l6l
has been faid of the great painters, that you may know them by the dafli of their pen-cils. Wieland is one of the few German writers who will go down to poderity as a claf-fical writer, when the works of feveral of his cotemporaries {hall ferve for dung of thefields. It is generally obje&ed to him, that he repeats the fame things too often, andcopies himfelf; but, for my part, I have not obferved much repetition. It is true, thatlike other great writers, he has favourite ideas, which he is ever turning and poliffiing, in.order to fet them before the reader in every point of view. I have no fault to find withhim, but that he hides his ftudy too little, expofes his immenfe reading too much, andoften forgets that his reader may not be fo enamoured with his erudition as he is himfelf.I likewife think, that before he was privy-counfellor and tutor to the prince he wrotemuch more naturally than he does now. In order that no part of literature fhould beunexplored by him, but more with a view of filling his purfe, whilft his reputation was atthe height, he undertook a literary journal, which he carried on with uncommon fpiritand activity. None of the German writers know fo well how to pleafe the public asWieland does. He is mod fruitful in the invention of trifles, in order to make his jour-nal, which is as good as any other we have, fell. Sometimes, like a Dutch tobacco-merchant, he will tye a picture to his wares; fometimes he promifes in one number afolution of a riddle in a pad one, and in the next, indead of a folution of the riddle,gives you a rattle or a trumpet for children to play with. At times he publilhes onenumber in a year, at others he will write the whole volume in a month. Riddles , newf-papers, anecdotes, literary quarrels, every thing, in a word, is crammed in that may givehis wares the appearance of novelty, or amufe the people. You will fay thefe are littlebook-felling tricks; and fo they are, but they are more venial in German than in otherauthors, as without them it would be difficult for the greateff indudry and the greatedtalents to live by the profeffion.
Wieland is, what few poets are, a good domedic man. He lives, in fa£t, more forhis family than for the public. He would furnifh a new proof, if there wanted any, ofthe juffice of a favourite aphoriftn with me, to wit, that the generative powers of manare in the fame proportion as his underdanding, and that it is good for him when heufes the one with as much order and oeconomy as the other. Wieland has feven oreight fine children. No poet, he obferves himfelf, ever had fo many; and he has writ-ten the lives of the poets folely to affure himfelf of the truth of it. A good penfionfrom the court, added to what he gets by his journal, enables him to fee the approachof old age with tranquillity, and gives him the profped of enjoying the comforts of lifeto the end.
There are fome extraordinary traits in Wieland’s character, which feem a contradto his writings : I will give you fome of them. In all he has written, he difeovers greatknowledge of the world, and you would take him for a courtier out of place, yet no manknows lefs of mankind. In polite circles, and in the conduct of a common affair of life,' he is entirely at a lofs. Even fince the publication of the Agathon, which you knowcontains every evolution and revolution of the female mind, and, like his other works,befpeaks one of the polited writers that ever exidecj ; there have been feveral indancesof his not knowing how to converfe with a woman. His knowledge of the gay worldconfids entirely in theory, and he mud be fome time in company before he can makeuie of it. This is not altogether owing to continual dudy and want of intercourfe withthe polite world, but is in fome degree conditutionai in him. He is by nature very lively,but not very refolute, diffident of himfelf, and eafy of belief towards others ; in fine, heis one of thofe men’to whom nature has refufed every grain of that felf-fufficiency, afinall dofe of which is of fo much ufc in the affairs of this life. His knowledge of the
vol. vi, ' y world