LESSING 479
principal friend was Weisse, who afterwards attained a respectable position as a man of letters. He also became intimate with Mylius, who was considerably older than himself, and had made a certain mark as a literary and scientific writer. There was at this time in Leipsic an excellent actress, Frau Neuber, who had gathered around her a number of respectable players, and Lessing, in company with Weisse, was one of the most regular attenders at her theatre. At St Afra's he had begun a comedy, Der Junge Gelehrte, and this he now completed. Frau Neuber immediately accepted it, and it was received with much favour by the public of Leipsic.
Alarmed by reports of what was supposed to be his dissolute life, the elder Lessing summoned him to Kamenz, where he remained for some months. He soon succeeded in overcoming the fears of his parents, who allowed him to return to Leipsic on condition that he would devote himself to the study of medicine. Some medical lectures he did attend; but his ambition was to become a great dramatist, and as long as Frau Neuber's company kept together he occupied himself almost exclusively with the theatre, being frequently present at rehearsal during the day as well as at the performance in the evening.
In 1745 the company broke up, and Lessing, finding nothing to interest him in Leipsic, went to Wittenberg, and afterwards, towards the end of the year, to Berlin, where his friend Mylius had established himself as a journalist and man of science. In Berlin Lessing now spent three years, maintaining himself chiefly by literary work. He translated two volumes of Rollin's history, wrote some of the best of his early plays, and, in association with Mylius, started a periodical (which soon came to an end) for the discussion of matters connected with the drama, Early in 1751 he accepted the office of literary critic to the Voss Gazette, and in this position he reviewed some of the most important German and French books of the day, manifesting already to some extent the learning, judgment, and wit which were to make him the greatest critic of modern times. His father had been bitterly opposed to his scheme of life, and in 1751 urged him to complete his studies at the university of Wittenberg. Feeling the need of further thought and research, Lessing at last consented, and at the close of the year left Berlin. It is worthy of note that he had been brought into slight contact with Voltaire, for whom he had translated some documents relating to the Hirsch trial. Voltaire's secretary having lent him a volume of the Siècle de Louis XIV., which had not yet been published, he took it with him to Wittenberg. This came to the ears of Voltaire, who assumed that Lessing intended to print either a pirated edition or an unauthorized translation. The affair led to an angry correspondence, and was a subject of much talk in Berlin.
Lessing remained about a year in Wittenberg, where he passed most of his time in the university library, every volume in which, he afterwards declared, had passed through his hands. Having taken the degree of master of arts, he returned to Berlin, determined to make literature his profession; and the next three years were among the busiest of his life. Besides translating for the booksellers, he issued several numbers of the Theatralische Bibliothek, a periodical essentially the same as that which he had begun with Mylius. He also resumed his labours as critic to the Voss Gazette. For many years the most influential writer in Germany had been Gottsched, the Leipsic professor, who continually proclaimed the necessity of rigid adherence, in the drama and in poetry, to French rules. In his articles for the Voss Gazette, Lessing made it his principal object to ridicule the pretensions of Gottsched and his school, and in a short time there was no writer of whom they were so much afraid. In 1754 he produced a deep impression by Ein Vade Mecum für den Herrn Sam. Gotth. Lange, in which he exposed with bitter satire Lange's errors in his popular translation of Horace. During these three years Leasing took a definite position in contemporary literature by issuing, in six small volumes, those of his writings which he considered worthy of preservation. They included his lyrics and epigrams, some of the latter being in German, others in Latin. Most of his lyrics were written in Leipsic, and had already appeared, during his first residence in Berlin, in a volume of Kleinigkeiten, published without his name. Although they do not, like Goethe's lyrics, touch deep sources of natural feeling, they have the merit of being bright, gay, and musical, and some of them are still sung by German students. The epigrams, many of which were produced in Wittenberg, are in the style of Martial, and give evidence, like Lessing's critical writings, of a keen and biting humour. Among his collected writings there was also a remarkable series of Letters, in which, for the first time in German literature, some of the results of extensive learning were presented in a free and vivid style. Even more important, perhaps, were the papers entitled Rettungen, in which he undertook to vindicate the character of various writers who had been misunderstood by preceding generations. One of the best of these Rettungen is on Horace, whom he defends against the critics who charge him with sensuality and cowardice. In another, almost equally good, he shows that Cardan, instead of being an atheist, did full justice to the evidences for Christianity, as they were understood in his time, while he did rather less than justice to other religions. This essay contains a powerful argument in favour of Mohammedanism, developed from the point of view of an intelligent believer in the Prophet. In addition to these varied contents, Lessing published in the six volumes of his Schriften his early plays and Miss Sara Sampson. Of the former the chief are Der Junge Gelehrte, already mentioned, Der Freidenker, Die Juden, and Der Misogyn. Although superior to any other German comedies produced at the same time, they cannot be said to reveal a high dramatic faculty. In the arrangement of his plots and the balancing of his characters, Lessing follows closely the methods of contemporary French comedy, and in the dialogue there is often a too obvious straining after effect. Miss Sara Sampson, written in 1755, marks a wholly different stage of his development. It has many faults both in conception and in execution, but it exercised a powerful influence by indicating to the dramatists of Germany that materials for tragedy are to be found in the experiences of ordinary men and women as well as in those of "the great." Lessing attributed much importance to this principle, which had been suggested to him chiefly by the study of Richardson, whose Clarissa is almost exactly reproduced in the heroine of Miss Sara Sampson.
This tragedy, when represented in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, was received with so much applause that he resolved to devote himself to the drama; and in fulfilment of his design he suddenly quitted Berlin in October 1755, and went to Leipsic, where a good theatre had been lately established. During his second residence in Berlin he had made his name widely known, and he had secured several friends, whose affection he retained during the rest of his life. The chief of these was Moses Mendelssohn, in association with whom, in 1755, he wrote an admirable treatise, Pope ein Metaphysiker, tracing sharply the lines which separate the poet from the philosopher. The Berlin Academy of Sciences had offered a prize for the best essay on Pope's doctrine that "Whatever is, is right," as compared with the optimism of Leibnitz. The treatise of the two friends was written to show that there cannot be a
