— 
SS Se 
-. 
ee ane 
ESS ng ET 
a 
po RT 
> 
Dee rie wee 
Se et Bote ie 
: 
| 
| 
| 
ed a riding, 
570 
The name of the. mathematical tutor at 
Meiflen was Klemm; Lefing came under 
his care, and learned quick: but mathe- 
matics was never his favourite purfuit. He 
began indeed at this period a tranflation of 
‘Euclid, but he evidently cared: for tne 
geometry only as he might want it to dif- 
play his Greek. In "3746 he guitted 
fchook; kis laf prize-compofition was a 
Latin treatife De Mathematica Barbaro- 
FU. 
The éarlieft of his original poems in 
German celebrates the battle of Keffels- 
dorf; i¢ was compofed in 1746, at his 
‘father’s requefl, who withed to compli- 
ment a Lieutenant-Colonel Carlowitz. 
Leffing was next transferred to the uri- 
vwerfity of Leipzig, for the purpofe of ftudy- 
tng theology. Hitherto he had mingled 
‘with ffudents; and had been content to 
exce! in the competitions of intellect ; his 
re oe ae had been corroborated by Téa 
fraint, and his conduct coerced by obfer- 
wation. He now found himfelf furrounded 
with new and freer compasions, many of 
whom belonged tothe fine world. ‘They 
Ted him to The theatre, in which he de- 
lighted, and laughed at his rufticities, 
which he undertook to reform. He attend- 
a dancing and a fencing maf- 
ter ; he continued French, and undertook 
Englith and Italian ; he induced his father, 
not without grudging, to pay for thefe fa- 
erifices to the Graces; and he fucceeded in” 
giving to his kabitual attitudes and addrefs 
the forms and: phrafes which charaéterize 
the fafhionable. He feemed quite to have 
forfaken Pallas for Aphrodite. Lefling 
loved to prime, and was adapted for it ; 
but at college he became a ring- leader 
rather of the libertines than.of the difcipli- 
marians. He affected or fclt entire con- 
tempt for the profeffors there; and may 
have read fo much while at {chool, tnat he 
really could derive little or no additional 
information from their leftures. He would 
eceaficnally condefcend to hear Ernefti 
“and Kaftner, the Greek and mathemati- 
eal profeff.rs ; but he héaded a fort of fe& 
ainbiip the Rudents, which profeffed icle- 
nefs, net from impatience of inftruéticn, 
but from fuperiority to it. Being wholly 
ignorant of medicine, he formed a high idea 
of the medical profefior, and wrote home 
for leave to become a phyfician ; mean- 
while he entcred as a pupil, but foon grew 
tired: tt was not in the lééture-room, as his_ 
young acquaintance reported, that he went 
through a courfe on pregnancy. A com- 
mon i refule of application too early fuper- 
jaduced 8 inipotence of perfeverance. 
Children feck in change of topic the relict 
Memoirs of Gotthela 
Ephraim Leffing. . Pfulyi, 
which theyarenot allowéd to find in change of 
employment ; if they may not fhift the real 
icenery without, they fhift the ideal feenery 
within ; the bahie remains, and hence the 
prematurely accomplithed are ufually mu- 
table in their purfaits. . The ages cf foli- 
citous educatiomare not proportionally fer- 
tile in excellence. 
Lefling’s diftinguifhed learning and for~ 
ward taleat glittered on the notice of many 
men who had paffed through the proba- 
tionary college- -years. Naumann, an epic 
port, now forgotten, whofe Nimrod at 
that time enjoyed celebrity, fought his fo- 
ciety. Lefling was joked by his genteel 
companions for vifting fuch a quiz. ‘There 
is no company, he repli ied, fo infupporta- 
ble as that of the mere gentleman ; sabia 
all fheer infipidity, without the chance of 
anabfurdity to laugh at, dt of a trait of 
nature to remember. I like the fincerity of 
-Naumann’s vanity; he reads to me his 
verfes, I abufe them; he defends them 
like an editor, and we both learn—he to 
write, and I tocriticife. This is a natural 
inftinét in the artift. He wants toabferve 
_the extraordinary. Odd people are ufually 
fincere; both qualities arife from indiffer- 
ence to flight degrees of praife and blame, 
and fincerity abridges the trouble of ftu- 
dying human nature. The curiofity of 
Leffing had no patience with men of rou-. 
tiie in any thing; his maxim was, Think- 
wrong and welceme, but think for your- 
felf. 
He awhile vifited Gellert, the fable- 
writer, who was fubjeét to hypochondriac 
attacks ; and once found him bufy over 
dome book of the religious terrorifts, which 
tended to infufe the alarm of foul. perdi- 
tion. Leffing was no friend to a clafs of 
writings, which in. this country alfo fre- 
quently difpcfe men to low fpirits, to 
dram-drinking, and to fuicide; he advifed 
Gellert to burn his Calvin, and read fome 
‘merry obfcenities. Gellert was fhocked : 
** Do not difturb my faith, the only con(o- 
lation of my mifery.”” Leffing wifhed the 
phyfician better luck, turned on his heel 
with pitying civility, and called no more, 
A debating focjety for, the difcuifion of 
topics in f{peculative philofophy bad been. 
inftituted by Profeflor Kaftner, alike fa- 
mous for his epigrams and his mathema- 
tics ; and the more promifing and accom- 
plifhed ftudents were invited to become 
members. Leffing belonged to this. club 
during two years, and was diftinguithed 
by the venturous or iginality of his opinions, 
and by the acutenefs and multiplicity of 
his refources for defence. With Zacharia, 
the elegitc poet, he became acquaiated in 
this 
