HISTORY OF THE 125. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AND OF THE NINETEENTH TILL THE OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH EMPIRE. WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO MENTAL CULTIVATION AND PROGRESS. BY F. C. SCHLOSSER, PRIVY COUNCILLOR AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF TRANSLATED, WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES, BY D. DAVISON, M.A. VOL. IL LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186 STRAND. 1844. CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. SECT. II.-Letters upon Literature.-First Years of the Universal Page SECT. I.-Philosophy and Theology in the German Schools and Universities, till the introduction of Kant's Philosophy into two SECT. II.-Basedow and the Philosophical Institutions at Dessau, SECT. III. B.-Göttingen Bards.-Idylls.-Sensibility. ---Tender- 6 SECT. IV. Lessing and Herder.-Intelligible and Poetic Chris- tianity. Lavater and Lichtenberg.-Fanaticism and Satire.. ERRATA IN VOLUME II. Page 4, 1. 12, for stiffly, read stiff 8, 1. 6, dele inverted commas before the and place them before "from the 10, 1. 11 from bottom, for bread, read exhalations of 14, 1. 19, dele; 17, note, read as a specimen of that peculiar sort of breath &c. 205, 1. 4 and 3 from bottom, for Germany. After-Salzmann, read Germany, — 228, 1. 3 from bottom, for the publisher openly calls Wieland, read Wieland 230, 1. 11, for Edwin, read Erwin 248, 1. 24, for Ziegra. He, read Ziegra-he HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CHAPTER V.-(continued.) GERMANY TILL THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTH DECEN. NIUM OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. § II. LETTERS UPON LITERATURE.-FIRST YEARS OF THE UNIVERSAL GERMAN LIBRARY.-HERDER'S FRAGMENTS for the PROMOTION OF GERMAN LITERATURE.-WIELAND.-VON THÜMMEL. WE have mentioned in the preceding volume, that two attempts had been made in the sixth decennium to erect a critical tribunal in Berlin or Leipzig, and that Weisse, who at last remained alone at the head of the undertaking of the library of the fine arts, did not possess a sufficient share of the public confidence, under the then circumstances, to undertake the dictatorship. This dictatorship was then at Nicolai's wish and suggestion and with his assistance transferred to the Letters upon Literature,' which were expressly destined to place the whole uneducated public in Germany, who were only accustomed to miserable German books, in a condition to distinguish by sure signs the bad from the middling, and these again from the excellent. This was Lessing's and Nicolai's object when they renewed their early attempt to establish a formal tribunal of criticism over that part of literature which did not merely concern the learned, but which affected the whole people. The new critical journal, which Nicolai, in his double capacity of bookseller and friend of the reformation of literature and men, erected, may be regarded as consisting of two altogether different halves; the one formed a collection of judgements pronounced by Lessing and his friends upon German literature; the other a speculation VOL. II. B |