r800.] 
feStion? Do we not frequently hear of 
fuch a charagter as a perfed blockhead? 
And are there not men who can talk (I 
will not fay when or where) for an hour 
together, the moft perfec nonfenfe ? Nay 
and publifh the faid perfect nonfenfe, too, 
m the teeth of, and in defiance of Mef- 
fieurs, the Monthly Critics and Review- 
ers? But this is not all: I have heard, 
fince the commencement of the prefent 
war, that fome men, high in authority (I 
do not fay in what country) have more 
than once committed a perfec? blunder, to 
the great detriment of the nation.—I do 
remember fome lines illuftrative of this 
kind of perfection, that were written 
roany years ago, and if the rhime may be 
pardoned, are no bad illuftration of our 
modern opinions of perfection. Tiiey were 
written in a tavern. 
*« The poor have fome things perfect, fome 
the rich: 
And here’s our landlady, a perfect ——.” 
How egregioufly was Pope miftaken 
when he afierted that 
** Whoever thinks a per fe work to fee 
Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er 
fhall be!” 
Account of Wieland. 
430 
Strange, that a man who knew the 
world as he did, fhould hazard fuch a con. 
tradiction in terms. What would he have 
faid had he lived in our days, and beheld 
the various inftances of perfection with 
which we are furrounded—beheld fome 
who had attained a perfe@ knowledge of 
the cheefe line—others perfe& in the ma. 
nual exercife—fome reftored to perfed 
ealth by a fingle pill—and others perfeclp 
blind from their intancy—fome perjed in 
the Latin and Greek, and others in the 
management of a dairy—fome who have 
attained a perfe? friend/bip—and others 
who have made confiderable progrefs in a 
perfee hatred. But I check my pen, left 
you fhould fuppofe I was not fo perfeily 
correct in my ideas of what {pace ought to 
be allowed for the lucubrations of 
Yours, &c. 
OxONIENstIs. 
P.S, I was very much fhocked ongoing in- 
to the Clarendon Printing-houfe the other 
day, and hearing fomething about feveral 
bundles of the imperfeFions of the Bible —{ a]_- 
ways thought that one of the moft peried of 
books, although of the old fcbool, 


ANECDOTES OF EMINENT PERSONS. 
Oe 
ANECDOTES of GERMAN AUTHORS and 
AUTHORESSES refiding at WEIMAR in 
SAXONY, containing in the prefent yum- 
BER @ particular ACCOUNT of Wi1h- 
LAND. 
EIMAR is juftly reputed to be at 
prefent the tavourite abode of the 
German Mufes: the names of the moft 
diftinguifhed literary charaéters of that 
city, areas follows: Wieland, VonGéthe, 
Herder, Richter, Bottiger, Bertuch, Falk, 
Von Kotzebue, Von Einfiedel, Von Lin- 
kert, Von Knebel, Jagemann, Maier (the 
painter), Maier (the hiftorian), Hunnius, 
Von Seckendorf, Vulpius; —of the fair 
ex, Madaine von Wohlzogen, Mademoi- 
felle yon Imhof, Madame von Kalb. 
WIELAND, councillor to the Duke of 
Weimar.—This venerable laurel-crown- 
ed patriarch of the German Mufs paffes 
now his laft halcyon days, remote from 
the buftle and troublefome conftraints of 
the great world, at his peaceful country- 
feat, Offmannfiad', in the Vicinity of Wei- 
man. There he divides his tranquil, but 
fill diligently employed, hours betwixt 
the Bucolic and the Parnaffian Mufe ; on 
the altar of whichatter we have hitherto 
feen the offerings of the aged bard ftill 
burn with the bright flame of youth. 
Wieland married his favourite daugh- 
ter Charlotte, who had accompanied the 
Danith poet Baggefen and his lady in a 
tour to Switzerland, to a bookfeller in 
Zurich, a fon of the celebrated poet Sas 
lomon Geffner. Wieland had relided du- 
ring the moft delightful period of his 
youth at Zurich, where he formed a friend- 
fhip with the German Theocritus; and it 
gave him infinite pleafure, to embrace as 
his fon-in-law the fon of his friend. In 
the year 1797 he made, with his family, a 
journey to Zurich, to vifit his children 
there: and inhabited for fome months a 
plafant country-houfe in a romantic fitu- 
ation on the border of the lake of Zurich; 
where he was vifited by the moft efteemed 
literati of Switzerland, a Hefs, Fufsly,- 
Hottinger, Peftalozzi, Bronner, &c. With 
Lavater, however, he had no intercourfe, 
Here he was feized with an irrefiftible long- 
ing for a country-life; and therefore, when 
late in the autumn of the fame year he re- 
turned to Weimar, he fold his commodi: 
ous houfe in the city, and purchafed the 
{mall eftate where he now refides. The 
Jands belonging to this eftate are not ex. 
tenfive; _ 
