-66 66 18th Dec. 1760. 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 Majestät!" 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!" 66 your Majesty cannot alter it, still less can I. "commend, where you command." King. "Can you repeat any of your Fables?" "doubt it; my memory is very treacherous.” Gellert. "If I can only re Gellert. "I 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 Ma "jesty: 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:15 6 เ "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 toe-nails; helm, shield, mail, what opu'lence 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.'" 15 King. "And the Moral?" Ein kluger Maler in Athen, Und bat sich seine Meinung aus. 18th Dec. 1760. 66 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.'” King. “That is excellent; very fine indeed. You have a "something of soft and flowing in your verses; them I under"stand altogether. But there was Gottsched, one day, reading me his Translation of Iphigénie; I had the French Copy in my "hand, and could not understand a word of him" (a Swan of Saxony, labouring in vain, that day)! "They recommended me "another Poet, one Peitsch" (Herr Peitsch of Könisberg, 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 Majestät, 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." King. “Ja, like the Silesians. No, you must read me the "Fables yourself; they lose a great deal otherwise. Come back "soon."16 (Eeit Gellert.) Weit minder Kunst verrathen sollte. Mars lebt durchaus in diesem Bilde. Ihr habt mir nicht zu viel gethan.' MORAL. "Wenn deine Schrift dem Kenner nicht gefällt, Doch, wenn sie gar des Narren Lob erhält, So ist es schon ein böses Zeichen ; So ist es Zeit, sie auszustreichen."— (Gellert's Werke: Leipzig, 1840: i. 135.) 16 Gellert's Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius (already cited), pp. 632 et seq. 18th Dec. 1760. King (to Icilius, as we learn from a different Record). "That is quite another man than Gottsched!" (Exeunt omnes.) The modest Gellert says he "remembered Jesus Sirach's advice, Press not thyself on Kings,—and never came back;" nor was specially sent for, in the hurries succeeding; though the King never quite forgot him. Next day, at dinner, the King said, "He is the rea"sonablest man of all the German Literary People, "C'est le plus raisonnable de tous les Savans Allemands.” And to Garve, at Breslau, years afterwards: "Gellert "is the only German that will reach posterity; his department is small, but he has worked in it with real "felicity." And indeed the King had, before that, as practical result of the Gellert Dialogue, managed to set some Berlin Bookseller upon printing of these eligible Fables, "for the use of our Prussian Schools;" in which and other capacities the Fables still serve with acceptance, there and elsewhere.17 In regard to Gellert's Horse-exercise, I had still to remember that Gellert, not long after, did get a Horse; two successive Horses; both highly remarkable. The first especially; which was Prince Henri's gift: 'The 'Horse Prince Henri had ridden at the Battle of Frey'berg' (Battle to be mentioned hereafter);-quadruped that must have been astonished at itself! But a pretty enough gift from the warlike admiring Prince to his dyspeptic Great Man. This Horse having yielded to Time, the very Kurfürst (grandson of Polish Majesty that now is) sent Gellert another, housing and furniture complete; mounted on which, Gellert and it were among the sights of Leipzig;—well enough known here to young Goethe, in his College days, who used to meet the great man and princely horse, and do salutation, with perhaps 17 Preuss, ii. 274. 21st Jan. 1761. some twinkle of scepticism in the corner of his eye.18 Poor Gellert fell seriously ill in December 1769; to the fear and grief of all the world: 'estafettes from the Kur'fürst himself galloped daily, or oftener, from Dresden 'for the sick bulletin;' but poor Gellert died, all the same (13th of that month); and we have (really with pathetic thoughts, even we) to bid his amiable existence in this world, his bits of glories and him, adieu forever. Dialogue with General Saldern (in the Apel House, Leipzig, 21st January 1761). Four or five weeks after this of Gellert, Friedrich had another Dialogue, which also is partly on record, and is of more importance to us here: Dialogue with Major-General Saldern; on a certain business, delicate, yet profitable to the doer,-nobody so fit for it as Saldern, thinks the King. Saldern is he who did that extraordinary feat of packing the wrecks of battle on the Field of Liegnitz; a fine, clear-flowing, silent kind of man, rapid and steady, with a great deal of methodic and other good faculty in him,-more, perhaps, than he himself yet knows of. Him the King has sent for, this morning; and it is on the business of Polish Majesty's Royal Hunting-Schloss at Hubertsburg,—which is a thing otherwise worth some notice from us. For three months long, the King had been representing, in the proper quarters, what plunderings, and riotous and even disgusting savageries, the Saxons had perpetrated at Charlottenburg, Schönhausen, Friedrichsfeld, in October last, while masters there for a few days: but neither in Reichs Diet, where Plotho was eloquent, 18 Dichtung und Wahrheit, Theil ii. Buch 6 (in Goethe's Werke, xxv. 51 et seq.). 21st Jan. 1761. nor elsewhere by the Diplomatic method, could he get the least redress, or one civil word of regret. From Polish Majesty himself, to whom Friedrich remonstrated the matter, through the English Resident at Warsaw, Friedrich had expected regret; but he got none. Some think he had hoped that Polish Majesty, touched by these horrors of war, and by the reciprocities evidently liable to follow, might be induced to try something towards mediating a General Peace: but Polish Majesty did not; Polish Majesty answered simply nothing at all, nor would get into any correspondence: upon which Friedrich, possibly a little piqued withal, had at length determined on retaliation. Within our cantonments, reflects Friedrich, here is Hubertsburg Schloss, with such a hunting apparatus in and around it; Polish Majesty's Hertzblatt ("lid of the heart," as they call it; breastbone, at least, and pit of his stomach, which inclines to nothing but hunting): let his Hubertsburg become as our Charlottenburg is; perhaps that will touch his feelings! Friedrich had formed this resolution; and, Wednesday January 21st, sends for Saldern, one of the most exact, deft-going, and punctiliously honourable of all his Generals, to execute it. Enter Saldern accordingly,-royal Audience-room in the Apel'sche Haus, New Neumarkt, No. 16,' as above;-to whom (one Küster, a reliable creature, reporting for us on Saldern's behalf) the King says, in the distinct slowish tone of a King giving orders: King. "Saldern, tomorrow morning you go" (Er, He goes) "with a detachment of Infantry and Cavalry, in all silence, "to Hubertsburg; beset the Schloss, get all the furnitures care"fully packed up and invoiced. I want nothing with them; the "money they bring I mean to bestow on our Field Hospitals, "and will not forget you in disposing of it." |