either the Messiah or the odes. He Hattered himself that some time or other his 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 German, and had sacrificed it to the Greek, not remembering sufficiently that each language has its particular spirit and 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 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 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. Burgher be said was a true poet, and would live; that Schiller, on the contrary, 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 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 lan

guage: that in this respect Goethe could not be compared to him, or indeed could any 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 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 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 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 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 writers in the light of the ancient mythology, as a sort of common property,

fron

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 Essay in the Church-yard. 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 rhyme poetry with more skill than any of our writers I said, I preferred Dryden, because his couplets had greater variety in their movement. He thought my reason a good one; but asked whether the rhyme 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 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 lines as the French. He did not seem to know that we made no distinction between masculine and feminine (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 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.

1817.

"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 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 Kauteans; but was rarely in the practice of arguing with them.

His custom was to produce the 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

us.

In this way I generally bring the dispute to an immediate conclusion. He spoke of Wolfe as the first Metaphysician they had in Germany. Wolfe 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; but that each man had separately pursued his inquiries 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 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 Englanddid not doubt but that we had too much wisdom to be duped by a

writer 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.

"I must remind you, my friend, first, that these notes, &c. 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 un

reasonable, but calumnious. Secondly, I attribute little other interest to 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 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!!!"

A

D'Israeli confines himself to this department of Literature, he must always be an amusing and instructive author; but in his attempts at original works, and even when he interweaves his own reflections or reasoning, he must not expect to satisfy a reader of sound judgment and pure taste for his language is often finical, and sometimes extremely loose and incorrect; his thoughts are either very obvious and superficial, or do not follow in a train; and his reasoning is inconsequent.

he ascended the throne, the whole face of our history might have been changed; the days of Agincourt and Cressy had been revived, and Henry IX. had rivalled Henry V. It is remarkable that Prince Henry

resembled

"A youth who perished in his eighteenth year has furnished the subject of a volume, which even the deficient animation of its writer has not deprived of attraction. If the juvenile age of Prince Henry has proved such a theme for our admiration, we may be curious to learn what this extraordinary youth was, even at an earlier period. Authentic anecdotes of children are rare; a child has seldom a biographer by his side. We have indeed been recently treated with "Anecdotes of Children," in the "Practical Education" of the literary family of the Edgeworths; but we may presume, that as Mr. Edgeworth delights in pieces of curious machinery in his house, these automatic infants, poets, and metaphysicians, of whom afterwards we have heard no more, seem to have resembled so many looking-glasses, or echoes in a whispering-gallery, merely reflecting those objects which they had caught around them; and like other automata, moving indeed, but from no native impulse.

"Prince Henry at a very early age, not exceeding five years, evinced a thoughtfulness of character, singular in a child: something in the formation of this early character may be attributed to the Countess of Mar. This lady had been the

༈ མེན་ མ་འ༧ ཟླ་ ཟླ་*| nurse of James I. and to her care the King intrusted the Prince. She is described in a manuscript of the times, as "an ancient, virtuous, and severe lady, who was the Prince's governess from his cradle." At the age of five years the Prince was consigned to his tutor, Mr. (afterwards Sir) AdamNewton, a man of learning and capacity, whom the prince at length chose for his secretary. The severity of the old countess, and the strict discipline of his tutor, were not received without affection and reverence; although not at times without a shrewd excuse, or a turn of pleasantry, which latter faculty the princely boy seems to have possessed in a very high degree.

"The prince early attracted the attention, and excited the hopes of those who were about his person. A manuscript narrative has been preserved, which was written by one who tells us, that he was "an attendant upon the prince's person, since he was under the age of three years, having alway diligently observed his disposition, behaviour, and speeches." It was at the earnest desire of Lord and Lady Lumley, that the writer of these anecdotes drew up this relation. The manuscript is without date, but as Lord Lumley died in April 1609, and leaving no heir, his library was then purchased for the prince, Henry could not have reached his fifteenth year; this manuscript was evidently composed earlier: so that the latest anecdotes could not have occurred beyond his thirteenth or fourteenth year-a time of life, when few children can furnish a curious miscellany about themselves.

"The writer set down every little circumstance he considered worth noticing, as it occurred. I

L2

shall

shall attempt a sort of arrangement of the most interesting, to shew, by an unity of the facts, the characteristic touches of the mind and dispositions of the princely boy. "Prince Henry in his childhood rarely wept, and endured pain without a groan. When a boy wrestled with him in earnest, and threw him, he was not "seen to whine or weep at the hurt." His sense of justice was early; for when his playmate, the little Earl of Mar, ill-treated one of his pages, Henry reproved his puerile friend: "I love you because you are my lord's son and my cousin; but, if you be not better conditioned, I will love such an one better," naming the child that had complained of him.

"The first time he went to the town of Stirling to meet the king, observing without the gate of the town a stack of corn, it fancifully struck him with the shape of the top he used to play with: and the child exclaimed, "That's a good top." Why do you not then play with it?" he was answered; "Set you it up for me, and I will play with it." This is just the fancy we might expect in a lively child, with a shrewdness in the retort, above its

years.

liness, according to the martinets of those days; but he soon rejected such petty and artificial fashions; yet to shew that his dislike arose from no want of skill in trifling accomplishment, he would sometimes resume it only to laugh at it, and instantly return to his own natural demeanour. On one of these occasions one of these martinets observing that they could never bc good soldiers unless they always kept true order and measure in marching, "What then must they do," cried Henry, "when they wade through a swift-running water?" In all things freedom of action from his own native impulse, he preferred to the settled rules of his teachers; and when his physician told him that he rode too fast, he replied, "Must I ride by rules of physic" When he was eating a cold capon in cold weather, the physician told him that that was not meat for the weather. "You may see, doctor," said Henry, "that my cook is no astronomer." And when the same physician observing him eat cold and hot meat together, protested against it, "I cannot mind that now," said the royal boy facetiously, "though they should have run at tilt together in my belly."

"His national affections were strong: When one reported to Henry that the King of France had said that his bastard, as well as the bastard of Normandy, might conquer England,-the princely boy exclaimed, "I'll to cuffs with him, if he go about any such means."There was a dish of jelly before the prince in the form of a crown, with three lilies; and a kind of buffoon whom the prince used to banter, said to the prince that that dish was worth a crown." Aye!" exclaimed the future English hero, "I would

had