ACCOUNT tf the GERMAN THEATRE. 175 



attachment, the love of the heroine of the piece, Minna of 

 Barnhelm, who, on hearing of the Major's regiment being dif- 

 banded, comes to Berlin to feek him, and to make him happy. 

 The rival noblenefs of mind of thefe two characters produces 

 the principal incidents of the piece, which, however, are not 

 always natural, nor very happily imagined ; and befides, as 

 Fielding jocularly fays, when comparing a (hallow book to a 

 fhallow man, may be eafily feen through. But, with all thefe 

 defects, and that want of comic force which the turn and fitu- 

 ation of the principal characters naturally occafions, the play 

 muft pleafe and intereft every reader. There is fomething in 

 the conftitution of the human mind fo congenial to dirmtereft- 

 ednefs, generofity and magnanimity, that it never fails to be 

 pleafed with fuch characters, after all the deductions which cri- 

 tical difcernment can make from them. Amidft the want of 

 comic humour which I have obferved in this play, I muft not 

 omit, however, doing juftice to a ferjeant-major of Telheim's 

 regiment, and to Justin his valet, who are drawn with a. 

 flrong and natural pencil. The flory of the fpaniel, told by 

 the latter, when his matter's poverty makes him wifh to difmifs; 

 him from his fervice, is one of the beft imagined, and belt 

 told, I remember to have met with. There is a good deal of 

 comic character and lively dialogue in fome of Lessing's lefs 

 celebrated pieces in the collection of Junker ; but the plots are 

 in general extravagant and farcical. 



In judging of Lessing as a tragic writer, one will do him 

 no injuflice by making the tragedy of Emilic de Galotti the 

 criterion of that judgment. The others in thefe volumes are 

 very inferior to this, which is certainly, in point of compofi- 

 tion, character and pavTion, a performance of no ordinary kind. 

 Lessing was well acquainted with the ancient drama, and 

 wilhed to bring the theatre of his country to a point of regu- 

 larity nearer to that of the ancients. He publifhed, for fome 

 time, a periodical criticifm on theatrical compofition, called, 



" Le 



