[745]. Unfortunately the Bürger review is not the only one, of the small handful given us, in which Schiller “harps and carps” in this evil fashion. That on Egmont is almost as bad.
[746]. Herr Boas, op. cit. inf., cites Gervinus as saying that his investigations entirely confirmed the Xenien estimates. I have not verified the quotation, but I know enough of Gervinus (see on him inf.) to be certain that his judgment would have been equally accommodating whatever these estimates had been.
[747]. The most convenient subject for such a study known to me is the Schiller und Goethe im Xenien-kampf of Eduard Boas (Stuttgart und Tübingen, 2 vols., 1851), which gives the text with all necessary apparatus, and a long account, with specimens, of the retorts of the victims and the appurtenant literature generally. I exclude, of course, from the remarks in the text the Tabulæ Votivæ, &c.
[748]. No doubt there are exceptions. Goethe’s best seem to me 278 (directed, it is said, at F. Schlegel) and the rather ill-natured but clever Charade (282). Schiller was happy in 346 on Gottsched as Tantalus: but any one could, and can, shoot Gottsched sitting.
[749]. 4 vols. in the Cotta collection. This also contains Schiller’s correspondence with Körner, which should be compared.
[750]. 1795-96.
[751]. Letter 309, May 5, 1797; ed. cit., ii. 96.
[752]. All the pieces here mentioned will be found in the Cotta ed. of Bürger’s Ausgewählte Werke. The epigram on Goethe’s doubling the part of artist and minister (ii. 78, ed. cit.) has much more satiric quality than most of the Xenien themselves possess.
[753]. Ed. cit., ii. 208. But Bürger ought to have faced the question, “If the asafœtidarian poet has travelled, and been convinced of roses, what then?” See, however, some notable things here on Style, &c.
[754]. See his Works, or separately in two volumes of Cotta’s Bibliothek. The note cited is at i. 43. Observe that Richter was by no means a partisan Wielandist.