K LOPSTOCK K LOTZ. 



the Bremitchen Beitriige, in which tlie three fn-st 

 cjimos of the Me>Mah apj fared, in 1748, and excited 

 universal attention. Some re\ ered the author as a 

 sacred poet ; others, particularly the old divines, 

 imagined that religion \vas profaned by his fictions. 

 A ronntry clergyman came to him, and seriously 

 i -nt rented liim, " for the sake of God and religion, 

 not to muke Abaddon (a fallen angel) blessed." 

 He likewise underwent some, severe criticism, on 

 account of the novelty and originality of the form 

 iind spirit of his poem. The work made the deepest 

 impression in Switzerland. In the summer of 1750, 

 lie went to Zurich, where much exertion was made 

 to induce him to remain. The people there viewed 

 him with a kind of veneration, ile travelled for his 

 amusement through several cantons. In Denmark, 

 too, the three first cantos of his Messiah met with a 

 very favourable reception ; and Klopstock was 

 invited by the minister Bernstorff to Copenhagen, 

 with a small pension, to finish the poem. He 

 departed in 1751, and travelled through Brunswick 

 and Hamburg, where he became acquainted with a 

 young lady, who was a great admirer of his poems 

 the talented Meta (properly Margaretha) Moller, 

 the daughter of a merchant there. In Copenhagen, 

 he was received with every mark of kindness and 

 esteem. There he passed the winter, and was intro- 

 duced, the next summer, by his friend Moltke, to 

 king Frederic V.; and, as the king was to go to 

 Holstein in the summer of 1752, Klopstock took 

 advantage of the opportunity to go to Hamburg, 

 and visit Meta. He spent the whole summer there, 

 and returned again with the king to Denmark. In 

 the summer of 1754, he went back to Hamburg, 

 and was married to Meta. The steps by which his 

 acquaintance with this lady ripened into tenderness, 

 are described with great beauty and simplicity in his 

 well-known letters, written when she liad become 

 his wife, to Samuel Richardson, and afterwards 

 published in tliat writer's correspondence. But he 

 soon lost her. She died in childbed, in 1758. He 

 buried her in the village of Ottensen, near Ham- 

 burg, and placed over her remains this simple and 

 beautiful epitaph: 



Saat gesa-et von Gott, 



Am Tage der Garben. zu rtifiti. 



Seed sown by Guil, 



To ripen for the harvest. 



From 1759 to 1763, he resided alternately at Bruns- 

 wick, Quedlinburg, and Blankenburg, {jnd after- 

 wards in Copenhagen. In 1764, he wrote his Her- 

 mann's Schlacht (Battle of Arminius), and sent it to 

 the emperor Joseph, but not with the success which, 

 in his patriotic enthusiasm, he had promised himself. 

 After this, he entered upon his investigations of the 

 German language. In 1771, after Bernstorff Had 

 received his discharge, he left Copenhagen for Ham- 

 burg, under the character of Danish secretary of 

 legation and counsellor of the margraviate of Baden. 

 In Hamburg, he finished his Messiah. In 1792, he 

 married a second time. His principal amusement in 

 winter was skating ; and he was once in imminent 

 danger of losing his life by it. Klopstock died with 

 calmness and resignation, without pain or a groan, 

 March 14, 1803. His body was buried with great 

 pomp and solemnity, in the presence of thousands. 

 Purity and noble feeling were the characteristics of 

 his mind. He was gay and animated; but his 

 sportiveness was always tempered with a sort of 

 dignity, and his satires were ever gentle. His 

 di-|-osition restrained him from intimacy with men 

 of rank ; for he hated the chilling condescensions of 

 the great more than an open insult. He loved to 

 retire into the country, with the families of his 

 fneuds, and was always pleased to be among 



children. In the private welfare and happiness 

 of his friends, he took the deepest interest ; but 

 dearest of all to him was the memory of his poetical 

 brethren, with whom he had been associated in 

 Leipsic, and whom he saw, one after another, 

 dropping into the grave. (See Henry Doering's Life 

 of Klopstock, \\ einuir, 1825.) As a lyrical writer, 

 Klopstock is, perhaps, among the most successful of 

 any age. He may well be called the Pindar of 

 modern poetry ; but he is superior to him in richness 

 and deep feeling, as the spiritual world which he 

 paints excels, in intrinsic magnificence, the subjects 

 celebrated by the Grecian poet. His religious odes, 

 as the Festival of Spring, exhibit the elevation of 

 the Psalmist. The elegiac odes to Fanny and 1 bert 

 are known to every refined reader, for the melancholy 

 and elevated tone which reigns throughout them. 

 In expressing joyful feelings, as in the ode to the 

 lake of Zurich, and when his strains are almost 

 Anacreontic, as in many small pieces to Cidli, he 

 never oversteps the. limits of Platonic love. His 

 patriotism is strong and ardent, and his latter odes, 

 called forth by the Frencli revolution, in which, at 

 first, he took the warmest interest, and those in 

 which he speaks of the German language and poetry, 

 are distinguished by bold and original turns of 

 expression. Owing to these, and to his frequent 

 allusions to the northern mythology, he is often 

 obscure to many readers; but the most illiterate 

 cannot fail clearly to understand and gratefully to 

 venerate Klopstock as a writer of sacred poetry. 

 He gained, however, the brightest and quickest fame 

 by his epopee; the first cantos of which, by their 

 prophetic grandeur and the magnificence of their 

 description, their genuine patriarchal tone, and un- 

 feigned sincerity of love and devotion, announced 

 him a rival of Milton. His Bardiete are drama- 

 tized epics, and lyrical scenes for the theatre, rather 

 than tragedies. The choruses possess the highest 

 lyrical beauty, and breathe the most ardent 

 patriotism and independence of feeling. He has 

 idealized the German character as no other one has 

 ever done. Klopstock created for the Germans a new, 

 strong, free, and genuine poetic language, and 

 essentially influenced the form, by introducing the 

 ancient classic measures, and especially the hexa- 

 meter ; but he was unduly prejudiced against rhyme. 

 He acquired much reputation by his grammatical 

 works. His fragments on Language and the Art of 

 Poetry , his Republic of Letters, and his Conversations 

 on Grammar, explain many difficulties in German 

 grammar and German poetry, although his innova- 

 tions in orthography, and, on the whole, several 

 peculiarities of his style, cannot meet with general 

 approbation. Klopstock's works were published at 

 Leipsic, 1798 1817, twelve volumes, 4to. They 

 have lately appeared in a pocket edition. The 

 100th anniversary of his birth was celebrated at 

 Quedlinburg and Altona, July 2, 1824, and a monu- 

 ment has been erected to him in Quedlinburg. 



KLOTZ, CHRISTIAN ADOLPHUS, was born Novem- 

 ber 23, 1738, at Bischofswerda, in Lusatia. He 

 studied at Jena, and, in 1762, was appointed profes- 

 sor of philosophy in Gottingen. His patron, Quintus 

 Julius, recommended him to Frederic the Great, and 

 he went, in 1765, to Halle. The king esteemed him 

 as an eminent scholar. Klotz distinguished himself 

 chiefly by his Latin poems, his numismatic treatises, 

 his works on the study of antiquity, and on the value 

 and mode of using ancient gems. After having con. 

 tributed much to the Deutsche Bibliothek, under the 

 signature E, he established a paper in opposition to 

 it, called Acta Literaria. Lessing was the acutest 

 and wittiest of his opponents. His disputes with 

 Lessing and Burmann took a tone of undue violence. 



