Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: his life and his works

Preface

An English 'Life of Lessing' requires little in the way of preface or apology. It is only astonishing that the task of preparing such a work has not been undertaken long ere this, and that this peculiar good fortune should have been reserved to me. My main purpose has been to exhibit Lessing as the intellectual pioneer of our present culture, no less in this country than in his own ; to show how few are the departments into which he did not penetrate, or in which his influence is not felt. I have tried to depict him as a centre of these manifold intellectual interests; a pathfinder in aesthetics, religion, and poetry; to paint his revolt against authority as such ; and to exhibit his death- dealing onslaught on the Gallic and pseudo-classical tradition. Furthermore, I have wished to draw attention to his prophetic comprehension of modern liberal theology, expressed in his ' Education of the Human Race,' which, translated by the late Rev. F. W. Robertson, of Brighton, has exercised a great and avowed influence on the Broad Church

PREFACE.

school of this country. Thus, to a large number of English readers, Lessing is familiar only as a theologian ; whilst to others, artists especially, he is, through his ' Laokoon,' known simply as an aesthetic writer. Hence Lessing, the whole man, with his extensive, varied, and catholic interests, is still unfamiliar to the English reader.

There are several German biographies of Lessing, but none of these would be well adapted to English requirements, and lend themselves^ to translation. Chief among these is the work of Messrs. Danzel and Guhrauer, which singularly illustrates the justice of the strictures recently passed on German literature by Mr. Mark Pattison. These volumes are a perfect mine of valuable materials, but offered in a cumbrous, undigested form, that makes it almost impossible to read them, and renders them available only as a quarry for the special student. Out of this quarry has been constructed the more popular life of A. Stahr, that finds a favour in Germany which its redundant style and excessive panegyric would scarcely attract to it in this country. Besides this truly encyclopaedic work of Messrs. Danzel and Guhrauer, there exist innumerable smaller works, dealing either with Lessing or with his writings. Indeed, it would take half a lifetime to read the Lessing literature of Germany, and at the end, would it not have been better to read the man himself.' Should we not resemble the wooers of Penelope who made love to the waiting-women .' I would not be understood to imply by this that these

PREFACE. vii

works are of no value. On the contrary, I have availed myself of many of them with profit and pleasure. But it will be readily conceded that all cannot be of weight and value, when I ' add, that the catalogue alone of works written upon 'Nathan the Wise ' forms a goodly octavo volume. The ingenuity of some of these critics at expounding and elucidating is prodigious. Lessing fares with too many of them as Baron Munchausen's horse fared with the wolf, who began at his tail and ate into him, until finally the Baron drove the wolf home enclosed in the skin of the horse. But Lessing is not the only classical author doomed to illustrate the proverb, ' Wenn Konige bauen, bekommen die Kdrrner zu schaffen! Now, my object in this work is not to expound Lessing, but solely to introduce him to the English reader. I have endeavoured to do this as briefly as was consistent with interest and colour, avoiding prolixity, the fault of most modern biographies. The biography of a man of letters should be no more than an ante-room, giving admission into the sanctuary of his works. Of these works I have endeavoured to give an abstract, refraining from overminute analysis of those which may be assumed to be more familiarly known, such as the ' Nathan' and the ' Laokoon,' and reserving a fuller treatment for the ' Dramaturgic ' and other works, at present accessible only to the German scholar. Since writing my book, however, I have been entrusted with the agreeable task of preparing for ' Bohn's Library ' an

PREFACE.

English version of the chief portion of the ' Dramaturgic.' This valuable work will therefore soon be accessible to the English student. While treating of Lessing's writings, I have kept in memory his own caution, that one must not exhaust one's author ; and while treating of his life, I have endeavoured to remember that I am not writing for a German public, and have consequently omitted or touched lightly upon various minute matters unlikely to interest English readers.

I have yet another word to add before concluding this preface, for the involuntary egotism of which I must apologize. This is to justify my claim to be Lessing's first English biographer. It so happens, that after my book was entirely completed and out of my hands, a work dealing with the same theme made its appearance unannounced, and thus gained the priority of issue. In the face of this fact, I must still insist on my claim, and in justification refer to the advertisements of my book constantly issued by Messrs. Longmans since July 1876. This other work I have not yet read, and my own book, as I have said, has been out of my hands some time. As, however, its information cannot be derived from other sources than mine, Lessing having been thoroughly exhausted by the industrious writers of Germany, resemblances cannot fail to exist between the two books. At the same time, the wonderful many-sidedness of Lessing's mind would alone be a sufficient justification for putting before the world the

PREFACE.

views of two independent biographers, even if the very great difference of scale between the two works were not such as to bring mine within reach of that larger portion of the reading public for which it is especially intended.

H. Z.

London: November 1877.

Contents

CH,*PTER pjlGI

III. The University (1746-1748) . . 20

VI. Second Berlin Residence (1752-1755) 79

Chapter I. Childhood

' What is the use of a child f It may become a man.' — B. Franklin.

Norse legends tell how Thor, with a mighty flourish of his hammer, cleared the murky sky of clouds and made the daylight shine upon the world. There are men who perform this part for their age, and though we must beware of over- rating the immediate influence of individuals on events, instances arise when it is impossible to emphasize it too strongly. Such an influence was born to Germany in the person of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Between Luther and Lessing lies a barren tract of centuries ; it was reserved to this powerful mind to bridge the gulf between the mediaeval and the modern spirit.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born at Camenz in Upper Lusatia, a province of Saxony, on January 22, 1729. The Lessings, though of burgher extraction, were able to trace their ancestors back to the sixteenth century, and it is interesting to observe that all Gotthold's forefathers were men of marked power,

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESS INC.

rectitude, and enlightenment. They filled public offices either as Lutheran pastors or magistrates ; the clerical element predominated. Theophilus Lessing, the grandfather of Gotthold, was burgomaster of Camenz, and died there in his eightieth year, shortly before, the birth of his distinguished grandson. He was a man of great ability. Born at the end of the terrible Thirty Years' War, as he grew up his impoverished parents found themselves unable to afford him a larger sum than two thalers wherewith to enter the University of Leipzig. Nothing daunted, he fought a sturdy fight against obstacles and privations, and took his doctor's degree with honours. The theme which he chose for his inaugural dissertation was characteristic of the Lessings : from the earliest known ancestor who signed the Formula Concorditz that reunited the Protestant Church, left without a helmsman at Luther's death, to the author of ' Nathan ' and the editor of the ' Wolfenbiittel Fragments.' De religionum tolerantia was its theme, its matter an earnest plea for universal toleration, not only of the Christian, but of all religions.

Johann Gottfried, the son of Theophilus, was educated in this atmosphere of enlightenment, reverent in its breadth, and by no means estranged from the ancient faith. At the University he chiefly studied philosophy and theology, besides Latin, Greek, French, and English (the latter a rare accomplishment in those days), and finally turned to oriental studies for a more critical investigation of biblical literature. He was aspiring to a professorial chair, when, at the age of twenty-five, he was invited to fill the post of catechist and afternoon preacher to his native town, and seeing a higher dispensation in

CHILDHOOD.

this call, held it his duty to accept the offer. Henceforward he was unwearied in the fulfilment of his pastoral duties ; but notwithstanding these claims, and later, those of a rapidly increasing family, he found time to correspond with the most eminent theologians of his time, to keep himself up to their standard of knowledge, to compose numerous polemical pamphlets and religious works, and to translate sundry of Archbishop Tillotson's writings. Throughout all these labours ran a definite thread of purpose. Gottfried Lessing was an orthodox Lutheran, but no zealot ; he condemned the narrow strife of factions and desired to see the reformed community united on the broad basis of Protestantism as opposed to Papacy. He hated indifference, he condemned the personally abusive form of conducting arguments customary among his countrymen ; moreover he feared excess of zeal, and in this respect he held that English theologians had found the middle way. Even freethinkers, he contended, should be treated with respect : an opinion foreign to the prevalent ideas, and proving how far he was in advance of his times. It was on this account he translated Tillotson, intending his version as a preface to a collection of similar polemical writings in exposition of Protestantism. His son was justly proud of this. He wrote to a friend in after years : ' What praises would I not bestow on him if he were not my father ; he was the first translator of Tillotson.' Theophan, the hero of Lessing's youthful drama, ' Der Freigeist' (The Freethinker), the worthy pastor whose excellence and worth disarm the odium anti-theologicum. of the freethinker Adrast, the dramatic representative of Bishop Hall's axiom that ' temper is nine-tenths of Christianity,' is a portrait of his father. Charity, right-mindedness, pride of family, love of earnest study, contempt of money and the luxuries which wealth can buy, hatred of injustice, a hasty temper and a consequent inclination to act upon impulse : all these characterised the father. His irascibility was inherited by his son. Whenever he was annoyed, he found himself involuntarily biting his under lip, exactly as his father had done. The father saw this inherited trait with sorrow, and often with tears in his eyes lamented his own quickness of temper. 'I entreat of you, Gotthold,' he would say, ' take example by me, and be on your guard. For I fear— I fear — and I should like to think I had improved in you.' His writings were distinguished by their excellent style, free from all gallicisms and other adulterations of language too common in the early part of last century. He insisted on historical accuracy and critical research as the touchstones of true scholarship. All this was impressed on his son, whose early education he conducted ; and beholding what manner of man the father was, it is not difficult to conclude what was the mental atmosphere of the home.

It was the paternal rather than the maternal influence that told on the child Lessing, contrary to the popular creed that remarkable men spring from remarkable mothers. Lessing's mother was a good, honest, amiable woman, in no wise above the average, and narrow in her views of life, as was inevitable to the daughter and wife of a country clergyman, who had never been beyond the precincts of Camenz. Justine Salome Feller was the daughter of the chief pastor of the town, whom Gottfried Lessing eventually succeeded. They were married in 1725, a year after

CHILDHOOD. 5 his appointment as deacon, and in due course theirquiver was filled after the manner usual to the poorer clergy. Frau Lessing worshipped her husband as a superior being, and made him an excellent and devoted wife, but she lacked the intellectual gifts that could have influenced her son's development. The cares inevitable to a large family with small means also did their part to hinder any mental growth ; her influence on Lessing's development was consequently insignificant. But as she held the reins of government in her hands, she was able at times to put disturbing obstacles in his path, although even these were founded in deep love for the son whose character was one wholly foreign to her comprehension.

Gotthold was the eldest son of his parents, and though all too quickly the pastoral home was filled by eleven other children, in his early youth means were not so restricted, his father's time not so absorbed, his cares not so deadening as they became afterwards, and he could devote himself to the boy's training. It was from his studious father therefore that Gotthold imbibed his first knowledge of and love for all humanistic studies, establishing that mutual attachment which survived all later divergencies. An earnest religious element was the ground tone of the home. Little Gotthold could hardly babble when he was taught to pray ; he learnt reading out of the Bible and his father's catechism, and at the age of five he knew what, why, and how we should believe. At morning and evening prayers he learnt many hymns, and as these are among the richest arid pithiest utterances of the German language, he early imbibed a taste for good national poetry. The parents often told their other children how easily and gladly Gotthold learnt, and how, even for amusement, he would delight in turning the leaves of a book before he could read them. Here again may no doubt be traced the example set by his diligent father. When he was five years old, the pastor engaged a cousin, Christlieb Mylius, as his private tutor. This circumstance alone proves that money troubles had not begun to burden the family beyond measure. Both father and mother wished their son to repair to the University in due course ; indeed here their views were in accord. As a pastor's wife and daughter, Frau Lessing thought it a moral duty that at least her eldest son should follow in the traditional footsteps and take orders. The parents held no sacrifice too great that would ensure this result.

Gotthold's evident capacity and love of learning were a source of real pleasure to them, and when, in 1737, Mylius was removed from Camenz, the boy was sent at the tender age of eight to the public grammarschool. Here he continued to distinguish himself, and enlarged his views of life beyond the intentions of hig father.

The rector, a certain Heinitz, had been appointed shortly before Lessing's entrance. He was a young man of open mind, taking keen interest in all scientific and literary studies, and was connected with the young Germany of the day, whose head-quarters were at Leipzig. To the horror of Camenz, he defended the abhorred stage as an educator and a school of declamation. The town was scandalized, the magistrates reprimanded, Pastor Lessing denounced the rector from the pulpit as a dangerous tutor of youth. The consequences were inevitable. Having taken this step. Pastor Lessing was forced to remove his

CHILDHOOD. 7

son from the school ; but not before the boy had eagerly imbibed some of his master's extended ideas.

It seems almost ludicrous that the future champion and reformer of the stage should have been taken from school lest he should contract these very notions, which subsequently bore fruit a hundredfold.

Meanwhile another event had helped to bend the twig into its destined shape. In 1739 an artist, and by Lessing's testimony no mean one, strayed into the remote town of Camenz, and was commissioned to paint the pastor's eldest sons, Gotthold and Theophilus. The artist proposed to represent Gotthold with a bird-cage. This proposal roused all his youthful ire. 'You must paint me with a big, big heap of books,' he exclaimed, ' but I would rather not be painted at all.' He was so determined that his wishes were respected, and the future librarian was portrayed holding an open book on his knee, while his right hand points to a pile lying at his feet. Theophilus, the future preacher, is dressed in black, and feeds a lamb. Gotthold, modishly dressed in red, is a child of open countenance, high, wide forehead, honest mouth and broad, energetic nose, who cannot be called beautiful, but in whose face and bearing there is something vivacious, speaking, firm, and unaffected. The artist was engaged as drawing-master to the boy, and froni him Gotthold derived his earliest knowledge of art and its principles.

Thus, even in the small town of Camenz, with its circumscribed interests and arid mental atmosphere, could be laid the foundation-stones of the future polemical, aesthetic, and dramatic writings, that were destined to work mighty reforms in their several departments of thought.

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM .LESSING.

Chapter II. Boyhood

' Character is nature in the highest form. . . . Care is taken that the greatly destined shall slip up into life in the shade, with no thousand-eyed Athens to watch and blazon every new thought, every blushing emotion of voung genius. ' — Emekson.

On thus finding himself, as he deemed, under a moral compulsion to withdraw his boy from the grammar school of his native town. Pastor Lessing obtained for him a nomination to the Fiirstenschule of St. Afra, at Meissen. While waiting admission, Gotthold was sent to study with a relative, Pastor Lindner, of Putzkau, a former scholar of the institution. Lessing matriculated as alumnus on June 21, 1741 : a day which St. Afra celebrated one hundred years after with great honours.

Meissen is best known for the porcelain factory that produces the valued Dresden ware. A hundred years ago it was also celebrated as the site of one of the three great Saxon schools, founded by the Protestant hero. Elector Maurice, with the property of suppressed convents. The institution preserved some monastic characteristics ; its regulations savoured of the cloister, food and clothing were gratuitous, and though some pupils paid small entrance fees, a large

BOYHOOD.

number were received free of expense on the nomination of patrons. The original design of the founder had been to train efficient champions of the Reformation, and when the Evangelical cause had triumphed, and such were no longer needed, the school developed into a nursery for theologians and Lutheran pastors. The curriculum naturally tended to this end, in accordance with the expressed wish of Luther, who desired that language and knowledge should serve as bulwarks of the faith. ' Through orthodox learning, to the glory of God and the spread of His Gospel,' was the motto of the institution.

In Lessing's case, the mental atmosphere of St. Afra was but a continuation of that of home. It instilled the doctrinal spirit of Pastor Lessing, and would therefore, he hoped, further his intention that Gotthold should be a theologian. The boy himself does not appear to have thought about this ultimate career. In his studies he merely foUov/ed his bent, and though these by and by led him to ignore his destination, he did so quite unconsciously. This apparent carelessness of and for the future is most characteristic of the man. In thought, as in deeds, he suffered matters to take their course and pursue their natural development, unthwarted by the fear of consequences. His nature was independent and self reliant ; he held by the good and acted up to it for its own sake. It is this strongly marked individualism that constitutes the nobility of his character : he trusted himself with childlike confidence to the leadings of his inner bias, which prevented any discord between his life and deeds.

At St. Afra he was removed from all material anxieties, such as were beginning to press in the overlo GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING.

filled parsonage : the plan of the institution annulled distinctions between rich and poor. A hundred and twenty boys lived together on terms of perfect equality. It was a small republic in its best form. Opinion was circumscribed by the school walls ; the everyday world and its interests unknown or ignored ; the social conditions of Greece and Rome more eagerly discussed than those of Saxony ; dead languages more cultivated than living; and religious observances placed above all else. Latin was the cherished study ; Greek only so far as it elucidated the New Testament. Modern languages and mathematics were included in the programme, but so much time was absorbed by Latin, chapels, and biblical expositions, that very little was left for other things. The German language and literature were entirely disregarded.

'You would not count knowing German as one of your acquirements 1 ' Lessing asks satirically in the ' Junge Gelehrte', indicating how early he recognized the absurdity of discarding the mother tongue.

But for all this rigid curriculum, it was possible here, as at all public schools, for an industrious lad to strike out a path for himself. The first two years Lessing scrupulously followed the prescribed course, taking high places in his form, and rising with unexampled rapidity. ' A good boy, but somewhat satirical,' was the note appended to his name by a school inspector, and the Conrector remarked to Theopailus on his entry, ' Be as industrious as your brother, but not so pert.' Both remarks prove that Lessing exhibited all the faults as well as the virtues of cleverness. The growth of mental power is of its very nature aggressive, though in Lessing's case it v/as free from

BOYHOOD.

the too common accompaniment of arrogance. The conrector, however, had a petty spite against Lessing. It was the rule that every master should live a week in the house, to superintend in person and to conduct the morning, afternoon and evening prayers. A general meeting of masters was held every Saturday, and was attended by the class monitors. The rector asked one day why during that whole week the pupils hkd all been late for prayers. No one replied. Lessing, one of the monitors on that occasion, had the indiscretion to whisper to his neighbour, ' I know why.' The rector overheard ; he had perhaps counted on Gotthold's candour, and bade him speak. ' The conrector is not punctual,' was his straightforward reply, ' so everyone thinks that prayers will not begin when the clock strikes.' ' Admirable Lessing ! ' exclaimed the conrector, who could not deny the charge ; and from that day Lessing retained this name among his comrades, and was put down in the black books of his master, who until then had rather favoured him, because of his diligence in classical studies, the department in which he taught.

The autumn examinations of 1743 show how far Lessing had advanced beyond his comrades, and it was then that he began to strike out an independent course of studies. *

' My industry kept me from boyish misdemeanours,' he wrote ; and this industry was indeed prodigious. One of the masters, J. A. Klemm, exercised great influence over him. He was an indifferent pedagogue, whose shy, awkward manner failed to command respect, but he was an accomplished scholar, kind and generous-hearted, free from pedantry and class prejudice, and delighted to aid any boy who cared for him

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING.

and his favourite pursuits. It was not long before Lessing recognized his worth. Midnight often found them together in the master's study, exchanging thoughts about classical authors and the means and ends of learning. This intercourse revealed to Lessing how little real knowledge he possessed, how much he had still to acquire, that Latin, Greek, French, English, and Italian were but the tools of learning, not the thing itself ; ideas rankly heterodox at St. Afra, where the letter was held supreme. Klemm often said, ' A scholar who does not know philosophy and mathematics is not worth much.' Forthwith Lessing plunged into Euclid, and with such zeal that he even translated the second, third, and fourth books. Its appeal to reason fascinated him and saved him from stranding on the quicksands of quibbling scholasticism towards which he had shown danger of drifting. He also began to write a poem, ' On the Plurality of Worlds.' A few fragments and a criticism by himself have been preserved.

' The new theories of Whiston and Huygens' " Cosmotheoros " had filled my imagination with conceptions and pictures that seemed the more enchanting that they were wholly new to me. I saw they were more capable of poetical dress than any other philosophical matter. But the art of working my material was lacking. I rhymed my thoughts together in a somewhat mathematical manner ; here and there a metaphor, here and there a digression.' Then Fontenelle's dialogues on the same theme fell in his way, . and he was ashamed of his audacious attempt. The fragment however contains some noble words that do honour to his mental development. The last stanza of the poem, and especially the last line, is worthy to rank beside his later saying.

Klemm's intelligent study of the Greek and Latin writers, inciting to an understanding of their hidden soul, taught Lessing to enter into their spirit, besides following their grammatical structure of phrase, and gave him his peculiar insight into the life of the ancients. He read authors not usually perused at St. Afra, ' Theophrastus, Plautus, and Terence were my world, which I studied leisurely within the narrow confines of a monastic school .... and I, must confess, at the risk of being ridiculed, that of all forms of literature, comedy was the one I attempted first. In those years, when I only knew men from books, I busied myself in picturing foolish beings, whose existence was indifferent to me.' The ' Junge Gelehrte (Young Scholar) is the only one of these dramas that has survived, and this was merely sketched at Meissen.

The scanty German literature of the period was also put into his way by Klemm, and he appears to have read the current journals that recorded the squabbles of the antagonistic literati. The time of Lessing's youth coincided with a blind groping for the literary daylight which was to be shed abroad by the clearsighted boy now studying the attempts of his elders. To try his hand at the fashionable imitations, he wrote some clever Anacreontic odes. Neither then nor later did he produce for production's sake. It was to clear his own mind of doubts, to put difficulties visibly before himself, that he gives them written shape. He hesitates, he reproaches himself, makes suggestions and arrives at a result. Of this character was a ' New • Year's Address,' written in 1743 to his father; the theme, 'That one year resembles another,' was to prove to his parents the fallacy of their now too constantly recurring complaints of the increasing hardness of the times. The boy defends his theories in a scholastic manner, adduces biblical proofs, refers to Solomon and his vanity of vanities, contends that human nature is the same throughout all time, and that therefore neither a golden nor a leaden age is possible. All these remarks might be held mere truisms, only they were in opposition to current ideas which considered happiness in the light of an external gift and not as an often painfully acquired possession. Therefore, for all its formal precocity, the essay is remarkable as a revelation of the severe inner accord which Lessing had so early attained, not by any means a mere resigned submission, but a contented acquiescence in the things that be. By thus working out his perplexities he extended his mental vision beyond the confines of the school, and saw that the narrow limits of St. Afra had engendered a bias towards pedantry. To recognize a fault was to amend it ; and to bring about this result he sketched the ' jfunge Gekkrte,' a play wherein he relentlessly lashed his own tendencies, even to the congratulatory address sent to his father.

' I think,' he writes, ' that it was thanks to my choice of subject that I did not quite fail with this play. A young pedant was the only kind of simpleton- {"Narr") that was not at that time utterly unknown

BOYHOOD. IS to me. Reared among this vermin, was it astonishing that my first satirical weapons were turned against them ? '

A letter to his sister, also of 1743, contains the last trace of a didactic spirit, and is a comical mixture of old-fashioned sophistry and healthy gravity.

' Dearest Sister,

' Though I have written to you, you have not answered me. I am therefore obliged to think that either you cannot write or you will not, and I am inclined to believe the former ; however, I will also believe the other — you will not write. Both are culpable. Still, I cannot understand how two such things should be compatible : to be a reasonable being, to be able to speak sensibly, and at the same time not to know how to compose a letter. Write as you speak, then you will write well. Yet, even if the contrary were the case, and it were possible to speak sensibly without being able to write sensibly, the shame would be still greater, that you had not even learnt as much as that. It is true you ran away very early from your schoolmaster, and in your twelfth year you held it a disgrace to learn any more ; but ,who knows which is the greater disgrace— to learn still in your twelfth year, or to be unable to write a letter in your eighteenth or nineteenth .? Pray write and rid me of this mistaken opinion about you. I must just allude to the New Year, of which I am, reminded. Almost everyone speaks good wishes at this season. But what shall^ I wish you .' It must be something spec^l. I wish that your whole mammon may be stolen. It might be a better service to you than if some one were to add one hundred ducats to your purse at New Year.'