 1854, pp. 127-137.— Nation, by E. E. Du Bois, vol. 4, 1867, pp. 66, 67.— Christian Examiner, by F. TiflFany, vol. 82, 1867, pp. 161-186.— Eevue des Deux Mondes, by Victor Cherbuliez, vol. 79, 1868, pp. 78-121, 981-1024.— Fortnightly Review, by E. W. Macan, vol. 23 N.S., 1878, pp. 349- 364. — Cornhill Magazine, vol. 38, 1878, pp. 189-206. ami Christianity. Reformed Quarterly Keview, vol. 27, p. 1 27, etc. and his Works. National Quarterly, vol. 12, p. 305, etc. as Philosopher and Theolo- gian. British Quarterly Re- view, vol. 68, 1878, pp. 333- 360. as a Theologian. Theological Review, by J. F. Smith, vol. 5, 1868, pp. 311-334.— Unitarian Review, by E. Zeller, vol. 10, pp. 377, etc., 469, etc.— Pro- spective Review, voL 10, 1854, pp. 407-430. Dramas of. Nation, by F. Hall, vol. 28, 1879, pp. 154, 155. Early Youth of. Southern Messenger, by F. Schaller, vol. 14, pp. 253, etc. Emilia Galotti; a tragedy; translated. Democratic Re- view, vol. 22 N.S., 1848, pp. 511-518 ; vol. 23, pp. 237-246, 348-355, 421-431. Grave of. Every Saturday, vol. 9, pp. 355, etc. Laocoon. Blackwood's Edin- burgh Magazine, by T. D. Quincey, vol. 16, 1824, pp. 312- ing, G. E. 316 ; vol. 20, pp. 728-744 ; vole 21, pp. 9-24. — American Re- view, by J. D. Whelpley, vol. 13, 1851, pp. 17-26. New Translations of the Laocoon. New Englander, by F. Carter, vol. 34, 1875, pp. 555-572. — Life and WorTcs. West- minster Review, vol. 40 N.S., 1870, pp. 442-470; vol. 53 N.S., 1878, pp. 91 139. — Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. 25, 1840, pp. 233-253.— North American Review, by J. R. Lowell, vol. 104, 1867, pp. 541- 585. — Quarterly Review, vol. 147, 1879, pp. 1-48.— London Quarterly Review, vol. 61, 1879, pp. 425-448. Minna tow Bamhelm: u, comedy ; translated. Demo- cratic Review, vol. 24 N.S., 1849, pp. 176-179, 225-230, 345- 354, 436-448, 535-546 ; vol. 25, pp. 56-67. Nathan the Wise. Edinburgh Review, by F. Jeffrey, vol. 8, 1806, pp. 149-154. — North American Review, vol. 106, 1868, pp. 704-712.— Retrospec- tive Review, vol. 10, 1824, pp. 265-285.— Academy, Dec. 2, 1882, p. 391. Prose Works of. Nation, by F. Hall, vol. 29, 1879, pp. 196, 197. Becent Biographies of . Nation, by F. Hall, vol. 29, 1879, pp. 390, 391. Stahr's Life of. Littell's Living Age (from the Saturday Beriew), vol. 78, 1863, pp. 168- 171. BIBLIOGRAPHY. V. CHKONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS. Die Alte Jungfer . . 1749 Romische Historie ( Trans, )1749-52 Die Gefangnen (Trans.) . 1750 Eleinigkeiten . . . 1751 Huart's Priifung der Kopfe {Tram.) . . . 1752 ' Schreiben an das Publicum (Trans.) . . . 1753 Schriften . . . 1753-55 Ein Vade Mecum fiir den Herrn S. G. Lange . 1754 Theatralisehe Bibliothek 1754-58 Thomson's sammtliche Trauerspiele (Trans.) . 1756 Franz Hutchinson's Sitten- lehre der Ternunft (Trans.) . . . 1756 Eine ernsthafte Ermunter- ung an alle Christen, etc, (Trans.) . . . 1756 Richardson's Sittenlehre fiir die Jugend (IVajts.) . 1757 Fabeln .... 1759 Philotas .... 1759 Das Theater des Herrn Diderot (Trans.) . . 1760 Der Misogyne . . . 1762 Der Junge Gelehrte . . 1764 Laokoou, .... 1766 Lustspiele . . . 1767 Minna von Barnhelm . 1767 Briefe antiquarischen In- halts .... 1768 Hamburgische Dramaturgic 1769 Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet . . . 1769 Berengariua Turonensls . 1770 Trauerspiele . . . 1772 Miss Sara Sampson . . 1772 Emilia Galotti . . 1772 Zur Geschichte und Litter- atur . . . 1773-81 Vom Alter der Oelmalerey, aus dem Theophilus Pres- byter .... Philosophische Aufsatze von K. W. Jerusalem (Mited) Das Testament Johannis . tjber denBeweis desGeistes und der Kraft Eine Parabel Von dem Zwecke Jesn und seiner Junger (Udited) . Nothige Antwort auf eine unnotige Frage Eine Duplik Axiomata .... Ernst und Falk Anti-Goeze Nathan der Weise . Beschreibung des portu- giesischen Amerika vom Cudena (Sdited.) Die Erziehung des Menseh- engeschlechts 1774 1776 1777 1777 1778 1778 1778 1778 1778 1778 1778 1779 1780 1780 Fragmente des Wolfeu- biittel'schen Ungenannt- en (Edited) . .. . 1784 Theologischer Nachlass . 1784 Theatralischer Nachlasa 1784-86 Leben des Sophocles . . 1790 KoUektaneen zur Literatur 1790 Gelehrter Briefwechael zwischen J. J. Reiske, Moses Mendelssohn und G. E. Lessing Freundschaftlicher Brief wechsel zwischen Less ing und seiner Frau Briefwechsel mit Fr. W. Gleim . Briefwechsel mit seinem Bruder K. 6. Lessing . 1789 1789 1795 1795 Printed by Walter Scott, Felling, Neweasfle-on-Tym. Crovm 8vo, Cloth. Price 3s. Qd.per Vol.; JBIf. Mor. 6s. 6d. THE Contemporary Science Series. Edited by HAVELOCK ELLIS. Most of the vols, will he illustrated^ containing between 300 and 400 «J23. Thejwst vol. will he issued on Oct. 25, 1889. Others to follow at short intervals. THE CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES will bring within general reach of the English-speaking public the best that is known and thought in all departments of modern scientific research. The influence of the scientific spirit is now rapidly spreading in every field of human activity. Social progress, it is felt, must be guided and accompanied by accurate knowledge,— knowledge which is, in many departments, not yet open to the English reader. In the Contemporary Science Series all the questions of modern life — the vanous social and politico-economical problems of to- day, the most recent researches in the knowledge of man, the past and present experiences of the race, and the nature of its environment — will be frankly investigated and clearly presented. The first volumes of the Series will be:— THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Prof. Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson. With 90 Illustrations, and about 300 pages. [Ready 26th October. ELECTRICITY IN MODERN LIFE. BY G. W. DE TUNZEL- MANN. With 88 Ulustrations. [Ready 25th I?ovember. THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS. By Dr. Isaac Taylor. With numerous Illustrations. [Ready 25th Decernber. The following Writers, among others, are preparing volumes for this Series: — Prof. E. D. Cope, Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald, Prof. J. Geikie, G. L. Gomme, E. C. K. Gonner, Prof. J. Jastro^v (Wisconsin), E. Sidney Hartland, Prof. C. H. Herford, J. Bland Sutton, Dr. C. Mercierj Sidney Webb, Dr. Sims Woodhead, Dr. C. M. Woodward (St. Louis, Mo.), etc, London : Walter Sco^, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. GREA T WRI TERS. A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES. Edited by Professor ERIC S. Eoberdson, M.A. MONTHLY SHILIilKTG TTOLITMES. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED^ LIFE OF LONGFELLOW. By Prof. Eric S. Robertson. "A most readable little yfovk."— Liverpool Mercury* LIFE OF COLERIDGE. By Hall Caihe. "Brief and vigorous, written throughout with spirit and great literary skill. "—Scotsman, LIFE OF DICKENS. By Frank T, Marzials. " Notwithstanding the mass of matter that has been printed relating to Dickens and his works ... we should, nntil we came across this volume, have been at a loss to recommend any popular life of England's most popular novelist as being really satisfactory. The difficulty is removed by Mr. Marzials's little book,"— jitAerweum, LIFE OP DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTL By J. Knight. "Mr. Knight's picture of the great poet and painter is the fullest and best yet presented to the public."— TA* Graphic. LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. By Colonel F. Grant, " Colonel Grant has performed his task with diligence, sound judgment} good taste, and accuracy." — UlustratecL London News. LIFE OF DARWIN. By G. T. Bettany. " Mr. G. T. Bettany's Life of Darvtin is a sound and conscientious work." — Saturday Review. LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE. By A. Birrell. " Those who know much of Charlotte Bronte will learn more, and those who know nothing about her will find all that is best worth learning in Mr. Birrell's pleasant hook.'*— St. Ja/mes* Gazette. LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLB. By R. Gamett, LL.D. " This is an admirable book. Nothing could be more felicitous and fairer than the way in which he takes us through Carlyle's life and works."— PoZZ Mall Gazette. LIFE OF ADAM SMITH. By R. B. Haldane, M.P. " Written vrith a perspicuity seldom exemplified when dealing with economic science." — Soot^nticm. LIFE OF KEATS. Bjr W. M. Rossetti. " Valuable for the ample information which it contains." — Ca/ml)rid^& Independent. LIFE OF SHELLEY. By William Sharp. •' The criticisms . . . entitle this capital monograph to be ranked with the best biographies of Shelley." — WeetmiTister Revieio. LIFE OF SMOLLETT. By David Hannay. " A capable record of a writer who still remains one of the great masters of the English noyeV— Saturday Review. IjIFB of GOLDSMITH. By Austin Dobson. " The story of his literary and social life in London, vrlth all Its humorous and pathetic vicissitudes, is here retold^ as none could tell it better,** — Daily News. GREAT \S[^1TK'RS— (Continued). LIFE OF SCOTT. By Professor Yonge. •' For readers and lovers of the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott, this is a most enjoyable "book."— Aberdeen Free Press. LIFE OF BURNS. By Professor Blackie. "The editor certainly made a hit when he persuaded Blackie to write about Burns."— Paii Mall Gazette. LIFE OF VICTOR HUG-O. By Frank T. Marzials. "Mr. Marzials's volume presents to us, in a more handy form than any English, or even French handbook gives, the summary of what, up to the moment in which we write, is known or conjectured about the life of the great poet." — Saturday Review. LIFE OF EMERSON- By Richard Garnett, LL.D. " As to the larger section of the public, ... no record of Emerson's life and work could be more desirable, both in breadth of treatment and lucidity of style, than Dr. Garnett's." — Saturday Review, LIFE OF GOETHE. By James Sime. "Mr. James Sime's competence as a biographer of Goethe, both in respect of knowledge of his special subject, and of German literature generally, is beyond question." — Manchester Quardia/n. LIFE OF CONGREVE. By Edmund Gosse. " Mr. Gosse has written an admirable and most interesting biography of a man of letters who is of particular interest to other men of letters."— The Academy. LIFE OF BUNYAN. By Canon Venables. *' A most intelligent, appreciative, and valuable memoir." — Scotsman. LIFE OF CRABBE. By T. E. Kebbel. " No English poet since Shakespeare has observed certain aspects of nature and of human life more closely ; . Mr. Kebbel's monograph is worthy of the subject." — AthencRum. LIFE OF HEINE. By William Sharp. " This is an admirable monograph. . . . more fully written up to the level of recent knowledge and criticism of its theme than any other English work." — Scotsman. LIFE OF MILL. By W. L. Courtney. " A most sympathetic and discriminating m&moTT."— Glasgow Herald. LIFE OF SCHILLER. By Henry W. Nevinson. " Presents the leading facts of the poet's life in a neatly rounded picture, and gives an adequate critical estimate of each of Schiller's separate vrarks and the effect of the whole upon literature." — Scotsman. LIFE OF CAPTAIN MARRY AT. By David Hannay. "We have nothing but praise for the manner in which Mr. Hannay has done justice to him whom he well calls ' one of the most brilliant and the least fairly recognised of English novelists."* — Saturday Review. Complete Bibliography to each volume, by J. P. Anderson, British Museum. Volumes are in preparation by Goldwin Smith, Frederick Wedmore, Oscar Browning, Arthur Symons, W. E. Henley, Hermann Merivale, H. E. Watts, T. W. Rolleston, Ciosrao Monkhouse, Dr. Garnett, Frank T. Marzials, W. H. Polloek, John Addington Symonds, Stepniak, etc., etc. LIBRARY EDITION OF "GREAT WRITERS. "-Printed on large paper of extra quality, in handsome binding. Demy 8vo, price 2s. 6d. London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. Monthly Shilling Volumes. Cloth, cut or uncut edges. THE CAMELOT SERIES. Edited by Ernest Rhys. Volumes already Issued — ROMANCE OP KING ARTHUR. Edited by E. Rhys. THOBBAU'S "WALDBN. Edited by W. H. Dircks. ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. Edited by William Sharp. LANDOR'S CONVERSATIONS. Edited by H. Ellis. PLUTARCH'S LIVES. Edited by B. J. Snell, M.A. RBLIGIO MEDICI, &0. Edited by J. A. Symonds. SHELLEY'S LETTERS. Edited by Ernest Rhys. PROSE WRITINGS OP SWIPT. Edited by W. Lewin. MY STUDY V/INDOWS. Edited by R. Gamett, LL.D. GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. Edited by W. Sharp. LORD BYRON'S LETTERS. Edited by M. Blind. ESSAYS BY LEIGH HUNT. Edited by A. Symons. LONGFELLOW'S PROSE. Edited by W. Tirebuck. GREAT MUSICAL COMPOSERS. Edited by E. Sharp. MARCUS AURELIUS. Edited by Alice Zimmem. SPECIMEN DAYS IN AMERICA. By Walt Whitman. WHITE'S SELBORNE. Edited by Richard Jefferies. DEPOBS SINGLETON. Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. MAZZINI'S ESSAYS. Edited by William Clarke. PROSE WRITINGS OP HEINE. Edited by H. Ellis. REYNOLDS' DISCOURSES. Edited by Helen Zimmem. PAPERS OF STEELE & ADDISON. Edited by W. Lewin. BURNS'S LETTERS. Edited by J. Logie Robertson. M.A. VOLSUNGA SAGA. Edited by H. H. Sparling. SARTOR RESARTUS. Edited by Emest Rhys. WRITINGS OP EMERSON. Edited by Percival Chubb. SENECA'S MORALS. Edited by Walter Clode. DEMOCRATIC VISTAS. By Walt Whitman. LIFE OP LORD HERBERT. Edited by Will H. Dircks. ENGLISH PROSE. Edited by Arthur Galton. IBSEN'S PILLARS OP SOCIETY. Edited by H. EUis. FAIRY AND POLK TALES. Edited by W. B. Yeats. BPICTETUS. Edited by T. W. RoUeston, THE ENGLISH POETS. By James Russell Lowell. ESSAYS OP DR. JOHNSON. Edited by Stuart J. Reid. ESSAYS OP WILLIAM HAZLITT. Edited by F. Carr. LANDOR'S PENTAMBRON, &o. Edited by H. Ellis. FOB'S TALES AND ESSAYS. Edited by Ernest Rhys. VICAR OP WAKEFIELD. By Oliver Goldsmith. POLITICAL ORATIONS. Edited by William Clarke. CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. Selected by C. Sayle. THORBAU'S WEEK. Edited by Will H. Dircks. STORIES from OARLBTON Edited by W. B. Yeats. Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. By O. W. Holmes. JANE EYRE. By Charlotte Bronte. London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Eow. V Edited by William Sharp. In SHinjNGr Monthly Volumes, Square 8vo. Well printed on fins toned paper, -witli Bed-line Border, and strongly bound in Cloth. aoti, Red Edges ■ Is, Cloa, Uncut Edges - Is. Hed Roan, Gilt Edges 2s. 6d. Pad. Morocco, Gilt Edges - 5s. THE FOLLOWISG VOLUMES ARE NOW READY. KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR. COLERIDGE. Ed. by J. SMpsey. LONGFELLOW. Ed. byB. Hope. CAMPBELL. Ed. by J. Eogbsn. SHELLEY. Edited by J. SMpsey. WORDSWORTH. Edited by A. J. Symington. BLAKE, Bd. by Joseph Skipsey. WHITTIE R. Ed. by Bva Hope. POE. Edited by Joseph Skipsey. CHATTERTON. Edited by John Biclunond. BURNS. Poems 1 Edited by BURNS, Songs J Joseph SMpgey. MARLOWE, Ed.byP.E.FinkeTton. KEATS. Edited by John Hogben. HERBERT. Edited by E. Bhys. HUGO, Trans, by Dean Garrington. COWPER, Edited by Eva Hope. SHAKESPEARE. Songs, Poems, and Sonnets, Edited by WiUIam Sharp. ' EMERSON, Edited by W. Lewin. SONNETS of this CENTURY. Edited by William Sharp. WHITMAN. Edited by E. Ehys. SCOTT. Marmion, etc. SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, etc. Edited by William Sliarp. PRAED. Edited by Fred. Cooper. HOGG.ByliisDaughter,Mrs Garden. GOLDSMITH. Ed. by W. Tirebuck. MACKAY'S LOVE LETTERS. SPENSER. Edited by Hon. B.XoeL CHILDREN OF THE POETS. Edited by Eric S. Robertson. JONSON. Edited by J. A. Symonds. BYRON C2 Vols.) Ed.byM.Bhnd. THE SONNETS OF EUROPE. Edited by S. Waddington. RAMSAY. Ed by J. L. Eoberteon. DOBELL. Edited by Mrs. Dobell. DAYS OF THE YEAR. With Introduction by Wm. Sharp. POPE. Edited by John Hogben, HEINE. Edited by Mrs. Kroeker. BEAUMONT & FLETCHER. Edited by J. S. Fletcher. BOWLES. LAMB, &c. Edited by William Tirebuck. EARLY ENGLISH POETRY. Edited by H. Macaulay Fitzgibbon. SEA MUSIC. Edited by Mrs Sharp. HERRICK, Edited by EmestRhys. BALLADES AND RONDEAUS Edited by J. Gleeson White. IRISH MINSTRELSY. Edited by H. Halliday Sparhng. MILTON'S PARADISE LOST. Edited by J. Bradshaw, M. A., Ij:,.D. JACOBITE BALLADS. Edited by G. S. Macquoid. AUSTRALIAN BALLADS. Edited by D. B. W. Sladen, B.A. MOORE. Edited by John Dorrian. BORDER BALLADS. Edited by Graham B. Tomson. SONG-TIDE. By P. B. Marston. ODES OF HORACE. Translations by Sir S. de Vere, Bt. OSSIAN. Edited by G. E. Todd. ELFIN MUSIC. Ed. by A. Waite. SOUTHEY. Ed. byS. R. Thompson. CHAUCER. Edited by F.N.Paton. POEMS OF WILD LIFE. Edited by Chas. G. D. Roberts, M.A. PARADISE REGAINED. Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D CRABBE. Edited by E.Lamplough. DORA GREENWELL. Edited by William Dorllng. FAUST. Edited by B. Craigmyle. AMERICAN SONNETS. Edited by WDliam Sharp. LANDOR'S POEMS. Selected and Edited by E. Badford. GREEK ANTHOLOGY. Edited by Graham R. Tomson. HUNT AND HOOD. Edited by J. Harwood Panting. London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. THE NOVOCASTRIAN SERIES. Square Svo. Price One Shilling Each, The Devil's Whisper, By the Author of "Police Sergeant C 21." Mysteries and Adventures. By A. Conan Doyle, Author of "Mioah Clarke." The Kara Yerta Tragedy. By J. E. Harrison. Cashel Byron's Profession. By G. Bernard Shaw. Police Sergeant C. 21 : The Story of a Crime. By Eeginald Barnett. Jack Dudley's Wife. By E. M. Davy, Author of "A Prince of Como," etc. Oak-bough and Wattle-Blossom. Stories and Sketches by Australians in England. Edited by A. P. Martin. Vane's Invention : An Electrical Romance. By Walter MUbank. The Policeman's Lantern. Strange Stories of London Life. By James Greenwood, "The Amateur Casual." A Witness from the Dead. (A Special Reporter's Story. ) By Florence Layard. The Ugly Story of Miss Wetherby. By Eichard Pryoe, Author of "An Evil Spirit," etc. London : Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Bow.