oversial writings on the 'so-named critical
philosophy.' He engaged with the _Kritik der reinen Vernunft,_ on its
appearance in 1781, in the _Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek;_ first
explained his objections to it in the 11th vol. of his
_Reisebeschreibung_, (Description of a Journey through Germany and
Switzerland in the year 1781,) and afterwards, in his romance entitled
The Life and Opinions of Sempronius Gundibert, a German Philosopher,
sought to set forth the childish crotchets and abuses imputable to many
disciples of this philosophy in their native absurdity. The _ratsbone_
alluded to by Klopstock, was doubtless contained in the above-named
romance, which the old poet probably esteemed more than Nicolai's more
serious polemics.

Gundibert has had its day, but in a fiction destined to a day of longer
duration,--Goethe's Faust,--the Satirist is himself most effectively
satirised. There he is, in that strange yet beautiful temple, pinned to
the wall in a ridiculous attitude, to be laughed at as long as the
temple itself is visited and admired. This doom came upon him, not so
much for his campaign against the Kanteans, as for his _Joys of
Werter_,--because he had dared to ridicule a book, which certainly
offered no small temptations to the parodist. Indeed he seems to have
been engaged in a series of hostilities with Fichte, Lavater, Wieland,
Herder, and Goethe.

(See Mr. Hayward's excellent translation of Faust, of which I have heard
a literary German say that it gave a better notion of the original than
any other which he had seen.)

In the _Walpurgisnacht_ of the Faust he thus addresses the goblin
dancers:--

Ihr seyd noch immer da! Nein das ist unerhoert!
Verschwindet doch! Wir haben ja aufgeklaert!

'Fly! Vanish! Unheard of impudence! What, still there!
In this enlightened age too, when you have been
Proved not to exist?'--_Shelley's Translation_.

Do we not see the doughty reviewer before us magisterially waving his
hand and commanding the apparitions to vanish?--then with despondent
astonishment exclaiming:

Das Teufelspack es fragt nach keiner Regel.
Wir sind so klug und dennoch spukt's in Tegel.

So wise we are! yet what fantastic fooleries still stream forth from my
contemporary's brains; how are we still haunted! The speech of Faust
concerning him is mis-translated by Shelley, who understood the humour
of the piece, as well as the poetry, but not the particular