us take the following: Lessing (33 f.): "Jammer ward in Betrübniss gemildert. Und wo diese Milderung nicht stattfinden konnte, wo der Jammer ebenso verkleinernd als entstellend gewesen wäre, was thut da Timanthes?" De Quincey (174): "Anguish, in like manner was tempered into sorrow. But suppose such temperaments to be impracticable from the circumstances, how did the artist deliver himself from this embarrassment so as to express a due submission to the general law of his art (that is to say, the beautiful), and yet at the same time, to meet the necessities of the particular case? We have a lesson upon this point from Timanthes." Or as perhaps the most striking example of his freedom: Lessing (73): "Bey dem Franzosen haben wiederum die schönen Augen ihren Theil daran. Doch ich will an diese Parodie nicht mehr denken." Then in a foot note: "De mes déguisemens que penseroit Sophie? sagt der Sohn des Achilles." De Quincey (190): In the French Philoctetes, however, the 'fine eyes' of beauty have their share in this revolution: De mes déguisemens que penseroit Sophie?' says the son of Achilles. What would Sophia think? Faugh!" 2 Or again for a beautifying of the style: Lessing (151) Es ist nur ein Augenblick für den Dichter, weil dieser das Vorrecht hat, einen andern, in welchem die Göttinn ganz Venus ist, so nahe, so genau damit zu 1 The change of mind in Neoptolemus. 2 In picturing the enraged Venus. Compare for other striking examples of De Quincey's freedom: verbinden, dass wir die Venus auch in der Furie nicht aus den Augen verlieren." De Quincey (200): "But to the poet such an attitude and action are not ill adapted: since he has it in his power to place in direct juxtaposition to this attitude of fury another more appropriate to the goddess, and carrying into the very heart of the transitory passion a sense of the calm and immortal beauty which it has for a moment been permitted to disturb." In Lessing De Quincey recognizes the first powerful element in the revival of a true taste in Germany. His peculiar service was, in De Quincey's opinion, that he applied philosophy in the large sense to literature and the fine arts, and became thus the founder of a genuine criticism. He recognized the falsity of the French drama, its hostility to the Greek, the worth of Shakespeare. He was moreover the first German who wrote prose with elegance. Yet in Lessing De Quincey sees at best a man of great taste and talent, adapted to popularity, with a philosophy somewhat shallow and very fragmentary, negative not constructive. The last phrase illustrates again De Quincey's categorical style of criticism. He had no complete understanding of Lessing's ideas and influence; he probably uses the term "negative philosophy" because Lessing was hostile to many beliefs, especially in religion, which De Quincey regarded as established. Lessing's position in Germany De Quincey compares with that of Dr. Johnson in England, but his talents and intellectual interests with those of Lord Shaftesbury; Lessing's taste, however, was more comprehensive; the Lao 1 Works IV, 428 ff.; other references to Lessing. Ib. II, 83; X, 122; 159; XI, 156 ff. (Sketch of Lessing as an introduction to De Quincey's translation of the Laocoon). Post. Works II, 29. coon De Quincey compares with Shaftesbury's Judgement of Hercules.1 Summing up Lessing's intellectual pretensions De Quincey names him in Friedrich Schlegel's term, a Polyhistor, and quotes at length from Schlegel's description of his comprehensiveness, critical method etc. De Quincey's knowledge of Lessing seems to have been confined to the Laocoon and possibly the Hamburgische Dramaturgie. His direct service was the translation of the former. His aim is to produce a clear and readable article for a magazine. He makes himself therefore perfectly free with Lessing's text. He omits, especially towards the end, whole paragraphs or even sections, and prefers to state only the leading ideas and principles, omitting illustrations and explanations. He alters the chapters, makes new divisions for convenience or clearness, or to suit the condensation of the work. But these omissions are to be traced to nothing more than the necessary limits of a magazine article, and perhaps to his own natural impatience, for having once caught the drift of the book, he would be content; the details would have little interest in themselves.5 1 Full title of Shaftesbury's work, Notion of the Historical Draught or Tableture of the Judgement of Hercules. 2 Introduction to Lessing's Gedanken und Meinungen aus dessen Schriften zusammengestellt und erläutert von Fr. Schlegel. Leipzig 1804, I, 35 ff. De Quincey names the book Lessing's Geist aus seinen Schriften. 3 Post. Works II, 29. The reference does not make it certain that De Quincey knew this work. 4 Blackwood's Magazine, Nov. 1826, Jan. 1827. Reprinted by De Quincey, Works XI, 156 ff. 5 De Quincey had perhaps a finer sense than Lessing for rhetorical arrangement and effect. At least his paragraphs give often a more balanced grouping of ideas than those of Lessing. De Quincey omits the Vorrede to the Laocoon; § I-IV are fairly complete; De Quincey in his notes emphasizes or differs from several points made by Lessing. Some of these remarks are only the passing suggestions of his mind. A few touch more vitally the theory of the book. Lessing explains that the Greek drama was free to represent the hero as weeping or wailing, and to show that it was not out of harmony with Greek ideals mentions Philoctetes and the dying Hercules in the Trachiniae. That he does not mention Prometheus De Quincey considers the act of a special pleader; in view of Prometheus and Aeschylus Lessing had no right to assume Philoctetes and Sophocles as the representative Grecian models.1 Another note is valuable as showing De Quincey's attitude towards the Fine Arts. Lessing, speaking of the control of the Fine Arts in Greece by law, says: "Unstreitig müssen sich die Gesetze über die Wissenschaften keine Gewalt anmassen, denn der Endzweck der Wissenschaften ist Wahrheit. Wahrheit ist der Seele nothwendig . Der Endzweck der Künste hingegen ist Vergnügen, und das Vergnügen ist entbehrlich." Some of De Quincey's objections are mere hair-splitting, the result of a partial misapprehension of Lessing's meaning. But positively he denies V is condensed; VI largely omitted; VII altogether; VIII-XI the body of the discussion given; XII much condensed; XIII omitted; XIV, XV only the principles stated; XVI condensed in use of examples; XVII, XVIII nothing essential omitted; XIX-XXIX omitted. 1 Works XI, 170, note. 2 Ib. XI, 172, note. "The right of the state to interfere with the Fine Arts, is asserted upon the ground that they can be dispensed with, i. e. that they are of no important use". This, De Quincey says, is in contradiction to Lessing's next sentence. "Also darf es allerdings von dem Gesetzgeber abhängen, welche Art von Vergnügen und in welchem Maasse er jede Art desselben verstatten will". Lessing means to imply the representation of legitimate pleasure as distuinguished from the repulsive and degraded, |