118 
and mere rhimes, we fhoud have a new 
crop of poets to replace Milton, Dryden, 
Gray, and I am forry. you will not allow 
me to add, Pope? You might enjoin 
our profe to be reformed, as you have 
done by the Spectator in your *******, 
but try Dryden’s Ode by your new infti- 
tution. 
I beg your pardon for thefe trivial ob- 
fervations. I affure you I coud write a 
letter .ten times as long; if I were to {pe- 
cify all I like in yourwork. I more than 
like mof of it ; and lam charmed with your 
glerious love of liberty, and your ether 
humane and noble fentiments. * * *# 
Tt is as great as uncommon, and gives 
meas good an opinion of your heart, fir, 
2s your book does of your great fenfe. 
- Both affure me that you wili not take ill 
the liberty I have ufed in expreffing my 
doubts on your plan for amending our 
language, or for any J may ufe in dif- 
fenting from a few other fentiments in 
your work; as I fhall in what I think 
your too low opinion of fome of the 
French writers, of your preferring Lady 
Mary Wortley to Madame Sevigné ; and 
of your efteeming Mr. Hume a man of a 
deeper and more folid underftanding than 
Mr. Gray. In the two laft articles it is 
impoffible to think more differently than 
~ wedo. In Lady Mary’s letters, which 
FT never coud read but once, I difcovered 
no merit of any fort; yet I) have feen 

Anecdotes of Kotzebue. 
[Aug. 
others by her (unpublifhed) that have a 
good deal of wit; and for Mr. Hume, 
give me leave to fay, that I think your 
epinion ¢hat he might have ruled a fate 
ought to be qualified a little, as in the 
very Next page you fay—his Hiflory is a 
mere apology for prerogative, and a very 
weak one. If he coud have ruled a ftate, 
one muft prefume at beft that he would . 
have been an able tyrant—and yet I 
fhoud fufpect that a man who fitting cooly 
in his chamber coud forge but a weak 
apology for prerogative, woud not have 
exerciled it very wifely. I knew perfonally, 
and well, both Mr. Hume and Mr. Gray ; 
and thought there was no degree of ¢com- 
parifon between their underftandings— 
and in faét Mr. Hume’s writings were fo 
fuperior to his converfation, that 1 fre- 
quently {aid he underftood nothing till 
he had written upon it. What you fay, 
fir, of the difcord in his hiftory from his 
love of prerogative, and hatred of church- 
men, flatters me much, as I have taken 
notice of that very unnatural difcord in a 
piece I printed fome years ago, but did 
not publith, and which I will thew to you 
when I have the pleafure of feeing you 
here: a fatisfaétion I thall be glad to tafte 
whenever you will let me know you are 
at leifure after the beginning of next 
week. Jam, fir, with great refpeét and 
efteem, your obedient liumble fervant, 
Hor. WALPOLE, 
Strawberry Hill, Fune 22, 1785. 
ANECDOTES OF EMINENT LIVING FOREIGNERS. 
KOTZEBVE, 
Sa dramatic writer, ttands almoft un- 
rivalled among the Germans. He is 
a native of Weimar in Saxony, a fmall but 
highly polifhed city, which has frequently 
been called “‘ Paris in miniature.’ Here 
he cultivated an early acquaintance with 
the Mutes, by his unremitting attention 
to the dramatic performances of that place, 
then in eminent repute, on account of the 
refined taite and corre& judgment of the 
actors and audience. KOTZEBUE’s decid- 
ed predilection for the drama, in theory as 
well as in praétice, is obvious from feve- 
ral paffages alluding to this fubje@, in 
his own works. ‘Yet, it is certain that 
he never condefcended to perform on a 
public ffage ; and that all his attempts as 
an actor were confined to private theatres, 
efiabiithed among feleét parties of literary 
friends. Thus he obtained the double 
advantage of indulging himéfelf in his 
favourite amufement, and at the fame time 
of performing dramatic pieces of his own 
compofition, and deciding on their merits 
in a contracted circleof candid difcerning 
critics, before he ventured to prefent 
them to the public. 
KoTzEBUE was educated for the law, 
which he praétifed for a confiderable num- 
ber of years, in various eminent ftations, 
till he was appointed prefident of the high 
college of Juitice in the Ruffian province 
of Livonia. Here he wrote the greater 
number of his dramatic works, as well 
as his mifcellaneous compofitions in the 
department of the Belles Lettres. His 
numerous performances are the mere fur- 
prifing, as his leifure time, till lately, 
tauft have been remarkably fhort, on ac- 
count of the multiplicity and importance 
of his other avocations, which required 
the whole of his attention, while he held 
the diftinguifhed efiice before mentioned., 
Fortunately cowever, for the Muies, and 
particularly thofe of the German ftage, he 
met with a number of invidious oppo- 
nents in Livonia, who magnified every 
trifling 
