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Kind also wrote in prose; and his tale, entitled "Die Todtenglocke" is allowed to be his happiest effort in this line. The conception of the story "Rosa und Alba” is also very masterly.

ANTON GERHARD VON HALEM (1752-1819) Was born in Oldenburg, on the 2nd of March 1752; where he also died (while fulfilling the functions of chief-counsellor) on the 5th of January 1819.

This author has a purity and correctness of style, and a gracefulness in his descriptive means, rather than any real poetical genius. His "Jesus, der Stifter des Gottesreichs," and "Gustav Adolph von Schweden," are inferior productions, although it is true that the former contains many fine passages. His biographical works take a higher literary rank; witness his "Leben des Grafen Münnich" and "Leben Peter des Grossen."

KONRAD GOTTLIEB PFEFFEL (1736-1809) Was born at Kolmar, on the 28th of June 1736; he died on the 1st of May 1809, when president of the consistory of Kolmar.

When Pfeffel reached twenty-one years of age, he became blind, and poetry was his only consolation. His productions are characterized by an original, inventive genius, just discrimination, real feeling, naïve wit, sterling humour, and social philosophy. His language is natural, yet not always exact. He was a prolific writer: in addition to his lyric poetry, he wrote fables, metrical tales, epistles, romances, epigrams, and dramas. His forte, however, lay in fables and stories, in which there is a most remarkable degree of fancy and energy.

Pfeffel's minor pieces are rather distinguished by facile verse and inartificial humour, than for soundness of thought.

His poems: "Die Tabakspfeife," "Der freie Mann," are

well known. His "Epistel an Phöbe" is, undoubtedly, one of his best, as it evinces an unusual vigour and bril

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liancy of expression. Pfeffel's dramatic productions are nearly forgotten; although Lessing, in his "Dramaturgie," observes, that his "Der Schatz" and "Der Eremit" gained, in their day, considerable applause.

CHRISTIAN AUGUST GOTTLOB EBERHARD

(1769)

Was born 1769. He was a bookseller, is now a doctor of philosophy, and lives at Halle.

EBERHARD has produced more prose than poetry, which evidence, especially in his tales, no small degree of merit. He was gifted with great fluency of style, a pictorial power, and a happy ingenuity.

Eberhard's "Hannchen und die Küchlein," written in hexameters, is the best of his productions. There is a charm and pleasantry about this famous idyllic poem, a simplicity in the structure of its plot, a graceful verisimilitude in its characters, and a general artistic degree of finish, that will secure for it an enduring reputation. "Hannchen und die Küchlein" is quite worthy of being placed by the side of Goethe's "Hermann und Dorothea," and Voss's "Luise."

Eberhard also published another poem in the same pastoral vein, to which he gave the title of "Der erste Mensch und die Erde," in which he describes the creation of the world in a simple and appropriate manner.

Some of his poems are much admired for their exquisite humour, such as: 66 Der Kampf im Finstern" and "Der Peter in der Fremde." Of his fictions, "Westhold" and "Warner" are the two best.

II.-DRAMATIC WRITERS.

AUGUST WILHELM IFFLAND (1759-1814)

Was born the 19th of April 1759, at Hanover. At Gotha he engaged himself at a theatre, when just about leaving for

the university. In the year 1796, Iffland was summoned to Berlin, to become the director of the national theatre, and he died on the 22nd September 1814, while holding that responsible office.

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IFFLAND was well thought of as a play-wright and dramatist, besides being much liked as an actor. He has produced many theatrical compositions, to which the name has been given of " Familien Drama." He had a competent knowledge of men and manners, understood the principles of stage-effect, and kept a good moral steadily in view. His plays, however, are liable to this general objection, that his pathetic scenes are so contrived, as materially to detract from the force of the comic business. Still, whatsoever he desires should win upon the reader's interest, is presented with astonishing tact and dexterity. Verisimilitude is the characteristic of his plays, and he places before us a most faithful picture of German domestic life. "Should any historiographer in the generation to come,” observes O. L. B. Wolff, "design to write a narrative of the manners and customs of our nation, and look about him for authorities upon which he might rely, Iffland's dramatic portraitures will be quite a treasure to him."

The desire to make the hatefulness of sin and vice appear, meets us in every one of his productions; while, on the other hand, goodness is introduced merely, as it were, for the sake of enouncing and enforcing the moral; but the progress of the dramatic action is occasionally sluggish, and the language somewhat heavy.

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"Die Hagestolzen," Goethe says (vide Eckermann's Gespräche "), "is unquestionably Iffland's best piece,—the only instance of his quitting prose and ascending into the ideal.” “Die Jäger" and "Verbrechen aus Ehrsucht," "Der Herbstag," "Die Dienstpflicht," exhibit very clever and truthful scenes. In 66 Selbstbeherrschung," "Die Aussteuer," and especially in "Die Reise nach der Stadt," we find much genuine comed.

AUGUST FRIED. FERDINAND VON KOTZEBUE. (1761-1819.)

This is the most prolific dramatic writer Germany ever had. He composed an almost countless number of pieces, and the plots he devised were equally versatile and inexhaustible. In the course of his career, he experienced many alternations of literary fortune. At first he was quite the pet of the public; then worried by the severe criticisms and cabals of intriguing journalists; and, finally, maligned and detested by all parties. But, notwithstanding this, his plays were established favourites upon the German stage, and the representations of them in the present day are not unfrequent.

KOTZEBUE may, from the quality of his genius, be not inaptly compared to a usurer, who, by lending out his small capital at an enormous rate of interest, succeeds in multiplying it a hundred-fold; or to a miser, who makes a trifle go a great way; or to an adroit mantuamaker, who understands how to alter and adapt a garment, so that it may suit all the fashionable caprices of the day. "Kotzebue," says Börne, ". can throw off plays faster than society can furnish him with subjects; he can put forth fascinating and instructive dramas, which it were easier to surpass than to replace." This remark of Börne is very true. He always uses his dramatic materials well; and numberless sterling beauties will be found intermingled with most absurd and outré events. He has a great knowledge of stage-business and theatrical effect, and understands the public taste. His style is good, his dialogue smart and pointed, and he is very dexterous in developing his plots. Kotzebue's dramas embrace and embody the "sayings and doings" of society in general, his characters being mostly taken from real life : but if he cannot find their prototypes there, he invents, and that successfully.

Goethe expresses his opinion of Kotzebue to Falk thus: “We shall certainly find, after the lapse of a century, that Kotzebue offered, in good truth, a certain dramatic form;

but it is a pity that his plays are entirely destitute of 'Charakter und Gehalt.' A week or two back, I was present at the performance of his 'Verbannten Amor,' which, I must say, gave me great satisfaction; some parts of it even betray genius;-the same may be said of his 'Beiden Klingsberge:' these dramas I consider his two best."- Kotzebue is, generally, more successful in the depiction of libertinage than of exalted nature.

His "Corsen" is a play that closely approximates to its archetype. "Could Kotzebue but move within that space which nature has marked out for him," says Goethe, “I would be the first to stand up in his defence; but he meddles with a thousand things of which he knows nothing.

Out of the great mass of the plays by this author, we can only mention the most popular. These are: "Menschenhass und Reue," better known, perhaps, in the English translation, as "The Stranger;" "Die edele Lüge," a continuation of the foregoing; "Das Kind der Liebe," "Graf Benjowsky," ," "Die Negersclaven," ""Die Rosen des Herrn "Die deutschen Kleinstädter," von Malesherbe," 66 Die Französischen Kleinstädter," ""Die Kreuzfahrer." Of the "Verwandschaften" and "Die Versöhnung" Eckermann says: "I am bound to praise both these dramas, for the inartificial glance they take of real life, and for the happy appreciation they show of its more interesting phases."

Kotzebue certainly surpassed, in native ease of style, and in what would seem to have been the innate technicality and direction of genius, the majority of his literary contemporaries; and, under favour of these gifts, he made himself absolutely necessary and indispensable to the German stage. The praise is his, of having liberated the German conventional drama from its stiffness and inelegance, while he extended the forms of an easier conversational method much more completely than even Wieland himself.

The "Life" of Kotzebue contains some remarkable incidents, and is well worth reading. He was born in

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