One evening D'Argens came to him; entering his Apartment, found him in a situation very unexpected; which has been memorable ever since. "One evening [there is no date to it, except vaguely, as above, December, 1760-March, 1761], D'Argens, entering the King's Apartment, found him sitting on the ground with a big platter of fried meat, from which he was feeding his dogs. He had a little rod, with which he kept order among them, and shoved the best bits to his favorites. The Marquis, in astonishment, recoiled a step, struck his hands together, and exclaimed: 'The Five Great Powers of Europe, who have sworn alliance, and conspired to undo the Marquis de Brandebourg, how might they puzzle their heads to guess what he is now doing! Scheming some dangerous plan for the next Campaign, think they; collecting funds to have money for it; studying about magazines for man and horse; or he is deep in negotiations to divide his enemies, and get new allies for himself? Not a bit of all that. He is sitting peaceably in his room, and feeding his dogs!'" [Preuss, ii. 282.]
INTERVIEW WITH HERR PROFESSOR GELLERT
(Thursday, 18th December, 1760).
Still more celebrated is the Interview with Gellert; though Icannot say it is now more entertaining to the ingenuous mind.
One of Friedrich's many Interviews, this Winter, with the Learned of Leipzig University; for he is a born friend of the Muses so called, and never neglects an opportunity. Wonderful to see how, in such an environment, in the depths of mere toil and tribulation, with a whole breaking world lying on his shoulders, as it were,--he always shows such appetite for a snatch of talk with anybody presumably of sense, and knowledge on something!
This Winter, say the Books, "he had, in vacant intervals, a great deal of communing with the famed of Leipzig University;" this or the other famed Professor,--Winkler, Ernesti, Gottsched again, and others, coming to give account, each for himself, of what he professed to be teaching in the world: "on the Natural Sciences, more especially the Moral; on Libraries, on Rare Books.
Gottsched was able to satisfy the King on one point; namely, That the celebrated passage of St. John's Gospel--"THERE ARE THREE THATBEAR RECORD--was NOT in the famous Manuscript of the Vienna Library; Gottsched having himself examined that important CODEX, and found in the text nothing of said Passage, but merely, written on the margin, a legible intercalation of it, in Melanchthon's hand. Luther, in his Version, never had it at all."[ Helden-Geschichte, vi. 596.] A Gottsched inclined to the Socinian view? Not the least consequence to Friedrich or us! Our business is exclusively with Gellert here.
Readers have heard of Gellert; there are, or there were, English Writings about him, LIVES, or I forget what: and in his native Protestant Saxony, among all classes, especially the higher, he had, in those years and onwards to his death, such a popularity and real splendor of authority as no man before or since. Had risen, against his will in some sort, to be a real Pope, a practical Oracle in those parts. In his modest bachelor lodging (age of him five-and-forty gone) he has sheaves of Letters daily,--about affairs of the conscience, of the household, of the heart:
from some evangelical young lady, for example, Shall I marry HIM, think you, O my Father?" and perhaps from her Papa, "Shall SHE, think you, O my ditto?"--Sheaves of Letters: and of oral consulters such crowds, that the poor Oracle was obliged to appoint special hours for that branch of his business. His class-room (he lectures on MORALS, some THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENT, or such like) is crowded with "blue uniforms" (ingenuous Prussian Officers eager to hear a Gellert) in these Winters. Rugged Hulsen, this very season, who commands in Freyberg Country, alleviates the poor village of Hainichen from certain official inflictions, and bids the poor people say "It is because Gellert was born among you!" Plainly the Trismegistus of mankind at that date:--who is now, as usual, become a surprising Trismegistus to the new generations!
He had written certain thin Books, all of a thin languid nature;but rational, clear; especially a Book of FABLES IN VERSE, which are watery, but not wholly water, and have still a languid flavor in them for readers. His Book on LETTER-WRITING was of use to the rising generation, in its time. Clearly an amiable, ingenious, correct, altogether good man; of pious mind,--and, what was more, of strictly orthodox, according to the then Saxon standard in the best circles. This was the figure of his Life for the last fifteen years of it; and he was now about the middle of that culminating period. A modest, despondent kind of man, given to indigestions, dietetics, hypochondria: "of neat figure and dress; nose hooked, but not too much; eyes mournfully blue and beautiful, fine open brow;"--a fine countenance, and fine soul of its sort, poor Gellert: "punctual like the church-clock at divine service, in all weathers." [Jordens, Lexikon Deutscher Dichter und Prosaisten (Leipzig, 1807), ii. 54-68 (?Gellert).]
A man of some real intellect and melody; some, by no means much;who was of amiable meek demeanor; studious to offend nobody, and to do whatever good he could by the established methods;--and who, what was the great secret of his success, was of orthodoxy perfect and eminent. Whom, accordingly, the whole world, polite Saxon orthodox world, hailed as its Evangelist and Trismegistus.
Essentially a commonplace man; but who employed himself in beautifying and illuminating the commonplace of his clay and generation:--infinitely to the satisfaction of said generation.