[11.] Pp. 101–104. “The Temptation” and the “Conquest.” The Unterhaltungen is censured by the Deutsche Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften, III, p. 266, for printing a poor translation from Yorick when two translations had already been announced. The references to Unterhaltungen are respectively pp. 12–16, and 209–213.
[12.] See below, p. 42–3.
[13.] It was reviewed in the Hamburgischer unpartheyischer Correspondent, Oct. 29.
[14.] I, pp. XX, 168; II, p. 168.
[15.] Lachmann’s edition, 1840, XII, p. 199.
[16.] See Goethe-Jahrbuch, XIV (1893), pp. 51–52.
[17.] “Heinrich Leopold Wagner, Goethe’s Jugendgenosse,” 2d ed. Jena, Frommann, 1879, p. 104.
[18.] It is not possible to date with absolute certainty the time of Lessing’s conversation with Sara Meyer, but it was after the publication of “Werther,” and must have been on one of his two visits to Berlin after that, that is, in March, 1775, on his way to Vienna, or in February, 1776, on his return from Italy.
[19.] Bode must have come to Lessing with the information before this public announcement, for Lessing could hardly have failed to learn of it when once published in a prominent Hamburg periodical.
[20.] Böttiger in his biographical sketch of Bode is the first to make this statement (p. lxiii), and the spread of the idea and its general acceptation are directly traceable to his authority. The Neue Bibl. der schönen Wissenschaften in its review of Böttiger’s work repeats the statement (LVIII, p. 97), and it is again repeated by Jördens (I, p. 114, edition of 1806), by Danzel-Guhrauer with express mention of Böttiger (“Lessing, sein Leben und seine Werke,” II. Erste Abtheilung, p. 287), and by Erich Schmidt (“Lessing, Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Schriften,” Berlin, 1899, I, p. 674). The editor of the Hempel edition, VII, p. 553 claims Lessing as responsible for the translation of the Journey, and also of Shandy. The success of the “Empfindsame Reise” and the popularity of Sterne are quite enough to account for the latter translation and there is no evidence of urging on Lessing’s part. A similar statement is found in Gervinus (V, p. 194). The Frankfurter Gel. Anz. (Apr. 21, 1775), p. 267, credits Wieland with having urged Bode to translate Shandy. The Neue Critische Nachrichten, Greifswald, IX, p. 279, makes the same statement. The article, however, in the Teutscher Merkur (1773, II, pp. 228–30) expresses merely a great satisfaction that Bode is engaged upon the work, and gives some suggestions to him about it.