Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (tr John Black) | Page 4

the habit of refuting the
injurious descriptions which many writers of the North of Germany
have given of that capital, by the kindest reception of all learned men
and artists belonging to these regions, and by the most disinterested
zeal for the credit of our national literature, a zeal which a just
sensibility has not been able to cool. I found here the cordiality of
better times united with that amiable animation of the South, which is
often denied to our German seriousness, and the universal diffusion of
a keen taste for intellectual amusement. To this circumstance alone I
must attribute it that not a few of the men who hold the most important
places at court, in the state, and in the army, artists and literary men of
merit, women of the choicest social cultivation, paid me not merely an
occasional visit, but devoted to me an uninterrupted attention.
With joy I seize this fresh opportunity of laying my gratitude at the feet
of the benignant monarch who, in the permission to deliver these
Lectures communicated to me by way of distinction immediately from
his own hand, gave me an honourable testimony of his gracious

confidence, which I as a foreigner who had not the happiness to be born
under his sceptre, and merely felt myself bound as a German and a
citizen of the world to wish him every blessing and prosperity, could
not possibly have merited.
Many enlightened patrons and zealous promoters of everything good
and becoming have merited my gratitude for the assistance which they
gave to my undertaking, and the encouragement which they afforded
me during its execution.
The whole of my auditors rendered my labour extremely agreeable by
their indulgence, their attentive participation, and their readiness to
distinguish, in a feeling manner, every passage which seemed worthy
of their applause.
It was a flattering moment, which I shall never forget, when, in the last
hour, after I had called up recollections of the old German renown
sacred to every one possessed of true patriotic sentiment, and when the
minds of my auditors were thus more solemnly attuned, I was at last
obliged to take my leave powerfully agitated by the reflection that our
recent relation, founded on a common love for a nobler mental
cultivation, would be so soon dissolved, and that I should never again
see those together who were then assembled around me. A general
emotion was perceptible, excited by so much that I could not say, but
respecting which our hearts understood each other. In the mental
dominion of thought and poetry, inaccessible to worldly power, the
Germans, who are separated in so many ways from each other, still feel
their unity: and in this feeling, whose interpreter the writer and orator
must be, amidst our clouded prospects we may still cherish the
elevating presage of the great and immortal calling of our people, who
from time immemorial have remained unmixed in their present
habitations.
GENEVA, _February_, 1809.
OBSERVATION PREFIXED TO PART OF THE WORK PRINTED
IN 1811.
The declaration in the Preface that these Lectures were, with some
additions, printed as they were delivered, is in so far to be corrected,
that the additions in the second part are much more considerable than in
the first. The restriction, in point of time in the oral delivery, compelled
me to leave more gaps in the last half than in the first. The part

respecting Shakspeare and the English theatre, in particular, has been,
almost altogether re-written. I have been prevented, partly by the want
of leisure and partly by the limits of the work, from treating of the
Spanish theatre with that fulness which its importance deserves.

MEMOIR OF THE LITERARY LIFE OF AUGUSTUS WILLIAM
VON SCHLEGEL
AUGUSTUS WILLIAM VON SCHLEGEL, the author of the
following Lectures, was, with his no-less distinguished brother,
Frederick, the son of John Adolph Schlegel, a native of Saxony, and
descended from a noble family. Holding a high appointment in the
Lutheran church, Adolph Schlegel distinguished himself as a religious
poet, and was the friend and associate of Rabener, Gellert, and
Klopstock. Celebrated for his eloquence in the pulpit, and strictly
diligent in the performance of his religious duties, he died in 1792,
leaving an example to his children which no doubt had a happy
influence on them.
Of these, the seventh, Augustus William, was born in Hanover,
September 5th, 1767. In his early childhood, he evinced a genuine
susceptibility for all that was good and noble; and this early promise of
a generous and virtuous disposition was carefully nurtured by the
religious instruction of his mother, an amiable and highly-gifted
woman. Of this parent's pious and judicious teaching, Augustus
William had to the end of his days a grateful remembrance, and he
cherished for her throughout