it of
Klopstock's odes escaped him. Perhaps there is no writing in our
language that offers so correct an emblem of him as this analysis.' I
remember thinking Taylor's 'clear outline' of the Messias the most
satisfying account of a poem I ever read: it fills the mind with a
vision of pomp and magnificence, which it is pleasanter to contemplate,
as it were, from afar, massed together in that general survey, than to
examine part by part. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Carlyle agree in exalting that
ode of Klopstock's, in which he represents the Muse of Britain and the
Muse of Germany running a race. The piece seems to me more rhetorical
than strictly poetical; and if the younger Muse's power of keeping up
the race depends on productions of this sort, I would not give a penny
for her chance, at least if the contest relates to pure poetry.
Klopstock's _Herman_ (mentioned afterwards,) consists of three
chorus-dramas, as Mr. Taylor calls them: _The Battle of Herman_, _Herman
and the Princes_, and _The Death of Herman_. Herman is the Arminius of
the Roman historians. S.C.

The poet entered. I was much disappointed in his countenance, and
recognised in it no likeness to the bust. There was no comprehension in
the forehead, no weight over the eye-brows, no expression of
peculiarity, moral or intellectual, on the eyes, no massiveness in the
general countenance. He is, if anything, rather below the middle size.
He wore very large half-boots, which his legs filled, so fearfully were
they swollen. However, though neither W---- nor myself could discover
any indications of sublimity or enthusiasm in his physiognomy, we were
both equally impressed with his liveliness, and his kind and ready
courtesy. He talked in French with my friend, and with difficulty spoke
a few sentences to me in English. His enunciation was not in the least
affected by the entire want of his upper teeth. The conversation began
on his part by the expression of his rapture at the surrender of the
detachment of French troops under General Humbert. Their proceedings in
Ireland with regard to the committee which they had appointed, with the
rest of their organizing system, seemed to have given the poet great
entertainment. He then declared his sanguine belief in Nelson's victory,
and anticipated its confirmation with a keen and triumphant pleasure.
His words, tones, looks, implied the most vehement Anti-Gallicanism. The
subject changed to literature, and I inquired in Latin conc