[34]. Which, be it remembered, B. himself translated.
[35]. Heilbronn?[Heilbronn?], 1883.
[36]. These latter date from 1742.
[37]. It is well known that Germany was still intensely provincial. The “snorings under six-and-thirty monarchs,” as Heine put it unkindly, almost a century later, were not peaceful by any means.
[38]. Zürich, 1741-44.
[39]. They were numerous from 1740 to 1760, and their titles—except those of the rather well-known Bremer Beiträge, itself a “short title,” and the Gelehrten Zeitungen of Göttingen, are mostly rather cumbrous, e.g., Cramer and Mylius’ Bemühungen zur Beförderung der Kritik und des Guten Geschmacks, Halle, 1743-47. I do not pretend to a very extensive acquaintance with them, but what I have confirms Herr Braitmaier’s statement that, excepting the Göttingen one, and this for the sake of Haller, chiefly, “All these newspapers did as good as nothing for the advancement of criticism.”
[40]. Gellert, who was a sort of “prefect” for his time in this school of modern German literature, gave at least one proof of practical wisdom which few men of letters have equalled. Frederic the Great sent for him, poured oil over him from his beard to the skirts of his clothing, and invited him again. Gellert did not go. As for the others, Christian Mylius, dying young, had the further good luck to be a friend of Lessing, who edited his Vermischte Schriften (Berlin, 1754). They run from Theology to Vivisection. The chief critical piece is a tractate (1743), Von den Reimen und dem Sylbenmasse in Schauspielen. Mylius is against rhyme both in Tragedy and in Comedy.
[41]. I say “at least” because the youngest brother of the elder batch, Johann Heinrich, also meddled with literature. But we need take no keep of him.
[42]. A phase of, and sometimes identified with, the general “Swiss-Saxon” battle.
[43]. I only know the third edition (Leipzig, 1770), which, as well as the second, 1758-59, seems to have been a good deal revised. There are eleven Abhandlungen here, two of which were new, while two others had been added in the second to the original seven.