Lessing, who loved to mingle with his fellow-creatures, saw himself
banished from any intelligent human intercourse, unless he undertook
the somewhat expensive journey to Brunswick. At Hamburg he had lived in
an active and intellectual circle; here he found himself thrown back
upon himself and books. His heart and thoughts were with Madame Koenig,
her business affairs went badly; their rare meetings only further
strengthened his desire to claim as his own this the only woman who
understood him and felt with him. The promised leave of absence, too,
for Italy, was constantly deferred under futile pretexts, and thus
depressed, dispirited, Lessing could not feel within himself the
capability of original production. At the same time he did not feel it
right or wise to neglect the resources placed within his reach by the
excellent library of which he was custodian; he ransacked its
manuscript treasures, and published some of them. He also in a brief
period of renewed happiness and mental vigour, that followed a visit to
Hamburg and a meeting with Madame Koenig, wrote his famous tragedy
'Emilia Galotti.'

This drama is an illustration of the principles enunciated by Lessing
in his 'Dramaturgy;' its condensation is a protest against the
verbosity of the French, its form an approach to Shakespeare; while its
tendency is a stricture on the abuses practised at petty Courts. The
latter was a bold innovation, considering that at the time Lessing
wrote and produced this play he was himself the servant of a Court,
enlightened and liberal it is true, but libertine and despotic; and
that parallels could not fail to be drawn by the malevolent between
Brunswick and Guastalla. The story is a modernised version of that of
Virginia, but the catastrophe is not equally harmonious, because not so
absolutely necessitated by the conditions of modern society as by those
of the ancient world. Still the play is in many respects inimitable;
the manner in which the story is developed and unravelled renders it a
model to young dramatists; nothing superfluous, nothing obscure, no
needless retrogressions, no violent transitions. Lessing's
contemporaries were not slow to recognise that he had presented them
with a master-piece. He himself after its completion had sunk back into
his former mood of irritated depression, and he would not even be
present at the first representation. This mood was in great part
physical, but was also the result of circumstanc