494 
unwelcome flinch, which the cold touch 
of egotism inflicts on benevolence. 
Under other names, Wieland has 
painted the change which at this time 
his own mind was silently undergoing : 
as, where Agathon unwillingly disco- 
vers a sister in his beloved Psyche; 
and where the religious tenets in 
which he had been educated are com- 
bated by the arguments of an Epi- 
curean. Count Stadion was sitting to 
him for Hippias. In this circle Wie- 
land first acquired that tone of the 
great world, and that art of saying 
bold things with urbanity, which ena- 
bled him to become the classic of the 
gentlemen of Germany, and to lift up 
in courts the voice of freedom. 
Count Stadion’s library included 
the select literature of Europe, espe- 
cially its modern philosophy; and he 
had himself deeply imbibed the spirit 
of an age intent on the overthrow of 
prejudice. In the fashionable world, 
laxity of principle is often professed 
for the sake of living among the 
licentious, without alarming their self- 
love; and so Wieland perceived in 
this family. ‘The moral tolerance pro- 
claimed to others was not needed as 
a personal apology; egotism was but 
the pretext for a luxury, which acted 
as the handmaid of beneficence ; mo- 
rality was practised without morose- 
ness; and the kind affections were 
indulged within the limits of the beau- 
tiful and the geod, 
The married daughters of Count 
Stadion came occasionally to visit at 
Warthausen : at these times the Muses 
redoubled their efforts to enliven the 
family circle. Poems of Wieland, yet 
in manuscript, were read aloud for 
their amusement; and the story of 
Diana and Endymion is mentioned as 
one of the pieces so rehearsed. It 
contains passages to which English 
ladies would hesitate to listen; but 
probably the poet knew where to 
skip, or perhaps in southern countries 
the married women affect less seve- 
rity. At a time when the court of 
France gave the tone to Europe, and 
received it from Madame de Pompa- 
dour, a loose cast prevailed in the 
literature of the times, which Wieland 
could adopt in his ‘*Comic Tales,” 
without forfeiting the suffrage of the 
genteel world. The ladies at War- 
thausen not only fancied poetry, but 
were remarkably fond of fairy tales, 
and gave occasion to those studies, 
which excited the composition of “ Don 
The German Student, No. XXVI, 
[Jan. 1, 
Silvio of Rosalva,” a novel printed by 
Wieland in 1764. 
The year 1765 was allotted to the 
composition and completion of “ Aga- 
thon,” the earliest work of Wieland, 
to which he himself assigns a classical 
rank; it appeared in 1706. His pre- 
vious productions he considers as 
juvenile efforts, made while his mind 
was yet in the progress of education, 
and while he had prejudices to lose, 
as well as. principles to acquire: but 
in the “Agathon’ his philosophy 
already appears systematised and ma- 
ture, and his peculiar talent for 
psychological observation is advan- 
tageously displayed. As the latest 
edition contains a chapter not yet 
extant at the time, when Mr. Richard- 
son, of Eworth, near York, published 
his excellent translation of ““Agathon,” 
we Shall transcribe it here as a wel- 
come supplement, 
Agathon departed with few prejudices, 
and returned from his travels without 
those few. During his philosophic pil- 
grimage he remained a mere spectator of 
the stage of things, and was the more at 
leisure to judge of the performance. 
His observations on others completed 
what his own reflection and experience 
had begun. They convinced him_ that 
men on the average are what Hippias 
paints them, although they should be what 
Archytas exhibits. 
He saw every where what may yet be 
seen, that they are not so good as they 
might be if they were wiser: but he also 
saw, that they cannot become better until 
they ate wiser; and they cannot become 
wiser unless fathers, mothers, nurses, 
teachers, and priests, with their other 
overlookers, from the constable to the 
king, shall have become as wise as it be- 
longs to each in his relative situation to be, 
in order to do his duty, and to be truly 
useful to the human race. 
He saw, therefore, that information fa- 
vourable to moral improvement is the only 
ground on which the hope of better times, 
that is of better men, can rationally be 
founded. He saw that all nations, the 
wildest barbarian as- well as the most re- 
fined Greek, honour virtue; and that no 
society, not even a horde of Arabian rob- 
bers, can subsist without some degree of 
virtue. He found every town, every pro- 
vince, every nation, so much happier, the 
better the morals of the inhabitants were ; 
and, without exception, he saw most cor- 
ruption amid extreme poverty or extreme 
wealth. 
He found, among all the nations whom 
he visited, religion muffled up in supersti- 
tion, abused to the injury of society, and 
converted by hypocrisy, or open at 
into 
