If the opinion you have of my learning
and genius (_Geist_) should perhaps suffer thereby, yet I am sure the
idea I would like you to form of my character would gain. I am not the
insufferable, unmannerly, proud, slanderous man Herr Klotz proclaims me.
It cost me a great deal of trouble and compulsion to be a little bitter
against him."[153] Ramler and the rest had contrived a nice little
society for mutual admiration, much like that described by Goldsmith, if,
indeed, he did not convey it from the French, as was not uncommon with
him. "'What, have you never heard of the admirable Brandellius or the
ingenious Mogusius, one the eye and the other the heart of our
University, known all over the world?' 'Never,' cried the traveller; 'but
pray inform me what Brandellius is particularly remarkable for.' 'You
must be little acquainted with the republic of letters,' said the other,
'to ask such a question. Brandellius has written a most sublime panegyric
on Mogusius.' 'And, prithee, what has Mogusius done to deserve so great a
favor?' 'He has written an excellent poem in praise of Brandellius.'"
Lessing was not the man who could narrow himself to the proportions of a
clique; lifelong he was the terror of the Brandellii and Mogusii, and, at
the signal given by him,
"They, but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs in narrow room
Throng numberless.
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