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OU are furprifed, Sir, that I do not join my voice to your's in applauding the progrefs which, as you fay, German literature is every day making. I love our common country as much as you do, and therefore I fhall not praife her till fhe has merited my praife. That would be like proclaiming a man a conqueror before he has run half his courfe. I wait til he has gained the prize, and then my applaufe will be as fincere as it is deferved.

You know that in the Republic of letters, opinions are free. You fee objects in one point of view, I in ano ther: allow me to explain myfelf, and to lay before you my way of thinking on this fubject, and my ideas of ancient and modern literature with refpect to languages, fcience and tafte.

I begin with Greece, which was the cradle of the fine arts. That nation fpoke the most harmonious language that has ever exifted. Her first Theo logians, and her firft hiftorians, were poets; thefe were the men who gave the happy polifh to their language; who invented a number of picturefque expreffions, and who taught their fucceffors to fpeak with grace, with politeness, and propriety.

From Athens I pafs to Rome, and there I find a Republic ftruggling long with its neighbours, and fighting for glory and for empire. Every thing in that government was active and warlike; nor was it till after the def. ❤truction of its rival Carthage, that it acquired a tafte for the fcienes. Scipio Africanus, the friend of Lelius and of Polybius, was the firft Roman who protected letters. Afterwards came the Gracchi, and then Anthony and Craffus, two celebrated orators. But the Latin language and Roman eloquence did not arrive at perfec

tion till the times of Cicero and of Hortenfius, and of thofe illuftrious writers who dignified the Auguftan age.

This fhort review points out to me the progrefs of letters. I fee that an author cannot write well if the language he writes in is rude and unformed and that, in every country, people begin with the neceffary before they think of the agreeable. After the formation of the Roman Republic, it fought to acquire territory, which it cultivated; and when, after the Punic wars, it had taken a more ftable form, a tafte for the arts was introduced, eloquence and the Latin language were perfected. But I cannot help obferving, that from the time of Scipio Africanus to the confulship of Cicero, there is an interval of one hundred and fixty years.

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From this I conclude that proficiency in any thing is a work of time, and that the feed which we plant in the earth must take root, muft fhoot up, extend its branches, and acquire ftrength before it can produce flowers and fruit. Let me examine Germany by thefe rules, that I may appretiate without partiality our prefent fituation I diveft my mind of every prejudice, that truth alove may be my former. Here I find a femi-barbarous language, divided into as many different dialects as Germany contains Provinces. Each circle is perfuaded that its own patois is the beft. We have no work fortified with the national fanation which contains fuch a choice of words and phrases as conftitutes the purity of language. What is written in Suabia is unintelligible at Hamburg, and the style of Auftria appears obfcure in Saxony. It is therefore phyfically impoffible for an author of genius to manage fo rude a language L12

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with any degree of fuperior dexterity. If we require a Phidias to execure a Gnidian Venus; if we give him a block of the pureft marble, and furnish him with the beft implements of his art, there is no doubt but he will fucceed: but without tools there can be no artift, Perhaps it may be objected to me that the Grecian Republics had as many different idioms as we have; and that, even in our own day, the Provinces of Italy are diftinguished by a ftyle and pronunciation peculiar to each. These truths I do not deny ; but let them not prevent me from tracing the progrefs of things in ancient Greece, as well as in modern Italy, The ces lebrated poets, orators, and liftorians of these countries, feuled their language by their writings, The puttic, by tacit confent, adopted the ftyle, the phrafes, and the metaphors which thefe fuperior artifs had employed in their works thefe phrafes became common, and gare richness, and elegance, and dignity to their respective languages.

Let us now throw our eyes upon our own country: I hear the people talking a jargon deftitute of harmony, which every one varies according to his own caprice; I hear terms em ployed without feleétion; the moft proper and must exprelive words neg lected, and the fente of things con founded by a multiplicity of epithets. I endeavour to discover cur Homers and Virgils, our Anacreons, our Ho races, our Demoftenefes, our Ciceros, our Thucydideles, our Liyys; but my labour is loft, for I can find none fuch Let us be candid, then, and honeftly confefs, that hitherto the Belles Lettres have not profpered in our foil. Germany has had philofophers who fuftain a comparison with the ancients, and who even furafs them in more than one department of philofophical difcuffion. As tothe Belles Lettres, we must acknowledge our poverty. All that I can grant to you, without making myself a vile Batterer

of my compatriots, is to allow that we, have had, in the infignificant walk of fable, a Gellert who has obtained a place befide Phædrus and fop: the poems of Canitz are tolerable, not on account of the diction, but because he imitates Horace, though faintly. I will not omit the Idylls of Gefner, which have found many admirers however you will allow me to prefer to them the works of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius. If I turn my eyes to the hiftorians, I find only the history of Germany by Profeffor Mafco, which may be cited as being least defective. Shall I give you my opinion freely on the merit of our ora ters? I can then only produce the celebrated Quant of Konigsberg, who poffelfed the rare and fingular talent of rendering his native tongue harn:onious; and I must add to our fhame, that his merit has neither been acknowledged nor famed. How can we expect that men fhould exert themfelves to attain eminence in any par ticular walk, if reputation is not their reward I shall add to thefe gentle men an anonymous author, whofe poems in black verfe I once faw: their cadence and harmony depended on a happy alternation of Dayles and Spondees; they were full of goed fenfe, and my car was, agreeally flattered with a certain fonorous effect which I did not think our language fotceptible of. I venture to retune that this is perhaps the kind of verfi fication moft adapted to our idiom, and far preferable to rhyme; it is probable, that if attempts were made to improve it they would fucceed.

1 do not talk to you of the German theane. Melpomene has now been wooed but by ungainly fuiters, fome mounted on ftilts, others floundering in the mud, and all of them, being ignorant of her laws, and incap able of touching the paffions, cr of interefting the heart, have been difcarded from her altars. The lovers of Thalia have been more fortunate;

they