PART II.-THE SECOND PERIOD OF BLOOM.

CHAPTER X.

LESSING.

We have considered the dreariness of the Thirty Years' War, and the long period of exhaustion which followed, during which, in literature, so few names appear deserving of mention. We have now reached the eighteenth century. In one state of Germany, at least, a strong man has appeared as ruler whose work has done something toward lifting the Germans from their depression. The great elector, at the end of the seventeenth century, has laid the foundations of the power of Prussia, giving place, at his death, to the first king, who in turn gives way to the memorable Frederick William I. The reader of Carlyle's Frederick will retain forever the vivid portrait of the coarse, rugged, eccentricsometimes almost insane-old monarch, who yet possessed a certain heroism, and set in some ways, for a corrupt time, an example of honesty. When the sceptre falls from his hand it is grasped by the great Frederick, a soul no less marked for command than the mightiest leaders. With him Prussia becomes great; the rest of Germany, however, continues to languish, a figure with noble traits, like that of Maria Theresa, and Karl August of Weimar, now and then appearing, but the rulers for the

most part the most despicable of their class, devoid of patriotism, rotten with vices, unscrupulous in tyranny, to the extent of selling their subjects for foreign wars like sheep for the shambles. France, towering to the west, subordinates everything. When the glory of Louis XIV. is extinguished, the prestige of the foreigner is undiminished; for the most part, in the hundred petty courts of Germany, we behold a world of apes, whose talk, whose dress, whose manners, whose revolting vices, are patterned after those of the riotous society which was ground to pieces at length for its sins between the jaws of a monster, the French revolution.1

Before the middle of the eighteenth century a critic and poet appears in Leipsic - Gottschedwho, although himself an imitator, and seeing no possibilities for German literature except by following in the track of France, was in several ways helpful; perhaps he was most so as an obstacle to be striven against by the champions who needed some such gymnastic to help them in the acquisition of strength, champions destined to bring in a better time. In opposition to Gottsched-who was of sufficient importance to become the centre of a considerable school-stood certain Swiss writers living at Zürich, Bodmer and Breitinger; also men who came to have many adherents, who liked English models, as Gottsched liked the French, and who also brushed the dust off of some of the long-forgotten treasures, holding them up to be admired and

1 Vehse: Geschichte der europäischen Höfe.

imitated; in particular they brought to light the long-lost Nibelungen Lied. We must not forget the real deserts of these pioneers, -discredited and superseded though they were as time went on. Through Gottsched the fantastic unnaturalness of the Second Silesian School was overcome. The effort of these affected writers after pompous and learned periods had produced a style than which nothing could be worse; in opposition to which the Leipsig critic, though with a theory in some ways quite erroneous, strove for purity, and a dignity that should not be stilted. The great writers of the age of Louis XIV. had but just passed away, and it was natural that Gottsched should have seen in them the best models for the writers of his own race. He found little in English literature worthy of notice, and felt, with Voltaire, that even Shakespeare was a wild barbarian, whose genius could not atone for his rudeness. The Swiss, on the other hand, Bodmer and Breitinger, liked the English. They established a periodical after the plan of the "Spectator;" they found fault with French writers as too formal and artificial, and demanded nature. All this Gottsched fought valiantly; he was really a stalwart character, having in him the stuff of a soldier; indeed, he had to flee from home in his youth to avoid the recruiting officers, who saw in him material for a grenadier. He declared that English poets would never receive recognition in Germany,much less be imitated,—sounding all the time the praises of the French. Before giving up Gottsched I must quote from the autobiography of Göthe an

amusing account of a visit paid by him in his youth to Gottsched, when the prestige of the literary magnate was as yet unbroken: 1

"I shall never forget our introduction at Gottsched's; it was characteristic of the man. He lived in a handsome first-floor at the Golden Bear.' The old book-seller had given him these apartments for life, in consideration of the benefits arising to his business from the works of his guest. We were announced. The servant told us his master would be with us immediately, and showed us into a spacious room. Perhaps we did not comprehend a sign he made us. We thought he was directing us into an adjoining chamber, on entering which we beheld a whimsical scene. Gottsched appeared at the same instant, at an opposite door. He was enormously corpulent. He wore a damask dressinggown lined with red taffeta. His monstrous bald head was bare, contrary to his intention, for his servant rushed in at the same instant, by a side door, with a long wig in his hand, the curls of which descended below the shoulders. He presented it to his master with a trembling hand. Gottsched, with the greatest apparent serenity, took the wig with his left hand, with which he dexterously fitted it to his head, while with his right hand he gave the poor fellow a most vigorous box on the ear, which sent him to the door in a pirouette, like a valet in a play, after which the old pedagogue, turning to us with an air of dignity, requested us to be seated, and

1 Dichtung und Wahrheit.

conversed with us very politely for a considerable time."

The bluff old autocrat played a part somewhat similar to that of his contemporary in England, Dr. Samuel Johnson, whom he seems to have resembled in his person and some of his traits. Unlike his English counterpart, however, the German potentate was dethroned and set aside, even in his lifetime, in a way that is pathetic. In the middle of the century, however, his prestige was unbroken, and there was no thought in literature or social life but of servilely following the French precedents. In 1750, Voltaire, writing from Potsdam, just after his arrival in Prussia, could say, "I find myself in France here. Our language alone is spoken. German is only for soldiers and horses; it is only necessary for the journey." A young man just in that year twenty-one years old was already beginning to break a path for something better.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born at Kamenz, in Saxony, descended on both sides from lines of Lutheran pastors, men who had fought in the stern battle of the faiths during the years of trial, the while wrestling in mind with many a theological subtlety, transmitting at last an extraordinary sharpness and stoutness to the boy Gotthold. His father was a man of decided intellectual power. His mother, unlike the mothers of most distinguished men, was a person not at all remarkable in mind or character. At twelve he was sent to a school endowed from the funds of a suppressed monastery,