Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 100.djvu/153

Rh genius in his early prime. As a man, Lessing had characteristics akin to some of the weak points of his "to be or not to be" biographer; he, too, formed magnificent projects, and sketched out many a fascinating but impracticable opus magnum; he, too, was fickle, and an incurable locomotive; he, too, was disastrously speculative—setting up, for instance, a printing office, suo periculo, and of course speedily enjoying the excitement of a grand crash; he, too, became moody and hypochondriacal—a man of wasted hopes and shattered health. He was as fond as Coleridge of society, but of a more dissipated and bacchanalian kind. His list of friends included many a renowned name: Mendelssohn, the Jew, author of "Phædon," and presumed original of Nathan the Wise; Nicolai, now best known as the arch-Philistine; Sulzer, the aesthetic reviewer; Voss, the idyllic poet; Schmidt, a supposed aider and abettor in the Wolfenbüttel Fragments; Süssmilch (Phœbus, what a name!), the statist; Richier, the amanuensis of Voltaire at the court of Old Fritz; Kleist, said to be the prototype of Major Tellheim; Mylius and Ramler, young Jerusalem and Leisewitz, Eschenberg and Herder. Right pleasant had it been to meet all these worthies, at Coleridge's bidding, assembled around the arm-chair of such a præses as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. But, alas! the biography is one of that formidable list of Coleridgean et cætera quæ desunt.

I love thee—I still love thee,

I heed not what they say,

Though others may have tempted me,

I must my heart obey;

They tell me, when they hear your name,

That it may never be;—

I only know that, praise or blame,

I still love thee!

When first I loved—I knew not then

Another claimed your heart,

And bitter was the feeling when

I found that we must part;

But though you never may be mine,

Speak kindly still to me,

And then my heart will ne'er repine—

I still love thee!

I still love thee—yet deem not now

That I your love would share,

Or bid thee break the plighted vow

To one, perchance, more fair;

I only ask you to retain

Some gentle thoughts of me,

For I can never love again

As I love thee!