Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/128

114 in the part of his works upon the German manner and art ("Ueber deutsche Art und Kunst"), and also Lenz's remarks on the theatre ("Anmerkungen übers Theater"), to which a translation of "Love's Labour's Lost" was added. Herder penetrates into the deepest interior of Shakespeare's nature, and exhibits it nobly: Lenz conducts himself more like an iconoclast against the traditions of the theatre, and will have everything everywhere treated in Shakespeare's manner. Since I have had occasion to mention this clever and eccentric man here, this is the place to say something about him by way of experiment. I did not become acquainted with him till toward the end of my residence at Strasburg. We saw each other seldom,—his company was not mine; but we sought an opportunity of meeting, and willingly communicated with each other, because, as contemporary youths, we harboured similar views. He had a small but neat figure; a charming little head, to the elegant form of which his delicate but somewhat flat features perfectly corresponded; blue eyes, blond hair,—in short, a person such as I have from time to time met among Northern youths; a soft, and, as it were, cautious step; a pleasant but not quite flowing speech; and a conduct which, fluctuating between reserve and shyness, well became a young man. Small poems, especially his own, he read very well aloud. For his turn of mind I only know the English word "whimsical," which, as the dictionary shows, comprises very many singularities under one notion. No one, perhaps, was more capable than he to feel and imitate the extravagances and excrescences of Shakespeare's genius. To this the translation above mentioned bears witness. He treated his author with great freedom, was not in the least close and faithful;