BODMER.

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Germans. Their own style was yet far from perfect, but the good sense of this appealfrom the artificial to the natural was evident at once, and productive of importantresults.

In 1725 Bodmer was appointed to the chair of history at Zurich ; he became, too, apartner in a printing and bookselling business, in which great projects were con-templated ; and also the author of a long series of works. They contain much that isvaluable, but he did not accomplish as a poet all he supposed. It is amusing to read thefollowing passage from one of his letters, written in hiu seventy-eighth year : “ In thebloom of my years poetry was not yet in existence. Then she stood on the isthmus ofthe Saturnine age. Hagedornj Glecin, Klopstock came, and with them the silver times ;then the spring of a golden period. No summer follows this spring. We are fallingback into iron days, in which, however, it is true, mild and gently powerful rays breakforth, like sunbeams in winter.” Schlegel has compared the sensations produced byhis poem of “ Noah,” which its author regarded with great complacency, to those feltby a person when travelling on a very rough road in a carriage without springs. Butto Bodmer the merit is due of pointing out to the Germans their forgotton treasures ofnational poetry, and of zealously vindicating the taste of the English classics against thefrigidity of Gottsched . He held the professorship of history for fifty years, and resignedthe chair to one of his most beloved pupils, Henry 1 uessli. In Bodmer s correspondencewith Zellweger, Gulzer, and Schinz, there is a rich store of materials for the literaryhistory of the time, and especially for that of the progress of theology and generalscience at Zurich .

The history of Zurich , however, presents before us a galaxy of celebrated names,associated with the physical sciences, philosophical and political studies, history, philology,geography, literature, poetry, music, and painting.