cken
old Licentiate of Theology; important to no mortal in Berlin or
elsewhere:--upon whom, however, and upon his procedures in that City, we
propose, for our own objects, to bestow a few glances; rugged Narrative
of the thing, in singular exotic dialect, but true every word,
having fortunately come to us from Linsenbarth's own hand. [Through
Rodenbeck,--Beitrage,--i. 463 et seq.]

Berlin, it must be admitted, after all one's reading in poor Dryasdust,
remains a dim empty object; Teutschland is dim and empty: and out of
the forty blind sacks, or out of four hundred such, what picture can
any human head form to itself of Friedrich as King or Man? A trifling
Adventure of that poor individual, called Linsenbarth CANDIDATUS
THEOLOGIAE, one of the poorest of mortals, but true and credible in
every particular, comes gliding by chance athwart all that; and like the
glimmer of a poor rushlight, or kindled straw, shows it us for moments,
a thing visible, palpable, as it worked and lived. In the great dearth,
Linsenbarth, if I can faithfully interpret him for the modern reader,
will be worth attending to.

Date of Linsenbarth's Adventure is June-August, 1750. "Schloss of
Beichlingen" and "Village of Hemmleben" are in the Thuringen Hill
Country (Weimar not far off to eastward): the Hero himself, a tall
awkward raw-boned creature, is, for perhaps near forty years past, a
CANDIDATUS, say Licentiate, or Curate without Cure. Subsists, I should
guess, by schoolmastering--cheapest schoolmaster conceivable, wages mere
nothing--in the Villages about; in the Village of Hemmleben latterly;
age, as I discover, grown to be sixty-one, in those straitened but by
no means forlorn circumstances. And so, here is veteran Linsenbarth of
Hemmleben, a kind of Thuringian Dominie Sampson; whose Interview with
such a brother mortal as Friedrich King of Prussia may be worth looking
at,--if I can abridge it properly.

Well, it appears, in the year 1750, at this thrice-obscure Village of
Hemmleben, the worthy old pastor Cannabich died;--worthy old man, how
he had lived there, modestly studious, frugal, chiefly on
farm-produce, with tobacco and Dutch theology; a modest blessing to
his fellow-creatures! And now he is dead, and the place vacant.
Twenty pounds a Year certain; let us guess it twenty, with glebe-land,
piggeries, poultry-hutches: who is now to get all that? Linsenbarth
starts with his Narrative, in earnest.

Linsenbarth, who I guess may have