THE 
MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 
———_—. 

No. “XVII. 
= 


JUNE, 
1797: [Vot. II. 


*.* About the 12th of Fuly, will be publifhed THE SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER, 
containing a great Vuriety of valuable and interefiing Original Matter, and the 
Tirce, INDEXES, Sc. &c. to Volume the Third. , : 
ORIGINAL 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
[ ENCLOSE, for the ufe of your inte- 
refting Mifcellany, the following brief 
notice of WIELAND, the celebrated 
German poet, and of a confiderable num- 
ber of his publications. —The reputation 
of WIELAND is now at its zenith on the 
continent; he is confidered there as the 
moft fertile and brilliant genius that 
Germany ever produced. Critically 
familiar with the produétions of the an- 
cients, weil verfed in Englifh, French, 
Italian, and Spanifh literature, and con- 
{cious of the dignity of his powers, he has 
attempted various kinds of compofition, 
and borne away the palm in all. A num- 
ber of his countrymen have tried, in their 
turn, to imitate him, although hitherto 
without fuccefs: his works have in them 
a lightnefs, a grace, an originality, which 
feems to fet competition at defiance. 
The French critics, many of whom 
have fought all occafions to depreciate 
German literature, are not infenfible of 
the merits of this writer. One of thefe 
publithed,-in 1782, a mafterly fketch and 
review of German produétions, under 
the title of Tableau de Allemagne, & 
de la Littévature Allemande. In this we 
find the following honourable eulogium 
on the writings of WigLanp: “Les 
Ouvrages hiftorico-poétiques de Wir- 
Lanpb, font honneur a la littérature Alle- 
mande. Cet aureur s’eft approprié le 
genie des Grecs, & on peut l’appeler le 
ducien Allemande.... On peut méme 
dire, que de tous les poétes Allemandes, 
c’eft lui quia le plus de fraicheur dans 
le coloris,’’ &c. : 
CuRIsTOPHER MARTIN WIELAND, 
gounfellor at the court of the reigning 
duke of Wiemar, was born in the impe- 
rial city of Biberach, Sept. s, 1733, 
being defcended of an ancient family, 
Montuiy Mas. No. XVIII. 
EE eis 
COMMUNICATIONS. 
which, at that epoch, had, for upwards 
of fifty years, borne the moft important 
offices in the city. On the completion 
of his third year, his education was com- 
menced, by the direétion of his father ;— 
at the age of feven, he fead, with avidity, 
the lives of Cornelius Nepos, and at thir-. 
teen, he could read and underfiand Virgil 
and Horace, better than his tutor. From 
the age of twelve to fourteen; he com- 
pofed a prodigious number of verfes in 
Latin and German, the greater part of 
which were, according to his own opinion 
of them, beneath mediocrity, but which, 
however, announced his decided prefers 
ence for poetry. At thirteen, he alfo 
began an epic poem, on the deftruction 
of Jerufalem. 
The year following, he was fent to 
Klofterberg, near Magdeburgh, a femi- 
nary then under the {uperintendance of 
the fanatic Sreimmetz. Here he rémained 
two years, making the moft rapid progrefs 
in his ftudies ; his aétive mind, however, 
impregnated with the enthufiaftic ideas 
which he had acquired at this fchool, 
was attentively ranging in a chimerical 
world, fer the aliment which the real 
world, at that time, did not affurd; and 
by exploring the unknown traéts of me- 
taphtyfics, he may be faid to have gained 
an acquifition of intelligence which the 
ffate otf human knowledge then refufed 
him. Here it was that he wrote a dif- 
fertation to demonftrate the poffibiliry of 
Venus’s being born of the froth of the 
fea; a differtation which involved him 
in fome difagreeable altercations during 
the remainder of his refidence at Klo- 
fierberg, The writings of Kenophon, 
with the Spectator, Tatler, and Guar- 
dian, in Englifh, were now his favourite 
tudy. 
At the age of fixteen, he removed to 
Erfarth, where he pafled a vear in the , 
{chool of Doctor Baumer. Under tha 
3H learne 
