The Prose Works of William Wordsworth eBook

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The trees on the ramparts, and the people moving to and fro between them, were cut or divided into equal segments of deep shade and brassy light.  Had the trees, and the bodies of the men and women, been divided into equal segments by a rule or pair of compasses, the portions could not have been more regular.  All else was obscure.  It was a fairy scene!—­and to increase its romantic character, among the moving objects, thus divided into alternate shade and brightness, was a beautiful child, dressed with the elegant simplicity of an English child, riding on a stately goat, the saddle, bridle, and other accoutrements of which were in a high degree costly and splendid.  Before I quit the subject of Hamburg, let me say, that I remained a day or two longer than I otherwise should have done, in order to be present at the feast of St. Michael, the patron saint of Hamburg, expecting to see the civic pomp of this commercial Republic.  I was however disappointed.  There were no processions, two or three sermons were preached to two or three old women in two or three churches, and St. Michael and his patronage wished elsewhere by the higher classes, all places of entertainment, theatre, &c. being shut up on this day.  In Hamburg, there seems to be no religion at all; in Lubec it is confined to the women.  The men seem determined to be divorced from their wives in the other world, if they cannot in this.  You will not easily conceive a more singular sight, than is presented by the vast aisle of the principal church at Lubec seen from the organ-loft:  for, being filled with female servants and persons in the same class of life, and all their caps having gold and silver cauls, it appears like a rich pavement of gold and silver.

I will conclude this letter with the mere transcription of notes, which my friend W——­ made of his conversations with Klopstock, during the interviews that took place after my departure.  On these I shall make but one remark at present, and that will appear a presumptuous one, namely, that Klopstock’s remarks on the venerable sage of Koenigsburg are to my own knowledge injurious and mistaken; and so far is it from being true, that his system is now given up, that throughout the Universities of Germany there is not a single professor who is not either a Kantean or a disciple of Fichte, whose system is built on the Kantean, and presupposes its truth; or lastly who, though an antagonist of Kant, as to his theoretical work, has not embraced wholly or in part his moral system, and adopted part of his nomenclature.  ’Klopstock having wished to see the CALVARY of Cumberland, and asked what was thought of it in England, I went to Remnant’s (the English bookseller) where I procured the Analytical Review, in which is contained the review of Cumberland’s CALVARY.  I remembered to have read there some specimens of a blank verse translation of THE MESSIAH.  I had mentioned this to Klopstock, and he had a great desire to see them.  I walked over to his house and put

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The Prose Works of William Wordsworth from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.