wing the people that in French manners, French language, and French
literature, the Alpha and Omega of culture need not of necessity be
sought. The leader of the Leipzig faction, who stood by the French, was
Gottsched, a German professor of high pretensions and small merits, who
put his opponents on their mettle by his pedantic and arrogant attacks.
He had instituted himself a national dictator of good taste, and for a
long time it seemed probable that he and his party would triumph. His
ultimate defeat was accomplished by Lessing, whose early boyhood was
contemporaneous with the fiercest encounters of these antagonists. It
was he who gave the death-blow to their factious disputes, and referred
the nation back to itself and its own national glory and power. He
found Germany without original literature, and, before his short life
was ended, the splendid genius of Goethe shed its light over the land.
Who and what was the man who effected so much?

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born on the twenty-second of January,
1729, at Camentz, a small town in Saxony, of which his father was head
pastor. For several generations Lessing's ancestors had been
distinguished for their learning, and with few exceptions they had all
held ecclesiastical preferment. The father of Gotthold Ephraim was a
man of no inconsiderable talents and acquirements. His upright
principles, breadth of vision and scholarly attainments, made him a
venerated example to his son, with whom he maintained through life the
most cordial relationship, though the son's yet more enlightened
standpoint came to transcend the comprehension of the father. Their
first divergence occurred on the choice of a profession. It had been
traditional among the Lessings that the eldest son should take orders,
and accordingly Gotthold Ephraim was silently assumed to be training
for the ministry. He was sent for this end, first to the Grammar-school
of his native town, then to a public school at Meissen, and finally to
the University of Leipzig. At Meissen he distinguished himself in
classical studies, and attempted some original German verses. He
outstripped his compeers, and before he had accomplished his
curriculum, the rector recommended his removal, inasmuch as he had
exhausted the resources of the school. At Leipzig he appeared to turn
his back on study. He deserted the class-rooms of the theologians and
was the more constant attendant instead at the theatre, at that time
the _bete