eissen_ to rend away,
_zerreissen_ to rend to pieces, _entreissen_ to rend off or out of a
thing, in the active sense: or _schmelzen_ to melt--_ver_, _zer_, _ent_,
_schmelzen_--and in like manner through all the verbs neuter and active.
If you consider only how much we should feel the loss of the prefix
_be_, as in bedropt, besprinkle, besot, especially in our poetical
language, and then think that this same mode of composition is carried
through all their simple and compound prepositions, and many of their
adverbs; and that with most of these the Germans have the same privilege
as we have of dividing them from the verb and placing them at the end of
the sentence; you will have no difficulty in comprehending the reality
and the cause of this superior power in the German of condensing
meaning, in which its great poet exulted. It is impossible to read half
a dozen pages of Wieland without perceiving that in this respect the
German has no rival but the Greek. And yet I feel, that concentration or
condensation is not the happiest mode of expressing this excellence,
which seems to consist not so much in the less time required for
conveying an impression, as in the unity and simultaneousness with which
the impression is conveyed. It tends to make their language more
picturesque: it _depictures_ images better. We have obtained this power
in part by our compound verbs derived from the Latin: and the sense of
its great effect no doubt induced our Milton both to the use and the
abuse of Latin derivatives. But still these prefixed particles,
conveying no separate or separable meaning to the mere English reader,
cannot possibly act on the mind with the force or liveliness of an
original and homogeneous language such as the German is, and besides are
confined to certain words.

We now took our leave. At the beginning of the French Revolution
Klopstock wrote odes of congratulation. He received some honorary
presents from the French Republic, (a golden crown I believe,) and, like
our Priestley, was invited to a seat in the legislature, which he
declined. But when French liberty metamorphosed herself into a fury, he
sent back these presents with a _palinodia_, declaring his abhorrence of
their proceedings: and since then he has been perhaps more than enough
an Anti-Gallican. I mean, that in his just contempt and detestation of
the crimes and follies of the Revolutionists, he suffers himself to
forget that the revolution itself is a pro