former contains the germ of those principles of toleration which flowered into "Nathan the Wise;" its story turning on a good action performed by a Jew, and several bad ones perpetrated by Christians of stringent orthodoxy. The latter is a more elaborate work, ingenious in outline, and marked in distinction of character. Adrast the sceptic, and Theophan the cleric, are well contrasted, notwithstanding the exaggerated air of Adrast's perverse and inexorable distrust; the two sisters are gracefully sketched; and the two valets, John and Martin, who are burlesque copies of their masters respectively (the one a flippant scoffer, the other a stolid believe-all), coarse as they are, minister a fair quota of mirth to the action and dialogue. In 1750, appeared "The Treasure," a comedy adapted from Plautus, which is considered by William Taylor to evince a higher inspiration than any of Lessing's original "Lustspielen." Lessing himself thought and spoke with great indifference of these, his early plays;[1] and, indeed, his estimate of his dramatic and poetic powers was low as detractor's heart could wish[2]—lower than the more moderate of his critics are willing to ratify. These dramas show considerable powers of invention and observation; the characters are varied and vivacious; the dialogue pointed and fluent. His countrymen eulogise his "glückliche Erfindung and Verwickelung," his "scharfe Beobachtung und feine Psychologie," and especially, in his dialogues, a certain '"kräftvolle Kurze, eine treffende Schärfe der Sprache." But the same panegyrists allow that his dramatis personæ are deficient in individuality, and walk the boards like "phantasm captains," or more abstract types.
In other literary departments bh was, at this period, equally diligent; engaging together with his sceptical friend, Mylius, in a quarterly Dramatic Review—publishing a variety of Tenses, original and translated, songs in the style of Anacreon Moore—epigrams (Sinngedichte) in profusion, odes of sober respectability, and fragments of poetry, on different themes, religion included. His Lieder are wanting, as his Leipzig editor observes,[3] in fire, depth, and fancy—a sad want, my masters. The odes are often dreary, sometimes tumid and plethoric. The epigrams, too, if sometimes smart, are at other times decidedly dull, and very often vulgar. An author who advised Christian Gellert to burn his Calvin, and to read profligate persiflage instead, as a cure for hypochondria, was not the man to be over delicate in vers de société, or over prudish in epigrams, notwithstanding, his adoption of the motto from Martial, Ego illis non permisi tam lascivè loqui quàm solent. His prose disquisitions on the Epigram, like all his critical writings, are generally admired for delicacy of taste, reasonable judgment, sagacious conjecture, and erudite illustration; for, as a critic, he stands high with those who hold that he is neither imaginative, inventive, nor enthusiastic enough for original works of art. As Mr. George Borrow's German "coach," celebrated in "Lavengro," remarks, "He criticises so well, one is anxious he should create; but from his creations one is for recalling him to criticism."[4] Every attentive
- ↑ These, be says, in one of his letters, "sind in den Jahren hingeschrieben, in welchen man Lust und Leichtigkeit so gern für Genie halt."
- ↑ "Ich bin weder Shauspieler noch Dichter. Man erweist mir zwar manchmal die Ehre, mich für den letztern zu erkennen, aber nur, weil man mich verkennt."
- ↑ " … Wenn schon correct, fliessend, munter, fehlt Feuer, Tiefe, und Phantasie.'*
- ↑ Taylor's "Historic Survey of German Poetry," § 17.
