in that general survey, than to examine part by part.  Mr. Taylor and Mr. Carlyle agree in exalting that ode of Klopstock’s, in which he represents the Muse of Britain and the Muse of Germany running a race.  The piece seems to me more rhetorical than strictly poetical; and if the younger Muse’s power of keeping up the race depends on productions of this sort, I would not give a penny for her chance, at least if the contest relates to pure poetry.  Klopstock’s Herman (mentioned afterwards,) consists of three chorus-dramas, as Mr. Taylor calls them:  The Battle of Herman, Herman and the Princes, and The Death of Herman.  Herman is the Arminius of the Roman historians.  S.C.

The poet entered.  I was much disappointed in his countenance, and recognised in it no likeness to the bust.  There was no comprehension in the forehead, no weight over the eye-brows, no expression of peculiarity, moral or intellectual, on the eyes, no massiveness in the general countenance.  He is, if anything, rather below the middle size.  He wore very large half-boots, which his legs filled, so fearfully were they swollen.  However, though neither W——­ nor myself could discover any indications of sublimity or enthusiasm in his physiognomy, we were both equally impressed with his liveliness, and his kind and ready courtesy.  He talked in French with my friend, and with difficulty spoke a few sentences to me in English.  His enunciation was not in the least affected by the entire want of his upper teeth.  The conversation began on his part by the expression of his rapture at the surrender of the detachment of French troops under General Humbert.  Their proceedings in Ireland with regard to the committee which they had appointed, with the rest of their organizing system, seemed to have given the poet great entertainment.  He then declared his sanguine belief in Nelson’s victory, and anticipated its confirmation with a keen and triumphant pleasure.  His words, tones, looks, implied the most vehement Anti-Gallicanism.  The subject changed to literature, and I inquired in Latin concerning the history of German poetry and the elder German poets.  To my great astonishment he confessed, that he knew very little on the subject.  He had indeed occasionally read one or two of their elder writers, but not so as to enable him to speak of their merits.  Professor Ebeling, he said, would probably give me every information of this kind:  the subject had not particularly excited his curiosity.  He then talked of Milton and Glover, and thought Glover’s blank verse superiour to Milton’s.[226]

[226] Leonidus, an epic poem, by R. Glover, first appeared in May, 1737:  in the fifth edition, published in 1770, it was corrected and extended from nine books to twelve.  Glover was the author of Boadicea and Medea, tragedies, which had some success on the stage.  I believe that Leonidas has more merit in the conduct of the design, and in the delineation of character, than as poetry.