ACCOUNT tf the CERMJN THEATRE. 175- 



attachment, the love of the heroine of the piece, Minna of 

 Barnhelm, who, on hearing of the Major's regiment being dif- 

 banded, comes to BerUn to feek him, and to make him happy. 

 The rival noblenefs of mind of thefe two chara6\ers produces 

 the principal incidents of the piece, which, however, are not 

 always natural, nor very happily imagined ; and befides, as 

 Fielding jocularly fays, when comparing a fhallow book to a 

 fliallow man, may be eafily feen through. But, with all thefe 

 defed^s, and that want of comic force which the turn and fitu- 

 ation of the principal charadlers naturally occafions, the play 

 mtift pleafe and interefl every reader. There is fonaething in 

 the conftitution of the human mind fo congenial to difintereft- 

 ednefs, generofity and magnanimity, that it never fails to be 

 pleafed with fuch chara(flers, after all the dedudlions which cri- 

 tical difcernment can make from them. Amidft the want of 

 comic humour which I have obferved in this play, I mnft not 

 omit, however, doing juftice to a ferjeant-major of Temteim's 

 regiment, and to JtiSTiN his valet, who are drawn with a. 

 flrong and natural pencil. The flory of the fpaniel, told by 

 the latter, when his mafter's poverty makes him wifh 10 difmifs 

 him from his fervice, is one of the beft imagined, and beft 

 told, I remember to have met with. There is a good deal of 

 comic chara(?ler and lively dialogue in fome of Lessi'ng's lefs 

 celebrated pieces in the colleflion of JtlNKER ; but the plots are 

 in general extravagant and farcical. 



In judging of Lessing as a tragic writer, one will do him 

 no irijiiftice by making the tragedy of Em'ilk de Galotti the 

 criterion of that judgment. The others in thefe volumes are 

 vefy'inferidr to'this, which is certainly, in point of conapofi- 

 tioh, charader and paflion, a performance of no ordinary kind. 

 Lessing was well acquainted with the ancient drama, and 

 wiftied to briilg the theatre of his country to a point of regu- 

 larity nearer to that of the ancients. He publifhed, for fome 

 time, a perioidical criticifra on theatrical compofition, called, 



" Le 



