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7' 11,:1111: OILISTAIUMLIER OF LESSING.* 1 61, THE character of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing is onetItit the 'prac- tical literary man may _fairly tike asa model. His life was one atingittred strliggle froni?first to last, bat hen6 ordered himself in the-contest"that he gained important vietOries not only for hiringelf; htit'for-the whole Of mankind. Working under eireums stances that would ordinarily depress a man into the worst !specis Wen of , the !literary . hack, he ,maintained a, :position' that -dim- mand,ed.. the respect of: allehia- nontemporarysemintrymen; and though the great : intelleotnali Oa% ! of Germany !intervened I be tween the death ie. liessing ..and , thes present time,: the: course Of yoetirs merely provesthoslitrability:of the great anan's reputation: His is a , figure that cannot imennelobscure. -As allsroads :led to-Home,liso, must the historianof ,nearlyevery :department of ins belleetnal labour in Germany look back to Leasing. --• Converted the, Germansiroin an idolatrous worship .of French ,ehissieiturs, ,and, set them about theformatien of axiutional literature?-oLessings Who sta4ted:thet enthusitatiaakimMation for .Shalispearee that ham gene on inereasing, till ithe spreaent day? —Lessing. Who commenced that philosophy of art, that is niche pemiliax emanation of the German, mind—Lessing'. Who laid the fentdation of that earnest tendency to free itiqiiiry in matters of religion that is equally remote from old-fashioned 'orthodoxy and Valtairian levity ?Lessieg. Who wrote the only German comedy that is considered classical ?—Lessing. Who wrote the only poem it Germany that :anybody 'cares to rend for the sake of its Moral iin ?—Lessing. . Sing, the demolisher of a whole legion of literary inani- ties, whose, names only live through Ids vituperatipn, as, the dunces assailed by Pope are immortal through the peons that.he devoted to their extermination ;• •Leasing, who laid down the great canon that there was a fundamental difference between poetry and the fine arts, and dispelled the heretical belief that a pgent (night to be a Speaking picture;. Ipsaing, who threw the most Wondrous stumbling-block into the path both of vulgar believers and vulgar infidels by 'the startling declaration, that the divine origin of a creed by no means establishes its claim to eternal du- ration, as it may have been devised as an expedient for the edu- cation of man; Lessing who conibined the national features of his age, in the comedy Minna run Barnhebn Lessing,!who pro- claimed the grand doctrine of religions toleration in his didactic play, Nathan der Weise ; Leasing, who prefigured Gernian:Unis versality, by writing on every possible genus of subject connected with literature or literary history ; Lessing, who loved the pur- suit of truth as a Leicestershire squire loves the chase of a fox, and with extravagant sublimity said, "If God held in his right hand all truth, and in his left the ever active impulse towards truth, even Subject to the condition that I should remain perpetually in error, and were to bid tne make my choice, I would fall humbly before his left hand, and would say, Father give me that, pure truth is for Thee alone,"—such a Lessing could not easily be for- gotten. From his very obstacles Lessing derived strength. Brought up by a narrow-minded Lutheran father, and at a school charac- terized by pedantry of the oldest fashion, he laid in as large a stock of classical learning as was possible at a time, when the great masters of philology had not begun their labours, and came to Leipzig ignorant, indeed, of the world, but thoroughly prepared for a learned career, in both respects the exact antithesis of Goethe, who came to the same university, a worldly-wise smatterer, about twenty years afterwards. Plunged into a familiarity with actors, which involved not only a participation in debaucheries, but the acceptance of little bills, and that at a time when the histrionic profession was in its most vagabond con- dition neither obtaining nor deserving respect, he matured the dramatic theories that had floated before him, while engaged in the study of Plautus and Terence in his convent-like school, and came out of an atmosphere that would have proved fatal to ninety-nine youths out of a handred, a wiser and a better man. Working with all his energies in a country ruled by a great king, who gave an impress to his age, but whose least laudable peculiarity was a disposition to discourage German literature and German literati; he became resolutely national; and a personal dis- agreement with Voltaire, the monarch's idol, was an additional sting, urging him to drive the Gallic ccupant from the intellectual domain of the Teuton: Had Frederick the Great been a Maacenas to his countrymen, Leasing would doubtless have been a peculiarly bright star in a shining galaxy, but without the necessity in which he was placed of fighting his battles alone, and gaining his victories alone, he would scarcely have become the epoch-maker of German literature, notwithstanding his rare qualifications for the Her- culean task. And those qualifications were rare indeed, including as they did two descriptions of talent usually deemed in- compatible. Lessing was a scholar in the severe sense of the
word., and he was a worker in those departments of literature that are commonly assigned to thinkers of the most superficial order. And the two sides of his character harmonized admirably with each other. A mere learned man could have demolished adversaries amid the applause ofi professors, butyould not have interested the general public. A more ready penman might have amused the mob, by hurling missiles at some Atm-
. G. R. Leasing, sein Leben end seine Werke. By Adolph Stahl', Published by Otatentag, Berlin ; and Nutt, Leaden. demiealColomus, :but in theeyesof theieruditawswould sitiplyhate been shooting, petusagainst ibrielawalle JOBiitLeseing, in. his two capacities; could hurl down en.idol in thelisame sancta= of: the Temple ) ofslearning,: while :the! nitiltitalle 'eouldJunderstand and applaud- the victory. ;1, Everys one: is familiar with the names: of Klotz and/Lange; as those of Inman beingssfdihioned on purpose to beertsheth by Isesaieg„yet,ebe,lbraaer,was menerated Oven by the erudite among his nm.&miccionteinporazios; and the transla- tion of Ihwatiesleffected,lay the .latter, was tho niaivel of its age, till Leming dispelled th illuisimi. For , excessive freedom Of thought,. on theisubanct of NewsTestamenthistay, he was assailed by :they orthodoxalaster littitze a.butS!so kttenly,alid he demolish him by hifieejainsleretliat nioanenf thonaforkanate man is still read as a symbol ofssareowsminded bigotry,isjusttui Guy Fawkes appears to a eharityshoy,as thetype sof ToperydingeneraL To ap- preciate the: posver 'of Leming we Mist:conceive an Oxford ,do aisle- olasa maw-wielding the vernacular chili of Ineobbett,- with this difference that he relied on no academical distinctions: but claimed the ruipeokof Surraunding professars by the more forod of attainmentesnet officially reeoganfed.
_Tho wonder that Lessing'e woilth are notsoftener read by the English. has dopon; sosfreqnently expressed; ithat I it. has almost, be.- come a otenmenplace. Iheparpaminentlyreadablemal amusing. His reasoningmane based upon *enlist:87 t.Mt 'ara.nven more appre- ciable inIondoii than at Berlin'anfor ;that great harrier of philo- sophio teettnimility, Which eeparateiGerroutirOna :British thought,
did notbelong tolim orlis age: Hest can easily find-the caw , why his productions' are not Mt:girt by Lthe Igeneral, reader. The subjects to width most of the refer, belong, tea past epoch; and though ;admirable treatment of 7un. insig,nelteant theme may afford ekquisite enjoyment to thoie readers, withiwhotn literature is: a profession, the cirdinary.; lath abitante of, smell work-as:day wtir14 as ;our,glicail haidak reereatee the ir, ures hours with works, the theme of which is in itself notinteixisting.: .Wha cares, whether Lange was a good oi.a. bad translator of Horace ; who troubles hithaelf abbat. the greater or! less accuracy of Richer's Lexicon ; wheiaanxisaisto knows whether Klotz was or not a superficial archaBOlogist?' .Thensagain, the theological effusions of Lessing, though so plainly :written, that he who runs may read, can exercise little influence o!Sei! English readers, Who, if a very select few be set.,asiOei may be :divided : into orthodox zealots, respectable formalists, and indifferentist's, to -whom faith and un- faith are as foreign as to an unconverted Polynesian. Even "Na- than the Wise," in which a smart tale of Boecacio is turned into a grave dramatic sermon, in; favour of leJeration; would offend a score of-persons, and" bore" a still, greater number, for every one to whom it . afforded delight. . Leasing's works are not abstruse, but they, are -esoteric; thatis to say, they arc mainly addressed to the professed literary man, who has an instinctive sympathy for the struggles, the feelings, the controversies peculiar to his vocation.
But the less reason we find to expect that Lessing will ever be read among that large class of English dilettanti, who sip Goethe, and gulp down Schiller, the more cordially do we recommend the bio- graphy of Herr Adolph Stain, which contains not only a minute ac- count of the incidents of Leasing's active and. fluctuating life, but also a complete analysis of his principal works, se. that the grand results which he attained, and which stand as a line of demarea- lion ! separating the years that preceded him from those that followed, are clearly and forcibly presented. As the world is di- vided into an Antediluvian and a Postdiluvian period, so likewise may we divide modern German literature-sGotthold Ephraim. Leasing being himself the deluge that swept away a host of bigots and poetasters, and prepared the soil for the growth of a new and vigorous race. And this value of Leasing is clearly made out by Herr Stahr's biography.
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