V. Account of the German Theatre. By Henrt 

 MACKENZIE, Efq; F. R. S. Edin. 



{Read by the Author, April 21. 1788.] 



NO country perhaps affords a more interefting literary {pe- 

 culation at prefent than Germany, For refearches in fci- 

 cnce and philofophy, for laborious inveftigations into the prin- 

 ciples of public polity and law, fhe had long been confpicuous j 

 but, till very lately, fhe made fcarce any pretenfion to fame in 

 the other departments of literature, which ufually precede thofe 

 more abfhrad and laborious purfuits I have juft mentioned. 

 Even in hiftory, her writers were few ; but of poetry and 

 belles Icttres, fcarce a trace was to be fovmd ; and of the very 

 little of either, which the authors of that country produced^ 

 the language in which they conveyed it, was a foreign one. 

 But of late, Germany begins to exert herfelf in the more ele- 

 gant walks of literature, with an uncommon degree of ardor j 

 and in her literary afpe<5l, fhe prefents herfelf to our obfervation 

 in a fingular point of view, that of a country arrived at ma- 

 turity, along with the neighbouring nations, in the arts and 

 fciences, in the pleafures and refinements of manners and fociety, 

 and yet only in its infancy with regard to writings of tafle and 

 imagination. Thefe, however, from this very circumflance, fhe 

 purfues with an enthufiafm, which no other fituation could 

 perhaps have produced ; the enthufiafm which novelty infpires, 

 and which the feverity incident to a more cultivated and critical 

 ftate of literature does not reflrain. Since the time of Haller 

 (who, by an extraordinary combination of talents, united the 



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