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Such men as Gleim and Ramler were mere dilettanti, and could have no notion how sacred his convictions are to a militant thinker like Lessing. His creed as to the rights of friendship in criticism might be put in the words of Selden, the firm tread of whose mind was like his own: "Opinion and affection extremely differ.
The latter had, however, also its particular school, in which each of the Greek and Roman poets found his imitator. Voss, for instance, took Homer for his model, Ramler, Horace, Gleim, Anacreon, Gessner, Theocritus, Cramer, Pindar, Lichtwer, AEsop, etc. The Germans, in the ridiculous attempt to set themselves up as Greeks, were, in truth, barbarians.
This self-inspection, this importance attached to little personalities, disgusts us. The letters of Gleim, Heinse, Jacobi, Johannes Müller suffice to make us feel fully conscious of this disgust. We should now call the man a coxcomb who considered his precious ego so important that he had to carry on, year in and year out, a yard-long correspondence about himself.
This letter printed in the Hamburg paper was to explain the snuff-box, which Jacobi had sent to Gleim a few days before, and the desire is also expressed to spread the order. Hence others were sent to other friends. Jacobi goes on to say: “Perhaps in the future, I
Gleim's description of him, soon after he went to Weimar, is very different from this. Do you recollect it?" "No, I do not." "It is a story, which good old father Gleim used to tell with great delight.
The poet Gleim is in town, and will read his late 'Muse Almanach. May I not expect both of you?" They joyfully consented, gazing after the merry society as it drove away. "This is a good bite for the poisonous tongues of the honorable," cried the duke.
As Gleim lay on his death-bed he addressed the great bard of Germany "I am dying, dear Klopstock; and, as a dying man will I say, in this world we have not lived long enough together and for each other; but in vain would we now recal the past!" What tenderness in the reproach! What self-accusation in its modesty! The literary and the personal character.
By his emulation of the ancients, especially Tacitus, he sees himself constantly forced into narrower limits, by which he at last becomes obscure and unpalatable. Gerstenberg, a fine but eccentric talent, also distinguishes himself: his merit is appreciated, but on the whole he gives little pleasure. Gleim, diffuse and easy by nature, is scarcely once concise in his war- songs.
There seemed for GLEIM to be no extinction in friendship when the friend was no more; and he had invented a singular mode of gratifying his feelings of literary friendships. The visitor found the old man in a room of which the wainscot was panelled, as we still see among us in ancient houses. In every panel GLEIM had inserted the portrait of a friend, and the apartment was crowded.
Such have been the friendships of great literary characters; but too true it is, that they have not always contributed thus largely to their mutual happiness. The querulous lament of GLEIM to KLOPSTOCK is too generally participated.
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