to increase
his desire to visit the countries of the classical tradition. "It is my
misfortune," he writes, "that I was not born to great place, wherein I
might have had cultivation, and the opportunity of following my instinct
and forming myself." A visit to Rome probably was already purposed, and
he silently preparing for it. Count Buenau, the author of an historical
work then of note, had collected at Noethenitz a valuable library, now
part of the library of Dresden. In 1784 Winckelmann wrote to Buenau in
halting French:--He is emboldened, he says, by Buenau's indulgence for
needy men of letters. He desires only to devote himself to study, having
never allowed himself to be dazzled by favourable prospects of the
Church. He hints at his doubtful position "in a metaphysical age, when
humane literature is trampled under foot. At present," he goes on,
"little value is set on Greek literature, to which I have devoted myself
so far as I could penetrate, when good books are so scarce and
expensive." Finally, he desires a place in some corner of Buenau's
library. "Perhaps, at some future time, I shall become more useful to the
public, if, drawn from obscurity in whatever way, I can find means to
maintain myself in the capital."

Soon afterwards we find Winckelmann in the library at Noethenitz. Thence
he made many visits to the collection of antiquities at Dresden. He
became acquainted with many artists, above all with Oeser, Goethe's
future friend and master, who, uniting a high culture with the practical
knowledge of art, was fitted to minister to Winckelmann's culture. And
now there opened for him a new way of communion with the Greek life.
Hitherto he had handled the words only of Greek poetry, stirred indeed
and roused by them, yet divining beyond the words an unexpressed
pulsation of sensuous life. Suddenly he is in contact with that life,
still fervent in the relics of plastic art. Filled as our culture is with
the classical spirit, we can hardly imagine how deeply the human mind was
moved, when, at the Renaissance, in the midst of a frozen world, the
buried fire of ancient art rose up from under the soil. Winckelmann here
reproduces for us the earlier sentiment of the Renaissance. On a sudden
the imagination feels itself free. How facile and direct, it seems to
say, is this life of the senses and the understanding, when once we have
apprehended it! Here, surely, is the more liberal life we have been
seeking so long,