Extract of a Letter from the late King of Prufia to M. de Hertzberg on the Literature of Germany; its defects, and the means of remedying them: dated in 1780.

268

with any degree of fuperior dexterity. If we require a Phidias to execute a Gnidian Venus; if we give him a block of the pureft marble, and furnish him with the best 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. Thefe 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 celebrated poets, orators, and hiftorians of thefe countries, fettled their language by their writings. The public, by tacit confent, adopted the ftyle, the phrafes, and the metaphors which thefe fuperior artifts had employed in their works: thefe phrafes became common, and gave richneis, and elegance, and dignity to their refpective 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 employed without felection; the moft proper and most expreilige words neg. lected, and the fenie of things confounded by a multiplicity of epithets, I endeavour to difcover our Homers and Virgils, our Anacreons, our Horaces, our Demoftenefes, our Ciceros, our Thucydideles, our Livys; but my labour is loft, for I can find none fuch. Let us be candid, then, and honcftly confefs, that hitherto the Belles Lettres have not profpered in our foil, Germany has had philofophers who fuftain a comparifon with the ancients, and who even furpafs them in more than one department of philofophical difcution. As tothe Bells Lettres, we must acknowledge our poverty. All that I can grant to you, without making myself a vile flatterer

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 torn my. eyes to the hiftorians, I find only the hiftory of Germany by Profeffor Mafco, which may be cited as being leaft defective. Shall I give you my opinion freely on the merit of our ora tors? I can then only produce the celebrated Quant of Konigsberg, who poffeffed the rare and fingular talent of rendering his native tongue harmo nious; and I must add to our flame, that his merit has neither been acknowledged nor famed. we expect that men fhould exert themfelves to attain eminence in any par reward? I shall add to thefe gentle ticular walk, if reputation is not their men an anonymous author, whole poems in black verfe I once faw; their cadence and harmony depended and Spondees; they were full of good on a happy alternation of Dactyles fenfe, and my ear was agreeally flattered with a certain fonorous ef which I did not think cur language. effect fufceptible of. I yeature to prefume that this is perhaps the kind of verfi

How can

cation most adapted to our idiom, and far preferable to rhyme; it is pro bable, that if attempts were made to improve it they would fucceed.

man theatre. Melpomene has not I do not talk to you of the Ger been wooed but by ungainly fuitors fome mounted on filts, others floun deting in the mud, and all of them being ignorant of her laws, and incap able of touching the pallions, or of interefting the heart, have been difcard ed' from her altars. The lovers of Thalia have been more fortunate

they

they have furnished us with at leaft one truly original comedy, I mean the Poftzug: that piece is excellently conftructed, and they are our own manners and our own foibles which it expofes. Had Moliere himself treated the fame fubject, he could not have fucceeded better. I am forry I cannot give you a more ample detail of our good productions: but I do not blame the nation on this account; it wants neither fenfe nor genius; but it has been kept back by caufes which have prevented it from diftinguishing irfelf as early as its neighbours. Let us go back, if you pleafe, to the re vival of letters, and compare the fituation of Italy, of France, and of Germany, at the period of that remarkable revolution in the human mind.

You know that as to letters, Italy became once more their home, and that the houfe of Efte, the Medici, and Pope Leo X. by the protection they afforded them, contributed to their advancement. While Italy was growing refined, Germany was agitared by the disputes of Theclogians, who were divided into two factions, each of which fignalized itself by its hatred for the other, its enthufiafm and fanaticifm. At this time Francis I. undertook to Thare with Italy in the glory of contributing to the reftoration of letters: but he wafted himself in vain attempts to tranfplant them into his native country; his in bours were fruitless. The monarchy, exhaufted by the payment of the king's ranfom to Spain, was in a ftate of languor. The wars of the league which fucceeded the death of Francis, prevented the people from applying themfelves to the fine arts. It was net til towards the end of the reign of Louis XIII. when the wounds received in the civil wars had been cured under the adminiftration of Cardinal Richelieu, and when the times favoured the attempt, that the project of Francis 1. was refumed. The court encouraged learned and

ingenious men; the fpirit of emulation arofe; and foon afterwards, under Louis XIV. Paris yielded not to Flo'rence nor to Rome. But what was then doing in Germany? At the very moment when Richelieu was gaining immortal honour by improv-^ ing and refining his country, the war of thirty years was at its height. Germany was ravaged and pillaged by twenty different armies, which, fometimes advancing, and fometimes retreating, carried ruin and defolation in their train. The country was laid wafte, the fields were uncultivated, the towns almoft defert. Germany had but little time to breathe after the peace of Weftphalia: fometimes the oppoíed the forces of the Ottoman empire, at that time very formidable : fometimes the was engaged in refilting the armies of France, who, in order to extend the empire of that na-' tion, were attempting encroachments on the frontiers of Germany. Can we fuppofe, that while the Turks were befieging Vienna, while Mielac was ravaging the Palatinate, while lames confemed towns and cities, when the afylum of death itself was violated by. the unrestrained licence of the foldi cry, who dragged from their tombs the bodies of the cled ors for the fake of their trifling spoils ;-can we furpose, that while unhappy mothers were

ving therelves from the ruins of their country, and carrying their infants, worn away with famine in their arms;can we fuppele, I fay, that at fuch a time men were making foanets at Viennt, or epigrams at Manheim? The mufes delight in tranquil abodes; they fly from places disturbed by dif order and alarms. It was not therefore till after the war of the fucceffion that we began to repair what fo many fucceffive calamities had made us lofe. Thus it is neither to the genius nor to the fenfe of the nation that we must attribute the little progrefs we have' made; but we must refer it wholly to a train of difaftrous circunftances, to

a fuc.

a fucceffion of wars that have ruined us and drained us both of money and

men.

[After drawing a very flattering picture of the prefent political state of the German empire, the author goes on thus:]

you

instructing youth; gives his own opinion of the proper manner, and fome directions for avoiding falfe tafte, with examples of indiftinct metaphors and faulty comparifons, two of the mott curious of which examples we fhall here record. The first of them Frederick perfifts in attributing to Profeffor Heineccius; though M. de Hertzberg maintains they are by a Profeffor Eberti at Francfort, whofe head had been turned by the reading of Spanish romances.] I remember, fays the king, to have read in my youth. the following beautiful paffage in an epiille dedicatory by Prof for Hein.c cus to a certain queen, "Ihro Majeftat, " glanzen wie ein karfunkel am fine, ger der jetzigen zeit." "Your

Let us examine then what remains to be done, in order to extirpate from our fields those briars of ancient barbarifm that ftill infeft us, and to accelerate thofe defirable attainments to which our countrymen afpire. I have faid it already, we must begin with polifhing our language, which needs the file and the plane; it must be treated by able hands. Perfpicuity is the first rule which thofe who either, fpeak or write ought to prefcribe to themfelves, fince their aim is to paint, Majesty sparkles like a carbuncle their thoughts, or to exprefs their ideas by words. Of what ufe are the jufteft, the strongest, or the moil brilliant thoughts, if they are not made, intelligible? Many of our authors pride themfelves in a diffufe flyle; they heap parenthefis upon parenthefis, and often do not find, till you have got to the bottom of the whole page, the verb on which the meaning of the fentence depends: nothing injures perfpicuity more than this method of construction: the ftyle of fuch authors is prolix without being abun dant, and one may as foon, unriddle the enigma of the Sphynx as comprehend their thoughts. There is another caufe which retards the progrefs of letters as much as the faults I attribute to our language and to the ftyle of our authors: I mean the waut of proper models to study from. Our nation has been accufed of pedantry, because we have had a multitude of Commentators, dull and laborious on trifles. To do away this reproach, we begin to neglect the ftudy of the learn d languages, and, that we may not be thought pedants, we are becoming fuperficial.

[The author proceeds to examine the defects of the German method of

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"on the finger of the prefent time." When Profeffors fpeak in this ftyle, what have we to expect from the pu-, pils? A certain poet, who dedicated his works to I don't know what pat-, ron, expreffes him:felf in the following manner. "Schiefs, groffer Gonner, "fchiefs deine ftrahlen, arm dick, auf, deinen knecht hernieaer." Shed, great Patron, fhed the beams of thy bounty, as thick as my arm, upon thy flave." What fay you to beams as thick as one's arm Ought not one to have faid to this poet, My, good friend, learn to think before you, pretend to write? [Having traced the progrefs of refinement in the languages of Italy, France, and England, the author concludes, that in like manner his country muft owe the po lifhing of the German language to great poets and orators, not to philofophers. He then inveftigates the beft means of extending the sphere of fcience, and of rendering knowledge ufeful: in the courfe of which invefti gation he takes occafion to digrefs in the following manner.]

In order to judge of the taste that. has hitherto prevailed in Germany, we have only to repair to the theatres.There we fhall fee reprefented the

abominable

Goetz de Berlichingen is the chef-d'œuvre of the celebrated Goethe. This author is called the Shakespeare of Germany, not because in his hiftorical pieces he fets at nought the dramatic unities, but because, like Shakespeare, he is remarkable for his intimate ac quaintance with the human pallions, and for his forcible and natural representations of them.