speak of his poem to any one till it was finished: but some of his friends who had seen what he had finished, tormented him till he had consented to publish a few books in a journal. He was then, I believe, very young, about twentyfive. The rest was printed at different periods, four books 5 at a time. The reception given to the first specimens was highly flattering. He was nearly thirty years in finishing the whole poem, but of these thirty years not more than two were employed in the composition. He only composed in favorable moments; besides he had other occupations. 10 He values himself upon the plan of his odes, and accuses the modern lyrical writers of gross deficiency in this respect. I laid the same accusation against Horace: he would not hear of it--but waived the discussion. He called Rousseau's Ode to Fortune a moral dissertation in stanzas. I spoke of 15 Dryden's St. Cecilia; but he did not seem familiar with our writers. He wished to know the distinctions between our dramatic and epic blank verse. He recommended me to read his Hermann before I read either The Messiah or the odes. He flattered himself that some time or other his 20 dramatic poems would be known in England. He had not heard of Cowper. He thought that Voss in his translation of the Iliad had done violence to the idiom of the Germans, and had sacrificed it to the Greeks, not remembering sufficiently that each language has its particular spirit and 25 genius. He said Lessing was the first of their dramatic writers. I complained of Nathan as tedious. He said there was not enough of action in it; but that Lessing was the most chaste of their writers. He spoke favourably of Goethe; but said that his 'Sorrows of Werter' was his best 30 work, better than any of his dramas: he preferred the first written to the rest of Goethe's dramas. Schiller's 'Robbers' he found so extravagant, that he could not read it. I spoke of the scene of the setting sun. He did not know it. He said Schiller could not live. He thought Don Carlos the 35

best of his dramas; but said that the plot was inextricable. -It was evident he knew little of Schiller's works indeed, he said, he could not read them. Bürger, he said, was a true poet, and would live; that Schiller, on the contrary, 5 must soon be forgotten; that he gave himself up to the imitation of Shakespeare, who often was extravagant, but that Schiller was ten thousand times more so. He spoke very slightingly of Kotzebue, as an immoral author in the first place, and next, as deficient in power. At Vienna, said 10 he, they are transported with him; but we do not reckon the people of Vienna either the wisest or the wittiest people of Germany. He said Wieland was a charming author, and a sovereign master of his own language: that in this respect Goethe could not be compared to him, nor indeed could any 15 body else. He said that his fault was to be fertile to exuberance. I told him the Oberon had just been translated into English. He asked me if I was not delighted with the poem. I answered, that I thought the story began to flag about the seventh or eighth book; and observed, that it 20 was unworthy of a man of genius to make the interest of a long poem turn entirely upon animal gratification. He seemed at first disposed to excuse this by saying, that there are different subjects for poetry, and that poets are not willing to be restricted in their choice. I answered, that 25 I thought the passion of love as well suited to the purposes of poetry as any other passion; but that it was a cheap way of pleasing to fix the attention of the reader through a long poem on the mere appetite. Well! but, said he, you see, that such poems please every body. I answered, that it 30 was the province of a great poet to raise people up to his own level, not to descend to theirs. He agreed, and confessed, that on no account whatsoever would he have written a work like the Oberon. He spoke in raptures of Wieland's style, and pointed out the passage where Retzia is 35 delivered of her child, as exquisitely beautiful. I said that

I did not perceive any very striking passages; but that I made allowance for the imperfections of a translation. Of the thefts of Wieland, he said, they were so exquisitely managed, that the greatest writers might be proud to steal as he did. He considered the books and fables of old romance 5 writers in the light of the ancient mythology, as a sort of common property, from which a man was free to take whatever he could make a good use of. An Englishman had presented him with the Odes of Collins, which he had read with pleasure. He knew little or nothing of Gray, except his 10 Elegy in the Churchyard. He complained of the fool in Lear. I observed that he seemed to give a terrible wildness to the distress; but still he complained. He asked whether it was not allowed, that Pope had written rhymed poetry with more skill than any of our writers-I said I preferred 13 Dryden, because his couplets had greater variety in their movement. He thought my reason a good one; but asked whether the rhymes of Pope were not more exact. This question I understood as applying to the final terminations, and observed to him that I believed it was the case; but 20 that I thought it was easy to excuse some inaccuracy in the final sounds, if the general sweep of the verse was superior. I told him that we were not so exact with regard to the final endings of the lines as the French. He did not seem to know that we made no distinction between masculine and feminine 25 (i.e. single or double) rhymes: at least he put inquiries to me on this subject. He seemed to think that no language could ever be so far formed as that it might not be enriched by idioms borrowed from another tongue. I said this was a very dangerous practice; and added, that I thought 30 Milton had often injured both his prose and verse by taking this liberty too frequently. I recommended to him the prose works of Dryden as models of pure and native English. I was treading upon tender ground, as I have reason to suppose that he has himself liberally indulged in the practice. 35

us.

The same day I dined at Mr. Klopstock's, where I had the pleasure of a third interview with the poet. We talked principally about indifferent things. I asked him what he thought of Kant. He said that his reputation was much 5 on the decline in Germany. That for his own part he was not surprised to find it so, as the works of Kant were to him utterly incomprehensible-that he had often been pestered by the Kanteans, but was rarely in the practice of arguing with them. His custom was to produce the 10 book, open it and point to a passage, and beg they would explain it. This they ordinarily attempted to do by substituting their own ideas. I do not want, I say, an explanation of your own ideas, but of the passage which is before In this way I generally bring the dispute to an imme15 diate conclusion. He spoke of Wolf as the first Metaphysician they had in Germany. Wolf had followers; but they could hardly be called a sect, and luckily till the appearance of Kant, about fifteen years ago, Germany had not been pestered by any sect of philosophers whatsoever; 20 but that each man had separately pursued his enquiries uncontrolled by the dogmas of a Master. Kant had appeared ambitious to be the founder of a sect; that he had succeeded but that the Germans were now coming to their senses again. That Nicolai and Engel had in different ways 25 contributed to disenchant the nation; but above all the incomprehensibility of the philosopher and his philosophy. He seemed pleased to hear, that as yet Kant's doctrines had not met with many admirers in England-did not doubt but that we had too much wisdom to be duped by a writer 30 who set at defiance the common sense and common understandings of men. We talked of tragedy. He seemed to rate highly the power of exciting tears-I said that nothing was more easy than to deluge an audience, that it was done every day by the meanest writers."

35

I must remind you, my friend, first, that these notes

are not intended as specimens of Klopstock's intellectual power, or even "colloquial prowess," to judge of which by an accidental conversation, and this with strangers, and those too foreigners, would be not only unreasonable, but calumnious. Secondly, I attribute little other interest to 5 the remarks than what is derived from the celebrity of the person who made them. Lastly, if you ask me, whether I have read the Messiah, and what I think of it? I answer -as yet the first four books only: and as to my opinion (the reasons of which hereafter) you may guess it from what 10 I could not help muttering to myself, when the good pastor this morning told me, that Klopstock was the German Milton- a very German Milton indeed!!!", -Heaven preserve you, and S. T. COLERIDGE.

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CHAPTER XXIII

"Quid quod præfatione præmunierim libellum, quâ conor omnem offendiculi ansam præcidere? Neque quicquam addubito, quin ea candidis omnibus faciat satis. Quid autem facias istis, qui vel ob ingenii pertinaciam sibi satisfieri nolint, vel stupidiores sint, quam ut satisfactionem intelligant ? Nam quemadmodum Simonides dixit, Thessalos hebetiores esse, quam ut possint a se decipi, ita quosdam videas stupidiores, quam ut placari queant. Adhæc, non mirum est, invenire quod calumnietur, qui nihil aliud quærit, nisi quod calumnietur."

Erasmus ad Dorpium Theologum.

IN the rifacciamento of THE FRIEND, I have inserted extracts 15 from the Conciones ad Populum, printed, though scarcely published, in the year 1795, in the very heat and height of my anti-ministerial enthusiasm: these in proof that my principles of politics have sustained no change.-In the present chapter, I have annexed to my Letters from Ger- 20 many, with particular reference to that, which contains a disquisition on the modern drama, a critique on the Tragedy