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tions of an Apollo are elicited from a block of marble; so neither is the perfect man in Christ Jesus formed in the heart with. out the patient and persevering application of judicious, though seemingly small means. A dispensation of Providence may powerfully awaken a conscience before destitute of the knowledge of Christ. A discourse, or passage of Scripture, may send sudden and almost resistless conviction to a bosom contaminated or obdurate through sin. The Spirit of God, without such instrumentality, may accomplish, in a moment, a change from death unto life. But in the great business of evangelizing the hearts and the principles of men, the all-wise Governor of the Universe acts through an agency, employs means, carries on his gracious purposes gradually, naturally, and will only finally accomplish them through our voluntary co-operation. To furnish, then, means of instruction, and an excitement to devotion, which may be attained by all; which, if not powerful in a single impulse, may affect as much by repeated efforts; which, though not profound, may be practical, and level with an humble capacity; which may interest, through a ceaseless novelty, and because of its brevity cannot weary or dishearten the reader; to furnish a volume of family instruction, which may descend to more familiar remarks than are usually compatible with pulpit decorum, which may be taken up in the moments of domestic vacuity, and profitably fill the intermissions of public worship, that sickness or contin. gency occasion-such has always been considered an important object among those concerned in extending the Redeemer's kingdom; and such is the design with which the subscribers to this Address offer their annexed proposals. Their object, in a word, is to advance the interests of religion. The means by which, upon mature reflection, they deem this most practicable, is an avowed exposition of the doctrines of the Protestant Episcopal Church; their Standard; her Articles, Formulæ, and Homilies. In an union with writers of opposite religious tenets; in an affectation of that pseudo liberality which overlooks distinctions of faith, they would weaken the peculiar interest which they wish Churchmen to conceive in their undertaking, and would often be involved in embarrassments from the contrary tendency of communications offered for insertion. They trust, that in striving to inculeate "the truth as it is in Jesus," no individual or community can feel injured. In carefully shunning a controversial system, and sectarian spirit, they will not more gratify those whose principal desire is to foster practical piety, than yield to the propensity of their own bosoms. To afford a minute sketch of the plan by which they propose to be guided, is nei

ther easy nor necessary. Their design is to have in view the general scheme of the "Christian Observer," a work deservedly and extensively patronized, as possessing much valuable matter, and conducted with fidelity and zeal. Original communications in any form; the biograpy of deceased persons, eminent for their Chris. tian attainments; discourses selected from the writings of the most eloquent and de. vout preachers; occasional reviews; essays of a literary and practical character; intelligence respecting the Church at large; Diocesan and parochial transactions; religious poetry; an abstract of recent political events; an obituary, and miscellaneous matter, will constitute the general contents of the work; and be arranged in such order and proportion as the limits of the numbers may seem to demand. Means have also been used to secure an early supply of English periodical publications of a religious character; and the Editors have it in contemplation to furnish, in a series of essays, the most valuable portion of the work of Sheridan, and of that of Garrick, on the mode of reading the service of the Protestant Episcopał Church. These writers have entered minutely and accurately into the consideration of the subject; and their treatises, being rarely found in this country, a synopsis of the two may be interesting to those who do not require information on such a topick, and valuable to candidates for the ministry, whose style of delivery is not yet formed.

The work is offered at so low a price as to render emolument to the Editors unattainable. The pecuniary responsibility is wholly that of the publisher; the control of matter, wholly their own. They look with an affectionate confidence to their Brethren in the ministry for sanction and for aid; the former, to promote the reception, in their parishes, of a work which has but our common object, which can serve no cause but that which we all love; the latter, by such a communication of original discourses, essays, and observa. tions, as will enrich the work with the fruit of their piety and zeal, and confer upon it a local interest, and a lasting usefulness. In fine, they respectfully solicit the patronage of the Clerical and Lay Members of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland.

EDMUND D. BARRY,

WILLIAM EDWARD WYATT.

Baltimore, June 7th, 1819.

Conditions. The work will constitute an octavo volume of 384 pages, to appear in numbers of 32 pages, on the first of each month.-Price $2 per annum, payable in advance.

Published by JOSEPH ROBINSON, corner

of Market and Belvidere-Streets.

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Memoirs of FREDERIC GOTTLIEB KLOPSTOCK, Author of the Messiah.

FREDERIC GOTTLIEB KLOPSTOCK WAS born in Quedlinburg, July 2, 1724. He was the eldest of eleven children; six sons, and five daughters. His father was a magistrate of Quedlinburg, and afterwards farined the bailiwick of Friedeburg, was a singular character; but, with some peculiarities, he possessed many virtues. His eccentricities, however, appear to have had no improper influence on the education of his son, who passed his early years at home, under the guidance of a private tutor. Here he was employed during some hours every day, in learning the elements of the languages, and spent the remaining part of his time in athletic exercises. In his thirteenth year his father took him to the Gymnasium, at Quedlinburg. Here he passed three years, unmarked by fame, and rather unfolding his corporeal than his mental powers: but the remembrance of those youthful years afforded him, ever after, the sweetest enjoyment. Even in his old age he entreated all his friends who travelled through Quedlinburg, to visit the playyard where he had enjoyed those early pleasures, which are never forgotten; and which he loved to describe even to the minutest circumstance.

Klopstock, at the age of sixteen, was removed to college, where his character, as a man and as a poet, began to display itself in a very advantageous point of view. Having, in some degree, while at the Gymnasium, neglected his studies, his father represented to him the necessity of being particularly industrious, in order to his acquiring a suitable rank in the classes. He says, "I followed his ad VOL. III.

[VOL. III.

vice, and again assiduously applied myself to Latin and Greek; and I still remember, how frequently I walked up and down my garret in the heat of the sun, and studied in the sweat of my brow." His introduction to the college is thus described by Mr. Cramer. "His father now took him to the college, and his examination was arranged. The Rector conducted him into an apartment, and gave him an exercise to write, leaving with him Weismann's lexicon, and a grammar. It was to be completed in three hours, and then he was to ring the bell; but he rang before the appointed time. The Rector appeared. 'Is it finished already?" said he; then cast his eye over it, and sent him into the play-ground; where the scholars assembled, as usual, to welcome and to ridicule the new comer. One of the elder ones came to him with a scornful air, and said, 'K-l-o-p Klop-stock, is that your name?" Upon which his uncommon name was immediately echoed, and re-echoed, and laughed at. This displeased him, and going up to the boy, with a menacing air and stern look, he answered, 'Yes, my name is Klopstock: and from this time he was never assailed with any raillery, particularly as the Rector highly applauded his exercise, and immediately gave him the highest place in the third class."

Under the tuition of an able teacher, who sought to make his pupils familiar not only with the language, but also with the spirit of the ancient writers, he acquired a perfect knowledge of the classics, learned to appreciate their beauties, and while he followed with rapture the bold flights of their original genius, he fed a flame within himself, which was wont to

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burst forth in full lustre. He read few books, but they were the best; and he read with acute discrimination and unwearied attention. Virgil was his favourite poet; and while he beheld in him the model of perfect beauty, he felt a strong impulse to imitate him. He diligently applied himself to compositions, both in prose and verse; and some pastorals, according to the fashionable taste of the time, preceded one of the noblest plans that ever entered the soul of a poet.

At this early period of life, Klopstock formed the resolution of writing an Epic Poem, which had not till then existed in the German language. His enthusiastic admiration of Virgil; the glory he promised himself in being the first who should produce a work like the Æneid in the language of his native country; the warmth of patriotism which early animated him to raise the fame of German literature to a level with that of other countries; his just indignation in reading the work of a Frenchman, who had denied to the Germans any talent for poetry; all combined with the consciousness of his own superior powers, to stimulate him to the execution of his exalted plan. He was long, however, undecided in the choice of a subject. He sought out some hero in German history, and had once fixed on the Emperor Henry, the founder of the freedom of his native city; but after choosing and rejecting many different subjects, he at last formed the plan of his MESSIAH; and this preference was given before he was even acquainted with Milton, whose Paradise Lost became, soon after this period, his favourite and almost uninterrupted study.

An interesting account of Klopstock, when very young, was inserted in Bodmer's Letters on Criticism, and reprinted by Cramer in the year 1780. From this account the following is an extract:-" In his father's library are many sermons, and ten Bibles, but not a single poet. He soon distinguished the Bible from all the rest, still more through his own taste, than on account of his father's earnest recommendations. He made it his constant pocket companion, not merely as a duty, but

for pleasure. While yet in his childhood, he was so well acquainted with the phraseology of the Hebrew language, and the figurative manner of representing things which he found in that book, that he used it unknown to himself, whenever he would express any thing with earnestness. In a walk with his father, in a fine spring morning, before he was quite fourteen years old, they had sat down under an oak, and a cool western breeze blew on them. His first words were, 'All around the oak receives us in his shadow. Soft airs breathe on us, like a whisper of the presence of God." Then again he said, How peaceful grows the tender moss, here on the cool earth! The hills lie round about in lovely twilight, as though new made, and blooming like Eden!"-At that time the strong representations of inanimate nature, which he found in the poetical books of Job and the Prophets, affected him most deeply; and he was often heard, when he awoke in the morning, repeating whole chapters, with a strong accent, as a poet might do who was reciting his own work. The descriptions were so strongly impressed on his mind, that when the things themselves came before his eyes, he would often say, they were not new to him; he had already seen them in the Psalms and the Prophets. When he approached to manhood, the pathetic passages took the same strong hold on his heart, as the glittering and magnificent images had before taken on his fancy. A promise that fallen man should find mercy, drew tears from his eyes; a trace of the immortality of the soul threw him into a transport of gratitude. Religion did not remain a mere speculation of the brain; it was a clear view of the greatness and glory of the Messiah; it was the pure feeling of love and grateful adoration. From this turn of mind sprang a style of writing full of poetry, before he had ever seen a verse, or knew any thing of prosody. He was a poet, while neither he nor his father suspected it."

In the autumn of 1745, Klopstock left the college of Quedlinburg, and removed to the university at Jena, with the intention to study theology. The dull disputes of scholastic divines, however, did not accord with the state of his mind at this poriod. He wanted no evidence to prove the truth of a religion which had taken entire possession of his heart, and he could not listen with patience to the cavils of infidels, or the cold reasonings of metaphysicians, and after a tedious half year, the ardent youth, whose mind was accustomed to better nourishment, removed with his relation Schmidt to the university of Leipsic. During this short interval, he had, however, in the stillness of his closet, been realizing some part of his intended plan, by sketching out the three first cantos of the Messiah. These he composed in prose, but his performance greatly displeased him. Lost in his own reflections, he would frequently wander up and down the country round Jena, and in one of these solitary walks he came to a determination to imitate the great poets of antiquity in the structure of their verse. In a few hours he completed a page of hexameters, and from that time decided on composing his poem in this measure, Thus was he the first who introduced into German poetry a metre which was supposed to be unattainable in that language, and he afterwards triumphantly defended this mode of versification, both by example and argument.

In the spring of 1746, he carried with him to Leipsic, the three first books of the Messiah, which astonished and delighted a few ingenious friends to whom he showed them. Amongst these early friends of Klopstock were Cramer, Gärtner, Schlegel, Giesecke, Zacharia, Gellert, and Rabener; Schmidt, the relation as well as the bosom friend of the poet, had accompanied him to Leipsic. These young favourites of the muses had formed themselves into a literary society, in order to improve their taste by mutual criticisms on their various essays, of which the best were printed in a paper entitled, " Bremen Contributions." In this work the three finished cantos of the Messiah first appeared. In the two following years he produced many excellent odes,

which were also published in the Bremen Contributions. Germany, at this period, was not prepared for the reception of a poet of such a superior cast; the public taste was not sufficiently formed to relish the lofty flight of Klopstock's genius; but his production was read with the highest warmth of admiration by those who possessed a genuine taste for poetry, and their applause animated the poet in the prosecution of his sublime plan.

Klopstock's residence at Leipsic became unpleasant to him, after he had lost his chosen friends, who gradually left the university. The warm and tender attachment which he felt towards this estimable circle in Leipsic, formed one of the sweetest recollections of his past life, on which he dwelt with peculiar pleasure even in his old age. When he afterwards contemplated, in pensive sadness, each of these beloved friends, sinking successively into the grave before him, his only comfort was the remembrance of what they had once been to him, and the prospect of what they would be in a happier world.

In the year 1748, Klopstock left Leipsic, to reside at Langensalza, in the house of a relation named Weiss, whose children he undertook to instruct. This is an interesting period in the life of Klopstock, as he now became acquainted with the beautiful sister of his kinsman Schmidt, who is the subject of some of his most admired poems, in which she is distinguished by the name of Fanny. He never had courage to make proposals of marriage, as he thought he had no prospect of success, and the lady was soon after united to another. Many of his odes and elegies prove the purity and ardour of his youthful passion; and the pain of not seeing himself beloved, added to the influence of severe application on his health, conspired to throw him into a deep melancholy, and, for a time, spread a dark colouring over all his poetic effusions.

While Klopstock had retired from the world to an obscure retreat, his Messiah excited such a degree of attention, as no other book had ever awakened in Germany. Friends and enemies, admirers and critics, appeared on all sides; but its success was owing as much to the sacredness of the subject as to the beauty of the poetry. Divines quoted it from the pulpit; and Christian readers loved it as a book that afforded them, amidst the rage of controversy, some scope for devout feeling. By some of the clergy it was condemned, as a presumptuous fiction. The partizans of Gottshed raised still greater clamour against the work, on account of the language; while the Swiss critics, on the other hand, extolled it in the highest degree. Bodmer, in particular, the translator of Milton, embraced the cause of the German epic bard with enthusiastic ardour, and contributed greatly to accelerate the celebrity of the poem. Klopstock suffered his friends and his enemies to write as they pleased, while he was silent, and followed the bent of his genius.

In the summer of 1750, Klopstock went to Zurich, on an invitation from Bodmer, at whose house he resided, and with whom he had previously carried on a correspondence. He was received in Switzerland with the most flattering marks of esteem and respect. The sublime and enchanting beauties of that romantic country, the friendship of some highly-cultivated minds, and the uncorrupted manners of that virtuous nation, would, perhaps, have induced him to settle there for life, had not an unexpected circumstance opened to him very different prospects. The illustrious Danish Count Bernstorff, whose capacious mind traced in the very commencement of Klopstock's work the future glory of the poet, resolved to take him under his patronage, and was recommended by him to the favourite minister of Frederic V. and through him to the king himself, by whom he was invited to reside at Copenhagen, on a pension which set him above pecuniary cares, and left him at liberty to complete the Messiah. This offer he accepted, and in the spring of 1751 set out for Denmark, by the way of Brunswick and Hamburg.

At Hamburg, during this journey, he became acquainted with the lovely

and accomplished Margaretta Möller, who afterwards made him the happiest of men. After his first meeting with this lady, Klopstock continued his journey to Copenhagen, where he lived in the enjoyment of tranquillity and leisure, beloved and respected by all who were friends to science and virtue. The letters which constantly passed between him and his beloved Margaret, knit still closer the bonds of affection; but domestic circumstances obliged them to delay their union to a distant period. In the year 1752, the king having determined to spend the summer in Holstein, Klopstock took that opportunity to return to the object of his affection at Hamburg, and consecrated this happy interval to love and the muses. To this circumstance we are indebted for his captivating songs to his Margaret, under the title of Cidli, the name which he had given to Jairus's daughter in the Messiah. His matrimonial alliance was, however, still deferred, and he was obliged to leave her once more, in order to return with the king to Copenhagen, where he continued during the whole of the following year. In the summer of 1754 he again visited Hamburg; and at length, on the 10th of June, he was united to the amiable object of his affections. After his marriage, he went with his bride to Quedlinburg. He was destined, however, to enjoy but for a short time the bliss of connubial affection; for in the year 1758 the beloved partner of his heart died in childbed. He cherished the remembrance of this charming woman to the last moment of his life, and always found a melancholy pleasure in visiting her grave, in the village of Ottensen, near Hamburg, where he directed that his own remains should be placed by her side.

Klopstock continued to reside at Copenhagen till the year 1771, when his protector and friend, Count Bernstorff, retired from office. Our poet then returned to Hamburg, where he still enjoyed a pension from the king of Denmark, by whom he was much esteemed and loved. In 1775 the Margrave Frederic of Baden, sent him a pressing invitation to Carlsrhue. Here

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