Dry den's Relation to Germany 25 



lichen Chritik heraus gebracht und verfochten, aber ward zur 

 Strafe in die unterirdischen Gewolber des hamburgischen Doms 

 zu Spirings (Postel's printer) Makulatur geworfen . . . . "^'^ In- 

 stead of making a dead poet the hero Bodmer substitutes " den 

 herrrschenden Geschmack " ( Gottsched's taste ) . His hundred sons 

 (Wernicke's countless sons) form a conspiracy against the Swiss 

 school, " each of whom was a poet king, each was powerful enough 

 to rule the monarchy of his father." They make speeches similar 

 to the monologues in Hans Sachs in which they quote and parody 

 their own works ; they are attended not only by their disappointed 

 publishers but by printers, journalists, and all connected with pub- 

 lishing. Their sire king appeared to them as a spirit (blue vapor) 

 which assumed the form of a throne occupied by the king trans- 

 formed into human shape. Like Flecknoe, he was ridiculously 

 large and wore a mantel but a fool's mantel. Majesty enveloped 

 him as he sat upon the throne, the antichrist (Dryden's foe) of 

 wit. The sons swear allegiance to the taste in their own works 

 not by Loves Kingdom (a play of Shadwell) but by " Stelpo," 

 etc., and vow to be loyal despite proof, reason, and the ridicule of 

 satires. The blessing pronounced upon them by the sire king 

 also contains the extent of the realm, "von Pommern bis in 

 Schwaben, von Crayon bis in Westphalan." " Und sich von 

 Schweitzerland erstrecke biss in Schwaben" (H. S., 1. 173).''^ 

 Finally at the conclusion of his speech the king disappears, and 

 his spirit in the form of a cloud settles upon each of his sons as a 

 portion of his art and purifies their minds of reason. Like Dry- 

 den and Wernicke, Bodmer criticizes the poets and the poetry of 

 his time in his satire. 



c. Ramler's Connection with Hans Saclis 



After Bodmer, Karl Wilhelm Ramler (1725-1798) was the 

 only author who edited Hans Sachs in the eighteenth century. 

 His edition contains merely the first sixty-nine lines of Wernicke's 

 satire, and is only incidentally included in the book of epigrams 



^1 Loco citato, p. 163. 



^2 Bodmer, Loco citato, p. 217. 



313 



