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The hafte of compofition, and reludance to blot out any thing^ 

 that has once efcaped from the pen, fo confpicuous in the German 

 Writings, are coupled with a certain oftentation, of ftrength and 

 force, fometimes real, more frequently illufory, fubftituting an 

 incondite harfhnefs, and roughnefs, and an infane extravagance of 

 fentiment, charadier and incident, for nervous manner and vigo- 

 rous conception. Thus certain bravoes and fwaggerers think they 

 may affume to themfelves the attributes of courage and fpirit, by 

 difplaying ferocious manners, an ofFenfive condudt, and a general 

 contempt of propriety and politenefs. Here and there you meet 

 vigorous and fhining paflages, unus ?5f alter ajfuitur pannus purpu- 

 reus — but they appear like fertile and cultivated fpots, in the 

 dreary vaft Serbonian bog, of contemptible or difgufting trafh, 

 where patience who/e is funk ; as the reader who tries to wade 

 through the Don Carlos of Schiller will find to his forrow. 



Certain it is, that whatever may be the caufe, we find in the 

 German compofitions a marked negled of all the commonly received 

 maxims of critical tafte, and of all the eflablifhed rules of literary 

 compofition ; a wilful or even ftudied departure from fymmetry, 

 confiftency and regularity ; infomuch, that (hould we take up the 

 Art of Poetry of Horace, which fpeaks fo ftrongly the language of 

 good tafte and found common-fenfe, and read it along with a 

 courfe of German plays, we Ihould find every precept of the judi- 

 cious Roman inverted by the hardy but favage Poets of the north. 



In 



