FOOTNOTES:
[70] Coleridge's Wallenstein.
[71] Bodmer, after the publication of the Messiah, invited the author to his house in Switzerland. He had imaged to himself a most sublime idea of the man who could write such a poem, and had fancied him like one of the sages and prophets of the Old Testament. His astonishment, when he saw a slight-made, elegant-looking young man leap gaily from his carriage, with sparkling eyes and a smiling countenance, has been pleasantly described.
[72] Klopstock's Letters, p. 145.
[73] Klopstock's Letters.
[74] "I not being able to travel yet, my husband has been obliged to make a voyage to Copenhagen. He is yet absent; a cloud over my happiness! He will soon return; but what does that help? he is yet equally absent. We write to each other every post; but what are letters to presence? But I will speak no more of this little cloud, I will only tell my happiness. But I cannot tell you how I rejoice!—A son of my dear Klopstock's! O, when shall I have him?"—Memoirs, p. 99.
[75] Elizabeth Schmidt, married to the brother of Fanny Schmidt.
[76] Meta was buried with her infant in her arms, at Ottenson, near Altona. She had expressed a wish to have two passages from the Messiah, descriptive of the resurrection, inscribed on her coffin, but one only was engraved:—
"Seed sown by God to ripen for the harvest."
See Memoirs, p. 197.
[77] Translated by Elizabeth Smith, of whom it has been truly said, that she resembled Meta, and to whom we are indebted for her first introduction to English readers.
[78] Memoirs.
[79] Klopstock says of himself, "it is not my nature to be happy or miserable by halves: having once discarded melancholy, I am ready to welcome happiness."—Klopstock and his Friends, p. 164.
Du zweifelst dass ich dich wie Meta liebe?
Wie Meta lieb' Ich Done dich!
Dies, saget dir mein hertz liebe vol
Mein ganzes hertz! &c.