‘But of old friends be most miserly.
Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring,
As to an oak; and precious more and more,
Without deservingness or help of ours,
They grow....
’Tis good to set them early, for our faith
Pines as we age; and after wrinkles come,
Few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears.’
To Mendelssohn this poetic truth was very apparent. He had been liberal in intimacies, but ‘miserly’ in friendships, and now at fifty years old he was bankrupt. Still, as befitted his steadfast Jewish nature, he did not let his keen sorrow for his old comrade express itself in selfish inaction. An opportunity soon presented itself for Mendelssohn to rouse himself on his friend’s behalf.Germany, as its greatest poet[64] once rather bitterly remarked, ‘needs time to be thankful.’ A year or two after Lessing’s death was too early for any anniversary celebrations of his genius, and some of his countrymen got up an agitation against his memory instead. In articles many and bitter, the dead poet was accused of want of principle and want of religion, and of a great many other bad qualities, which were summarised as ‘covert Spinozism.’ It was a fine phrase with which to cover up ignorant and jealous abuse. Mendelssohn, with grief and indignation, tore off the disguise, and in a brilliant pamphlet, full alike of pathos and of wit, he cleared the reputation and defended the character of his dead friend. This was his last literary work. It was his monument as well as Lessing’s. He took the manuscript to his publisher on one of the lastdays of the year 1785, and in the first week of the new year 1786, then only fifty-six years old, he quietly and painlessly died.