king the Swiss and Leipzig factions, and of exposing the
absurdities of both schools. He was able to teach himself Spanish and
Italian, he translated for the booksellers, he catalogued a library;
and while thus earning his livelihood _tant bien que mal_, he
indirectly prosecuted his studies and enlarged his knowledge of
literature and life. For at Berlin he was not forced to associate only
with books, he also came in contact with intellectual men, his views
expanded, his judgment became sure. A volume of minor poems that he
published in 1751 excited attention.

The essays he contributed to Voss's _Gazette_ gave him notoriety on
account of their independent spirit, their pregnant flashes of
originality and truth. This unknown youth ventured alone and
unsupported to attack Gottsched's meretricious writings, and so
successfully that even the vain dictator trembled, and the rival
schools asked each other who was this Daniel that had come to judgment?
With pitiless subtlety he exposed the crudity, the inflation of
Klopstock's 'Messiah,' which at that time one half the world extolled,
the other half abused, while he alone could truly distinguish in what
respects the poem fell short of its pretensions to be a national epic,
and where its national importance and merit really lay.

For two years Lessing remained at Berlin; busy years, in which he
scattered these treatises teeming with discernment and genius. Then at
the end of that time he felt himself exhausted, he craved seclusion, in
which he could once more live for himself and garner up fresh stores of
knowledge. The city and his numerous friends were too distracting. So
one day he stole away without previous warning and installed himself in
the quiet university town of Wittenberg. At Wittenberg he spent a year
of quiet study. The University library was freely opened to him, and he
could boast that it did not contain a book he had not held in his
hands. Wittenberg: being chiefly a theological university, Lessing's
attention was principally attracted to that subject, and he here laid
the foundations of the accurate knowledge that was in after years to
stand him in great stead. When he had exhausted all that Wittenberg
could offer, he one day (1752) reappeared at Berlin as unexpectedly as
he had quitted it, and quickly resumed his old relations there, which
proved as busy and significant as before. Lessing again maintained
himself by authorship, but this time his productions