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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 23
at firft fo eafily accounted for. Let us fee what is to be faid for the audience and the
poets.
On the part of the public it may arife from ignorance of life and manners. The
different elafles of people do not mingle fo much in the German towns as they do in
France. ‘To every thing which belongs to nobility, or which has the name of nobility,
or is in any way attached to the court, the German in middle life can have no accefs.
His knowledge of life, and tafte for focia! pleafures is much more confined than that of
our people; nor does he, like the inhabitants of a moderately large I’rench town,
enter into the innumerable incidents and accidents of common life. This want of
intereft in ufual virtues and vices, this infenfibility to the little events of ordinary life,
oblige the German to look for {trong emotions and caricatures to entertain him on
the {tage ; whereas the Frenchman is contented with a piece of a much finer wrought
plot, and willingly fees the people he lives and is acquainted with, reprefented on the
itage. ‘The Saxon dramas are not fo monftrous and extravagant as thofe which are exhi-
bited in the weftern and fouthern parts of Germany, becaufe a more enlightened moral-
ity, and a freer intercourfe than there is here, obtains in that part of the country, and
confequently the picture of a {cene in common life is more ftriking than it can be
here. In general the majority in this part of the country confifts more of mob than
in France, and the mob, you know, are notorious for running to fee an execution or
a funeral.
On the part of the poets, the extravagance arifes from a variety of different caufes.
Moft of the prefent writers for the German drama are as ignorant as the mob, of the
{prings which actuate mankind. Many of them are ftudents, who are ftill at {chool,
or juft come from it, and have chofen play writing for their trade. Thefe perfons,
who have never feen any thing, fit in their chimney corner, and enveloped in the
fumes of their tobacco, invent whatever happens to come uppermoft. ‘Their crea-
tures have, confequently, neither beauty, fhape, grace, or proportion; but are
either men without heads, or barbarians. The writers of this clafs, who aim at no-
thing but getting their bread by gratifying the public, write tragedy, becaufe it is moft
eafy ; for, independently of the afliftance which may be derived from the marvellous,
itis always eafier to write a good tragedy than an equally good comedy.
Another fet of writers for the bufkin, fuffer themfelves to be led away by the tafte
of the times. A few years ago one Goethe, of whofe works you mutt certainly have
feen tranflations, brought out a piece, which, although it has very great beauties in
it, is, upon the whole, the moft extravagant that ever was acted. To give you an
idea of it, I need not fay more than the fubje@ is, the peafant war under the Emperor
Maximilian, and that the burning of villages, firing towns, &c. &c. are reprefented
in it to the life. This piece, which is called Gots of Berlichingen, with the iron
hand, has, notwithftanding the great outcry for it, not yet been exhibited on the
ftage, becaufe the infinite changes of the fcenery, and the incredible heap of machi-
nery, and decoration neceflary, are too expenfive, and would make the performance
too long. Goethe is undoubtedly a genius, and I have feen other pieces of his,
which fhew that he can draw men in common life, and walking on their legs, as well
thofe who ftand on their heads. His Elvin and Elmire is an exquifite little opera, and
there is much merit, though with fome excrefcencies, in his Clavigo, a tragedy on the
fubje&t, you know, of Beaumarchais’ adventures in Spain. Goethe, however, has
had too many imitators. His Gots of Berlichingen was a kind of magic wand, which,
with a fingle ftroke, produced a hundred geniufes out of nothing. Blind to the real
beau-
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