[ 30 ] 



ampled in the hiftory of our fpecies, and only to be found in 

 what fancy may have feigned of the diabolical nature. 



Abominable, unutterable, and worfe 

 Than fable ever feigned or fear conceived. 

 Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire ! s 



The unwearied prediledion for a difplay of the mofl; atrocious 

 crimes is peculiarly charaderiftic of the German mufe, and is na- 

 turally conneded with what we have already noticed, a fondnefs 

 for the exhibition of dreadful fpedacles, 



*Verbera, Carnifices, Robur, Fix, Lamina, Tsdae. 



The want of moderation is particularly obfervable in the affec- 

 tation of exceflive feeling, of tendernefs and fenfibility ; in the 

 extreme of naivete and (implicity, without bounds. Innumerable 

 inftanccs of this occur in moft of the German compofitions with 

 which we are acquainted. This fentimental i^yle, this rage of 

 being very very natural, even toadegreeof artificialnefs that is dif- 

 gufting, predominates too much in the beft German writers, fuch 

 as Gathe and Wieland, and abounds in almoft every page of 

 Kot%ebue. The German writers, not fatisfied with this difplay of 

 exceflive tendernefs and fenfibility, feem to confider the reprefen- 

 tation of paflion as the great bufinefs of a poet, and the impaf- 



fionated 



* Thefe were all employed in the inflidlion of torture. 



