in his gait, there is the highest degree of character. His countenance betrays unmistakably the sacred cultivation of the Graces. But all this is so finely diffused over his being, that it requires more than an ordinary glance to discover it at once in the simple, rather old-fashioned costume, and under an ordinary tie-wig. The free use of tobacco and snuff give his merely physical being the resemblance rather to a dried mignionette plant, than to a fresh one, to which some of his admirers have compared him. His smile is indescribably delightful; but notwithstanding, there is in it a considerable touch of naïve humour, and it is rather that of a young maiden's than a man's.

The portrait which Baggesen draws of the author of the "Messiah" is, it will be perceived, spite of himself, more accordant with the estimate of the present age than of his own; for, notwithstanding the services of Klopstock in breaking through many of the old forms and prejudices of the then poetic taste, his genius was greatly overrated by his contemporaries. In Hamburg, Baggesen saw Shakspeare's "King Lear" acted, and was thrown into raptures of astonishment.

Baggesen, like a true poet, found a charm where most other people found only a mere tiresome country-in the Lüneburg Heaths. He found also an Englishman there; and their conversations are amongst the most amusing portions of his "Labyrinthen." We must give just a specimen :

THE LUNEBURG HEATH, AND HEATH PHILOSOPHY.

As we had a road of ten German miles through nothing but heather between us and Celle, we set off at five

o'clock in the morning, and rolled out of the city, all in a carriage, for about a quarter of a mile, when suddenly it broke down. None of us suffered the least injury from this accident; the ladies escaped with a little fright. While we were busy in putting the wheels right again, there came by a foreign gentleman in a splendid English carriage, and ordered his coachman and servants to help us. In the meantime I went on. The totally new scenery here, so vast in its extent, incited me to a more close acquaintance. From my childhood it had been one of the chief wishes of my life to wander through a desert. Such a region, without hills, and without dales, without streams, or signs of habitation, is like a book yet unwritten; and he who is accustomed to put black upon white, is more delighted with such a book, than others can be with the most finely-bound quarto or octavo.

The farther I advanced into my desert, the more charming and entertaining it became to me. True enough, nothing met my outward eye but heather, and here and there a dwarfish fir-tree. All around me lay outstretched in an interminable black-grey, naked flat. But all the more passed before my inward eye-thousands of undisturbed fantasies. Now came a long-bearded hermit, a venerable Dervish, with water in the hollow of his hand; now a Prince of China, who had lost his way; then a flying Princess of Teflis; then a pilgrim, who for every three strides forward made one backward; then a wandering knight; after that, three ragged prophets; then forty terrible thieves; then a whole caravan, with all its camels: then all the children of Israel, six hundred thousand in number. I had scarcely time to nod a greeting to them altogether, signifying that I knew them, when suddenly the whole scene went up in universal dust or sand-smoke! A noise under me, and over me, and all

around me, so utterly distracted my attention, by drawing it at the same time upwards, and downwards, and to both sides, that I could have seen with my eyes shut just as well what I did see; but there combated two terrible armies in one direction, the caravan and the robbers in another, trolls and old warriors in a third, and the never sufficiently renowned Knight of La Mancha, with all the world's sheep, goats, and windmills in a fourth. My desert was at this moment so populous, that I had began to fear a dearth in the place, when the sound of a carriage just behind drowned all the other noises. I sprang aside; the smoke and all that swarmed in it was gone; and I saw nothing but the aforesaid gentleman, who drew up, and requested me politely to take a seat in his carriage.

I acknowledged his offer with my very best thanks; "But, pardon me, Sir," I added; "I wonder that a man of your active appearance" (he seemed to be about fifty) "should permit yourself to drive through such a country as this. If I possessed all the English equipages in the world, it has so many charms for me, that I should prefer to wander through it on foot, unless gout bound me to the seat of my carriage."

"Extraordinary!" said he, with a smile, and looked more closely at me; you are the first admirer of this heath that I have met with in my travels. I have myself passed it about twenty times, but without once discovering any charm in it."

The two travellers journey on together, and their conversations are particularly amusing. They come, at last,

to

THE DEVIL'S STONE-ROAD.

The Hanoverians thus style the road we were now travelling; and it deserves its name by the ill-humour it excites. We, on the contrary, found both road and humour right pleasant. We drew continually nearer to each other in our discussions. I began to find myself much more at ease in the carriage, and by degrees to reconcile myself to its amenities. Mr. Caillard was a man of experience, taste and knowledge. He related to me his history from beginning to end. He candidly stated to me his principles and his circumstances; and the result was, that I set him down for the happiest man on the earth. "I have all," said he, "that I could wish for; health, wealth, domestic peace-for I am unmarried; a tolerably easy conscience, books, and so much in my head as is necessary to amuse me with them. I know only one want -am denied only one comfort in this world; but that one is sufficient to embitter every other enjoyment, and place me in the class of unhappy mortals."

I tried my invention to find out what such a man, in such circumstances, could lack. "It cannot well be liberty?" I said; "for I cannot conceive what a wealthy merchant, in a free city, can want of freedom?"

No; heaven help me! I could not live a single day through without liberty."

"You are not in love with some cruel or unfortunate princess?"

"Ah! now I have hit it, unquestionably! Your soul burns with a thirst after truth-after satisfaction as it regards the theory of the great reasoning powers, which hitherto remain like so many philosophical riddles. You

seek after that which so many men, from Anaxagoras to Spinoza, have sought after, and not found--the philosopher's stone, which should become the foundation of the grand fabric of your ideas."

He assured me, that in this respect he was tolerably

contented.

"Then," said I, "perhaps, in spite of your health, you are plagued with an unlucky catarrh? Second only to Jupiter, and rich. Free, respected, beloved—a king of kings, and altogether healthy-only plagued a little with a cold."

As he denied this also, I gave up the quest after his one master-evil.

Oh, happiness! of all earth's chimeras, thou art the most chimerical! Rather would I seek dry figs at the bottom of the sea, or fresh fish on this heath-rather would I hunt after freedom, or truth, or the philosopher's stone, than be such a fool as to seek after thee, thou weather-cock of all weather-cocks, earth's universal Jacko-lantern! I believed that at length I had found one totally happy, and in all respects enviable man ; and now, truly! though I have not a ten-thousandth part of his riches, though I have not a thousandth part of his equipage; though I have not a tenth part of his health; though I have not, perhaps, a third part of his understanding; though, for the rest, I have not only all the wants which he has not, but the very one which he suffers under, I would not change conditions with him.

From this moment he inspired my heart with actual pity. But in what consisted his extraordinary misfortune? Hear it, and tremble!

What," said he, "avails me all besides? Coffee, which I love more than all earth's wives, and more, at least, in many moments, than all earth's daughters