Believe me, I walked with an impression of awe on my spirits, as
W----and myself accompanied Mr. Klopstock to the house of his brother,
the poet, which stands about a quarter of a mile from the city gate.
It is one of a row of little common-place summer-houses, (for so they
looked,) with four or five rows of young meagre elm trees before the
windows, beyond which is a green, and then a dead flat intersected with
several roads. Whatever beauty, (thought I,) may be before the poet’s
eyes at present, it must certainly be purely of his own creation. We
waited a few minutes in a neat little parlour, ornamented with the
figures of two of the Muses and with prints, the subjects of which were
from Klopstock’s odes. The poet entered. I was much disappointed in his
countenance, and recognised in it no likeness to the bust. There was
no comprehension in the forehead, no weight over the eye-brows, no
expression of peculiarity, moral or intellectual, on the eyes, no
massiveness in the general countenance. He is, if anything, rather below
the middle size. He wore very large half-boots, which his legs filled,
so fearfully were they swollen. However, though neither W---- nor
myself could discover any indications of sublimity or enthusiasm in his
physiognomy, we were both equally impressed with his liveliness, and his
kind and ready courtesy. He talked in French with my friend, and with
difficulty spoke a few sentences to me in English. His enunciation was
not in the least affected by the entire want of his upper teeth. The
conversation began on his part by the expression of his rapture at the
surrender of the detachment of French troops under General Humbert.
Their proceedings in Ireland with regard to the committee which they
had appointed, with the rest of their organizing system, seemed to have
given the poet great entertainment. He then declared his sanguine belief
in Nelson’s victory, and anticipated its confirmation with a keen and
triumphant pleasure. His words, tones, looks, implied the most vehement
Anti-Gallicanism. The subject changed to literature, and I inquired
in Latin concerning the history of German poetry and the elder German
poets. To my great astonishment he confessed, that he knew very little
on the subject. He had indeed occasionally read one or two of their
elder writers, but not so as to enable him to speak of their merits.
Professor Ebeling, he said, would probably give me every information of
this kind: the subject had not particularly excited his curiosity.
He then talked of Milton and Glover, and thought Glover’s blank verse
superior to Milton’s. W---- and myself expressed our surprise: and
my friend gave his definition and notion of harmonious verse, that
it consisted, (the English iambic blank verse above all,) in the apt
arrangement of pauses and cadences, and the sweep of whole paragraphs,
“with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account