CHAPTER XIV.

RESIDENCE IN GERMANY.

"ON Tuesday morning, Sept. 18. 1798, about two o'clock, we were informed that we were in sight of land," says Miss Wordsworth, "and before ten we were at the mouth of the Elbe. We landed at Hamburgh at four in the afternoon."1 Wordsworth acted as the interpreter of the party, for Coleridge "could then only speak English and Latin," 2 but Wordsworth, though not able to speak German, conversed fluently in French.

On Wednesday, Sept. 26., "we dined with Mr. Klopstock, and had the pleasure of meeting his brother, the Poet, a venerable old man retaining the liveliness of youth. He sustained an animated conversation with William the whole afternoon." Wordsworth made notes of his conversations with Klopstock, which were for the most part on poetical topics. These notes have been given to the world by Mr. Coleridge, in "The Friend," and they are also reprinted in the last edition of his Biographia Literaria1; I will not therefore reproduce them here. There are, however, certain characteristic sentiments expressed

1 Letter dated Hamburgh, Friday, Sept. 21. 1798.

2 See his Letter to Wade in Cottle's Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 3 Satyrane's Letters, Letter iii.

4 Vol. ii. p. 232-249.

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by Wordsworth, which ought to find a place in these Memoirs; let me therefore insert them.1

"Klopstock spoke very slightingly of Kotzebue, as an immoral author in the first place, and next, as deficient in power. 'At Vienna,' said he, 'they are transported with him; but we do not reckon the people of Vienna either the wisest or the wittiest people of Germany.' He said Wieland was a charming author, and a sovereign master of his own language; that in this respect Goethe could not be compared to him, nor indeed could anybody else. He said that his fault was to be fertile to exuberance. I told him the OBERON' had just been translated into English. He asked me if I was not delighted with the poem. I answered, that I thought the story began to flag about the seventh or eighth book; and observed, that it was unworthy of a man of genius to make the interest of a long poem turn entirely upon animal gratification. He seemed at first disposed to excuse this by saying that there are different subjects for poetry, and that poets are not willing to be restricted in their choice. I answered that I thought the passion of love as well suited to the purposes of poetry as any other passion; but that it was a cheap way of pleasing to fix the attention of the reader through a long poem on the pure appetite. 'Well! but,' said he, 'you see that such poems please everybody.' I answered, that it was the province of a great poet to raise people up to his own level, not to descend to theirs. He agreed, and confessed, that on no account whatsoever would he have written a work like the 'OBERON.'

An Englishman had presented him with the Odes of

1 Biographia Literaria, S. T. Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 246. Satyrane's Letters.

Collins, which he had read with pleasure. He knew little or nothing of Gray, except his 'ELEGY, written in a country CHURCH-YARD.' He complained of the Fool in 'LEAR.' I observed that he seemed to give a terrible wildness to the distress; but still he complained. He asked whether it was not allowed that Pope had written rhymed poetry with more skill than any of our writers. I said I preferred Dryden, because his couplets had greater variety in their movement. He thought my reason a good one; but asked whether the rhyme of Pope were not more exact. This question I understood as applying to the final terminations, and observed to him that I believed it was the case; but that I thought it was easy to excuse some inaccuracy in the final sounds, if the general sweep of the verse was superior. I told him that we were not so exact with regard to the final endings of lines as the French.

He seemed to think that no language could be so far formed as that it might not be enriched by idioms borrowed from another tongue. I said this was a very dangerous practice; and added, that I thought Milton had often injured both his prose and verse by taking this liberty too frequently. I recommended to him the prose works of Dryden as models of pure and native English. I was treading upon tender ground, as I have reason to suppose that he has himself liberally indulged in the practice.

"I asked what he thought of Kant. He said that his reputation was much on the decline in Germany; that for his own part he was not surprised to find it so, as the works of Kant were to him utterly incomprehensible; that he had often been pestered by the Kanteans, but was rarely in the practice of

arguing with them. His custom was to produce the book, open it, and point to a passage, and beg they would explain it. This they ordinarily attempted to do by substituting their own ideas. I do not want, I say, an explanation of your own ideas, but of the passage which is before us. In this way I generally bring the dispute to an immediate conclusion.' He spoke of Wolfe as the first metaphysician they had in Germany. Wolfe had followers, but they could hardly be called a sect; and, luckily, till the appearance of Kant, about fifteen years ago, Germany had not been pestered by any sect of philosophers whatsoever, but each man had separately pursued his inquiries uncontrolled by the dogmas of a master. Kant had appeared ambitious to be the founder of a sect; he had succeeded; but the Germans were now coming to their senses again. He said that Nicolai and Engel had, in different ways, contributed to disenchant the nation; but above all, the incomprehensibility of the philosopher and his philosophy. He seemed pleased to hear that, as yet, Kant's doctrines had not met with many admirers in England; he did not doubt but that we had too much wisdom to be duped by a writer who set at defiance the common sense and common understandings of men. We talked of tragedy. He seemed to rate highly the power of exciting tears. I said that nothing was more easy than to deluge an audience; that it was done every day by the meanest writers."

Coleridge parted from Wordsworth and his sister at Hamburg, and went to Ratzeburg, thirty-five miles N.E. from Hamburg, on the road to Lubeck; and at

Ratzeburg he lived four months.' Thence he went to Göttingen, where he spent five months.

But to return to Wordsworth. His sister thus writes:

"We quitted Hamburg on Wednesday evening, at five o'clock, reached Luneburg to breakfast on Thursday, and arrived at Brunswick between three and four o'clock on Friday evening. There we dined. It is an old, silent, dull-looking place; the duke's palace a large white building, with no elegance in its external appearance. The next morning we set off at eight You can have no idea of the badness of the roads. The diligence arrived at eight at night at the city of GOSLAR, on Saturday, Oct. 6., the distance being only twenty-five miles."

Wordsworth and his sister took up their abode at Goslar, with a view of entering into German society, and of learning the German language. But in this they were somewhat disappointed. They did not form acquaintances easily: the place was not very hospitable to strangers; and, as Coleridge told him, he had two impediments in his way toward the attainment of his end. "You have two things against you your not loving smoke; and your sister. If the manners at Goslar resemble those at Ratzeburg, it is almost necessary to be able to bear smoke. Can Dorothy endure smoke? Here, when my friends come to see me, the candle nearly goes out, the air is so thick."

"Coleridge," says Miss W., "is very happily situated at Ratzeburg for learning the language." "We are not fortunately situated here with respect to

1 See Biog. Liter. vol. ii. p. 204. Cottle's Reminiscences, vol. ii.

p. 20.