rom our
grasp and exterminated.

How will your wonder, and that of your companions, be excited by my
story! Every sentiment will yield to your amazement. If my testimony
were without corroborations, you would reject it as incredible. The
experience of no human being can furnish a parallel: That I, beyond the
rest of mankind, should be reserved for a destiny without alleviation,
and without example! Listen to my narrative, and then say what it is
that has made me deserve to be placed on this dreadful eminence, if,
indeed, every faculty be not suspended in wonder that I am still alive,
and am able to relate it. My father's ancestry was noble on the paternal
side; but his mother was the daughter of a merchant. My grand-father was
a younger brother, and a native of Saxony. He was placed, when he had
reached the suitable age, at a German college. During the vacations,
he employed himself in traversing the neighbouring territory. On one
occasion it was his fortune to visit Hamburg. He formed an acquaintance
with Leonard Weise, a merchant of that city, and was a frequent guest
at his house. The merchant had an only daughter, for whom his guest
speedily contracted an affection; and, in spite of parental menaces and
prohibitions, he, in due season, became her husband.

By this act he mortally offended his relations. Thenceforward he was
entirely disowned and rejected by them. They refused to contribute any
thing to his support. All intercourse ceased, and he received from them
merely that treatment to which an absolute stranger, or detested enemy,
would be entitled.

He found an asylum in the house of his new father, whose temper was
kind, and whose pride was flattered by this alliance. The nobility of
his birth was put in the balance against his poverty. Weise conceived
himself, on the whole, to have acted with the highest discretion, in
thus disposing of his child. My grand-father found it incumbent on him
to search out some mode of independent subsistence. His youth had
been eagerly devoted to literature and music. These had hitherto been
cultivated merely as sources of amusement. They were now converted into
the means of gain. At this period there were few works of taste in
the Saxon dialect. My ancestor may be considered as the founder of the
German Theatre. The modern poet of the same name is sprung from the same
family, and, perhaps, surpasses but little, in the fruitfulness of his
invention, or the soundness of his ta