[54]. Of course the general drift of the piece, with the corrections it introduces in the ut pictura poesis maxim, is very important indeed, and was of the very highest opportunity in supplying corrections to the different opinions on the subject of Du Bos and the Switzers. Moreover, such discussions as that of the Disgusting, &c., are undoubtedly things which we should have noticed in the first volume, and perhaps in the second. But the iron room is closing in.
[55]. Laocoön, xx. Ed. cit., x. 120 sq.
[56]. Observe that it will be quite useless for the “parallel passage” marine-storekeeper to point out, even if he can, earlier uses of either image. Neither was a stock image at the time of use.
[57]. H. D., No. (or Stück) 11 and part of 12; xi. 144 sq.
[58]. Semiramis, III. vi. sub fin.
[59]. H. D., No. 22 sq.
[60]. Ibid., 29 sq.
[61]. Ibid., 36 sq.
[62]. Some of the original dates of Lessing’s works may be usefully grouped in a note: Early critical work, 1750 onwards; Abhandlungen über die Fabeln, 1759; Laocoön, 1766; Hamb. Dramaturgie, 1767-68; Anmerkungen über das Epigramm, 1771. But the whole thirty years of his literary life—at least until his unlucky attack of anti-theological mania towards its close—were fruitful in criticism.
[63]. This important and edifying problem has attracted much attention from scholars. M. Kont, the author of a really admirable monograph on Lessing et l’Antiquité (2 vols., Paris, 1894-9), devotes almost an excursus to it. The original may be found in vol. 15 of Herr Göring’s (the collected) ed., and it is fair to say that the latter part of Lessing’s dissertation does much to save the earlier.