‘Sing, unsterbliche Seele, des sündigen Menschen Erlösung!’ Where is the cæsura—speaking to you, I should say, _abschnitt_—in this line? Voss, it is true, wrote correctly; and yet an Italian will hang down his chin whenever Voss’s hexameters are read. As for Goethe, what sort of poetry is his? You know his elegies—for example, the hexameter which ends ——‘blaustrumpf und violet strumpf!’[461] Surely he must have taken the Germans for a hard-hearted nation!’ I quoted for him the burlesque couplet which was composed in ridicule of Schiller’s and Goethe’s distichs. ‘In Weimar und Jenam acht man Hexameter wie den, Und die Pentameter sind noch erbärmlicher.’ He repeated it at once after me, and seemed to wish to impress it on his mind. ‘Do you know,’ he pursued, ‘what language I place before all others, next to Greek and Italian, for constructive capability and rhythmical harmoniousness?—The Hungarian. I know some pieces of the later poets of Hungary, the melody of which took me completely by surprise. Mark its future history, and you will see in it a sudden outburst of poetic genius, which will fully confirm my prediction. The Hungarians themselves do not seem to be aware what a treasure they have in their language.’[462] ‘It would be in the highest degree interesting,’ said I, ‘if you would draw up a comparative sketch of the metrical capabilities of all the various languages that you speak. Who is there that could speak on the subject with more authority?’ He received my suggestion with a smile, but made no reply. He seems, indeed, to content himself with the glory of being handed down to posterity as the Crœsus of languages, without leaving to them the slightest permanent fruit of his immense treasures of science.”[463]