stock, during the
interviews that took place after my departure. On these I shall make but
one remark at present, and that will appear a presumptuous one, namely,
that Klopstock's remarks on the venerable sage of Koenigsburg are to my
own knowledge injurious and mistaken; and so far is it from being true,
that his system is now given up, that throughout the Universities of
Germany there is not a single professor who is not either a Kantean or a
disciple of Fichte, whose system is built on the Kantean, and
presupposes its truth; or lastly who, though an antagonist of Kant, as
to his theoretical work, has not embraced wholly or in part his moral
system, and adopted part of his nomenclature. 'Klopstock having wished
to see the CALVARY of Cumberland, and asked what was thought of it in
England, I went to Remnant's (the English bookseller) where I procured
the Analytical Review, in which is contained the review of Cumberland's
CALVARY. I remembered to have read there some specimens of a blank verse
translation of THE MESSIAH. I had mentioned this to Klopstock, and he
had a great desire to see them. I walked over to his house and put the
book into his hands. On adverting to his own poem, he told me he began
THE MESSIAH when he was seventeen: he devoted three entire years to the
plan without composing a single line. He was greatly at a loss in what
manner to execute his work. There were no successful specimens of
versification in the German language before this time. The first three
cantos he wrote in a species of measured or numerous prose. This, though
done with much labour and some success, was far from satisfying him. He
had composed hexameters both Latin and Greek as a school exercise, and
there had been also in the German language attempts in that style of
versification. These were only of very moderate merit.--One day he was
struck with the idea of what could be done in this way--he kept his room
a whole day, even went without his dinner, and found that in the evening
he had written twenty-three hexameters, versifying a part of what he had
before written in prose. From that time, pleased with his efforts, he
composed no more in prose. To-day he informed me that he had finished
his plan before he read Milton. He was enchanted to see an author who
before him had trod the same path. This is a contradiction of what he
said before. He did not wish to speak of his poem to any one till it was
finished: but some of his friends wh