l, though at one time a god confessed]; him I flung
away."

GELLERT. "IHRO MAJESTAT, him I also fling away."

KING. "Well, if I continue here, you must come again often; bring your
FABLES with you, and read me something."

GELLERT. "I know not if I can read well; I have the singing kind of
tone, native to the Hill Country."

KING. "JA, like the Silesians. No, you must read me the FABLES
yourself; they lose a great deal otherwise. Come back soon." [_Gellert's
Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius_ (already cited), pp. 632 et seq.]
(EXIT GELLERT.)

KING (to Icilius, as we learn from a different Record). "That is quite
another man than Gottsched!" (EXUENT OMNES.)

The modest Gellert says he "remembered Jesus Sirach's advice, PRESS NOT
THYSELF ON KINGS,--and never came back;" nor was specially sent for,
in the hurries succeeding; though the King never quite forgot him. Next
day, at dinner, the King said, "He is the reasonablest man of all the
German Literary People, C'EST LE PLUS RAISONNABLE DE TOUS LES SAVANS
ALLEMANDS." And to Garve, at Breslau, years afterwards: "Gellert is the
only German that will reach posterity; his department is small, but he
has worked in it with real felicity." And indeed the King had, before
that, as practical result of the Gellert Dialogue, managed to set some
Berlin Bookseller upon printing of these eligible FABLES, "for the use
of our Prussian Schools;" in which and other capacities the FABLES still
serve with acceptance there and elsewhere. [Preuss, ii. 274.]

In regard to Gellert's Horse-exercise, I had still to remember that
Gellert, not long after, did get a Horse; two successive Horses; both
highly remarkable. The first especially; which was Prince Henri's gift:
"The Horse Prince Henri had ridden at the Battle of Freyberg" (Battle
to be mentioned hereafter);--quadruped that must have been astonished at
itself! But a pretty enough gift from the warlike admiring Prince to
his dyspeptic Great Man. This Horse having yielded to Time, the very
Kurfurst (grandson of Polish Majesty that now is) sent Gellert another,
housing and furniture complete; mounted on which, Gellert and it were
among the sights of Leipzig;--well enough known here to young Goethe, in
his College days, who used to meet the great man and princely horse, and
do salutation, with perhaps some twinkle of scepticism in the corner of
his eye. [DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT, Theil ii. Buch 6 (in Goethe's WERKE,
xxv. 51 et seq).] Poor G