Rabener’s personal character was such as we do not often meet. A thorough and strict man of business, he did his duty, and so gained the good opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors; at the same time, by way of relaxation, he indulged in a genial contempt for all that immediately surrounded him. Learned pedants, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he made fun of rather than satirized, and even his satire expressed no scorn. Just in the same way he jested about his own condition, his unhappiness, his life, and his death. There is little of the æsthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external form he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony, that is, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this rhetorical device should be adopted extremely sparingly; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to the clear-sighted, perplexes the foolish, but appeals, it is true, to the great majority, who without special intellectual effort imagine themselves cleverer than other people. But all that he presents to us, whatever its form, bears witness to his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity, so that we are always favorably impressed. The unbounded admiration of his own times was a consequence of these moral excellencies. It was natural that people should try to discover originals for his general descriptions and should succeed; and consequently he was attacked on this score by certain individuals: his over-long apologies denying that his satire was personal, prove the annoyance to which he was subjected. Some of his letters do honor to him both as a man and an author. The confidential epistle in which he describes the siege of Dresden and the loss of his house, his effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is most estimable, although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him his happy temperament. The letter in which he speaks of the decay of his strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy of respect, and Rabener deserves to be honored as a saint by all happy sensible people, who cheerfully accept their earthly lot. I tear myself away from him reluctantly, and merely add this remark: his satire refers throughout to the middle classes; he lets us see here and there that he is also acquainted with the upper classes, but does not hold it advisable to discuss them. It may be said that he had no successor; it would be impossible to point to any one at all equal, or even similar to him.