reader of his treatises on the Nature of the Fable, his Notes on Horace, his Correspondence (with Nicolai, Wieland, Herder, his brother, &C.), or his "Hamburg Dramaturgie," must be struck by the masterly ease and broad views of the writer. He applied philosophy of a higher mood than journalism was then familiar with, to literature and the fine arts—a realisation, as the "English Opium-eater" observes, of what the Greeks meant by criticism; and thus Lessing, who had in all things a Greek eye, and here realised the Greek ideal, secured to his expositions the "combined advantages of a popular and scientific interest."[1] He thinks, to use the words of Mr. Carlyle, "with the clearness and piercing sharpness of the most expert logician; but a genial fire pervades him, a wit, a heartiness, a general richness and fineness of nature, to which most logicians are strangers. He is a sceptic in many things, but the noblest of sceptics: a mild, manly, half-careless enthusiasm struggles through his indignant unbelief; he stands before us like a toil-worn, but unwearied and heroic champion, earning not the conquest, but the battle; as, indeed, himself admits to us, that it is not the finding of truth, but the honest search for it, that profits."[2] Schlegel points him out as the first who spoke with enthusiasm of Shakspeare, and paved the way for his reception in Germany. His bold and, at that time, hazardous attacks were successful in overthrowing the usurpation of French taste in Tragedy; insomuch that, shortly after the publication of his "Dramaturgie" translations of French tragedies, and German tragedies modelled after them, disappeared altogether from the national stage.[3] Similarly, it is contended by Menzel, the most intelligent of Lessing's modem eulogists, that no one could point out the difference between the true antique and French caricature, with such far-reaching acuteness, as the critic who first purified the German stage from starched French Alexandrines, and the German language from its turgid and bombastic style.[4] All this gives Lessing a special claim to the attention and respect of Englishmen. Adherence to Aristotle did not prevent his assailing the Three Unities; and while he contended for certain natural rules in art, and definite laws of proportion, he would have no abstract and misapplied canons (keine abstrakte und missverstandene Regeln), holding the superiority of nature and truth to prejudice and conventionalism (die Natur und die Wahrheit höher stellte als die Convenienz, den Effekt, und das Vorurtheil). In an apostle or herald of reaction, it is rare indeed to meet with such catholic moderation and candid discernment.
Besides the works already alluded to, his contributions to prose comprise many papers in the "Library of Belles Lettres," a periodical started by him in 1757, in conjunction with Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn, and
- ↑ Mr. de Quincey finds an analogy between Lessing's degree of influence in Germany, and that of Dr. Johnson in England; in kind, it more resembled that of Lord Shaftesbury—both being sensible to the excellencies of art (Lord S.'s "Judgment of Hercules" answering to the "Laokoon"); both elegant in style; both delivering their philosophy in a disjointed and scattered manner, by fits and starts ; and both tending to a sceptical or negative philosophy, rather than one positive and constructive. See his "Gallery of the German Classics," No. II.
- ↑ Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1827.
- ↑ Lectures on Dramatic Art, XXX. Lessing came to hate the French drama with supreme scorn; and it was, says Mr. de Quincey, "his great right to do so," for he first detected its virtual hostility to the Greek, and its "hollow pretensions to presumptuous rivalry" with the school of Sophocles.
- ↑ Deutsch Literatur, III.
