Biographia Literaria
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 language: that in
this respect Goethe could not be compared to him, nor 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, 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 ELEGY written in a country
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
rhymed 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 the 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 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.”
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 Kanteans;
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 England--did 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 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 unreasonable, 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!!!”
Heaven preserve you, and S. T. COLERIDGE.
CHAPTER XXIII
Quid quod praefatione praemunierim libellum, qua conor omnem offendiculi
ansam praecidere? [79] Neque quicquam addubito, quin ea candidis omnibus
faciat satis. Quid autem facias istis, qui vel ob ingenii pertinaciam
sibi satisfieri nolint, vel stupidiores sint, quam ut satisfactionem
intelligant? Nam quemadmodum Simonides dixit, Thessalos hebetiores esse,
quam ut possint a se decipi, ita quosdam videas stupidiores, quam ut
placari queant. Adhaec, non mirum est invenire quod calumnietur,
qui nihil aliud quaerit, nisi quod calumnietur. ERASMUS ad Dorpium,
Theologum.
In the rifacimento of THE FRIEND, I have inserted extracts from the
CONCIONES AD POPULUM, printed, though scarcely published, in the year
1795, in the very heat and height of my anti-ministerial enthusiasm:
these in proof that my principles of politics have sustained no
change.--In the present chapter, I have annexed to my Letters
from Germany, with particular reference to that, which contains a
disquisition on the modern drama, a critique on the Tragedy of BERTRAM,
written within the last twelve months: in proof, that I have been as
falsely charged with any fickleness in my principles of taste.--The
letter was written to a friend: and the apparent abruptness with which
it begins, is owing to the omission of the introductory sentences.
You remember, my dear Sir, that Mr. Whitbread, shortly before his death,
proposed to the assembled subscribers of Drury Lane Theatre, that the
concern should be farmed to some responsible individual under certain
conditions and limitations: and that his proposal was rejected,
not without indignation, as subversive of the main object, for the
attainment of which the enlightened and patriotic assemblage of
philodramatists had been induced to risk their subscriptions. Now this
object was avowed to be no less than the redemption of the British stage
not only from horses, dogs, elephants, and the like zoological rarities,
but also from the more pernicious barbarisms and Kotzebuisms in morals
and taste. Drury Lane was to be restored to its former classical renown;
Shakespeare, Jonson, and Otway, with the expurgated muses of Vanbrugh,
Congreve, and Wycherley, were to be reinaugurated in their rightful
dominion over British audiences; and the Herculean process was to
commence, by exterminating the speaking monsters imported from the banks
of the Danube, compared with which their mute relations, the emigrants
from Exeter ’Change, and Polito (late Pidcock’s) show-carts, were tame
and inoffensive. Could an heroic project, at once so refined and so
arduous, be consistently entrusted to, could its success be rationally
expected from, a mercenary manager, at whose critical quarantine the
lucri bonus odor would conciliate a bill of health to the plague in
person? No! As the work proposed, such must be the work-masters. Rank,
fortune, liberal education, and (their natural accompaniments, or
consequences) critical discernment, delicate tact, disinterestedness,
unsuspected morals, notorious patriotism, and tried Maecenasship, these
were the recommendations that influenced the votes of the proprietary
subscribers of Drury Lane Theatre, these the motives that occasioned the
election of its Supreme Committee of Management. This circumstance alone
would have excited a strong interest in the public mind, respecting the
first production of the Tragic Muse which had been announced under such
auspices, and had passed the ordeal of such judgments: and the tragedy,
on which you have requested my judgment, was the work on which the great
expectations, justified by so many causes, were doomed at length to
settle.
But before I enter on the examination of BERTRAM, or THE CASTLE OF ST.
ALDOBRAND, I shall interpose a few words, on the phrase German Drama,
which I hold to be altogether a misnomer. At the time of Lessing, the
German stage, such as it was, appears to have been a flat and servile
copy of the French. It was Lessing who first introduced the name and the
works of Shakespeare to the admiration of the Germans; and I should not
perhaps go too far, if I add, that it was Lessing who first proved to
all thinking men, even to Shakespeare’s own countrymen, the true nature
of his apparent irregularities. These, he demonstrated, were deviations
only from the accidents of the Greek tragedy; and from such accidents as
hung a heavy weight on the wings of the Greek poets, and narrowed
their flight within the limits of what we may call the heroic opera. He
proved, that, in all the essentials of art, no less than in the truth of
nature, the Plays of Shakespeare were incomparably more coincident
with the principles of Aristotle, than the productions of Corneille
and Racine, notwithstanding the boasted regularity of the latter. Under
these convictions were Lessing’s own dramatic works composed. Their
deficiency is in depth and imagination: their excellence is in the
construction of the plot; the good sense of the sentiments; the sobriety
of the morals; and the high polish of the diction and dialogue. In
short, his dramas are the very antipodes of all those which it has been
the fashion of late years at once to abuse and enjoy, under the name of