192 ACCOUNT of the GERMAN THEATRE. 



great unhappy mind, and who feel a fort of dignity and pride 

 in leaving the beaten road of worldly prudence, though the 

 path by which they leave it may fometimes deviate from moral 

 rectitude. But hence, to fome parts of an audience, the dan- 

 ger of a drama fuch as this. It covers the natural deformity 

 of criminal actions with the veil of high fentiment and virtu- 

 ous feeling, and thus feparates (if I may be pardoned the ex- 

 preflion) the moral fenfe from that morality which it ought to 

 produce. This the author has, fince its firft publication, been 

 candid enough to acknowledge, and reprobates, in terms per- 

 haps more ftrong than it deferves, his own production as of a 

 very pernicious tendency. He has left his native country, Wir- 

 temberg, from which 1 believe indeed fome confequences of the 

 publication of this tragedy had driven him, and now lives at 

 Manheim, where he publifhes a periodical work, and has written 

 one or two other tragedies, which have a high reputation. If 

 his genius can accommodate itfelf to better fubjects, and to a 

 more regular conduct of the drama, no modern poet feems to 

 pofTefs powers fo capable of bending the mind before him, of 

 routing its feelings by the elevation of his fentiments, or of 

 thrilling them with the terrors of his imagination. 



VI. 



