Chapter VI.—WINTER-QUARTERS 1760-1761
A melancholy little event, which afterwards proved unexpectedly unfortunate for Friedrich, had happened in England ten days before the Battle of Torgau. Saturday, 25th October, 1760, George II., poor old gentleman, suddenly died. He was in his 77th year; feeble, but not feebler than usual,—unless, perhaps, the unaccountable news from Kloster Kampen may have been too agitating to the dim old mind? On the Monday of this week he had, "from a tent in Hyde Park," presided at a Review of Dragoons; and on Thursday, as his Coldstream Guards were on march for Portsmouth and foreign service, "was in his Portico at Kensington to see them pass;"—full of zeal always in regard to military matters, and to this War in particular. Saturday, by sunrise he was on foot; took his cup of chocolate; inquired about the wind, and the chances of mails arriving; opened his window, said he would have a turn in the Gardens, the morning being so fine. It was now between 7 and 8. The valet then withdrew with the chocolate apparatus; but had hardly shut the door, when he heard a deep sigh, and fall of something,—"billet of wood from the fire?" thought he;—upon which, hurrying back, he found it was the King, who had dropt from his seat, "as if in attempting to ring the bell." King said faintly, "Call Amelia," and instantly died. Poor deaf Amelia (Friedrich's old love, now grown old and deaf) listened wildly for some faint sound from those lips now mute forever. George Second was no more; his grandson George Third was now King. [Old Newspapers (in Gentleman's Magazine, xxx. 486-488).]
Intrinsically taken, this seemed no very great event for Friedrich, for Pitt, for England or mankind: but it proved otherwise. The merit of this poor King deceased, who had led his Nation stumbling among the chimney-pots at such a rate in these mad German Wars for Twenty Years past, was, That he did now stand loyal to the Enterprise, now when it had become sane indeed; now when the Nation was broad awake, and a Captain had risen to guide it out of that perilous posture, into never-expected victory and triumph! Poor old George had stood by his Pitt, by his Ferdinand, with a perfect loyalty at all turns; and been devoted, heart and soul and breeches-pocket, to completely beating Bourbon's oppressive ideas out of Bourbon's head. A little fact, but how important, then and there! Under the Successor, all this may be different:—ghastly beings, Old Tutors, Favorites, Mother's-Favorites, flit, as yet invisible, on the new backstairs:—should Bute and Company get into the foreground, people will then know how important it was. Walpole says:—
"The Yorkes [Ex-Chancellor Hardwicke people] had long distasted this War:" yes, and been painfully obliged to hold their tongues: "but now," within a month or so of the old King's death, "there was published, under Lord Hardwicke's countenance, a Tract setting forth the burden and ill policy of our German measures. It was called CONSIDERATIONS ON THE GERMAN WAR; was ably written, and changed many men's minds." This is the famous "Mauduit Pamphlet:" first of those small stones, from the sling of Opposition not obliged to be dormant, which are now beginning to rattle on Pitt's Olympian Dwelling-place,—high really as Olympus, in comparison with others of the kind, but which unluckily is made of GLASS like the rest of them! The slinger of this first resounding little missile, Walpole informs us, was "one Mauduit, formerly a Dissenting Teacher,"—son of a Dissenting Minister in Bermondsey, I hear, and perhaps himself once a Preacher, but at present concerned with Factorage of Wool on the great scale; got soon afterwards promoted to be Head of the Custom-house in Southampton, so lovely did he seem to Bute and Company. "How agreeable his politics were to the interior of the Court, soon appeared by a place [Southampton Custom-house] being bestowed on him by Lord Bute." A fortunate Mauduit, yet a stupidly tragical; had such a destiny in English History! Hear Walpole a little farther, on Mauduit, and on other things then resonant to Arlington Street in a way of their own. "TO SIR HORACE MANN [at Florence]:—
"NOVEMBER 14th, 1760 [tenth night after Torgau].... We are all in guns and bonfires for an unexpected victory of the King of Prussia over Daun; but as no particulars are yet arrived, there are doubters."
"DECEMBER 5th, 1760. I have received the samples of brocadella.... I shall send you a curious Pamphlet, the only work I almost ever knew that changed the opinions of many. It is called CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PRESENT GERMAN WAR, ["London: Printed for John Wilkie, at the Bible, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1761," adds my poor Copy (a frugal 12mo, of pp. 144), not adding of what edition.] and is written by a wholesale Woollen-Draper [connected with Wool, in some way] "Factor at Blackwell Hall," if that mean Draper:—and a growing man ever after; came to be "Agent for Massachusetts," on the Boston-TEA occasion, and again did Tracts; was "President of the"—in short, was a conspicuous Vice-President, so let us define him, of The general Anti-Penalty or Life-made-Soft Association, with Cause of civil and religious Liberty all over the World, and such like; and a Mauduit comfortably resonant in that way till he died [Chalmers, BIOG. DICTIONARY; Nichols, LITERARY ANECDOTES; &c. &c.]; but the materials are supposed to be furnished by the faction of the Yorkes. The confirmation of the King of Prussia's victory near Torgau does not prevent the disciples of the Pamphlet from thinking that the best thing which could happen for us would be to have that Monarch's head shot off. [Hear, hear!]—
"There are Letters from the Hague [what foolish Letters do fly about, my friend!], that say Daun is dead of his wounds. If he is, I shall begin to believe that the King of Prussia will end successfully at last. [Oh!] It has been the fashion to cry down Daun; but, as much as the King of Prussia may admire himself [does immensely, according to our Selwyn informations], I dare say he would have been glad to be matched with one much more like himself than one so opposite as the Marshal."
"JANUARY 2d, 1761. The German War is not so popular as you imagine, either in the Closet or in the Nation." [Walpole, Letters to Sir Horace Mann (Lond. 1843), i. 6, 7.] (Enough, enough.)
The Mauduit Pamphlet, which then produced such an effect, is still to be met in old Collections and on Bookstalls; but produces little save weariness to a modern reader. "Hanover not in real danger," argues he; "if the French had it, would not they, all Europe ordering them, have to give it up again?" Give it up,—GRATIS, or in return for Canada and Pondicherry, Mauduit's does not say. Which is an important omission! But Mauduit's grand argument is that of expense; frightful outlay of money, aggravated by ditto mismanagement of same.
A War highly expensive, he says—(and the truth is, Pitt was never stingy of money: "Nearly the one thing we have in any plenty; be frank in use of that, in an Enterprise so ill-provided otherwise, and involving life and death!" thinks Pitt);—"dreadfully expensive," urges Mauduit, and gives some instances of Commissariat moneys signally wasted,—not by Pitt, but by the stupidity of Pitt's War Offices, Commissariat Offices, Offices of all kinds; not to be cured at once by any Pitt:—How magazines of hay were shipped and reshipped, carried hither, thither, up this river, down that (nobody knowing where the war-horses would be that were to eat it); till at length, when it had reached almost the value of bohea tea, the right place of it was found to be Embden (nearest to Britain from the first, had one but known), and not a horse would now taste it, so spoiled was the article; all horses snorted at it, as they would have done at bohea, never so expensive. [Mauduit (towards the end) has a story of that tenor,—particulars not worth verifying.] These things are incident to British warfare; also to Swedish, and to all warfares that have their War Offices in an imaginary state,—state much to be abhorred by every sane creature; but not to be mended all at once by the noblest of men, into whose hands they are suddenly thrust for saving his Nation. Conflagration to be quenched; and your buckets all in hideous leakage, like buckets of the Danaides:—your one course is, ply them, pour with them, such as they are.
Mauduit points out farther the enormous fortunes realized by a swindling set of Army-Furnishers, Hebrews mainly, and unbeautiful to look on. Alas, yes; this too is a thing incident to the case; and in a degree to all such cases, and situations of sudden crisis;—have not we seen Jew Ephraim growing rich by the copper money even of a Friedrich? Christian Protestants there are, withal, playing the same game on a larger scale. Herr Schimmelmann ("MOULDY-man") the Dane, for instance,—Dane or Holsteiner,—is coining false money for a Duke of Holstein-Plon, who has not a Seven-Years War on his hands. Diligently coining, this Mouldy Individual; still more successfully, is trading in Friedrich's Meissen China (bought in the cheapest market, sold in the dearest); has at Hamburg his "Auction of Meissen Porcelain," steadily going on, as a new commercial institution of that City;—and, in short, by assiduously laboring in such harvest-fields, gathers a colossal fortune, 100,000 pounds, 300,000 pounds, or I will not remember what. Gets "ennobled," furthermore, by a Danish Government prompt to recognize human merit: Elephant Order, Dannebrog Order; no Order good enough for this Mouldy-man of merit; [Preuss, ii. 391, 282, &c.]—and is, so far as I know, begetting "Nobles," that is to say, Vice-Kings and monitory Exemplars, for the Danish People, to this day. Let us shut down the iron lid on all that.
Mauduit's Pamphlet, if it raised in the abhorrent unthinking English mind some vague notion, as probably it did, that Pitt was responsible for these things, or was in a sort the cause or author of them, might produce some effect against him. "What a splash is this you are making, you Great Commoner; wetting everybody's feet,—as our Mauduit proves;—while the Conflagration seems to be going out, if you let it alone!" For the heads of men resemble—My friend, I will not tell you what they, in multitudinous instances, resemble.
But thus has woollen Mauduit, from his private camp ("Clement's Lane, Lombard Street," say the Dictionaries), shot, at a very high object, what pigeon's-egg or small pebble he had; the first of many such that took that aim; with weak though loud-sounding impact, but with results—results on King Friedrich in particular, which were stronger than the Cannonade of Torgau! As will be seen. For within year and day,—Mauduit and Company making their noises from without, and the Butes and Hardwickes working incessantly with such rare power of leverage and screwage in the interior parts,—a certain Quasi-Olympian House, made of glass, will lie in sherds, and the ablest and noblest man in England see himself forbidden to do England any service farther: "Not needed more, Sir! Go you,—and look at US for the remainder of your life!"
KING FRIEDRICH IN THE APEL HOUSE AT LEIPZIG (8th December, 1760-17th March, 1761)
Friedrich's Winter in the Apel House at Leipzig is of cheerfuler character than we might imagine. Endless sore business he doubtless has, of recruiting, financiering, watching and providing, which grows more difficult year by year; but he has subordinates that work to his signal, and an organized machinery for business such as no other man. And solacements there are withal: his Books he has about him; welcomer than ever in such seasons: Friends too,—he is not solitary; nor neglectful of resources. Faithful D'Argens came at once (stayed till the middle of March): [OEuvres de Frederic, xix. 212, 213. Sends a Courier to conduct D'Argens "FOR December 8th;" "21st March," D'Argens is back at Berlin.] D'Argens, Quintus Icilius, English Mitchell; these three almost daily bore him company. Till the middle of January, also, he had his two Nephews with him (Sons of his poor deceased Brother, the late tragic Prince of Prussia),—the elder of whom, Friedrich Wilhelm, became King afterwards; the second, Henri by name, died suddenly of small-pox within about seven years hence, to the King's deep and sore grief, who liked him the better of the two. Their ages respectively are now about 16 and 14. [Henri, born 30th December, 1747, died 26th May, 1767;—Friedrich Wilhelm, afterwards Friedrich Wilhelm II. (sometimes called DER DICKE, The Big), born 25th December, 1744; King, 17th August, 1786; died 16th November, 1797.] Their appetite for dancing, and their gay young ways, are pleasant now and afterwards to the old Uncle in his grim element. [Letters, &c. in SCHONING.]
Music, too, he had; daily evening Concert, though from himself there is no fluting now. One of his Berlin Concert people who had been sent for was Fasch, a virtuoso on I know not what instrument,—but a man given to take note of things about him. Fasch was painfully surprised to see his King so altered in the interim past: "bent now, sunk into himself, grown old; to whom these five years of war-tumult and anxiety, of sorrow and hard toil, had given a dash of gloomy seriousness and melancholy, which was in strong contrast with his former vividly bright expression, and was not natural to his years." [Zelter's Life of Fasch (cited in PREUSS, ii. 278).]
From D'Argens there is one authentic Anecdote, worth giving. One evening D'Argens came to him; entering his Apartment, found him in a situation very unexpected; which has been memorable ever since. "One evening [there is no date to it, except vaguely, as above, December, 1760-March, 1761], D'Argens, entering the King's Apartment, found him sitting on the ground with a big platter of fried meat, from which he was feeding his dogs. He had a little rod, with which he kept order among them, and shoved the best bits to his favorites. The Marquis, in astonishment, recoiled a step, struck his hands together, and exclaimed: 'The Five Great Powers of Europe, who have sworn alliance, and conspired to undo the Marquis de Brandebourg, how might they puzzle their heads to guess what he is now doing! Scheming some dangerous plan for the next Campaign, think they; collecting funds to have money for it; studying about magazines for man and horse; or he is deep in negotiations to divide his enemies, and get new allies for himself? Not a bit of all that. He is sitting peaceably in his room, and feeding his dogs!'" [Preuss, ii. 282.]
INTERVIEW WITH HERR PROFESSOR GELLERT (Thursday, 18th December, 1760)
Still more celebrated is the Interview with Gellert; though I cannot say it is now more entertaining to the ingenuous mind. One of Friedrich's many Interviews, this Winter, with the Learned of Leipzig University; for he is a born friend of the Muses so called, and never neglects an opportunity. Wonderful to see how, in such an environment, in the depths of mere toil and tribulation, with a whole breaking world lying on his shoulders, as it were,—he always shows such appetite for a snatch of talk with anybody presumably of sense, and knowledge on something!
"This Winter," say the Books, "he had, in vacant intervals, a great deal of communing with the famed of Leipzig University;" this or the other famed Professor,—Winkler, Ernesti, Gottsched again, and others, coming to give account, each for himself, of what he professed to be teaching in the world: "on the Natural Sciences," more especially the Moral; on Libraries, on Rare Books. Gottsched was able to satisfy the King on one point; namely, That the celebrated passage of St. John's Gospel—"THERE ARE THREE THAT BEAR RECORD—was NOT in the famous Manuscript of the Vienna Library; Gottsched having himself examined that important CODEX, and found in the text nothing of said Passage, but merely, written on the margin, a legible intercalation of it, in Melanchthon's hand. Luther, in his Version, never had it at all." [Helden-Geschichte, vi. 596.] A Gottsched inclined to the Socinian view? Not the least consequence to Friedrich or us! Our business is exclusively with Gellert here.
Readers have heard of Gellert; there are, or there were, English Writings about him, LIVES, or I forget what: and in his native Protestant Saxony, among all classes, especially the higher, he had, in those years and onwards to his death, such a popularity and real splendor of authority as no man before or since. Had risen, against his will in some sort, to be a real Pope, a practical Oracle in those parts. In his modest bachelor lodging (age of him five-and-forty gone) he has sheaves of Letters daily,—about affairs of the conscience, of the household, of the heart: from some evangelical young lady, for example, Shall I marry HIM, think you, O my Father?" and perhaps from her Papa, "Shall SHE, think you, O my ditto?"—Sheaves of Letters: and of oral consulters such crowds, that the poor Oracle was obliged to appoint special hours for that branch of his business. His class-room (he lectures on MORALS, some THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENT, or such like) is crowded with "blue uniforms" (ingenuous Prussian Officers eager to hear a Gellert) in these Winters. Rugged Hulsen, this very season, who commands in Freyberg Country, alleviates the poor village of Hainichen from certain official inflictions, and bids the poor people say "It is because Gellert was born among you!" Plainly the Trismegistus of mankind at that date:—who is now, as usual, become a surprising Trismegistus to the new generations!
He had written certain thin Books, all of a thin languid nature; but rational, clear; especially a Book of FABLES IN VERSE, which are watery, but not wholly water, and have still a languid flavor in them for readers. His Book on LETTER-WRITING was of use to the rising generation, in its time. Clearly an amiable, ingenious, correct, altogether good man; of pious mind,—and, what was more, of strictly orthodox, according to the then Saxon standard in the best circles. This was the figure of his Life for the last fifteen years of it; and he was now about the middle of that culminating period. A modest, despondent kind of man, given to indigestions, dietetics, hypochondria: "of neat figure and dress; nose hooked, but not too much; eyes mournfully blue and beautiful, fine open brow;"—a fine countenance, and fine soul of its sort, poor Gellert: "punctual like the church-clock at divine service, in all weathers." [Jordens, Lexikon Deutscher Dichter und Prosaisten (Leipzig, 1807), ii. 54-68 (Gellert).]
A man of some real intellect and melody; some, by no means much; who was of amiable meek demeanor; studious to offend nobody, and to do whatever good he could by the established methods;—and who, what was the great secret of his success, was of orthodoxy perfect and eminent. Whom, accordingly, the whole world, polite Saxon orthodox world, hailed as its Evangelist and Trismegistus. Essentially a commonplace man; but who employed himself in beautifying and illuminating the commonplace of his clay and generation:—infinitely to the satisfaction of said generation. "How charming that you should make thinkable to us, make vocal, musical and comfortably certain, what we were all inclined to think; you creature plainly divine!" And the homages to Gellert were unlimited and continual, not pleasant all of them to an idlish man in weak health.
Mitchell and Quintus Icilius, who are often urging on the King that a new German Literature is springing up, of far more importance than the King thinks, have spoken much to him of Gellert the Trismegistus;—and at length, in the course of a ten days from Friedrich's arrival here, actual Interview ensues. The DIALOGUE, though it is but dull and watery to a modern palate, shall be given entire, for the sake of one of the Interlocutors. The Report of it, gleaned gradually from Gellert himself, and printed, not long afterwards, from his manuscripts or those of others, is to be taken as perfectly faithful. Gellert, writing to his inquiring Friend Rabener (a then celebrated Berlin Wit), describes, from Leipzig, "29th January, 1760," or about six weeks after the event: "How, one day about the middle of December, Quintus Icilius suddenly came to my poor lodging here, to carry me to the King." Am too ill to go. Quintus will excuse me to-day; but will return to-morrow, when no excuse shall avail. Did go accordingly next day, Thursday, 18th December, 4 o'clock of the afternoon; and continued till a quarter to 6. "Had nothing of fear in speaking to the King. Recited my MALER ZU ATHEN." King said, at parting, he would send for me again. "The English Ambassador [Mitchell], an excellent man, was probably the cause of the King's wish to see me.... The King spoke sometimes German, sometimes French; I mostly German." [Gellert's Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius, herausgegeben von F. A. Ebert (Leipzig, 1823), pp. 629, 631.] As follows:—
KING. "Are you (ER) the Professor Gellert?"
GELLERT. "Yea, IHRO MAJESTAT."
KING. "The English Ambassador has spoken highly of you to me. Where do you come from?"
GELLERT. "From Hainichen, near Freyberg."
KING. "Have not you a brother at Freyberg?"
GELLERT. "Yea, IHRO MAJESTAT."
KING. "Tell me why we have no good German Authors."
MAJOR QUINTUS ICILIUS (puts in a word). "Your Majesty, you see here one before you;—one whom the French themselves have translated, calling him the German La Fontaine!"
KING. "That is much. Have you read La Fontaine?"
GELLERT. "Yes, your Majesty; but have not imitated: I am original (ICH BIN EIN ORIGINAL)."
KING. "Well, this is one good Author among the Germans; but why have not we more?"
GELLERT. "Your Majesty has a prejudice against the Germans."
KING. "No; I can't say that (Nein; das kann ich nicht sagen)."
GELLERT. "At least, against German writers."
KING. "Well, perhaps. Why have we no good Historians? Why does no one undertake a Translation of Tacitus?"
GELLERT. "Tacitus is difficult to translate; and the Frenoh themselves have but bad translations of him."
KING. "That is true (DA HAT ER RECHT)."
GELLERT. "And, on the whole, various reasons may be given why the Germans have not yet distinguished themselves in every kind of writing. While Arts and Sciences were in their flower among the Greeks, the Romans were still busy in War. Perhaps this is the Warlike Era of the Germans:—perhaps also they have yet wanted Augustuses and Louis-Fourteenths!"
KING. "How, would you wish one Augustus, then, for all Germany?"
GELLERT. "Not altogether that; I could wish only that every Sovereign encouraged men of genius in his own country."
KING (starting a new subject). "Have you never been out of Saxony?"
GELLERT. "I have been in Berlin."
KING. "You should travel."
GELLERT. "IHRO MAJESTAT, for that I need two things,—health and means."
KING. "What is your complaint? Is it DIE GELEHRTE KRANKHEIT (Disease of the Learned," Dyspepsia so called)? "I have myself suffered from that. I will prescribe for you. You must ride daily, and take a dose of rhubarb every week."
GELLERT. "ACH, IHRO MAJESTAT: if the horse were as weak as I am, he would be of no use to me; if he were stronger, I should be too weak to manage him." (Mark this of the Horse, however; a tale hangs by it.)
KING. "Then you must drive out."
GELLERT. "For that I am deficient in the means."
KING. "Yes, that is true; that is what Authors (GELEHRTE) in Deutschland are always deficient in. I suppose these are bad times, are not they?"
GELLERT. "JA WOHL; and if your Majesty would grant us Peace (DEN FRIEDEN GEBEN WOLLTEN)—"
KING. "How can I? Have not you heard, then? There are three of them against me (ES SIND JA DREI WIDER MICH)!"
GELLERT. "I have more to do with the Ancients and their History than with the Moderns."
KING (changing the topic). "What do you think, is Homer or Virgil the finer as an Epic Poet?"
GELLERT. "Homer, as the more original."
KING. "But Virgil is much more polished (VIEL POLIRTER)."
GELLERT. "We are too far removed from Homer's times to judge of his language. I trust to Quintilian in that respect, who prefers Homer."
KING. "But one should not be a slave to the opinion of the Ancients."
GELLERT. "Nor am I that. I follow them only in cases where, owing to the distance, I cannot judge for myself."
MAJOR ICILIUS (again giving a slight fillip or suggestion). "He," the Herr Professor here, "has also treated of GERMAN LETTER-WRITING, and has published specimens."
KING. "So? But have you written against the CHANCERY STYLE, then" (the painfully solemn style, of ceremonial and circumlocution; Letters written so as to be mainly wig and buckram)?
GELLERT. "ACH JA, that have I, IHRO MAJESTAT!"
KING. "But why doesn't it change? The Devil must be in it (ES IST ETWAS VERTEUFELTES). They bring me whole sheets of that stuff, and I can make nothing of it!"
GELLERT. "If your Majesty cannot alter it, still less can I. I can only recommend, where you command."
KING. "Can you repeat any of your Fables?"
GELLERT. "I doubt it; my memory is very treacherous."
KING. "Bethink you a little; I will walk about [Gellert bethinks him, brow puckered. King, seeing the brow unpucker itself]. Well, have you one?"
GELLERT. "Yes, your Majesty: THE PAINTER." Gellert recites (voice plaintive and hollow; somewhat PREACHY, I should doubt, but not cracked or shrieky);—we condense him into prose abridgment for English readers; German can look at the bottom of the page: [(Gellert's WERKE: Leipzig, 1840; i. 135.)]—
"'A prudent Painter in Athens, more intent on excellence than on money, had done a God of War; and sent for a real Critic to give him his opinion of it. On survey, the Critic shook his head: "Too much Art visible; won't do, my friend!" The Painter strove to think otherwise; and was still arguing, when a young Coxcomb [GECK, Gawk] stept in: "Gods, what a masterpiece!" cried he at the first glance: "Ah, that foot, those exquisitely wrought toenails; helm, shield, mail, what opulence of Art!" The sorrowful Painter looked penitentially at the real Critic, looked at his brush; and the instant this GECK was gone, struck out his God of War.'"
KING. "And the Moral?"
GELLERT (still reciting):
"'When the Critic does not like thy Bit of Writing, it is a bad sign for thee; but when the Fool admires, it is time thou at once strike it out.'"
"Ein kluger Maler in Athen,
Der minder, weil man ihn bezhalte,
Als weil er Ehre suchte, malte,
Liess einen Kenner einst den Mars im Bilde sehn,
Und bat sich seine Meinung aus.
Der Kenner sagt ihm fiei heraus,
Dass ihm das Bild nicht ganz gefallen wollte,
Und dass es, um recht schon zu sein,
Weit minder Kunst verrathen sollte.
Der Maler wandte vieles ein;
Der Kenner stritt mit ihm aus Grunden,
Und konnt ihn doch nicht uberwinden.
Gleich trat ein junger Geck herein,
Und nahm das Bild in Augenschein.
'O,' rief er, 'bei dem ersten Blicke,
Ihr Gotter, welch ein Meisterstucke!
Ach, welcher Fuss! O, wie geschickt
Sind nicht die Nagel ausgedruckt!
Mars lebt durchaus in diesem Bilde.
Wie viele Kunst, wie viele Pracht
Ist in dem Helm und in dem Schilde,
Und in der Rustung angebracht!'
Der Maler ward beschamt geruhret,
Und sah den Kenner klaglich an.
'Nun,' sprach er, 'bin ich uberfuhret!
Ihr habt mir nicht zu viel gethan.'
Der junge Geck war kaum hinaus,
So strich er seinen Kriegsgott aus."
MORAL.
"Wenn deine Schrift dem Kenner nicht gefallt,
So ist es schon ein boses Zeichen;
Doch, wenn sie gar des Narren Lob erhalt,
So ist es Zeit, sie auszustreichen."
KING. "That is excellent; very fine indeed. You have a something of soft and flowing in your verses; them I understand altogether. But there was Gottsched, one day, reading me his Translation of IPHIGENIE; I had the French Copy in my hand, and could not understand a word of him [a Swan of Saxony, laboring in vain that day]! They recommended me another Poet, one Peitsch [Herr Peitsch of Konigsberg, Hofrath, Doctor and Professor there, Gottsched's Master in Art; edited by Gottsched thirty years ago; now become a dumb idol, though at one time a god confessed]; him I flung away."
GELLERT. "IHRO MAJESTAT, him I also fling away."
KING. "Well, if I continue here, you must come again often; bring your FABLES with you, and read me something."
GELLERT. "I know not if I can read well; I have the singing kind of tone, native to the Hill Country."