[ 6.1 ] 



pofes of temporary fuccefs, compels a poet to fubmit his tafte and 

 judgment, to thofe of the audience, or the readers, by whom his 

 pockets are to be filled ; and the majority of thefe are probably 

 the worft judges among the people. It is through this defire of 

 gain, and the hafte, and immodeft incorrednefs, its natural atten- 

 dants, that Kotzebue, who is certainly a man of feeling and 

 genius,* has overwhelmed the ftage with abortive heaps of crude 

 imperfed produdions, many of them ofienfive to decorum and 

 good morals. , And fo prolific is his mufe, that the wide extended 

 range of Germany feems too narrow, for the triumphs of her fecun- 

 dity; and fhe feems to afpire to compleat the conqueft of hafte 

 and incorrednefs over the Englijh ftage. 



The force of example is another caufe, to which we may afcribe 

 much of the depraved tafte of the German writers, and particularly 

 the abfurdity and groffnefs of their Dramatic Mufe, which may 

 be traced up to an indifcriminate admiration and implicit purfuit 

 of vicious models. The excentricities and failings of one writer, 

 of fuperior genius, or diftinguiftied reputation, produce a cloud of 

 buzzing infeds, who, unable to reach the fublimities and excel- 

 lencies of their original, are very competent to copy his defeds, 

 and pride themfelves in the partial and deformed fimilarity of 

 faults alone, as though it gave them a compleat refemblance to 

 their great archetype. The peculiarities of Goethe^ joined to the 



high 

 * Some fcenes in his Benyowjki, and Lovers Foivs, evince it. 



