VIII.

KLOPSTOCK, WIELAND AND HERDER.

I AM obliged, by my limits, to group together in one lecture, the three distinguished contemporaries of Lessing-Klopstock, Wieland and Herder-who also assisted, though by very different methods, in the literary regeneration of Germany. There was no immediate connection between his and their labors, except that all tended in the same direction; and the most I can attempt will be to give a brief outline of their lives, and the special influence which the mind of each exercised upon the period in which they lived. As all three survived the close of the century, they were more fortunate than Lessing, in beholding the transition accomplished—in seeing the age of formality and pedantry buried without funeral honors, and the age of free, vigorous and vital thought triumphantly inaugurated.

Although Klopstock, who was born in 1724, was five years older than Lessing, the two were students together at the University of Leipzig, in 1746, and Lessing's debut as a dramatic author was coeval with the publication of the first three cantos of Klopstock's "Messias." This is the only coincident circumstance in their lives; in all other

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respects there is the greatest unlikeness. Klopstock, a native of Quedlinburg, in Northern Germany, was the son of an official, in easy circumstances. His education, completed at Jena and Leipzig, was thorough; no discouragements met his early aspirations, and his very first literary venture gave him fame and popularity. As a boy, his ambition was to produce a great German epic, and he first selected the Emperor, Henry the Fowler, as his hero. The study of theology in Jena, and probably Milton's example, led him to change the plan, and adopt, instead, the character of Christ. His classic tastes suggested the form: a German counterpart of the "Iliad," he imagined, must also be written in hexameters. The first three cantos of the "Messias" were published in 1748, when he was twenty-four years old, and created the profoundest impression all over Germany. They were read with a reverence, a pious fervor, scarcely less than that claimed for the Sacred Writings. Gottsched and his school, it is true, attempted to depreciate the work; but it was not felt by the people to be a violent or dangerous innovation, and its popularity was not affected by the attack. On the other hand, Klopstock was welcomed by the Swiss school, and invited by Bodmer, its head, to visit Zurich. I must here explain that Zurich was then an important literary centre. The English influence was there predominant, as the French was at Leipzig, and the two schools were therefore antagonistic. In intellectual force and temper there was

not much difference between the two, but they achieved some good by partly neutralizing each other's power.

Klopstock went to Zurich in 1750, but did not remain there long. Baron Bernstorff, one of the King of Denmark's ministers, invited him to Copenhagen, offering four hundred thalers a year for his support, in order that he might be free to finish his "Messiah." The proposal was accepted, the salary became a pension for life, and for twenty years Klopstock divided his time between Copenhagen and Hamburg. He had no material cares; his popularity as a poet was so great, that it now seems almost disproportionate to his deserts, and the only shadow upon his fortune was the death of his wife, Meta Moller, whom he lost in 1758, four years after their marriage. In 1771 he left Denmark, and took up his permanent residence in Hamburg, where, about the year 1800, he was visited by Wordsworth and Coleridge. His death took place in 1803, at the age of seventy-nine.

The importance of his life, however, must not be measured by its uneventful character. With the exception of his one great sorrow, his years rolled away tranquilly and happily. He was a frank, honest and loving nature, attracting to himself the best friendship of men, and the enthusiastic admiration of women. The Danish pension, which he received at the beginning of his career, secured him against want, and, with all the breadth and humanity of his views, he was fortunate

enough to escape any serious persecution. Yet, although his life was so serene and successful, the influences which flowed from his works were none the less potent. He was also a reformer, although not militant, like Lessing. We do not see the flash of his sword, and mark the heads that fall at every swing of his arm; but if we look closely, we shall find that the strength of the enemy is slowly sapped, and his power of resistance paralyzed.

In examining Klopstock's place as an author, we must avoid the injustice of applying the standard of a modern and more intelligent taste to his works. The very fact that he attained a swift and widely-extended popularity, proves two things-that there was an amiable, sympathetic quality in his mind, which appealed to the sentiment of his readers, and that he did not rise so far above their intellectual plane that they were unable to follow him. He might, indeed, have diverged more widely from the taste of his time, and still retained his popularity; for he possessed one of the radical qualities of the German nature, which was almost wanting in Lessing—sentiment. He had the power of drawing easy tears, even from those who were unable to appreciate his genius. He was more or less a spoiled child, through his whole life. Portions of his history read very strangely to us now.

On leaving the Univer

sity, he fell in love with a cousin, whom he addressed as "Fanny" in a number of despairing Odes, because

his affection was not returned. He read these Odes in private circles, weeping as he read, and moving his hearers to floods of tears. "Fanny" Fanny" was soon overwhelmed with letters from all parts of Germany, even from Bodmer in Switzerland, either reproaching her for her cruelty, or imploring her to yield. I am glad to say that she had character enough to refuse, and to marry a man whom she loved. Klopstock, afterward, floating on the Lake of Zurich, with large companies of men and maidens, continued to repeat his melancholy verses, until he and all the others wept, finally kissed all around, and cried out: "This is Elysium!"

What is called the Sturm und Drang period of German literature (Carlyle translates the phrase by "Storm and Stress"), was partly a natural and inevitable phase of development; but in so far as it was brought about by the influence of living authors, Klopstock must be looked upon as one of the chief agencies. When we hear of the boy Goethe and his sister Cornelia declaiming passages from the "Messiah," with such energy that the frightened barber dropped his basin, and came near gashing the throat of Goethe the father, we may guess the power of the impression which Klopstock made. It is not sufficient, therefore, that we read the "Messiah" as if it had been written yesterday. We may smile at its over-laden passion and its diffusive sentiment, but when we come to it from the literature